DPM Chapter 51-Foul Forest Part 3
Translated by Snowfall77
Approximately thirty meters. Then Ye Fan could finally get an inkling of what it was.
It moved invisible in the darkness. Ye Fan couldn’t see it with his eyes, and was unable to distinguish its direction. Yet using his hearing, smell, and echolocation, he could sense its form.
A human-like monster, with a long tail, sprouting long branches, together with vines twining about it.
Ye Fan didn’t know its countenance. And although he could detect it was similar to a man’s shape, that horrible thing was not a man……It was like a hybrid of a person and a tree.
Countless roots coiled and uncoiled underground, swallowing, possessing anything with life and flesh.
Not enough time to run away. The leeches, snakes, worms, ants, all were devoured, nourishing the monstrosity.
Now Ye Fan felt its twisted rhizomes coming towards himself.
In that split second, Ye Fan wanted to escape, abandon Luo Guo. The thought flashed by and Ye Fan rejected it. He threw himself back in the marsh toward Luo Guo. Wearing gloves, he couldn’t find the other end of the rope, so he took off his gloves, plunging his hands into the mud.
In the slurry, unknown insects painfully stabbed his skin, and slippery wet things latched onto him.
Searching, searching, searching everywhere. At last Ye Fan caught the other end of the rope.
Meanwhile, the monster and its roots came nearer and nearer. Ye Fan felt something snake around his feet. Using all his might, Ye Fan took a step, kicking it off as he dragged Luo Guo.
Luo Guo strenuously made another “hehe” sound, more indistinct syllables garbling out his mouth. It took Ye Fan a moment to recognize what Luo Guo was trying to say. “Don’t care about me, run for your life.”
Gritting his teeth, Ye Fan bellowed with rage and frustration. No one in the darkness could see his face’s expression or his movements, still……Bang! Suddenly a black thing flew out of the mud, smashing into Ye Fan’s body.
Ye Fan staggered at the blow, something seemingly pulling on Luo Guo. Putting Luo Guo on his back, Ye Fan felt as if something were missing, but didn’t have time to figure it out.
Because Ye Fan smelled the thick reek of blood in the air, along with the gases making his head spin.
Carrying Luo Guo, one foot deep, one foot shallow, Ye Fan frantically bolted, fleeing……
And the monster unhurriedly chased after.
When, at long last, Ye Fan ran out from the forest, the unsettled sun exposed its shining face.
Ye Fan turned his head, seeing for the first time, far in the depths of the trees, the monster. That which was unusually dangerous and had attacked Ye Fan.
A grotesque tree man……
Topped by an immense canopy, it had countless branches, and endless rattan climbing it.
Within the trunk was a human face, complete with a basic mockery of a human body, waist, hips, legs.
But the feet were twisted and intertwined, like the roots of a banyan tree. The black rhizomes jabbed into the marsh, the stinking mud whorling, as the monster gobbled up every living organism.
In the moment Ye Fan saw the freakish tree-man, it also saw Ye Fan.
A young man and a monster faced each other, their eyes meeting. All of a sudden, Ye Fan’s heart started pounding. He bowed his head, unexpectedly finding that a rattan had creeped around his foot.
Ye Fan seemed to hear the monster’s thoughts.
“Why? What did I do wrong?”
“Why am I like this?”
“Monster?! I am not a monster!”
“Why are you human too? I am……”
Ye Fan watched the tree-man’s mouth open, then snap shut. As if it’d been about to speak, but now couldn’t say anything at all.
Apparently, the rattan winding over Ye Fan’s foot had enabled Ye Fan to pick up the tree-man’s brain waves.
Moving slowly, the rattan pulled Ye Fan towards the monster.
A expressionless Ye Fan didn’t struggle, forgetting himself, beguiled by the tree-man’s intentions.
Grow, nourish……Grow, nourish……
Ye Fan was towed back into the mud, the marsh making strange sounds.
Two hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters……
Ye Fan was getting closer and closer to the tree-man……
A soft pfff, a sharp blade streaking through the air, and the rattan that had been gripping Ye Fan’s calf fell away.
The chopped rattan gushed a thick green juice, like blood.
Turning his head, Ye Fan saw that Wu Xingyun had returned to his side undetected.
