Arrow Eye pointed at the tree, his expression blank, but the knuckles of the hand gripping his dagger were white: "I carved a mark on this tree."

Tie Dun was the first to lean in: "So you carved a mark, so what? It just means you've walked this path before."

"The problem is, I've never walked this path before."

Arrow Eye's voice was flat, but every word sounded like it was being squeezed through his teeth.

"This is our first time at this three-way junction, but the carving on this tree is one I made at least half an hour ago."

Hearing this, everyone's expression grew solemn as they gathered around. Lin Feng also stepped forward, preparing to use his Eye of Probability to investigate. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Suddenly, the tree opened its eyes.

It wasn't just patterns that looked like eyes; they truly opened. A pair of amber eyeballs protruded from the trunk, rolled around once, and then stared fixedly at everyone.

A monster health bar appeared: 【LV17 Tree Trunk Spirit】

The next second, it dropped its disguise and pulled its roots out of the ground. Instead of moving sluggishly, it bolted like a startled deer, roots scuttling as it fled!

It was incredibly fast, disappearing into the depths of the dense forest in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a series of "da-da-da" sounds from its roots hitting the ground and a few shaken-off leaves.

Everyone stood where they were, watching the tree vanish into the darkness.

Silence.

Tie Dun opened his mouth: "...It ran away?"

Feng Qingyan lowered her staff: "I haven't even set it on fire yet."

Tie Dun scratched his head: "Then why did it run? It must have been scared by you. Even I was scared by that look in your eyes just now."

Feng Qingyan's lip twitched slightly as she turned her face away: "...Nonsense."

Lin Feng withdrew his gaze; the Eye of Probability hadn't been needed. He turned to look at Jiang Zhaoyue.

"Lord Jiang, do the moving trees significantly affect your senses? Will they interfere with your judgment of direction?"

Jiang Zhaoyue closed her eyes to feel for a moment, then opened them and shook her head:

"It's not a big problem. I mainly rely on fixed reference points: rocks, the structure of junctions, and the slope of the ground.

The positions of the trees are just supplementary information. Whether they run or not doesn't affect my basic judgment of the terrain."

She paused and added, "But there is a minor impact; I'll need to spend some energy filtering it out."

Lin Feng nodded slightly, feeling a bit more at ease. He had planned everything out before coming; after exploring the first few floors, he still had to rush to Zhenyue City for official business.

Collecting that gold-grade accessory and discussing the aid for the Tieba Kingdom—it would be a real problem if they were trapped in this wretched forest for days.

He looked at his teammates around him and then "glanced" overhead. Although there was no sky underground, exhaustion was written all over everyone's faces.

"We've been exploring for so long; let's rest first," Lin Feng said.

"Great!" Tie Dun was the first to cheer.

Feng Qingyan also breathed a sigh of relief. She planted her staff on the ground and sat directly on a pile of fallen leaves.

Tie Dun crouched next to Su Yurou, watching her draw and sketch on a piece of paper with a charcoal pencil.

A dense array of lines and symbols covered a large area. He held it in for a while but finally couldn't resist.

"Miss Su, I have a question." Tie Dun scratched his head. "If the trees can run, then the map you're drawing... isn't it useless?"

Su Yurou didn't even look up: "No."

"Why not? The trees ran away, so hasn't the path changed?"

"The path hasn't changed." Su Yurou tapped a circle on the map with her charcoal pencil.

"Look, here is a large rock. Rocks don't run. Here is a junction; the ground at the junction is fixed.

Although the trees move, they aren't the terrain. I'm drawing the terrain.

Rocks, clearings, the directions and distances of junctions—wherever the trees run doesn't affect those."

Tie Dun thought about it and felt it seemed to make sense, but also didn't. "Then... what if a tree blocks the path?"

Su Yurou finally looked up and glanced at Tie Dun: "If it's blocked, we'll go around. The rocks and clearings marked on the map are still there; we won't lose our way just because a tree moved a few steps."

