V3C9

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

With a hiss, the form leaning against the wall moved!

Lin Jue jumped up like a frightened rabbit. In an instant greater than any horror film, the monster was suddenly only a few meters away from him!

An ordinary human might have broken down immediately, but Lin Jue had already been through two rounds of this game; though he was caught off-guard, he kept his wits about him. His countless experiences had taught him that here, retreat meant death.

The monster in the straitjacket stood and began to struggle, trying to escape the confines of its garment, but that thick fabric kept it trapped inside. It howled, its furious voice penetrating the fabric like a dying beast screaming out an angry cry of woe.

“Stop daydreaming, move!” Song Hanzhang’s voice woke Lin Jue up from his stupor. Lin Jue rose, the spear in his hand stabbing straight at the monster!

With another sound of tearing fabric, the monster finally freed its arms from the straitjacket, two bloody limbs regaining freedom. It didn’t care at all for the spear pierced into its muscles, jolting in the direction of the stab. The recoil almost threw Lin Jue’s hands from his weapon as he tripped, pushed to the ground by the monster’s enormous strength!

Just as the monster was about to pounce again, Song Hanzhang took him by his arm and pulled him aside in a nick of time; the two rolled outside of the monster’s attack range. The fallen creature laid prone on the ground, its bloodied arms braced against the floor like some manner of grotesque push-up.

It should have been a laughable scene, but having just narrowly escaped from death, Lin Jue wasn’t in the mood for humor. He watched in horror as the creature braced itself against its arms and straightened like someone had tied a rope around its neck and pulled it upright from behind.

And it was straight indeed; there wasn’t even a bend in its knees, like it was a zombie that had jumped out from its coffin1.

The wall lamp by the corner was still lit, the hazy light casting a shadow behind the two humans and the monster, every breath making it tremble.

“You lure it over. Watch its hands, it’ll raise them before it pounces,” Song Hanzhang whispered in Lin Jue’s ear. Something wet over the shell; in his heightened state of tension, Lin Jue couldn’t tell whether it was the air from Song Hanzhang’s voice or the warmth of his lips.

The two became in tune with each other, rolling to the left and to the right respectively. Lin Jue’s spear had the advantage of distance and the restrained monster was overwhelmed by his harassment. Several times, it stiffly jumped towards him, only to be dodged aside narrowly.

Lin Jue once again entered his battle haze without warning. His vision brightened, narrowing down on the monster ahead of him, and its movements slowed down; every time it raised its arms and lunged at him stiffly, he could predict its motion and landing point, making evading its attacks effortless.

The only danger appeared when he was accidentally backed into a corner. The moment his back touched the hard wall, Lin Jue desperately gripped his spear and stabbed at the oncoming monster with a roar- human potential clashed against monstrous strength, the spear piercing through the linen straitjacket. The monster’s arms waved madly midair; it still wanted to reach forward, but no matter how hard it tried, it was unable to attack Lin Jue from its bindings.

It roared and growled, letting out painful struggles. That pair of arms stretched as far as they could go were a single palm’s distance away from Lin Jue’s hands on the spear.

Its hands bled, splattering sticky, dripping liquid everywhere with its flails. Lin Jue’s hands on the spear were covered with the monster’s blood, wet patches appearing on his jacket.

It was now a battle between stamina and persistence. Lin Jue clenched his teeth, refusing to let go, and the monster finally spent all of its energy, slowly ceasing to move. That pair of bloody arms fell weakly by its side, its raised head drooping down along with it, folding into a strange angle.

A sliver of confusion rose up in Lin Jue’s heart. His spearhead had just entered the monster’s body, and not even in a fatal location. How was it dead already?

In the deadly silence suddenly came the sound of a dagger leaving flesh. Song Hanzhang, who had been blocked by the monster’s huge body, took a step sideways. Only then did Lin Jue recover from his haze and notice him, and the dagger in his hand.

The monster’s blood flowed out from the dagger’s fuller, splattering onto the ground.