Wu Xingyun reached out and took Ye Fan’s hand, saying shortly: “Run!”
They sprinted madly, racing more than five thousand meters before halting in a hopefully harmless meadow.
The sun had completely risen, bright sunlight shone down on the earth, making their surroundings clear.
Luo Guo was still on Ye Fan’s back, and Ye Fan hadn’t seen what shape his uncle was in. Ye Fan just knew that Luo Guo felt like a clay figurine.
When Ye Fan put down Luo Guo, finally looking at the older man, both Ye Fan and Wu Xingyun were stunned.
Luo Guo’s lower legs were gone, disappeared from the knees down. Either cut off or eaten off.
And at the rupture of his knees, numerous leeches were latched on.
Desperately sucking blood, their twisted bodies continuously swelling, ugly and disgusting.
Stretching out his hand, Ye Fan started frantically ripping the leeches off and stomping them to death.
Luo Guo stared wide, as Ye Fan wiped his face with water they’d saved from before entering the forest. It then that Ye Fan discovered that one of Luo Guo’s eyes had been eaten clean away by an ant-like transparent insect.
Another “hehe” from Lou Guo’s throat before he could eventually form the syllables: “Kill……Kill me……Please……”
Ye Fan had never imagined, when he’d risked his own life to rescue this person, that it would turn out this way.
Gazing at Luo Guo, Ye Fan abruptly ripped open the man’s clothes.
The clothing had lost its seal, and Luo Guo’s skin was covered with leeches.
Some were even burrowing into his flesh.
Ye Fan went to pull them off, but there were too many. It’d be impossible to get rid of them all.
Next he took his lighter, to try and burn them off. Yet the lighter wouldn’t ignite.
And in the crevices of Luo Guo’s flesh, there were small translucent beetles that had greedily drilled into the blood vessels, laying their eggs within.
The tiny things broke out of Luo Guo’s skin, their life cycle abnormally rapid, using Luo Guo’s body as sustenance.
“Kill……Kill me……Good boy……Help me……” Intermittent words incessantly croaked from Luo Guo’s mouth. Feeling his chest cavity unbearably constricting, Ye Fan couldn’t stop his loud howl.
“Ahhhhhh……” Ye Fan’s voice echoed back to him in the sunlit valley, the mournful sound of his heartache refusing to leave.
Wu Xingyun knelt beside Luo Guo, ceaselessly speaking comforting nonsense. The soldier was still trying pull off the leeches one by one, but was unable to get a firm grip.
Peering around, Wu Xingyun had no one else except Ye Fan. They were out in the wilderness.
Maybe if there were a Federation medical team, treating Luo Guo would be possible. Yet here and now, Luo Guo’s legs were oozing stumps, his torso was being frantically sucked dry, while countless insects devoured his flesh, undetectable obscene eggs coursing through his veins.
Wu Xingyun could only whisper reassuring words: “It’s all right, it’s going to be alright……Uncle Luo, you’re going to be alright……Hold on, we’ll find a way……”
Then Wu Xingyun was pushed away by someone, with a great strength that made the soldier stumble.
Wu Xingyun took two steps back to firm his stance, Ye Fan’s form filling his field of vision.
Covered in mud and blood, Ye Fan also had leeches on his hand, sucking away. Nonetheless, he didn’t seem to care.
He held a pistol, his grip completely steady.
There was no trembling. No more grief. His voice was cool and calm, his manner composed.
Slowly crouching down, Ye Fan said one sentence to Luo Guo: “Uncle Luo, rest assured that I will help you take care of Luo Ying in the future, and not let anyone bully her.”
Then Ye Fan pulled the trigger.
Bang. The bullet went between Luo Guo’s eyebrows into his brain.
Luo Guo no longer made any sound.
Extending his other hand, Ye Fan closed the older man’s empty eyes.
Four months ago, Ye Fan had never thought the world could change to this.
Three months ago, Ye Fan had never thought he would kill another.
Even two months ago, after he had killed someone, he had never thought that one day he would do the same to someone he considered family.
But now……He had done it all.
Slightly raising his eyes, Ye Fan could see the sunlight shining over everything. So why did he feel that he’d never experienced such a dark, endless night?
