"Father, what's wrong?"
Wu Heng's shout made Ben turn around instinctively, but he realized something was wrong after only saying half of what he had said.
Since it was Wu Heng who brought him this trial, why would he come looking for him? The Wu Heng before him was likely an imposter. Ben took two steps back, preparing to flee.
He noticed that Wu Heng's gaze was strange. Ever since he called his name, Wu Heng had stopped looking at him and instead stared at the spot behind him, as if there was something behind him.
Ben turned around, following Wu Heng's gaze.
"Oh, looks like we have a new friend. Ben, could you come up here for a moment?"
A sound came from the stairwell leading to the third floor, a sound like a scalpel slicing through the Silence of the building.
Upon hearing this nightmarish voice, his heart pounded in his chest like a drum, sweat poured down his forehead and armpits, his chest hair became matted, and a flood of memories surged into his mind.
As soon as Wu Heng went upstairs, he saw the bubble shoes and large orange buttons emerging from the shadows on the opposite staircase in the corridor—it was none other than Pennywise Pennywise.
Unlike the fake Pennywise in the church, Wu Heng did not use the Swine Two to construct this illusion; it was real.
This was his first encounter with it.
The Pennywise Pennywise stood at the top of the opposite staircase, looking down and staring at him.
Its face was painted white with oil paint, it grinned with a strange smile, and it stared intently at Wu Heng with its sunken black eye sockets.
Pennywise held a bunch of balloons in his left hand, tied to a book, while his right hand gripped a child's severed leg like a chicken leg. He stared at Wu Heng for a long time before turning his gaze to the book.
"Come up, Ben," Pennywise called downstairs.
"I won't hurt you, I have a book for you! A book and a balloon, come on!"
Ben subconsciously took a step closer to Wu Heng. He wasn't sure if Wu Heng was a fake, but the Pennywise behind him was definitely real.
He wanted to yell back, "Are you crazy to think I'd go up there!"
But he didn't dare to say a word.
"Hehe, I know you're too scared to talk!" Pennywise continued with a grin. "I almost fooled you just now, didn't I?"
"Oh, sir, I'm sorry, do you have canned Prince Albert? Yes, I do. Then you'd better let that poor fellow out! Oh, madam, I'm sorry, is your refrigerator running? Yes, it is! Then you'd better hurry and chase after it!"
Pennywise Pennywise stood on the landing, spouting a bunch of nonsensical ramblings, as if telling a ridiculous joke.
It threw its head back and laughed, the sound like a swarm of black bats echoing in the dome, a sound that was extremely shrill and loud, exceeding normal decibel levels.
The laughter made Ben's legs tremble uncontrollably.
"Ben, remember why you came in here. If this continues, perhaps you should burn the postcards."
Wu Heng took five steps forward, and when he was about two meters away from Ben, he spoke in a cold, emotionless voice.
"Father."
Wu Heng's words reminded Ben of his original aspirations, and his inner panic slowly subsided. He slowly raised his head to stare at the Pennywise and said what he had dared not say before:
"When I finally stand before you, you won't want to see me, because we will kill you!"
Upon hearing this, the Pennywise burst into shrill laughter again:
"Kill me? Kill me?"
It seemed to have heard a joke even funnier than the news report from Florida, and it laughed exaggeratedly.
Then the voice suddenly became terrifying; it was imitating the voice from the movie "Little Black Slave."
"Don't kill me, Master!"
"I'm a good black man, don't kill me, you little black devil, haystack!"
After saying that, he continued to laugh shrilly.
'Haystack' was Ben's childhood nickname. Although Ben wanted to bravely face the Pennywise, the neurohormones secreted by his brain still made him fearful. He turned pale and felt like he was about to vomit.
The Pennywise's gaze shifted back to Wu Heng.
"Come on up, Father," it shouted.
"Let's talk, let's talk without prejudice, what do you say?"
Looking at the Pennywise's sinister grinning face as he stood in the shadows of the stair landing, Wu Heng took a few steps forward.
"I think it's fine, but I don't like talking with my head tilted back. Maybe you can come down; it's spacious enough to hold dozens of people."
Upon hearing this, the Pennywise laughed even more exaggeratedly.
He dropped the book he was holding on the ground, released the balloon, and the balloon flew all the way to the dome.
"Father, you should look up when you speak to me, just as you look up when you speak to God."
" The Bible says that God is light, but in fact I am the only light in this universe, so God is me!"
Its arms were outstretched, and its neck was twisted strangely, just as it had in Ben's first hallucination, hanging on the giant wooden cross.
It's as if it's saying, "It is Jesus Christ."
But there was no trace of holiness; instead, it resembled a monkey begging for fruit.
"Father, please record our conversation!"
" The Bible needs to add Chapter 1190, which is an explanation of ' God's true identity,' so that we may witness the true light!"
The Pennywise Pennywise's mouth suddenly opened wide like a suitcase being pulled open, and a beam of orange-red light shot out from his throat, shining straight at Wu Heng like a searchlight.
Wu Heng dodged instantly, but he was still no match for the speed of light. The light shone on him, causing Wu Heng to feel disoriented for a moment, as if his body had been bitten by fear.
The tortoise shell on his hand helped him withstand the radiance, and he was unaffected.
