29 Chapter 29 (Two in One)
◎Hearse: You can hit it but it can’t hit me again◎
There was no light in the garage, but Xu Mei clearly saw an extra eye in front of her.
Eyes bigger than a human's.
Bright and moist, smooth and large, he looked at her gently and compassionately, his eyes moving like stars.
The headless body knelt beneath it, the strange thing in the box had disappeared, and the heads and eyeballs that were originally piled in front had also disappeared.
No, it didn't disappear.
The pupils of the giant eyes reflected countless eyeball shadows, large and small, human, animal, and insect, piled up into a small hill.
Like stacked snail shells, like a Buddha's bun with eyes sprouting from it, like a barnacle covered in giant eyes. Nothingness, yet reality, exists within the reflection of the giant eye.
Heads that had just floated in kept falling into the hill, cracking open, and growing more eyeballs.
Scattered between the eyeballs were broken limbs and bones, and a fine black mist was wriggling and seeping directly from the skull. The blood-red eyeballs rolled around, spying on the surroundings, and the speed at which the eyeballs opened was getting faster and faster.
“Yes, I have seen her for you, kill her, kill her!”
Xu Mei turned around excitedly, her eyes wide open, recalling the driver's appearance in her mind, and looked up to search for the target location through the obstruction of the building.
As soon as she turned around and looked up, Xu Mei's pupils dilated.
She saw...
Eyes, countless eyes, compassionate, painful, crazy, and desperate, watched a head fall.
Ah, it turns out that the headless body kneeling below is hers.
The belated fear overwhelmed her and she fell to the ground.
The giant eye watched her fall, compassionate and indifferent. The mountain of eyeballs in the reflection squirmed, sucking the corpse into the black mist and rapidly floating away.
The footsteps were getting closer, and the giant eye trembled and accelerated, squeezing into the wall.
Squeak——
The door opened.
A foul stench overflowed. Ye Pingan fanned his nose with his hands, frowned, and turned on the flashlight. "Wow, so much garbage."
The garage looked like it hadn't been used yet. It was painted in a messy red paint, and there were construction waste and inexplicable small boxes of rags scattered all over the floor. The stench was terrible.
Bai Xuan looked ahead in astonishment. There was still a distinctly strange aura lingering in the dim garage. The patterns painted on it were clearly the True Spirit Society sacrifice scene she had seen in pictures.
However, the strange creature that should have been placed in the middle, which was the original body when it was strangely revived, disappeared.
How could this happen? Could it be that it was no longer a strange creature and had fully revived?
But Xuerong didn’t warn that the ghost cave was getting stronger?
Bai Xuan's mind was in a mess.
"I told you there's no ghost, right? Are you relieved now?"
Ye Pingan patted the little girl and said, "Do you have a fever? I'm leaving now. After you finish shopping, go back early to take medicine and rest."
Bai Xuan looked at the garage, but instead of relaxing, she became even more nervous. She held the hedgehog in her arms, whispering to him, and rhythmically ticking her watch.
Someone has been able to enter the ghost cave, and the investigators should have arrived as well. The signal inside the ghost cave is jammed, but the specially designed communication system has a chance of connecting with each other.
The folk ghost fighter had already helped and expressed his desire to leave, so she couldn't stop him by force.
The strange body disappeared, and she still didn't know what changes had happened to the ghost cave, let alone finding the pattern to make it crash.
The expansion of the evil den may be unstoppable. We need to contact the investigator quickly or find a way to get the message out.
"Thank you, Sister Ye." Bai Xuan said in a low voice.
"Boss Ye, wait! You just entered the mall, do you know where the door is?" Xia Zihan hurriedly dragged Bai Xuan to catch up with Ye Ping'an.
Ye Pingan turned back in surprise, "You don't know?"
Xia Zihan's eyes lit up, and as if grasping a life-saving straw, he chased after Ye Pingan up the stairs, "I really don't know QAQ Boss Ye, please, can you point me in a direction? I'll pay you!"
Is this because she wants to go shopping? She can't go out!
Ye Ping'an looked at the conspicuous garage exit downstairs, then at the elevator entrance where he came in, and looked at Xia Zihan with pity.
My eyesight is already bad at such a young age. I'm so shortsighted that I can't even see the huge shopping mall door. How did I get in?
She felt embarrassed to charge for such a simple job.
Ye Pingan raised his phone and said, "Two candies plus the accompanying fee, one hundred."