The author has Ye Fan using ‘the echoes of the vibrations’—so I chose to use echolocation–
Echolocation, a physiological process for locating distant or invisible objects (such as prey) by means of sound waves reflected back to the emitter (such as a bat) by the objects. Echolocation is used for orientation, obstacle avoidance, food procurement, and social interactions.
Echolocation is known to be employed by most bats (all members of the suborder Microchiroptera and one genus, Rousettus, of the Megachiroptera); most, if not all, toothed whales and porpoises (Odontoceti), but apparently no baleen whales; a few shrews; and two kinds of birds, the oilbird (Steatornis caripensis) of northern South America and certain cave swiftlets (Collocalia) of Southeast Asia.
Echolocation pulses consist of short bursts of sound at frequencies ranging from about 1,000 hertz in birds to at least 200,000 hertz in whales. Bats utilize frequencies from as low as 11,000 hertz (e.g., the European free-tailed bat [Tadarida teniotis]) to as high as 212,000 hertz (e.g., Percival’s trident bat [Cloeotis percivali]). The pulses are repeated at varying rates (often in a single individual, depending upon the situation), beginning at about one per second. The rate may reach several hundred per second (e.g., in a bat close to its target).
https://www.britannica.com/science/echolocation
Rattan (from the Malay rotan) is the name for roughly 600 species of old world climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae.[1] Rattan is also known as manila, or malacca, named after the ports of shipment Manila and Malacca City, and as manau (from the Malay rotan manau, the trade name for Calamus manan canes in Southeast Asia).[2] The climbing habit is associated with the characteristics of its flexible woody stem, derived typically from a secondary growth, makes rattan a liana rather than a true wood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattan
A banyan, also spelled “banian”,[1] is a fig that begins its life as an epiphyte,[2] i.e. a plant that grows on another plant, when its seed germinates in a crack or crevice of a host tree or edifice. “Banyan” often specifically denominates Ficus benghalensis (the “Indian banyan”), which is the national tree of India,[3] though the name has also been generalized to denominate all figs that share a common life cycle and used systematically in taxonomy to denominate the subgenus Urostigma.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan
DPM Chapter 51-Foul Forest Part 3
Translated by Snowfall77
Approximately thirty meters. Then Ye Fan could finally get an inkling of what it was.
It moved invisible in the darkness. Ye Fan couldn’t see it with his eyes, and was unable to distinguish its direction. Yet using his hearing, smell, and echolocation, he could sense its form.
A human-like monster, with a long tail, sprouting long branches, together with vines twining about it.
Ye Fan didn’t know its countenance. And although he could detect it was similar to a man’s shape, that horrible thing was not a man……It was like a hybrid of a person and a tree.
Countless roots coiled and uncoiled underground, swallowing, possessing anything with life and flesh.
Not enough time to run away. The leeches, snakes, worms, ants, all were devoured, nourishing the monstrosity.
Now Ye Fan felt its twisted rhizomes coming towards himself.
In that split second, Ye Fan wanted to escape, abandon Luo Guo. The thought flashed by and Ye Fan rejected it. He threw himself back in the marsh toward Luo Guo. Wearing gloves, he couldn’t find the other end of the rope, so he took off his gloves, plunging his hands into the mud.
In the slurry, unknown insects painfully stabbed his skin, and slippery wet things latched onto him.
Searching, searching, searching everywhere. At last Ye Fan caught the other end of the rope.
Meanwhile, the monster and its roots came nearer and nearer. Ye Fan felt something snake around his feet. Using all his might, Ye Fan took a step, kicking it off as he dragged Luo Guo.
Luo Guo strenuously made another “hehe” sound, more indistinct syllables garbling out his mouth. It took Ye Fan a moment to recognize what Luo Guo was trying to say. “Don’t care about me, run for your life.”
Gritting his teeth, Ye Fan bellowed with rage and frustration. No one in the darkness could see his face’s expression or his movements, still……Bang! Suddenly a black thing flew out of the mud, smashing into Ye Fan’s body.
Ye Fan staggered at the blow, something seemingly pulling on Luo Guo. Putting Luo Guo on his back, Ye Fan felt as if something were missing, but didn’t have time to figure it out.
