Chapter 18: I’m Really Scared
Walking toward the abandoned factory, Xiao Xiao was actually quite nervous inside.
After all, he had already witnessed the distortion and terror of the rat-men, and now facing this mutant monster of the same level, who knew what horrific things might happen?
The man-eating warehouse…
Xiao Xiao didn’t know why the people around here would give this warehouse such a name.
But as someone who had seen the true face of this city, he deeply believed that in this abandoned factory, there might truly be a possibility of a giant man-eating monster lurking, disguised as a cargo warehouse.
I trudged forward with uneven steps, never knowing if the ground beneath my feet might suddenly start writhing.
Fortunately, Ruanruan, this seasoned veteran, was following behind me, which gave me some courage. As an old hand among outsiders, she kept her eyes glued to the screen, seemingly analyzing the surrounding environment for me…
…until Xiao Xiao heard a familiar snippet of music and suddenly snapped back to reality.
What kind of person is this…
In such a gloomy and terrifying place filled with tension, she still had the mind to play a fishing game?
Forget it, I won’t count on her.
Xiao Xiao rallied his spirits and looked toward the warehouse between the factory buildings—that massive cargo storage looming like a crouching monster. The air around it was thick and dark, and above the warehouse floor, a flock of crows circled and flew.
Taking a deep breath, Xiao Xiao pulled hard and yanked the warehouse door open.
“Whoosh……”
The moment the gate was pulled open, a gust of air mixed with a faint stench of decay rushed toward them.
Like other long-abandoned warehouses, it was desolate and dilapidated, filled with a dry yet lonely and melancholic atmosphere.
But no one had anticipated that as the putrid smell wafted out, a pale and eerie face would instantly press itself against their own.
You could see those dim eyes and the tongue sticking out halfway.
“Huh?”
The sudden change caught even Ruanruan, who was behind Xiao Xiao, off guard, and she suddenly raised the metal wrench in her hand.
Though she said she didn’t care, her heart remained vigilant at every moment, observing Xiao Xiao’s potential was an important matter, but if he really got hurt, Sister Jiajia would definitely scold her harshly.
But the moment she raised the wrench, her eyes went blank.
She saw Xiao Xiao standing at the cargo hold door, who merely tilted his body slightly with a hint of disdain, allowing that pale face to brush past her.
Just as she was about to fall, he even kindly reached out to steady her, so she could comfortably lean against the door.
“?”
Ruanruan’s worldview is showing signs of being on the verge of collapse.
“Don’t be afraid, it’s a dead body.”
Xiao Xiao’s voice rang out, seemingly worried that Ruanruan was frightened. He explained softly, “She was clinging to the door, and when I pulled it open like that, she tumbled out.”
“But…”
Ruanruan suddenly felt a slight tingling sensation on her scalp: “You’re not afraid of dead people?”
“I am afraid…”
Xiao Xiao answered while crouching down, looking at the corpse and saying strangely: “Who wouldn’t be scared if a dead body suddenly fell on your face?”
“Is this what being afraid looks like?”
Ruanruan was momentarily at a loss for words to complain: “You even helped her up…”
“I was really scared…”
Xiao Xiao observed the corpse leaning against the door and explained in a low voice.
He was genuinely frightened. The moment the door opened, he suddenly saw that face rush toward him, and his heart nearly jumped out of his throat.
It was just that, in the process of being slightly tense, he discovered this was merely a corpse.
Moreover, it wasn’t that she had lunged at him. Judging from her posture and the angle of the fall, it was his action of pulling open the door that caused her body to lose its support, which is why she fell face-down…
As for lending a hand to help her up.
Since he had confirmed it was a corpse, and it was his action that caused her to fall, wasn’t it only natural to help her up?
Is it wrong to respect the corpse?
But in this tense environment, Xiao Xiao didn’t have enough time to explain so much to Ruanruan. He crouched down and looked carefully, already noticing some strange problems.
This was the corpse of a dead woman, and it appeared that not much time had passed since her death.
Her tongue was sticking out long, suggesting she had suffered extreme pain before death, yet there were no visible wounds on her body.
While pondering this in her heart, Ruanruan also caught up, speaking in a low voice: “She drowned.”
“Drowned?”
Xiao Xiao was momentarily startled and turned to glance at Ruanruan.
“Life itself can also drown a person…”
Ruanruan looked at him and said softly, “Don’t forget, our tracking target this time is a suffocation doll. This is its ability.”
“Does that mean we’re on the right track?”
Xiao Xiao felt somewhat surprised and stood up, glancing at the pitch-black warehouse that seemed to have no visible boundaries.
The space was vast, cluttered everywhere with miscellaneous items whose purpose was unclear, making the interior appear winding and profound. Abandoned oil drums piled on both sides loomed like mountains, creating a suffocating sense of oppression.
Only in the middle, within an oil drum stuffed with garbage, burned a faint flame.
Xiao Xiao thought for a moment, then walked inside.
Ruan Ruan followed behind him, her heart already filled with suspicion and alarm: “Does this guy really know what it means to be afraid?”
