Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

The next morning, before it was fully light—or rather, during the darkest period before dawn—the searchlights outside the tent were still on, casting a bluish glow on the frozen snow.

Lin Yi's eardrums were pierced by a scream, the sound as sharp as fingernails scraping an iron plate, coming from the direction of the medical tent, carrying a kind of terrifying horror of seeing a ghost.

The black and white roses appeared in his hand almost simultaneously. Lin Yi rolled out of bed so fast that he didn't even have time to think. He burst through the cubicle door and rushed into the medical tent without even putting on his shoes.

The kerosene lamp in the tent was still lit. Qinna was dozing on a folding chair by the door. She was awakened by the scream and looked around blankly.

Dorothea, wrapped in the blanket, huddled on the cot, pressed herself against the corner of the wall. She clutched the blanket tightly to her chest, her knuckles white, and her eyes, wide as saucers, stared intently at the cot on the other side of the tent.

Tasha was lying on that bed.

Tasha was bound to the bed frame by several wide strips of cloth, which wrapped around her wrists and ankles, not too tight, but enough to restrict her movement.

She tilted her head, her pupils, which should have been of the mutant type, had now returned to their normal reddish-brown color, and she was calmly looking at Dorothea.

Her facial muscles were still twitching unnaturally, and the corners of her mouth would occasionally twitch, as if her nervous system was still relearning how to control her facial expressions.

"What are you yelling about?" Lin Yi yawned and walked to Dorothea's side, twirling the black and white rose in his hand before putting it away.

Dorothea's finger was still pointing in Tasha's direction, trembling like a reed in the wind. Her lips parted twice before she managed to squeeze out a sound: "How could this monster be here! Why is she here! She participated in the destruction of Sunbeam City! I saw her standing next to the alien commander! She killed over seven hundred people in our monastery! She—"

“She is our prisoner now.” Lin Yi interrupted her, walked to Tasha’s bedside, looked down to observe the situation, and pressed Tasha’s forehead to feel her temperature. “The parasite in her body has been cleared out. She is not very agile now and does not pose any threat.”

Dorothea's mouth was still open, her gaze darting back and forth between Lin Yi and Tasha.

She slowly moved her body out from the corner of the wall, as if only daring to put her feet on the ground after confirming that Tasha really had no intention of suddenly attacking anyone.

She stepped barefoot onto the tent's canvas mat, her toes curling slightly, and slowly moved two steps toward Tasha.

Tasha turned her head to look at Dorothea. There was no hostility in her eyes; instead, there was a calm that came from resignation.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke, like a rusty bearing turning: "She's right... I was involved."

Dorothea stopped two steps away from Tasha, her fingers still trembling slightly, but her gaze shifted from fear to scrutiny.

She saw that Tasha's pupils had indeed changed. The previous long, narrow, split-type pupils, which looked like snakes, had now turned into round, reddish-brown ones, similar to those of an ordinary human.

When Su Xiao lifted the tent flap and walked in, Bubuwang followed behind him, its nose twitching, probably smelling the breakfast.

Su Xiao glanced at Tasha, then at Dorothea, his expression unchanged. He simply walked to a corner and leaned against a storage box, clearly there to keep an eye on things.

Dorothea finally dared to crouch down and get close to Tasha's face. She stared at those reddish-brown pupils for several seconds, as if trying to confirm whether the fission marks had really disappeared.

She held out her finger and waved it in front of Tasha. Tasha's eyes followed the movement of her finger, her movements a little slow, but she kept up.

Dorothea stood up and took two steps back. When she turned to look at Lin Yi, the fear in her eyes had been replaced by something else, something with a burning heat, like a blacksmith looking at a piece of good steel.

"You even managed to save her?" Dorothea's voice rose a half-tone from before. "The state of the parasite penetrating deep into the nervous system was something even the most skilled healer in Muguang City said was incurable, stating that once someone was controlled by the parasite for more than six months, it was impossible to reverse the situation. What method did you use?"

Lin Yi didn't answer the question, but simply waved his hand: "This is not something you should ask. What you need to do now is eat breakfast quickly, and then lead the way to the Muguang Missionary Grounds."

Dorothea's lips moved, as if a hundred more questions were waiting to pop out, but she swallowed them back.

When she turned to put on her shoes, her movements were as fast as if she had springs in her body. It took her left foot two tries to get it into the boot, and she ran out without even bothering to tie the shoelaces, probably to find something to eat in the main hall.

When only Lin Yi, Su Xiao, and Tasha remained in the medical tent, Lin Yi untied Tasha.

Tasha tried to sit up, her arms trembling violently as she braced herself on the bed, like a baby just learning to roll over.

A thin layer of sweat appeared on her forehead, and her breathing became rapid. Finally, Su Xiao reached out and helped her sit against the wall.

"Draw those internal structural diagrams of the alien fortresses you mentioned before, after we get back." Lin Yi folded the blanket and put it behind Tasha as a cushion. "Cinna will take care of you, don't wander off."

