pozo profundo

Capítulo 114

Yes, only man-made things can be so uniform and orderly. No two leaves are the same, just as no two souls are the same. And no two souls have the same distribution of energy fluctuations.

"Can't you feel it?" Fang Lei asked.

"I can feel it everywhere; someone must have tampered with it!" I shook my head regretfully.

"Then we have no choice but to give up." Fang Lei sighed.

"Give up? We haven't found Abao yet!" I was a little angry.

“We must leave before 2 o’clock. 2 o’clock is the time when the gates of hell open, and all souls are at their strongest at this time, while the spiritual power of mages is at its weakest! Moreover, your body will be fatigued after enduring such a long period of enhanced perception, and you will have no ability to resist these ghosts!” Fang Lei grabbed my hand without saying anything else. Although I still felt extremely unwilling, what Fang Lei said was the reality we had to face.

Turning around, I seemed to hear someone's smug chuckle... a hallucination...? I frowned. It was the kind of smugness I'd expected. Who was it? Was it the one who'd secretly tampered with things? He could somehow make A Bao's soul fluctuations evenly distributed, rendering even my heightened senses powerless. If he was so powerful, why was he hiding from us? He could have easily shown himself and eliminated us with ease.

Why is he hesitating to act? What is he afraid of? Or... is he waiting for something?

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. He must be waiting for something...? Or... waiting for a time... a more appropriate time?

Although Su Qiao once said she would give me three days to uncover the secret of the circular necklace, is she the one behind it all?

No! My sixth sense tells me that she isn't; she's just a key middleman.

So...it's...Zhao Xing?

Teacher...? I seem unable to suppress my suspicion of him. He's the same archivist, but he seems to be hiding even more secrets in his heart.

Sigh…! I sighed. Everything seemed to make sense, yet all the threads were unrelated. A tangled ball of yarn. It seemed harder to work on than having nothing at all.

"Don't be discouraged, we can try again." Fang Lei seemed to notice my frustration and comforted me.

"Yes, I know." I gave Fang Lei a friendly smile, but her face seemed to start to blur, and I felt dizzy! Was it already two o'clock? My body was really starting to feel tired.

"What's wrong?" Fang Lei asked with concern.

I looked up and felt that her face seemed to be slowly returning to its original appearance, no longer resembling Su Qiao's! Had the hypnosis been lifted?

I was overjoyed. Although my footing started to give way, I grabbed Fang Lei and excitedly said, "I saw... I saw your face!"

Fang Lei didn't understand what I meant at first. But after thinking about it carefully, she immediately realized and excitedly asked, "Really? Really?"

"Ah! Yes!" I was as happy as a child. The long-lost face and familiar figure were perhaps more precious than a long-awaited reunion. "Then... let's leave quickly." Fang Lei pulled me forward, but my body was getting more and more tired, as if I were on a 25,000-mile Long March, my legs felt like they were filled with lead.

"I know you're tired, but we need to leave quickly!" Fang Lei supported me, and I took a deep breath. I gritted my teeth and followed Fang Lei's footsteps.

The surrounding lights grew dimmer, and I felt silent footsteps behind me… It was a feeling… as if something was slowly moving behind me, something I couldn't hear or see, but I could feel, like a dreamlike illusion that made me uneasy, yet not particularly afraid. It slowly, gradually, began to devour my consciousness.

Air raid shelters should have ventilation openings, but there aren't any here; it seems the designers and builders concealed them very carefully. Now, I only feel gusts of cold wind blowing from all directions. No matter how hard I try to sense them, I can't pinpoint the direction of the wind. We... seem to be lost in this maze.

However, Fang Lei didn't seem to have lost her way; she steadfastly led me forward. But... why is her face starting to blur again, seemingly reverting to Su Qiao's appearance?

Will it turn back again? Will it disappear again after just one glance?

A profound sense of loss weighed heavily on my heart, a suffocating feeling not of fear, but of something so close yet so unattainable. Even though I had just returned to normal, this psychological gap left me breathless, and my steps slowed considerably.

"Hurry up," Fang Lei urged.

It turned back to normal... it turned back to normal...! I angrily punched the wall and then stopped.

"What's wrong?" Su Qiao's face appeared in front of me, and she asked with concern.

"N-nothing...it's nothing..." I tried to calm myself down.

Hehe...! (chuckles softly...)

