Everyone's playing hide-and-seek: This crazy beauty has maxed-out third eyes.

The moment the box lid popped open, Lin Sui'an's drooping branches reached inside first.

A butterfly was lying in the box.

With vibrant colors, delicate wing veins, and a faint fluorescent sheen along the edges, it was pinned to a palm-sized black velvet base.

It's a specimen.

Lin Sui'an rolled it up with a branch, and before he could take a closer look at the attribute panel, a rustling sound came from the pile of fallen leaves under the tree roots.

The crew-cut man was the first to leap out from behind the palm tree roots, bending over and keeping his feet extremely low as he charged toward the treasure chest.

The tall man followed closely behind, but he was careful and slowed down by half a beat compared to the crew-cut man, always keeping a body length between him and Lin Sui'an.

Lin Sui'an did not retract the branch, nor did he turn the main trunk. In his heat perception, two red lights were rapidly approaching.

ten meters.

eight meters.

five meters.

The buzz cut has stopped.

He squatted five meters away, sweat rolling down his temples, staring motionless at the ice tree that was smashing boxes.

The tall guy behind him also squatted down and urged him in a low voice.

"Go!"

"You go first, I'll keep watch!"

"Damn you!" The crew-cut man turned around and glared at him. "I haven't even settled the score with you for shoving me last time!"

"Stop arguing, it's not responding! Look!" The tall man pointed at Lin Sui'an.

Lin Sui'an did not react. She was swinging a branch at the empty box that had already been opened, and she hid the butterfly specimen deep in the tree hole.

The box was still radiating heat; she only needed to maintain her "violent, mindless, and bizarre" persona.

The crew-cut man swallowed hard and took two steps forward, using both his hands and feet.

three meters.

The ice tree didn't turn its head.

They moved another step.

Two meters.

The branches were still hitting the box, and wood chips flew everywhere, landing on the crew-cut man's sleeves. His fingers were visibly trembling.

"Has it moved?" the tall man asked, peering out from behind.

"No!" The crew-cut man's voice trembled. "He really ignored me."

The taller man's breathing became heavier.

"The national intelligence is right. If something is strange, we should look for the heat source. The box is hotter than a person, so it doesn't attack us at all. This is the way out that the game gives us."

Flathead craned his neck, trying to peek inside the box through the gaps in the ice tree's branches.

Is there anything inside?

"I can't see it! Its branches are blocking the view!"

As Lin Sui'an listened to their conversation, she deliberately slowed down the frequency of the branch's swing by half a beat, and she shifted to the side, revealing the inside of the box.

empty.

It's time to leave.

The man with the buzz cut peeked out, his face turning pale: "It's empty!"

"Impossible!" the tall man exclaimed, disbelieving.

"See for yourself!"

The tall man stood on tiptoe and peered through the gaps in Lin Sui'an's branches. The bottom of the box was clean and dry, with nothing but sawdust.

"Hold!"

"Did it fall off?" the crew-cut man asked anxiously. "Or is it being suppressed by something strange?"

The tall man paused for two seconds, then looked up at Lin Sui'an, who was smashing boxes. On the branches of the ice tree, three mutilated corpses hung and swayed.

He took a step back: "Let's move. Empty boxes are pointless. Don't..."

Before he could finish speaking, Lin Sui'an's perception network detected a rapidly moving ice tree in the northeast direction. The speed was very fast, and a rustling sound could be faintly heard coming from the distant bushes.

The second ice tree cannot be allowed to arrive here. If it sees two living people standing in front of her without being attacked, her identity will be immediately exposed.

Without much hesitation, Lin Sui'an swung down two thick branches, one on the left and one on the right, wrapping them around the waists of the two men.

"Fuck!"

Before the crew-cut man could even utter a scream, he was already off the ground.

The tall man was entangled in another branch, his legs kicking wildly in the air, his face deathly pale.

Lin Sui'an's root system suddenly exerted force, and his body rotated half a circle, with the two branches simultaneously loosening at the highest point.

The two people were thrown off, heading southwest.

Good luck to you!

Its body traced two arcs in mid-air, passing through the gaps in several layers of tree canopy, and landed in a thicket of bushes more than thirty meters away.

"Bang!"

"Splash!"

A large section of shrubs was knocked down, and dead branches and leaves flew everywhere.

It will definitely hurt, but it won't kill you.

Seeing that there was no blood on the branch, Lin Sui'an put it away and continued to pretend to smash the box.

Five seconds later, the second ice tree emerged from the bushes.