It's so funny, there's no way I'm going to be embarrassed.
Xia Zihan immediately touched his phone and swiped out a hundred yuan.
Ye Ping'an, with two little tails behind him, returned to the underground floor and casually pointed in the direction of the elevator.
"Just take the elevator and walk straight ahead to the main entrance. I'm going to the square now. See you later. Come over for dinner when you have time."
Ye Ping'an walked away in his flip-flops. Xia Zihan subconsciously followed him a few steps and his clothes were pulled.
Bai Xuan's tired eyes brightened up again, "Sister Xia! I received the news that our deputy team leader has arrived! She confirmed that the ghost cave is open. Can I take you out?"
-
An hour ago, the entrance to the ghost den.
After confirming that the shadow puppet was no longer blocking the way, the investigators who had been searching for the weak point of the ghost den around the mall turned back and gathered in front of the archway.
Under the candlelight, Lao Li made full preparations and led the team in.
Old Li gave one last warning, "Once inside, don't rush to open the door or enter the building. Don't touch anything by mistake. Don't make any noise immediately after entering... Don't forget the rules of conduct when facing the unknown and strange. Once inside, find the deceased or survivors and determine the killing pattern as soon as possible."
"yes!"
After passing through the archway, less than a meter in front of the team, a bloody headless corpse suddenly appeared at the entrance of a shopping mall that looked like it only had flower baskets.
The blood-soaked clothes were still stuck to his body, but his skin had completely disappeared.
The cruel death made the investigator behind him slightly uneasy, and Old Li frowned.
She could tell the body had died recently. The clothes matched the puppet, so it must be Du Teng, who had died after frequent use of magic.
Perhaps the [Waving Shadow Puppet] has revived, and combined with the strange creatures in the hands of other people in the True Spirit Society, we need to be wary of more than one strange creature in the ghost den.
The lights in the glass window in front were on, and there were faint shadows swaying behind the open glass door. At first glance, it looked like a completely normal shopping mall.
But no investigator dared to rush in. The strange patterns of murder were all sorts of strange, and there were many cases of death upon entering the "door".
Du Teng's body has no head, which does not conform to the rules of shadow puppetry. Is this B-level weird rule related to beheading?
Old Li quickly scanned her surroundings, using the reflection of the scissors in her hand to increase her field of vision. As soon as she saw the dark clouded sky, her heart skipped a beat. Before she could see what was in the sky, one of the scattered investigators suddenly convulsed with a choking sensation.
"...Head!" She squeezed out the reminder with difficulty as if her throat was strangled.
Huh~
Amidst the faint sound of the wind, a shadow fell from the sky.
"Don't move!"
With a whoosh, the blades of the scissors closed.
Lao Li flashed in front of the team members and clamped a head and severed the neck with his black scissors.
The head's gaze shifted from watching the team members to her. The cold darkness squirmed, and it uttered a few words, "See..."
Phew!
Old Li breathed hard, and acted quickly. With a flash of cold light from the scissors, he pierced the eyeball.
The suffocating feeling instantly dissipated, and the head fell to the ground with a thud, emitting a rotten smell. Rotten flesh fell from the tip of the scissors, and the black sheen of the scissors dimmed significantly.
Old Li immediately realized where Du Teng's head had gone. "Don't look up at the sky. Be careful of the sight from the sky. The strange carrier is still a physical entity. Block it with a shield or poke its eyes out!"
call--
The sound of swirling and descending wind was getting closer and closer. Large shields similar to explosion-proof shields were stacked one on top of another and quickly assembled into a mobile cabin with candlelight in the center.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The head banged against the shield frantically, and after losing sight for a few seconds, it stopped.
"Gone?"
"It seems the pattern is similar to that of the Flying Head Barbarians, killing on sight? They're so vicious. Luckily, the deputy team was here, so we weren't killed in one go. Instead, it sped up our discovery of the pattern."
The investigators were talking in low voices, saying that they had discovered clear and strange patterns as soon as they entered the haunted den, but there was no joy on Old Li's face.
Something is wrong.
Aside from the hearse, Jiang City had never encountered anything truly bizarre, even within a ghostly den. According to the Bureau of Investigation, the deeper you go into a ghostly den, the higher the likelihood of triggering a pattern and the more dangerous it becomes.
She had just entered the ghost cave and encountered so many strange things. If the entrance was not right behind her, she would even suspect that the space was distorted and they were thrown into the center of the ghost cave.
