15 Chapter 15
◎Man in the Box◎
The investigation bureau is always busy at night, and a group of people just returned from the scene.
Old Li walked out of the car with the captain on his back. When he turned around, he saw Bai Xuan sleeping against the car window holding the hedgehog.
A faint smile appeared on Hu Tu's pale face, and he gently waved to the others, "Take Xiaobai to sleep next door. There's no need to ask her to come to the meeting. She has no classes on May Day, and she must be tired following us in investigating the case. If anyone is free these two days, please help the child with his homework."
The girl was picked up. The hedgehog was so tired that it had difficulty sticking out its pointed nose. It tried to turn around and sniff around. As if to confirm that it was safe, it turned back into Bai Xuan's sleeve and fell asleep.
The conference room screen lit up, and frames of surveillance footage and retrieved archive screenshots flashed.
"The aura of the [hearse] appeared in many places tonight. Fortunately, all the victims found in the strange body have returned, and there have been no new casualties."
Before Old Li finished speaking, the conference room erupted in applause. "Captain is incredible! He almost stopped the fleeing hearse!"
"That's right! In order to escape, it threw out all the monsters it was going to swallow to buy time. A big nerf, we'll definitely catch it next time! When we intercepted it in Lin Province, the D-level [Decapitation] was being devoured by it, but luckily we managed to snatch some of the monsters. Our [Third Hand] and [Human Head Ball] are dead. After confirming the cost of using them, we'll go catch the [Hearse] together next time!"
"Seeing the [Hearse] with hair wrapped around it, I was terrified! It looked like the [Troublesome Hair] from the restricted area, with resurrection events happening all over the place, and I thought the [Hearse] had indigestion from eating too much. Hopefully, the two of them will torture each other until they turn into monsters."
There was a rare relaxed atmosphere in the meeting room.
Old Li waited for them to laugh twice before suppressing his voice. "Don't disturb the Captain. We've confirmed that the hearse is connected to the True Spirit Society. Road traffic will be massive on May Day. Those lunatics are likely using the hearse to cause mass deaths. Their target should be the road between our city and neighboring Lin Province. Be sure to coordinate with the transportation department. Lin Province's upcoming roundup plan also requires our cooperation."
"yes!"
The surveillance footage on the screen froze one frame at a time, and the information officer comparing the data finally stopped typing. "Captain, verification complete. Combined with the direction of the aura Bai Xian detected tonight, these are the surveillance areas affected by the strange aura. There may be something strange going on."
Captain Hu frowned, "We just monitored the affected area, including the University Town Food Street..."
Before she finished speaking, she suddenly remembered, "Is it because the [Life-Buying Money] outbreak last time hasn't been repaired yet?"
Old Li nodded. "The intersection over there is severely corroded by the strange aura. Repairs are slow and we're still rerouting. Xiaobai didn't sense any strange aura there tonight, so we've ruled it out. The purifying candle was actually quite useful last time."
Captain Hu spoke softly, his expression serious. "Everyone, just now, [Wooden Man] Fang Xian was rescued and out of danger. He briefly regained consciousness and passed on the news. Investigator Fang confirmed that the strange creatures that boarded the vehicle include [Beauty's Head], [Man in the Box], [Human Head Ball]... The whereabouts of five other strange creatures remain unknown. We cannot rule out the possibility that they escaped before being swallowed by the [Hearse]. Next, we will focus on investigating the above areas. Meeting adjourned."
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Xiao Kui, holding his empty stomach, stood in front of the Xile Restaurant with a sign saying "Closed for the Holidays" and a sad face.
"Boss Ye, why aren't you open today?"
I ruthlessly rejected Boss Ye’s sales pitch yesterday, but I won’t be left without food today, right?
But he'd tried Chinese medicine for weight loss, but he didn't know if it was the wrong ratio or if the medicine wasn't strong enough, but after a few doses, he gained weight. Boss Ye's cooking was solid, so why bother with all those fancy gimmicks?
"The students in University Town are all out having fun on May Day, so there's not much business. I came out to check on the cars. I'll get it for you when you finish the sauce, but you still have to control your eating habits to lose weight."
Ye Pingan chatted for a few minutes before hanging up. He patted the car door and shook his head, "Boss, your cars aren't in great shape. I heard you're a big business, so I came to your dealership from across Jiang City specifically to look at cars. But newer ones cost over ten thousand, and these are so shabby, the locks are all gone. You didn't pick them up right there, did you?"
