I'm trapped in a block

Chapter 1256 The Past That Trapped Memories

"The amount of ore mined each year is decreasing. Doesn't anyone suspect anything?" Lu Youqi asked, puzzled.

“Exploration technology wasn’t as advanced back then, and production often differed from forecasts. I guess people thought the No. 1 mine was almost depleted, so they didn’t think much of it…”

The middle-aged man pointed to the chart and said, "Look, in the years following the disappearance, it was also the production phase of Mine No. 5. I guess everyone's attention was focused on Mine No. 5, and no one bothered to investigate the matter of Mine No. 1."

"Besides the decrease in ore, is there anything else that seems amiss?" Lu Youqi pressed.

"That's all." The middle-aged man shook his head. "I had to search through a lot of old documents to find this."

After all, we can only look for clues in past data, and it is already very difficult to find an anomaly.

"Have you found the reason for the decrease in ore production?"

"No, I checked some reports and even visited several of the people in charge at the time, but they couldn't even remember these things." The middle-aged man sighed deeply.

Hearing the middle-aged man's words, Lu Youqi frowned.

The clue is broken again.

Like the disappearance case, the ore production reduction incident also ended abruptly without any explanation.

These strange things lay quietly in some corner, gradually fading from people's memories as time passed.

Only those who experienced it firsthand and those who were connected to it remain trapped in that memory, but they gradually become numb because they cannot find the truth, and their memories become increasingly blurred.

The old man Xu Demin was like that, and so was the middle-aged man before us. There are probably many more like him in this peaceful and serene town, trapped in those hazy memories, their lives stagnant...

"Thanks for your hard work."

Lu Ruqi spoke softly to the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man was taken aback at first, his expression somewhat surprised, but after understanding what Lu Youqi meant, he slowly nodded.

“Every time I come back, I visit some elderly people who still remember these things and listen to them vividly talk about what happened that day.”

“I was thinking that when I get old, I will tell my children about this and have them remember these things. Maybe when technology is advanced enough, we can find the truth.”

"Why not tell the child now? Why wait until you're old?" Lu Youqi asked, puzzled.

“Telling them these things now will only add to their troubles and won’t get any results… I know how painful it is to have these things on your mind; you always feel uneasy, like there’s something hanging over you.”

As he spoke, the middle-aged man touched his chest.

He took his tablet back and put it in his handbag, then looked up at the lake, a faint sadness still lingering in his eyes.

"It used to be very noisy and not this clean here. Mine carts would drive around, kicking up dust everywhere. It's actually quite nice to see it like this now..."

He muttered to himself, then seemed to suddenly realize something and looked around.

After looking around for a while, he asked with a puzzled expression, "Where's your friend? The one with the jar head?"

As he spoke, he raised his hand and gestured a few times next to his head.

Lu Qi then realized what was happening and looked at the spot where Martin had just been standing.

The person is gone; it seems they left while they were looking at the tablet.

The lake water rippled gently, and the surroundings were quiet. Only Lu Youqi and the middle-aged man remained nearby. "He..." Lu Youqi said hesitantly, "He probably left on his own. He just told me it was a bit hot, so he probably went to buy ice cream."

Lu Ruqi felt a little flustered and made up an excuse.

He guessed that Martin couldn't wait any longer and ran into the lake himself...

"Oh." The middle-aged man nodded, half believing and half doubting.

Seeing that he had managed to get away with it for the time being, Lu Youqi looked at the lake again and thought to himself, "Did he really go down?"

……

Beneath the surface of the lake, Martin was slowly walking deeper into the water.

He doesn't need to breathe; he's the same in the water as he is on land.

When he heard Lu Youqi talking to the middle-aged man about "mineral resources being reduced", he quietly walked into the lake.

He had several guesses about this matter:
"It might be a worm..."

That's a type of insect that only exists on the second level of the abyss. After it hatches from its eggs, it begins to choose a target to devour within a 1-centimeter radius of its body. This target is completely random.

It could be soil, air, or stone. Of course, it could also be a specific substance, such as nitrogen in the air or calcium sulfate in the soil. Sometimes it could even be other organisms.

Once a "target" is selected, the Devouring Worm will devour everything within a one-centimeter radius that matches the target's characteristics. If the target leaves the range at this time, the Devouring Worm will not chase it. However, if a target that matches the selected target enters the range, the newly appearing target will also be added to its devouring list.

The goal of the Hu Tunchong is to "completely clear out all targets within this range".

After clearing all targets within a 1-centimeter radius, the worm will change targets. Simultaneously, as its body grows, its "hunting range" will increase, becoming a radius of 2 centimeters, 3 centimeters, and so on.

The worm will continue its devouring cycle until it is eaten by other creatures or dies naturally.

Most of the time, the worm is completely harmless to humans, and they may not even know it exists. But once humans become its target, this worm becomes a terrifying scourge.

It will devour all the humans within its hunting range, and then randomly select other prey...

The hunting of the worms is silent and stealthy, making it impossible for normal humans to escape.

"It's possible that those twenty people were eaten by the Hu-swallowing worm, and then the Hu-swallowing worm randomly became a mineral."

"It's also possible that it's not a worm, but a vesicle."

A bubble is an unstable spatial fissure that occasionally appears in certain places in the abyss. Once subjected to a violent impact, it will burst open and then engulf everything in its vicinity.

The bubbles that burst open do not completely disappear; they leave behind many tiny spatial fissures that resemble "foam," which appear suddenly from time to time and continue to burst open until the space is completely stabilized.

"Perhaps the explosion triggered a cavitation bubble that swallowed everyone inside. The remaining cavitation bubble then entered the depths of Mine Pit 1, consuming some of the ore..."

Having traveled through the Abyss for so long and visited so many worlds corrupted by it, Martin has come to know a great deal of unknown knowledge, and thus, many speculations naturally arise in his mind.

These conjectures can all explain the anomalies in Mine No. 1.

But Martin now has an even bigger question:

"Can something from the abyss really appear here?"

(End of this chapter)