Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 35 - 35 Reflection

”Eep!” Keke leapt into Xu Xinʼs arms with force, burying her fluffy head into his chest.

”Alright, alright, itʼs over now.” Xu Xin patted Kekeʼs head, also feeling a sense of relief after a close escape.

Recalling everything that had just happened, Xu Xin was still in a lingering fear. Even if he had made just one wrong step, he would now have already left this world.

The yellow little flowers on the ground began to wither rapidly, and soon, the sea of yellow flowers became a barren wasteland, not even weeds grew, truly barren.

Xu Xin sat on the ground, placing Keke on his lap, and put the shirt back on that he had wrapped around his face.

”As expected, was my mind still affected?” Calming his emotions, Xu Xin pondered over everything that had just transpired.

Previously, wrapping his face with the shirt did not seem to have any effect.

If his mind hadnʼt been affected, he would never have so recklessly entered this eerie sea of flowers, even if there was the gold treasure chest he had been searching for in the middle of it. Yet, he barely hesitated and entered this dangerous realm without much thought.

Upon reaching the treasure chest, if it were the usual him, he would definitely have put the gold chest into his backpack and swiftly moved away from the eerie flower sea, choosing another spot to open it, rather than naively attempting to unlock it on the spot.

The most obvious sign was naturally the fake treasure chest, he actually mistook a piece of broken stone for a treasure chest! This must have been a hallucination caused by inhaling too much floral fragrance.

He looked at Keke, who still had her head buried in his arms, and smiled. If it werenʼt for this little guy, he would have been doomed today. He took an orange from his backpack and placed it in Kekeʼs arms.

”Eep!” Keke immediately hugged the orange joyfully and began eating.

This little guy seemed unaffected by the floral scent, so Kekeʼs two puzzled cries made him suspicious. The first was when he mentioned the gold treasure chest, the second was when he took out the gold key.

Those two puzzled cries made Xu Xin realize that he and Keke were seeing different things, as Keke seemingly didnʼt see the gold treasure chest. So when he looked at the chest again, he began to scrutinize it closely.

Prior to coming here, Xu Xin had seen a bronze treasure chest and a silver treasure chest side by side in his tree house, with the patterns on the chests forming a beast-like body similar to a qilin, so he deduced that the gold chest should have the beastʼs head printed on it.

But the pattern on the fake gold chest was chaotic and disordered.

Although he couldnʼt be certain of the authenticity of the chestʼs patterns, he chose to err on the side of caution, so he directly picked up his stone spear and jabbed at the fake chest, surprisingly breaking the hallucination.

If he hadnʼt discovered the truth and really used the key to open the fake chest, perhaps the process of the stone shattering would have been hidden in the hallucination of opening the chest, and Xu Xin wouldnʼt have had time to escape, possibly not even realizing it before being swallowed whole by the Cannibal Flower.

In the events that followed, he did his utmost and ultimately saved his life.

The danger posed by the Cannibal Flower this time was far greater than previous beast hordes and vines, making Xu Xin deeply feel his own insignificance. If not for Kekeʼs assistance and a series of coincidences, he would truly have been unknowingly dragged step by step into Hellʼs abyss by this mind-affecting Cannibal Flower.

These bizarre creatures were terrifying, far more so than those wild beasts!

Thankfully, these things couldnʼt seem to operate within three kilometers around the tree house for long. The previous vines only attacked him twice before ceasing, and while the Cannibal Flower held on a bit longer, it still ended up as dried-up specimens.

After resting for a while to calm down, Xu Xin stood up, grabbed the stone spear he had thrown on the ground earlier, and began clearing away the dry and brittle remnants of the Cannibal Flower around him.

This flower was so strange, it must be the guardian monster of the gold treasure chest, perhaps the gold chest was hidden inside the Cannibal Flowerʼs body just like the bronze chest before.

However, after poking through all the remnants of the Cannibal Flower, Xu Xin still didnʼt find what he was looking for inside.

”Could it be that this time the treasure chest is not inside the monster?”

Clearing the remnants aside, the hole formed by the splitting rocks appeared before him.

The inside of the hole was pitch black. But this was not a problem for Xu Xin, as he had eaten the red berries, granting him night vision. No matter how dark the environment, it seemed like daytime to him.

The hole was wide enough for someone to pass through, but inside wasnʼt the golden treasure chest he imagined, rather, it was an underground cave with a height of just over two meters. From Xu Xinʼs angle, he couldnʼt see what was deeper in the cave.

The entrance broken open by the Cannibal Flower exposed the vertical ground below, it was evident the gigantic Cannibal Flower had emerged from a deeper level underground, possibly just passing by this underground cave.

”What kind of place is this, could the gold treasure chest be inside?” Xu Xin pondered.

”Eep!” Keke pulled on Xu Xinʼs clothes from within his arms and pointed at the cave with her paw, then used both paws to form a rectangle shape.

”You mean, the treasure chest is down there?”

”Eep!” Keke nodded, her big tail brushing against Xu Xinʼs arm.

”How do you know?” Xu Xin was still very curious about the magical nature of Keke.

”Eep?” Keke cocked her head.

Forget it, she couldnʼt explain anyway.

”But...” Xu Xin frowned.

The space below was too narrow, the width of the cave barely allowed a person to pass through. If a danger arises, like more vines or something, in such a small space, there would be no place to hide, leaving almost no chance of escape.

If the gold treasure chest was in this cave, Xu Xin was considering giving up.

He had already obtained the silver chest, so he wouldnʼt be eliminated at the end for sure.

”Eep!” Seeing Xu Xinʼs hesitation, Keke immediately leaped down from his arms, clutching his pant leg, trying to lead him down.

An idea struck Xu Xin, and he asked, ”Keke, is there no danger below?”

Keke nodded her little head.

With Kekeʼs affirmative response, Xu Xinʼs fear of the unknown cave below was greatly reduced.

He glanced at the cave entrance, thought for a moment, and decided to go down to find the gold treasure chest.

At least, so far, Kekeʼs perception of danger has been very accurate. Whether it was the first time with the bronze chest or this time with the Cannibal Flower, Keke had given a similar warning before the monster appeared, and there was no such alert before facing the harmless crocodile.

Currently, the likelihood of correctly predicting danger was one hundred percent.

Thus Xu Xin decided to trust her this time.

After all, after going through such dangerous situations, narrowly escaping death, yet returning empty-handed would make even Xu Xin feel unwilling.

But before that, Xu Xin needed to widen this opening a bit. If something happened, this small hole would be too difficult to climb out of.

Pulling out his blue-grade shovel from his backpack, Xu Xin got to work.

Within ten minutes, Xu Xin widened the straight-up hole into a sloped path that could be directly walked down.

”Perfect, in case something happens inside, I can run straight back up.” Xu Xin looked with satisfaction at his handiwork and put the shovel back into his backpack.