As he moved, the light shone on the library assistant girl behind him.
The girl's expression showed a moment of surprise, then she lost her composure, slowly floating into the air and bursting like a bubble. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether she was a real person or an NPC in a hallucination.
"Oh! That damn Maturin!"
After seeing the Maturin block the beam of light, the Pennywise retracted the light from its mouth and jumped up and down in a fit of rage.
"I hate Maturin!!"
"Dead Maturin!"
It clenched its fists, like a bodybuilder showing off his chest muscles, with its arms half-bent and arched in front of its chest, its face and mouth contorted in anger.
Wu Heng wanted to teach it a stomping motion to express anger, in order to enrich its body language.
"I'm sorry, I don't believe in God, just as I don't like light."
Wu Heng used his finger to draw a cross on his chest, using a priest's gestures and words to express his point of view.
It's like talking about something trivial.
But he knew the Pennywise wasn't lying; 'it' truly was the only light in the universe, the Deadlights.
Compared to the Pennywise's split mouth, the searchlight is like the difference between a firefly and the moon.
Pennywise Pennywise was furious. All he wanted to do was eat some people, to devour the Maturin. What had he done wrong?
"Father, if you want to fight me, this is your only chance."
"You're like a cactus that rarely bears fruit, but if you did, it would surely be delicious to eat."
The Pennywise staggered down the stairs, a sinister grin spreading across his face.
"You don't believe in God, so you want to save yourself, Father? I advise you to give up!"
"Let me tell you, I am the last survivor of an extinct species, the sole survivor on a dying planet."
"I came here to steal all the women, rape all the men, and learn how to make mint nuggets."
After it finished speaking, it frantically waved its hands, making a bartending motion.
His right hand was still gripping the child's bloody, severed leg. His oversized Pennywise costume billowed and danced, the swirling air blowing books off the shelf like playing cards. Ben was forced back two steps by the gust.
Wu Heng seemed to be rooted to the spot, standing there with ease.
The Pennywise closed in again, its long, sharp fingers not like something fictional; it was real and deadly.
Suddenly, Exorcism Command appeared in Wu Heng's hand, and the moment it appeared, he swung it out.
'Since we have to take action, let's strike first!'
The Pennywise vanished, and the severed leg in its hand fell to the glass walkway with a thud, a sound that was hard to describe.
"I think we had a very pleasant conversation!"
The sound of the Pennywise scraping the bottom of a pot with a shovel came again from the landing, as if it had been standing there the whole time.
Its voice was filled with anger:
"Run! Get out of here before dark, or I'll be after you tonight!"
Wu Heng seemed not to hear the Pennywise's words. He took two steps forward and picked up the severed leg from the ground.
"Don't waste it!"
The severed leg in his hand instantly dried up and disappeared from Wu Heng's grasp.
A surge of energy flowed into his body, equivalent to the amount of a Cursed Disciple —no wonder it was the calf that Pennywise Pennywise cooked.
Then Wu Heng looked up at the Pennywise with the large orange buttons on his clothes and replied gently:
"Thanks for the reminder, I'll escape. I'll run away right away."
His tone was as if he were thanking a kind person for the reminder.
Wu Heng knew that the reason the Pennywise wasn't strong at the moment was because Ben Hans had just experienced the Church Pennywise; his fear had just been exposed, and his nerves hadn't recovered from the numbness.
Since Wu Heng himself doesn't instill fear in it, the Pennywise's enhancement is very limited.
It's like a deflated balloon that hasn't been inflated!
However, Wu Heng also sensed the trouble the Pennywise was causing.
He was becoming somewhat worried about the main characters and planned to seek out more power.
"Well then, this party is now over. We'll take our leave, Mr. Pennywise!"
Wu Heng put his hand on Ben's shoulder, and using the tortoise shell as a springboard, they returned to the church, much like switching between phone app interfaces.
The red walls and sacred murals reappeared before my eyes.
Ben immediately turned to look at Wu Heng, who was still sitting in the same spot. He had many questions in his mind. He didn't understand whether the illusion he had just experienced was real or a fabrication by Wu Heng.
Wu Heng, however, was pondering his next plan.
He originally intended to portray all seven main characters as reborn individuals who defied fear, but as soon as he began creating them, Pennywise set his sights on them and invaded the illusion.
Although they knew that these seven people had already been marked with a mark from the Derry.
I just didn't expect that, far from Derry, the Pennywise could still have such a strong influence and value these people so much.
In this situation, the people of Derry cannot use it.
We can only try to find a solution from outside.
His current address is in Hemington City, Nebraska, one of the state's leading agricultural centers.
The area has a large number of farmers, 58% of whom are Protestants.
Wu Heng prefers intelligent teammates to intelligent enemies.
However, he also disliked clever subordinates.
Because ignorance breeds fearlessness.
He liked the farmers who lived near the western region the most.
It snowed heavily in Xi'an this afternoon, which was a bit of an unexpected delay. I was thinking of asking for leave, but then I changed my mind.
I've been writing for a while now, and I'm 800 words short. I'm running out of time, so I'll stop here for today.
I'm definitely absent from this writer's app check-in, but I just don't want my readers to wait in vain.
I'll post as much as I want to write.