Chapter 37
After saying goodbye to Xiong Chentao, Fang Xiaozheng took another bus. The road was very congested and passed the scene of a chain reaction accident. Passengers stretched their heads to look, but saw that the sky was covered with thick dark clouds, which covered the entire sky, giving people a feeling of oppression as if the dark clouds were pressing down on the city and threatening to destroy it.
Fang Xiaozheng suddenly noticed that the pedestrians on the road were twisting into strange postures. She rubbed her eyes vigorously and opened them again.
Uh... maybe I'm opening my eyes the wrong way.
As she closed her eyes again to do the eye exercises, she heard the screams of the people around her, nearly bursting her eardrums. Fang Xiaozheng's heart pounded, her hair stood on end, as if being stared at by an invisible evil spirit, and her body went cold.
She opened her eyes and saw a mouth in front of her.
A mouth so large that neither nose nor eyes could be seen, with a small piece of leek stuck between its teeth, emitted a fishy odor that nearly made Fang Xiaozheng faint.
It's so close, there's no way to avoid it at this distance.
Fang Xiaozheng was so frightened that his body stiffened, his legs trembled like sieves, and he closed his eyes in despair, waiting for death to come.
However, it did not arrive as expected. She smelled a burnt odor and opened her eyes in fear, only to find that the tip of her tongue had been singed, and then a huge dark yellow blister had swelled up in her mouth, and she was screaming miserably.
At the same time, the object against her chest felt faintly hot. She reached out and took it out, discovering it was a talisman—one that Shen Huaixin had given her during their autumn outing, saying it had been blessed by the abbot.
However, the gold thread embroidered on it has faded and looks gray.
Seeing that Fang Xiaozheng was a tough nut to crack, the mouth turned its head and bit the fat on the side.
The bitten man screamed, blood spurting from his neck. The bus door opened, and everyone ran away, legs shaking, screaming, but the outside was also a hell.
The pedestrians who were fleeing in panic a second ago began to twist and turn in the blink of an eye. The streets under their feet turned upside down in the sky, forming a magical roller coaster track. The pedestrians fell like raindrops, splashing bright and dazzling blood.
Fang Xiaozheng rushed out of the car immediately, roughly estimating the distance home. If she ran at full speed, it would only take a few minutes. She clutched her schoolbag tightly, using it as a shield, and sprinted towards home with all her might.
She didn't know whether her mother had returned home yet, so she could only pray in her heart that nothing happened.
On the way, she met the owner of the hardware store near her home. His skin was metallic in color, and there was a crack on his chest. Through the crack, a red-hot furnace could be vaguely seen, devouring the hardware in the store, as if trying to refine it.
Fang Xiaozheng was so scared that he took a step back and tripped over a stone on the road, making some noise.
The boss raised his head, stared at her coldly, and licked the corner of his mouth.
Fang Xiaozheng's heart skipped a beat, thinking something was wrong. Without hesitation, she turned and ran. She heard the sound of bicycle wheels behind her, and she couldn't help but glance back.
The boss's legs had mutated into wheels and were speeding towards her.
Feet were no match for the wheels. Seeing the distance closing in, Fang Xiaozheng grabbed his schoolbag and swung it at the boss's head. With a lucky swipe, he hit his head with a "duang" sound, a sound similar to the sound of metal being struck hard, with a slight vibration echoing.
This move bought Fang Xiaozheng a few seconds. Seeing that his dilapidated old house was within sight, he seemed to see the dawn of hope.
Just run another 30... no, 20 meters and that'll be it...
The boss behind him recovered and swung his chest towards Fang Xiaozheng, creating a crack. A stainless steel chain flew out from the crack and wrapped around Fang Xiaozheng's calf.
Fang Xiaozheng fell heavily to the ground, struggling desperately to kick, but ultimately the chains that were wrapped around her calves could only be moved to her ankles. More and more chains were wrapped around her arms and waist, and she was finally unable to move and was dragged towards the grinning boss.
In despair, she looked towards home.
Just a little bit... She could rush home and lock the door... She didn't have time to check on her mother...
Fang Xiaozheng's heart was filled with resentment and fear, but his body was bound tighter and tighter, and his futile struggles were useless. The chains only made his bones press more cruelly, almost breaking them, and the shadow of death loomed over him.
"Mom...it hurts..."
She began to hallucinate, and through her blurred vision she saw a familiar hand. She knew it well; she knew the pigmented spots on the center and right sides of its back. She also remembered the roughness of its palm, the pain it had caused when it struck her, and the comfort it had given her when it had patted her back to lull her to sleep.
The hand passed by her and grabbed the boss's neck, veins popping out, and the boss's face flushed red. Fang Xiaozheng's body loosened and she fell to the ground. When she looked up, she saw two humanoid monsters fighting.
At this moment, she understood instantly and tears fell like rain.
