Chapter 17

What's even more bizarre is that the snake man, whose stomach was cut open alive, did not get angry.

Its huge head was still close to Ji Dongzang affectionately.

An unusually long, forked tongue covered in clammy mucus.

He licked the buzz cut that had grown some hair since the winter storage very carefully, as if he was combing the hair of his cub.

Ji Dongzang's scalp tingled and he felt nauseous at the cold and slippery touch.

But at this moment she had no time to worry about her "hairstyle" problem.

The flashlight beam pierced through the sticky, gushing liquid and penetrated deep into the snake's belly.

Curled up inside was a human figure.

Judging from the clothes and body outline, it should be a woman!

However, her face has become blurred!

The whole face looked as if it had been plunged into a pool of strong acid, and the skin had taken on a horrible, half-dissolved waxy texture.

The boundaries of the facial features completely disappeared, leaving only rotten flesh.

The same was true of her body, her clothes were corroded and tattered.

The exposed skin is also highly ulcerated and dissolved.

In some places, you can even see the exposed, abnormally colored subcutaneous tissue that has been burned by digestive fluid.

Snake gastric juice is extremely corrosive and can even digest animal bones...

This common sense flashed through Ji Dongzang's mind.

This person... should have been swallowed not long ago?

Or...her body has been enhanced.

But it is this "tenacity".

Instead of turning her into scum, the snake was made extremely painful.

Qiu Lian didn't even frown as he quickly put on thick protective gloves.

Without hesitation, he reached into the smelly and filthy abdominal cavity, grabbed the woman's shoulders and exerted force suddenly.

She was forcibly pulled out of the slime and residue in the snake's belly.

Crash!!

Along with it was brought out a large amount of mucus, semi-digested filth and blood.

The smell was so strong that it almost burned the nasal mucosa, and Ji Dongzang's stomach was churning.

A strong feeling of vomiting suddenly rose to her throat, and she quickly covered her mouth and nose and stepped back repeatedly.

She gasped and turned her gaze to the inhuman-shaped "thing" that was dragged out by Qiu Lian.

Qiu Lian was squatting down, wearing gloves that were soaked in mucus and still dripping with filth, and stretched out two fingers.

I reached under the festering and blurred face, probably to the area of ​​the nostrils.

"Is this the person you want to save?"

Ji Dongzang looked at the sticky mass on the ground that was almost indistinguishable from a human form, and his voice was dry.

"Still...alive?" The answer seemed self-evident.

"Is it possible?" Qiu Lian frowned, his tone cold and without a trace of emotion.

She withdrew her fingers from sniffing, and her gloves were covered with yellow-green mucus and dissolved tissue fragments.

Ji Dongzang's eyes swept over the "thing" on the ground that emitted a strong stench.

He glanced at the human-snake next to him, whose abdomen had been cut open with a large hole, and from which a sticky liquid was slowly oozing out.

The edges of the huge wound turned outward, revealing the dark red texture inside.

She just felt nauseous: "Drag him out and find a place to bury him."

"Wait." Qiu Lian started rummaging through his backpack.

He took out a roll of thick sewing needles and tough fishing line!

"Let me sew up the wound first."

Her tone was as calm as if she was talking about sewing a piece of torn clothes, "Wait a minute."

Before Ji Dongzang could recover from his shock, Qiu Lian had already started to act skillfully.

She didn't even clean the blood and mucus around the wound, but just directly inserted the thick needle into the snake man's skin.

Pulling the fishing line hard.

Clumsily but efficiently, he closed the hideous gap as roughly as sewing a sack.

Ji Dongzang endured the discomfort and silently raised the flashlight.

The beam of light focused on Qiu Lian's flying fingers and the skin and flesh pulled by the needle and thread.

Her other hand tightly grasped the triangular thorn, and her eyes vigilantly glanced back and forth between the unusually quiet snake man and Qiu Lian.

She did not forget that the monster had just swallowed a person. Who knew if it would attack again because of the pain and eat them as snacks as well?

However, the snake man seemed to have really learned his lesson, or perhaps the pain of the caesarean section had relieved it and it fell into a strange kind of calm.

Its huge body stood quietly in the shadows.

Only the abdomen rises and falls slightly with breathing.

The huge head drooped, and its cloudy vertical pupils were in the dim light.

It moved slowly and silently back and forth between Qiu Lian, who was concentrating on stitching, and Ji Dongzang, who was on high alert.

There was no more violence in his eyes.

…

The rough stitching was finally completed.

Qiu Lian cut the fishing line and quickly packed up his things. Then he took out a pair of thick gloves from his backpack and tossed them to Ji Dongzang: "Put them on."

Neither of them spoke, each silently grasping one shoulder of the corpse. The body was unusually heavy, soft, slippery, and emitting a suffocating stench.

They were practically dragging the disgusting mass.

Walking through the woods, one step deep and one step shallow, looking for a suitable burial place.

Finally, we found a relatively open space with soft soil.

Ji Dongzang felt her arms numb and her stomach churning. She slid down and sat down against a thick tree trunk, almost exhausted.

He gasped for air, trying to dispel the lingering stench in his nostrils.

