HBWnovel Chapter 7: Skull
Chapter 7: Skull
In the basement of the Ping An Building, Su Qin hid in a corner for more than an hour, his legs going numb from squatting.
"Damn it, what on earth is going on? Is it a spiritual energy resurgence? Or is it a mutation of the earth? Is this ever going to end? It's been over an hour."
We can't drag this out any longer; we have to find a way to escape.
Su Qin couldn't wait any longer. If he didn't find a way to leave this godforsaken place soon, he would be trapped here and die. Death was only a matter of time.
He slowly got up, stretched his sore and numb legs, and carefully walked along the wall, glancing around from time to time. Whenever there was the slightest noise, he would squat in the corner and cover his mouth and nose, waiting for the noise to subside before continuing.
As he walked, he suddenly noticed that the fog around him was thinning and his vision was becoming clearer within the range of his headlamp.
He couldn't help but feel a surge of secret joy, and his pace quickened involuntarily.
I'm out! I'm out of that awful place!
But before he could even enjoy his happiness for a few seconds, he realized something was wrong.
"What happened? How did I end up back here again?"
All he could see was pitch black and damp. This was clearly the underground tomb from before, but he clearly remembered that he had already climbed out of the pit and should have been in the basement. How did he end up back in the underground tomb?
Su Qin couldn't figure out what was going on, but compared to the eerie gray fog, this dark underground tomb felt better and shouldn't be that dangerous.
This was the only road in the area that wasn't shrouded in gray fog. The area outside the tomb was still shrouded in mist, so he had no choice but to grit his teeth and keep going.
After walking for a while, he suddenly realized that he seemed to have returned to the starting point, the underground pit where the nightmare began.
He stood blankly at the bottom of the pit, looking up at the gray opening above him, before collapsing to the ground, his heart filled with despair.
"It's over, we're stuck!"
After all that aimless wandering, I'm back here again, and the world outside is still shrouded in gray fog. All that effort was for nothing.
Waaaaah~
Faint whimpering sounds could be heard from the narrow tunnel, sending chills down Su Qin's spine. He immediately became alert and on high alert.
Could there be something unclean among them?
However, Su Qin did not smell the nauseating stench of a corpse. Instead, he smelled the stench of animal excrement, which made him unable to determine the cause for the time being.
Su Qin mustered his courage and turned his headlamp toward the direction from which the sound came. He saw a person huddled in a corner not far away, burying their face between their legs and trembling, making soft sobs. There was a pool of unidentified liquid flowing beneath them.
Seeing that it was a person, Su Qin relaxed a little. Although he couldn't see the person's face clearly, he recognized the clothes the person was wearing. It was a security guard uniform. There was no mistake, it was that little security guard. He had actually survived.
Su Qin stepped forward and kicked the security guard.
"Get up! You're crying like a woman, I thought you'd seen a ghost. Where are the other two? Where did they go?"
There were three people left in the pit before, and he heard gunshots. He didn't know what had happened. Since the security guard was still alive, he had to find out.
The security guard noticed someone approaching suddenly and scrambled to the side in fright. But when he heard Su Qin's somewhat familiar voice, he immediately realized what was happening, stopped crying, and looked up at Su Qin with shining eyes.
After observing for a long time and seeing that the person was indeed alive, he finally felt relieved. Then he recalled Su Qin's question, which stirred up those unpleasant memories in his heart.
"He...he and the other two are dead. We originally wanted to climb out of here, but we couldn't climb out no matter what we did. The rope seemed to get longer and longer as we climbed."
When we were halfway up, the guy called Knife said it felt like something was crawling on him and blowing cold air on him. He looked back and then he fell off.
Pao Ge and I tried to climb up, but Pao Ge suddenly seemed to go crazy, saying that something on his back was blowing cold air at him, and that it actually had a gun, so it fired several shots at his back.
But after he fired the shot, he glanced behind him, froze, and fell down. I was right behind him, and he knocked me down too.
I injured my leg and couldn't walk. I lay on the ground for a while. At first, Pao Ge and Dao Zi's corpses were lying next to me.
However, not long afterward, their bodies actually moved, and then stood up like zombies.
I was terrified. I lay on the ground, too scared to move or look. I could only hear their footsteps. They were pacing back and forth around me. After a few minutes, they walked further and further away, and eventually, I lost track of where they went.
The security guard recounted what had happened, which made Su Qin frown. The guard's narration was somewhat vague, and it was unclear whether he had deliberately concealed any details, but Su Qin still caught a few key points.
Before Daozi and Paoge both had a common warning sign: they felt something pressing against their backs and blowing cold air on them, and then when they turned around, their bodies stiffened.
Su Qin felt that this was the key point: Pao Ge and Dao Zi definitely didn't die from the fall. They were probably already dead the moment they turned around, because the security guard only broke his leg when he fell from above. With the security guard acting as a cushion, Pao Ge could never have died from the fall.
But if that's really the case, then...
Su Qin looked around frantically, his heart pounding. He wanted to see if anything terrifying was hiding nearby. Based on the security guard's description and his own guess, there seemed to be something terrifying hidden in the mist. Once he got entangled with it, he would be finished.
A cold draft blowing from behind, you'll die if you turn around, something even a gun can't take care of.
Will Pao Ge and Dao Zi, who eventually turn into zombies, also become those terrifying things?
Could those things that were wandering around the basement before be them?
Given the speed at which the fog is spreading, this construction site and the surrounding neighborhoods are likely in danger, and there may be more and more of these terrifying things.
Thinking of this, Su Qin's heart sank. If that were the case, wouldn't the gray fog be full of those ghostly things? Would they still have a chance to survive?
