Global Collapse

Chapter 907 "Little Qiao Playing Football"

When Gu Mian came up, she brought with her a relatively intact human head, a pile of tattered, bent bamboo, and a few scraps of paper.

The fortune teller originally wanted to ask Gu Mian what had happened down below, but before he could ask, his attention was drawn to the things Gu Mian had brought up: "What are these?"

When she first saw the head, she thought it was Gu Mian who had fought a ghost for three hundred rounds down below and finally twisted off the ghost's head to bring it up for everyone to see. But when she got closer, she realized it was just a piece of paper.

The fortune teller cautiously poked the head that Gu Mian had casually tossed on the ground, sensing that there was no danger.

Gu Mian gave a general account of what happened below, focusing on her encounter with the paper figure.

"...its head was stuck in that vertical passage. I pulled it down and was about to go down when I found something blocking the entrance. It turned out to be the body of the paper figure..."

As Gu Mian finished speaking, the diviner glanced suspiciously through the heads and the pile of broken bamboo, but didn't see the "body" Gu Mian had mentioned.

She hesitated for a moment, then pointed to the pile of broken bamboo: "You're not talking about this body, are you?"

Gu Mian nodded without batting an eye: "It blocked me in the hole, so I had no choice but to kick it down first if I wanted to get down."

The fortune teller looked at the unrecognizable pile of bodies with pity. She thought that the paper figure must have been underground for too long and was so isolated that it didn't know Gu Mian's reputation. It even used its head to lure Gu Mian and then used its body to go around behind her.

The last time I saw this tactic was in the Chinese textbook, "The wolf in front feigns sleep to lure the enemy." History always repeats itself in surprising ways. Whether it's the wolf in front and the wolf behind in the textbook or the front and the back on the ground, they all head towards the same end.

The paper figure wasn't actually completely broken after being kicked down; it was Gu Mian who lost her balance and landed on it while jumping down from the hole. It probably never imagined it would ever be used as a bench for someone. Its mouthless body let out a creaking cry before collapsing, ending its useless life.

This life wasn't entirely useless; at least the bamboo sticks that sprang out after his death smacked Gu Mian's buttocks a few times. If he were to talk about this with other dead paper figures in the future, it would be a decent topic of conversation.

Gu Mian rummaged through its bones and picked out a few relatively intact bamboo strips to make do with.

The fortune teller glanced at the bamboo strips with a slightly sympathetic expression, then turned back to examine the still-unwound paper head.

Because Gu Mian was there, the fortune teller wasn't afraid that the head might suddenly mutate and bite her. She picked up the head, which was slightly flattened from being pinched, and examined it from all sides: "The face I saw on it just now should be this one."

This is the most reasonable explanation. Theoretically speaking, the location where Gu Mian found the head and the location where the fortune teller saw the head are obviously not the same. However, Gu Mian described the paper figure's body as appearing out of nowhere and suddenly appearing. The head and its body are from the same family, so it's not surprising that it can move around.

Gu Mian also squatted down next to the fortune teller and examined the paper head of the dead comrade together: "I found traces of human habitation in the cave, I wonder if it was left by this paper figure."

Although it sounds absurd, the world is already quite bizarre, so it's not surprising that paper figures need to sleep.

The two examined the object in their hands like they were studying monkeys in a zoo, and finally figured it out.

"Look, there are words on its head." The fortune teller lifted the hair of the person's head and pointed to the top of its head to show Gu Mian.

The paper figure was quite well-made, with a separate model for the hair. However, the fortune teller had already torn off most of the paper figure's thick hair, leaving a receding hairline on the top.

Gu Mian followed her finger to the exposed, pale skull, and saw that there were indeed words on it. However, the hair on the head was stuck to the skull too tightly, and the head was already very fragile. When the fortune teller peeled off the hair, she destroyed part of the writing.

"It looks like it says something like 'Enlightenment' or something." Gu Mian looked at the remaining writing on the paper head. It should have been three characters, written in dark red ink. The color of the writing was surprisingly fresh, which was out of place with the old paper head.

The fortune teller touched the red marks on the paper figure's head: "Except for the '启' in the middle, the other two characters are illegible."

