"Why are they always so startled?" Shen Lan clicked his tongue and glanced outside. The thoughts that had just begun to emerge in his mind shrank back due to the clamor, making him feel slightly irritated.

"Want to go out and take a look?" Dennis was always the restless type, unable to sit still upon hearing a commotion. Of course, the main reason was that Shen Lan's sudden words just now had made his heart skip a beat, so he urgently needed something else to change the subject.

Laura fully agreed with his suggestion and led Allen out the door along the steps without a second word.

Shen Lan continued to ponder the fleeting thoughts in his mind and lazily replied, "Look at what? Listen to them speak bird language?" He showed no intention of moving at all.

Xia Chuan walked to the door and listened to the commotion outside for a few seconds, then blandly said, "Doesn't sound like trouble, more like an argument." He then walked back to the bedside, looking pensive, clearly not planning to join the excitement either.

The two of them, one leaning against the wall and the other pacing with arms crossed, slender white fingers tapping lightly on his arm, were obviously still immersed in the previous topic. They recalled everything related to Professor Linton, trying to find more convincing oddities among them.

Although they were not close before, after this journey of exile, neither the usually cold Xia Chuan nor Shen Lan, who rarely took people to heart, treated Professor Linton as an ordinary passerby anymore. No one hoped to truly find something suspicious about the professor.

As for Dennis, who had known Professor Linton for many years, their relationship could no longer be casually summarized as colleagues. Professor Linton was like a mentor and friend to him, almost no different from his own old man. If there was really a problem with the professor, Dennis would probably be the one who could accept it the least...

So he glanced at Xia Chuan and Shen Lan inside the room, then looked outside. After hesitating for a moment, he put his foot on the steps, paused for a while, then silently withdrew it. In the end, he sat back down on the bed and said, "I've spent the most time with the professor. He shouldn't have any issues."

He thought for a bit and added, "Professor Linton is old. He may not be as active as the young people on this journey, but he has also contributed. His previous leg injury made it inconvenient for him to move, which couldn't be helped, but as soon as his leg recovered a little, he didn't drag us down anymore. To be honest, he has caused less trouble for you all than I have, so... we're probably overthinking it, right?"

After saying that, he looked up at Xia Chuan and Shen Lan. Although his tone was not high and his words were not firm just now, and he didn't even use a definite sentence at the end, Xia Chuan could see from his eyes that he truly believed in Professor Linton and was unwilling to doubt him.

"Besides, the ship sank due to a sea tornado, which was an accident no matter what. The waters near Bermuda have always been unpredictable and mysterious. Encountering such an absurd situation in a place like this is not something the professor could control..." As Dennis spoke, his brows furrowed slightly, as if he couldn't be completely certain about this point either.

But the next second, his tone became firm again, "Most importantly, do you remember how we met the professor? If it weren't for Yaya sparing his life, the professor would have been dead long ago. How could there be anything strange about him?!"

Xia Chuan listened to his words but did not immediately refute. He just nodded and said "Hmm," but the fingers tapping on his arm did not stop.

Shen Lan, on the other hand, retorted impatiently, "I only said he's a bit strange, not that he wants to harm us, got it?"

"Oh, I see." Hearing this, Dennis felt relieved and no longer felt uneasy sitting in the room. He poked his head towards the door, just in time to hear a few passing residents chattering about something. Due to their agitated emotions, their speech was very fast, sounding even more strange and difficult to understand, like the language of birds.

So he decided not to go out and join the commotion, planning to stay in the room and wait for Laura to return. Compared to the three men, the more attentive Laura could at least understand most of it when she came back.

But soon, he began to regret this decision a little...

Xia Chuan paced unhurriedly from the bedside to the door, stopped for a long time, then walked back from the door to the circular pit with the wooden branches. His way of thinking was quite normal, and there was nothing for Dennis to complain about. But the other person was different. At first, Dennis thought he was in a daze, but he quickly discovered that his gaze was fixed on Xia Chuan, except that at that moment, Xia Chuan happened to stop and stand still for quite a while.

And as soon as Xia Chuan made a move, Shen Lan's gaze also slowly began to move, closely following Xia Chuan, slowly shifting from one end of the room to the other, and then slowly shifting back with him.

This man, accustomed to the wild, had his emotions written in his beautiful eyes, without any concealment, very straightforward. The light from outside penetrated through the two small square holes and shone into Shen Lan's eyes, becoming two extremely bright spots, like the core of a flame. If gazes had substance, there would probably be two holes burned into Xia Chuan's body by now.

Dennis looked at Shen Lan, then at the unhealed marks on Xia Chuan's neck. Suddenly, he felt that there was a bright line connecting these two people who were not standing together, forming their own world, while he himself was a huge light bulb standing on the periphery, his forehead glowing, not bald but resembling baldness.

"My brain must have been filled with seawater for me to choose to stay here and go blind..." Dennis thought to himself.

In order to preserve the beautiful golden hair on his forehead, after two seconds of silence, he said stiffly, "I... I'd better go out and take a look. Listening to the language of birds isn't bad either, cultivating the mind and nourishing the soul." With that, he hurriedly ran out, leaving the two people in the room to look at each other, feeling that this guy had probably eaten rat poison and had some endocrine disorders.

"It's good that he went out." Xia Chuan glanced at the doorway until Dennis's figure turned around an earthen house and could no longer be seen before speaking in a calm tone.

As he spoke, he withdrew his gaze, just in time to meet Shen Lan's eyes. His pacing steps also stopped, standing right in front of Shen Lan: "Have you thought of anything?"

Xia Chuan was already quite tall, but standing in front of Shen Lan, he was still half a head shorter, so he had to slightly raise his head when speaking. Shen Lan found his every move extremely pleasing to the eye. Even just raising his chin made Shen Lan want to kiss and touch him, the closer the better.

So he simply raised his hand and shamelessly hugged Xia Chuan's waist. A well-built man with broad shoulders and long legs had to stand in such an improper manner, hanging lazily on Xia Chuan's body, and said, "I just thought of a problem..."

Xia Chuan was caught off guard by his embrace. By the time he reacted and wanted to break free, it was already too late. He looked at Shen Lan expressionlessly and was met with an extremely innocent expression. Instantly losing his temper, he simply stopped struggling and let Shen Lan hang on him, saying, "What problem? Speak."

"Many." Shen Lan thought for a moment, seemingly unable to find a better way to express it, so he dryly said, "He knows a lot."

After saying that, he paused for a while, then added a few keywords in a deep voice, "Exit, route, words becoming reality, and also--"

"Also Yaya." Although the words Shen Lan blurted out sounded a bit incoherent, Xia Chuan understood clearly and thought of the same thing--

These were all things that had been associated with Professor Linton: Along the way, although they mainly relied on Dennis's oscilloscope for directions, whenever there were doubts or uncertainties about the route, it was always Professor Linton who would inadvertently add a sentence to help them confirm the direction, whether it was heading towards the wetlands earlier or hiding in the cave later, he had reminded them.

And when they initially didn't understand the strangeness of that world, it was also him who intentionally or unintentionally guided everyone to think in the direction of "their thoughts will influence the development of events."

As for Yaya... Looking back now, the situation Professor Linton described when he encountered Yaya was actually quite odd. It didn't seem like a narrow escape from the brink of death, but more like he knew the rule of "thoughts becoming reality" and took advantage of it at a critical moment between life and death, and sure enough, it worked.