OBS Chapter 316 If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have been...
Chapter 316 If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have been...
Just then, a large thrush flew out of the bushes and landed on a tree not far away, tilting its head to look at them.
Wang Ergou breathed a sigh of relief and said with a wry smile, "Oh, it was just a bird..."
Li Xiangyang frowned: "Something's not right. These birds should have migrated south by now, so why are they here?"
He observed the thrush closely and found that its behavior was indeed unusual.
Normally, this kind of bird is very wary and will fly away immediately when it sees people, but this thrush stood there and even swayed from time to time, seemingly unable to maintain its balance.
"Ergou, do you see that?" Li Xiangyang pointed at the bird. "Its behavior is abnormal."
Wang Ergou nodded: "It is quite strange."
Before they could think further, more birds began to fly in from all directions. Some were birds that should be seen in season, while others were clearly migratory birds that should not be here outside of the migration season.
They all exhibited the same abnormal behavior: their flight paths were chaotic, sometimes high and sometimes low, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, completely inconsistent with normal flight patterns.
“Xiangyang, could this be the ‘migratory bird that shouldn’t appear in this season’ mentioned in the notebook?” Wang Ergou recalled the notebook he found yesterday.
Li Xiangyang nodded thoughtfully: "The magnetic field anomaly may be interfering with their navigation system. Some birds can orient themselves by sensing the Earth's magnetic field; if the magnetic field here is unusually strong, they will lose their way."
As more and more birds gathered, the sky became densely packed with them, creating a spectacular yet eerie scene.
“Let’s pack our things and keep going,” Li Xiangyang stood up. “We need to walk as much as possible while it’s still light.”
Wang Ergou nodded and quickly packed his bags.
The two men, armed with their own weapons and equipment, continued along the tracks left by the survey team.
Along the way, they saw even more astonishing sights.
A large owl sat comfortably on a branch, its amber eyes fixed on them.
Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the leaves, illuminating its dark brown feathers and giving them a golden sheen.
Upon seeing the two, the owl's head suddenly rotated almost 180 degrees, then its entire body spun around and returned to its starting position. This bizarre behavior sent a chill down Wang Ergou's spine.
"Shouldn't this thing be sleeping during the day?" Wang Ergou muttered to himself.
After walking a few steps, another strange scene came into view: three weasels and several rabbits were peacefully huddled together under the same bush.
The weasel's dark eyes darted around, but it showed no intention of hunting; the rabbit beside it leisurely nibbled on the tender grass, oblivious to the presence of its natural enemy.
Even more bizarrely, several palm-sized wild bees were slowly crawling on the ground, sometimes suddenly spinning in place, and sometimes resuming their straight-line movement, completely losing the agility and order that bees should have.
As Wang Ergou watched these incredible scenes unfold, the fear on his face gradually faded, replaced by an indescribable sense of excitement.
He nudged Li Xiangyang in the waist with his elbow, his eyes gleaming:
"Xiangyang, look! Look! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed such a strange thing existed in this world. If I get back alive, this scene is enough for me to brag about for the rest of my life, and everyone will be eager to listen to me..."
The thought of having to listen to him recount these strange and unseen events with wide eyes and open mouths when he got back made Wang Ergou grin and chuckle to himself.
Li Xiangyang glanced at him, a slight smile playing on his lips: "Not afraid now? You're ready to brag for the rest of your life."
"To be honest, I was quite scared just now," Wang Ergou scratched the back of his head, his voice much lighter, "but judging from this, isn't it just like a monkey show at a temple fair? The difference is that those are trained by people, this is natural..."
Li Xiangyang didn't respond, but instead focused on observing the changes in his surroundings.
He crouched down, gently brushing aside a layer of withered leaves to reveal faint shoe prints underneath.
The marks had been blurred by the rain, but they were still faintly recognizable as human footprints.
“If we can still follow this, the person must have gone that way.” Li Xiangyang pointed ahead, then got up and continued walking.
As they ventured deeper, the surrounding scenery became increasingly illogical.
Beside a mountain stream, by a fast-flowing creek, they saw several gray wolves drinking water with several deer, no more than an arm's length apart.
The wolf's eyes were blank, and it shook its head from time to time, as if it were driving away something it couldn't see; while the deer would occasionally stumble, its posture stiff, and its body would sometimes twitch uncontrollably.
"Have all these animals gone mad?" Wang Ergou asked in a low voice. Although he was no longer afraid, these strange sights still made him uneasy.
“It must be the magnetic field affecting their nervous system,” Li Xiangyang explained, looking at the scene before him with equal disbelief.
After walking for about another hour, the sun was high overhead, and the shadows of the trees shrank to a small patch at their feet. Wang Ergou wiped the sweat from his forehead and was about to speak when he suddenly frowned.
“Xiangyang,” he stopped, looking around suspiciously, a hint of unease in his eyes, “don’t you feel something’s off about this place?”
Li Xiangyang stood still, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused intently on his surroundings. After a moment, he opened his eyes, his expression grave: "It's too quiet."
Indeed, apart from their breathing and footsteps, there was almost no other sound around—no insects chirping, no birds singing, and even the usual rustling of leaves in the wind had disappeared.
“In the deep mountains and forests, this kind of silence is definitely not normal.” Li Xiangyang lowered his voice, looking around warily. His hand unconsciously tightened around his gun, his knuckles turning white.
Wang Ergou swallowed hard and instinctively gripped the gun tightly.
The two unconsciously slowed their pace, each step taken cautiously, their bodies tense, their nerves constantly on high alert.
After traveling for about half an hour, the terrain ahead gradually opened up.
The dense forest gradually thinned out, and the view opened up.
In the distance, a dark, bare mountain peak came into view, standing abruptly among the verdant mountains.
The mountain stood out from the surrounding landscape—it had no trees, no shrubs, not even grass, and looked like a huge, irregularly shaped pile of black rocks.
“That is…” Wang Ergou’s voice trembled slightly with nervousness.
Li Xiangyang unconsciously slowed his pace.
He squinted, carefully examining the strange mountain peak.
Based on his years of experience in the mountains, he knew that this terrain was abnormal and posed some kind of danger.
Although they were eager to find someone, rashly approaching such a strange place would be nothing short of a foolish act of suicide.