28 028 (Collection + Nutrient Solution Plus)

◎"New Friends"◎

Qi Qiao was so frightened that she trembled all over. The sound seemed to be right next to her ear, as if someone was blowing into it.

She wanted to stand up and avoid it, but just when her center of balance was unstable and she was half squatting and half standing, she suddenly felt someone pushing her hard from the side.

The man was very strong and it happened so suddenly that she had no time to react. She was knocked to the side with a railing next to her.

The railing was very wide, and she was young and small at the time, so the railing could not stop her at all, and she fell directly through the gap in the railing.

Fortunately, it was not high and there was some cushioning underneath, so she did not die immediately.

She fell with blood all over her face and hands, and vaguely saw A running towards her from not far away.

She looked up at the place where she had been hiding, and there was no one there!

Qi Qiao's head was buzzing, his body was in severe pain, and the vicious words "Go to hell" were still ringing in his ears.

Seeing that she was injured, A said he would send her home, but A only sent her to the path leading to her home and left. Perhaps because of excessive blood loss, she fainted on the ground after taking a few steps.

"Later, my mom said that a friend who was playing in the yard saw me walking back with blood all over my face, so he ran to call my mom," Qi Qiao said with a hint of fear. "When my mom came out and saw what was happening, she almost fainted."

"I woke up in the town clinic, my head wrapped in gauze and my arms bandaged. My mom was watching me, her eyes swollen from crying. She asked me what happened. I told her I was playing hide-and-seek in the workshop and fell, and that A had brought me back."

Qi Qiao paused and lowered his voice: "I also said that I heard someone say 'Go to hell' in my ear."

"When my mother heard this, her face turned pale." Qi Qiao imitated his mother's fear at the time.

"She grabbed my hand, holding it tightly. Her voice was shaking as she spoke: 'Qiao Qiao, you heard me wrong. You must have fallen and got confused! You are never allowed to go to that damn place again. Do you hear me? If you dare to go there again, I will break your legs!'"

"That was the first and only time my mother spoke to me in such a harsh tone." Qi Qiao smiled bitterly, "Then I was locked up at home to recuperate and not allowed to go out for several days. When my injuries were almost healed and I could go out to play, I ran to ask the friends who were playing in the yard that day."

"I asked them, 'Did you see the little boy who brought me home that day? The one wearing old clothes and with a pale face?'"

The answer we got was that she walked back alone, covered in blood, her eyes staring straight ahead.

Naturally, she didn't believe it, so she went to ask her friend who was playing outside the yard. That person also said that he saw her walking back from the industrial park alone, and she seemed to be unable to hear when he called her name, as if she was sleepwalking.

Qi Qiao was stunned at the time, feeling a chill running from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. If his friends didn't see it, then he didn't know whether A was a human being.

"From that day on, I knew there was something wrong with A." Qi Qiao's voice tightened.

"Although there were some strange things happening at home from time to time over the next two years, such as hearing strange footsteps at night and things falling to the ground, they were never as serious as that time, and I never saw A again."

"Until I was nine years old..." Qi Qiao shook his body, as if trying to shake off the coldness in his body.

That day, she and her friends were playing in the open space outside the industrial area. After much discussion, they finally decided to play hide-and-seek.

That time it was Qi Qiao's turn to find someone, and she still counted to thirty. After she finished counting, she put down her hands and the surroundings were very quiet.

At first she thought it was normal, but soon, Qi Qiao felt something was wrong.

It's too quiet.

Not only were the human voices gone, but even the cicadas, insects, and the barking of dogs in the distance were all gone. Only her own breathing and heartbeat remained, and a sense of pressure descended upon her.

Qi Qiao didn't fully realize the danger at that time, she was just a little scared, and she started looking for someone.

She found several friends easily, only C was missing.

C is short and very agile. The other friends who were found felt bored and ran to the side to play with stones. Only Qi Qiao was still looking for C.

"I think she must be hiding in a tricky corner." Qi Qiao frowned. "I called her name while looking for her in the deeper and more dilapidated back of the house."

