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墨書 Inktalez
Although he had his back to me, I could tell at a glance that his clothing was completely different from that of Changshan. It looked more like a cloak, and the silhouette of this person appeared quite aged. Most notably, he was barefoot.
At that moment, I took a sudden step back. His attire resembled that of the Shriveled Old Man from before. Could it really be him? My heart raced uncontrollably, and a chill ran down my spine. With him standing there, facing away from me, I couldn't fathom what he intended to do.
I slowly drew the Diving Knife from my leg and focused on his back as I asked, "Who are you?"
He remained silent, standing still like a statue. What was he trying to achieve? Did he think he could scare me so easily? He underestimated me.
The anger within me was igniting. When fear reaches a certain level, it can drive a person to madness. I shouted again, "Who the hell are you?"
Still, he did not move an inch, keeping his back turned to me. I tightened my grip on the Diving Knife and gritted my teeth, saying, "Fine, you won't speak? Then I'll come over and see for myself who you are."
As I finished speaking and started to approach him with the Diving Knife in hand, he suddenly began to move. His motion startled me, causing me to halt immediately.
The man before me slowly removed the hat from his head, revealing a mess of long hair. My God, it really was the Shriveled Old Man. I dared not make any sudden moves or advance further; if it came down to a fight, even if I were uninjured, I might not be able to defeat him—especially since I was already wounded.
After taking off his hat, he turned around very slowly. When he finally faced me completely, I couldn't see his cat-like eyes; in the darkness, all I could discern was an abyss of blackness.
"Are you human or ghost?" I asked, aware that my voice trembled slightly despite my efforts to control it.
"This is not a place for you," he said in a voice that sounded ancient and unpleasant, as if someone were on the brink of death. His face seemed shrouded in darkness; I couldn't see his mouth move.
"What do you want?" I asked again, my voice shaking.
"Leave, hurry," he replied in that dying voice while remaining utterly still.
Leave? Was he telling me to get off this island? "Where should I go? Who are you? Answer me!" I stared intently at him as I spoke. A foul odor of decay emanated from him—could he be dead? Why did he smell so terrible?
In that moment, I nearly felt sick enough to vomit. As I stared at him intently, I suddenly noticed that his eyes were changing, slowly transforming into orange-yellow cat-like eyes that glimmered in the darkness of the jungle. In this pitch-black forest, those two yellow eyes appeared particularly eerie and sinister.
“If you don’t leave, you will die... you will die...” His voice was not loud, yet it echoed throughout the entire jungle, as if there were multiple versions of him standing in every corner, all producing the same sound.
The voice seemed to possess a kind of magic, piercing through my heart like a steel needle, causing unbearable pain. Even though I pressed my hands tightly against my ears, the sound still reached me, unwavering and impossible to block out.
I felt a bit breathless. “What the hell do you want? If you have the guts, show me your true face!” I began to feel dizzy; everything around me started to sway. The Shriveling Old Man appeared to be flickering before my eyes. Oh no, I was hallucinating.
“This is your last warning—leave now.” That damned voice sounded nothing like a human’s; it made my chest feel heavy as if I might cough up blood at any moment.
I shook my head vigorously, trying to stay awake, but my body felt utterly drained of energy. All I wanted was to sleep and not think about anything else. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
But deep down, I knew that if I fell asleep now, I might never wake up again. I bit down on my tongue until it bled; the sharp pain jolted me back to some semblance of awareness.
Dragging my weary body, I turned and ran downwards. I lost count of how many times I stumbled along the way, but his voice continued to haunt me. He wanted our lives; he probably wanted to kill us.
I ran for dear life, but my legs grew weaker with each step. Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of me. I didn’t have time to stop and crashed right into him. After that, everything went black; I lost all sense of consciousness...
A wave of coldness gradually pulled me back to awareness. My abdomen throbbed with pain from an injury as I struggled to prop myself up into a sitting position.
“Brother Yi, you’re awake?” Jiao Ba was beside me; seeing me regain consciousness, he reached out to help me.
Jenny sat across from me and asked, “How are you? Are you okay?”