There is more than one ghost at the door, and "watching" is obviously one of the killing patterns. The flying head that just fell down may completely wipe out the team.
But it only attacks the most nervous people in the team, and only lays siege after they have escaped.
Just like...
Other things are more important than catching prey for the time being.
The team moved forward in unison, moving horizontally away from the mall entrance before carefully exiting from under the shield. Old Li was filled with confusion and pondering. As soon as she left the shield, she and the other investigators were startled.
“What…happened?!”
Before entering the ghost cave, everyone was prepared to see death everywhere and face the weird things running rampant.
But everything before my eyes was beyond my imagination.
People, a lot of people.
Headless corpses stood alongside people with their eyes closed, seemingly asleep. Dead heads rolled around the street corners. The faint black fog in the sky was just the edge of a ghostly den, not the dark cloud of countless human heads hovering over the mall's entrance.
The surroundings were unusually quiet. A path was left in the middle of the brightly lit pedestrian street, leading straight to the square at the end.
"Strange... made way for us? What does it want to do? A Hongmen Feast?"
The investigator muttered in disbelief. Old Li's mouth twitched, and he slapped him on the back of the head. "You really think we're superior to the weird ones? Would you give way to ants? Check the body quickly. The weird ones in the sky could come at any time. Speed up the investigation. We have to get as deep into the haunted cave as possible."
Old Li was also puzzled and couldn't figure out what had happened in the ghost cave.
Although she was anxious to find the strange entity, she tried to collect as much information as possible on the edge of the ghost den so that she would have a better chance of survival if she went deeper.
We can only be on guard against strange attacks and wait here.
As soon as the investigators dispersed, they made discoveries one after another.
"This is the car Bai Xuan had the accident in!"
"Deputy Captain! We've found a living person!"
"There are also survivors here!" The investigator's voice changed, surprised and happy.
Old Li was startled, "Huh?!"
Those flying heads were impossible to prevent, and the investigators who entered were nearly killed at the door. The ghost den had been there for several days, and ordinary people caught in it would most likely become ghost slaves or corpses. Even if Bai Xian found the survivors and took everyone into hiding, it would be difficult to save many people.
But… there are still real living people in the ghost cave now? ? ? Could this be a weird illusion?
Old Li strode forward, holding a pair of scissors in one hand and touching the person who was standing upright and sleeping with the other.
His breathing was normal, his body temperature was a little low, and he was affected by a strange aura, but he did not have the characteristics of a ghost slave.
The strange creature in her hand was also ready to move, wanting to devour the flesh and blood of living people.
The investigator helplessly supported the survivor and looked at Lao Li expectantly.
Old Li tried twice in disbelief and nodded, "He's really still alive..."
"Great!" The investigators cheered in surprise. "Could it be that other ghost controllers have entered the ghost den? They're so powerful, they saved so many people!"
"Quiet!"
Old Li scolded in a low voice, glancing around quickly. "The entrance is open now, go get a stretcher. Squad, the rest of you stay here and send the survivors out for isolation and medical care. The fewer people in this den, the better, as it will slow down the speed at which the strangeness grows stronger. You, follow me deeper."
Aside from Du Teng, who lay dead at the door, heads, which should have been part of the strangeness, were scattered everywhere. The ghost-slaved corpses in front looked completely untouched by battle. They gathered strangely and abnormally at the edge of the ghost den, and even the living people who had been drawn into the ghost den were not swallowed up...
Could it be that this strange creature has entered a new stage of resurrection, preparing to expand its ghostly lair? Or has the True Spirit truly taken control of the resurrected strange creature?
Could it be that the monster was actually trying to escape from the ghost cave? But this was its own ghost cave, and the other monsters caught in the ghost cave should have escaped! Even if the captain with a C-level monster came in, he couldn't force this monster into this state.
Old Li put aside the problem he couldn't figure out, made some simple arrangements, and cautiously became the first to step onto the empty path in the middle.
After confirming that there was no reaction around him, he immediately sped forward.
People are all human beings.
The square was densely populated. It was obvious that on the day when the ghost outbreak occurred, the celebration platform was the most crowded place.
As he walked, he checked and distinguished the corpses and unconscious people around him. He was relieved to confirm that there were still people alive in the square, but his doubts grew.
"Deputy Captain! A strange creature has been discovered!"
