Foghorn (III)
It may be a bit polite to ask whether it is okay or not, but I understand Xu You's concerns, so I said seriously that it was okay and I would never be stubborn and cause trouble, so that he could put his mind at ease.
At this time, everyone took a breath and calmed down. The matter was urgent and could not be delayed. Xu You and Zhang Tianyi led the way and led us towards the small building.
The platform surface was covered with gravel and was very uncomfortable to walk on, with raised concrete slabs everywhere.
I followed closely, and finally had the chance to see more details of the collapse. I found that the cracks on the ground seemed to have a direction, and they all meandered towards the small building. The cracks on the ground had reached the wall of the small building, which was very scary.
Most importantly, if my memory serves me correctly, I remember that the stone square was underground, at the edge of the town. Why are these two people now leading us to the small building in the center of the town?
"We're not going the wrong way," Xu You said on Fang Ao's back, commanding Fang Ao to go faster, with a serious look on his face that was difficult to conceal, "The road we took before has collapsed. This is the only spare straight road left, so we need to take a detour."
As they were talking, the guys carrying equipment and luggage began distributing replacement raincoats, putting them on as they hurriedly walked.
I was also given one to cover my shirt which had a big hole in it. These raincoats were specially made of cowhide and were very flexible and heavy. They were also very bulky and had a heavy smell of dust. I didn't know where they were found.
As for Zhang Tianyi, my brother has had mysophobia since he was a child, and it seems that he has not been cured. When he lost a coat while crawling on the road, he always had another coat underneath, just like peeling an onion. At this time, he asked for a raincoat without changing his expression, and wrapped himself up more tightly, which made Zhang Jia glare at him several times.
This time there were no long men chasing us on the ground, and no plants blocking the way, so we quickly arrived at the small building.
Xu You's mood was obviously not right, and he just said, "Don't look at the murals after you go in, keep your heads down."
We pushed the door open and went in one by one. I was at the back and I saw through the shoulders of the other guys that there was a large, irregular hole under the metal banyan tree.
The breach was big enough for two or three people to enter at the same time. The edges were black, as if they had been corroded by some strong acid or alkali, but they were also covered with fine, dense, sawtooth-like rough edges.
It doesn't look like it was destroyed by human power.
I was shocked and looked down at the gap, which was pitch black. Fortunately, with the help of the flashlight, I only fell about three or four meters and then turned a corner.
There was no need to say anything more, everyone went down one by one, the forward tied the traction rope around his waist, and the ones behind followed holding the rope.
Because Zhang Tianyi had a bad reputation, he walked in front. When he passed by me, he patted my forehead.
As the other guys stared at me, I suddenly felt something was wrong. After pouring so much water on him and changing into a new raincoat, why did Zhang Tianyi still have a lingering smell of blood? But if I were to smell it, he had already walked quickly to the front, and it seemed that his steps were steady and there was nothing wrong.
I really don't have time to think about it right now, so I just followed along with a little worry.
When he jumped down the straight road, the guy who had followed Zhang Tianyi to the front suddenly cursed and repeated as if he had seen a ghost: "Damn it! Don't look at the murals! Don't look up when you climb!"
This shout was really unexpected, and the people following behind all listened and lowered their heads. Fortunately, the reminder was given in time, and it seemed that nothing happened. However, the atmosphere in the team was still infected by this tension and became much quieter.
At first I couldn’t understand what had happened, but as I crawled forward in the darkness, I almost felt a calf cramp.
It turns out that after turning the corner, the entire straight road actually slopes downward, just like a slide.
In order to prevent everyone from slipping and falling, the guys in the front moved extremely carefully.
But the entire straight road is actually transparent and smooth. When people try to maintain balance on it, the first thing they see is the bottomless darkness underground. Then, they see the scene vaguely reflected by the transparent straight road.
It is this reflected image that makes people feel cold all over.
There are murals everywhere underground.
From different angles, the gorgeous, almost creeping colors were broken or overlapped, all projected over, and could not be avoided no matter how you turned your eyes.
But unlike the murals in the small building, the colors of these murals that seemed to be scattered randomly underground were more eye-catching, and one glance would make people dizzy. Moreover, most of the murals were different human figures, smiling and bowing their heads, with particularly slender and kind eyebrows, which was really scary to look at from underground.
A guy in front of me paused, as if he noticed something, and endured it for a long time. Finally, his face turned pale, he lowered his head and whispered: "Advisor, you, you behind..."
Fang Ao, who was covering us, was a little confused. He asked what happened from behind me. He subconsciously looked around and the flashlight flashed across, suddenly illuminating a pale white object at his elbow.
Fang Ao was so frightened that he almost jumped up, but before he could yell or curse, Xu You, who was on his back, reached out and covered his hand.
I was also startled, but after calming myself down, I slowly moved the flashlight over and discovered that it was a mural very close to the straight road, with a protruding rock behind it.
But the mural was too small, and was pasted on the transparent outer wall of the straight road. It looked extremely ghostly in the darkness, as if it was floating in the air.
Fang Ao broke out in a sweat and angrily asked, "What are you doing here scaring people?"
The guy's face became even uglier. He actually grabbed my arm and said he wanted to change seats with me and asked me to leave first.
I have seen a lot of strange things, so I wasn't afraid at first, but after hearing what he said, I felt a chill in my back and asked hurriedly, "What's going on?"
He shook his head, pointed upwards, then pointed downwards, indicating that I should look carefully at the reflection.
