Chapter 55: The Strange Person

  I was startled for a moment, but immediately calmed down. Having experienced too many adventures, I can now overcome ordinary unexpected events.

  This skull mask is 'milk' white in color, carved from wood, with a hint of dark red and green stripes. The eye sockets are hollowed out, revealing a glossy black interior. On the forehead of the skull head, four small skull heads, each about the size of a fist, stand evenly spaced, varying in plumpness and thinness, making different facial expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. Strangely, on both ends of the mask are attached two small flags made from oilcloth, somewhat resembling Peking Opera makeup.

  This mask gives people a feeling of being a handicraft of ethnic minorities, full of wild atmosphere. I used my flashlight to observe the surroundings again, and found that the "cave" was closed, not big, and the color of the "cave" wall was a bit dark. I leaned over and rubbed some mud off, it felt a bit rough, like dried-up vermilion, and subconsciously smelled it with my nose, a faint smell of blood.

  "This mountain 'cave' is quite strange, what did Chen Ah Po come here for?" I pondered about Chen Ah Po's strange behavior, she disappeared into this 'cave' for a long time, could it be that she came to appreciate the exhibition of exotic cultures?

  Suddenly, I furrowed my brow, and a strong intuition made me feel that someone was staring at me from behind.

  I hastily turned around, and only that eerie skull mask was staring at me with empty eyes. Hmm, had I become suspicious of everything? I rubbed my eyes, but the feeling of being watched didn't weaken in the slightest. I stared straight at this strange mask, slowly approaching it, holding my breath, and cautiously stretched out my right hand to touch it, finding a thick layer of oil stains on its surface.

  When I "touched" the eye socket area, I was shocked to find that it wasn't empty!

  "This is... the lens of sunglasses?" At this moment, my face changed color. The lens was concave inward, and when I shone a flashlight on it, it didn't reflect light. If I hadn't been careful, I wouldn't have discovered it. Without any delay, I immediately took out a small knife and stabbed it into one of the eye sockets with force.

  The glass shattered with a loud crash, and at the same time, a strange cry of "Ah" rang out.

  I broke out in a cold sweat. Could this skull mask be alive? Suddenly, a figure flashed across the broken lens of the glasses and was gone in an instant.

  "There's someone behind!" I shouted out loud.

  "Where are you going?" I hastily went to remove the skull mask, but it was tied on. For a moment, I couldn't pull it off. In my panic, I didn't care about anything else and kicked the mask with one foot, directly kicking it to pieces. At this time, behind the mask, a hidden small hole 'appeared', and behind the hole was another hidden space.

  I pushed aside the remaining skull mask fragments and crouched down to take a look inside. In the small space, I saw a simple wooden "bed" with over a dozen pieces of cloth hanging quietly on it.

  "Where did the person go?" I plucked up my courage, with a flashlight in my mouth and a small knife in one hand, carefully turned over the "cave" entrance. As soon as I stood firm, I found that there were many hard objects under my feet. When I looked down, I couldn't help but take a breath of cool air, and they were all white and fragmented human bones. There was even a skull with its brain case pried open lying at my feet, with bloodstains still on it.

  I swallowed my saliva, secretly thinking that I shouldn't have encountered a man-eating devil. I casually glanced around, but there was no one in sight, which made me concentrate even more. That person's shadow couldn't have vanished into thin air; there must be a hidden passage here!

  I walked to the edge of the "bed" and found obvious depressions on the bedspread, apparently this person had been living here for some time. Immediately, my attention was caught by the fabric hanging on the "bed". In the flashlight light, the fabric emitted a semi-transparent texture. I touched it, and my heart sank. Quickly unfolding it, an incomplete human figure appeared before my eyes.

  "Damn it, this is indeed a pervert! This is human skin!" I cursed, and on this human skin, someone had also drawn unknown ghostly patterns.

  Just as I was searching around, a creaking sound came from under the "bed", and I froze, immediately bending down to check. But strangely, there was nothing under the "bed".

  "Could it be under here?" I gritted my teeth, directly flipping over the "bed", and knocked on the original place of the wooden "bed". Thud... thud... thud... Indeed, it was empty.

  Suddenly, with a "whoosh", the sound of the wooden plank falling was heard, and before I knew it, my feet were empty, and I fell down.

  In the blink of an eye, I found myself on both feet and fell into a narrow pit that was only suitable for one person to crawl through.

  Whoa! I was startled and thought there was a pit with a bamboo sword inside. I quickly shone my flashlight upwards, and it turned out to be less than two meters down.

  Soon calmed down from the shock, I found a horizontal black hole at my feet, as wide as the pit, only one person could crawl in and out, like me, a Northeastern big man, still struggling to climb up.

  "That person must have run away from here." I guessed.

  Suddenly, in the flash of an electric spark, a cold light flashed out from the hole in the ground, and immediately afterwards a slender arm shot out like a poisonous snake.

  "Assassination!" I secretly thought it was bad, but the hole was too narrow and there was no place to hide. Conditioned reflexively, I quickly jumped up, but that shiny arm seemed to have anticipated my reaction, only to see his wrist swing upwards, and the dagger in his hand shot straight up.

  "Ah!" I'm not a pervert like Oni, the dagger came too fast, at this point I basically couldn't react in time. Getting hit was inevitable. But luckily I was quick-witted, my two legs closed together tightly just 0.1 seconds before the dagger stabbed into my crotch.

