Chapter Ten: Sandy Ate Meat

  After I returned to the village, Professor Sun and a few others came back soon after. They probably didn't dare to go down to the river, so they went back to the village to ask for help to salvage it. But still being so stingy, they planned to use 10 yuan to hire two people to help them pull out that water buffalo skeleton. If it were in normal times, five yuan would be enough to hire someone, and you could even buy three catties of pork with that amount. However, at this time, rumors had already spread throughout the village. Originally, no one knew about Wu Litao's mother and daughter becoming skeletons because they were wrapped in quilts when carried back home, and once the coffin arrived, they were put inside, and those who salvaged them promised not to talk nonsense, even if it was an uncle or nephew relative, no one knew. But the fact that Zhang Village Chief's water buffalo drowned and became a skeleton is known throughout the village, and now everyone says there are terrifying monsters in the river that can devour human flesh instantly. So now, let alone five yuan, even if it were 500 yuan, I estimate not many people would dare to go down to the river to salvage, after all, life is more important than anything else.

  Helpless, Professor Sun and the others could only ask Village Chief Zhang for help, but Village Chief Zhang was also powerless! A large water buffalo sank to the bottom of the river and turned into a skeleton in an instant, who else would dare to go down to the river? The people who were salvaging corpses yesterday heard about Village Chief Zhang's cow incident and were frightened out of their wits. To be honest, if it weren't for Tongtong being there, I wouldn't have dared either, after all, no one knows what's really at the bottom of the water.

  I asked Tiantian if she didn't feel anything was wrong after the cow was pulled into the water? When did the meat get eaten and buried in the sand. Tiantian said that after the cow drowned, it originally sank to the bottom of the water without moving, but when I came to the riverbank, she wasn't paying attention, then discovered the cow was gone, and then dug out from the sand became a skeleton.

  Tongtong's words made my hair stand on end. It turns out that the big cow turning into a skeleton didn't take half an hour, but rather it happened in those few minutes when Tongtong and I were talking by the river. This is too terrifying to imagine what kind of horrific thing exists at the bottom of the river. In the days to come, who knows how many people will lose their lives here? Now that experts have come to investigate, they should dig it out.

  What if no one wants to go down the river? I suggested to Professor Sun, since no one is willing to salvage that cow skeleton, why not just buy a small pig and throw it into the river for an experiment!

  Professor Sun suddenly realized that his thigh was broken, so he went to a village pig farm and bought a small piglet of over 20 kilograms. The little piglet was packed in a specially made pig cage, which was woven very tightly. After putting it down the river and tying it with a rope, not only could you see what had eaten away the pork, but also by pulling the rope, you could lift up the skeleton of the pig.

  Of course, this work is relatively confidential, and apart from the village chief and me, no one else knows what the piglets are being bought for.

  To maintain secrecy, the experiment could only be conducted at night. However, Professor Sun, Researcher Wang, and Old Ding were not locals and were unfamiliar with the river's conditions, so they hoped that Village Chief Zhang could help guide them tonight. Village Chief Zhang agreed and went to borrow a bamboo raft from the neighboring village that afternoon.

  Around one o'clock in the evening, Village Chief Zhang loaded the piglets into a pig cage and carried it to the riverbank. Professor Sun took a shovel, Old Ding took another shovel, while Researcher Wang brought their own waterproof flashlight.

  Watching the excitement doesn't cost money, so I followed them out the door, but Professor Sun didn't allow it. It was Village Chief Zhang who said that I'm a reliable person and although I'm not very old, I can help in critical moments. Village Chief Zhang said that on that day, dozens of people from our village searched underwater for a whole day without finding the body, but this young brother discovered the location of the body and even went into the water alone to retrieve it. After hearing this, Professor Sun finally agreed to let me come along, but told me that no matter what we discover tonight, I must not mention it to anyone.

  After leaving the house, we soon arrived at the riverbank. Although it was already spring, the water temperature was still very low, and the frogs and insects had not yet emerged to be active, so all around was quiet. A large bamboo raft had been prepared on the riverbank, which was borrowed by Village Chief Zhang from a village upstream. Researcher Wang gave each of us a waterproof flashlight.

  After Zhang Village Head lifted the pig onto the bamboo raft, we also got on. Then Zhang Village Head rowed the boat and took the bamboo raft to the area of the cow skeleton. However, because the water was too deep and it was dark at night, the flashlight couldn't shine to the bottom of the water, so they had to row to another place again.

  Finally we stopped at a location near the riverbank where the water depth was only about 1.2 meters, so the flashlight could clearly illuminate the bottom of the water.

  After everything was ready, Old Ding threw the pig and its cage into the river water. Watching the little pig struggle painfully at the bottom of the river made me feel uncomfortable. I guess that's how six-year-old Tongtong struggled when she was submerged in the river that year!

  The little piglet was thrown into the river and struggled for about a minute before it stopped moving. We were all holding flashlights, and you could feel everyone's heart racing. It was as if we had lured out a monster, which suddenly burst out of the muddy water at the bottom of the river, opening its huge mouth to swallow us along with the bamboo raft. This must be the fear of the unknown! No one knew what that thing was that could eat a cow down to its skeleton in one bite, and we were also afraid that there might be danger lurking on the surface of the river at midnight.

