Chapter 053 The True Depth
Fang Ling turned to look at the data clerk, who nodded blankly: "No, that's right."
Fang Ling nodded with satisfaction and turned to look at Sylvie: "Minister Sylvie, this can't be a coincidence. Your member is very special and has extremely high research value. If we can figure out why he is in this situation, then 'Demon Warfare' may make a breakthrough!"
"Do you mean that I should hand him over to you?" Sylvie's tone rose slightly.
Fang Ling laughed when he heard this: "You definitely don't want to, but I will try my best to apply for it."
"If it was in other branches , it might be possible, but in the Seventh Branch, your application would be directly rejected by the deputy director."
"Haha, it turns out to be like this. Then can you ask Su Ming to cooperate more with our research when he is free?" Fang Ling smiled, touching his head.
"It depends on my mood~" Sylvie did not comment.
After saying that, she turned her gaze back to the big screen.
On the screen, Su Ming's footsteps just stopped.
In the eyes of Fang Ling and the others, Su Ming just stopped by himself, but in fact, Su Ming was stopped by Xia Xiaoyu.
"Su Ming, did you hear footsteps?"
"What footsteps?"
Su Ming looked at the darkness in front of him, listened for a while, then walked to the railing and listened carefully again.
"No."
"It was very light, but I heard it," Xia Xiaoyu replied.
"No way. We have just proved that this darkness seems to swallow up sounds. How could you possibly hear footsteps? Could it be that you also..."
Su Ming stopped talking halfway because he also heard footsteps, although they were very, very light, but gradually getting louder.
"I heard it too." Su Ming replied.
Something is approaching this way.
The footsteps were getting closer and louder. Su Ming was sure that the other party was less than twenty meters away from them, but because the light could only illuminate a one-meter range, they had no idea who the owner of the footsteps was.
Is it a monster ?
Or is it just an auditory hallucination created by this alien space?
Within a few seconds, the sound approached rapidly! Then a figure rushed into their visual range and crashed into Su Ming's arms.
"Flora?!"
Su Ming stared in surprise at Flora who had fallen into his arms. Her face was pale, her clothes were soaked with cold sweat, and her body was trembling. It was obvious that she was extremely frightened.
"Monster! Monster, monster!!"
Flora looked up at Su Ming. She held Su Ming's hand tightly and kept repeating: "Don't go down! You can't go down!"
At this moment, Su Ming's mind had not yet come to his senses. They explored forward, leaving Flora behind, and then... she ran up from below?
"Su Ming, let her come up and you continue going down." Fang Ling's voice suddenly sounded in Su Ming's headphones.
"Flora, go up first."
"No! You can't go down!" Flora shouted almost crying, her spirit seemed to be on the verge of collapse.
Fang Ling's voice continued to rang in Su Ming's ears: "Don't worry about her. Just keep going. She is behaving normally now, and you will be like this too."
"Are you trying to scare me?"
"Haha, you found out."
Su Ming pried Flora's hand away from himself and continued to walk down the stairs despite her dissuasion. Xia Xiaoyu also continued to follow Su Ming.
In order to prevent Flora from catching up, Su Ming quickly took three steps forward. Flora's crying behind him stopped abruptly, as if her voice was blocked by a soundproof door.
"Is this all right?" Su Ming asked.
Fang Ling: "That's right, I won't respond to you from now on, you just need to keep going forward."
"clear."
"Su Ming, Flora was clearly behind you just now, why did she come up from below?" Xia Xiaoyu asked puzzledly.
Su Ming thought for a while and replied: "It should be related to the true 'depth' she is in."
"True depth?"
"That's right, you don't have headphones, so you can't hear what Fang Ling said. Even though we are standing together now, our true depth may not be together. I think the true depth should be the depth of fear."
"Um... I, I don't quite understand. Can you explain it more simply?"
“To put it simply, the depth of our staircase should not be measured by physical common sense, but by our mentality. The more fear we feel, the deeper our true position in the staircase is.
The reason why we are still standing together now is because we are still within the range of light, and this alien space cannot forcibly interfere with us, but if one party leaves the other's visible range, they will be forcibly teleported to their true position.
Flora was the most affected among us, and her true position was the deepest among us.
When we went downstairs to observe the monster, she was instantly teleported to her real location, which was below us, so we saw her running up in panic later."
"I understand. If I run into the darkness now, will I never be able to find you again?" Xia Xiaoyu asked.
Su Ming smiled and said, "No, they will eventually meet, but by the time they do, at least one of them will have already collapsed mentally, just like Flora."
Xia Xiaoyu frowned and fell into deep thought.
After a while, she asked, "Aren't you afraid?"
"I'm scared, but I'm in good condition now. At least I haven't heard any strange noises yet."
"You mean... I'm underneath you?"
"That's right. If this alien space really has rules to follow, after walking a little further, you will think of yourself as a mother like Flora." Su Ming said expressionlessly.
"...It's really amazing." Xia Xiaoyu exclaimed.
The two continued walking down for a while, then stopped to rest for a while. During the rest, Su Ming noticed that something was wrong with Xia Xiaoyu. She also began to lose focus frequently, exactly the same as Flora's previous behavior.
"Xiaoyu, are you okay?"
"Ah, it's okay... probably." Xia Xiaoyu said uneasily.
Su Ming frowned. "What does that mean? Do you remember our previous discussion about this staircase?"
"Remember, if I continue to go on, I will regard myself as that girl's mother," said Xia Xiaoyu.
Su Ming nodded slightly, thinking that Xia Xiaoyu was at least mentally normal now, but he was not sure what would happen in the future.
Perhaps from now on, he should constantly remind the other party of the real reality. Doing so might help delay Xia Xiaoyu from losing her mind.
The compressed biscuits were not tasty, so he simply filled his stomach and immediately got back on the road. This time he was no longer silent, but kept talking to Xia Xiaoyu.
At the beginning , it was fine. Xia Xiaoyu could still talk to him normally and respond to his questions relatively accurately.
But as time passed, gradually...Xia Xiaoyu changed.
