Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 746: A False Alarm
Of course, the others also saw the outline of the skeleton. Except for Mo Jue, the entire team adjusted their positions within half a second and entered a combat state.
But the skeleton seemed to be just floating nearby and did not continue to move towards the crowd.
"What's going on?" Ivan frowned. He held a large-caliber hunting pistol in his left hand, and the mechanical arm in his right hand was holding the short knife that he had just used to cut the bark.
"This thing seems to be hanging there..." Ke Lan squinted his eyes and said, "Let's go and take a look."
"Yeah." Thirty-three nodded, waved his hand, and dozens of black flying blades floated in the air. Originally, Thirty-three did not have so many flying blades, but since he joined the God Hunter Group, Ke Lan directly asked Layton to make hundreds of Nino alloy flying blades for him. Even if this thing was used as a consumable, it would not be a problem at all.
These nearly one hundred flying blades protected Thirty-three's body tightly. He took a deep breath and walked towards the skeleton hidden in the thick fog step by step.
Ke Lan also walked forward, and Ze Luo followed closely behind him. With every step they took forward, the fog blocking the way ahead would be pushed aside.
They only took three steps forward, and all the mist surrounding the skeleton was squeezed away... Everyone then realized that this was a human skeleton entangled by a dozen air roots. These air roots did not drill into the ground to form supporting roots, but drilled into the chest cavity of the skeleton like vines, hanging it in mid-air.
"Huh... turned out to be a false alarm." Thirty-three retracted most of the flying blades, leaving only about ten on alert - operating so many flying blades at the same time would be an extremely heavy burden on his mental strength. If he mobilized all the flying blades on his body, his brain would be completely "drained" in a few minutes.
Ke Lan walked forward and looked at the skeleton carefully - although the flesh, blood, and internal organs of the skeleton had disappeared, the clothes on the body were still relatively intact. Apart from a few holes pierced by the aerial roots, there were no other signs of damage.
This is an Arc'teryx mountaineering jacket, which is a relatively high-end brand in the civilian market, but is rarely included in official material procurement lists due to its premium price. So it can be basically confirmed that this is an unofficial explorer.
The jacket was covered with a thick layer of dust, and the alloy accessories were covered with signs of oxidation. The pockets on both sides were filled with fine leaves of the mist tree.
"This skeleton seems to be quite old. It should not be made of denim." Ke Lan turned to look at Mo Jue. He wanted to comfort her, but found that she was staring at the chest of the skeleton.
Mo Jue recognizes this skeleton?
Ke Lan followed Mo Jue's line of sight and saw a severely oxidized silver necklace wrapped around the neck of the skeleton. However, the pendant of the necklace had been wrapped up by the twisted and tangled roots of the mist-dwelling wood, so its appearance could not be seen.
"Can you... dig out that necklace?" Mo Jue's voice trembled a little.
"What? Do you know him?" Ke Lan asked.
"It's not certain yet." Mo Jue shook his head, "But I feel that..."
"Thirty-three, dig out that necklace." Ke Lan gave the order immediately.
"Yeah." Thirty-three nodded. He didn't move, but two black flying blades shot out with a "whoosh", cutting through the air roots entangled around the neck of the skeleton cleanly and freely, freeing the pendant wrapped inside.
It was a silver cross with tiny rhinestones inlaid on its surface. However, these rhinestones had lost their luster now, and the metal part of the cross was covered with a grayish-white oxide layer.
"It's really him!" Mo Jue said with his eyes wide open, looking shocked.
"Who? The lumberjack from your team that went missing before?"
"He is one of the founders who created this team with my father... None of us know his name. My father and the others call him 'Golden Hair', and I call him 'Uncle Golden Hair'..." Mo Jue murmured, "He really likes to wear ' Arc'teryx ' brand equipment... But he disappeared for many years, so I can't remember what kind of clothes he wore at that time, but I will definitely recognize this necklace!"
"Golden Retriever?!" After hearing this nickname, Ke Lan became a little excited - he was one of the only few people in the lumberjack team who knew "that secret". Although he was dead, maybe some important clues could be found from him!
But the next second, a warning suddenly flashed through Ke Lan's mind: According to Mo Jue's previous description, the place where Jinmao disappeared was about 350 meters away from the red line, but how could his body appear here?
Could it have been moved here by those indigenous creatures in the Gray Mist Forest?
At this time, Mo Jue had already walked to the corpse hanging in the air and whispered, "Uncle Jinmao believes in the Christianity of the old era... Although he himself said that God does not exist, he also said that people always need to find something to place their faith, even if it is just an illusory thought. This cross necklace was a gift from a hostess he liked very much... uh... very much, so he has been wearing it all the time."
"This behavior sounds like a romantic...but didn't you say he was a slut? If he really had a favorite hostess, why didn't he marry that woman? Even if that woman signed a contract to sell herself, with your income, it should be easy to redeem her, right?" asked Thirty-Three.
“I don’t know…Uncle Jinmao’s words are often inconsistent. Except when he discusses serious matters with my father and others, when he chats with us, he always says one thing that is true and another that is false, so…” Mo Jue said awkwardly.
"I see." Thirty-three nodded. "I knew a guy like this before. He was always boasting, but when he got drunk, he would blurt out his true feelings... He was a good shooter, but not so good at fighting. If I got close to him, I could knock him down with just one move."
"So how is that person now?" Mo Jue asked subconsciously.
"He's dead too." Sanshisan shrugged his shoulders, looking nonchalant. "I saw with my own eyes that his abdominal cavity was cut open by the sharp limbs of the man-eating spider... But he was still alive at that time. The man-eating spider pressed on him and bit his body with its huge claws. His screams hurt my eardrums..."