Lin Jue withdrew his spear. The monster’s body lost its final support and fell straight down. Even in death, it was as rigid as a fallen tree, but the area behind its heart had been accurately pierced.

Lin Jue didn’t even realize when Song Hanzhang had approached the monster from behind and attacked. Song Hanzhang looked thoughtfully at the monster on the ground. Lin Jue couldn’t see his eyes clearly because of the glare from his glasses, but he felt as if he was in a mixed mood.

“What is it?” Lin Jue asked.

Song Hanzhang stared at the monster on the ground for a long time. “…Nothing.”

Lin Jue scratched his head, a little troubled. “Nevermind, we’ll talk about it after we get out. The air here is so stuffy and uncomfortable.”

Saying that, Lin Jue walked towards the door and moved to open it.

“Don’t open the door!” Song Hanzhang suddenly shouted.

Lin Jue was stunned and turned back. With his back to the wall’s lamp, Song Hanzhang’s expression was blurred in the shadows. Even though Lin Jue couldn’t see it clearly though, that almost solid oppressiveness on his body was stronger than ever. Ever since they had entered the room…

Lin Jue suddenly realized that he had never seen this room before, but had Song Hanzhang?

This windowless room with a single metal door was like… solitary confinement.

Even though the times you were starved were much greater than mine, especially when you had those detentions. Lu Ren’s words to Song Hanzhang resurfaced in Lin Jue’s mind, making him feel cold and afraid.

Lin Jue once again looked at the monster that Song Hanzhang had judged before- the monster trapped in a straitjacket.

“If you open the door now, you’ll see another monster,” Song Hanzhang said, looking at the iron door.

“How do you know?” Lin Jue asked. They had all only encountered a singular monster in their spaces and had all returned to their original places after opening the door.

Song Hanzhang smiled a small smile. It was a cold thing. His calm voice seemed to come from the depths of a cold well. “Of course I know, because what created this illusion was my loathing and fear. I loathed my constrained self, unable to move, and I loathed that person even more…”

As if proving his words, from behind that narrow and small metal door came the sound of approaching footsteps, heavy and dragged out, each step like a drum, traveling through the door like thunder.

The sound by itself was shiver-inducing. The hand Lin Jue had on his spear was slippery with sweat. In his mind, he had already drawn out the outlines of this monster; it must be even greater, stronger, and more ferocious than that monster in the straitjacket.

The footsteps stopped right outside the metal door!

Boom! A loud sound rang against it, the metal immediately caving in and the paint around it peeling off like snowflakes.

Lin Jue’s pupils shrank violently as he took an instinctive step back.

“Listen, this monster won’t be easy to fight, we’ll need to cooperate with each other- this time, I’ll be the lure, and you’ll be the attacker. Remember that its weakness is its head, the top of its skull.” Song Hanzhang spoke rapidly and urgently, but in those few moments, the creature’s second attack had already pried the door open. An iron, ruler-like weapon stabbed through the top of the door frame, and like cutting through tofu, opened a line from top to bottom through solid steel.

Lin Jue didn’t have the time to ask Song Hanzhang how he knew because the monster’s hands had already reached through the ripped metal door. The steel plate was rendered into a piece of scrap in the face of absolute power and ripped off from its hinges, revealing the body of the huge monster behind it.

The door frame only reached the shoulders of the monster; it had to duck down to enter the room.

Only now was Lin Jue able to clearly see its full appearance. It was a good two meters tall, dressed in a neat, straight uniform, its hand holding a meter long metal ruler- it was this ruler that had split a gap through the metal door. And unsettlingly, its ears had been carved out, its eyes gouged, and its mouth sealed tightly with string.

This monster, which could not see, hear, nor speak, stood in front of the two, its pressure bearing down on them like a mountain.

Suddenly, its head moved. What had been looking straight ahead lowered to stare directly at Song Hanzhang who was standing not far away!

***

1The zombie equivalent in China is called a ‘jiangshi’. It suffers from rigor mortis so bad that it’s completely rigid and can only move by hopping around with its arms outstretched for balance, hence ‘hopped out of its coffin’.

|TOC|

Like this:Like Loading...