Wu Hen stood rooted to the spot.
The nearby bonfire warmed his arm until it felt slightly scorched, but everywhere else, his body was icy cold!!
This girl was a monster too!!
And she was symbiotic with the Head-Severing Demon!!
The aftershock of having narrowly escaped death surged through him again, and his heart pounded uncontrollably!
This was just absurd!!
What kind of world was this??
If he hadn't actually known sign language, this Symbiotic Ghost might not have let him off??
Cold sweat soaked him through!!
Was he doomed? The girl could see him and knew he was alive. She could simply order the Head-Severing Demon to take his head!!
Then no matter how hard he struggled, it would be useless!
Was this a dead end after all??
Wu Hen stood there, waiting for his final execution...
But something strange happened.
Roots sprouted from the demon's back. After the girl "mounted" it, she merely shot Wu Hen a bored glance. With a hint of disdain, she patted the Head-Severing Demon, signaling it to leave.
The Head-Severing Demon didn't look back. Like a father at dusk, it carried its daughter toward home.
The girl and the demon didn't turn invisible this time. They walked straight into the depths of the town...
Even after seeing with his own eyes that they had truly left, Wu Hen remained frozen in fear for a long while.
The lingering dread felt like he'd swallowed a snake's egg. He had no idea when it might hatch and worm its way into his insides.
It was almost impossible to calm down completely!
After resting for a very long time,
Wu Hen knew there was no point in staying where he was.
He knew exactly why he had come here.
He had to keep going!
He looked around again.
Behind him and on either side stretched a vast rainforest. One glance told him it was utterly primeval and must be full of dangers.
Ahead lay the town, reaching toward a rainforest cliff. Looking down the road before him, he could still see people wandering about, seemingly a group of homeless refugees...
Beside the inn at the town's entrance stood a stable.
There was a horse inside. Its eyes bulged and glowed bloodred, as if it could see something terrifying approaching. It was extremely agitated.
It kept tossing its head, its four hooves stamping wildly in the mud.
"Crack!"
The reins snapped. The Red Date Horse broke free and galloped out of town in terror!
It raced toward the rainforest.
But just as it disappeared into the trees, the Red Date Horse let out a scream of pure agony!!
Wu Hen stared in its direction. In the blink of an eye, he saw the horse turn into a skeleton!!
Only a moment ago, the Red Date Horse had been galloping across the grass. It was as if it had plunged into some machine that stripped away its skin and flesh and picked its bones clean. The next moment, only its bones remained...
Most horrifying of all, its skeleton kept running as if fleeing, dashing deeper into the rainforest until it crashed into a tree and finally fell apart!
It had all happened so suddenly and so fast that the horse itself seemed not to have realized its flesh and skin had been separated from it!
The clean white bones, not even stained with blood, scattered across the grass. Wu Hen's legs buckled at the sight!
For a moment, he'd actually considered entering the rainforest!
So the Head-Severing Demon wasn't the only great horror out there...
What was absurd was that he hadn't even seen whatever had stripped the Red Date Horse to its bones!
Terrifying!
Compared to the rainforest's unknown brutality, even that wicked girl with roots for a lower body seemed almost pretty by comparison.
After steadying himself, Wu Hen continued toward Jue Town.
The town had a single cross-shaped Main Street. Everything else was made up of narrow lanes and alleys.
Apart from the shops along Main Street, which looked relatively new, most of the other buildings were in a state of disrepair.
Moss and vines were everywhere, growing unchecked. Some houses had even grown together with the plants...
Still, no matter how dilapidated and disorderly the town was, one thing was consistent: it was quiet!
It was an unnatural silence, without so much as an insect chirping or a bird calling. Even the people walking around town tiptoed, afraid of stepping on broken glass or knocking down a swaying sign...
There were plenty of drifters in town, but since they couldn't make a sound, most communicated with their eyes.
Wu Hen couldn't tell whether they were people like him who had entered the virtual world or natives of it.
The town wasn't large, and it wouldn't take long to walk around it.
"Jingle, jingle~~~~~"
Suddenly, the sound of a bell came from an alley.
It should have been an ordinary sound, just a wind chime hanging outside someone's house. But in this town, it was enough to send anyone's adrenaline soaring!
Wu Hen happened to be just outside the alley.
He heard it perfectly clearly!
He certainly hadn't made the sound himself.
As if in a daze, Wu Hen poked his head out and glanced down the alley!
The moment he looked, he saw the outline of a demon slowly emerge against the wall's surface...