The car dealership owner threw up his hands. "Look at what you're saying. Battery thefts were all over the streets just a few years ago. There's nothing you can do. If you want to buy something under 3,000 or 4,000 yuan, the only ones you'll find are cars that are a decade or so old. You might still be able to find one on a used platform, but our service is great, and we're in a remote location, so we have enough cars for you to choose from. And look, I also drive a Wuling. It's got great performance, so it's a good deal for a little extra money."
The loud speaker at the highway toll station not far away had a strong penetrating voice. "During the holiday peak passenger flow period, please drive safely, slow down at the exit, and give way to pedestrians..."
The dealership owner covered his ears. "The new speakers are awful loud, and they say they've even added surveillance cameras. If you'd come a couple of days ago, you could have driven around the area to test drive the car. A lot of customers buy it after trying it out because they find it so worn out."
Ye Pingan turned around twice and still shook his head, "Let me look at something else."
"Hey, hey, hey, don't go. I just heard you say, little boss, your family runs a restaurant, right?"
The car dealer caught up and stuffed a bottle of Coke into Ye Ping'an's mouth. "If you don't want to buy a car, we can still talk about other business! Truck drivers consume a lot of money, so they all like to buy from me."
Ye Ping'an took a quick look and saw that the date on the drink bottle was less than a month away from expiration.
The dealership owner winked. "80 cents a bottle. Big quantity discounts, but it's not very fresh. We just unloaded the goods yesterday, so there aren't many left. Take a look?"
Ye Pingan chuckled knowingly, "It's okay if it's not fresh, it's not expired. We call this reasonable cost control. Let's go."
The warehouse was right next to the car dealership. The owner of the car dealership walked in and called out, "Hey, Xiao Liu—damn it, has this lazy guy gone to sleep again?"
The dealership owner forced a smile and pointed to the stacks of beverage crates. "These are all stacked, sold in batches of one. Boss Ye, take a look first. I'll go in and find you a cart so you can carry them."
"He couldn't even sit still at the warehouse. Where did he go?" The car dealership owner called but no one answered. With a sullen face, he walked through rows of beverage crates, but couldn't find his missing employee. "Did he just quit without a word? He shouldn't have asked a relative's child to work here."
The temperature in the shady warehouse is relatively low, and it is very quiet deep inside the warehouse, so quiet that it seems like there is only one person in the entire warehouse.
As he neared the back of the warehouse, the car dealer faintly heard his phone vibrate. He looked around and, through the light from the skylight overhead, finally spotted a figure in the corner, separated by a gap between two stacks of storage shelves.
The car dealership owner was furious, "Xiao Liu? Are you deaf? Didn't I hear you?"
Xiao Liu was wearing a car mechanic's uniform, sitting in front of a cardboard box with his back to the corridor. He looked down at something, concentrating on his work without even turning his head.
"What are you hiding in the innermost part and watching so intently?"
The car dealership owner was looking furious. He strode around the shelves and turned the corner, but the person in front of him disappeared.
"Strange, I didn't hear any footsteps slipping away."
The remaining cardboard box, nearly a meter long, looked like an oversized box from a centralized transport. Halfway open, it still had faint markings of red sealing tape on it. The characters for "投" and "箱" appeared to be etched at the beginning and end, and the inside was vaguely visible as empty.
It is darker in color than other cardboard boxes, and is grayish, as if it had been soaked in water and then dried again. You can feel a cool breeze when you stand in front of it.
"You only ran away when you heard I was coming. It's too late! Forget about your wages for today."
The dealer rolled his eyes. "I don't know where the cart got stuck. I wasn't paying attention when unloading, and the cartons that were supposed to be sent to the scrap yard slipped over here..."
He grumbled as he bent down to pick up the cardboard box. The box felt strangely cool and soft, not as rough as ordinary paper.
In the half-open dark gap, there was a faint sphere refracting light, like..."
What does it look like?
The dark opening of the trunk suddenly grew wider, and it was as if someone inside pulled him hard, and the car dealership owner fell in head-heavy.
What’s going on?!
The car dealership owner shouted in horror, but his voice seemed to be covered by a thick barrier and even he could not hear it clearly.
The oversized cardboard box seemed to have become a bottomless pit, and he kept sinking. He felt like he was stuffed into a narrow coffin, his limbs squeezed together, curled up and unable to move.
The sky above my head gradually narrowed and the light became dimmer and dimmer.
The car dealer saw the mobile phone in the corner of the shelf through the increasingly smaller gap.
Xiao Liu's new phone was obviously dropped and hit the corner. Half of the screen was broken, and there were several missed calls.
The surroundings became even more crowded, making it almost impossible for the car dealer to breathe.