Tie Dun scratched his head: "Then what if we can't go around?"

"Where do you get all these 'what ifs'?" Arrow Eye added with his eyes closed, leaning against a tree.

Tie Dun glared at him: "I'm asking a serious question!"

"Let me summarize it for you," Arrow Eye said, still without opening his eyes. "You're worried about getting lost."

"No kidding, you're not worried?"

"We're already lost," Arrow Eye said calmly.

Tie Dun: "..."

Feng Qingyan burst out laughing.

After a long pause, Tie Dun muttered, "Can't you say something nice?"

"I'm stating facts," Arrow Eye replied without even lifting an eyelid.

Jiang Zhaoyue walked over, sat down next to Su Yurou, looked at the map, and nodded. "It's drawn very accurately. The position of this rock matches what I've sensed."

Su Yurou smiled: "That's good. At least we have one reference point that won't run away."

...

Everyone rested for about an hour.

Tie Dun dozed off against a rock for a while. When he woke up, he found a glowing snail crawling on his shield.

He froze for two seconds, carefully picked up the snail and placed it on the nearby fallen leaves, then stood up to stretch his muscles.

"Let's go." Lin Feng glanced at everyone and took the first step.

This time, Jiang Zhaoyue no longer used trees as supplementary markers.

Every time they reached a junction, she would first find a uniquely shaped rock or a distinct crack in the ground before updating the map in her mind.

Su Yurou followed behind. The map on the parchment grew denser, but the reference points were all non-moving objects.

The team traveled through the Fluff Forest. Tie Dun walked in front, shield held high, his eyes darting around.

He had been made paranoid by this forest, thinking everything was alive.

Every time he passed an exceptionally thick tree, he would stop to take a look, as if confirming whether the tree was peeking at him.

After walking for about twenty minutes, he suddenly stopped, staring at an unusually thick tree on the left.

That tree was a size larger than the surrounding Fluff Trees. The fluff on its trunk was denser, and the bark was a darker color, nearly dark green.

The more Tie Dun looked, the more he felt something was off. After hesitating for a moment, he walked over.

He reached out and patted the trunk; the touch was warm, unlike the coldness of ordinary bark.

"Are you alive?" Tie Dun asked. The tree didn't react.

"Move once for me?" The tree didn't react.

"I know you're alive, stop pretending." Still, the tree didn't react.

Feng Qingyan rolled her eyes from behind: "Brother Tie Dun, if you talk to a tree, is it going to answer you?"

Tie Dun refused to believe it. He leaned in closer, his nose almost touching the bark.

His gaze swept back and forth across the trunk, and he suddenly saw a thin slit in [N O V E L I G H T] a place where the fluff was sparse.

It wasn't a crack in the bark, but a slit that closed like an eyelid.

"I saw your eyelid! Stop pretending!"

As soon as he finished speaking, two slits opened on the trunk, and a pair of huge amber eyeballs protruded from beneath the bark, staring straight at Tie Dun.

The pupils constricted slightly in the darkness, like squeezed amber.

Tie Dun locked eyes with them for a second. "It blinked!!!" Tie Dun shrieked.

The Tree Trunk Spirit slapped him. Tie Dun, along with his shield, was sent flying, tracing a parabola in the air before crashing into a rock ten meters away.

He hit it with a "thud" and stuck there, then slowly slid down, slumping on the ground with his shield covering his face, completely dazed.

Feng Qingyan laughed so hard she couldn't stand straight.

Zhao Hu walked over expressionlessly, bent down, and pulled Tie Dun up from the ground.

Tie Dun stood up straight and took the shield off his face. There was a red mark on his face, and his lips trembled a few times before he finally managed to squeeze out: "It really blinked..."

Feng Qingyan laughed even louder. After the Tree Trunk Spirit finished its slap, it pulled up its roots and bolted before anyone could react.

Its speed was astonishing, and it disappeared into the depths of the dense forest in an instant, leaving only a series of "da-da-da" sounds from its roots hitting the ground.