I shook my head and glanced around at our surroundings. “Where are we now?” My head throbbed with a sharp pain that felt like needles stabbing into it. I still felt somewhat dazed, and my tongue hurt as if it had developed ulcers; speaking was difficult.
“We're still in the jungle on the island; this is where we came before,” Jiao Ba replied.
I looked around more carefully; this place seemed familiar—it was where Jiao Ba and I had come to gather firewood. Shunzi and the others were sleeping nearby, but Mai Lao and Big Guy were nowhere to be seen; I had no idea where they had gone.
"Where are Mai Lao and Big Guy?" I asked.
"They went to the shore to see if they could leave here soon," Jiao Ba said, pointing ahead.
"Did I faint?"
I remembered that I seemed to have encountered that Shriveled Old Man again. He had said a few words to me, and then I started feeling dizzy, the world spinning around me. I recalled that I had bitten my own tongue, but during my escape, I couldn't remember anything at all—not even how I had fainted.
"You still ask? How did you just disappear while walking? We searched everywhere for you, and when I finally found you, you were running like a mad person, as if you had seen a ghost, and you crashed right into me. Don't say you fainted; you nearly knocked me out!" Jiao Ba gestured animatedly.
"How long was I out?"
"Not long, about three hours or so. Brother Yi, this isn't like you," Jiao Ba said knowingly. He understood that I wouldn't just get lost for no reason.
"On the way back, I did get lost. I was trying to find you guys along the path, but who knew..."
I couldn't finish my sentence. Just thinking about that withered old man made my heart race. Especially his words: 'You will die, you will die...' The memory sent chills down my spine, and cold sweat broke out on me.
Jenny looked worried and asked, "Loyalty and Righteousness, did something happen to you? When Jiao Ba carried you back, your face was pale and you were struggling to breathe. If Li Xin hadn't been here, I would have really feared you wouldn't wake up."
After hearing Jenny's words, I glanced at Li Xin beside her. Li Xin was looking at me too, but her face showed no expression. I could only awkwardly say, "Um... thank you."
Li Xin chuckled lightly and said, "You don't need to thank me; it's just that you're lucky to be alive."
Jiao Ba asked again, "Brother Yi, how could you possibly get lost? That's just not possible! What exactly happened?"
My face turned a bit pale as I replied, "I can't really explain it clearly... All I know is that someone led me there and said a few strange things."
"Someone? Is there really someone on this deserted island?" Jenny asked in surprise.
There was no need to hide this matter. I recounted everything that had happened to the three of them, except for the old man's yellow eyes and my various suspicions about him. After all, Li Xin and Jenny were still here, and Jiao Ba naturally knew about the old man.
Once I finished speaking, the expressions on Jenny's and Li Xin's faces changed completely, except for Jiao Ba. "From what you said, it doesn't sound human at all. Could it be... could there really be ghosts?" Jenny whispered, looking frightened.
Jiao Ba laughed and said, "Don't think too much. There aren't that many ghosts in this world; it's all just self-induced fear. Ghosts are merely souls, but souls can't have a physical presence. I believe that strange old man Brother Yi mentioned is human."
"I think he's human too. He might be someone who has been living in seclusion on this island. Our arrival may have disturbed him," Li Xin said calmly.
Jenny shook her head. "I don't think it's that simple. There's nothing on this island; how could a person survive here? It's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible. You can eat fish for food and drink rainwater for water. Haven't we been living here for several days? You're doing just fine," Jiao Ba replied casually.
Suddenly, Li Xin turned to me and asked, "Loyalty and Righteousness, what do you think?"
I didn't answer her immediately; my mind was racing with everything that had happened over the past few days. Since we arrived on the island, the Mysterious Old Man had been following us.
But so far, aside from him, I hadn't seen any other people on the island, nor those terrifying insects and unknown fruits, along with the curse Changshan had mentioned before—so many strange occurrences.
All these signs indicated that the Shriveled Old Man was definitely not an ordinary human. But if he wasn't human, then what could he be? I couldn't make sense of it; there was no clue at all. My head started to ache again, a sharp pain that made me press my fingers against my temples to relieve it a little...
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