A cry of surprise came from the side. Old Li turned around in shock and picked up a black mass in the investigator's hand with the tip of his scissors. "Who told you to touch strange things directly?! Aren't you afraid of death?"
The investigator hunched his neck like a quail and said hesitantly, "I thought it was the marks left by the trash can being smashed in the fight, so I wanted to run a test with some testing fluid, and then I realized something was wrong..."
Old Li picked up a palm-sized human-shaped black skin. There was an unknown liquid dripping on the thin soft skin. If you didn't look carefully, you would really mistake it for a piece of black garbage bag.
But it is indeed a strange creature. Judging from its features, it should be a [Waving Shadow Puppet].
The [Waving Shadow Puppet] devoured the Ghost Controller, but not only did it not revive and escape, it also turned into a frozen Ghost again?!
And it was not swallowed by the weirdness of the ghost cave, but fell here like garbage?
If he could not still feel a slight effect, Lao Li would even suspect that it had been devoured, or that the strange thing had died completely.
This feeling is somewhat familiar.
Like... like a [wooden man] getting off a [hearse]!
"Incredible. Could it be that the ghostly weirdness swallowing up some weirdness will significantly slow down the recovery? Is it some special effect that has not yet been discovered?"
Old Li didn't think too much about it. He searched for any abnormalities in the ghost den, but he didn't find anything else.
...No? Where did the weirdness in the ghost cave go?
The ghost den was surprisingly "clean". Apart from the thick and chilling strange aura, there was only one dead monster along the way. No one from the True Spirit Society was encountered, and even the common hallucinations of strange influences did not appear.
The more this happened, the more Lao Li felt that there was a big problem.
Ambulance carts shuttled back and forth, carrying fallen people and corpses out of the ghost cave one by one.
The pedestrian street was cleared little by little, and the investigators carefully separated and entered the mall from the back door of the square, deliberately avoiding Gate No. 1, Building A of the mall, where the flying heads were confirmed to be lurking.
"There's a corpse on the glass dome, dressed like a True Spirit Society member."
"We've found the monitoring room, but the signal is severely damaged. A single still image shows a head hovering and rising beneath the dome. There are signs of multiple people inside, but we're not sure if they were survivors or the True Spirit Society."
"There are marks made by Bai Xuan in the mall. Take note. The pattern of killing people with flying heads is:..."
"There are still people alive here! Someone, take them out!"
The investigators were exploring the mall. Old Li had just climbed up the ladder on the outer wall to the mall overpass leading to Building A when the black fog covering the ghost den suddenly became turbulent.
The bright glass exterior of the mall seemed to have been stripped of its bright cover in an instant, revealing the dilapidated state that had been unattended for many days. Dust and dried blood covered the glass, and the outer wall that had been damaged when the body fell was also clearly visible.
"The deputy captain killed it?" the investigators asked in surprise.
"Bullshit! Be alert immediately." Old Li stared at the sky solemnly with his peripheral vision, prepared for a head to appear in the sky at any time.
The investigator, cell phone in hand, chased after them, breathless. "Deputy Captain! Deputy Captain, the Ghost-Suppressing Monument has sounded an alarm! B-rank [Hundred Eyes]!"
Old Li's heart sank.
It really is a Class B. The previous convergence of the ghost den was probably just an accelerated recovery.
The weirdness has revived, and it will become more difficult to pass through the entrance and exit of the ghost cave, and it will gradually become a situation where you can only enter but not exit.
Old Li kept thinking and cut open the locked glass door on the overpass, getting one step closer to the suspected strange gathering area.
She gritted her teeth and said, "Go get the captain. Get the survivors out faster and notify the city to arrange a citywide evacuation. We can hold them in this den of evil for as long as we can. Have you asked for help from the headquarters?"
The investigator lowered his head and read the message. "The captain just woke up from the IV and will be coming in immediately. The information department is compiling possibly relevant data on the [Hundred Eyes], and the progress is 30%. A request for assistance has been issued, and the military district is also dispatching personnel..."
Old Li was stunned. "Where did you see that? The signal is restored?!"
Lao Li pulled out his phone. The signal bar flickered, sometimes on and sometimes off, but it was much better than no signal at all. It was like he had been transported back to the time before the ghost cave was fully formed.
She couldn't believe it. "The weirdness has revived, but the ghost cave has become weaker?"
A new message popped up on the phone, very brief: [Garage sacrifice ceremony, main body revived and missing. Temporarily safe inside Gate 1, 1st Floor, Building A.]
