Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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The house was very simple, the floor was made of compacted earth, and the gray and white walls were very mottled. The only furniture was a bed, a table and two stools.
The bedding on the bed was piled randomly, and it was obvious that someone had slept on it. Ying Qiao lifted up the quilt and found a wrench on the bed. The table was placed against the wall, and the stool was lying crooked on the floor.
Ying Qiao checked around the room and fixed his eyes on the window frame.
The old wooden window frame was covered with dots of dirty blood, which had condensed into red and black blood clots. A large piece of the wall covering under the window fell off, and gray and white wall powder fell to the ground. It seemed that someone had been hiding under the window and accidentally rubbed off the wall covering.
Ying Qiao lowered his eyes and thought, connecting these scattered findings together.
Jiang Lan came to Sanshui Village with Xue Meng. When he entered the village, he saw a car parked under the big tree at the entrance of the village. He recognized that it was the official car of Jiang Lan’s unit, but the tires of the car were flat. Maybe the car broke down and they couldn’t contact the outside world, so the two stayed overnight in the village. There was nothing in this room, but someone had slept on the bedding. It was very likely that Jiang Lan and the others had slept in this room.
After that, they might have been in danger. Ying Qiao stared at the scattered feathers and blood outside the window, and then contacted the people from the Special Administration Bureau to tell them that he had found traces of the Gu Diao here and speculated that the Gu Diao had attacked them.
Xue Meng was an ordinary person, but Jiang Lan was a lion. Although he was still a little kid, Ying Qiao had discovered the few times he went on missions with him that the little monster had the aura of a newborn calf that was not afraid of tigers. He was very reckless. Looking at the situation outside, he had probably had a fierce battle with the Gu Diaos that attacked them.
But what happened after the fierce battle? Was Jiang Lan injured? Where was he now?
Ying Qiao suppressed the anxiety in his heart and forced himself to think calmly.
Poverty alleviation was a rotational process. When Jiang Lan was in danger and trapped in Sanshui Village and could not contact the outside world, he would definitely hope that the colleagues who would replace them tomorrow would find something unusual and come to the village to look for someone. If this was the case, they would take the initiative to stay.
Ying Qiao glanced around the simple house, and then searched carefully inside the house.
He finally found a turned off mobile phone between the table and the wall. Ying Qiao recognized Jiang Lan’s cell phone. It didn’t belong to Jiang Lan, so it probably belonged to Xue Meng who was traveling with him.
When he turned it on, the phone still had 10% battery left. You could enter the main interface directly without unlocking it.
There was an audio file alone in the center of the main interface. When Ying Qiao saw the title of the article, his eyes froze. His finger hovered over the audio file named “Suicide Note” for a long time before he finally clicked on it.
The audio started to play, first there was a harsh noise, and then Xue Meng’s hoarse and crying voice sounded.
He seemed to be trying his best to retell what happened completely, but in fact it was a bit confusing. There was constant noise in the background. If you listened carefully, you could tell that it was a sound similar to a baby crying.
It should be the call of the Gu Diao.
Ying Qiao glanced at the scraped wall under the window sill, guessing that Xue Meng was recording there.
The audio was still playing, Xue Meng’s voice was hoarse, and he finally got to the point: “Jiang Lan asked me to hide in the house and went out by myself.”
“The room was too dark, I couldn’t see, I could only hear… Then I smelled a strong smell of blood. I hid under the window and looked outside and saw a horned monster biting off the head of a strange bird. The blood spray was everywhere…I searched for a long time but couldn’t find Jiang Lan, I only found clothes thrown in the corner…”
The voice in the audio paused for a moment before continuing again. Xue Meng’s voice was hoarse than before: “Those are Jiang Lan’s clothes. He was eaten by those monsters…I will soon -“
The audio stopped abruptly.
Ying Qiao looked at the crushed cell phone, with no expression on his handsome face. He was like a sculpture, standing motionless holding the scrapped mobile phone.
Intellectually, he felt that just one piece of clothing could not determine Jiang Lan’s death, but emotionally, the moment he heard “he was eaten by those monsters”, his reason was on the verge of breaking.
All the anxiety and worry that had accumulated earlier turned into irresolvable violence at this moment.
Dragon scales were looming on the handsome face, and the human pupils had been replaced by golden vertical ones. Ying Qiao threw the phone aside and walked step by step towards Party Secretary Huang outside…
….
The thunderstorm that had been brewing finally came down.
In the ink-like clouds, the thick electric dragon swam around, and then moved down quickly with an unstoppable force. The deafening thunder exploded along with the electric light, tearing open countless gaps in the endless stream of ghost miasma.
The rain fell in torrents.
Chen Hua and others who arrived later were stunned to see the violent celestial phenomenon.
“This, this…” The Taoist priest who was traveling with him looked at the wildly rotating compass and then at the sky. He couldn’t say a complete sentence for a long time.
Chen Hua wiped the rain off his face and shouted amidst the thunder: “Everyone retreat back.”
