Nightmare Light

Chapter 75 My Name is May

Chapter 75 My name is May
Sand, box.

Lin Wang uttered this awkwardly put-together word in Chu dialect.

Seeing everyone's puzzled expressions, Lin Wang explained, "You know what 'ant boxes' are? They put a group of ants in a glass box, and people can observe them from the outside."

Everyone nodded suddenly.

A round-faced mercenary raised his hand. "I've never played with an ant box, but I know what it means! I once put two cockroaches in a glass jar, and they later filled the jar with larvae... ah!"

Then he was held down by several other mercenaries and beaten up.

Lin Wang's face trembled for a moment, and he continued, "A sandbox is similar to an ant box—a small, self-contained environment built within a closed space. It could be a family, a social organization... or even a country."

"Of course, it can also be a village."

Old Qiao frowned, "But a village without even land cannot be self-sufficient."

Lin Wang nodded. "Yes, so in order for the sandbox to be self-sustaining, it usually requires an 'administrator' to set up some 'supplementary settings' outside the village, for example, someone to feed the ant box regularly."

Dog Brother took over the topic: "Or, when the villagers enter the village, food and wood will automatically appear on the cart..."

Lin Wang nodded, stroking his chin with a thoughtful look on his face. "Yes, but humans are different from ants—ants can't run around in a glass box, but humans can run around everywhere."

"Therefore, even with the help of supplies, this small village alone is still unable to complete the 'sandbox observation'..."

"I think the cultists couldn't stop the villagers from running around, so they resorted to this desperate measure: turning the villagers into puppets controlled by fixed behavioral logic."

When he said this, he shook his head and laughed: "These guys... are quite uncreative."

After hearing this, everyone finally understood.

Although Lin Wang disdained the cultists' creativity, people still felt a chill in their hearts.

Old Qiao frowned, his face filled with worry. "These cultists are using the villagers as a sandbox to test something, right?"

"Based on the cultists' consistent thinking, after the experiment, they are definitely going to make a big move."

"They just drilled a hole between reality and dreams for an experiment. If they really want to do something big, what scale would it be?" A young soldier said with a pale face.

"So..." Lin Wang said, looking around.

Because of the continuous battles and the cultists' terrible plans, the surrounding soldiers and mercenaries were generally anxious and nervous.

One female mercenary even had dilated pupils and her body trembled uncontrollably.

So when Lin Wang spoke, he deliberately used the tone of a counselor guiding an anxiety patient. He gently pressed his hands down, his tone deep and firm: "We must find them and stop them."

People calmed down.

Old Qiao was a little shocked. He glanced at Lin Wang and felt even more curious and admired about him.

"Brother Lin, what do you think we should do now?"

Unconsciously, he had begun to get used to relying on Lin Wang's ideas.

Lin Wang didn't rush to answer him. Instead, he frowned slightly and looked around the village: "We must first find a way to rescue these villagers... But before that, we must find a second set of samples."

"A second set of samples?"

"Yes." Lin Wang nodded. "For any experiment to succeed, it's impossible to have only one set of data."

"Although these cultists' ideas aren't particularly creative, they are, after all, conducting a standard experiment—and experiments necessarily require cross-cutting data."

Lin Wang squinted his eyes and looked at the entire village: "Is this cross-data from one half of the village... or another village?"

"If it was another village, this would be troublesome... There are no clues at all."

Old Joe and Dog Brother looked at each other and began to assign tasks to their subordinates, asking them to walk through the entire village as quickly as possible to look for any unusual traces.

At this moment, the cat girl beside Lin Wang suddenly stood up (she was still in cat form) and walked towards a villager on the side of the road.

Although she was called a villager, she was actually just a little girl about ten years old. She was wearing a simple cloth that was relatively clean, with messy shoulder-length hair, and was carrying a large wooden barrel in both hands.

The little girl had a hard time walking with the bucket. Every few steps, some water would spill out. Every time a little water spilled out, the bitter and frustrated look on her face became more intense.

When the cat girl walked towards her, the little girl put down the bucket in her hand, panted and wiped the sweat off her face, and looked at the black cat in front of her with great curiosity. The cat walked up to the little girl, rubbed against her body, and then walked around the little girl with its tail wagging.

Lin Wang narrowed his eyes and noticed that the black cat sniffed the little girl while circling.

The little girl looked very scared and wanted to touch the kitten, but after stretching out her hand, she quickly retracted it.

After circling twice, the black cat suddenly shook its body in front of the little girl. As it shook, it turned into a cat-eared girl wearing a black nightgown.

This sudden change scared the little girl so much that she screamed "Ah" and sat down on the ground. She turned over and wanted to run, but she couldn't bear to leave her wooden barrel.

She sat on the ground, a conflicted look on her face. After struggling for a while, she gradually grinned downwards, looking like she was about to cry.

The cat girl stood up, stretched her body, then squatted in front of the little girl, rubbed her hair, and then took out a small dried fish from somewhere and handed it to the little girl.

"Do you want to eat small fish?"

The little girl was about to cry when she was suddenly drawn to the dried fish. With a tear in her eye, she froze, looking from the fish to the cat girl. "Sister, is this... for me?"

The cat girl took out another dried fish, put it in her mouth and took a bite: "Dried fish!"

The little girl hesitated for a moment, but slowly took the dried fish. She looked at the fish with some confusion, as if she didn't know where to start.

Afterwards, she imitated the cat girl, put the dried fish in her mouth and bit it hard.

"what!"

The little girl seemed to have never eaten this before. She was frightened by the taste of the dried fish. As she screamed, her hand shook and half of the fish fell to the ground.

But her eyes soon brightened up, she chewed hard a few times, then she quickly squatted down, picked up the other half of the fish from the ground, and threw it directly into her mouth without even blowing off the dirt.

“Ah…delicious!”

The few people who remained at the scene noticed that something was wrong.

Gu Shuochuan's face was covered with mist. He was about to step forward but was stopped by Lin Wang.

Lin Wang shook his head at him and looked at the others: "Do you have any chocolate? Or other snacks?"

Dog brother scratched his head: "I am a mercenary, and I only have compressed dried wolves. How can I have snacks..."

Old Joe slammed his backpack to the ground with a thud, then opened it and took out a bunch of snacks: chocolate, bread, chicken legs, peanuts, and a pack of bear biscuits...

Lin Wang was stunned: "You and Tian Taozi are relatives, right?"

"Ahem, defending against vulgar masters is very tiring, so it's normal to prepare some extra snacks." Old Qiao's face was a little embarrassed. He coughed and threw the chocolate to Lin Wang, "Use this, the children will like it."

Lin Wang took the chocolate and walked towards the little girl.

He squatted in front of the little girl and gave her a kind smile.

then……

The little girl raised her head and opened her mouth: "Wow, it's so high!"

"..." Lin Wang's face trembled. He took out the chocolate somewhat awkwardly and handed it to the little girl. "Little girl, what's your name?"

...The tone of my voice makes me feel like a human trafficker.

The little girl looked up at Lin Wang, carefully took the chocolate, then lowered her head and looked at her chocolate intently.

After waiting for a few seconds, she said, "My name is May."

"May?" Lin Wang was curious. "Is that your name?"

"Correct."

Gu Shuochuan, who was standing aside, slowly frowned at this time.

"Child, this is not a Mist Tribe name."