Thirty-Three paused for half a second, sighed, and then continued, "I emptied three magazines at the man-eating spider, but the bullets were not able to tear open the spider's shell. I could only turn the gun around and end his suffering. He was the first comrade to die in my hands, so I remember it very clearly."
"Mo Jue, didn't you say before that this golden retriever disappeared while exploring an area 350 meters deep? Why did he appear here?" Ke Lan also walked close to the skeleton and asked Mo Jue.
“This… I don’t know.” Mo Jue shook his head, confusion also showing on his face, “Not only is the depth wrong, the direction is also wrong… During that exploration, we entered the forest from the south of the Gray Mist Forest, which is at least ten kilometers away from this place.”
"Have you ever encountered this kind of situation before? A missing person's body was later found far away from where he disappeared. Has anything like this ever happened?" Ke Lan continued to ask.
“No… This is the first time I’ve found the remains of a team member.” Mo Jue replied.
"I don't think this is strange..." Ivan interrupted, "As Mo Jue said before, people who get separated from the main group will not die immediately. It is possible that this golden-haired creature was left behind and wandered around in the forest by himself, and died of exhaustion, poisoning, oxygen depletion, or some other reason when he came to this place. It is also possible that he died somewhere else and his body was dragged to this place by the native creatures living in the Gray Mist Forest."
"Indigenous creatures... I thought so at first, but we didn't seem to encounter any indigenous creatures along the way." Ke Lan said as he looked at the remains in the air, "Mo Jue, have you encountered any indigenous creatures living in the Gray Mist Forest during your exploration and logging?"
Mo Jue: "I have encountered them, but the chance is very low... Unlike the indigenous creatures that live in the treetops and have the ability to fly, the indigenous creatures that live on the ground are very timid. They will quickly flee when they encounter human traces. Even if you shoot at them, they will not attack humans, so they basically do not pose a threat."
"Forget it, let's not think about this for now, let's put this corpse down first." Ke Lan walked up, and he and Sanshisan each held onto the thigh bone of a corpse. The black flying blade quickly swept through, cutting off the air roots that were hanging the corpse.
"Ivan, come over here and check to see if you can find out the cause of his death." Ke Lan said as he stripped off the coat of the corpse - Mo Jue said that his father always carried an "important notebook full of secrets" with him. If he could find something similar among the relics of this "Golden Retriever", it would definitely be great news for Ke Lan.
The pockets of his coat were stuffed with leaves, but underneath the leaves there seemed to be something else hidden.
On the other side, under Ivan's command, Thirty-three used flying blades to remove the aerial roots and vines entangled in the skeleton, and a complete human skeleton was laid flat on the ground.
Ivan first walked around the skeleton, muttering, "Including the pelvis, there are six fractures in the whole body. This level of fracture and bleeding is enough to be fatal, but considering the way those aerial roots and vines were entangled just now, these six fractures should have occurred after the person died. In addition to these six fractures, there are no other injuries to the bones... At least it can be confirmed that the deceased was most likely not hit by a serious physical blow before his death."
"Of course, it is also possible that the fatal wound did not touch the bone. Injuries such as damage to the heart and lungs, and spleen bleeding can also kill a person in a short period of time. But because only bones are left of the body, and no other foreign objects except branches and leaves are found in the body, I can't make a judgment." For the sake of rigor, Ivan added.
Then he squatted down again, scraped some bone powder from various parts of the skeleton and poured it into a test tube. He then added several reagents and test papers into the test tube and shook it gently a few times.
"There is no sign of poisoning, or the poisoning is not deep enough to penetrate the bones." Ivan shook his head helplessly. "It is difficult to determine the specific cause of death. It is also possible that he was poisoned, but the poison did not kill him, but he fell into a coma, and the back of his head hit a stone exposed in the soil, or his face was buried in the soil and he suffocated... If you force me to list them one by one, I can at least say 30 different ways of death."
"Check more carefully and don't miss any details." Ke Lan just said this and continued to look through the old mountaineering jacket.
The outer pockets were mostly filled with small items that were easy to access at any time: a pack of yellowed tissues, a small bottle of completely evaporated alcohol, a rusty folding knife, and a magnesium stick for making fire.
They were all very common items found on explorers, and were brands and models that could be easily purchased in stores, nothing special about them.
Ke Lan even spread out the pack of tissues one by one, unscrewed all the screws on the folding knife, and split the handle in half, but there was nothing new to discover - tissues were just tissues, and a folding knife was just a folding knife.
The pocket on the upper arm of the mountaineering jacket contains medical supplies, but compared with the contents of the military's standard field first aid kit, the contents of this pocket are pitiful, with only a pair of scissors, a small roll of bandages and a long-expired epinephrine.
There were no signs of these medical supplies having been used, which meant that the golden retriever was not injured at the time, or his injuries were so severe that he could not use these medical supplies on himself.
In the hidden pocket inside the jacket were two anonymous commercial bank savings cards and a membership card of a sex shop with a pink lip print pattern. Ke Lan glanced at the address of the sex shop, which happened to be located on "Kabukicho Ichiban Street" in the old East 9th District... Both this shop and the people in it have long since turned into ashes floating in low-Earth orbit...
Most of the equipment that Golden Retriever carried should have been in the backpack, but Sanshisan walked around the place where the body was found several times and did not find a backpack or anything else left on the ground.
Ke Lan was somewhat disappointed. Not only did the corpse not provide them with any useful clues, but it also brought them a lot of new doubts...
"Wait a minute, that necklace!" Ke Lan suddenly had an idea, "The necklace that the golden retriever cares about so much... bring that necklace over to me!"