It didn't seem to have flashed in from somewhere else. It was more as if it had been hiding inside the wall all along, waiting coldly for prey to take the bait!
At the very end of the alley stood a young man in a leather jacket, his back against the wall.
In his hand was a fragment that looked like it was made of diamond. His eyes were fixed in terror on a very fine thread, with a bell tied to its other end!
Wu Hen didn't know what the diamond-like fragment was, but he knew someone had triggered a trap!!
A trap set by the Symbiotic Ghost!!
To the Symbiotic Ghost, the young man in the leather jacket was no different from a mouse caught in a mousetrap!
"Heh heh, you did a pretty good job pretending to be a Lost One. You managed to stay on my turf for a whole month..." the Symbiotic Banshee said with a laugh.
The young man in the leather jacket didn't dare speak. His eyes still showed how desperately he wanted to live.
"What a shame. In the end, you couldn't resist the temptation of this tiny Crystal Fragment. You didn't dare steal the Yuan You in the middle of the plaza, so you set your sights on a fragment instead..." the Symbiotic Banshee continued.
"Please... don't kill me!! I'll do anything you want!!!" The young man suddenly spoke, his cringing, panicked manner nothing like that of a "player."
"Oh, you spoke! That's wonderful!!" The Symbiotic Banshee suddenly grew excited.
Hearing this, the young man realized what it meant. His whole body began trembling uncontrollably!
The longing to live had vanished from his eyes. In its place was the terror of a nightmare that had only just begun!
"He's mine," the Symbiotic Banshee said.
The Head-Severing Demon withdrew its claws, but the Symbiotic Banshee suddenly stretched out the roots beneath her skirt. They plunged into the young man's body!
They didn't pierce right through him. Instead, they looked like thick straws, and Wu Hen could clearly see them writhing rapidly!
Sucking out his blood and marrow!!
From the mouth of the alley, Wu Hen watched the young man shrivel before his eyes.
The young man stayed conscious the whole time. The pain and desperation on his face were unlike anything Wu Hen had ever seen...
Wu Hen's back went cold. He could imagine what would have happened if he'd spoken to the girl a little earlier: he would have suffered the same living-body torture, drained dry!
The sight was truly horrifying.
Afraid his heart rate would spike again, Wu Hen hurried away from the scene of the blood-soaked torture.
"Rumble~~~~~~~~~~"
A low rumble of thunder sounded in the sky, making the already murky air feel even more oppressive and stifling.
Wu Hen needed a little time to compose himself.
He even started to feel confused and doubtful.
That young man should have been like him, someone who'd entered the virtual world to hunt for treasure and search for Yuan You.
He should have known this was all virtual. But why, before he died, had he shown no sign of knowing that?
Sure, people in the real world could be terrified into a breakdown in a haunted house. But he could have simply shouted, "I'm done! I don't want to play anymore!"
That young man in the leather jacket hadn't...
"Rumble~~~~~~~~~"
Another bolt of lightning streaked down, pale and savage, illuminating the town and making it even more sinister.
Before he knew it, Wu Hen had reached the cliff at Jue Town's edge. The area that jutted out over the enormous precipice had been made into a town plaza, once used for gatherings and markets.
Now, the Cliff Plaza was completely empty. There were no stalls or decorations, only grain spread over the entire ground!
It was strange. Why was anyone drying grain in Jue Town's plaza?
"Rumble!!"
Another bolt of lightning split the clouds above the cliff. Only by its light did Wu Hen finally see what covered the whole plaza!
Bones!
Human bones blanketed the entire Cliff Plaza!!
They'd been crushed into Bone Grains, like grains of rice!!!
Back in the countryside, he'd often seen the uncles drying grain in a large courtyard. The golden carpet spread across the ground had always looked beautiful and abundant...
But when the grain turned into bones, the horror shot straight to his head!
Good heavens, how many people had that Symbiotic Ghost slaughtered to cover an entire plaza with bone fragments?
And how twisted was that wicked woman? Why dump everyone she killed in the plaza? Did it give her the same satisfaction as watching farmers dry grain??
Despite his horror, Wu Hen couldn't help looking toward something at the other end of the plaza.
Near the cliff's edge stood an altar. Floating above it was a wisp of You Ying!
It looked like a special kind of flame, or perhaps a mysterious pearl from the ocean. It was impossible to tell whether it was gas, liquid, or solid.
Its glow was as alluring as agate and jade!
Recommended: a new book by the great urban fiction author Lao Shi.
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