Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!

Chapter 2442: Granny Yi’s Story

The slender, long voice echoed far through the woods, and after a moment, the same voice came from a distance again. With Xu Huo’s hearing, he could discern the sounds coming from different directions, likely villagers signaling to each other while searching for someone.Indeed, it was a good method.

"...It was Uncle who found me. I fell asleep in the tree hollow." The little girl had already told Granny Yi what happened, while looking hopefully at Xu Huo.

"Thank you for saving the child; come in for some tea," Granny Yi said warmly.

Xu Huo did not refuse; Granny Yi was in a much better mood than before. He sat down, "I didn’t expect we’d meet again."

"Outsiders who visit here always come and go, hardly ever appearing a second time."

She looked at Xu Huo, her eyes reflecting the sparkle of years that appeared in her aging gaze, "Are you trying to find the Hidden Friend?"

Xu Huo shook his head, "The real Hidden Friend... that should be your friend. What I’m searching for is the Player."

Granny Yi nodded slightly, then started telling him a story of her own experiences.

She was thirty at the time, and already had children. Her father had died early, and although her mother was still around, she was always frail, especially when confined to bed. Sometimes she would become confused, unable to recognize people, often mistaking her husband for her father.

Due to this, she learned some of the past between her mother and father, understanding some unique codes only they knew.

One day when her mother could no longer eat and could only survive on a little water, she suddenly became clear-minded and told her plainly that she heard her father’s voice.

The story of the Hidden Friend, over the years, had become acknowledged among those living here; more often, people thought it was mere hallucinations before one’s death. Although some missing persons appeared healthy, they had long lived in the forest, used to seeing animals predicting their own deaths and quietly finding a place to hide and wait silently... Surely, the dying had gained this ability.

Of course, whether such abilities truly exist, no one knows, for the missing cannot speak, and those who claimed to have heard voices exaggerate, making truth hard to discern.

At that time, Granny Yi thought the same and didn’t believe her mother’s words. She simply comforted her mother that she would recover.

Then one day, after cooking, she returned home to find her mother missing.

Bear in mind, her mother had been bedridden for so long, without strength to stand, let alone walk. Therefore, when she saw her mother standing in the nearby grove, Granny Yi was too stunned to speak.

And her mother stood like a normal person, one hand on a tree, the other making a peculiar gesture above her head, calling her father’s name towards the grove ahead.

At that moment, Granny Yi then saw, not far from her mother a shadow truly stood, tall like her father. Upon seeing her mother’s gesture code, it raised its hands above its head, responded with a specific code, and then her mother followed the shadow.

Some treated it as a strange tale, some as a sort of solace, others as a kind of message, but at that time, after recovering from shock, Granny Yi hurried back home to fetch a firewood knife to chase after them.

She followed her mother’s light footprints for a long time and never found her mother again, eventually losing all traces in a densely tangled place.

There were no traces of someone crossing the vines; her mother seemed to have vanished there abruptly, leaving no marks.

Such talk returned to the village, still becoming a type of solace or message, for after all, Granny Yi’s mother was a person near death.

"From that day on, nearly every day, I pondered whether what I saw that day was real or false. The longer the time passed, my memory seemed clearer. I remembered it should have been a dark shadow, later appearing to have clothes, shoes, and a face."

"It looked like my father and used special gestures to respond to my mother’s code; I just didn’t hear any voice from it."

"I wrote, drew, spoke, wanting to record through those means what I saw that day. My husband thought I was crazy, burned my drawings and books, abandoned me and left. Neighbors also thought I was not quite right, believing sooner or later my mother would come to take me away."

"That’s why one day, I visited the place where the vines grew again, bringing a knife, fire, and oil, wanting to dig out the vines to see whether my mother was buried beneath."

"Yet those mutant plants, when touched by the knife, ran away on all sides, sunk underground. Even if I chased and cut a lot, more still survived."

"But that piece of ground was cleared, below there was nothing at all, not even insects or ants. The next month when I passed by again, those chopped vines had grown back."

"After a few years, I moved to Upper Wood Village. Many people, as they age, move to Upper Wood Village believing they could foresee death and peacefully approach it, eternally living with the forest. Alas, the Hidden Friend is nothing but a man-eating monster; they were prey consumed!"

The anger in Granny Yi’s eyes overshadowed her fear, "I wait here for its return so that I can kill it!"

Xu Huo silently listened to this story, then asked: "You didn’t hear the voice but saw the special hand gesture of the shadow?"

Granny Yi raised her gaze, "You don’t believe?"

Xu Huo slightly shook his head, "Your mother was taken away; only she heard the voice, but the special gesture the shadow made was known to you from your mother’s words. You could see, proving there was a shadow indeed at that time."

"As for why it mimicked your father’s appearance, it might even be some kind of learning plant. Mutant plants sometimes mimic human behaviors, which isn’t strange."

Granny Yi’s expression softened somewhat, "I thought so back then too; that’s why I went to get the knife. My mother suddenly disappeared, maybe she was dragged underground."

After a pause, she added, "You all should hurry and leave here. Many outsiders who came couldn’t tell if they died or left, but surely some were left behind; this place is very dangerous."

Xu Huo accepted her kindness.