Chapter 32 A Terrifying Night in the Rain
Gu Yin said helplessly, "My mom is very timid. When I was little, I slept with them. My mom was too scared to go to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night and had my dad accompany her. She has to go out at four o'clock tomorrow morning, and there is no one else in the house. I'm afraid she won't sleep all night and will try to cheer herself up."
001 found it both funny and heartbreaking: "She's afraid to go out, yet she still went to pick them?"
Gu Yin lowered her eyes: "This is life. The price is high. Two hundred catties a day only earns 400 yuan. Usually, two hundred catties only earns 100 yuan. If it were you, would you pick them? And nobody knows if the price will drop tomorrow. We should earn as much as we can. If it weren't for the children at home, my grandma and the others would definitely be working odd jobs at the construction site with my dad and the others."
001 remained silent. Although it had become much more human, it was still just a string of data. It couldn't truly empathize with many emotions, so it was best to keep quiet in such situations.
The teacher went overtime tonight. By the time she left the school, the young men from her village who usually went home at night were long gone. Gu Yin wasn't afraid. She had walked at night quite often in her past life, if not often. She took out the flashlight she had brought at noon, tied it to the front of the car, and, using the light, got on the car with her umbrella and headed home.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and the umbrellas could barely hold up. On the bumpy, muddy road, bicycles sped forward one after another.
At the very front, three bicycles were moving forward side by side.
"Didn't you say you weren't coming back tonight?! Why did you change your mind?!"
A boy wiped the rain off his face and continued walking quickly. Hearing the voices of others, he shouted, "That's right! I was just about to go get some late-night snacks, and then you changed your mind! Fine, you changed your mind, but then we got caught in this downpour! I almost broke my umbrella! My mom is definitely going to yell at me for being a spendthrift!"
Gu Shu burst into laughter upon hearing this: "Didn't your umbrella snag on someone's corn and break?! What does this have to do with the rain! My aunt is going to the market to sell vegetables at four o'clock tomorrow, and I have to go with her. What do you guys think? Are you coming with me tomorrow morning or sleeping until dawn to go?"
"It's not impossible for us to go together, but you have to treat us to noodles!"
Gu Shuyang said loudly, "No problem! A bowl of noodles and a big meat bun! Pretty good buddy, right?"
The two burst into laughter: "Enough, enough, definitely enough!"
Gu Shu was about to speak when a jumble of shouts came from behind him.
"What's going on? Why are the people behind us so excited in this heavy rain?" Gu Shu looked back in confusion, but the rain was too heavy and dense, and he couldn't see what was happening behind him at all! And they didn't have any flashlights!
The two people beside them also turned to look. A bolt of lightning, like a sharp sword, ripped through the sky. In an instant, the darkness was reflected even more menacingly, and something unknown in the depths seemed to be baring its fangs and claws like a monster.
Even though the lightning flashed by in an instant, the three of them saw the terror and despair on the faces of the people behind them. Those people lifted their buttocks off the seat, bent over, and sped forward like they were riding motorcycles!
"Something's happened behind us! Let's go! Don't look back! Ride like crazy!" One of the three boys, who was usually a bit of a troublemaker, tensed up at the sight and yelled at Gu Shu and the others. He then accelerated his bike to its limit, and neither the stones nor the puddles on the road could slow him down!
As he roared, Gu Shu snapped out of his daze, threw away his umbrella, and quickly followed. Even though they were far from the crossroads and had reached the riverbank, they could still hear the pitiful cries behind them.
As they approached the bridgehead, the man stopped, and Gu Shu stopped as well. Neither of them spoke until six or seven people caught up from behind.
Seeing their panicked and frightened expressions, Gu Shu hurriedly asked, "What just happened? Why were you shouting like that?!"
None of them uttered a sound; they all slumped to the ground, panting.
The boy who was with Gu Shu stepped forward and kicked one of them: "Damn it, say something! What happened in the back? Are there any others left behind?!"
They're all from the same village, and usually everyone goes home together. But these past two days it's been raining, and some people aren't going home at the last minute. There are also those three who originally said they weren't going home but have now changed their minds, so we have no idea if anyone is alone.
After being kicked, the man finally came to his senses. He choked out, "We don't know what happened. We had just turned at the three-way intersection when suddenly three people wearing raincoats and covering their faces ran out of the cornfield. They shone flashlights in our faces, blinding us. We were about to yell at them when we saw the three of them drag Li Li off the bus and stab him in the eye. We were all terrified. They didn't let him go; they stabbed him twice in the leg. We were so scared. We didn't dare go any closer. Those three were too terrifying. We... Waaah, we ran away... I'm sorry, waaah, I'm so sorry. We were too scared. Those three were too ruthless. They even had knives, waaah..."
The others also started crying. They were all young and underage, and their fights usually involved only physical contact; they had never seen anything like this before.
Gu Shu was stunned. Among this group of people, he was the kind of child that adults always talked about. Even though these people fought and didn't do well in school, he always played with them and treated them like brothers. When he encountered this, he suddenly felt cold. If he were the one who fell behind, would he also be abandoned and left to fend for himself?
The man who had just kicked them yelled angrily, "Damn it, there are seven of you! Plus the three of us! Ten people and you can't handle these three?! Have you lost your minds?! You're yelling like crazy, I thought there was a ghost chasing us! If you're still human, get up and turn around with me!"
Gu Shu didn't look at them anymore. Instead, she picked up her bicycle and prepared to go back with him to check. With such a commotion, those people couldn't possibly still be there. She didn't know whether Li Li was alive or dead.
"Don't go! Don't! I, I saw they have guns! Don't go! You'll die if you go!" a voice came from the crowd.
Gu Shu looked over and saw Li Dashan's son, Li Chenggong, whose face also looked very pale.
Upon hearing that such a thing existed, everyone fell silent again.
"Let's hurry back to the village! Call for the adults!" Gu Shu turned the bicycle around and rode quickly towards the village. The others who could still move followed.
The rain was so heavy that Gu Yin was parking her car and rolling up her trouser legs when she heard the pitiful screams coming from ahead.
"001! Where did that scream come from?!" Gu Yin immediately got up, hopped on her bike, and rode quickly forward.
001 Quick Identification: "The sound came from the cornfield in the direction of your village from the three-way intersection."
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