The thunderstorm roared, and no one dared to stand firm. Everyone immediately retreated a hundred meters away. Others didn’t know what this weird and terrifying celestial phenomenon was about, but he knew it.
Ying Qiao was worried about Jiang Lan and had come to Sanshui Village first. Only he could stir up the celestial phenomena and summon thunderstorms.
Something must have happened to Jiang Lan.
Chen Hua cursed, and before he had time to explain, he jumped in along the gap where the ghost miasma was torn apart.
….
The two large Gu Diaos were much more powerful than the smaller ones. It took Jiang Lan a while to bite off their necks.
He did not rush to eat the two Gu Diaos, but followed the trend and hung them upside down on the dead tree.
The strong smell of blood spread in the air. Jiang Lan stood under the tree, staring at the tower. The hole in the tower was dark, and Jiang Lan had felt from just now that something was hidden in the tower, and it gave him a very bad feeling.
Jiang Lan didn’t go in rashly, he wanted to try to fish out the thing inside.
The Gu Diao’s blood dripped from the severed head and was eventually submerged into the soil.
The calm ground suddenly shook, and something was emerging from the soil, first the four corners, then the head, and finally the huge body…
A monster that looked like a sheep but was extremely large emerged completely from the earth. Its thick limbs crushed the stone grave, and there were weeds and dead vines hanging from its four horns. The thick mane on its body was in bunches, mixed with grass clippings, soil and dried and solidified blood, as it dragged long on the ground.
Jiang Lan let out a sigh, but his eyes became even more excited: “Dilong?”
He looked at the cemetery and didn’t expect that a small Sanshui Village could breed so many man-eating monsters.
The worm looked at Gu Diao’s body with salivation. It was imprinted by the scent of Gu Diao’s blood, but Jiang Lan, who was guarding Gu Diao, made it feel a little afraid. But this fear was quickly lost to the desire to eat.
It let out a rough and weird roar, lowered its head to reveal four hard and sharp horns, and rushed towards Jiang Lan.
Jiang Lan narrowed his eyes, showed off his curved and hard horns, and bravely stepped forward to meet him.
The huge and heavy bodies collided together, and the friction between the horns made a dull sound. The four horns of the Dilong broke off at the sound, and the Dilong let out a painful roar, but Jiang Lan continued to exert force, piercing the opponent with his sharp horns. The fur pierced into the head, knocking the opponent to the ground.
The mole struggled to stand up, with dark red and smelly blood flowing out of the broken horns and large holes on the top of its head.
Jiang Lan let out a low growl, then rushed over and bit the mole’s neck, knocking it down to the foot of the always quiet tower.
The ground shook slightly as the body of the Dilong hit it.
The black tower fluttered and dropped down into the dust.
Jiang Lan looked up at the dark hole at the top of the tower, rolled his eyes, picked up the still alive Dilong in his mouth, and climbed up the tower.
It was dark outside, and it was even darker inside the tower. Jiang Lan glanced at the baby’s bones at the bottom of the tower, but he didn’t find anything that made him uncomfortable. He scratched his claws impatiently, threw the worm into the tower, and then jumped down.
The bottom of the tower was made of soft swamp-like mud, and there were many small baby bones piled on top of it, one layer on top of another. The original shape was too big and heavy, so only half of Jiang Lan’s body sank into the swamp-like mud, while he pulled himself out and simply changed back to his human form.
The bottom of the tower was covered with corpses, and he had no choice but to crawl to the half of the body that had not yet sunk and stand on it.
There were no obstacles at the bottom of the tower, and he could see everything clearly at a glance.
In addition to the baby’s bones, there were ropes and bamboo baskets that were not completely rotten. He probably knew what this tower was for.
This was the burial place of abandoned babies, also called the Baby Tower.
There were always many natural disasters in this land. Human beings were too fragile. If there was a disaster, even adults would not be able to maintain their lives, let alone even more fragile babies. As a result, many newborn babies were abandoned by their parents. Among them, most of them were baby girls. Some of them really couldn’t feed them, and some of them didn’t want to lose money… In short, there were many reasons. Probably more and more people were abandoning their children, and more and more corpses were piled up, so the baby tower was built.
The abandoned children were put into the tower to fend for themselves. When enough corpses had accumulated, they could be burned cleanly by setting fire to them.
Year after year, week after week.
The baby’s ashes accumulated into soft mud at the bottom of the tower.
Living grave, baby tower. No wonder this small cemetery was filled with so much resentment.
At this time, Jiang Lan finally knew what the endless black mist was. It was a miasma formed by the resentment of countless dead people. After years of releasing and accumulating it, it was finally powerful enough to swallow up the entire Sanshui Village.
It even nourished man-eating monsters like Gu Diao and Dilong.
The flesh and carrion of the unjust dead raised monsters, which grew stronger and stronger, and finally began to hunt the living.
The author has something to say:
Longlong: I’m not angry.
Chen Hua: Look at the sky above your head and say it again.
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