I was stunned and told Fang Ao to stop talking and also asked the guy to relax and not to think too much, and to forget whatever he saw.
After both of them nodded in agreement, we all quickened our pace and continued to move forward with the group. After climbing for a while, I slowly and seemingly casually looked at the reflection of the pipe.
When I saw this, my heart skipped a beat.
At the same time, Xu You also sighed and whispered: "It's like a ghost wall, right? We are still following the people in front of us, but you see."
At the back, the small mural that had scared Fang Ao was still there, at the same distance and position.
I took a deep breath and thought to myself that it was no wonder that Xu You didn't let us look at the murals around us. If we were ignorant and fearless at this moment, we would probably just climb down aimlessly and never know when we would suddenly reach the destination.
But now that I realized I was going in circles, things became particularly strange.
The mural was also exquisitely drawn, and lifelike. I stared at it for a while. Because of the angle, the originally kind expression of the figure on the mural was distorted under the flashlight, and it seemed to be smiling, but not smiling, and it looked very sinister.
At the same time, a sense of familiarity came to me, and I thought, this is wrong, I must have seen this thing somewhere before. This is not a ghost wall, these murals are moving with us.
It’s just that this straight downward road is too long, so long that people would have the illusion that they can’t get out and that they are back to where they started.
"Never mind it, let's continue." I made up my mind and let it attack me as it pleased, so I asked the guy in front of me to tear off a strip of cloth and cover my eyes.
He shouted to the front: "Just keep going!"
Just like that, without stopping, we followed the team in front for about half an hour.
During this process, Zhang Tianyi, who was at the front, did not stop or slow down. Some people in the team, who were originally feeling uncomfortable with the surrounding environment, made some noises, but slowly they all concentrated to keep up with his speed and returned to silence.
After a long time, the team in front seemed to have discovered something and stopped crawling.
I heard a whistle in the distance, and a female voice shouted loudly for us to pay attention, and the echo suddenly lit up with flickering flames.
In an instant, lights came on one by one from all directions, and I saw the scene outside the straight road.
First of all, we are literally underground.
The roots of the metal banyan tree that had hit me so hard were right above us, as were the spherical rock masses, but they were all a little way above us.
At this time, the long figures who were either lying down or clinging on the road all looked down at the transparent straight road, slowly arched their bodies and prepared to crawl down.
But closer than the long man are the murals that look like fish scales, floating among the rocks, all facing towards us.
On the back of the mural, fluttering silk threads stretched out like mold, and then spurted out. Deep underground, these silk threads were almost hanging around the transparent straight road, everywhere. The murals moved silently through these silk threads, and gradually surrounded the straight road and approached us, and were finally blocked outside the straight road.
And at the end of the straight I saw no rotting wreck, nor any remnants of wood or iron.
The so-called cabin, if it could be called a cabin, was a huge swollen and pale thing sticking out from deeper underground.
It almost filled the entire underground, and the branches that branched out in the high temperature were no longer bare, nor were they silk cloth, but countless long black hair.
I saw the broker and Gao Liu standing on one of the branches, holding a powerful waterproof searchlight and wearing a mining lamp on their heads, and gestured to us. In the center of the banyan tree, there was a strange stone room.
But their body movements were a little strange, swaying vaguely as if they were floating in water.
I was stunned for a moment before I realized that there was indeed water outside the transparent straight path, water that was extremely transparent and almost as imperceptible as air.
Anyone who has been to an aquarium should have had a similar experience: when a person walks in an underwater tunnel, dolphins or small fish outside the tunnel will curiously circle around. The transparent glass allows both the person and the fish to clearly observe each other.
Now, I feel very close, but what is approaching and surrounding us is not some cute little schools of fish, but large areas of countless murals.
The smallest one is only the size of a palm, while the largest one is as wide as the entire wall of the small building, as if they are acting as spirits in their sixties.
A terrible thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
If a person puts his hand against the window through the glass, the mosquitoes will sense the person's body temperature and descend. Is it the same with the murals?
The next second, I heard Gao Liu's cold voice: "Lower your head!"
With a bang, several extremely small murals closest to us suddenly shook open and flipped over. The bright colors suddenly faded, revealing a bluish-black luster.
With another bang, the blue-black object hit the outside of the glass straight road, causing a shaking.
The broker had said that there seemed to be some kind of device that amplified the sound underground, and I had now experienced it myself. However, this time there was no one walking on the ground, so I could not detect footsteps. Instead, the impact under the water seemed to be transformed into huge ripples and sound waves spreading outward.
Tiny bubbles rolled up in the water, and above his head, the tall men began to roar.
After a while, one of the tall men suddenly let out a sharp cry and jumped down.
“Sizzle——”
In the seemingly transparent and harmless water, the long man twisted silently and melted away in an instant. Only the dark blue face survived and floated down, gradually hardening in the water and being coated with a layer of strange and bright colors.
The man's face turned inward and sank to the bottom of the water. His entire facial bones became almost flat, as if there was some kind of high pressure around it that was pressing it down little by little and then unfolding it.
Several tiny tentacles moved at the back and retracted.
The face became a small mural.
After a moment, it slowly crawled under the water and slowly looked at us again. Since it had no eyes, no ears, and no nose, it only had two long and thin gaps, like some kind of kind smile, stretching out towards us.
Then, the murals in the water that were as big as houses suddenly opened and hit the outer edge of the straight road.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