Upon meeting, it saw the ice tree swinging a box and, without even exchanging pleasantries, stepped on its roots and rushed over to join in.

Two ice trees huddled together, violently striking and smashing a wooden crate that was already on the verge of falling apart.

The muffled thuds continued in succession.

------

In the bushes more than 30 meters away.

The tall man crawled out of the pile of broken branches and leaves, his right cheek was cut in two places by tree branches, and blood mixed with mud was flowing down his chin.

The crew-cut man lay face down to the side, his back hitting a broken piece of wood. He grimaced in pain and it took him a while to sit up straight, supporting himself with his hands on the ground.

The two men, panting heavily, exchanged a glance.

"I almost thought I was going to die." The crew-cut man wiped the mud off his face with the back of his hand.

The tall man stood up, leaning against the tree trunk, and glanced in the direction where he had been flung.

Through the gaps in the sparse bushes, the beam of light was still shining in the distance. Two ice trees were squeezed under the beam of light, their branches flying wildly as they smashed the box like madmen.

"Let's go." The crew-cut man had already started moving in the opposite direction.

The tall man didn't move: "Did you see that?"

The man with the buzz cut stopped in his tracks: "What do you see?"

The tall man turned and stared at him, his eyes bloodshot: "When that tree flung us out, it didn't use barbs."

The man with the buzz cut opened his mouth.

"When the branch wrapped around my waist, all the thorns retracted, leaving a perfectly straight stem." The tall man's Adam's apple bobbed. "And you?"

The man with the flat head glanced down at his side. His clothes were wrinkled by the branches, but the fabric was intact. His skin only had bruises, with no puncture wounds.

His expression changed: "It... didn't intend to kill us?"

"That's right!" The tall man clenched his fist. "This thing's attack preference is entirely towards treasure chests! We got within two meters of it and it didn't move! Even when it was flung out, it didn't use its barbs! The intelligence was correct!"

Flathead frowned, his mind racing, feeling that something was wrong. He turned and looked again in the direction of the pillar of light. The two trees were still crashing down, and the heat emanating from the box distorted into a wave of heat in mid-air.

"Less than two minutes left." The tall man gestured.

"If we don't succeed, we'll retreat. Let's give it one last shot."

The crew-cut man grabbed his arm: "Are you crazy?"

"Before there was one tree, now there are two. Even if you manage to grab one, where do you run to? If two trees are chasing you at the same time, how many legs do you have?"

The tall man shook off his hand: "They don't kill people!"

"Were those three corpses hanging in the tree just now fake?" the crew-cut man glared at him.

The tall man froze, and the two of them stood in the bushes in silence for three seconds.

The crew-cut man turned and left, saying, "Go if you want, I'm not going to my death."

Without even turning his head, he bent down and disappeared into the dense forest behind him, his footsteps fading into the distance.

The tall man stood still, his lips pressed into a thin line, his fist clenched and unclenched, staring at the distant beam of light for a full five seconds.

"Try one more time, just one last time!"

He spat out those words, then strode off toward the two ice trees.

The bushes were pushed aside, and the dead branches were crushed.

Thirty meters.

Twenty meters.

ten meters.

five meters.

The two ice trees were still working together to dismantle the box, their branches clashing and striking, and the wooden box was about to fall apart.

The tall man's eyes were fixed on the box. No props fell out; they weren't in the box, on the ground, or in the grass!

Where exactly is it? He subconsciously took a few more steps forward, trying to see clearly, when just then, a branch covered in barbs broke off from the action of smashing the box, at a tricky angle and with extremely fast speed.

"Pfft."

Branches pierced through the chest and protruded through the back, barbs blooming inside the body, and a muffled sound of bones and muscles being crushed came from deep within the body.

The tall man looked down at the gray branch stuck in his chest, blood gushing from the edge of the puncture hole.

His mouth opened and closed twice: "Why...why..."

His gaze shifted to the ice tree next to him that was smashing boxes, which was Lin Sui'an.

"it……"

The branch snapped back sharply, its barbs pulling out most of the ribs from the chest cavity. The tall man slumped to the ground, his fingers digging into the soil before falling still.

Lin Sui'an's roots shifted slightly by an inch, which she could see clearly.

The True Ice Tree kills without hesitation. From the moment a branch splits to the moment it pierces a chest, it takes less than a second. The box is bait; if someone gets too close, they are killed without hesitation.

The issue with the True Ice Tree is simply a matter of priority; it doesn't mean they won't kill anyone.