He heard chewing sounds, and the walls of the box became soft and cold, as if he was in the stomach of some creature.
His consciousness gradually became blurred, and in a trance, he saw a stiff body behind him, squeezing the limited space.
He finally remembered what the thing he saw in the gap of the box looked like.
It was a wide-open eye.
No wonder Xiao Liu is not here.
It turned out that Xiao Liu was also swallowed into the cardboard box.
After swallowing the car dealership owner, the inside of the cardboard box made a gurgling sound, as if it had swallowed saliva.
It shook, and the closed cardboard lid opened again.
The empty box was still half-open deep in the warehouse, waiting for the next prey to fall into the trap.
Rows of beverage boxes and shelves separated the inside and outside of the warehouse. Ye Ping'an checked several types of beverages as he walked, picked out the ones in good condition and noted their locations.
The money I'd earned in the past few days, plus the compensation I'd collected, had barely scraped together a little over three thousand. Buying a car would take up the bulk of my money, so I had to be very frugal in my business.
Ye Ping'an wanted to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, not to be unscrupulous and rip people off. The food had to be fresh and not damage the brand, and the only thing he could save was the finished beverages.
I picked out the drinks, but the car dealership owner still hadn't come out.
"Boss Liu! If you can't find the car, forget it. I can take it myself!"
Ye Ping'an shouted twice, but no one responded.
"Are you busy teaching your employees a lesson?"
Unable to get through on the phone, Ye Ping'an really didn't want to give up such a cheap drink, so he followed the direction he had just heard and went in to look for someone.
The footsteps got closer and closer, and the opening of a cardboard box deep in the warehouse opened wider, casting a blurry, short and fat figure on the wall.
In the corner, dark shadows appeared more and more, like the reflections of an open cardboard box.
"So you're here, Boss Liu." Ye Ping'an quickened his pace and walked across the dark ground.
As she walked past, the sunlight from the skylight shone in again, and the shadows continued to disperse.
A faint and rapid swallowing sound came from the cardboard box, and the shadow surged rapidly, crawled back under the cardboard box and disappeared.
Ye Ping'an turned around the shelf and saw only a large cardboard box on the ground.
The cardboard box was tightly closed, with words printed around it on red tape, as if it was goods that had been sealed and packed and were just waiting to be shipped. It did not look out of place when placed among the other shelves.
Ye Pingan looked around and said, "Where are the people? Sit down and wait. If I leave, who will be responsible if the things are lost?"
The shelves are all dusty, only the cartons are clean.
Ye Ping'an dusted the surface of the box, and when he touched it, his expression became a little strange.
The cardboard box looked big and sturdy, but it was probably damp, so it collapsed when pressed and trembled slightly.
I don't know if it's made of special kraft paper, but the surface is very tough and no rotten paper scraps fall out when it collapses.
The carton was just closed, not sealed. It was dark inside, and through the slit in the middle, I couldn't see what was inside.
"...Could it be that I crushed a living thing? Never mind, let's open it and take a look."
As soon as he opened it, Ye Ping'an saw two people huddled together.
The car dealership owner and a thin young man were squeezed together, their hands on their legs and their heads against each other, almost compressed into a square.
Their faces were pale, their eyes were wide open and bloodshot, staring outside the box, as if they were unable to close their eyes after death.
"It's broad daylight... no wonder I hid as soon as I arrived."
Ye Ping'an held the lid of the carton, smiling delicately, "Sorry to bother you. How about we pay the bill and then continue?"
It was impossible not to see it with her clothes closed. She was still waiting to pay the bill and return to the store with her drinks!
Before the car dealership owner completely lost consciousness, the darkness in front of him suddenly opened up and the voice of a young woman floated from above.
He stretched his neck as if he had grabbed a piece of driftwood, moving towards the direction of the sound.
The cardboard lid remained stuck in Ye Ping'an's hand, motionless. Silent wails boiled in the shadows. The gray shadows on the cardboard surface twisted into gaping mouths, long, dirty threads of blood oozing from their slits. Sharp teeth sprouted and bit everywhere, then vanished as quickly as ice melted as soon as they touched her palm.
There was a faint gurgling sound of a stomach sac rumbling deep inside the box, and the cardboard box never closed again.
"Why does the cardboard box feel bumpy... Boss Liu, why don't you come out?" Ye Ping'an pulled the cardboard box open a little further.
Sizzle——
There was a crack on the edge of the lid.
Plop!
The car dealership owner struggled to stick half of his body out of the cardboard box, causing it to fall over and Xiao Liu, who was trapped underneath, rolled out with it.