Tasha nodded, looking down at her hands, the hands that had once crushed countless throats, now unable to even clench her fists.

She smiled wryly, turned her palm over to look at it, and then put it back.

When Lin Yi and Su Xiao stepped out of the medical tent, the eastern sky was already tinged with a grayish-white light. The snow had stopped, and the air was dry and cold, feeling like a mouthful of ice shards when inhaled.

Dorothea was already standing at the entrance of the main hall, holding a piece of biscuit in her hand. Her cheeks were bulging like they were stuffed with walnuts. When she saw Lin Yi come out, she tried to swallow it down, choking so badly that her eyes rolled back. She pounded her chest a couple of times before she could recover.

"Let's go, let's go, the sooner we go, the sooner we'll come back." Dorothea patted the crumbs off her hands. "Head south, if you're fast enough, you can get to the vicinity of the Sunbeam Missionary Grounds within three days."

Lin Yi paused, turning back to look at Dorothea: "Three days?"

"Yes, it took me three days to get here, and that was by taking a shortcut."

Lin Yi was silent for two seconds, then took out a Jeep from his personal space.

Dorothea froze, her mouth agape in an exaggerated circle, forgetting to continue biting into the biscuit in her hand, her eyes darting back and forth between the jeep and Lin Yi.

"What is this? Where did you come from?" Dorothea walked around the jeep, cautiously poking the door with her finger, as if afraid it would bite her.

Lin Yi opened the driver's side door: "Get in, stop talking nonsense. You said you're going south, which road?"

Dorothea was shoved into the back seat, Su Xiao sat in the passenger seat, and the dean was the last to get in. After closing the car door, the old man breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in the back seat to rest.

Bubuwang squeezed between the headmaster and Dorothea, its tail brushing against Dorothea's leg, startling her so much that she shrank back towards the door.

The moment the car started, Dorothea screamed again, this time because the roar of the engine was deafening.

She gripped the back of the seat tightly with both hands, watching the snow outside the window rush past her, the speed at which the scenery on both sides made her braids flutter behind her head.

"Why does this thing move on its own! What does it eat! It runs faster than a hunting dog!" Dorothea's voice drifted in the wind, because Su Xiao had rolled down the car window halfway, and the cold wind blowing in made her words fragmented.

Lin Yi glanced at her in the rearview mirror: "Can you be quiet for ten minutes? You ask too many questions."

Dorothea shrank back, but her eyes were still busy, touching and looking around, pressing all the window buttons, and rolling up and down her side of the car window, enjoying herself immensely.

Bubuwang was so annoyed by her that its ears drooped down, burying its head in the folds of Su Xiao's coat and refusing to come out. The landscape along the way didn't change much; it was still the kind of wasteland eroded by the alien toxin. Occasionally, you could see a few dead trees, their bark peeled off, their gray branches like withered fingers reaching towards the sky.

The jeep jolted as it drove over a frozen, muddy road, and Dorothea's head hit the window with a dull thud. She rubbed her forehead and hissed for breath, but her gaze remained fixed on the view outside the window.

After driving for about two hours, Lin Yi saw a huge ruin on his left.

It used to be an orc tribe. Most of the stone walls had collapsed, and the fire-damaged wooden beams lay scattered haphazardly in the snow, some still emitting wisps of smoke.

Scattered among the ruins were broken pottery jars and weapons, and dried, blackened bloodstains on the ground, mixed with the sour stench unique to the decaying remains of a strange species.

Dorothea peered at the ruins through the car window for a while, then lowered her voice: "That was a branch camp of the barbarians, which was razed to the ground by the aliens half a month ago. The barbarians were one of the three orc branches that sided with the aliens. They thought that being the aliens' dogs would save their lives, but the aliens didn't acknowledge them at all and just ate them as before."

Lin Yi didn't slow down, and the car sped past the ruins.

He could see several thin figures rummaging through the ruins, probably survivors picking up scrap metal and bones, though he wasn't sure which orc branch they belonged to.

"Are the orcs now divided into two factions?" Su Xiao suddenly asked.

Dorothea pulled her head back from the car window and wiped the cold mist from her face: "To be precise, there are five factions. Three factions have sided with the alien races—the Hyenas, the Priests, and the Barbarians. They make up the majority of the orc population, probably more than two-thirds. The rest are the orthodox orcs, the ones who didn't surrender. They guard Insegan, the orcs' birthplace, and are prepared to die there. There's also a small group that remains neutral and wanders around, but they're few in number. If you encounter them, don't bother with them; they don't cause trouble."

She curled her lip at this point: "The three factions that sided with the alien races even felt that the orthodox orcs were a disgrace to them, so they issued a statement saying that the orthodox orcs had been expelled from their race and could only be called beastmen from now on. The orthodox orcs' reply was just two words: contempt. I heard that the chieftain of Insegan replied with this note, without even using an envelope."

The vehicle continued south, but the road conditions worsened and the snow became thicker, eventually forcing it to stop and have its tracks replaced.

