Premier tome de la série Le Magicien Oolong Qui suis-je

Chapitre 85

"Okay!" Fang Lei nodded with a smile.

Watching Abao's retreating figure, I glanced at Li Yang, wanting to tell him not to go either, but before I could even open my mouth, Li Yang pressed his shoulder firmly. He didn't say anything, just smiled at me. At that moment, I knew it was pointless for me to say anything more. I could only sigh, and the three of us walked into the air-raid shelter.

By the light of the flashlight, we could see the facilities of the air-raid shelter, which seemed very rudimentary. Some old light bulbs adorned the relatively clean walls, but due to the extreme dampness, the wires appeared to be damp and short-circuited. However, even if they were intact, they wouldn't light up; it seemed there was no electricity at all.

The entire air-raid shelter seemed extremely damp; besides our footsteps and breathing, the only sound was the dripping of water. A musty smell permeated the air, and the large, pale green, fuzzy patches on the walls were probably mold, forming strange patterns like random graffiti by God.

I walked at the very back of the three of us. The yellow light from my flashlight made Fang Lei and Li Yang's figures in front of me seem so unreal. I felt like their figures were floating, a strange phenomenon through the water vapor, as if ripples were spreading in the air, blurring my vision.

Gradually, I felt my breathing become rapid, and my frantic heartbeat became so loud I could hear it clearly. I licked my lips, feeling a dryness in my mouth and a strange restlessness rising within me. It was as if something important had been forgotten in some corner, and I felt a weak and powerless feeling, a sense of exhaustion from racking my brains but still finding no answer.

A corner appeared before me, and I had fallen behind. I watched as the two of them rounded the corner, but my feet didn't follow; instead, I stopped. My body and mind seemed to be at odds; even if I wanted to catch up, my body remained motionless.

I felt something on my head, so I slowly raised my head...

Yin Xue? !

I gasped. Yin Xue was hanging upside down—no, more like upside down—on the ceiling of the air-raid shelter, but her hair wasn't hanging down. All I could see was her pale face nestled among her beautiful hair.

"Yin Xue?" I groaned weakly, but she didn't move. She just stood there, her eyes bloodshot. Slowly... tears of blood dripped down her cheeks.

*Thud!*

That was the sound of blood and tears falling to the ground.

At the same time, all the old light bulbs lit up...

So bright! I felt all the light shining on me, a burning sensation like being on fire.

Yin Xue? I saw Yin Xue's body rapidly retreating...

No! Don't go!

I chased after her like a madman. The lights flashed past me like a carousel, alternating between darkness and light. I only pursued her, without fear. I just wanted to catch up with her.

But...why? I can never catch up with you, Yin Xue? Are you running away from me?

In my frantic run, I had long forgotten about Fang Lei and Li Yang. I felt as if the entire air-raid shelter was just a long, narrow corridor, empty except for me chasing after Yin Xue.

Suddenly! Just when I thought I was about to catch up with her, all the light bulbs went out with a snap, and everything returned to darkness. It was then that I realized my flashlight was nowhere to be found.

Whew~~~!

All I could hear was my own breathing as I stood there, and I could no longer see Yin Xue. Where was she?

"Yin Xue! Yin Xue!" I could only call her name in vain in the darkness. At that moment, I felt so lonely, the loneliness and fear of being abandoned by my beloved.

Looking up again, I gazed into the dark distance, where a door stood out starkly against the darkness. But I had no other choice but to walk forward and slowly open it.

It was still dark inside. Just as I was slightly stunned, it was as if a beam of light suddenly shone on the dark stage. Under the light, there were the small figures of two children, a boy and a girl, but I couldn't see their faces clearly.

"Brother, dinner's ready!" The little girl seemed to be playing house, handing a toy bowl to the little boy in a very professional manner.

The little boy didn't seem to appreciate it, and said, "What's there to eat if there's nothing?"