Running past a half-collapsed red brick house, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye, who flashed by and went into the row of low-rise houses behind.

Qi Qiao shouted and chased after him. She went around the bungalow, but saw C's figure flash around the corner of another house and then ran deeper into the house.

She was a little anxious, so she shouted again and quickened her pace, but when she ran to the corner, the figure disappeared again.

When she turned around again, C appeared at the door of the factory diagonally opposite. He looked back at her before running in.

Qi Qiao was really angry and a little tired from running.

She chased into the factory, but it was empty and dusty, with only a few rusty machines. Where was C?

Qi Qiao stood in the middle of the factory, panting, a chill running up his spine.

Something is wrong.

C can't run that fast!

The distance between those houses just now...it's impossible that every time she chased after them, she would only see a corner of the clothes.

And when C ran, he never responded to her, never laughed or made a fuss, he just ran silently, leading her deeper.

Qi Qiao's heart was beating wildly. She stopped chasing and looked around vigilantly.

After a few minutes, when she was about to give up, C came running towards her from a completely opposite place.

C ran out of breath. She pointed to the place where she was hiding and said that she had been waiting for Qi Qiao to find her and had not moved. She did hear Qi Qiao's voice, but she thought Qi Qiao was trying to trick her out.

Qi Qiao stared at the direction C pointed, then looked at the direction C ran from, and then looked at the dilapidated houses. At that moment, fear surrounded her.

She didn't dare tell anyone about the phantom she had just seen. She just felt that C in front of her seemed a little strange.

This incident left a huge shadow on Qi Qiao, but less than a year later, the C family moved away.

"Another year passed, and I was ten years old." Qi Qiao's voice became heavier. "It was still us playing together. C moved away and was not around, so we played house that day."

"I was assigned to find wild flowers and weeds to use as decorations." Qi Qiao curled his lips. "I'll go to the more desolate areas outside the industrial zone by myself. There are more flowers there. I know the way and I'm not afraid, so I'll pick them as I go."

As I walked, that familiar, suffocating feeling of silence came again without warning.

The chirping of insects and birds disappeared in an instant.

Qi Qiao stopped suddenly, her hair stood on end, and she looked around in horror.

Not far ahead, under an old crooked locust tree, stood a figure.

It’s C.

Qi Qiao's heart was in his throat.

Qi Qiao asked C why she was here. C said that her mother came back to visit her friends and she didn’t like listening to the adults chatting, so she came out to play by herself.

Seeing C speaking normally, Qi Qiao's tense nerves relaxed a little, so she invited C to play house together, but C said she had to talk to her mother first.

Qi Qiao looked at the direction where C disappeared, and the uneasy feeling in her heart came back. She had no intention of picking flowers, so she just picked a few and hurried back.

After returning to the place where her friends were playing, Qi Qiao told them about her encounter with C, and said that C had gone to say hello to her mother and would be over soon.

The little friends were all happy to hear this. They waited for a while and played house for three or four rounds, but C still didn't come.

They thought C hadn't come back for a long time and got lost, so they decided to go look for him.

At this time, Qi Qiao noticed that one of the little friends had a pale face, as if he wanted to say something, but he held it back. Qi Qiao thought at the time that he didn't want to go find anyone.

The children discussed and decided to go look for C separately, agreeing to return to the original place and gather together if they couldn't find C.

Qi Qiao looked in the direction C ran away, and unknowingly she walked into the depths of the factory, where the light was very dim.

In a corner full of discarded tires, Qi Qiao saw a figure with its back to her, wearing C's floral dress.

Qi Qiao ran over quickly and asked C why he was here and why he didn't come to play with them.

The figure didn't move or answer.

Qi Qiao's heart skipped a beat and she slowed down. She walked a few steps away from the figure, hesitated for a moment, and finally reached out and gently patted the other person's shoulder.

The figure turned around in an extremely stiff posture.

Qi Qiao's breathing stopped instantly.

That face was C's face, but only half was intact, the other half was highly decayed!

The dark red and black skin was rolled up, revealing the pale cheekbones, and there seemed to be tiny maggots wriggling in an empty eye socket.