  Hmph...

  The dagger plunged deep into the left thigh, almost cutting off a layer of skin and flesh as thick as a small finger.

  I'm in a lot of pain, and I'm sweating bullets on my back, but fortunately, I abandoned the car to save myself, otherwise, I would have had to find an old eunuch to surrender to.

  Enduring immense pain, he pulled out a dagger. At a glance, its cold light was chilling and emitted an eerie glow.

  "You've gone too far!" I was thoroughly enraged by this, I've been idle for a while and got ambushed, damn it, I won't show mercy when bullied!

  Seeing that the person didn't make another move, I took advantage of the interval and crawled up, biting my teeth. Before half of my body was exposed above ground, I flipped over, head down, and quickly burrowed into the hole in the ground.

  One hand grasped a small knife, the other held a dagger, with a flashlight clenched in his mouth, both feet exerted force, and he rapidly sprinted forward.

  "Hey, you're really bold, not running away!" I saw a strange person with a skull mask and only wearing a few pieces of tattered cloth standing three meters away from me.

  "That man shouted in a sharp voice: 'Shouldn't you have died from poisoning by now?'"

  I accelerated my crawl, this weirdo was clearly out of his mind. I held the flashlight in my mouth, with a cold smile hanging from the corner of my lips, and said in a muffled voice: "Heh heh, unfortunately, I'm not afraid of poison! This is still for you!"

  As soon as the words fell, a big hand waved, and the poisoned dagger was thrown out with force.

  Bang!

  A dagger was thrust straight into the skull mask, and with a "ka-cha" sound, the mask split in two instantly.

  He revealed a disheveled old face with a waxen complexion, staring at me with wide eyes in utter disbelief.

  "Don't move, I'm a cop! You're under arrest for assaulting an officer!" I didn't care if the other person understood my slurred speech or not, and desperately reached out to grab his neck.

  "Ah!" The strange person was startled, suddenly shrinking his neck, barely avoiding my grab. Without saying a word, he quickly retreated at an extremely fast speed.

  I grabbed a void and hurried after him, this strange person's body shape was estimated to be absolutely no more than 1.5 meters, extremely thin and small, in this narrow "cave" it was simply effortless. I crawled with difficulty one step, this bastard had already passed four or five steps.

  "This won't do." As I saw the strange person about to disappear from the flashlight's range, I couldn't care about anything else and hastily threw out the small knife that was all I had left.

  He saw this strange person suddenly dodge to one side, using his shoulder to block the knife. His speed didn't decrease but increased instead, and we stared at each other for a minute before I watched him disappear into the darkness.

  I crawled for another six or seven minutes, and the 'cave' started to rise. When I emerged from the ground, I found myself on a grassland not far from a small hill.

  I first let my hands 'expose' the ground to prevent being ambushed by a strange person. After making sure there was no one around, I anxiously crawled out.

  Dazed and looking around, under the moonlit night with sparse stars, where can one still see the shadow of a strange person. A cool breeze blows, and I shudder, only to discover that I am already drenched in sweat.

  At this time, the wound on the big 'leg' had basically healed, and I couldn't help but shake my head with a wry smile at its inhuman recovery power.

  In this eerie place, I didn't dare to rest and ran quickly down to a small mountain village at the foot of the mountain alone.

  ……

  An hour later, the knocking sound woke up Chen Apo from her sleep.

  "Who is it?" Old Mrs. Chen put on her coat, opened the door, and saw that it was me. That wrinkled old face of hers clearly froze for a moment, and she asked in surprise: "Mr. Hong, what's wrong with you? Your face has turned pale, you didn't run into a ghost, did you?"

  I didn't answer her, let out a hum, and threw something to the ground with two thuds. It was a skull mask split in half.

  Chen Ah Po's face changed color, but only for an instant, and immediately returned to normal. I couldn't help but admire her composure, and coldly laughed: "Chen Ah Po, shouldn't you be telling me something?"

  "Ah, this mask is so scary, Mr. Hong, where did you pick it up from? Get rid of it quickly. It looks inauspicious." As she spoke, she wanted to pick up the mask, but I stepped on it with one foot and stared straight at Chen Ah Po, who didn't dare to look me in the eye, her gaze darting back and forth.

  "Old Lady Chen, you're almost seventy now. At this age, it's not comfortable to be in prison. Why don't you voluntarily tell me everything you know? I might be able to let you off easy." I started with the soft approach, following the usual police interrogation routine.

  Chen Ah Po remained silent.

  I froze for half a minute, seeing no effect, and thought to myself that it seemed I had to resort to trickery this time. "Sigh..." I let out a long sigh, pretending to be disappointed, and clicked my tongue in fake regret. Pointing at the mask with a low voice, I said, "Forget it, you don't have to say anything. Anyway, the owner of this mask... has already been killed by me."

  As soon as the words fell, Old Lady Chen suddenly cried out: "What, you killed my son! Ah, I won't live, I want you to pay with your life!"

  Suddenly, she pulled out a pair of scissors from her clothes and stabbed them at my chest. A glint flashed in my eyes, if an old lady who was about to die could kill me, I might as well slit my own throat.

  Gently grasping Old Lady Chen's wrist with one hand, he twisted it, and the scissors fell to the ground with a clang.

  Old Lady Chen suddenly lost her energy, turned pale as death, and began to wail and cry out while beating her chest and stamping her feet: "Retribution! It's all retribution!"