Qiu Lian silently pulled out a folding engineer shovel from the side pocket of his backpack.

With a "click", he threw it open and began to dig silently and powerfully in the hard and cold ground.

The sun had already sunk below the horizon, and the last ray of sunlight was swallowed up by the dense treetops.

The surroundings fell into a half-dark chaos.

Two flashlights were placed casually on the ground nearby, their beams shining obliquely on the wet fallen leaves and the newly turned earth.

It cut out large, thick, swaying shadows, making the woodland seem even more eerie.

Ji Dongzang wearily raised his head and leaned against the rough tree trunk, his eyes unconsciously sweeping over the dense branches and leaves above his head. At this moment——

She suddenly froze!

Above my head, a huge tree hole looked like a dark mouth.

At this moment, an extremely pale, slender arm covered with strange blue-gray markings was silently hanging down from the tree hole!

The arm waved lifelessly, its five long, thin fingers curled into claws.

The fingertips seemed to be pointing at Ji Dongzang's head.

With a creepy intention, as if to grab her hair and drag her up!

A vague, distorted voice rang in her ears or mind like a whisper:

“Come up…”

"……Come……"

At the same time, in the edge of Ji Dongzang's vision.

A little girl in a blood-red dress sat there quietly without anyone noticing.

She lowered her head, her long black hair covering her face, and her two thin, pale legs stretched out from under her skirt.

It was swinging mechanically from time to time.

The bright red color, under the dim flashlight, was as dazzling as a solidified blood clot.

In an instant, Ji Dongzang felt dizzy.

The scene before my eyes.

Qiu Lian digging a hole, the turned over soil, the beam of the flashlight, the arms hanging down above the head, and the girl in the red skirt swinging her legs beside him.

All the lines and light and shadows began to distort, overlap and melt.

She felt as if she were in an overturned, sticky kaleidoscope.

The world lost its gravity and direction.

All that was left was a sickening dizziness and a bone-chilling fear.

The voice calling "come up" in my ears also became more and more vague and distant...

The intense feeling of dizziness and disorientation made Ji Dongzang terrified.

She turned her head suddenly, trying to seek a sense of reality from Qiu Lian who was digging the soil behind her!

Dead silence.

Where is the "crackling" sound of digging?

Where is the figure of Qiu Lian bending over and working hard?

Qiu Lian, who was digging the soil hard just now, and all the noise she made.

It's like being erased by an eraser, disappearing without a trace!

She was left alone, abandoned in the middle of this semi-dark, spooky woodland!

Ji Dongzang felt empty in his heart, and a chill instantly spread throughout his limbs.

She hurriedly tried to stand up, but her body was like a rusty machine.

Stiff, weird, and completely out of control.

She staggered, barely steadied herself, and subconsciously lowered her head.

The howling wind blew through the woods.

In the dim light, she saw...

Your own heels!!

It's not like looking at the sole of the shoe from the back, but I can really see the back of my ankle and the upper part of the heel!

It was as if her head was forcibly twisted 180 degrees!

The extreme fright made her step back repeatedly!

Snap...

She fell heavily to her knees!

The cold earth sent a chill through my pants.

She looked in horror at the soles of her shoes that had fallen before her eyes.

What's even more terrifying is that she can hardly feel the existence of her legs!

The area below the knees seemed to be severed, leaving only numb emptiness.

panic……

She used her still-movable hands to frantically twist her head and neck.

Try to "screw" them back into place!

The bones made a "creaking" sound under the heavy weight, and the skin was scratched by the nails, leaving bloody marks.

Swish, swish, swish... swish, swish...

The familiar sound of scales rubbing against each other came from far away.

The human snake slid out from the shadows not far away in a strange way!

Wait...that's not right!

In Dong Zang's confused vision, the snake's movements were extremely distorted.

It...it was actually "crawling" with its head down and its tail facing up in an upside-down posture!

No! It's not a snake standing on its head!

In a flash, a flash of clarity flashed through Ji Dongzang's chaotic mind: it was her!

She was the one hanging in the air by something!

That’s why you can see your heels, and that’s why you can’t feel your legs!

That’s why the snake in front of us looks “upside down”!

This realization chilled her to the bone.

Just when she was almost overwhelmed by fear, the human snake had already slid closer.

There seemed to be a hint of...confusion in its huge vertical pupils?

It emitted a series of indistinct and meaningless hisses: @～($.??…!…8…|》…

At the same time, its thick and powerful tail cleverly wrapped around Ji Dongzang's waist.

Lowered her from the invisible sling.

My feet finally stepped firmly on the cold, hard ground.

A strong numbness and tingling sensation instantly rushed up from the soles of the feet to the calves.

It made her knees go weak.

With a plop, he fell to his knees again.

This time, she had a clear view of her knees facing the dirt.

A harsh, strange voice came from above, with obvious questions:

"Why...did you...hang yourself up?"

Ji Dongzang raised his head blankly and looked at the huge snake head drooping in the dim light.

His eyes were empty and dazed: "I don't know... I don't remember anything..."

In a trance, she felt as if a cold, invisible black shadow was clinging to her body.

With prying malice.

She subconsciously reached out to the side...