On the intact half of the face, the eyes were wide open, but the pupils were gray and dilated, looking lifeless.

What's even more terrifying is the hand resting on the tire.

The sleeve had slipped down a bit, and the exposed arm skin was also mostly rotten, and the white bones could be vaguely seen.

"I kept screaming and turned around and ran. I had only one thought in my mind, which was to leave here quickly." Qi Qiao smiled bitterly, raised his water glass and took a sip.

However, she was running around in the dilapidated industrial park like a headless fly. She clearly remembered the way she came, but she couldn't run away. The scenes around her seemed to be repeating themselves.

"Look up."

"Look up."

"Look up."

That familiar voice sounded again, and for some unknown reason, in extreme fear, Qi Qiao actually raised his head.

She saw a sight she would never forget.

She saw a figure hanging high on the outer wall of the workshop where she fell from the building at the age of seven. It was the little boy A!

A's body was hanging there at an extremely twisted angle, his limbs seemed to be hanging limply, his head tilted to one side, and his face had no expression.

Those empty eyes seemed to be staring at Qi Qiao who was running below!

"Go to hell."

"Go to hell."

"Go to hell."

When this sentence sounded again, Qi Qiao completely collapsed and burst into a scream even more shrill than before. She rushed forward desperately, not knowing how long she ran until she bumped into someone's arms.

look up.

It was a familiar friend, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

They probably heard her scream and came here following the sound.

Her friends were frightened by her tearful face and extremely frightened look, and Qi Qiao spoke incoherently about what had just happened.

At this time, the boy who had turned pale when he heard that they were looking for C finally spoke.

"He told me that someone died in a nearby reservoir a few days ago. It was a family of three, C's family, and it was all reported on the news. He said he wanted to tell me when he suggested looking for C, but he didn't dare to. He was also worried that it might be fake, and that C might still be alive."

This news was like the last straw that broke the camel's back, completely crushing Qi Qiao. Her vision went dark, and she fainted again.

Aunt Liu sighed heavily and pushed the tissue box in front of Qi Qiao. Qi Qiao was already in tears and her body was still shaking slightly, as if she had experienced that hellish scene all over again.

Jiang Chuxu's expression didn't change. She asked, "What happened next?"

Qi Qiao wiped her tears and sobbed, "For the next ten years, it never let me go, and it came in different ways."

Her tone was full of fatigue and despair. Her mother had already moved away with her, but those things still haunted her.

"When I was twelve, I woke up in the middle of the night and found my open homework book covered with densely written words like 'Go to hell'. It was my handwriting, but I had no idea what it was."

"When I was fifteen, I was taking a shower one night. Halfway through, dense red words appeared on the mirror again. It was the same sentence: 'Go to hell.'"

"Last year, I moved and rented an apartment, thinking I'd get away from it. But then..." Qi Qiao shuddered. "I was sleeping, and suddenly I felt someone standing by my bed. They slowly crouched down, got really close to my ear, and kept saying, 'Go to hell!'"

"I was so scared that I couldn't move. My whole body was stiff. I don't know how long it took for the feeling to disappear." Qi Qiao's voice was shaking.

Aunt Liu looked at Jiang Chuxu with a serious look in her eyes. "I've taken her to many people and tried all kinds of methods, such as amulets, house-protecting spells, and rituals, but nothing worked. It's like that thing is welded to her fate. The longer it goes on, the more I feel like it's not just scaring her, it's 'nurturing' her, or waiting for something."

Jiang Chuxu was lost in thought, when suddenly she reached out and picked up Xiao Hei from her legs and placed him on her shoulders. She swept away the heavy yin energy on Qi Qiao's body, then stood up with decisive movements.

“Now take me to that industrial park.”

We have to go to Feng'en City. The incident happened there, and the solution must be there too.

Because Qi Qiao encountered a similar thing yesterday, Jiang Chuxu planned to go to Fengen City today.

…

It was already evening when the plane landed in Feng'en City, and the air was filled with the gray and mist unique to industrial cities.

