"Boom!"
Along with the crowd comes a slight visual dislocation.
There was also a very light sound, violating the iron rule of silence in the night, not far from my ear, with no regular pattern:
“Boom.”
“Boom.”
There was a sound of something shaking and hitting an obstacle.
Because of the unspeakable tension, I subconsciously looked for a relatively mild and harmless metaphor for myself, so as not to describe everything too horrifically in my imagination:
It's like a person has just finished watching a long and silent VR movie in a cinema. Suddenly, when the movie is about to end, some people around him have stood up and left their seats. When they pass by this person's seat, they accidentally kick the empty Coke cup next to him.
For this person who is still immersed in the movie, he is still wearing a VR goggles and headphones, and what he sees and hears is still everything on the screen in the distance.
At this moment, the sound of the empty bottle being kicked was incomprehensible to him for a moment, and he would be startled.
People in the "Dongxue" world are like audience members who have been sitting in their seats since birth, wearing blindfolds and headphones all the time.
He will never know what the real movie theater next to him looks like; nor will he know whether any audience member has ever passed by his seat after watching a movie, or even accidentally touched his armrest or shoulder because of the narrow aisle.
Now I am the person sitting in that seat.
But something unexpected happened, and it seemed that something accidentally knocked my earphones crooked. So everything I saw was still on the screen, but my ears could hear some noise from the cinema in the long silence.
This noise certainly violates the story framework on the curtain, but for me, the confusion between silence and deadness becomes a cognitive contradiction.
I held my breath and got goose bumps on my forearms. I wondered what was going on. Had the caveman finally realized that he was tied up and started to sense the real cave?
But, please at least untie me first!
Even if moviegoers cannot see the scenery outside the VR glasses for the time being, they will not be afraid of a theater cleaner suddenly passing by and it doesn't matter how long they sit slumped in their seats.
But this is, after all, a beautified metaphor I use to comfort myself. The reality is that this cleaner who might pass by might split into eight petals and start biting people.
I still couldn't determine what that irregular, slight thumping sound was, but I couldn't help wondering that the thing wandering in the cave must not notice that I was "awake".
Then, more contradictory feelings emerged. I still felt the metal pipes and fleshy banyan tree carpets under my feet, but it was empty, as if I was suspended in the air without stepping on anything solid.
"...So stingy? Am I just imagining things? In fact, there aren't even any seats for watching the movie, and there are no standing tickets. Are we, the Dongxue people, just hanging in the air?"
I wondered to myself, was the crowded feeling I felt because we were all hung together in a Jenga game?
If this is the case, I'd better not show any reaction to these specific external stimuli, continue to be "ignorant", and act as if I am still immersed in the shadow world like a blind and deaf person.
However, I couldn’t help but wonder, since I could vaguely hear the sounds coming from the cave, why didn’t I hear any movement from Nian Ziqing?
Although this guy has been haunting me and makes me hate him, I am now suddenly left alone and his disappearance still makes me feel tremendous pressure and loneliness.
I thought that after he was "taken" away by the thing in the cave, I would hear his screams or struggles at some point, or even the sound of him being eaten and chewed by something. Although that kind of end is horrible, I am more or less mentally prepared for the worst.
But now, apart from the slight thumping sound, there was nothing. This unknown made me feel even more terrified.
I forced myself to cheer up, warning myself not to suffer the same fate, not to make subconscious evasive movements in the crowded situation, and to remember that we are in the underground rock and soil, in a narrow hollow pipe.
After deceiving myself like this, I slowly crawled out of the aerial roots of the banyan tree, trying to stay away from the source of the sound as calmly as possible.
Crawling on the fleshy carpet, the feeling that I was actually suspended in the air was still very strong, so strong that my body automatically tried to stop me from moving forward, and my hands and feet felt a little weak.
There are often glass plank roads in tourist attractions. Some people stand on the transparent glass and look down to see the abyss. Even if they know that the tempered glass under their feet is strong enough to bear weight, they still can't help but bend down and dare not walk forward, creating an illusion that they are walking in the clouds and are about to fall to their death on the cliff.
This is what I am experiencing now. It is very difficult to overcome my instincts. The subconscious urge to preserve myself is literally screaming in my head.
I gritted my teeth and asked myself coldly, of course there is a price to pay for waking up, otherwise do I have to live in a daze and be a mentally retarded shadow man?
Finally, he made up his mind and quickly crawled out.
The hollow pipes are intertwined with each other. My hope at this moment is that there is a gap somewhere in the hollow pipe for the banyan tree man to enter and exit freely, so that I can have a chance to meet up with other people.
I hadn't noticed it before, because I was led by a young man, but now I was alone and found that the root network of the metal banyan tree underground was very complicated. I tried to stay away from the underground and look for a fork in the road diagonally upwards. While searching for the way, I felt the surroundings slowly getting hotter.
But I'm not sure whether this heat is a precursor to the eruption of an active volcano underground, or an actual change in some heat source in the cave.