Because Ye Fan smelled the thick reek of blood in the air, along with the gases making his head spin.
Carrying Luo Guo, one foot deep, one foot shallow, Ye Fan frantically bolted, fleeing……
And the monster unhurriedly chased after.
When, at long last, Ye Fan ran out from the forest, the unsettled sun exposed its shining face.
Ye Fan turned his head, seeing for the first time, far in the depths of the trees, the monster. That which was unusually dangerous and had attacked Ye Fan.
A grotesque tree man……
Topped by an immense canopy, it had countless branches, and endless rattan climbing it.
Within the trunk was a human face, complete with a basic mockery of a human body, waist, hips, legs.
But the feet were twisted and intertwined, like the roots of a banyan tree. The black rhizomes jabbed into the marsh, the stinking mud whorling, as the monster gobbled up every living organism.
In the moment Ye Fan saw the freakish tree-man, it also saw Ye Fan.
A young man and a monster faced each other, their eyes meeting. All of a sudden, Ye Fan’s heart started pounding. He bowed his head, unexpectedly finding that a rattan had creeped around his foot.
Ye Fan seemed to hear the monster’s thoughts.
“Why? What did I do wrong?”
“Why am I like this?”
“Monster?! I am not a monster!”
“Why are you human too? I am……”
Ye Fan watched the tree-man’s mouth open, then snap shut. As if it’d been about to speak, but now couldn’t say anything at all.
Apparently, the rattan winding over Ye Fan’s foot had enabled Ye Fan to pick up the tree-man’s brain waves.
Moving slowly, the rattan pulled Ye Fan towards the monster.
A expressionless Ye Fan didn’t struggle, forgetting himself, beguiled by the tree-man’s intentions.
Grow, nourish……Grow, nourish……
Ye Fan was towed back into the mud, the marsh making strange sounds.
Two hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters……
Ye Fan was getting closer and closer to the tree-man……
A soft pfff, a sharp blade streaking through the air, and the rattan that had been gripping Ye Fan’s calf fell away.
The chopped rattan gushed a thick green juice, like blood.
Turning his head, Ye Fan saw that Wu Xingyun had returned to his side undetected.
Wu Xingyun reached out and took Ye Fan’s hand, saying shortly: “Run!”
They sprinted madly, racing more than five thousand meters before halting in a hopefully harmless meadow.
The sun had completely risen, bright sunlight shone down on the earth, making their surroundings clear.
Luo Guo was still on Ye Fan’s back, and Ye Fan hadn’t seen what shape his uncle was in. Ye Fan just knew that Luo Guo felt like a clay figurine.
When Ye Fan put down Luo Guo, finally looking at the older man, both Ye Fan and Wu Xingyun were stunned.
Luo Guo’s lower legs were gone, disappeared from the knees down. Either cut off or eaten off.
And at the rupture of his knees, numerous leeches were latched on.
Desperately sucking blood, their twisted bodies continuously swelling, ugly and disgusting.
Stretching out his hand, Ye Fan started frantically ripping the leeches off and stomping them to death.
Luo Guo stared wide, as Ye Fan wiped his face with water they’d saved from before entering the forest. It then that Ye Fan discovered that one of Luo Guo’s eyes had been eaten clean away by an ant-like transparent insect.
Another “hehe” from Lou Guo’s throat before he could eventually form the syllables: “Kill……Kill me……Please……”
Ye Fan had never imagined, when he’d risked his own life to rescue this person, that it would turn out this way.
Gazing at Luo Guo, Ye Fan abruptly ripped open the man’s clothes.
The clothing had lost its seal, and Luo Guo’s skin was covered with leeches.
Some were even burrowing into his flesh.
Ye Fan went to pull them off, but there were too many. It’d be impossible to get rid of them all.
Next he took his lighter, to try and burn them off. Yet the lighter wouldn’t ignite.
And in the crevices of Luo Guo’s flesh, there were small translucent beetles that had greedily drilled into the blood vessels, laying their eggs within.
The tiny things broke out of Luo Guo’s skin, their life cycle abnormally rapid, using Luo Guo’s body as sustenance.
“Kill……Kill me……Good boy……Help me……” Intermittent words incessantly croaked from Luo Guo’s mouth. Feeling his chest cavity unbearably constricting, Ye Fan couldn’t stop his loud howl.
