Chapter 1.24 Object (Extra)

It was raining heavily and my line of sight was blurred. Since the sewer was blocked, the yard was full of accumulated water and the curtain of rain under the eaves poured down with a majestic sound.

With the light of the street lamp, I could see that the object was in the shape of a person, but it wasn’t very human-like. All that could be seen in the rain was a vague shadow, but all the details weren’t very clear.

Even so, I could guess what it was. I swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said dumbly, “It actually has a human form—”

“What kind of human form is this? Aliens?” Uncle Three retorted.

“When did this happen?” I asked them.

“I saw it half an hour ago when I got up to exercise,” Uncle Two said. “It was still at the gate at that time.”

I felt my heart quiver—this thing was now located in the middle of the yard, about ten meters away from us. In other words, after only half an hour, this thing had gotten closer to us.

When I noticed that Uncle Three and Uncle Two’s clothes were dry, I asked them, “Didn’t you go over and take a look?”

“Why don’t you go?” Uncle Three glared at me.

I saw that their expressions were a little different and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“This time it’s a bit unusual,” Uncle Two said. “Look at the rain.”

I looked down at the accumulated water in the courtyard and found that the water was separated into individual puddles, several of which had a layer of dark red things floating in them, “This is…”

“Blood,” Uncle Two said.

I gasped and immediately felt a strong sense of uneasiness. Even my hands felt a little cold. After a moment of silence, I asked, “What should we do?”

“Don’t panic, I’ve already called my buddies and asked them to bring a weapon over,” Uncle Three said. At this time, I saw him holding a sickle in his hand and his eyes were full of a fierce light. “No matter what it is, I’ll make sure it never comes back,” he said.

I nodded—my heart unwittingly uplifted— and immediately looked around for something to defend myself with. I eventually found a pole and immediately grabbed it, acting like the Japanese devils were entering the village.(1) Then I drew back behind Uncle Three to wait.

The rain continued for another ten minutes before it started to slow down. At this time, Uncle Three’s buddies arrived, but no one dared to enter through the gate. Instead, they handed the weapon in through the window of Uncle Three’s room. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He thrust his sickle into his belt and shook off the oilcloth that was wrapped around the weapon.

I saw that it was a short-headed shotgun, which was new and shiny. “Look at this beauty. Bought it in Changjiang, the place where the Baisha uprising took place. It’s all the manual work of the local people. One shot fired… not to mention the snails, a mule’s head will be blown off.” Uncle Three grinned.

“You came back this time mainly to sell this thing?” Uncle Two asked.

“Nonsense, I’m not a poacher. My friend brought it for me.” Uncle Three said as he loaded the cartridges neatly and covered the gun with the cloth again. “Alright, let’s go and see what’s going on.”

As Uncle Two and I followed behind him, Uncle Two calmly opened up an umbrella. We approached the thing in a few steps but stopped two or three meters from it, not daring to get any closer. As I looked carefully at it, it gave me the creeps.

It was a huge “pillar” of black and white snails that was vaguely shaped like a human being. But this wasn’t the most terrifying thing. That was reserved for the thing’s huge head, which unexpectedly had vague facial features that were distorted and deformed, making it look very ferocious.

Uncle Three looked at it coldly. We walked around the thing twice, but it didn’t move. Uncle Three raised his gun, “Let’s shoot it first?”

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Uncle Two stopped him and said to us, “Wait, this… there seems to be something inside.”

“What?”

Uncle Two stared at it for a while before taking my pole and thrusting it into the pile of snails. After stirring it around a bit, the snails scattered, and a hand was unexpectedly exposed from the inside.

<Extra 1.23> <Table of Contents><Extra 1.25>

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TN Notes:

(1) Guess he’s imagining it’s back in WWII where the Japanese raided villages, that’s why he said “Japanese devils”.

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Updated 12/4/2021