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墨書 Inktalez
A long passageway stretched before us, its ends shrouded in darkness. It seemed as if the endless blackness would swallow the three of us whole. The silence was so profound that I could hear our breathing. The atmosphere was suffocatingly eerie, causing the young girl beside me to tremble.
In such an atmosphere, even I, a burly man, felt a chill creeping up from my heels to my molars, making me want to curse loudly. Fortunately, nothing bizarre happened—no walls suddenly closing in, no monsters leaping out from the shadows.
I tried to calm myself and ponder what was happening. Yan Junde cleared his throat softly and said, "I've encountered something like this during my explorations before, though I'm not sure if it's the same. The passageway is designed to be long and straight, but it actually has a curve."
"It's like how the Earth is spherical; standing on the surface, we don't perceive any curvature," Yan Junde explained. "Perhaps this passageway is designed with a certain curvature that we can't feel, which is why we might be walking in circles."
His reasoning made sense. After a moment of thought, I suggested, "If that's the case, you should fire a shot against the wall. If there is indeed a curve, the bullet will either veer away from the wall or hit it."
Yan Junde nodded at my suggestion and pressed his handgun against the wall. The barrel was only a gun's thickness away from it. The firearm was straight and aligned with the wall as we covered our ears to avoid being startled by the gunfire in such a confined space.
Yan Junde gave us a nod, then covered his left ear with one hand while placing the other ear against his shoulder. He pulled the trigger. We heard a muffled bang followed by a flash of light as the bullet vanished into the distance. I remarked, "The bullet has a limited range; we just need to find out where it landed."
A standard handgun has a maximum range of about fifty meters; however, Yan Junde's gun was specially made by the Ministry of Public Security and had a range of around seventy meters. Given its accuracy and Yan Junde's proficiency with firearms, I believed this was our safest option.
Just as I was about to move forward, someone grabbed my arm. Turning around, I saw Xiaocao looking at me with fear in her eyes. The strange atmosphere had instilled deep terror in her. I said nothing and allowed her to hold onto my arm; this time it was Yan Junde who took the lead.
The flashlight's beam grew dimmer; I wasn't sure if it was due to low battery. I gently shook it, but the light flickered erratically, and our visible range shrank further. It seemed that soon enough, the flashlight would die completely; my phone's light was too weak to be of any use.
We needed to find a way out of this unknown loop quickly; otherwise, once everything went dark, our chances of escape would be pitifully slim. Seventy meters seemed trivial under normal circumstances, but in this environment, it felt as long as a medieval cathedral corridor.
Based on my height, each step in this setting measured about seventy centimeters. After roughly one hundred steps, we should see where that bullet landed. Starting from the fiftieth step, I shone the flashlight on the ground; however, after taking over one hundred steps without finding that bullet meant we had definitely exceeded seventy meters.
Cold sweat began to trickle down my back; this was too strange. How could something simply vanish into thin air within this passageway? It defied logic! Had we truly encountered some sort of ghostly barrier? How would we get out? Yan Junde slammed his fist against the stone wall with a resounding thud.
"This is really bizarre!" Yan Junde frowned.
His words indicated just how serious this situation had become. As I opened my mouth to speak, both flashlights suddenly flickered back to life for an instant before plunging us into complete darkness again. In that pitch-blackness, I felt Xiaocao clutching my arm tightly as I heard the sound of a gun being cocked.
"What is that!" came the voice of Yan Junde.
In a daze, I felt something collide with me, or rather, someone. This person could not possibly be the little grass gripping my arm or Yan Junde standing in front of me. There was a fourth person in this passageway!
In the darkness, something seemed to sway before me. Suddenly, a woman appeared out of nowhere, her figure strikingly clear against the pitch-black surroundings. Her long hair obscured her face, and she moved like a twisted insect.
Her arms were raised, and her knees bent backward. At that moment, she resembled a marionette, contorting as she approached me. I told myself not to panic, not to panic, and threw my dagger at her. But as it flew through the air, it seemed to pierce nothingness, leaving no trace behind.