“Ahhhhhh……” Ye Fan’s voice echoed back to him in the sunlit valley, the mournful sound of his heartache refusing to leave.
Wu Xingyun knelt beside Luo Guo, ceaselessly speaking comforting nonsense. The soldier was still trying pull off the leeches one by one, but was unable to get a firm grip.
Peering around, Wu Xingyun had no one else except Ye Fan. They were out in the wilderness.
Maybe if there were a Federation medical team, treating Luo Guo would be possible. Yet here and now, Luo Guo’s legs were oozing stumps, his torso was being frantically sucked dry, while countless insects devoured his flesh, undetectable obscene eggs coursing through his veins.
Wu Xingyun could only whisper reassuring words: “It’s all right, it’s going to be alright……Uncle Luo, you’re going to be alright……Hold on, we’ll find a way……”
Then Wu Xingyun was pushed away by someone, with a great strength that made the soldier stumble.
Wu Xingyun took two steps back to firm his stance, Ye Fan’s form filling his field of vision.
Covered in mud and blood, Ye Fan also had leeches on his hand, sucking away. Nonetheless, he didn’t seem to care.
He held a pistol, his grip completely steady.
There was no trembling. No more grief. His voice was cool and calm, his manner composed.
Slowly crouching down, Ye Fan said one sentence to Luo Guo: “Uncle Luo, rest assured that I will help you take care of Luo Ying in the future, and not let anyone bully her.”
Then Ye Fan pulled the trigger.
Bang. The bullet went between Luo Guo’s eyebrows into his brain.
Luo Guo no longer made any sound.
Extending his other hand, Ye Fan closed the older man’s empty eyes.
Four months ago, Ye Fan had never thought the world could change to this.
Three months ago, Ye Fan had never thought he would kill another.
Even two months ago, after he had killed someone, he had never thought that one day he would do the same to someone he considered family.
But now……He had done it all.
Slightly raising his eyes, Ye Fan could see the sunlight shining over everything. So why did he feel that he’d never experienced such a dark, endless night?
The author has Ye Fan using ‘the echoes of the vibrations’—so I chose to use echolocation–
Echolocation, a physiological process for locating distant or invisible objects (such as prey) by means of sound waves reflected back to the emitter (such as a bat) by the objects. Echolocation is used for orientation, obstacle avoidance, food procurement, and social interactions.
Echolocation is known to be employed by most bats (all members of the suborder Microchiroptera and one genus, Rousettus, of the Megachiroptera); most, if not all, toothed whales and porpoises (Odontoceti), but apparently no baleen whales; a few shrews; and two kinds of birds, the oilbird (Steatornis caripensis) of northern South America and certain cave swiftlets (Collocalia) of Southeast Asia.
Echolocation pulses consist of short bursts of sound at frequencies ranging from about 1,000 hertz in birds to at least 200,000 hertz in whales. Bats utilize frequencies from as low as 11,000 hertz (e.g., the European free-tailed bat [Tadarida teniotis]) to as high as 212,000 hertz (e.g., Percival’s trident bat [Cloeotis percivali]). The pulses are repeated at varying rates (often in a single individual, depending upon the situation), beginning at about one per second. The rate may reach several hundred per second (e.g., in a bat close to its target).
https://www.britannica.com/science/echolocation
Rattan (from the Malay rotan) is the name for roughly 600 species of old world climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae.[1] Rattan is also known as manila, or malacca, named after the ports of shipment Manila and Malacca City, and as manau (from the Malay rotan manau, the trade name for Calamus manan canes in Southeast Asia).[2] The climbing habit is associated with the characteristics of its flexible woody stem, derived typically from a secondary growth, makes rattan a liana rather than a true wood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattan
A banyan, also spelled “banian”,[1] is a fig that begins its life as an epiphyte,[2] i.e. a plant that grows on another plant, when its seed germinates in a crack or crevice of a host tree or edifice. “Banyan” often specifically denominates Ficus benghalensis (the “Indian banyan”), which is the national tree of India,[3] though the name has also been generalized to denominate all figs that share a common life cycle and used systematically in taxonomy to denominate the subgenus Urostigma.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan
