Beginner's deserted village (4)

Tang Cha was still groggy when someone woke him after an unknown amount of time. "Mom, I'm not eating breakfast."

Then a hand clamped over his mouth.

Fang Rui whispered, "Shut up. Who are you calling Mom?"

Tang Cha snapped awake. Everything around him was pitch-black, and all he could hear were a few people breathing. "What's going on?"

"For some reason, Old Zhao and I both fell asleep. Ji Xun was the one who woke us up," Lu Jiancheng said, keeping his voice low. "Then we noticed something was wrong outside."

"Wrong?" Puzzled, Tang Cha walked to the window and peeked out.

The moon was bright tonight, bright enough for Tang Cha to clearly see the spirit money fluttering in the air.

Just like what they had seen on the bus.

Fang Rui said, "It's too quiet outside. Before we fell asleep, we could still hear dogs barking and insects chirping. Now there's nothing."

Ji Xun caught Tang Cha's wrist and checked his watch. "Midnight."

"W-what's wrong with that?" Tang Cha stammered, trembling.

Fang Rui explained, "It's when yin and yang meet. A lot of supernatural stories happen during the witching hour."

Tang Cha really was on the verge of tears. "Please, sis, can you stop scaring me?"

"Shh..." Xin Xin suddenly spoke up. "I think I hear something."

Tang Cha immediately shut his mouth.

People's senses naturally sharpened in the dark, allowing them to clearly hear a rustling sound coming from the room next door.

Because of her work, Xin Xin was particularly sensitive to sounds. After listening closely for a while, she said, "It sounds like something sliding along."

"Is it a person?" Tang Cha still clung to a sliver of hope. Maybe a neighbor was moving things in the middle of the night?

"What are you thinking? People don't slither." Ji Xun rested a hand on Tang Cha's shoulder and leaned toward his ear with a mischievous grin. "It's... snakes."

Tang Cha: ...

That was even scarier!

"The door's locked. Those things shouldn't be able to get in, right?" Zhou Yang asked, holding his girlfriend in his arms.

"I could kick down a wooden door like this with one foot. And judging by the noise, there are quite a few of those things out there." Ji Xun pursed his lips. "If we wait any longer, we'll probably be surrounded."

Lu Jiancheng gritted his teeth and tore a leg off a stool to defend himself. He told Ji Xun, "I'll take the lead. We'll charge out in a moment."

Ji Xun raised an eyebrow. Although the man looked fierce and hardly seemed like a good person, he had been protecting them ever since they entered the village.

These temporary teammates had all turned out to be unexpectedly dependable, too.

Lu Jiancheng quietly opened the door a crack. There was nothing outside.

Then they heard the roof of the room next door collapse, followed by the sound of something hitting the ground. The slithering noises slowly drew closer.

Along with the hissing of snakes flicking their tongues.

Hiss... hiss... hiss...

"Run!" Lu Jiancheng shouted, charging out first.

Once they reached the courtyard, Tang Cha glanced back and nearly had his soul scared out of him.

Half of the earthen house had collapsed. The other half teetered on the brink, covered from the walls to the roof in "giant snakes" over two meters long.

Those things had the bodies of snakes, but human heads.

Their faces were ashen gray, their features slack, like corpses that had been dead for a long time. Their pupils were eerie vertical slits, just like a snake's.

In the darkness, the monsters raised their heads and crawled along the walls. Their lifeless eyes stared at the group with venomous hatred, their mouths gaping as they repeatedly flicked out bright red tongues.

Hiss... hiss...

"Ji... you said they were snakes, didn't you?" Tang Cha's face was stiff. "I'd rather they were just snakes."

Ji Xun said, "Look at that face. It's Uncle Chen."

Lu Jiancheng switched on his flashlight and shone it at them. The monsters were clearly afraid of the light and shrank back.

The face caught in the beam belonged unmistakably to the man who had welcomed them into the village that day.

They had seen most of the other monsters' faces during the day, too.

"Fuck, I knew there was something wrong with those villagers," Lu Jiancheng cursed.

The monsters crawled slowly, but kept closing in.

Ji Xun said, "Let's get out of here first."

Only after leaving the courtyard did they realize that the entire village had been overrun by Man-Snakes.

They ran for their lives until they reached a fork in the road, finally shaking off the monsters for the moment.

But they still couldn't relax. The night put them at a disadvantage. Who knew whether a snake would dart out of a corner and kill them the very next second?

"What do we do? Which way do we go?" Fang Rui's face was deathly pale. She was a homebody who rarely exercised, and this much exertion was already more than her body could handle.

"If I'd had monsters chasing me before, I wouldn't have failed PE," Tang Cha said, looking utterly hopeless.

A building stood on either side of the fork. Ji Xun's senses far exceeded those of an ordinary person, and he could see no signs of Man-Snakes around either building.

Ji Xun asked, "Which one?"

Tang Cha raised his hand. "Here's the thing. My constitution is unusual. I have a trait no one else does."

A night breeze swept past, rustling the trees. Tang Cha shuddered and no longer dared to keep them in suspense. He hurriedly said, "My luck is terrible, but also really good. I always end up running into things I really don't want to face, but that turn out to benefit me."

Fang Rui asked, "Like finding half a worm in an apple, with the other half still in your mouth?"

Tang Cha: ...

Xin Xin asked, "Like going to the bathroom without any toilet paper, only for the girl you have a crush on to be in the next stall?"

Tang Cha: ...

Who puts the men's and women's toilets together?!

"Stop!" Tang Cha wanted to cry but had no tears. Pouting, he pointed at one of the buildings. "The moment I saw that house, I really wanted to go inside. But eighteen years of experience tells me there's definitely something in there I don't want to face."

Six pairs of eyes turned toward Ji Xun in unison.

Ji Xun asked, "Why are you all looking at me?"

Lu Jiancheng said, "You're calmer than any of us, Ji Xun. What do you think we should do now?"

Ji Xun pointed his thumb at the Man-Snakes catching up behind them. "Do we have any other choice?"

The lucky little house Tang Cha had chosen looked different from the others even from the outside.

While the other houses still had earthen walls and heated brick beds, this one had been built with cement, and its floors were tiled.

It even had a separate living room, with a very dated television set in the center.

Although it still had a heated brick bed, the observant Fang Rui noticed something odd.

"This bed looks like it's been renovated." Fang Rui ran a hand over it. It, too, was covered in dust.

If "Ji Xun's" home had been left vacant because he had moved to the city with his father when he was very young, why was this finely furnished house unoccupied?

"This family probably had a little child." Xin Xin pointed at the table. "Children often bump into things when they're learning to walk, so parents cover the edges and corners of furniture like this."

Tang Cha cleaned the dust off the heated brick bed and plopped down on it, saying weakly, "I can't go on. I need a break. I've already exceeded my exercise quota for today."

Ji Xun had not spoken since entering the house. Seeing Tang Cha sit on the bed, he suddenly said, "I'd advise you to stay away from the heated brick bed in this house."

Tang Cha always listened to advice. He quickly jumped to the floor and eyed the bed warily. "Ji, are there snakes in this bed, too?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he hastily shut his mouth, because he heard a deeply unsettling sound coming from inside the room.