pozo profundo

Capítulo 113

"Okay!" I replied.

The room was dark, without a single ray of light, but Abao had long since adapted to the environment. Carefully observing his surroundings, he realized it was a room less than ten square meters. The room was completely empty, except for the food the mysterious person had brought yesterday, which remained at his feet.

For some reason, Abao had no strength at all. Maybe it was the effect of some kind of drug. He really regretted not learning more from the people in his tribe, which made him unable to even deal with such a simple drug.

Lying helplessly on the cold ground, how many days had he been captured? Lost in darkness, he couldn't even count the days. He only remembered parting ways with Li Yang and preparing to go home, sensing a strange fragrance nearby. And then… he knew nothing more… When he woke up again, he was here.

Who is it? Who wants to kidnap me? But I clearly don't have a single penny, and besides, who am I supposed to extort money from? Li Yang and his group? That can't be it! Then… it must be my own clansmen? Even less likely, there's no one else in the world who knows my true identity except for Li Yang and his two companions!

So...who...and what is their purpose...?

Abao's head throbbed at the thought. She lay down, staring at the ceiling, desperately hoping someone would rescue her! Darkness... loneliness... the situation before she met Lin Xiao and the others was back... so terrifying!

Squeak...like the sound of a mouse grinding its teeth...

A door opened. The mysterious man who always delivered meals appeared again. But he always wore a ridiculous Ultraman mask. So Po only saw a man of average build.

However, this time the mysterious person didn't bring food, but instead... a few pieces of clothing? Strange clothes!

"Put it on!" The mysterious man's deep, hoarse voice echoed in A Bao's ears.

"Wear it?" Abao took the clothes handed to him by the mysterious man, and upon closer inspection, suddenly felt they looked very familiar, then was almost shocked! They were almost identical to the clothes worn by his own people, only more elaborate and luxurious.

Who... is he? This kind of clothing is no longer worn today, as it can be said to be clothing worn by people in ancient times during the Han Dynasty, somewhat similar to the kimono in Japan today. To be more precise, the Japanese kimono resembles it! Because the kimono evolved from this type of clothing.

Of course, the style of this garment is even more ancient. The cuffs are larger and longer than those of Hanfu, and the design of the belt is also more intricate. The entire outfit is bright red with gold trim, making it extremely luxurious.

"Who...who are you?" Abao asked.

"You're a Moro." The mysterious man didn't answer but instead revealed A Bao's background: "So I probably don't need to teach you how to wear this outfit!"

"You... how did you know?" Abao was greatly surprised. What worried Abao even more was whether the mysterious person would press him for the location of the Moro tribe's hiding place.

“Of course I know, but don’t worry. I’m not interested in your people’s so-called treasures. I only need one Moro.” The mysterious man said calmly, then turned and added, “I hope you’ll be wearing this outfit next time I see you!”

"But...you..." Before Abao could finish his question, the mysterious man had already closed the door and left.

Who is he? Why is he making me wear this? In my memory, my people wear similar clothes, though not this luxurious. Only the chieftain is allowed to wear such magnificent clothes. What does he want? Did he capture me just to try on this outfit?

The clothes... were bright red, as red as blood...

Suddenly, Abao felt that some images and sounds were passing through the ice of time, returning to the river of his memory...

"Mother, why doesn't the clan leader wear red? I like red!"

"Hehe, how can you wear red? Red is a taboo color."

"A forbidden color? Why? Why is red forbidden?"

"Because red symbolizes blood, it is... the blood of... therefore... it is taboo."

Whose blood is it? Whose blood is taboo?

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 57: The Search

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 57: The Search

I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, while Fang Lei stood silently by the window. We both knew we should go find someone, Su Qiao, but for some reason, neither of us went. Perhaps we were afraid of something, afraid that she would keep me from waking up from that hypnosis forever. Seeing our faces swapped, I felt a wave of dizziness and helplessness wash over me.

Time had long since slipped away from us, and the sky had turned as black as ink in the blink of an eye. There was no moon, no stars. The room was dark, and I could only feel Fang Lei standing before me like a silhouette. Perhaps, only in this darkness could I forget her Su Qiao face.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

“I have a way that might find Abao.” Fang Lei turned to face me and said, “I have a spell, but I’m not sure if it will work. And I need your help.”

"What method?" Any method is better than doing nothing for now.

"You can sense the fluctuations of a soul, and everyone's soul fluctuations are different. I have a spell here that can temporarily enhance a person's perception."

"You want me to sense A Bao's soul fluctuations?"

Fang Lei nodded. I stood up and went to her side; her face was still blurry. Fang Lei reached out her hand to me. I felt the coldness of her hand—was it from standing by the window for too long, or something else? I didn't have time to think about it further. A stinging warmth flowed from her palm, and I instantly felt a strange sensation in my body, as if all my pores had opened up. Even with my eyes closed, I could clearly perceive everything around me and hear sounds I had never heard before. It was a bit noisy, yet also ethereal. A wondrous feeling.