Jiang Chuxu was carrying a simple backpack, and Xiao Hei was stuffed into the pet airline box by her. At this moment, he was glaring at her with dissatisfaction through the mesh, and his tail was wagging impatiently.

The three of them walked side by side. As soon as they arrived in Feng'en City, Qi Qiao became obviously anxious and kept looking around, as if to make sure whether he was safe.

Aunt Liu held her arm tightly and whispered soothingly.

Because Qi Qiao was not in a good condition, he became a little dazed when he mentioned the abandoned industrial park. Therefore, Jiang Chuxu and Aunt Liu discussed it and decided to go there tomorrow morning.

The three of them found a hotel that was relatively close to the airport. Qi Qiao was almost half-supported and half-carried into the room by Aunt Liu. He curled up into a ball as soon as he touched the bed, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes.

Aunt Liu poured her a cup of hot water and took out the calming incense she carried with her and lit it. A faint herbal scent filled the room.

Jiang Chuxu opened the airline box, and Xiao Hei came out with an unhappy "meow". It jumped onto the bed, walked around the bed, and finally jumped onto Jiang Chuxu's legs and coiled around them.

The room was very quiet, and under the effect of the calming incense, Qi Qiao fell asleep quickly.

Only then did Jiang Chuxu speak: "She must have something on her body. The closer she is to the source, the stronger the reaction. Tomorrow will probably be a tough battle."

It’s not that ghosts are difficult to deal with. After all, Jiang Chuxu has never encountered a ghost that she finds difficult to deal with from her original world to this world.

Otherwise, how could she have the leisure to listen to the ghost's explanation.

She felt that the ghost would not appear tomorrow and would be difficult to find.

This night was not peaceful. Qi Qiao in the next room occasionally let out suppressed sobs and mumbled in her sleep, vaguely shouting "Don't come over here" and "Go away."

Aunt Liu barely closed her eyes. Jiang Chuxu, on the other hand, leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, resting, while Xiao Hei lay asleep on a chair next to him.

As soon as the sky was getting light, Aunt Liu went to call Qi Qiao with dark circles under her eyes.

Qi Qiao's face was as pale as paper, with dark circles under his eyes, and he looked numb and unresponsive.

After a quick wash, the few of them had a quick bite downstairs in the hotel, but Qi Qiao hardly touched his chopsticks.

The driver was Aunt Liu. She drove towards the western suburbs according to her previous impression. The closer she got to her destination, the bumpier and more desolate the road became. The buildings on both sides were gradually replaced by weeds and abandoned factories.

There was no one living nearby now, only the house remained. Qi Qiao didn't dare to look around at all. Her body began to tremble slightly uncontrollably and her breathing became rapid.

After about two hours of bumpy ride, the car stopped at the edge of an open space that was almost covered with weeds.

Ahead is the abandoned industrial park.

The huge iron gate was open at an angle, revealing a series of dilapidated factory buildings. The dark windows looked like countless empty eyes. Wild grass grew taller than people, rustling in the morning breeze.

Jiang Chuxu was the first to push the door and get out of the car. She stood beside the car, looking calmly at the ruins.

The thin sunlight in the early morning seemed unable to penetrate the gray haze above the area. A thick and indissoluble layer of yin energy hovered heavily like a gray curtain covering the entire industrial park.

The yin energy carried a bone-chilling malice. Just by standing on the periphery, one could feel a chill crawling up the spine.

Aunt Liu helped Qi Qiao get out of the car. As soon as Qi Qiao got out of the car, his legs went weak and he had to rely on Aunt Liu for support.

She stared at the ruins, her eyes filled with deep fear, her lips trembling, but no sound came out.

"I'm going to do a live broadcast, do you mind?"

Aunt Liu shook her head, and Qi Qiao had no objection. Perhaps she would feel safer with more people around, and if she died today, at least there would be a record so her mother wouldn't worry.

Jiang Chuxu turned on the plug-in as soon as he started the live broadcast, so the audience saw the strong yin energy in the picture as soon as they rushed in.

[Oh my god, this gloomy energy... It's like a dark cloud pressing down on us with our naked eyes]

[I feel cold even through the screen]

This is a pure and evil place.

