Nightmare Light

Chapter 196 A Large Group of Children
In a nightmare, in the town of Huncheng.

Black sky, black earth, white stone walls
Red silk, red flowers, red lanterns;
Lin Wang remained calm, while Dog Brother trembled.
Before their eyes, a large group of children, their faces pale and their expressions sinister, slowly emerged from alleys and shadows from all directions, surrounding the two of them.

Strange... these kids... something's not right.

Why didn't I sense their presence before?
Although I had a vague feeling before that something strange was watching me in this town... it was probably these children...

But why can't I sense any living person's presence?
As Lin Wang pondered, the children in front of him gradually approached, blocking all the way at the narrow intersection.

The children were dressed in very old-fashioned clothing—mostly simple gray-black fabric, with patched-up designs.

They were pale-faced and had sinister expressions. They stared at the two men with their heads down, revealing only the whites of their eyes. Some of the children were holding weapons such as sharp knives.

Dog Brother, standing to the side, trembled and said, "Boss, it's these kids!"

Lin Wang remained calm as he looked at the children around him and asked Dog Brother, "How did you faint back then?"

"I...I...I was ready to fight bravely, I even put on stilts! Then, suddenly a particularly tall kid appeared among them, grinned at me, revealing hundreds of teeth! I just fainted."

"...So they didn't actually run into you?"

"I...I...I'm sure! They're going to attack me any second! But I've passed out!"

Lin Wang rolled his eyes, ignored Dog Brother, and walked towards the group of children.

"Boss, don't go over there! These kids are dangerous!"

“First of all, no matter how dangerous they are, they’re just a group of children,” Lin Wang said calmly. “Secondly, they’re not living people, so what are you afraid of?”

"Huh? Shouldn't the living be even more afraid?"

“No, living people are what we’re afraid of. They’re just a group of children, and…” Lin Wang walked up to the group of children, less than a meter or two away, and squatted down in front of them. “They’re not living people, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

He raised a finger and waved it in front of the child closest to him.

The latter remained motionless, staring intently at him with a pair of sinister eyes, the whites of which were barely visible, and his pupils did not even follow the movement of Lin Wang's fingers.

"Children, can you hear me?"

No one cares about him.

Hey! Want to play a game? How about hide-and-seek?

Still no one paid attention to him.

"Go back and do your homework!"

Still, no one paid him any attention.

On the contrary, Dog Brother behind him was terrified by Lin Wang's behavior, breaking out in a cold sweat: "Boss... what if you anger these kids..."

"Then they'll call their parents?" Lin Wang added.

“I mean… in case they attack us…” Dog said.

"Then I've achieved my goal, haven't I?" Lin Wang said. "Otherwise, how would we get rid of these kids?"

From Dog Brother's perspective, Lin Wang's behavior was shocking enough—a large group of eerie and terrifying strange children surrounded them.

But the tall northerner wasn't afraid at all. Instead, he strolled over to the group of children as if he were just taking a leisurely walk and began to try to interact with them...

He even made them go back to do their homework!

Are people from the North all this big-hearted?

A whole host of questions popped into Dog's mind.

At this point, Lin Wang began conducting new tests.

He first took out some food and tried to offer it to the children, but as expected, they ignored him.

He pulled out a few more storybooks and May's workbooks, but still no one paid him any attention. So he picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at one of the children.

The pebble passed right through the child in front of him.

However, it didn't pass through without any obstacles. Instead, it was like being thrown into "water," encountering some resistance, and after passing through the child's body, it quickly fell to the ground.

Snapped.

The pebble bounced a few times on the ground and then stopped.

At that moment, the children moved.

The little boy who had been hit by Lin Wang's pebbles looked down at his chest, then slowly looked back at the stone.

But the stone had already fallen behind him, so he kept lowering his head until it was completely submerged in his chest, and only then did he see the small stone.

"Ahhh! Big boss..."

"Don't shout... I saw it... It's just a curious child, what's there to shout about..."

Lin Wang's eyelids remained droopy, showing no fear whatsoever.

The little boy looked at the pebbles and then turned his head back.

Next, his expression began to twist, become ferocious, and full of aggression.

At the same time, the other children around him made the exact same expression!

They started talking.

"What...he!"

"Ho! Ho!"

As they spoke, the children began to surround Lin Wang and Dog Brother.

"Boss, boss... what are they saying?!" Dog Brother trembled as he pulled out his stilts and held them up as a weapon for self-defense.

"I don't know either...maybe it their Chinese teacher?"

"At a time like this, can you please stop telling lame jokes?!"

A child who was very close to Dog Brother held a knife in his hand and swung it at him. The blade flashed through the stilts and did no harm to them.

Dog Brother felt a slight weight on the stilts, as if a gust of wind had brushed against them.

"Huh? They can't hurt me?" Dog Brother was taken aback at first, then his eyes began to shine. "In that case, I'll show you... how 'righteous adults' educate children!"

"No, don't get too excited." Lin Wang ruthlessly interrupted Dog Brother's excitement. "First of all, although these kids' attacks seem to penetrate us, I just did a test..."

He took out a black cat hair and blew it at a child holding a knife. The sinister-looking boy swung the knife.

Dog noticed that the cat hair tumbled in mid-air and then broke off!
"Huh? How could this happen..."

“These children’s attacks have a certain ‘harmful’ element. I suspect that if we remain within the range of these children’s attacks for a long time, we will also get hurt.”

As if to confirm Lin Wang's words, a child swung his knife at Dog Brother again. The blade pierced through the stilts once more, but still left a shallow mark on the stilts.

"Damn it, they can really hurt us!" Dog's face turned pale. "Boss, I hid a box under the floor tiles in the northwest corner of our base's equipment yard. Inside are some not-so-important letters. If you get back alive, could you burn them for me without reading the contents...?"

"..." Lin Wang's face twitched, and he forcibly changed the subject. He pointed to the depths of the group of children, "Secondly, these children... have already undergone a second change. Look over there."

Following Lin Wang's finger, Dog Brother looked deeper into the group of children.

He saw a giant boy, unusually tall, who was taller than Lin Wang, suddenly stand up from among the group of children. He tilted his head, shrugged his shoulders, and dragged a huge roof beam as he walked towards them.

(End of this chapter)