It's so cold; even my skin seems more sensitive to the outside world. Every inch of my skin, from my palms to my body, feels like it's been splashed with chili water. I feel my breathing quicken, and my heart is beating much faster than usual.

"It's definitely going to be uncomfortable at first when your senses are heightened, just bear with it." Fang Lei's voice, which had been very weak, now seemed to be shouting right into my ears. I nodded, and it took me a long time to get used to it.

“Your perception is ten times stronger than usual, which means…” Fang Lei paused for a moment, then said, “that is, you are now particularly sensitive to fluctuations in the soul, and correspondingly, fluctuations in the soul are also particularly sensitive to your existence.”

"So the result is that you're more likely to see ghosts than usual, right?" I chuckled, glancing at the dark shadows in the woods below the window. They drifted and swayed, with a wriggling feel to them.

“So you have to be careful, just pretend you don’t see some things. Our most important thing now is to find Abao,” Fang Lei said urgently. “Okay.” I nodded, took Fang Lei’s hand, and left the room. Right now, I could strongly feel Abao’s soul fluctuations, as if Abao was calling to me from not far away. She seemed very weak and frightened. Where was she? What had she encountered?

Without looking to the side, I led Fang Lei out of the guesthouse. Of course, I saw the girl with two braids standing at the front desk on the first floor, smiling faintly. But what I saw even more was her lower body—suspended in mid-air. She had no feet.

I left the guesthouse. Along the way, I saw many things I shouldn't have seen. The moldy, festering bodies and the strangely mutilated bodies made me wonder for the first time: how could so many people have died in this school?

Perhaps it was because they sensed me, or perhaps they sensed that Fang Lei was no ordinary person, that they seemed to be paying close attention to me, yet dared not approach. They simply stood at a distance, watching us move forward.

That stretch of road was only two or three hundred meters long, but I was already sweating profusely from nervousness.

"No matter what you see, stay calm," Fang Lei whispered in my ear.

"I know." I forced myself to endure the discomfort in my bones. Because my sense of smell was ten times more sensitive than usual, the smell of rotting corpses that I had become accustomed to now seemed so strong that it almost brought tears to my eyes.

The hairs on my skin stood on end. It was getting closer and closer. I could feel A Bao's presence... There! In the old laboratory building! "But how can someone hide here?" Fang Lei asked疑惑地.

"No one can hide here. But... you can down there." I looked around, and all the wandering ghosts that had been following me were gone. They didn't come? Were they scared?

"You mean that air-raid shelter?" Fang Lei frowned.

“We were able to go in last time, so why can’t others? Besides, this really is a good place for Tibetans,” I said. “Do you have a master key now?” Fang Lei asked.

"Isn't this it?" I said with a smile, pulling Fang Lei's precious hairpin from her hair. Fang Lei immediately gave me a helpless look. If her master knew that we were using this hairpin as a universal key, wouldn't she be furious?

As I opened the painted door, I was immediately hit by a much stronger stench of death than before, the kind that smells like the putrid liquid of a corpse. The stench was so intense it made me stumble.

After finally getting used to the smell, I pulled Fang Lei inside. The flashlight beam was weak, but it at least separated us from the darkness. Strangely, I had a feeling that there were more than just the two of us in this narrow passage. I felt like something was passing by us in the darkness, or standing quietly behind us.

Even stranger, as we walked further, we suddenly discovered that those light bulbs that had long since failed were now lit! Who fixed them? Could it be that the school sent someone to fix them after the incident with the corpse in the water tank?

That's unlikely! Why would they repair this place? Looking up again, something just doesn't seem right!

Just as we stopped there, feeling puzzled, we suddenly heard hurried footsteps coming from ahead. Who was it? I immediately gripped Fang Lei's hand tightly.

Who...? Who is it?

Huff...! It sounds like the panting of someone running fast. Closer...closer...!

Is he... just a male student?

His delicate, pale face seemed very excited the moment he saw us, but wait, it seems he only saw me? Because I felt his gaze was fixed on me. Looking back at Fang Lei, it seemed she could only hear his voice, but couldn't see the boy.

The boy was wearing a strange outfit... a black... school uniform...? It looked like the kind of style that universities used to wear before the liberation.

"Hey! Great, it's so good to see you. Can you do me a favor?" The boy wasn't afraid of me like the other ghosts. He seemed not to see me at all, and didn't even sense Fang Lei's presence.

Without even thinking, I blurted out, "Okay." Then I squeezed Fang Lei's hand hard. She must have wondered why I was talking to thin air.

Fang Lei didn't say anything more.

Although I knew I should go find Abao now, he was different from the other ghosts. He wasn't afraid of me and Fang Lei, and more importantly, he didn't seem to realize he was a ghost! He seemed to still believe he was alive. A ghost filled with obsession.

