When she turned to look, all she saw was the violently rippling water, while everything else remained eerily silent.
A chilling, eerie sensation.
After scanning the surroundings and finding nothing amiss, the incessant cries of the infant forced Sha Yi to abandon her search for anomalies nearby and instead focus on locating the source of the sound.
Just as she turned her head, a dark shadow flashed through her mind like lightning.
Startled, Sha Yi reflexively spun around again.
But with just one glance, her heart turned to ice—the charred, human-shaped figure clinging to the scorched tree trunk was gone!
Even more unsettling was the fact that there was no trace of the charred figure on the water’s surface either.
Logically, charcoal should float after falling into water, but the human-shaped figure was nowhere to be seen—neither on the surface nor anywhere nearby. She couldn’t make sense of it.
This forest was undeniably strange. She had only been here for a short while, yet so many terrifying things had already happened, leaving her deeply unsettled.
Staring at the spot where the charred figure had disappeared, Sha Yi instinctively took a step back—only to step on something sharp that pierced the sole of her foot painfully. When she lowered her head and tried to probe the object with her other foot, it had vanished.
Sha Yi was baffled, wondering if the sharp pain had been an illusion. But the lingering sting in her foot told her otherwise. Unwilling to let it go, she stretched her foot again to search the spot where she had been pricked.
Just like the first time, she found nothing. Sha Yi didn’t know whether to feel relieved or frustrated. She didn’t want to encounter those spine-chilling things, yet she also hated being caught off guard by danger. It was a dilemma.
Just as she was wrestling with her thoughts, the infant’s cries abruptly stopped. Then, the deep water area rippled once more—but this time, bubbles began rising from the center, one after another, accompanied by faint underwater movements. Sha Yi’s heart pounded in terror, her entire body stiffening. Fortunately, the bubbles stopped after a short while, allowing her to regain some composure.
When the infant’s cries resumed, Sha Yi suddenly realized—the sound seemed to be coming from that deep water area… and from beneath the surface. What’s more, the cries now sounded unnatural. Though they carried the softness of a baby’s voice, they lacked the organic quality of real crying. It didn’t sound like vocalization at all—rather, like vibrations mimicking an infant’s wails. If one listened closely, the difference was unmistakable.
Additionally, since the cries came from underwater, they carried a muffled quality. Earlier, her fear and distraction had prevented her from noticing the abnormality. Moreover, she had been too focused on pinpointing the sound’s direction. Given that the cries originated underwater and she was standing in the water herself, the sound seemed to come from everywhere, explaining her earlier confusion.
Even so, Sha Yi remained puzzled.
She hadn’t seen anything emerge from the water, so this rain-flooded forest shouldn’t harbor amphibious creatures. Yet something was clearly lurking beneath the surface—something she couldn’t begin to fathom.
As she hesitated, Sha Yi suddenly felt the water tremble again, a slow ripple spreading outward from the deep area.
Alarm bells rang in her mind. Sensing danger, she no longer cared about the unknown hazards of the area—she immediately turned and bolted in the opposite direction.
Now, no matter how much the water resisted her movement or how strange the ground beneath her feet felt, she couldn’t afford to hesitate. Ever since being transported to this cursed era, freezing in fear had become a thing of the past. Just like that first terrifying night, survival meant running—the stronger the instinct to escape, the more determined the sprint.
Of course, running didn’t always guarantee safety. But under pressure, human endurance was limitless. Sha Yi soon put a considerable distance between herself and the danger.
Though carrying an infant while fleeing through water was difficult, her panicked escape had its advantages. By the time she stopped, the disturbance behind her had ceased. The water here only reached her knees—much shallower—and she felt slightly more at ease. Unfortunately, this area was still shrouded in darkness, suggesting she hadn’t reached the forest’s edge.
After surveying her surroundings, Sha Yi tightened the wrinkled little bundle in her arms and exhaled in relief. But the sudden release of tension left her utterly exhausted.
Luckily, a massive tree stood nearby, its tangled roots rising above the water, providing a perfect resting spot.
Without much thought, Sha Yi moved to sit down—only to freeze mid-crouch as Xi Yi’s voice rang out from afar, sharp with warning.
Sha Yi blinked in confusion, quickly lifting her head.
Xi Yi was sprinting toward her, his face etched with urgency and panic. He shouted at the top of his lungs while frantically waving his arms in a clear signal: *Don’t sit—get away from there!*
Sha Yi hadn’t sat down yet, but her realization came too late. In those few seconds, something coiled tightly around her waist.
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