"What does your brother like to eat?" the little girl asked.

"I like anything that tastes good!" The little boy pushed the toy bowl to the little girl.

"Then when I grow up, I'll cook lots and lots of delicious food for you, okay?" the little girl asked ingratiatingly.

"Can you burn it?" the little boy asked, disbelieving.

"Yes! I definitely will!" the little girl nodded quickly.

"Then let me eat it when you can cook it!" The little boy stood up and said, "I'm going to play somewhere else."

After saying that, the little boy ran towards me without waiting for the little girl's reaction. As he got closer, my body grew colder and colder.

That's me! That's what I looked like when I was little!

"Brother!" the little girl called out desperately from behind me when I was a child, but I ignored her and walked straight toward me.

How could this be? I tried to stop myself, but my outstretched hand passed right through my own body, and in the blink of an eye, my childhood self vanished.

"Brother!" the little girl was still calling softly, slowly walking towards me with a small bowl in her hands.

Who is she? Who exactly is she? I kept asking myself, trying to search through all my memories. But it was all in vain; not a single memory remained to tell me who she was. I felt as if she were a complete stranger, yet deep down I felt that she might be someone very important.

what to do?

Why?

I stood there, motionless, hoping she would come a little closer so I could see her face clearly!

"Brother! Here you go! I cooked this, just for you!" The little girl had already walked up to me, but her face was still blurry, as if her vision was obscured by a black cloth. Her small body was struggling to hand me a bowl of something, and I slowly reached out and took it.

When the contents of the bowl were presented to me, I almost threw the whole bowl away. Inside were two human hands, two hands that looked like they'd been roasted into braised chicken feet!

The withered skin had been scorched blackish-red by soy sauce, and the black fingernails looked like they had just been trimmed. A wave of nausea rushed to my throat.

The moment I threw the bowl, those two braised human hands suddenly seemed to come to life and flew towards my face. I didn't even have a chance to dodge before those two hands grabbed my neck tightly!

I was having trouble breathing! I quickly reached out to pry those two hands off, but perhaps because of the soy sauce, they felt greasy and I couldn't pry them off no matter how hard I tried. My breathing became increasingly difficult, and my throat felt like it was being cut with a knife. Gradually, I became dizzy and collapsed to my knees.

My neck felt slippery, while a fragrant aroma, similar to braised pork hock, wafted from the two hands gripping my neck tightly. This was the first time I realized that delicious food could be deadly.

"Ahhh!" I was still struggling when the little girl in front of me suddenly became clear. It was a rotting little face, and from the black holes where her eyeballs had disappeared, long maggots were wriggling and clawing out, but they didn't fall out of the eye holes. And from her nose, which had rotted down to just a hole, I could see countless maggots crawling inside her brain, as if this was their nest.

By then, I no longer felt fear. She was still calling out to her brother softly, but I could no longer hear her. I only felt someone shaking my body.

Chapter Six Yu Bo

"Lin Xiao! Lin Xiao!" Li Yang's voice suddenly became very loud in my ears.

"Huh?" I snapped out of my daze and subconsciously touched my neck—nothing there! It was just soaked with sweat, almost completely drenched. I was still standing at the corner, the flashlight clutched tightly in my hand. Li Yang and Fang Lei stood in front of me, their faces full of concern.

"The light is on!" I looked at the light bulbs on the wall; they were still silent in the darkness.

"What's wrong with you? How could the light be on?" Fang Lei grabbed my cold hand.

"No, the light is on! Little girl!" I murmured to myself. The scene just now was so vivid; it couldn't be a hallucination, it was a real memory.

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei touched my forehead anxiously and said, "Never mind, let's go back!"

"No! The light!" I shook off Fang Lei's hand, walked to the light bulb closest to me, reached out and pulled it down.

Kara~~~ Kara~~

As if a machine were starting up, an open door immediately appeared on the wall around the corner.

