Puzzle Madness

Chapter 173 Autumn is the Hunting Season (Part 9)

When Da Tou Hong was thrown off the trail, he looked like a rotten rag doll.

His body was split open along the midline, his nose was split in two with the nostrils pointing to the left and right respectively, and his upper and lower lips were turned into cleft lips, making him look particularly comical; his organs and filth were scattered all over the ground when he was thrown out, sticky and gooey, and his two large skulls looked like open gashapon capsules.

Looking at it this way, the monster's knife skills are superb—at least no less than those of an experienced fishmonger in the market: that huge cleaver is not just a decorative item used for intimidation.

Big Head Hong didn't have time to scream, or perhaps shock stopped him; when the thing in the darkness grabbed him, he accepted it almost silently.

There was only a soft "uh," as if he had accidentally bumped into something hard; but in reality, it was the last sound of air being squeezed out of his chest cavity; when the monster grabbed him, his chest cavity was the first part to be compressed.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, leaving no time to react.

The experience of running and vomiting is not good: Huang Youtian knows this all too well, because now he is at the back and looks back at Da Tou Hong and the thing that grabbed him.

The flashlight illuminated half of Big Head Macro, as well as the enormous cleaver—and the monster's hand gripping Big Head Macro's.

It was as thick as a tree stump, with bulging blue veins intertwined and coiled, like a pale green river covering its surface; the back of its hand was covered with white ash worn off from the concrete walls. It was even wearing clothes: Huang Youtian glimpsed the buttons fastened on its sleeves, a common long-sleeved shirt, only a little yellowed.

It did resemble a human hand, yet it possessed inhuman characteristics.

Huang Youtian saw the blade cutting through Da Tou Hong's body. He couldn't tell if Da Tou Hong was struggling; perhaps his dying limbs twitched a few times.

Huang Youtian pushed his legs to the limit, and undigested food splattered out of his mouth and nose, flowing into his collar and sticking together in a slippery mess; coupled with the intense running, it was almost suffocating.

Compared to now, the fear of the past seems like a blurry afterimage: until it happened, no one seemed to realize that they would face real death; especially in such a gruesome and bloody scene.

Those who act like heroes should live longer.
Especially when things seem to be turning around:
The path ahead narrowed, forcing one to stoop as they moved forward. This difficult path wasn't long, until they passed through a small square, and suddenly everything opened up: it was a new room.

They seemed to be moving through an hourglass, right at the very center of their slender waists.

This is a spacious trapezoidal interior room—its height is even more striking, extending upwards by seven or eight meters, about two stories high; hanging from the ceiling are lamps that are no longer usable.

The group must have been escaping down a sloping hill; however, the slope was not steep enough to be easily felt.

The exit is more than a meter off the ground, and there is a square color difference between the wall and the ground: there used to be a movable staircase here, but it has now disappeared.

Cough, cough, cough, cough.
The narrow passage echoed with the sounds of impacts, like someone throwing firecrackers. Dust fell with each impact, but the monster remained unseen—its body was simply too enormous.

The scraping sound of metal grew louder and louder, like the clanging of rocks being chiseled.

Big Head Hong's corpse flew out of the walkway and landed in the center of the trapezoidal room; it broke into two halves with a thud and wobbled.

The sound of breathing was thunderous, and the howling echoed; but no one knew what it meant.

After an unknown amount of time, the colliding sounds finally stopped: the loud breathing gradually faded away, and the rubbing and scraping sounds also became faint, until there was complete silence.

They seemed to have gained temporary safety; the path was too narrow for the monster to pass through.

Here they could rest briefly, recover their strength and heal their wounded hearts: the sudden psychological shift made everyone stop in their tracks.

So the five of them successfully reached a new room, only to find that one of them was already dead and emitting a pungent odor.

The air was thick with the stench of blood and the dampness of the air, almost seeping into your pores with its cold, wetness; the rapid breathing of the crowd echoed throughout the room.

Everyone did their best to move towards the edge of the room, using both hands and feet, to get as far away from Big Head Hong's gruesome corpse as possible. Gusts echoed, seemingly contagious; and there were strange, choked sounds of someone trying to vomit and scream, but instead choking. Except for Ai Xi.

She strode closer to the two halves of the body hanging on the ground and looked down at them—her cheeks suddenly puffed out, her body leaned forward, and her chest and abdomen tensed, as if something was about to burst out of her mouth.

Snapped!
But Ai Xi slapped her own mouth, covering her mouth and nose; then her throat bobbed up and down.

She was swallowing.

Ai Xi probably vomited too, but she swallowed back all the vomit that almost came out of her mouth:

No one knew why she did it—the shock of the onlookers even slightly overshadowed the fear at the moment; Eyeglass Boy, Sour Soup Bak Kut Teh, and Wong Yau Tim were all dumbfounded.

This triggered a new wave of vomiting, even more intense than before; a sour stench filled the entire room.

Ai Xi, with trembling legs, stared intently at the details of the corpses, occasionally turning her head to observe the narrow path they had escaped through.

His originally slender eyes widened, and blood vessels crawled around the corners of his eyes; then he squatted down, poked at Big Head Hong's corpse with his fingertips, rubbed the blood on his fingertips, and then smelled it.

"He's really dead."

Ai Xi said.

She raised her eyebrows, as if she were quite surprised.

This sentence was like flipping a switch, and everyone started moving again:

The sour soup bak kut teh was screaming like a crow, its hands were rummaging in its bag, and its bare feet were covered in dark red blood smeared with dirt.

Huang Youtian started pacing again, circling the entire room, his fingers twitching as if they were opening and closing; Eyeglass Boy wrapped his arms around his knees, covered his face with his two hands, trembling all over, tears streaming down his face through his fingers.

After circling the room, Huang Youtian grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled hard, as if trying to rip it off:
"What the hell? Why did Big Head Hong suddenly decide to cover the rear? We just need to run faster!"

He spoke abruptly—but his meaning was clear: he wanted to say that Hiroshi's death was not his responsibility.

The man with the sour soup bak kut teh and the man with the eyeglasses didn't even look up, probably because he didn't care.

Only Ai Xi answered him while examining the body:
"That's normal. Since none of you saw that giant monster with your own eyes, it doesn't feel real to you; maybe he didn't expect to actually die either?"

Huang Youtian shook his head, his teeth clenched so hard they were practically slamming against his jaw; but he ultimately didn't say anything more.

Crack, crack, crack.

He took a thin cigarette from the dented and deformed cigarette box, but couldn't light it; his eyeshadow was smeared with tears, leaving several dark tear streaks. The filter was chewed out of shape and stained dark with saliva.

Ai Xi turned her head and magically pulled a lighter from her school uniform pocket:

"Here. This one can hit."

She rubbed the lighter twice and tossed it to the sour soup bak kut teh.

(End of this chapter)