Boss Liu couldn't even stand up, and he rolled and crawled away from the cardboard box, "Help! Help! There's a ghost!"
【Author’s words】
It should start from Chapter 16 tomorrow. Thank you to all the lovely readers who follow the updates. Hugs and kisses!
The quality of the pit is guaranteed, V will be updated every day, keep 6,000 and strive for 10,000 per dayqwq
Pre-collection: "I Revived the Chinese Gods by Selling Blind Boxes", or "Raising Shanhaijing Cubs in Interstellar Live Broadcasting", the copy is below, the column has multiple completed and pre-collected books, there is always one that suits you, my dear friends, please click on the collection before leaving~
I Revive Chinese Gods by Selling Blind Boxes
Good news: Ye Mingtao has taken over as the new Little God of Wealth. Bad news: The previous world is wrong. This world has a historical fault line, lacks faith, and her power is weakened. There are alien beasts and cosmic enemies outside who are eyeing her covetously.
...No big problem! Ye Mingtao put out a treasure bowl and started selling blind boxes of gods:
O desperate man, what are you willing to give in exchange for a chance of survival?
Wealth, luck, knowledge... as long as you have it, as long as you want it.
——The God of Wealth has no taboos and allows everything.
-
At first, when people heard that someone was selling blind boxes of gods, which were said to have the opportunity to gain magical powers, everyone laughed at it and said it was a daydream.
until……
A strange beast from the star sea rushed into the residential area, and the Monkey King appeared out of nowhere and killed it with one blow.
After asking, I found out that the life-saving treasure came from a monkey hair from the blind box Monkey King...
Fight to fame, the whole world went crazy:
[Superpowers! God's blessing! Ahhhh, give me a blind box!]
[I finally managed to collect ten consecutive draws. Please, give me a guaranteed bonus. In the Bu Tian Up pool, there's no Nuwa, but a Iron Headed Boy catching a snake with both hands or Bu Zhou Shan will do!]
My little carp has become a fish spirit. Where can I jump over the Dragon Gate and evolve into a dragon?
—The above words about Little Carp are indeed true love. I heard that the evolutionary path is very difficult and expensive, with the rich relying on krypton gold and the poor relying on luck, right?]
[Help me, help me! My Mazu statue has fallen asleep after saving my life! Please give me a dish that Mazu likes. I want to offer it to her so she can wake up soon!]
[Shocking! Latest archaeological news from the home planet: Shennong really existed in ancient history!?]
When alien enemies from the universe came to invade Blue Planet, everyone was stunned: We agreed to create three, four, five, and six-dimensional technological worlds together, so how come you, a single Blue Planet, have achieved transcendence alone?!
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Raising Shan Hai Jing cubs in Interstellar Live Broadcast
The apocalyptic gangster Ye You travels through time and space as the director of a kindergarten that is about to go bankrupt, with two cubs crying for food.
There's no problem with making money, fighting, and raising cubs, but... the cubs' species are a little different from hers.
The cubs come from...Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Big Event of the Year: "Divine beasts roam the planets, the Great Wilderness Mountains and Seas revive in the universe, and establish diplomatic relations with the Human Alliance!"
·
The Divine Beast Kindergarten is open!
Dean Ye You strolled leisurely by. Today he'd stroke the horns of the fawn-like Fuzhu, and tomorrow he'd comb the fur of the flaming, fire-breathing Hutou. He'd feed the nine-tailed fox and the fluffy Feifei, who had grown new tails, some hair-melting cream. Then, he'd fly off with the little Pixiu, who had just shed its scales, to eat some delicious food...
The legendary cubs of the mythical beasts grew up slowly, the popularity of the live broadcast room soared, and the mythical beast kindergarten became famous throughout the universe.
In a large livestream showcasing cuteness, the audience gathered to sip cute things and burst into tears: "Is this the joy of raising a child? The babies and kindergartens we've watched grow up are amazing!" Slurp, what's new and exciting today, rwkk!
When a male protagonist picked up a cub: If I become a cub again, can I attract human beings? I have my own food and clothes, can act cute, can lay eggs and fight, just coax me when you have time!
Ye You: What cub? A cub that's a few hundred million years older? People over the age limit are prohibited from pretending to be young and leading children astray. :)
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Completed articles: Sea survival infrastructure "Starting with a raft", magical spiritual plant farming "Traveling back to the modern times to plant spiritual plants that are a global hit", card drawing business "Winning the first resort island by lottery", the fourth disaster Western fantasy infrastructure "Becoming a god starts with summoning players", etc.
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