But the things in the gray fog are so terrifying, why did the security guard and I survive without being attacked? What was the reason?
Su Qin didn't believe it was just good luck, nor did he believe that the ghost had a conscience. There must have been some unknown reason that caused them to slip through the net.
Another important point is why this underground tomb wasn't shrouded in gray fog. This is the starting point where the gray fog appears, and logically, this should be the densest and most dangerous place.
Could it be that the gray fog moved with the ghostly thing within it? Once that ghostly thing left, the gray fog naturally dissipated?
Su Qin looked around. Apart from this tomb passage, the rest of the place was shrouded in gray mist, as if a vacuum had appeared in the gray mist, as if the gray mist had deliberately avoided a certain area.
What could be causing this unusual phenomenon? Could there be something here that counteracts the gray fog?
Probably.
Thinking of this, Su Qin, who had been in despair, felt a glimmer of hope rekindle in his heart. If he found that thing, wouldn't he be safe?
But just as he was about to take a step, Su Qin immediately stopped, recalling the scene when the gray fog first appeared.
All of this stemmed from the corpse in that coffin. He clearly remembered that the corpse in the coffin quickly decomposed and disappeared, and then the gray mist appeared. There was nothing else around, except for that skull.
Therefore, the thing causing this abnormal phenomenon is most likely the skull, and there is a big problem with that skull as well.
What isolates the gray fog might not necessarily be some great treasure; it could be something equally unknown and terrifying, or even more terrifying than the gray fog and what's inside it.
You absolutely cannot touch it, and you can't even stay here any longer, otherwise something bad might happen, so you have to leave immediately.
Although the gray fog was terrifying, they had some understanding of it and knew the signs of impending danger. But when faced with the unknown, they might not even know how they died.
Thinking of this, Su Qin dared not delay and immediately grabbed the rope, preparing to climb out.
"Wait! Take me out of here, please, take me with you. I hurt my left leg and can't stand up. Please help me."
Please, please help me. I'll give you all my money, and I'll introduce you to my sister. She's a model and she's very beautiful.
Please, please save me! Don't abandon me! You're like my own father; I'll do anything you ask!
Seeing that Su Qin was about to leave, the security guard panicked. His left leg was probably broken, and he couldn't even stand steadily. He basically couldn't get out on his own. In order to save his life, he had no choice but to beg Su Qin at all costs.
Su Qin stared at him silently for a few seconds, then stopped climbing and slowly slid down.
He still softened. Although he hated the security guard, he couldn't get over the thought of abandoning him and leaving alone. After all, it was a precious life, and he definitely wouldn't survive if he didn't help him. Seeing his sincere and pitiful appearance, Su Qin decided to help him. As for the security guard's promise, he would deal with it after he got out of there alive.
Su Qin helped the security guard up from the ground and let him walk ahead while he crawled on his own, while he followed behind.
Although the security guard had a broken calf, his thigh was intact. He climbed upwards with great effort. He didn't expect Su Qin to actually help him. The thought that he still had a chance to get out alive made him feel much better. He was also filled with gratitude towards Su Qin and would look down at Su Qin from time to time.
However, after looking at it several times, he vaguely sensed that something seemed to be slowly floating up from the darkness below Su Qin.
At first, he thought he was seeing things, so he pressed his eyes to his arm and rubbed them hard. But no matter how much he rubbed, the thing didn't disappear in the darkness below; instead, it became clearer and closer.
It was a black skull!
It floated in mid-air and slowly drifted up towards the two of them!
Extremely eerie and chilling.
At that moment, fear gripped the security guard's heart, and he couldn't help but tremble all over.
He knew that if he continued like this, he would surely die, but he also knew that he absolutely could not panic now, and he did not want to repeat the same mistake.
He tried his best to control his emotions, and after thinking calmly for two seconds, he looked down at Su Qin with a resolute look in his eyes and a sinister glint in his eyes.
Before Su Qin could realize anything, he saw the security guard above suddenly stop climbing. Before he could react, he saw the guard kick him hard with his uninjured right foot.
"Get out of here! I'll burn paper money for you every Qingming Festival from now on."
The security guard used almost all his strength in that kick, fearing that he might not use enough force and cause an accident; he was very clear about his intentions.
It's better for one to die than for all of them to die. Only by using Su Qin's life to hold off that unknown monster will I have a chance, even if it's just to live a little longer.
Boom!
Caught off guard, Su Qin had no time to dodge and took the full force of the kick, falling straight down.
All of this happened so suddenly that Su Qin couldn't react at all.
Su Qin, who was suddenly falling, felt as if he had hit something on the back of his head, something icy cold and hard.
Before he could figure out what he had bumped into, he had already fallen heavily to the ground.
The security guard stared intently down below, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Su Qin fall and smash the eerie skull down.
But before he could look away, something strange happened.
He felt that the skull in his line of sight, along with Su Qin's body, was eerily enlarging.
It seemed to be approaching him regardless of the distance, and then he suddenly felt as if his body had lost all feeling, his head was spinning, and finally he completely lost consciousness.
Boom!
The two fell to the ground almost simultaneously and remained motionless.
Su Qin landed headfirst, and the back of his head was smashed and mangled.
That eerie skull, falling from such a height, remained completely undamaged, with most of it embedded in Su Qin's head.
Even more bizarrely, this dark skull was actively trying to burrow into Su Qin's head, as if it wanted to replace Su Qin's original skull.
Su Qin was completely unaware of any of this. He lay motionless on the ground like a corpse, letting the skull do as it pleased.