Ghost Record

  My heart skipped a beat when I saw the male corpse, my mind went blank for a moment. The brown leather jacket on the corpse was all too familiar to me, because my uncle had worn it for six whole years.

  My uncle is a gambler, but he's very stingy in other ways. He thinks even buying a pair of Liberation shoes is expensive, so I've only seen him buy an overcoat once. My childhood was basically spent barefoot except when it was cold. Uncle is not only frugal with food and clothing, but also with daily necessities. He uses old clothes that can't be worn anymore to make towels, and the kerosene lamp is only lit during dinner. After dinner, he blows it out and goes out, leaving me alone in the dark at home.

  Although he was such an uncle, I still felt very sad when I saw his body. The young policeman walked over and grabbed the shoulder of the corpse and turned it over. I didn't dare to look, but the young policeman asked me to help him hold the flashlight.

  I walked over and helped the young policeman hold the flashlight, while he carefully examined the body with his gloved hands. I inadvertently took a glance at the body, and suddenly felt extremely happy in my heart, because I saw that this corpse's face was not my uncle's, but what puzzled me was why this corpse was wearing my uncle's jacket.

  The temperature in the cave was not low, but higher than outside, feeling a bit warm, but this corpse did not rot. The young policeman took the flashlight from my hand and checked the body, but did not find any wounds. He raised his head and asked me to take a look, if it was someone from our village.

  I took a closer look and didn't recognize him, but he seemed somewhat familiar. It was as if I had seen him a few times when herding cattle in the past, probably from the neighboring village.

  The young police officer stood up and shouted the names of those police officers in every direction, but there was no response.

  The body has been found, but where did the four police officers go? We didn't see them all the way here, and they've already been in for six or seven hours. Where did they go?

  Just as we didn't know how to deal with the corpse, a series of thunder-like sounds came from the middle cave of the three forks in front, like huge rocks rolling down, rumbling and shaking for a while, as if the entire mountain cave was about to collapse.

  Young police officers and I shone our flashlights in unison, but the entrance to the cave looked incredibly deep. The bright light from the police flashlight couldn't illuminate anything.

  We stared at the cave entrance, which was as big as a giant beast's mouth, for a while. The young police officer suddenly asked me what my name was. I said my name is Li Tiaohe, and I'm 15 years old this year. He couldn't help but laugh when he heard it, saying your name is really unique, the person who gave you that name must be even more unique!

  I said this was the name my mother gave me, because my father's name is Li Tiao Hai. As soon as I finished speaking, the police officer couldn't help but burst out laughing again. After I introduced myself, the young police officer also introduced himself and said: "My name is Tang Qianshou, I'm 22 years old, from Xishan, I just returned from serving in the army last year and now work in public security at the county!"

  I couldn't help but burst out laughing when I heard Tang Qun Shou. How did your parents come up with this name?! Tang Qun Shou quickly explained that his dad's surname is Tang, his mom's surname is Qun, and he belongs to the Shou generation, so they named him like this. Just call me Beast Brother from now on!

  After we introduced ourselves, the beastly brother put away his smile and asked if I dared to follow him into the cave that was making noise. I said don't look at my 15-year-old appearance, the things I've experienced might be more than yours, there's nothing I'm afraid of.

  My brother, a beast, patted my shoulder and I asked him if he had a gun. He actually said no, only old police officers can be equipped with guns when they go on patrol, and he was just here to follow the class and learn. I said you've been a soldier for several years, and you've touched many guns before! Now that you're a police officer, you don't even have the qualifications to touch a gun.

  Fortunately, I'm not an ordinary young man. When encountering monsters and ghosts, I won't be too scared after all, I have something to restrain them on me. If all else fails, I still have Tongtong. What I fear most is running into poisonous insects or giant snakes with extreme strength. A huge snake can overpower a dozen adults, and even if you have a gun, it's just a matter of one bullet.

  We walked into the middle entrance, went straight for three or four hundred meters, and turned a few more corners, but saw nothing. I couldn't understand how the sound was made earlier. I asked Brother Beast if he wanted to go back out now that we hadn't gone too deep, otherwise it would be terrible if we got lost.

  The beastly brother thought for a moment and said, "Let's go in a bit further and take a look!" He also made some marks on the stone wall. If Captain Zheng and his men saw them, they would know that we had also entered.

  The beastly brother finished speaking and took out a large black pen from his pocket, drew a circle the size of a bowl on the stone wall, and then drew an arrow inside the circle. The direction of the arrow is the direction we are entering the cave now, as long as you go back and walk in the opposite direction of the arrow, it's okay.

  With something marked, we have fewer worries, just worrying about getting lost and not being able to get out, after all, without food, people can't hold on for a few days, and more afraid that the flashlight will run out of power.

  But I'm not too worried about these things, because I have a Tongtong. The darker the cave is, the less it matters to her. It's just that our human eyes are inconvenient. In my heart, I thought that if we really get lost, I can call out Tongtong to lead the way, but unless there's a special situation, I won't do this, after all, there are outsiders here.

  We continued to walk in for several hundred meters and came to a semi-circular cave end that looked like a spoon. There was no road here. My brother and I took out our flashlights and checked around, but found nothing. Then we returned the same way.