It’s Bai Xuan!
Door number one of the mall was open and it was dark outside.
Old Li hurried downstairs to meet Bai Xuan. After getting a general understanding of the situation, he was shocked.
"You said... the driver who just came in is Boss Xiaoye, and she is a ghost controler?"
How is that possible?! From any angle, it's so outrageous that it seems like an April Fool's joke.
Lao Li: "Where is she? Is she looking for the strange entity?"
Xia Zihan and Bai Xuan both looked speechless.
“…She went to draw a lottery.”
"What? [Hundred Eyes] is related to the lottery?"
"The lucky draw is a shopping mall activity in the square. You can draw a 10% off coupon." Xia Zihan repeated kindly.
Old Li: ...
No? Do you really think this ghost den is a shopping mall and you're here to go shopping?
Old Li sighed speechlessly. "From what you said, she pretended not to be a ghost controler. Her ghost may be very special, consuming little vitality, but it was able to easily defeat the [Waving Shadow Puppet] at the door, causing the shadow puppet to be nearly devoured by the ghost. Now that the ghost has revived, if we want to get rid of it, she will do her part. She will not give her anything less than what she deserves."
"Xiao Xia, you are very good, but the ghost cave is too dangerous. You should go out with the others to treat your injuries first."
Old Li patted Xia Zihan's shoulder and forced her to turn around with the other investigators. He took the medicine and quickly applied it to Bai Xuan to cool her down. "Xiaobai, can you still hold on? The strange entity has already hidden itself. There's no time to waste. Let's explore the way for the captain first. I suspect the entity is hiding among the heads of those gathered at Gate No. 1."
-
Ye Ping'an had just entered the mall when the wheels of the silver van in the parking space at the back door moved, and the black slime quietly moved outward, extending little by little towards the edge of the ghost den.
Like a toy car tied with a rubber band, the slime moved a long way, the wheels retracted a little, and slowly moved away from the door.
Some of the heads flying towards the garage in the sky lowered their heads, and wisps of black mist rose and moved beside the car.
The van, under scrutiny, remained stationary, seemingly unmoved. The head closed its eyes again, the black mist dissipated, and it sped toward the garage. The lights flickered faintly, and the wheels shifted again.
Take a look and stop.
I stopped looking and continued to move the car forward.
After a while, the investigator rushed into the den of ghosts.
The van was parked on the side of the road, motionless, as if it was delivering goods to a shop, and it did not attract any attention at all.
The investigators scattered into the mall, and just as the van started moving, the square suddenly became thick with black fog.
A giant eye emerged from the black mist, stopped on the empty platform, and turned around, as if looking for prey that should be there.
The moment the giant eye appeared, the van stuck to the wall, the crying face on the floor curled up into a ball, and the tires turned as if they were about to accelerate and rush in the opposite direction.
Step, step.
Light footsteps were heard from the back door of the mall, and the van shook and froze in place.
The giant eye in the middle of the square trembled at the sound of footsteps. The surrounding black fog shrank extremely narrow and continued to shrink rapidly, rolling behind the red cloth on the platform.
The van's headlights flashed.
Ye Pingan just came out of the mall and gasped, "My car!"
The van drove quickly towards the platform in the middle of the square. The eyeballs that were huddled under the red cloth and rolled outwards were shaken, and rolled into the lottery machine in the middle of the platform.
eyeball:?
The front of the van turned slightly, pointing straight at the eyeball in the lottery machine in front.
"I said the floor of the mall was uneven! The landslide was too serious!" Ye Ping'an chased after him angrily, patted the car up and down to confirm that it was not damaged, and breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's not right. Why isn't the car at the door? It's sliding in from the other side."
The van was shaking slightly from being hit. Ye Pingan was too lazy to think any further. He was happy when he saw the lottery machine. "Forget it, it's probably the curvature of the ground. Let's draw the lottery first!"
A faint cry of relief could be heard from deep within the van. The tear-stained lines on the floor of the van peeked out, staring at the lottery machine outside the window, and the lines twisted into a smiling face.
After checking the car, Ye Ping'an noticed that all the people in the square were gone. No wonder she saw the lottery machine when she came out.
I guess the performance was over and everyone left, so the mannequins and drones were taken away.
It's almost noon, and the actors need to eat and rest.
Ye Pingan rubbed his hands eagerly, "Just in case no one comes, the prize pool belongs to me!"
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