  A few of us sat on the bamboo raft, shining our flashlights at the piglets at the bottom of the river. We waited for over an hour without anyone saying a word, as if we were all wooden statues. Even so, the flesh-eating monster we were waiting for didn't appear, and the drowned piglet still had its hair intact, not to mention its meat.

  I remembered the time when I was with Zhang Shenpo in Xunjiang to catch the Tongtong, we also waited for two nights and it didn't come out. Is it possible that the monster at the bottom of the river now knows that this pig is a trap and doesn't dare to come out?

  Just as I was about to speak out, an incredible thing happened. We all lay down on the bamboo raft, our entire faces almost touching the water surface, staring intently at the river bottom.

  Only the dense sand at the bottom of the water seemed to be washed away by the current, and it was crawling towards the drowned little piglet. Before long, the whole little piglet was covered and buried in the sand.

  We all looked at each other in disbelief, then shifted our gaze to the riverbed. Watching these sand grains crawling around made me feel uncomfortable all over, as if every pore on my body had a grain of sand stuck in it. Everyone was speechless, staring at the sand without daring to blink an eye - what kind of ghostly thing is this? How can sand move?

  Five minutes later, the sand stopped wriggling. Professor Sun and Old Ding pulled the rope to pull the pig cage up from the bottom of the water. When they looked inside the cage, the little piglet had become a skeleton.

  This is beyond everyone's cognition, and the meat was actually eaten by sand, which is simply unbelievable. Before that, it was thought to be a small fish that eats meat, who would have thought it was sand, if not seen with one's own eyes, I wouldn't believe it even if I were beaten to death.

  Just as we were surrounding the piglet that had turned into a skeleton, a loud "splash" sound came from behind us, scaring us half to death. We turned our heads to see what it was and found Old Ding jumping into the water, splashing water all over us.

  "Wang researcher shouted loudly: 'Old Ding! What are you doing?'"

  After Old Ding jumped into the water, due to the shallow river with a lot of mud and sand, the spot where he jumped in immediately became murky. We couldn't see clearly what was happening in the water. We didn't know why he suddenly jumped in, and whether he would also end up as a skull later on. Each of our hearts were stuck in our throats.

  Finally, we all let out a sigh of relief as Old Ding soon emerged from the water. After Zhang Village Chief and Professor Sun pulled him onto the bamboo raft, they saw that he had an extra small pouch in his hand. Old Ding's craziness made everyone break out in cold sweat, knowing how terrifying those flesh-eating sand was, devouring a whole pig in just a few minutes.

  Old Ding held up the bag in his hand and panted: "I scooped up some of this sand because I was afraid it would scatter, so I..."

  Old Ding hadn't finished speaking when Professor Sun interrupted him, sternly scolding Old Ding: "Are you crazy? Why jump down and take such a great risk when you can just scoop up the sand with the shovel?" Professor Sun pointed to the shovel on the bamboo raft.

  Old Ding, who was soaked from head to toe, saw the shovel's gloomy face and said with a sobbing tone: "Why didn't you say so earlier? You made me jump down impulsively!"

  Professor Sun said you didn't even say a word and suddenly jumped into the river, your life is in danger! The shovel was brought by you just now, how can you say you don't know there's a shovel?!

  Lao Ding said he got flustered and forgot, I couldn't help but...

  Laugh out loud, such a person does not know how to become a senior researcher of supernatural imagination research, nor does he know what kind of supernatural phenomenon he is studying.

  Lao Ding's actions scared everyone's souls away. Zhang Village Chief hastily paddled the bamboo raft towards the shore, and after reaching the shore, they took the small piglet skeleton and the bag of sand for eating meat back to the village. Zhang Village Chief tied the bamboo raft to a tree on the shore with a rope so that it wouldn't be washed away by the water. I told him to go back first, my stomach hurt, and I went to the grass thicket over there to relieve myself.

  The village head, Zhang, said that this won't do, it's too dangerous for one person! He waited for me by the side of the road and told me to hurry up. I turned around and ran into a nearby thicket, took out the pearl and called out to Tongtong, asking her in a low voice if she knew what was going on with that sand just now.

  Tongtong said he didn't know, that was just ordinary sand. He couldn't understand why it could eat all the meat and after eating all the meat, the amount of sand hadn't increased at all. He wondered where all the meat had gone?

  Tongtong said this is ordinary sand. If it's really ordinary sand, then why does it have the ability to move, and even move towards a target? This clearly goes against science!

  I asked Tongtong to help me catch a handful of the sand from just now, and with a faint green glow on her body, she didn't say another word, "splash" and dove headfirst into the river.

  As soon as Zhang Village Chief heard the sound, he immediately shone his flashlight over and asked me what I had jumped into the river for. I said I was afraid there might be some kind of monster in the water, so I just threw a big stone to scare it away. Zhang Village Chief urged me to hurry up, saying it's dangerous by the river!

  Three seconds later, Tongtong floated to the surface of the water, holding a handful of sand. I picked up a taro leaf and wrapped it around to put in my pocket, then returned to the village with Village Chief Zhang.