But that thudding sound kept swinging back and forth, not far away, and kept ringing in my ears from time to time.
The broker on the other end of the phone never called again.
I was worried and afraid that calling back would cause trouble. I still felt uncomfortable when I thought of the blue face in the video.
It was at this time, perhaps due to some change in the direction of the air flow, that I felt something move in front of my eyes, as if something solid passed by.
My scalp exploded and I told myself not to pay any attention to it. This was already a relatively spacious pipe with empty space all around. I just maintained my original speed and continued to climb forward.
At that moment, the wind blew again, causing the thing to turn and accidentally brush against the side of my face.
“Boom.”
I continued to climb, my palms and backs of my hands were covered in sweat, and I suddenly understood what it was.
That touch is the human body.
Could it be... that this was the missing Nian Ziqing? But he was very cold and stiff, as if he was dead.
“Boom.”
The irregular sounds were caused by the human bodies that were also suspended swaying slightly in the wind, and their rigid toes hitting the stone walls of the cave one after another.
It was his lowered hand that brushed my cheek just now.
It was covered in blood, as if the person had been desperately scratching something to try to break free, causing part of the nail to turn outward.
Now, it seems like a small piece of fallen nail is hanging sticky on my face.
I tried my best to forget this creepy feeling, but my instinctive interpretation of the details around me when I was in danger made me realize one more thing:
There's something wrong with the length of that nail.
A little longer than I remembered.
Then, I began to doubt my judgment, because the size of Nian Ziqing's hand seemed wrong. It seemed to have shrunk a little and become thinner.
I can understand and accept that no matter how fragmented he is in the shadow world of Dongxue, this hanging body that is the source of the projection is still intact.
But no matter what, Nian Ziqing's physical features are still very distinct, with a big head and a short body. Even if I were blind, I would not have mistaken him. One of his hands once pulled me on the bus alone. I was scared to death, and I remember it clearly.
Comparing the details, I had a strange feeling, thinking, could it be that he was not young? Otherwise, even if he was a transformed White Bone Demon, he would not reveal his true form with just one hand, right?
A very strange doubt came to my mind.
Two minutes later, I pretended to be looking for a way around in the pipe aimlessly, and sat down casually, seemingly trying to rest for a while out of exhaustion.
I closed my eyes, forced myself to relax, and waited with bated breath.
——I want to be hit by that corpse again, for comparison.
This action is indeed a bit dangerous, but I vaguely feel that this risk is necessary.
“…Boom.”
This time, after I adjusted my position, by "coincidence", I was almost hit by the corpse.
Countless horrible details and feelings came to my mind. I closed my eyes tightly, suspecting that my face had unconsciously turned pale and blue.
I resisted the urge to push the body away, and I clearly felt a hand, almost bent due to the height, resting on my shoulder, as if supporting me intimately.
In other words, the face of the corpse should be right above my head, perhaps drooping down weakly and looking down at me. If I stand up a little at this moment, I might touch the corpse's chin.
It seemed like... it was really another person. This person was more muscular and a little heavier, and I felt that the wrist bones of that hand seemed thinner.
Who could that be? Who was hung next to me? And judging from the signs of struggle, did this person wake up like me, try to save himself, and end up being attacked in some way?
As I was speculating, I realized that the man seemed to have suffered other injuries before his death. There was a faint smell of blood on the body, but almost no blood seeped out of the body or stained me, as if too much blood had been lost in the previous serious injury.
This man, who had been seriously injured, seemed to be more like a woman.
I was stunned. A thought that had never occurred to me suddenly hit me and made my heart turn cold.
……broker?
With this horrifying conclusion, my mind buzzed and all my worries were instantly forgotten. I reached out to catch the body and reached out to feel her breath.
Before I could reach out, the hand that was bent on my shoulder suddenly moved slightly, and then held me down firmly with its backhand.
Then, even more weakly, the cold body took a few slow breaths in extreme pain, and suddenly coughed up a mouthful of hot blood, which sprayed all over my head and face.
"Don't move."
Her fingers tapped silently on my shoulder, conveying these two words.
This seemed to have exhausted all her strength. Her head dropped and blood began to flow from her mouth and nose.
I didn't know where the hidden wound was. I just felt the blood flowing into my hair in anxiety, and then flowing down my neck and cheeks. Some of it flowed into my eyes, and more of it wet my collar, as if it wanted to drain away all the remaining blood.
Along with the blood, insect eggs stuck to my skin one by one.
I stayed where I was, my mind was blank. In the darkness, it seemed as if my vision was finally freed this time, leaving the world of shadows and briefly gazing into the cave.
I saw the broker's pale face and had no idea whether he was dead or alive.
The surroundings were also pitch black, but there was a very weak light source whose source was unknown. It was this weak light that allowed me to see that the broker's palms and forearms were covered with bloody wounds as thin as hairs. The wounds had healed and turned slightly white.
Also, there was a thing lying on the broker's back, with a blue human face poking out, staring straight at me. And I hadn't noticed it before.
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