57: Chapter 57 Hello, I am human!

Three Flesh Puppets stood side by side in the temporary chamber on the outer periphery of Tree Nest No. 1's root chamber!

Their postures were stiff yet stable!

Jiang Ming stripped the external secret codes from Shen Kui's memory.

He finished cross-checking the shift-change times and perimeter Outpost configurations item by item!

The route and roles for the first infiltration were selected!

On the edge of the Settlement in the direction of the Old Logging Camp, there was an outer guard point right next to the logging trail, manned by two people on the night shift, and the shift change was in the second half of the night!

The names of these two people had appeared in Shen Kui's memory; one had the surname Ding, and the other was called Xiao Wu. Both were veterans of the field patrol lines!

He chose Puppet No. 3 to undertake the infiltration mission!

No. 3 had the best sense of balance among all the puppets and movements closest to a normal person. It didn't limp much when walking, and its articulation when speaking was the clearest.

Jiang Ming rummaged through the surviving equipment in the Tree Nest's root chamber and pulled out a guard coat with half its sleeve scorched off by fire, draping it over No. 3.

His movements were gentle.

He then tucked a fractured assignment wooden tablet, recovered from the wreckage of Shen Kui's team, into its waist rope.

The puppet had old abrasions on its shoulders, and dried scabs still congealed at the corners of its mouth, requiring no extra makeup.

It naturally looked like this.

The other two puppets undertook peripheral coordination:

No. 1 was sent toward Outpost No. 2, stepping out a string of new single-person marching footprints on the soft mud at the bend of the stream, and then turning back.

Near the old logging stumps, No. 2 plugged a replaced old marker sign back into the roadside at the fork.

This created the sign that "someone is still carrying out routine patrols in this area."

Both actions were completed in the dead of night without triggering the attention of any human sentries!

No. 3 walked forward along the logging trail!

Its pace was not fast, and its footsteps landed heavily.

When it walked to the outside of the wooden fence at the Settlement's peripheral post, about twenty paces away from the fence, the torch on the inside of the fence had already been raised.

"Stop! What person?? Which team?"

It was the night watchman surnamed Ding!

He extended the torch from above the fence, and the patch of light shone on No. 3's face.

Another younger voice, Xiao Wu, raised the crossbow from the side, aiming it toward the direction of the fence gap.

No. 3 raised its head according to the preset script, its eyes narrowing into two slits, its chapped lips parting and closing.

"Brother Shen... Brother Shen is still behind. The living forest ahead is moving, quickly tell the Camp Administration Room to prepare kerosene!"

Its voice was hoarse when it spoke, and every word seemed to be pushed out from the bottom of its throat using air, with the pauses stuck precisely on the natural rhythm of a human speaking out of breath.

Xiao Wu pressed the muzzle of the crossbow downward a bit:

"Where is Shen Kui? How is the Outpost?"

No. 3 did not answer directly.

It staggered forward a step, pressed its hand on the lid of a wooden box piled outside the fence, panted twice, and then continued:

"...We were scattered. Brother Shen was still there when I ran out, and he told me to come back first to report about the kerosene. The trees have mutated, and there is more than one root."

The night watchman surnamed Ding and Xiao Wu exchanged a glance.

The fence did not open, but Xiao Wu slackened the crossbow string!

He had No. 3 retreat to a temporary isolation shed on the outside of the fence—that was a low shed built with old oilcloth, inside of which were a broken plank bed and an empty bucket.

The night watchman surnamed Ding pulled down a section of old hemp rope hanging on the fence with his spear shaft, threw it over, and said "Wait first."

Jiang Ming did not let No. 3 continue shouting.

The puppet shrank into the corner of the shed, leaning against the wooden fence, with its legs stretched out and hands resting on its knees, its posture completely resembling a wounded soldier who had run out of strength.

At the same time, it stuffed an external assignment wooden tablet under the pile of grass in the corner of the shed!

It was an old tablet selected from Shen Kui's belongings.

The code matched the rotation batch of the field patrol line for that day.

The wooden tablet was stained with sweat and old fingerprints, with worn-out edges, and it definitely did not look newly carved.

The errand runner came back in less than a moment, bringing the reply from the Camp Administration Room:

"Do not let anyone into the main gate yet. Wait until dawn to send someone to question them."

"Shen Kui's matter shall not be spread outside for now."

The night watchman surnamed Ding wrote the reply on a wooden board and hung it on the dispatch hook on the inside of the fence.

Then he continued keeping watch.

In the latter half of the night, the night watchman surnamed Ding sat leaning against the inside of the wooden fence, his fingers pressing on the spear shaft, turning his head back every so often to look at the isolation shed.

In the dark shadow at the corner of the shed, No. 3 remained motionless, but the edge of its shadow occasionally flickered with extremely subtle movements.

It was not the puppet moving!

It was the mycelial network beneath the damp soil layer releasing low-frequency spiritual fluctuations.

The pressure of the Tree Domain was pulled from afar in the direction of Anchor Point No. 2, and the humidity in the isolation shed was moderate.

The sanity value of the night watchman surnamed Ding was not high to begin with, combined with the long hours of lonely watch and the consecutive days of lost-contact news.

This caused him to frequently turn his head back in the latter half of the night.

When turning back for the third time, he rubbed his ears and asked Xiao Wu if he heard anything.

Xiao Wu said no and told him not to scare himself.

After dawn, the interrogator sent by the Camp Administration Room arrived.

He was a middle-aged thin man wearing a vest, with a short whip and a Camp Administration wooden tablet hanging at his waist.

He pulled No. 3 up from the isolation shed, checked the old injuries on its collar, back of hands, and neck, flipped through the scabs at the corners of its mouth, felt the fractured wooden tablet tied to its waist once more, and asked two questions: "Which team are you from?"

"What message did Shen Kui tell you to bring?"

No. 3 matched the secret code.

The formation serial number, rotation batch, and Shen Kui's commonly used expression "the living forest is moving" were all genuine.

The interrogator jotted down a few lines on a wooden board with a charcoal pencil and told two guards to prop the person up and walk back.

Jiang Ming did not let No. 3 make any unnecessary movements.

Propped up, the puppet passed through the material transfer point on the inside of the wooden fence, passed the Small Storage Shed piled with kerosene cans in front of the Camp Administration Room's door, and was dragged deeper into the edge of the Settlement.

The return signal of the command core jumped at the edge of Tree Nest No. 1's perception and then stabilized.

No. 3 was still within the interrogator's control range and had not been seen through!

Scattered discussion sounds came from the direction of the Settlement's Council Shed, leaking a few keywords through the channel's residual messages...

"Shen Kui!"

"Not dead yet!"

"Send someone out to take a look!"

The news had been successfully spread!