Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 731: Secret Passage
"Then it's decided. The six of us, Ze Luo, Asano Akira, Valentina, Sanshisan, and Ivan, will form an expedition team to the Gray Mist Forest. Old Dog, Layton, and the rest will go to Yaguna Kotor to meet up with Ye Yan. As for Zofia, you will stay at the Silver Building... If necessary, your own safety will be the top priority." Ke Lan glanced at the watch on her wrist. "We must act before the undead crew members react. I can only give you twelve hours to prepare. Is that okay?"
…
…
Twelve hours later.
South District 3, Beretta Air Force Base.
After watching the plane carrying Hound and others disappear at the end of the sky, Ke Lan turned around and looked at the five people standing behind him.
The hatch of another high-speed transport plane was wide open, and several ground crew members wearing engineering mechas were fixing the Blasphemer mecha to the external rack of the transport plane. The ten-meter-tall Blasphemer mecha could not fit into the cabin of this transport plane, so it could only be mounted on the external rack.
"Why are you all so stern? Relax, it's just a C-level relic." Ke Lan crossed her arms over her chest and said to the five people with a smile.
Of course, he couldn't just tell the Undead Crew that he was going to explore the Gray Mist Forest... Even though he knew he couldn't keep the secret from the crew for long, as long as he entered the Gray Mist Forest before the Undead Crew could react, it would be too late even if the crew wanted to stop them.
On the surface, Ke Lan and the other six were going to explore a cave ruin located at the edge of the Great Basin. The ruins were only of C-level, and valuable relics were swept away by hunters more than a decade ago. Like the Ancient Bronze City, it was a ruin that had been almost forgotten by people. However, according to the recent drone reconnaissance report, there seemed to be traces of activities of the remnants of the heretical sect near the ruins...
According to the analysis of the military and the security bureau, this group of remnants may have used this ruins as a hiding place - after all, the mechanisms inside the ruins had long been destroyed by professional hunters and there was basically no danger. From the perspective of sheltering from wind and rain and resisting indigenous creatures, this empty shell of the ruins could indeed be considered an excellent shelter.
Using his authority, Ke Lan forged a small amount of "evidence", which vaguely linked the remnants of this heretical sect of the Nova Chamber of Commerce with the remnants hiding in this C-level ruins - from the perspective of the Undead Crew, Ke Lan's trip seemed to be to continue investigating the case of the Nova Chamber of Commerce.
But in fact, after arriving at the destination, the six people will cross the entire basin at the fastest speed and enter the gray fog forest.
"Openly repair the plank road, secretly attack Chencang."
Even Aya was kept in the dark about this matter - before Ke Lan set off, she called to ask Ke Lan why he didn't let her participate in the task of tracking down the remnants of the heretical sect, but Ke Lan directly sent her to another place where "clues" were found.
Of course, this clue is also false. It is a trap set by Ke Lan to confuse the members of the Undead Crew. Moreover, it is a great distance away from the Class C ruins on the edge of the Great Basin.
Ke Lan wanted to create an illusion, pretending that his investigation was completely misled and turned in the wrong direction.
Pretending to be misled in order to mislead others... This play was poorly performed and full of loopholes, but as long as it could buy Ke Lan one day, it would be considered a success.
"Check your equipment one last time, then board the plane," Ke Lan said to the five people.
…
…
Leaning against the slightly shaking chair back, looking through the porthole at the clouds passing by below... In a trance, Ke Lan suddenly had the illusion of returning to the first time he and the God Hunting Group boarded a transport plane.
It was precisely because of the plane crash that they became companions who could trust each other with life and death... But when the truth about his life experience was revealed bit by bit, Ke Lan had a strong sense of unreality.
He is a clone, a special clone, a "symbiont" that the undead crew will embed Alpha genes into human gene fragments in order to communicate with Alpha civilization. Ke Lan's childhood memories do not belong to him, but are implanted in his brain through some means... Ke Lan does not have too strong resistance to this...
Maybe it was because she had lived alone since she was a child and didn't know who her "real parents" were, so she wouldn't find it as difficult to accept as those people with happy families and happy childhoods? Now when she recalled those things, Ke Lan even felt like they were a century away - fighting with other children for food and toys in the public child care center, secretly reading novels downloaded to the learning machine during boring cultural classes, doing odd jobs in various places during the intervals of attending the hunter qualification examination training class at her own expense, and studying and recharging during her rest time...
It turns out that these memories are all fictitious...
Ke Lan lowered his head and looked at his palms... More than twenty years of life were just a memory loaded into his mind. In fact, it had only been a few years since he came out of the incubation cabin, right?
So from which year did the real memory begin?
Did it start from the time you graduated from compulsory education, or from the time you got your relic hunter license?
Why did the undead crew "create" me, but not keep me in captivity, but quietly watched me step into the business of relic hunters? Don't they worry that I will die in a corner of a relic during a mission?
In Ke Lan's memory, he encountered at least a dozen fatal crises under the ruins. Could it be that these dozen crises... were also fictional memories?
Or, do the undead crew have a backup plan - even if they commit suicide at that time, they will have a way to pull themselves back from the brink of death?
Perhaps, the monitors planted by the undead crew are lurking among the hunters who entered the ruins with them?
What about Lao Gou and his crew? The plane crash, falling into the depths of the glacier ruins, and meeting Lao Gou and his crew... were these also the scenarios that the Undead Crew would arrange?
No... not like that. The behavior of Lao Gou and the others didn't seem to be acting. They were companions worthy of his trust, not hidden pawns of the Undead Crew.
Moreover, if there was something wrong with Lao Gou and the others, Ke Lan's "intuition" would have reminded him long ago...but after being together for so long, Ke Lan had never noticed anything unusual.
Besides, if there is a hidden player among them, then his plane will have no chance of taking off at all.
And his later joining of the Undead Crew Club also proved that the development of things had exceeded the original plans of the crew members.
“Chess piece”…became a “chess player”.
Although he is not qualified to play chess now, he has at least sat face to face with the chess player.
The chessboard was covered with a thick layer of gray fog, just like the Gray Fog Forest, their destination.
What is the purpose of "creating" someone like him? This is what Ke Lan wants to figure out most.
"To be honest, what we are doing now reminds me of a famous saying in ancient China." Ivan's voice interrupted Ke Lan's thoughts, "It seems to be said by Confucius, the sage of Confucianism. "
"Which one?"
"If I hear the truth in the morning, I am willing to die in the evening." Ivan raised his eyebrows. "In order to get the truth, we have put our lives in your hands on this trip."
