Chapter 6: The Bizarre Human-Faced Cat (5)

  After saying these words, Old Man Ouyang slowly stretched out his hand. At this time, I finally connected his profession with those hands that grew like claws. What kind of hands were these? They were clearly a pair of hooks.

  We have been trained in rock climbing since we were young, the training was extremely hard, after more than a decade of training, we can climb on that cliff as if flying. In the summer when I was 23 years old, an old man in our village passed away, my father and I received the news and began to prepare, the old man's partner had passed away a few years ago and was buried in a cave in Sanxiang Mountain, at that time it was also my father and I who lifted the coffin up. Now the old man is going to be buried with his partner, so we are very familiar with the cave in Sanxiang Mountain.

  It was during the Cultural Revolution, when a storm swept across the country, and my hometown was no exception. Because setting up a coffin is superstitious in itself, it was considered an evil practice, so we chose to send the coffin up at midnight. After dark, the old man's family quietly sent the coffin to the foot of Sanxiang Mountain, where my father and I had been waiting for a long time. My father took a big puff of water smoke, made a "gurgling" sound, put down the tobacco pouch, hung a rope around his waist, and carried a short knife on him.

  "My backpack also contained a knife, some yellow paper and incense, with a torch in my mouth, I jumped up the cliff. It was summer and had just rained, so it was slightly difficult to climb. However, for our family-style rock climbers, it wasn't a problem, we climbed up, hooked our hands on the protruding platform on the cliff, and pressed our bodies tightly against the stone wall, which could transfer most of our body weight to the stone wall, reducing the burden on our fingers."

  "There are many caves on the three-phase mountain, and the cave where the old man's partner is hanging his coffin is located in this part of the cliff. We climbed like the wind, using our hands and feet together, and climbed halfway up the tens of meters high cliff in no time. The old man stopped and we hung on the cliff to rest for a while. At this moment, a black shadow suddenly darted out from the cave below us and rushed towards another cave at an extremely fast speed."

  "At that time, both my old man and I were watching with our eyes wide open. Our family has been making a living by doing this for generations, but we had never heard of any monster that could climb up the steep cliff at such a fast speed. I wanted to go take a closer look, but was stopped by my old man. Now our first task is to help the client arrange the hanging coffin. Although I have doubts in my heart, I can only give up for now. After the appearance of the monster, we didn't rest again."

  "Suddenly, a ringing sound came to our ears, the voice was sometimes far and near, making people's hearts uneasy. I almost fell off the cliff. At this time, that black thing quickly jumped out of the hole again, then hung on the cliff, making a 'gurgling' sound in its throat. Its position was only ten meters away from me, as if it was observing my movements. My heart was pounding, and at this moment, the monster suddenly pounced towards me."

  Ouyang Lao Die swallowed hard at this point.

  "Is that thing a Man-Faced Cat?" Du Wei took this opportunity to interrupt Old Man Ouyang's words, then looked in my direction. I gave him a straightforward glare.

  Ouyang Lao seemed to have fallen into deep thought and didn't hear Du Wei's words. He continued, "At that time, the black shadow was extremely fast. Because I had already sensed it would take action, when it suddenly pounced on me, I was prepared. I hastily stuck close to the cliff, using both hands to hang my body up. The monster didn't continue attacking after missing its first strike."

  It just touched the cliff wall under my feet and then immediately jumped up, like a black lightning bolt, and disappeared into one of the caves in an instant. Dad looked at me, making sure I wasn't hurt, and we continued on after a brief pause, but a sense of foreboding had already crept onto my mind, as if something terrible was about to happen.