Chapter 1040: Chapter 722: The Corpse_2
He silently retreated, making a circle, and then felt his way to the stone from behind. Sure enough, using the remaining bit of light between the trees, he discovered the target.
It was a woman, lying in a strange position behind the stone, her lower body hidden in the crevice under the stone. Perhaps she had lost too much blood, causing her face to be deathly pale, but due to the angle and lighting, and the cover of the bushes, he couldn’t see clearly.
The man, fearing to alert his prey, dared not get too close. He hid in the shadows, quietly raised his gun and aimed, "Die..."
"Bang! Bang!"
Fearing one shot might not kill, the man immediately fired two rapid shots after aiming. These shots were incredibly accurate, one hit the woman’s shoulder, and the other, as if guided by divine intervention, directly hit her head, striking that blood-drained face.
"I hit her! A headshot!" The man stood up from his hiding spot and loudly shouted to his teammates still flanking from behind.
Simultaneously, the man quickly approached, but when he actually got to the stone, he was dumbfounded. This wasn’t a person at all; it was clearly a ghost face mask along with a coat and pants, stuffed with branches and leaves, making it look like someone was lying there in the dim environment.
Realizing he was tricked, the man broke out in cold sweat, turned around, and armed himself with a knife to stand guard, but after waiting a long time, Qu Hong did not appear.
Meanwhile, the other two teammates also arrived. After the three regrouped, the middle-aged man’s confidence increased significantly.
He couldn’t help but curiously inspect the ghost face mask. The mask was quite eerie, unlike anything domestic. It felt icy cold to the touch, and the texture...
The next second, the man was startled, immediately tossing the face skin onto the ground. He had discovered vein-like patterns and pores on it, similar to human skin.
This was no mask; it was an actual face skin, peeled piece by piece from a human face!
Even though the man had been in this business for years, he had never encountered anything like this. This woman was terrifying; why did she carry this face skin with her? Could it be... a collection?
Was the owner of the face skin a target eliminated by the woman, or an enemy, and was the face skin a perverse form of bragging?
However, a face skin couldn’t scare the man. Tonight, all three had shown their faces, so they couldn’t let this woman escape. Otherwise, with her skills, they’d never sleep peacefully again, and she must have a team behind her.
"Search! Even if we have to turn this forest upside down, we must dig her out!" The middle-aged man gritted his teeth, fully aware of the importance of this matter.
In this line of work, it’s taboo to make enemies, especially among peers.
There are no grudges left for the next day, because they are settled immediately.
As the leading middle-aged man was considering whether to first return to the car to retrieve weapons or continue the pursuit while the opponent had not escaped far, a strange thing happened. Unbeknownst to them, a layer of mist began to rise in the forest.
The fog came mysteriously; they couldn’t tell from which direction it drifted, as if it emerged from the ground out of thin air. In just a blink of an eye, it enveloped the three of them and a large area nearby.
"It’s foggy..."
The woman among the three raised a flashlight and shone it around. At this moment, visibility was greatly reduced, and there was an unsettling smell lingering in the fog.
"Everyone, be careful. Something’s not right." The leading middle-aged man keenly sensed something strange and immediately issued a retreat order, "Retreat, leave this place, this ghostly place has a story!"
"What about that woman?" The man in the leather jacket was unwilling to leave a mortal enemy for the future.
"Can’t worry about her now, retreat, retreat now. Where did you park the car?" The middle-aged man fired up his flashlight, continuously shining it nearby, feeling extremely uncomfortable in the fog, like being watched by something.
The man was the boss. After his command, the three of them quickly retreated. But to their surprise, visibility there became worse and worse, until eventually the flashlight was almost useless, and the three had to keep a distance of less than 2 meters to see each other.
Rustling...
A noise came from the fog, very close, right behind them. The middle-aged man reacted quickly, throwing a knife backward.
But he didn’t hear the sound of the knife hitting flesh, to be exact, he didn’t hear any sound at all. The knife disappeared into the fog, as though it flew into another world.
"Who? Who’s there?!" The next second, just as the man focused his attention in the direction the knife flew, suddenly there was a cry of surprise from behind him.
This was followed by a scream that almost pierced the eardrum and the sound of flesh tearing from bones.
But before he could react, the screaming abruptly ceased.
Behind him, not far away, was the leather jacketed teammate. He and the woman standing next to him followed the sound, and the scene that suddenly appeared made his blood pressure soar.
The leather jacketed teammate lay on the ground, limbs twisted, motionless, with blood covering his head and upper body. When the man lifted his teammate, the woman was immediately shocked by the scene and let out a heart-wrenching scream.
The leather jacket’s face was gone, having been torn off bloodily, leaving only a ghastly white skull with shreds of flesh still clinging to it.
The woman could no longer bear it and ran off. The middle-aged man couldn’t stop her, and in the blink of an eye, she disappeared into the fog.
The man’s heart hardened, and he turned to run in the opposite direction of the woman. He didn’t know what ghostly thing lurked in the fog. He only prayed his teammate would draw it away, allowing him to survive.
...
Inside the hospital, Yang Xiao did not disappoint. Taking advantage of the time Xu Yiqiu secured, he successfully used the key to open the door and rushed down to Basement Level -1.
However, after that, he lost contact with Xu Yiqiu, and the female ghost also followed him to Basement Level -1.
But the bell came much slower than he estimated, Xu Yiqiu managed to stall the female ghost for a long time, which inevitably made Yang Xiao worried about her situation.
But now wasn’t the time to ponder these things. Yang Xiao calmed himself. He was presently dealing with an incomprehensible situation; the female ghost indeed followed him to Basement Level -1. Yet, after arriving, the bell’s sound became messy.
Sometimes distant, sometimes near, and at times he couldn’t hear it at all. The female ghost seemed to have given up on him, wandering aimlessly on her own instead.
Yang Xiao deduced the female ghost was searching for her lost child, confirming their suspicions were correct. The absence of the female ghost’s threat allowed Yang Xiao to catch his breath for a moment.
But it was only temporary, for if the female ghost remained unable to find her child, she would surely come for him, and then he wouldn’t escape death.
To avoid death, he needed to help the female ghost find the child.
However, the basement was quite expansive, and there were no lights. Yang Xiao could only rely on the flashlight’s illumination to roughly assess the place. It was a cold concrete corridor with about 7 or 8 rooms on either side. These rooms had painted iron doors, exhibiting a solid, heavy feeling marked with a sense of age.
Yang Xiao’s idea was simple. He hid when the bell approached, and when the bell sounded distant or disappeared, he would come out to look for the child.
Each iron door had simple lettering painted on it, such as "Equipment Room, Instruments Room, Transformer Room, Cold Room..."
Yang Xiao advanced along the cement wall, shining his flashlight as he walked. Quickly, his attention was drawn to the Cold Room.
As he reached the solid iron door, Yang Xiao reached out to touch it. Instantly, a chill ran through his fingertips.
"It’s really cold..." None of the previous rooms’ doors were as cold as this one, so naturally, Yang Xiao focused his gaze here.
He pushed the iron door open with force, standing outside, casting his flashlight through the crack. This cold room was much larger than he had imagined, at least a hundred square meters, and a row of dark green metal cabinets divided it, suggesting more space behind.
As the flashlight beam swept slowly across, suddenly, it halted at a corner. Yang Xiao was surprised to find a corpse lying there.
