Chapter 92: The Wretched Thing

To begin with, Miss Sui Yi, you rarely speak, so how is it that the moment you do, it's so unnerving?

“Sui Yi, how long has your family’s ancestral tomb been here?” Miss Nine’s voice carried a strange undertone.

Sui Yi didn’t bother to explain that she wasn’t actually one of the family; she simply thought for a moment and replied, “No more than thirty years.”

She wasn’t sure of the exact number.

Miss Nine didn’t need a precise figure. She just let out a soft, “Oh?” and said coolly, “But for a moss like this, with faces, to grow so large, it would take at least a hundred years.”

What had once been a quiet atmosphere instantly turned deathly still. Everyone hanging from their ropes instinctively tightened their grip. Miss Nine’s words were even more chilling.

Just as unease and vigilance washed over the group, someone suddenly murmured, “Hey, do any of you feel like those faces are moving?”

The words came so abruptly, so eerily, that Sui Yi reflexively looked at the stone wall. On it, the moss faces seemed to be splitting their mouths open, eyes wide, while green dots scattered from their ears and skulls... and a low buzzing sound filled the air.

“Not good! Something’s crawling out!” Feng Sha called out in alarm. Living creatures—some kind of insects—were emerging from within the moss-faced growths. The dense buzzing suggested they could even fly!

Miss Nine’s expression shifted. “Put on your hoods! Now!”

Their coats had hoods attached to thin membrane masks, enough to fend off biting insects for a while, though the oxygen inside would only last so long.

Sure enough, a swarm of green dots flew out from the moss faces, heading straight for them.

Sui Yi had sharp eyes; she watched as the green dots, like tiny green flies, fluttered their delicate wings...

Any creature that could survive here was bound to be strange. Being stung by them would be no pleasant experience.

“Faster!” Miss Nine barked just as a scream rang out; someone let go of their rope and plummeted into the darkness below.

The sound of the body falling into the abyss ended in a dull, heavy thud.

“It was Little Wang,” Feng Sha said. A fall from that height meant certain death, but to be so startled by a bite that you lost your grip...

Against these tiny bugs, blades or even guns were useless—would they die here before even exploring the tomb?

“Turn off your waist lamps!” Sui Yi suddenly shouted.

“What?”

“The bugs are drawn to the light! We shone our lamps directly on the moss faces, and that’s what made them come out. Turn them off!”

Sui Yi had already switched hers off. Miss Nine glanced at her and noticed there were hardly any bugs around her.

“Off!” she commanded. One by one, click, click, the lamps went dark. Then came the buzzing, the chill wind blowing up from the depths below, and an icy sensation lodged in every heart—a frozen fish trapped in a block of ice, slowly releasing its bitter, cold stench.

The buzzing thinned out and, after a while, faded away.

Miss Nine let out a quiet breath, privately convinced that bringing Sui Yi along had been wise; the woman was certainly resourceful.

Just then, Feng Sha asked, “How long has it been since Brother Ma and the others checked in?”

After a moment’s silence, Miss Nine replied, “Get ready.”

The cold wind below was growing stronger, the air ever more damp, a sign that they were nearing the bottom.

Unsure if more moss faces awaited, nobody dared turn their lamps back on. They each clung tightly to their guns—Sui Yi had been given a finely crafted pistol. She wasn’t familiar with it and didn’t know the model; she’d tried firing it once, and now kept it tucked at her waist. Still, when danger threatened, she drew the gun. For long-range threats, after all, a firearm was best.

—

When Feng Sha’s toe first touched the slick, cold ground, Sui Yi and Miss Nine had landed as well. Sui Yi immediately noticed the sole of her boot slipping on something viscous, like slime. She nudged it with her sword tip and, at once, a tang of blood and a foul stench rushed up.

“There’s blood!”

Miss Nine reacted faster, switching on her waist lamp. The beam caught the long shadows darting across the narrow side corridors.

Slender bodies, seemingly four-legged, with long, dragging tails—impossible to tell what kind of creatures they were.

They moved with brutal speed, fierce and wild.

Bang, bang, bang! Gunshots rang out at once!

Flashes of gunfire lit the dark. Sui Yi saw two shadows rush past Miss Nine. One was blown back several meters by a bullet, the other collapsed to the floor.

Her marksmanship was clearly exceptional.

As for Sui Yi herself...

She fired twice; both shots went astray.

She couldn’t get used to it, not at all.

“Idiot!” Miss Nine cursed, rushing over to Sui Yi’s side.