A small red figure appeared behind Fang Lei. She was soaking wet, and it looked like something was clinging to her! Black... like seaweed?

The water flowing from her body was also black... slowly spreading...

"Run!" I don't know where the strength came from, but I grabbed Fang Lei and ran past the little girl as fast as I could. She didn't chase after me, but just stood there giggling. The laughter... sounded like the crying of a mouse...

"Lin Xiao...!" Fang Lei wanted to say something, but swallowed it back, and just quietly let me pull her along as we ran...

The surroundings suddenly seemed even darker as we ran, devoid of any visible scenery, as if we were simply running through a long, dark corridor. Only the occasional dark shadows that flashed before my eyes gradually increased in number…

Extremely tired... I stopped to catch my breath... There was a figure ahead, sobbing softly...

Neither Fang Lei nor I went forward; we couldn't go forward... Another man's figure appeared behind the first figure... He hugged the first figure from behind... A man and a woman?

I can't see it clearly...

Suddenly, the man grabbed the woman by the neck, looked up, and saw only a pair of fierce and desperate eyes... nothing else...

That look in my eyes sent chills down my spine!

As Fang Lei and I cautiously passed by them, the man kept his head turned towards me. His eyes followed me intently, as if he wanted to kill the woman right in front of me… He didn't care about the woman's life or death at all… He just stared at me… intently… fixed on me…

I stopped in my tracks, not because of his gaze, but because of another figure that appeared behind him... Baiyun...?

A black school uniform… a mournful gaze… she watched silently as the man restrained the woman… without moving… and then… from behind the man, he forcefully shoved her hands into his back…

Tears...slid down from Baiyun's eyes...

However, I saw the white cloud facing me, slowly opening its mouth...

Sin... I think I heard a voice...? Whose sin? Baiyun's? Because she killed this man? Why? The three of them seem to be the three friends Zhao Hui mentioned who were eaten by the wall!

By the way, the appearance of this man and woman seems very similar to the scene in the wall we just saw.

A crime of passion? No... no! Bai Yun and Zhao Hui lived in two different eras!

"Hurry!" Fang Lei didn't give me time to think. I only felt Fang Lei pulling my weary body towards the exit of the air-raid shelter...

Stepping out of the air-raid shelter, it seemed even darker. I felt a cacophony of indistinct sounds gathering and dissipating in my mind, gathering and dissipating again.

Perhaps because my magic was waning, the dark figures before me seemed to have diminished considerably, but the surrounding spiritual energy fluctuations were much more active than before. Could it be because the gates of hell had opened wide?

Fang Lei seemed exhausted as well, her breathing heavily and heaving. I forced myself to walk toward the guesthouse, and as I looked up, I could see the silhouette of the archives in the darkness.

"Where are you going?" Fang Lei asked.

“Go there.” I pointed to the archives.

"No!" Fang Lei said.

“There will definitely be more clues there, and today is a good opportunity,” I said.

"But……"

"Don't worry, at least we're together." I smiled.

Fang Lei sighed, and finally gave a tired but acquiescing smile.

Inside the archives, however, were people Fang Lei and I never expected to find: Juanzi's friend, Zhou Zhou, a female student also managing the archives, and her boyfriend, Teng Li. Coming here so late, they obviously wanted to avoid being seen and do something they liked.

The two chose a spot at the very back of the archives, right below the standing air conditioner.

"Stop it, stop fooling around." Zhou Zhou shoved Teng Li's hand away, then got up and put on his clothes.

"You found a really nice place, it even has air conditioning!" Teng Li looked around smugly. The lights weren't on, only the air conditioner indicator light was flashing.

“These files are quite old, so they should be stored at room temperature,” Zhou Zhou replied.

"This school just wastes money on such trivial things!" Teng Li muttered in dissatisfaction, struggling to get up. His hand, which was supporting his body, subconsciously moved back a little, and ended up under the filing cabinet.

"Huh? What's this?" Teng Li felt his hand touch something, and after groping around, he took the thing out from under the cabinet! It was a piece of paper, or more precisely, a small piece of paper. Even without light, Teng Li could still tell that the paper was very old, because it was worn and damp.

"What is it?" Zhou Zhou asked.

"I don't know, turn on the light!" Teng Li said.

