# Chapter 2458: The Call
This "out of season" was not what Xu Huo had previously understood as a seasonal shift—for example, plants that normally bloom in summer could be made to flower in winter by changing their environment. What Granny Yi meant by "out of season" was that a portion of a certain type of plant would grow more slowly.
For instance, a certain light purple flower that should have bloomed at the end of October. Sometimes when Granny Yi went out, she would find that these plants, originally growing together, would show two different states—half already in bloom, half still in bud.
If it were within the same patch of flowers, some blooming and some not would be normal. But this situation where one side was uniformly a full step behind the other was very strange.
However, when Granny Yi went to look again the next day, the flowers had all bloomed, and she found no other traces nearby—not even footprints.
Granny Yi had encountered such strange sights several times. Later, she asked an outsider player who specialized in studying mutated plants. According to them, it might be caused by changes in the soil environment due to the growth of mutated plants. Just as surface plants have territory divisions, so do underground plants. Some plants have their main bodies underground. If two different plant roots happened to pass beneath that patch of flowers, the soil would be affected by the roots. Part of the area might lack nutrients or experience temperature changes, potentially causing some plants to bloom earlier or later.
After understanding this, Granny Yi stopped worrying about it, especially since it wasn't a major issue.
After learning this, Xu Huo left the village with the Painting Woman. He planned to go to the place Granny Yi had mentioned and take a look.
However, a long time had passed. Even if the plant growth anomaly was caused by changes in the instance, it would be difficult to find any clues after so long. But Xu Huo still wanted to go see—after all, aside from watching the instance players decrease one by one, there wasn't much else he could do.
The place was quite far from the village. The two walked for a while before using a Teleportation Item.
It was now the end of October. The small flowers Granny Yi had mentioned were in full bloom, and there was no sign of the situation she had described.
Xu Huo walked around the flower patch and tested it with several different instruments. The results showed no significant difference from other parts of the forest.
"What are you looking for?" the Painting Woman asked after following him for a while.
"Looking for differences." The disappearance of eight players at once was too abnormal. Aside from the possibility that a player far stronger than the others had appeared in the instance, the only other possibility was a problem with the instance space itself. It didn't have to be a small space like in the Fish Feast—special magnetic fields in the forest could interfere with players and cause them to lose their judgment.
But whether it was time, space, or Mental Power, Xu Huo had found no clues. Logically, an instance without the infiltration of these three powers should be easier. But clearly, that wasn't the case. He and the other players were like people trapped in fog—seemingly free, but actually in a cage. And the only one who could truly walk freely in this cage was the "Hidden Friend."
Why did it want to find friends? And where did it hide them?
The forever-unclear figures, the voices appearing in the fog, getting lost, people who disappeared and never reappeared, the late-blooming flowers... These scattered facts made up everything in the forest, and they were also the clues available to the players.
If Xu Huo hadn't experienced auditory hallucinations when he got lost near Zhongmu Village earlier, and if Chi Cai really hadn't called him at that time, and the voice he heard was more like Chi Cai's, then there was only one possibility—the call he heard wasn't from that moment.
The magnetic field in the forest was chaotic. It was hard to say whether events that happened here wouldn't be recorded. If they were recorded and then released under specific conditions, being seen or heard by people would create a different scene.
Chi Cai had indeed called him, but that had happened earlier on the way back to the village. When he was trapped, the surrounding space had already changed from before. It wasn't strange for sounds or figures to reappear, but the positions weren't completely restored.
Considering that the legend of the Hidden Friend had existed for so long, this phenomenon should only occur in this forest. It only formed into an instance after the game's power further deepened.
So whether it was players or locals, they could never find anyone—because what they saw and heard wasn't what existed at that moment.
Thinking this way could well explain why players couldn't perceive anything either.
However, there was one problem: the people who were targeted all heard voices they recognized and saw people they knew. If the figures and sounds existed in the past, then it shouldn't be able to accurately identify what form to take...
At this thought, Xu Huo's train of thought paused. Actually, the instance didn't need to accurately identify the corresponding identity. Because the players who came here had been here for a short time, the voices they heard were also from other players in the same instance—and ones they knew.
The locals had grown up in this forest. They could have interactions with anyone. But to establish a connection with the "Hidden Friend," the people calling them must be the ones they most wanted to see at that moment. The "Hidden Friend" was merely responding to them.
If these speculations were valid, then the boss of this instance wasn't in any state he had seen before. It might not even have a form.
Looking down at the ground beneath his feet, Xu Huo fell into thought. After a while, he had the Painting Woman turn back into a painting and stick it inside his coat. He then returned to the vicinity of Shangmu Village, waiting from daytime to night, and then into the deep night. Only when several players had closed their eyes to rest did he pull Bubble Bean and the other person into his Spiritual Realm.
He didn't need two people, so he only called Bubble Bean.
Bubble Bean was between sleep and wakefulness when he heard Xu Huo's voice. At first, he thought it really was Xu Huo calling him. But after three calls, he woke up completely. The Yin-Yang Master on the chair seemed to be dead asleep, showing no reaction.
In an instant, Bubble Bean's expression changed several times, finally settling into a gritted-teeth statement: "I fell for his trick!"
He turned to wake the Yin-Yang Master, but his outstretched hand passed straight through the other's body, as if he were transparent and had no substance...
Just as Bubble Bean was about to shout, the Yin-Yang Master opened his eyes for a moment, glanced at the position of Bubble Bean's bed, then turned over like nothing was wrong and continued sleeping.
"Damn it!" Bubble Bean cursed loudly and immediately took out a device to prevent Spiritual Interference. But the effect was minimal. He took out several more items, even wanting to destroy the wooden house to wake the others. However, his hands gradually couldn't even touch the items, and his voice seemed trapped in a glass bottle, audible only to himself.
"Who wins and who loses isn't decided yet!" He grabbed a sharp weapon and rushed toward the door. But instead of passing straight through the wall as he had assumed, he was knocked back. At that moment, something miraculous happened—his item somehow stabbed into his own chest!
Bubble Bean stared incredulously at the item that shouldn't have stabbed him under any circumstances, rolled his eyes back, and fell backward...