Chapter 43 Panic

I usually don’t smoke. It’s only when I’m feeling very depressed that I’ll take a few puffs of a cigarette, so I never bothered refueling my lighter once I bought it. That was why, when it suddenly went out like that, I immediately panicked—being in a place like this with no light was absolutely terrifying.

Just as I was wondering what to do, I suddenly heard a noise above my head that sounded like a woman’s laughter.

Then I felt something cold touch the back of my neck. The basement ceiling was so low that I could touch it just by raising my arms and jumping a little bit. Although I couldn’t see anything, I reflexively raised my head and looked up.

I didn’t see anything, but I felt something soft touch my face. I moved to brush it aside, but was shocked to find that it was actually a mass of wet, sticky hair.

Ever since the undersea tomb, I found the sensation of wet hair absolutely revolting. It was so bad, in fact, that when I suddenly realized what I had touched, I felt a lump in my throat, as if I had swallowed a mouse. I quickly ducked down and used my sleeve to wipe my face off before stepping back and staring at the ceiling.

But it was too dark. I never thought that I would encounter such dense darkness before. As the fear in my heart suddenly surged up, I found myself wondering what was going on. Was there a woman on the ceiling? Was that “person” I saw just now hanging from the ceiling? Shit, how was that possible? Was it a lizard or something?

Things were getting weirder and weirder. Grabbing one of the sticky strands with my hand, I brought it up to my nose and smelled it, noticing a strange odor. I couldn’t remember where I had smelled it before, but I instinctively had a bad feeling.

At this time, the quiet “laughter” sounded again, but now it seemed like it was moving closer to me. I immediately took a few steps back and crashed into the desk with a loud bang—the sound was like thunder in the quiet basement and scared me even more.

I steadied myself and listened for the “laughter” again, but it was gone. I was becoming more and more nervous, but this wasn’t ordinary nervousness—for some reason, my whole body started trembling, as if my subconscious knew that something terrible was about to happen. Then, I felt an itchy sensation on the back of my neck, as if something was hanging down behind my head.

Unable to bear it any longer, I gripped my lighter tighter and shakily turned my head, my thumb rolling the lighter’s spark wheel as hard as I could.

There was a quiet pop, and then sparks flew in all directions, briefly illuminating the situation behind me—I saw a large mass of hair hanging down from the ceiling behind me. I raised my head and rolled the spark wheel again, this time seeing a pale, sinister face in the middle of all that hair, staring at me with cold eyes.

The light from the sparks was fleeting, and darkness descended once more, but the scene was clearly imprinted in my mind.

Forbidden Woman! I suddenly knew why my body was reacting like this. Damn it, I can’t believe there’s a Forbidden Woman here!

My mind suddenly went blank, and I lost any traces of my previous calm. With a loud shout, I turned and ran back into the darkness, not caring about anything else. There was only one thought in my mind: I had to escape from this place.

Unfortunately, I didn’t run very far before my whole body suddenly slammed into a wall, the force of the impact probably strong enough to kill me if I had really been trying. I fell to the ground with a loud thud, and when I managed to sit up, I heard a bunch of noises above my head that were coming straight towards me. Ignoring the blood pouring out of my nose, I scrambled to my feet and felt for the entrance I had come through earlier. Once I found it, I quickly rushed through it.

This time, I learned my lesson and actually put my hands out in front of me as I ran into the corridor. Then, keeping one hand on the wall, I rushed towards the exit and slammed my way through the door. I quickly turned around and slammed the door shut before rushing into the darkness, frantically groping around to try and find the stairs.

But in such a dark place, it was too difficult to find the staircase—I waved my arms in front of me for a long time but couldn’t even find a wall. As I was fumbling around, I suddenly bumped into something and went sprawling forward. As soon as I landed on it, I knew right away that I had bumped into the sarcophagus.

I went to lean on the lid to try and get my feet under me, only to find that something was wrong—the shape of the sarcophagus under my hands seemed to have changed. I touched it again, and immediately realized that someone had pushed the lid open a crack.

At that moment, the question of how this had happened flashed through my mind, but I decided to ignore it—my thoughts were so chaotic that I felt dizzy, and I had no time to worry about it right now.

I quickly stood back up and continued trying to feel my way forward, but at this time, I suddenly heard something move beside me. Nerves already at their limit and scared out of my mind, I started to get into a defensive position, but then a hand suddenly reached out and covered my mouth, while an arm wrapped around my body, immobilizing me.

I struggled hard at first, but the arm restraining me was so strong that I couldn’t move at all. Then I heard a man whisper harshly in my ear, “Don’t move!”

As soon as I heard this, I was so shocked that I immediately stopped struggling, and my heart felt like it was about to explode.

Even though the man had only said two words, I immediately recognized the voice!

It belonged to Poker-Face.

<Chapter 42><Table of Contents><Chapter 44>

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He’s here!