"What...is this?" Li Yang looked at the open door, from which a strange smell wafted out.

"How did you know about this organization?" Fang Lei grabbed me tightly.

"I..." I stared blankly at the open door and said, "I don't know!"

"Let's not worry about that for now, do we want to go in and take a look?" Li Yang asked curiously.

"No!" Fang Lei seemed to cry out, saying with unusual determination, "Now, let's go back!"

“But this…” Li Yang was unwilling to give up.

"Don't go in!" Fang Lei grabbed Li Yang, then looked at me and said, word by word, "Let's go back!"

"Go...go back?" I felt something inside drawing me in, and I really wanted to go in and see. Suddenly, a small, white figure seemed to flash in the darkness through the doorway!

That little girl? I rushed over immediately...

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei's voice from behind was so clear, but I had already rushed inside. I felt the door slam shut behind me, separating Fang Lei and Li Yang.

"Lin Xiao! Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei frantically pounded on the wall that had been a door, but no matter how hard she tried, the wall wouldn't budge. She pulled the light bulb, but there was no response. Lin Xiao seemed to have vanished into thin air. This filled Fang Lei with an unprecedented panic, a panic she had never felt even when facing a powerful enemy.

"Fang Lei, calm down!" Li Yang pulled Fang Lei, whose hands were already red from pounding, and said, "Don't worry, he'll be fine!"

"But he's all alone inside! All alone!" Fang Lei shouted at Li Yang.

"Don't worry, he'll be alright!" Li Yang seemed to be talking to himself.

"That's right!" Fang Lei said, "We can see if there are any other mechanisms!"

"Alright then!" Li Yang said, "I'll go find the other mechanisms. You stay here and don't move. Maybe he'll come out soon!"

"This..." Fang Lei glanced at the wall with concern, but finally nodded in compromise.

*********

Where am I? What kind of place is this...?

I hate the dark...

I groped my way forward in the dark, the air thick with the smell of mildew, which made my throat dry and cough, and even my mouth tasted bitter and strange.

I touched the wall; it was fuzzy and sticky on my hands, and a feeling of nausea gave me goosebumps all over. Every now and then, I kicked something, the sound like cans rolling on the floor, whistling past my ears.

As I slowly explored, I guessed it was a small room, filled with a lot of things, but unfortunately it was too dark for me to see anything clearly.

Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I was finally able to vaguely make out some things. An object, almost as tall as a person, caught my eye. It lay dormant in the darkness, and as I slowly approached it, I realized it was a huge water tank. It was pitch black inside, and I couldn't immediately tell if there was any water left.

I reached out, and the instant my hand touched the surface of the water tank, I felt as if a blinding bolt of lightning had flashed before my eyes. In that instant, the originally opaque tank seemed to turn into a layer of glass. In that split second, I saw what was inside the tank!

It was a highly decomposed corpse! The flesh was almost completely muscular from being submerged in water; the white muscle tissue, buoyed by the water, clung to the bones, as if it could be easily peeled away. The corpse's face was utterly unrecognizable, but its drooping eyeballs, swollen to twice their normal size from the water, seemed still capable of movement, staring intently at me…

I quickly let go of the water tank and instinctively took a step back...

Bubbles appeared on the surface of the water in the tank, and before I knew it, a clump of black... hair suddenly floated to the surface...

Like seaweed, it gradually floats to the surface...

Gradually rising to the surface...

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 23: Corpses

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 23: Corpses

Black hair swayed slowly in the water, and a rotten, almost skeletal hand slowly emerged from the clump of black hair, reaching straight up to the sky.

Who is it?

I didn't run away, and there was nowhere to run away to...

Those fingers began to move, as if playing a melody—was it a melody from hell? The sound that drilled into my ears, like scraping skin and bones, made me painfully cover my ears. But it didn't work; the sound continued to echo in my ears.

The hand slowly moved downwards, forming a claw shape, as if it were pulling something out of the water...