Afraid of disturbing her mother, she covered her mouth and stifled her tears, watching through tearful eyes as her mother transformed into a monster and engaged the boss. She had always been a short, middle-aged woman, but now she towered over the boss. Coins were embedded in her arms, spreading to her palms, making the beatings seem even more painful. Every time she slapped the boss in the face, she could hear him scream, and her face was dented with pits that could perfectly fit the sides of coins.
"I told you not to bully my daughter! Beat her to death!"
"It's not big sister, don't hit me...we, we are the same..." The boss hesitated for a long time before saying the last word "kind", but still couldn't say it clearly.
As the fight continued, the two became more and more alienated, their minds became more and more chaotic, and the surrounding environment was also affected, as if there were two invisible whirlpools colliding, either one swallowing the other, or disappearing together.
Seeing the boss's chain attacking his mother from behind, Fang Xiaozheng didn't care about anything else and shouted anxiously: "Mom, be careful!"
Before he could finish his words, his nose started bleeding, his head started buzzing, and his body started to feel unwell. It wasn't the torture of being dragged along by his boss, but the invisible erosion of pollution from being near two pollution sources.
The smell of blood made the two of them attack Fang Xiaozheng at the same time. When the chain was about to reach Fang Xiaozheng's neck, Shen's mother stretched out her arm to block it. The chain broke into the flesh of her palm. The pain seemed to sober Shen's mother up a little. She looked at Fang Xiaozheng with a loving and sad look in her eyes.
"Xiao Zheng, run! I can't hold on for much longer!"
Fang Xiaozheng shook her head desperately, sobbing: "Mom, no... I don't want to..."
She knew what her mother meant when she said "I can't hold on for long". It wasn't that she couldn't beat the boss, but that her mind had begun to fade. By then, the two pollution sources would attack Fang Xiaozheng together, and she would surely die.
"Don't be silly, take care of yourself!"
Fang's mother was about to say something, but the boss interrupted her and threw her into the fray again, the sharp, tooth-grinding clink of metal against coins. While suppressing her rising cannibalistic instincts and distracted by protecting Fang Xiaozheng, Fang's mother fell into a disadvantageous position.
"Mother……"
Fang Xiaozheng knew very well that the longer he stayed, the more danger he would be in, but it was not easy to leave his mother, who depended on him for everything.
"Run!" Fang's mother shouted with all her strength without even turning her head.
Normally, this woman was extremely gentle and docile, and had been through a lifetime of hardship, being servile to her employer and softly speaking to her daughter. But she had never shouted with such a loud voice that it broke the windows and streetlights.
The sound waves overwhelmed Fang Xiaozheng's eardrums, and she lost her hearing for a moment. She gritted her teeth, knelt on the ground, and kowtowed three times to Fang's mother. She turned and ran away, not daring to look back.
Fang's mother breathed a sigh of relief as she heard Fang Xiaozheng's footsteps receding. Her daughter had recently become increasingly sensible and independent. She had learned from nowhere how to cook, make a fire with straw, and filter water from a mineral water bottle. She had friends who supported her, and the family had stockpiled food. At first, she had thought she was wasting their limited finances, but she hadn't realized it was a sign of a sense of urgency.
I think, without the care of her increasingly frail mother, my daughter can live well... I must...
Two lines of tears streamed down Fang's mother's cheeks, but soon disappeared. She didn't even remember why she was crying.
Fang Xiaozheng returned home, locked the door, and collapsed against it. She curled up inwards, her tears streaming down her face, filled with grief and confusion.
When she thought of her past impatience and silent disdain for her mother, intense regret hammered at her heart like a hardware store owner's hammer. If she had been more filial, more outstanding, more understanding of her mother...would she not have ended up like that?
Shen Huaixin waited for Shen Chumo for three days, and also curiously observed the pollution source that had initially formed. It was a small world of its own, but it was much simpler than reality and was filled with many illogical and chaotic rules.
In addition, this pollution source has lost her most core soul and seems to be an empty shell. The level of the pollution source should not be high and it can be easily destroyed from the outside.
Compared to the self-contained A-level and S-level pollution sources that Shen Huaixin saw in the book later, hers was too weak to be worth mentioning, but it also had a real impact on her.
Sometimes, she would suddenly feel inexplicably lost, as if everything had lost its meaning. Then, regaining consciousness, she discovered she was connected to the source of the pollution, as if she were right there, constructing this little world with her as the protagonist. All around her was black and white, silent, like the old silent films from the early 20th century, when cinema was first introduced.
She saw many familiar people and things. Day after day, they were framed in grids, making the sound of tapping on computer keyboards, mechanically doing repetitive and boring work, including herself.
So... boring. Even the construction of her own pollution source was so unremarkable, as if her passion had been drained away by work, and she was not as imaginative as others.
When Shen Huaixin once again fell into the pollution source and repeated the familiar work, the electronic sound of the system rang in his head.
[System: Host, the three-day deadline has expired. If you don't leave, you will be assimilated by the pollution source and become its power center, also known as the "core."]
Shen Huaixin had no reason to refuse, and was about to nod when he suddenly saw a familiar figure pushing the door open.
He kept his promise and came back.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