"Is this some kind of power button?" Gu Mian poked the paper figure's forehead, which had the character "启" written on it, without any hesitation. She pressed it for a long time, but it still didn't turn on.

The fortune teller withdrew his hand and noticed that his fingers were also stained with the red marks: "The color rubbed off with just a touch, so it seems the words were newly written."

Could it be related to the Upside-Down City that just formed yesterday? That makes sense; these pits are underground in the Upside-Down City, so they must be inextricably linked to the city in the sky.

Thinking she wanted to hear Gu Mian's thoughts, she turned her head and saw Gu Mian pulling the rope again, indicating that she was about to go down to carry out underground work again.

The fortune teller's mouth dropped open: "You're still going down?"

Gu Mian was already prepared beside the deep pit: "There are many more cave entrances below. I'll go and investigate whether there are any of these paper figures in the other cave entrances."

Before the fortune teller could even open her mouth to stop her, Gu Mian grabbed the rope and jumped down, disappearing from her sight.

The fortune teller squatted there, holding the paper head in her hand, unsure what to do with it. She was quite afraid that the thing in her hand might come back to life after Gu Mian left. After careful consideration, she placed the head on the edge of the pit, thinking that if the thing showed any signs of coming to life, she would kick it down and let it fight Gu Mian below.

Fortunately, this thing showed no signs of coming back to life, and remained quietly there for several hours until Gu Mian returned.

Gu Mian didn't bring any spoils with him this time. All the caves he explored after going down were empty; there were no paper figures or narrow passages dug out by hand.

"Although we didn't find anything this time, I discovered that there were signs of people living in other caves as well. I wonder if there were other paper figures inside."

"There are signs of habitation, but no other paper figures have been seen?" After learning about the situation from Gu Mian, the diviner looked thoughtfully at the paper figure head on the cliff edge. He was shocked to see that the head had been taken away and played with by the bored Xiao Qiao.

The fortune teller silently looked at Xiao Qiao for a few seconds, then turned back to continue discussing the situation with Gu Mian.

Gu Mian spent too much time exploring below, and by then the surrounding environment had darkened, and night was about to fall.

Guigu was very sensitive to the dark environment. He looked up at the dim sky and then turned to look at the other three people present.

Gu Mian and the fortune teller were squatting beside the severed head, discussing the situation in the underground cave, while Xiao Qiao was playing soccer. None of the three seemed to be leaving.

Guigu cleared his throat and suggested, "Why don't we go back and discuss the rest later?"

All three of them stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him. At this moment, Guigu realized that he had forgotten to mention Xiao Qiao, so he quickly added, "Take the ball back, and we'll play again when we get back."

The sky was already quite dark, and the huge upside-down city overhead blocked out the remaining light, making the area even darker than other places. Strange bird calls could be heard coming from the abandoned houses not far away, which made Guigu even more uneasy.

Gu Mian checked the time and found that it was already six o'clock in the evening.

Gu Mian didn't plan to work in the dark. This place was quite eerie, and it would be bad if some ghosts suddenly jumped out from somewhere and snatched the three people on the ground after he went down.

Just then, a ball rolled to his feet. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was the paper head that Xiao Qiao had been kicking around. Due to inertia, the head quickly passed Gu Mian and rolled towards the edge of the pit. Just as it was about to fall into the terrifying and dark abyss, Gu Mian swiftly scooped it up and stuffed it back into Xiao Qiao's arms as she rushed over.

Xiao Qiao happily took the ball from Gu Mian and started hitting it like a basketball. Unfortunately, the paper ball lacked elasticity and was ruined by the first hit. Half of its pale face was still stuck to the bamboo frame, while the other half was torn open and fluttered in the wind, like a white flag of surrender.

Xiao Qiao lost interest in the half-broken toy and kicked the paper doll head holding the white flag back to its home.

Gu Mian dusted off her clothes, stood up, and walked towards the hearse parked not far away: "It's getting late, let's pack up and go home."

The city's population has dwindled, and even though such a momentous event occurred here, few people came to watch. The only living beings nearby were the four of them, oh, and the head that Xiao Qiao had just kicked home.