  We've been in here for over half an hour, and those four police officers might have left already. If they can't find us, that's going to be a problem. As I walked back to the entrance of Sanjiao Cave with Beast Brother, we suddenly discovered that the corpse lying there earlier was gone. This scared us out of our wits - could it be that a dead body can actually walk on its own?

  The beastly brother looked at me with a glance, his voice trembling slightly: "What's going on! Can even a dead person run away?"

  I was also very puzzled and said to him: "Maybe we took the wrong road, or those four police officers led us out of the cave, let's go take a look first!"

  Arriving at the original location of the body, a flashlight revealed drag marks on the ground, but the direction of the drag marks was towards the right entrance of the three forks cave. It seems that it wasn't those four police officers who dragged it away, who knows what kind of thing dragged this corpse away, and we didn't have guns, if a large wild beast or monster suddenly appeared, we would be in trouble.

  The beastly brother shone his flashlight into the right entrance of the three forks cave, but it was still a bottomless black hole. He wiped away cold sweat and looked at me again, with an inexplicable complexity in his eyes. Fear mixed with bravery, panic mixed with reluctance, perhaps this was the inner feeling of someone who had been a soldier, facing his comrades and unknown fears. I thought that if he had a gun on him at that time, he wouldn't have shown such emotions.

  I told Brother Beast: "Get out first! Go back to the town police station at night and ask the county public security bureau to send someone to reinforce."

  The beastly brother listened to my words, looked at the cave entrance again, swallowed a mouthful of saliva and hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing with my suggestion. We took off running towards the direction of the cave entrance.

  Unfortunately, we had only run a few steps when two gunshots came from the cave entrance on the right side of the three-pronged road. We immediately slammed on the brakes, looked at each other in dismay, and then said in unison: "Let's go back!"

  There were gunshots indicating that the four armed police officers were in that cave. We didn't stop running and rushed towards the entrance of the cave, covering a distance of 400-500 meters in one breath.

  The beastly brother suddenly grabbed me, I asked him what was wrong, he told me to look at the ground, I took a look and only then did I discover that there was a puddle of fresh blood on the ground, with some droplets leading into the depths of the cave.

  The beastly brother started shouting at the four policemen again, but after a while, there was still no response. We continued to walk deeper into the cave and ran for another 400-500 meters, passing by a shallow puddle that only reached our ankles, and found footprints on the rocks behind the puddle.

  These footprints are human, and the same as those made by the shoes worn by Brother Beast. It can be confirmed that they were made by the four civil police officers. However, there is also a bare footprint that is not human, although it looks like a human's, but it only has four toes.

  The gunshot and the bloodstain in front of us indicated that the four-clawed monster had been injured by those four police officers. There were another four police officers chasing after it, so my brother and I weren't afraid anymore, we followed the footprints and chased after it.

  This cave is really too deep, we ran for another ten minutes or so and still couldn't see the figures of those four police officers. We didn't leave any marks along the way, it seems like we got lost.

  Just as I was about to scold my brother for not leaving a mark, his face turned deathly pale and he was breathing rapidly, staring intently in front of him with wide eyes. I quickly looked in the direction where his flashlight was shining, and at that moment, I was so scared that I sat down on the ground.

  In front of us, more than 50 meters away, on the rocky wall that was a bit steep, there was actually a large red snake lying horizontally. The big snake had red and white stripes, as thick as a bucket, at least 15 meters long.

  Such a huge snake is so close to us, the feeling of extreme fear and despair is simply indescribable in words. There are only three words echoing in my mind, that is, we're done for, we're done for.

  Our legs were all scared soft, but the big red snake didn't move. I felt there was still a chance to escape and quickly shouted: "Tongtong come out quickly!"

  At this time, I can only place my hopes on Tiantian's body, after all, she is not human, no blood or flesh, and the giant snake cannot eat her. Such a big snake, even if I had that nameless needle, there would be no chance to stab it, rushing up would be suicidal?

  Tongtong didn't come out, and in my mind, I only heard a childish laugh. That was Tongtong laughing. I was about to scold her for still being able to laugh at this time. Tongtong stopped laughing and said, "You two are really like two pigs! It's just snake skin, and you're already scared like this."

  As soon as Tiantian said it was snake skin, I realized that the big red snake wasn't moving all along. But Tiantian's voice only echoed in my mind, just like that auditory hallucination, and Beast Brother couldn't hear it. I quickly patted his shoulder hard and shouted loudly into his ear, "It's snake skin! It's snake skin!"

  My brother was skeptical when I told him it was a snake skin, but he didn't believe me until I picked up a rock and threw it at the red-spotted snake. When the snake didn't react after being hit, he finally believed me, but his voice was still shaking. He cursed, "Damn it! You scared the pants off me! It's really a snake skin!"

  I scolded him, no wonder he had a urine smell, it turned out that you were so scared that you peed your pants, it's a shame that you used to be a soldier, relying on you still dare to let me call you Beast Brother, from now on I'll change it to Beast Little Brother.

  Although this is a snakeskin, if you know that such a thick snakeskin, would the snake that shed its skin be small?