Book 4: Chapter 76: Endless Night
We were practically crawling forward on the gravel. Although I was very used to it, the newcomers still needed a certain amount of time to adjust. We couldnt ride the mules in this situation, so we just used them to transport the goods.
There were many large and small packages among the goods, but there was a leather box in particular that I cared about the most. Wen Binghui told me that it held a spare set of ancient women's clothes for Bon religious sacrifices. Their team had been carrying one before, but it should be in Black Glasses hands now.nove(l)bi(n.)com
This was the last set. Xiao Hua had stipulated in advance that it had to be brought with them, so the team had to take extra care of it.
Along the way, I asked Doctor Xiao what the difference was between looking at something with your peripheral vision and looking at it head-on. She told me that the cone cells in your eyes controlled what you could see in front of you while the rod cells controlled what you could see with your peripheral vision. Rod cells perceived the shape of objects rather than their color while cone cells perceived color.
If we used our peripheral vision to look at a night sky that wasnt particularly clear, we could easily see the stars, but we often couldnt see them when we looked at them head-on. This was because the rod cells were better at perceiving things in the dark.
This meant that if I could see strange things with my peripheral vision before, then if there wasnt any strange supernatural phenomena, that first ray of light I saw was fake.
I always thought that I was in a relatively bright place, but I was actually in a very dark environment. This brightness was all just an illusion.
In this dark reality, if my rod cells were a little more sensitive than others, I could see the blurred outlines of figures but I couldnt see them when I looked at them head-on.
The only problem with this explanation was that if I were to shine my flashlight on Fatty and Poker-Face, I wouldnt be able to see them either.
A cluster of steaming hot springs of various sizes was distributed among the rocks at the point of the crevices.
Fatty and I exchanged a glance. He tested the water temperature, put a little bit of the water into a water quality cup, and then dipped a test paper into it. This thing could test the waters pH, because I knew that some hot springs were filled with sulfuric acid.
Everything was normal, and the Geiger counter on Ming Er Nagqus body didnt make a sound (Xiao Hua had stipulated that it must be brought along in order to monitor the radioactivity of the stones here).
We unloaded the equipment silently, divided the men and women into two sides, undressed, and began soaking in the hot springs.
After I sat down and leaned back, I found that Brother Gan Shan was looking at the hot springs while keeping his distance. He didn't raise an alarm or anything, but he was obviously looking at us very suspiciously.
Fatty also found his behavior odd and asked, "What's the matter, silly dog?"
I scanned the area with my peripheral vision and didnt see anything, but when I turned my head, I saw a big stone by the hot spring behind us. It was in a very strange shape, just like a wooden club.
The stone was in the shadows and our flashlights werent shining on it, so I just sat there and stared at it for a moment. My flashlight had been placed on the edge of the hot spring, so I silently moved over to grab it and point it at the stone.
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Fun fact: the title of this chapter can also mean "long suffering".