Sui Yi shoved her gun back at her waist. As another shadow lunged at her, reeking of blood, she pulled open her backpack...

Was she really going to use medicated oil against these things?

A row of sharp, crocodile-like teeth appeared right before Sui Yi’s eyes.

“Idiot, get out of the way, I’ll—” Miss Nine raised her gun to fire at the shadow, but a streak of cold light flashed—Sui Yi’s knife slashed across the creature’s skull.

Blood splattered. Sui Yi spun and delivered a flying kick, sending another shadow the size of a hyena flying seven or eight meters to crash against the ground.

Her wrist twisted; the Xie Fang dagger spun in her hand. She slid sideways, her form flickering, and—thwack, thwack, thwack—sliced through the shadows like chopping vegetables.

Not a single shadow lasted more than a move against her before collapsing, bloodied, on the ground—if not dead, then writhing with shattered limbs.

“Incredible!” Miss Nine was astonished, but smiled.

“Likewise.”

“Heh, I was talking about your knife.”

“And I about your gun. Also, this is a dagger.”

“Hmph!”

Miss Nine snorted, but every bullet she fired sent another shadow tumbling into the abyss, no matter how ghostly they seemed in the dark.

Sui Yi, unskilled with guns, proved even more lethal up close. Feng Sha and the others, feeling a bit embarrassed, focused up and fought back-to-back against the swarming shadows.

But the more they fought, the harder it got.

“They’re getting thicker!” the sallow-faced Zhang Wei spat.

“The blood’s drawing them... hell, could Ma and the others already be dead?”

“Their teeth are razor sharp... one of them scratched my hand, hurts like hell!” grumbled the pudgy Han Gao.

The three doctors’ shooting was at least better than Sui Yi’s. One of them, Lin Feng, remarked, “Based on the behavior of subterranean pack creatures, as long as there’s food left, they won’t disperse—no matter how many of their own die...”

Hearing this, Miss Nine made a swift decision.

—

“Retreat!”

“Miss, I’m afraid we can’t...” The shadows on both flanks were too dense.

Sui Yi and Miss Nine exchanged a look.

A one-in-ten chance at survival.

—

As the Xie Fang dagger spun in Sui Yi’s hand, its cold gleam sharpened.

Miss Nine reloaded her gun in a single motion.

A new wave of shadows surged in, and the group chose to break out toward the right.

Because men go left, women go right—Miss Nine’s reasoning.

Rip! The Xie Fang dagger sliced open the belly of a leaping shadow, showering them with foul, bloody water.

Sui Yi and Miss Nine led the way, carving a bloody path, with the frenzied shadows chasing behind.

Everyone spoke as little as possible to conserve energy for running. Their beams cut a path through the dark, but there was no time to judge the best escape route—the one they could run was the one they took!

Panting, three of the doctors soon began to lag behind, their stamina failing. Sui Yi glanced back and saw one man tackled by three shadows, his screams cut short as he was dragged into the horde.

Miss Nine and the others had no time to save him; they watched as his bones were stripped bare.

Lin Feng heaved, retching, but Feng Sha grabbed him and hauled him onward.

Fear of death drove them to their limits.

They ran—ran desperately!

“There’s a river ahead!”

A river, an underground stream, its waters rushing and gleaming in the lamp beams. From here, it didn’t look deep. Sui Yi and the others didn’t care what might lurk within—they plunged in, the icy water rising to their calves, bone-chilling but irrelevant now. All that mattered was escape.

Behind them...

“Those things won’t go in the water!”

“Damn, they really are hanging back...”

Feng Sha and the others let out a collective sigh of relief.

At last, they were rid of those monsters.

Feng Sha shone his lamp at the creatures, finally getting a clear look. Each shadow was bizarrely shaped, with head like a cormorant, a decimeter-long beak lined with rows of neat, razor teeth, a lizard-like body, thick hind legs, and short forelimbs...

“They look like dinosaurs!”

“Subterranean creatures are always strange—plenty of mutations... Let’s get ashore,” Miss Nine said. She didn’t think they were actual dinosaurs; this was no science fiction, and the environment alone would have been impossible for dinosaurs to survive. Still... the moss faces left her uneasy, and she instinctively glanced at Sui Yi.

Sui Yi was frowning, staring at the river water.

“What is it?” Miss Nine had barely asked when Sui Yi’s face changed dramatically...

“The sand in the river is moving...”

A scream rang out from Lin Feng, his body dragged down as if by a demon into the very depths of hell—vanishing grotesquely in water barely deep enough to cover their calves.

(To be continued...)