Chapter 568: The Cured Big Eye

Chapter 568 -565: The Cured Big Eye

“You’re saying its name is Big Eye?”

“Yes.”

Xi told Li Luo about Big Eye’s origins, explaining that he had already cured it and that it might now possess crucial information.

After finishing his explanation to Li Luo, Xi turned and gently stroked Big Eye’s head. “Big Eye,” he said softly, “can you tell me what happened here? And why did you end up like that?”

Hearing Xi’s question, Big Eye shrank back fearfully, seeming unwilling to recall what had happened.

“Where did Poke go?” Xi asked next.

Big Eye lowered its head, looking terrified.

Seeing Big Eye’s reaction, Xi knew he wouldn’t get an answer by asking directly, so he could only resort to proposing hypotheses.

“Did Poke abandon you?”

“Or did he leave you here and go deeper into the maze?”

“Or… did he run into danger?”

As he voiced the last guess, Xi saw Big Eye tremble noticeably.

“Poke is in danger? What kind of danger?”

“Wooo…” Big Eye answered cautiously with a soft cry.

“He was captured? Were you captured and brought here too?” Xi Chui pressed.

“Wooo… wooo…” Big Eye whimpered pitifully, peeking past Xi’s body at the black rabbit Li Luo was holding.

Xi turned around, looking from the black rabbit back to Big Eye.

He understood. Poke and Big Eye had both been captured and brought into the maze by those things made of black orbs. But the rabbits clearly weren’t capable of such a feat; besides, all they did was run.

Xi pondered for a moment, a guess forming in his mind. ‘Could it be those giants?’

“Was it the giants who captured you?” Xi immediately asked Big Eye.

Upon hearing the question, Big Eye instantly curled up, trembling uncontrollably.

“I knew it… It really was the giants.”

Xi turned his head and asked Li Luo for confirmation, “What did the signal from the beacon say?”

Li Luo paused for a moment, then answered, “It said a type of pollution may have appeared on the Hua Sheng Islands. It twists the personalities of healers, making them believe their patients can never be cured. They then keep the patients indefinitely, treating them until *they* decide the patient is healed…”

Hearing this, Xi questioned Big Eye again. “Who performed your ‘cure’? Was it another healer?”

“Wooo.”

“No? Was it the giants then?”

“Wooo.”

“Not them either? Then who was it?” Xi grew even more confused. ‘It wasn’t a healer, and it wasn’t one of those black orb agglomerates. Could there be something else?’

It seemed he wouldn’t get any more information from Big Eye in its current state. He’d have to wait until it calmed down a bit more before he could continue his questions.

“Big Eye, how about you come with me? I’ll take you to find your master,” Xi asked gently, softly stroking Big Eye’s head.

“Wooo.” Big Eye nuzzled Xi’s hand and huddled beside him.

Xi gave it a helpless pat and said apologetically to Li Luo, “I couldn’t get anything out of it…”

“It’s fine.” Li Luo glanced around. “If we go deeper, we might find other clues.”

“Alright.”

Seeing Big Eye still hiding fearfully behind him, Xi spoke to it gently. “Don’t be scared, Big Eye. Just stay right behind me. Stick close.”

Hearing this, Big Eye whimpered its agreement.

“Let’s keep moving.”

Li Luo led the way into a crevice, pulling along the rabbit that was frantically kicking its legs.

Big Eye, however, was still terrified of the rabbit and kept hiding behind Xi. It was clearly still deeply traumatized by the black orb agglomerates.

As he walked, Xi pondered the giants’ motives.

‘Did they capture Big Eye just for that strange ‘cure’?’

‘And why is this maze suffused with the power of medicine?’

‘Where have all the healers gone?’

Xi followed Li Luo through the maze of black walls. He felt there had to be a connection between all these things, but he couldn’t find a breakthrough.

Xi was still lost in thought when Li Luo suddenly stopped in front of a passageway.

“What’s wrong?” Xi asked, curious.

Li Luo said nothing, merely staring at the rabbit he was holding. The creature was still kicking its legs, lunging forward only to be pulled back by the rope made from Xiaozhi. Everything seemed normal.

And yet… “We’ve been here before,” Li Luo said with certainty.

“How do you know?” Xi asked, confused. He looked around; the identical black walls and crevices were everywhere. There was no way to tell if they had been here before.

Besides, he had been leaving markers along the way, but there were none here now.

“I left a stone at every fork in the path as a marker, but there isn’t one here. How can you be sure we’ve passed through?”

Li Luo shook his head and took an electronic screen out of his pocket.

“Look. Our route is overlapping.”

Xi leaned in for a closer look. A winding line was drawn on the screen. Though there was no map, Xi could still recognize parts of it as the path they had just taken.

However, the path now had several intersections, indicating they had been to the same places before.

And their current location was one of those intersections.

Xi was stunned. ‘I marked every fork, so why are there no markers here if we’re at a location we’ve already been to?’

“When did you notice this?” Xi asked in surprise.

“Not long after we entered the maze…” Li Luo explained. “I started recording our route as soon as we got in. I’ve been checking it periodically and noticed that we’re often passing through the same spots. Even though these places look completely different, they are indeed the same locations.”

“At first, I thought it was a device malfunction, so just now, I looked back.” Li Luo pointed at the passage ahead and said, “This place was a plaza a moment ago, a completely empty plaza. But when I turned back around, it had changed. It became this passage.”

“Follow me…”

Li Luo led Xi through the passage, past a crevice, and into a new plaza.

“There was no plaza here before,” Li Luo said, pointing at the path on his electronic screen.

“See? This is a perfectly straight line, which means we just walked through a passage…”

Li Luo turned to Xi, his expression grave. “We’ve already done a lot of backtracking and passed through many repeated locations, but we’ve just been going in circles in this one area.”

“The width of the paths hasn’t changed since we entered this area, which means we haven’t gone any deeper.”

Hearing Li Luo’s assessment, Xi froze. He had never imagined the scenery inside the maze could actually change. That meant the markers he’d been leaving were completely useless.

“What about this rabbit? Has it been leading us in circles? Is this a trap set by those black orb agglomerates, designed to make us get lost in the maze?” Xi asked, pointing at the rabbit in confusion.

Li Luo shook his head. “No, the path it’s taking is correct. That’s how we were able to find the maze’s entrance and get this deep. But…”

“Now, our speed can no longer keep up with the speed at which the maze is changing. We keep moving forward, but as soon as the maze shifts, what was once the correct path becomes a dead end. So the rabbit has to turn and head for a new correct path. But before we can even reach it, the maze changes again.”

“As a result, it’s just leading us in circles, constantly heading for the ‘correct’ path, but never able to reach it…”