Building infrastructure in a digital world

1. These footprints were all left by Awu. The sounds he heard at night were all hallucinations, or the movements he heard were not caused by fearful creatures.

2. The fearful creatures that followed Awu were the same as when they were on the farm. They put on the same shoes as Awu, and then moved around his house. In this way, only Awu's footprints would be left.

Obviously, the probability of the first possibility is very low.

Awu's mental state was normal and there was no possibility of hallucinations; and he himself said that the sounds he heard at home were the same as those he heard on the farm, so the two were most likely the same creatures.

……

"These footprints are wrong." Arriving at the door of A Wu's house, Su You saw at a glance that several footprints were in the wrong position.

Normal people walk one step at a time, but Su You found several messy and overlapping footprints, which looked like they were left by a delirious person spinning in circles.

"Awu, have you been drinking lately? Or have you been feeling unwell lately, such as dizziness?" Lake understood what Su You meant, so he immediately called someone over to ask.

Awu shook his head blankly: "I...I don't drink much. The last time I drank was a year ago...I have been in good health recently, and I have no discomfort."

Su You and Lai Ke looked at each other, and their thoughts turned out to be true.

"So these footprints near the window and the footprints in the corner of the farm were left by the same thing." And this thing is most likely a fearful creature.

So, what does a fear creature look like to fit into human shoes?

Secondly, how did it get Awu's shoes?

"Awu, where do you usually keep your shoes? Have they ever been lost?" Lake now understood the situation, so he called Awu over and continued to ask about the situation.

Awu seemed even more confused than them. After all, as the person involved, he didn't know more than them.

Regarding Lake's question, his answer is very positive: "I only have two pairs of uniform shoes in total. I usually wear one pair and put the other pair on the balcony to dry, and then put it in the shoe cabinet... I have never lost my shoes. I go to the balcony every day to get some air, and the shoe cabinet is right at the door. I still remember clearly whether I have lost my shoes."

"And..." Awu frowned and spoke with some uncertainty: "Although I don't know what woke me up when I was sleeping yesterday, but it shouldn't be able to enter my room, right? Since it can If it doesn’t come, then it shouldn’t be able to steal my shoes?”

Lake didn't know whether fearful creatures could enter the room. Like Awu, he didn't know what exactly left traces.

But Su You knew that she was 80% sure that fearful creatures would not be able to enter the house.

After all, the previous information has also mentioned that the sound made by the polar winter in its sleep is to attract humans to go out. If they can really come in, they can just rush in and kill humans without having to work hard to attract people. go out.

Since the fearful creature does not have the conditions to steal shoes, where did its shoes come from?
It can’t be that it has come with a pair of shoes since it was born, right?

And these shoes happen to be exactly the same as Awu’s?
"...Maybe it's not impossible." Su You seemed to have thought of something and muttered to herself, her voice was small. Lake vaguely heard the sound, but didn't hear it clearly. Seeing that Su You didn't say anything yet, he didn't ask.

"Lord, how are you going to handle this matter?" Lake knew that this matter could no longer be solved.

Even though he could guess from the lord's attitude that this unknown creature was malicious towards them, to put it simply, it would attack them.

But the enemy was hiding and they were showing up, they didn't know anything, and the enemy exposed too little information. The investigation had reached a bottleneck, and he didn't know how to continue.

Suyou signaled, and Lake sent Awu and the others away, leaving only the two of them.

"You may have a hard time today."

Lake knew as soon as he heard that she had made an arrangement, so he quickly said: "It's not hard, this is what I should do. Lord, what arrangements do you have?"

"It's not really an arrangement, it's the same as usual, just..."...

……

At night... to be precise, there is no distinction between day and night, because there is only night now.

Anyway, it was time to go to bed. Awu was lying on the bed, trying hard to fall asleep. However, because he had to cooperate with the investigation, Lord Lake asked for leave for him today. He seemed busy today, but he didn't do much. , so he wasn’t very tired, and he also understood from the conversation between Lord Lord and Lord Lake that he seemed to be being targeted, so he couldn’t sleep even more.

He first lay there with his eyes open for more than half an hour, no longer feeling sleepy. Then he thought about it and was afraid that something was staring at him outside, so he had to give up the idea of ​​getting out of bed.

"I heard that counting can hypnotize..." Awu tried hard to hypnotize himself, closed his eyes, and counted silently in his mind.

I don't know if it was due to psychological effects or other reasons, but he really fell asleep when he counted to four hundred and fifty-two.

There was a silvery moonlight shining through the window blocked by the curtain, and the whole room was silent inside and outside, except for Awu's shallow breathing.

One hour……

Two hours...

Three hours……

The time gradually came to one o'clock in the morning.

'Hiss——'

"..." Awu frowned unconsciously, and then habitually buried his head in his bed.

He didn't wake up at this time, but something still refused to let go of him. Seeing that he didn't respond, it was still harassing him persistently.

'Hoo hoo—'

'Swish, swish, swish——'

The types of sounds increased, the movements gradually became louder, and the familiar feeling came over again. Awu was still sleeping, but he felt that his sleep was not stable.

He dreamed that he was in the forest. The sky at this time was dark blue at night. There were no stars or moon in the sky. It was like a black curtain, covering the whole world, which was depressing and depressing.

'crunch—'

Awu was startled, and then lowered his head to find the movement of a branch under his feet.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but when he looked up, his breathing stopped instantly - he saw a human-shaped black shadow.

A dark shadow less than five meters away from me!

"Help..." For some reason, he clearly didn't know whether the other party was friend or foe, but he subconsciously wanted to call for help, but he stopped abruptly after saying just one word.

Not only that, Awu also found that his whole body was as heavy as lead.

He couldn't move his hands or feet, and his neck was as stiff as a cast.