Dorothea squatted down to watch as the tracks were being changed, muttering to herself, "How can this thing change its legs?" Lin Yi ignored her.

As dusk fell, the western sky turned a fiery orange-red, and the clouds were edged with gold by the afterglow of the setting sun. Those colors spread across the snow, as if someone had poured a whole bucket of molten copper.

Dorothea suddenly pointed to a huge rock in front of her and shouted, "We're here! We're here! That rock! The tallest one!"

The giant rock was about three stories high, its surface was weathered and pitted, and its top was covered with a layer of bluish-gray moss, frozen solid.

When Dorothea jumped off the car, her legs felt a little weak, probably because she was dizzy from sitting in the car for most of the day. She held onto the car door for a few seconds before she could stand up. Then she waded through the snow to the bottom of the giant rock, groped around for a while, and pressed down hard on a protruding rock edge.

The ground trembled, the vibrations coming up from the soles of my feet, dull and slow, like a giant beast waking up from underground stretching.

The creaking of machinery came from deep underground, interspersed with a few harsh scraping sounds of rust scraping against each other, clearly indicating that the gears had not been maintained for a long time.

About ten meters in front of the giant rock, a patch of snow-covered ground began to rise, and chunks of snow fell away, revealing a metal plate.

The metal plate was rusted red at the edges, but the overall structure was still sturdy. After it rose to a vertical position, it was fixed, revealing a downward stone staircase below. The walls on both sides of the staircase were covered with dark green mold.

Dorothea was the first to walk down the steps, her steps much lighter than outside, as if she had returned to a familiar place.

She turned back and waved to Lin Yi: "Come down, this is the passage leading to the mission ground. Watch your step, some of the steps are loose."

Lin Yi followed behind, with Su Xiao and the dean close behind.

After climbing about twenty steps, you reach the end of the stairs. After turning the corner, it becomes an arched passage, about two meters high and wide enough for three people to walk side by side.

Every few meters along the wall, there is a copper candlestick with a half-burnt candle inside. The wax has piled up in small mounds at the bottom of the candlestick, some of which has solidified into grayish-white hard lumps.

The air in the passageway carried a musty smell, mixed with the burnt aroma of wax and the damp smell of earth.

After walking for more than ten meters, Su Xiao suddenly slowed down, his gaze locking onto a dark figure curled up against the wall on the left side of the passage.

That was a person, or rather, it used to be a person.

He was wrapped in a thick, tattered robe so worn that its original color was no longer discernible, and his head was completely covered by a gray cloth, with only one eye and half of his mouth showing.

His body leaned against the wall, his posture like a dilapidated statue casually placed in a corner, his whole body exuding the smell of decaying plants.

The exposed foot was very conspicuous. The sole and lower half of the calf were completely hardened, and the skin surface showed a dark brown wood grain texture. The toes were forked and stiff like tree branches, making it look like an old tree stump shaped like a human leg.

"It's that woman who tricked us into coming here to die again. Go back, this world is going to die."

Dorothea stopped in her tracks. She stood in front of the decaying man, her lips pressed into a thin line. After several seconds, she spoke: "Karen, this time is different. They're not here to die."

The decaying man's exposed eye darted around, its murky pupil sweeping over Lin Yi, Su Xiao, and the dean in turn, before letting out a longer, sneer.

Lin Yi squatted down to be at eye level with the decaying man, and he could smell the sour smell of damp, rotten wood on the man's body.

He reached out and tapped on the decaying man's wooden instep, making a tapping sound like tapping on a dry wooden board.

Lin Yi withdrew his hand and asked, "How much longer until you're completely turned into wood?"

The decaying man was silent for a moment, staring at Lin Yi for a while before suddenly laughing, his chapped lips parting to reveal several missing teeth: "Probably another month or two. What, you can cure me?"

“Perhaps,” Lin Yi stood up, “but only if you tell me about the alien king and the alien commander. Tell me as much as you know.”

Wax dripped down, and in the dimly lit arched passage, if one did not carefully sense the decaying man's presence, one might mistake him for a corpse.

The decaying man was so weak that he could only sit against the wall. He was still alive, but he was already waiting to die. He did not end his own life, but only because of his last concern.

"Impossible, go back, I didn't even see him."

The decaying man coughed a few times and uttered words that were ambiguous. In fact, what he said was a veiled indication that he had once tried to assassinate the alien king, but failed. He had failed without even seeing the alien king in person.

Lin Yi and his group did not linger. The decaying man wouldn't die anytime soon, and after all, he had been deep into the alien rear area and could provide some useful intelligence.

Following the arched passage, you soon find yourself in a bright and open space ahead.

[Notice: You have arrived at a special area, the Bathing Light Mission Grounds (High-Risk/Safe Area).]

[Number of humans/mutants/orcs surviving in the Bathing Light Mission Grounds: 6.]

[All humans within the Bathing Light Mission Grounds are neutral entities; their relationship with other parties will be determined through negotiation and actions.] (End of Chapter)