The woman appeared to be enraged by my action and almost instantly stood before me. She lifted her head and pushed her hair aside. To my horror, I realized she looked just like the little grass. However, there was a large hole in her head as she leaned closer to my ear and whispered, "I was so lonely when I crawled out of the ground all by myself. Will you keep me company?"
I was instantly paralyzed with fear and called out for little grass and Yan Junde. But the passageway was eerily silent; it felt like it was just me and this woman—no, one person and one ghost. Then, the ghost tightened her grip around my neck with her twisted hands, making it impossible for me to breathe.
I exerted all my strength to push her hands away, but it was futile. The power hidden in those slender arms was overwhelming, like two iron clamps squeezing me tightly. I felt my life force draining away step by step.
Just then, a strange scent wafted through the air—sweet and faintly familiar. I couldn't quite place where I had smelled it before. Gradually, I realized I could hardly breathe; my lungs burned painfully, and my consciousness began to fade.
In that fleeting moment between life and death, I suddenly remembered where I had encountered that scent before. It was the sachet little grass had given me, releasing its delicate fragrance. Instinctively, I reached for my waist and grasped something soft and fluffy.
I yanked it off and held it to my ear; the gentle aroma enveloped me, and surprisingly, the burning sensation in my lungs began to dissipate. The pressure on my neck eased enough for me to breathe again, revitalizing my spirit.
Slowly, I saw the ghostly figure before me dissolve into wisps of smoke and vanish. I blinked open my eyes; darkness surrounded me once more. Someone was pressing down on me. A faint light flickered nearby—it was a flashlight that had fallen to the side.
To my shock, it was little grass lying on top of me while Yan Junde lay beside us. Upon seeing that I had opened my eyes, the person standing next to me immediately pulled out the dagger that had embedded itself in the wall and lunged toward me with it. For a moment, I was frozen in place as I watched them thrust the dagger toward me.
Just when it seemed like disaster was imminent, little grass suddenly lunged forward. This unexpected move caught both me and the dagger-wielding person off guard; they tried to retract their hand but could not stop in time. I heard a sickening "thud," followed by warm blood splattering onto my face.
Seeing this, the attacker continued their assault downward, but little grass managed to block another strike meant for me. With all my strength, I tried to push little grass away from harm's way. Yet for some reason, my limbs felt uncontrollable—as if they were filled with lead—I couldn't lift them at all.
Another strike came down.
I couldn't even speak.
At that moment, I heard the sound of someone running from the Passageway, and I saw the previous Witch rushing towards me from one end of the Passageway. Upon seeing her, the person threw down a dagger and turned to flee. The Witch leaped over me and said, "I told you, men like you are unreliable!"
With that, she dashed off into the distance.
I wanted to argue, to say something, but my mouth wouldn't open. Xiaocao's face was right next to mine, yet I couldn't turn to look at her. I felt warm streams flowing down from my head and face, carrying a metallic scent. It was Xiaocao's blood; it was Xiaocao's blood.
Her voice seemed to echo in my ears as she softly said, "Brother Shao, Brother Shao, the air here seems to be problematic. As soon as we entered, we were Hypnosised by someone." Her voice was intermittent: "I think that person is the Killer. Grandma is not the Killer; I knew it all along, she isn't the Killer."
Tears streamed down my face. I wanted to talk to Xiaocao; I wanted to hug this little girl, but I just couldn't. Xiaocao continued, "My sachet seems to have the power to wake people from illusions, but you can't move right now. When you suddenly grabbed your neck earlier, I was so scared; I was so scared."
"Brother Shao, I feel like I can't go on living. Brother Shao, I'm feeling so cold; can I hug you?" Xiaocao slowly placed her arms around me: "If you don't say anything, I'll take it as your consent."
"Brother Shao, I've never been in love. The Witch said that if you fall for my love spell, you'll only be able to love me. But I know you already have someone you like. Now it's fine; after I'm gone, you can like someone else." Her voice was faint: "Brother Shao."
A deathly silence enveloped us.
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