She hadn’t figured it out—at this moment, Xiao Xiao was far too tense, already in a state of mental overdrive, and as he walked forward, he had already taken in everything around him.
He walked forward at his normal pace, which was already equivalent to the rhythm of an ordinary person taking one step and observing for a full minute.
Of course, to Ruan Ruan’s eyes, it was like arriving at such a bizarre place, yet Xiao Xiao remained composed, strolling about with ease and leisure.
“One… two… three…”
Xiao Xiao walked forward while secretly alarmed. In this warehouse, after just a few steps, he had already spotted several corpses scattered throughout various parts of the storage area.
Some of them were curled up in corners where garbage had accumulated, while others lay quietly on the ground covered by shadows.
Yes, kneeling on both knees, facing the wall.
At the sight of so many corpses, Xiao Xiao’s heart had already begun to beat slower from shock, yet the expression on his face grew increasingly cold and indifferent.
The faster his thoughts raced, the more his body movements lagged behind, and even his facial expressions could not keep up.
He only felt a strange sense of unease that lingered persistently, as if something was amiss, yet he could not pinpoint it accurately in the moment, so he could only walk forward while secretly speculating to himself.
“All the corpses were drowned…”
Moving between the dead bodies, Xiao Xiao also made sufficient observations and analysis: “The cause of death for these corpses is the same as that female corpse at the warehouse entrance. It’s just that some of them appear to have been dead for longer, while others seem more recent. In just half a warehouse’s worth of walking, I’ve already seen seven or eight corpses. This dark and deep warehouse now looks just like a massive corpse storage facility…”
“Is this the ‘man-eating warehouse’ those people were talking about?”
“If that’s the case, where is the source?”
“……”
He walked forward while trying to capture every detail, his mind secretly wondering: “Is that suffocating doll still here?”
As these thoughts flashed rapidly through his mind, Xiao Xiao’s legs, which had been moving forward without pause, suddenly stopped. His heart skipped a beat, and he slowly turned his head to look at Ruanruan.
In the quiet warehouse, you could hear a pin drop.
Xiao Xiao looked at Ruanruan standing quietly in the dim light and slowly asked a strange question: “We…”
“How long has it been since I last breathed?”
“……”
“……”
His voice echoed through the dark warehouse, among the grotesquely contorted faces of the dead, unnaturally monotone, as if devoid of the sound of breath.
The strange sensation in his heart finally became clear.
Xiao Xiao discovered that at some point, he had forgotten how to breathe.
It was originally instinctive, a behavior the body performed autonomously, yet at some point without knowing when, he had forgotten it. Not until now, when his body had begun to feel a subtle suffocation, did he finally react. And the moment he became aware of this problem, he instinctively increased the force of his breathing, only to discover that the air around him seemed to have solidified, and he could not extract even a single bit of oxygen to relieve the suffocation.
“You finally noticed it…”
Ruanruan lifted her head from the shadows, a massive metal wrench propped on her shoulder, and said in a low voice: “The suffocation puppet has already begun to affect us…”
“If you think the difficulty is too great, you can ask me for help right now…”
“……”
The word “help” hadn’t even left her lips when her face suddenly changed slightly, and she opened her mouth to warn Xiao Xiao.
“What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, an unexpected sense of crisis emerged around Xiao Xiao, causing all the hair on his body to stand on end.
His heart pounded heavily, with increasingly longer intervals between beats, and he felt as though time around him had nearly stopped.
From Ruanruan’s tense expression, he could confirm that Ruanruan had already discovered some danger and was trying to warn him, but time had already run out.
But there are no living people here anymore, so what danger could there be?
In that instant, Xiao Xiao’s tense mind exploded with countless thoughts, rapidly searching for clues in every detail around him.
Following Ruan Ruan’s gaze, he discovered she was looking behind him, toward the left side.
Seeing her nervous expression, he could judge that it seemed to be something sudden, yet not enough to make her feel afraid—but what could it be?
Corpse!
It was a corpse behind him.
The moment Xiao Xiao thought of this, from the corner of his eye, he could faintly see a pale hand reaching toward his waist.
“Bang!”
Ruanruan was worried, but she saw Xiao Xiao standing there in a daze and confusion. His body suddenly moved nimbly to the side, as if his back had eyes, dodging the grasp of that pale hand.
Then he turned back and pressed the gun barrel he had been holding in his hand against the other’s head, and pulled the trigger before his own warning could even leave his mouth.
The loud gunshot rang out, and the corpse that had come back to life had a chunk of its head blown off, with brain matter splattering everywhere.
Xiao Xiao only retreated several steps backward after completing all of this, suddenly feeling his scalp tingle slightly, filled with an incredible tension:
“A dead person is actually moving?”
“……”
But immediately after, he discovered that from this corpse that had come back to life, some flesh and blood tissue filled with nerves and blood vessels extended out, spreading far into the depths of the warehouse.
It was these flesh and blood tissues that writhed, controlling the corpse like vines controlling a blooming flower, making it tremble slowly.
“Oh…”
Xiao Xiao’s mood eased slightly: “That makes sense then…”