Qi Qiao offered to hold the phone. Her idea was that if they encountered a ghost, whether it was Jiang Chuxu or Aunt Liu, holding a phone might be a bit restrictive, so it would be best for her to hold it.

Xiao Hei on Jiang Chuxu's shoulder had already arched his back and was snoring threateningly from his throat.

Xiao Hei's pupils shrank into a slit, staring at the core area with the thickest yin energy, which was the huge chemical workshop where Qi Qiao first encountered danger.

"Let's go." Jiang Chuxu took the lead and walked towards the gate on the knee-high weeds.

Aunt Liu half dragged and half carried Qi Qiao as he followed closely behind. Qi Qiao was almost being carried along, his legs were weak and every step felt like he was stepping on cotton.

She clenched the phone in both hands, the camera pointed at the thick haze in front of her, her hands trembling slightly.

The further you go in, the more the light seems to be swallowed up by an invisible force. Although it is early morning outside, it feels like dusk has fallen early here.

Qi Qiao had already forced herself to stand up straight, but Aunt Liu was still standing beside her, her hand firmly on her arm.

The surroundings were eerily quiet, with only the crackling sound of weeds being trampled and Qi Qiao's nervous breathing.

[This light can be said to have instantly turned into night]

How scared I am here

This time I'm really scared

【When have you never been afraid】

Suddenly, Jiang Chuxu stopped.

"What's wrong?" Aunt Liu asked nervously, her voice sounding particularly loud in the dead silence.

Jiang Chuxu didn't look back, but his sharp eyes swept across the waist-high weeds in front of the workshop door.

"Something just passed by." She lowered her voice. "More than one."

Before he could finish his words, a loud "clang" sound suddenly came from a half-collapsed factory building on the right, as if a heavy iron barrel was kicked over.

Qi Qiao was so scared that the phone almost dropped from his hand. A short scream got stuck in his throat and he shrank back towards Aunt Liu.

Almost at the same second when the sound of the iron barrel was heard, two pale green lights suddenly lit up in the depths of the workshop in front of them without any warning. The faint light was floating in the air, like a ghost's eyes, staring straight in their direction.

Xiao Hei's anger instantly exploded, and he started breathing out at the two green lights.

Aunt Liu gasped and subconsciously pulled Qi Qiao behind her.

The camera on Qi Qiao's phone was shaking violently, and the two floating green ghost eyes were clearly visible in the live broadcast.

The barrage of comments instantly boiled over. After all, they had never seen such a scene in such a long time of live broadcast.

[What the hell is that, an eye?]

I almost threw my phone away

[Absolutely a bad omen]

[It feels more fierce than yesterday’s]

Jiang Chuxu's eyes were like knives, locking onto the two green lights.

The snoring in Xiao Hei's throat became louder and louder, with a tense feeling as if a storm was about to come.

"Look over there!" Aunt Liu suddenly said, pointing to the pile of discarded tires half a person's height in front of her right.

A highly decayed hand suddenly stretched out from the gap in the tire. It scratched at the air but soon disappeared.

Suddenly, the two green lights flickered and went out in an instant.

Almost at the same time as the green light went out, a burst of intermittent crying sounds rang out. It was unknown which direction it came from. It sounded like a woman's sobbing, or a child's suppressed whimpering.

[Oh my god, why are you crying again?]

[My scalp is really numb]

[I feel like there are things everywhere now]

Qi Qiao shuddered all over, and the camera on his phone frantically scanned left and right, trying to capture the source of the sound, but he only captured weeds and dilapidated walls.

"whee……"

The innocent yet extremely creepy laughter of a child followed closely behind the crying, as if it was in the grass not far behind them.

Qi Qiao turned his head suddenly, and the camera followed him. There was nothing but wild grass swaying in the wind.

On the second floor of another abandoned factory building on the left, a shaky broken window suddenly fell off, smashed into pieces on the ground, and glass shards flew everywhere.

Just then.

"Go to hell"

A childish yet malicious child's voice sounded in the ears of the three people at the same time!

【Author’s words】

[Dog head holding a rose]