By the time they had gathered the ropes and boarded the hearse, the sky was completely dark. Gu Mian drove, while the other three sat in the back. Gui Gu looked back at the upside-down city in the sky; as the hearse moved forward, the dark shadow in the sky receded further and further away from them, growing smaller and smaller.

The streets were eerily quiet except for the sound of wheels rolling over the ground. The deathly still city, the darkened sky, and the eerie hearse—it all fit the opening of a horror movie.

Guigu had already imagined the next scene in his mind: a ghostly figure would flash across the road ahead, the driver would brake, get out of the car to check and find nothing, then get back in the car and continue driving, only to find that the passenger in the back had turned into a ghost after a while.

Okay, from here on out it's Saw.

Guigu was lost in his own thoughts when the hearse braked and stopped. Only then did he realize that the car had returned to the apartment building.

The fortune teller, along with Xiao Qiao, naturally followed Gu Mian upstairs under the pretext of discussing the day's events, hoping to freeload. Gui Gu, after a moment's thought, also followed them upstairs. He wasn't there to freeload; he genuinely wanted to find out what was going on with the strange pit beneath the Upside-Down City.

"The cave entrances we saw were all on the rock walls of the abyss. Were those caves formed before the Upside-Down City ascended to the heavens, or did they already exist before?" the diviner asked earnestly while chewing on a meatball.

Everyone was starving after not eating all day, and Gu Mian was afraid that someone would faint from hunger if they continued to discuss things on an empty stomach, so she decided to have the summary taken place at the dining table.

Gu Mian pushed the fish ball and tofu soup in front of her toward Xiao Qiao. She seemed to really like the soup: "When I went down there, I observed that the entrances of those caves were like they were suddenly cut off in the middle. They were irregular and had no polishing. Each cave was about four or five meters deep."
“I suspect those caves existed before the Upside-Down City ascended to the heavens, and that they were longer than what we see now. However, when the Upside-Down City ascended, it took a large portion of those caves with it, and what we see underground are only a part of what remains.”

The fortune teller diligently took out paper and pen and began to draw seriously. After a while, she drew a very abstract shape and showed it to Gu Mian: "I understand what you mean. The layout of those underground caves should have been like this, right?"

Guigu also looked at the painting drawn by the diviner.

The fortune teller drew a shape that resembled a bicycle wheel, with a point as the center and countless lines radiating outwards like axles. He then drew a large circle around the center to block these outward-radiating axles, leaving only a small portion at the outermost edge outside the circle.

Seemingly worried that Guigu might not understand, the diviner explained: "This is an overhead view, an overhead view of the Upside-Down City before it went to heaven. These straight lines that radiate outwards represent the original length of the caves, and this large circle represents the Upside-Down City. Later, when this circle went to heaven, the straight lines inside the circle were taken up with it, leaving only these short lines outside the circle. These short lines are the caves we see today."

To be honest, it's a bit abstract, but you can understand it.

“This also explains why Gu Mian found traces of human habitation in all the caves, but only encountered the paper figures in one of them. It's because the paper figures in the other caves may have already ascended to heaven with the Upside-Down City near the center.” As she spoke, the diviner looked at Gui Gu, who already knew about Gui’s friend entering the Upside-Down City. “Did your friend tell you that he saw paper figures in the Upside-Down City?”

She guessed that since there were paper figures underground in the Upside-Down City of Lianhua City, there might be similar figures in other Upside-Down Cities.

Guigu shook his head: "The paper figures have too much of a supernatural aura. If he had mentioned them, I would never have forgotten. He definitely didn't mention to me that there were paper figures in the Upside-Down City."

It seems that to know what's going on in the Upside-Down City, I'll have to go up there myself, but there's a risk of not being able to come down...

The fortune teller rested his head on his hand: "I don't know what those paper figures are for, and they have red characters written on their heads. Another strange thing is that the cave you first entered, Gu Mian, had a narrow passage dug vertically upwards, but there aren't any in the other caves."

She didn't understand who dug that tunnel. Was it a paper figure? Could it be that the paper figure wanted to dig to the surface and escape?
But why is it only the paper figure in that cave that's digging out? Aren't the other paper figures just peacefully being good students underground without any thought of digging upwards?

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