"Can you help me, classmate? There must be a trap on that wall. Some of my friends have been eaten by that wall!" The boy anxiously pulled me forward, and I had no choice but to follow him. After jogging for about ten seconds, we arrived in front of a wall that looked no different from any other air-raid shelter wall.

"You mean the wall ate your friend?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah! We've all graduated already. We just wanted to come to this air-raid shelter for a little adventure before leaving school, purely for fun. But just now, as we got here, the wall suddenly flipped over, pulling all my friends in front of me inside," the boy said anxiously, then frantically groped along the wall, seemingly trying to find the mechanism to open it.

I tried to feel around, but there was no response. I even tugged on the light bulbs a few times, but there was no reaction. The wall seemed to be just an ordinary wall.

"What do we do? What do we do? They've been inside for almost two hours. No! I need to find more people to help!" With that, the boy stood up and prepared to leave.

"Wait a minute, what's your name?" I asked hurriedly.

"Zhao Hui! The 'Hui' in 'glorious'!" The boy answered my question as he ran, and in the blink of an eye he disappeared into the darkness.

"It's a 'ghost of attachment.' These kinds of souls are usually unable to be reincarnated because they have something left unfinished," Fang Lei said, glancing into the darkness.

"He seems unable to see you," I said.

“That’s what’s truly terrifying, because he didn’t even realize he was dead. No sorcerer would dare provoke such a ghost without sufficient magical power. Once it realizes it’s dead, its spiritual power will surge many times over, becoming incredibly destructive. It won’t disappear unless it completes what it didn’t finish,” Fang Lei said. “I think what he didn’t finish was probably finding his friends inside this wall!” I looked at the wall regretfully. There must be a mechanism there, but I couldn’t find it. Even if he did find it, after all these years, his friends would probably be dead inside by now!

"Lin Xiao, we need to go find Ah..."

“I know, but I can only sense that Abao is here.” I knocked on the wall.

"Inside?" Fang Lei asked, "You mean the jade was also eaten by the wall?"

"How could a wall eat people?" I chuckled, but my hand, which was tapping against the wall, suddenly felt empty. I turned my head, as if looking out of a train window at the rushing scenery. The image of the wall flashed past my eyes, then froze, and then I saw... inside the wall...

Two students, a boy and a girl, lay on the ground… their faces were already beginning to rot… they seemed to have been dead for a long time. More importantly… I saw a third person… standing… a third student… a woman…

Jet-black hair...pale face...tears...shimmering like glistening dewdrops on the edges of her long eyelashes...white...white clouds...?

Zhao Hui's friend was swallowed up by the wall?

How could there be white clouds? She and Zhao Hui are from completely different generations! How could she be inside?

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei nudged me, but with a sway of her body, the image in front of me immediately turned into a wall again and disappeared; the image from before vanished.

"I...I saw white clouds!" I exclaimed to Fang Lei in surprise.

"Baiyun? What's she doing here?" Fang Lei asked in surprise. "Shouldn't her soul be in Zuomu Village? Has she come back?"

“But she… she seems to be wearing the same school uniform as Zhao Hui.” I knocked on the wall again, but there was no response.

“Let’s ignore her for now.” Fang Lei tugged at me and said, “We’re here to find A Bao, and we have to get back before 2 a.m. 2 a.m. is usually when ghosts are most active, so we need to get back before then. Besides, the spell I cast to enhance your perception will also disappear before 2 a.m.

But...but...Baiyun...I suppressed my desire to investigate further and had no choice but to follow Fang Lei deeper into the air-raid shelter, since our purpose in coming here was to find Abao.

Just as I turned to look at that wall one last time, I saw that familiar figure in the darkness again… Baiyun! But this time she wasn't inside the wall; she was standing right in front of it, wearing… military green clothes… a military uniform…? That seemed to be… the kind of clothes everyone wore during the Cultural Revolution!

Wait a minute! Zhao Hui and Bai Yun were clearly wearing black school uniforms from before Liberation, but now they've changed into military green uniforms? That's a difference of over twenty years!

Why? It's the same white cloud, but if her soul has returned to the school, why would she appear before me in two different eras dressed in different clothes?

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 58: Fragments

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 58: Fragments

"Have you found it?" Fang Lei anxiously looked at her watch. It was almost two o'clock, but I had only led her around in circles in this maze-like air-raid shelter. It wasn't that I hadn't sensed A Bao's soul fluctuations, but rather that it seemed to be everywhere! In other words, A Bao's soul was actually spread throughout the entire air-raid shelter, seemingly without any distinction in strength; the soul fluctuations in every place seemed to be evenly distributed.

What's going on? I've never encountered anything like this before. The fluctuations of souls couldn't possibly cover such a wide area; even the souls on this earth vary in strength. This situation makes me think of one word: human intervention!