*Snap*, Zhou Zhou and the others turned on the lights. Under the light, Teng Li could clearly see what was in his hand: a torn corner of a photograph showing only the face of a pretty female student; the paper was already yellowed.

"Hey, not bad looking," Teng Li said.

"Look at me? Humph!" Zhou Zhou snatched the photo away, saying, "It probably fell out of some file!"

"Of course not as pretty as you." Teng Li knew that a well-placed lie could be quite effective with a woman.

Sure enough, Zhou Zhou gave him an extremely seductive look, which, combined with her disheveled appearance, was particularly alluring. Teng Li swallowed hard, and just as he was preparing to press his advantage, suddenly! Snap... the light... turned off by itself...!

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 59: Women

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 59: Women

"Going back?" Fang Lei looked at me, but I was looking at the bright lights. Just as we were about to leave, the lights in the archives room came on, which puzzled me. Who would be inside so late?

"Wait a moment." I felt a vague unease; the bright white light, like the light in a morgue, sent a chill down my spine. Shadows floated all around me; the spirits seemed to have lost their human form, reverting to pitch-black shadows, unreal in their darkness.

"There's probably someone inside." I looked up at it, and suddenly, it went out again...

"What happened?" Teng Li's tone was a little panicked, because he clearly did not see Zhou Zhou turn off the light just now; the light was turned off by himself! Although the furnishings in this archive room were a bit old, in this dark and quiet night, the sudden going out always made people instinctively feel uneasy.

"I didn't turn it off!" Zhou Zhou looked around in the darkness, puzzled. Although he had just been in the dark, for some reason, now that he was suddenly in the dark again, it felt darker than ever before. There was no light at all, and everything in front of him was pitch black.

Fumbling to turn on the light, Zhou Zhou reached out towards the switch based on his memory. Suddenly, the surrounding air became damp, and with a dripping sound, something dripped onto the back of Zhou Zhou's hand, instantly sending a chill down his spine.

It's so cold! Zhou Zhou thought to herself.

The substance dripping onto the back of his hand emitted a blackish-red glow in the darkness. Zhou Zhou saw it... he saw the terrifying face that flashed before his eyes as the light passed by, and the blackish-red liquid dripping from its mouth.

Seemingly terrified, Zhou Zhou simply opened his mouth wide, but didn't utter a sound.

Teng Li looked in Zhou Zhou's direction, but he couldn't see her. He just subconsciously looked in that direction when a flash of fire appeared before his eyes—a strange, blackish-red light. In the firelight, Teng Li saw the terrifying face standing in front of Zhou Zhou.

His face, seemingly rotting like a zombie from a horror movie, held a faint smile...

"Ah...!" Teng Li cried out in terror.

"What's your name?" Zhou Zhou's cold and sinister voice rang out, and his sneer made Teng Li think it was all a joke by Zhou Zhou...? No... it's not a joke!

Teng Li saw Zhou Zhou. He emitted a blackish-red light in the darkness; his eyes were no longer pupils, but two pitch-black holes. His hair moved without wind, then instantly grew long, extending towards him like a moving waterfall, enveloping him in the blink of an eye.

"Who...who are you?" Teng Li asked in terror.

A chilling laugh, sending shivers down one's spine, followed by Zhou Zhou's sudden disappearance of his clothes, revealing... a pale, bloodless naked body, with dark red veins running beneath his pale skin. In a matter of moments, these veins had become tangled like a spiderweb.

"No...don't come any closer!" Teng Li struggled, but his black hair had already bound his body. A gust of cold wind made him shiver.

Zhou Zhou slowly walked over, bent down, and her beautiful breasts formed two graceful arcs in front of Teng Li. However, Teng Li had long lost all sexual interest, replaced by boundless fear.

"Squeak...!" This was the sound of Zhou Zhou lightly licking Teng Li's shoulder with his tongue, and at the same time, it was the sound of Teng Li's skin being corroded.

"Ah...!" Teng Li screamed in pain. The once warm and moist tongue had now become something as terrifying as sulfuric acid. Just a light lick on his shoulder caused him excruciating pain, and the sizzling sound of his skin corroding it made him even more terrified.

Just as Fang Lei and I were about to leave, the lights in the archives suddenly went out again. Then… someone called! My heart sank; the voice was coming from inside the archives!

"There's someone inside!" Fang Lei immediately grabbed my hand, and without any hesitation, I rushed in with her.