Free Web Novel“Five roasted pig trotters, right?”
“Mhm mhm!” Gu Qianqian nodded, her eyes slightly sparkling.
Lu Yibei rubbed her slightly aching temples, let out a long sigh, and said, “Alright, I'll go buy them for you in a bit.”
It took her quite a while, and she finally had to use her phone to type, before she figured out what Gu Qianqian was saying.
The entire process was not much simpler than figuring out what the pangolin said.
“However, after I go out, no matter who knocks on the door, don't open it, got it?” Lu Yibei instructed.
Others can't see you. If you foolishly run to open the door, you'll probably scare someone half to death... Lu Yibei thought to herself.
“Mhm mhm!” Gu Qianqian nodded, then seemed to remember something, picked up the phone Lu Yibei had given her, and buried her head in it, typing rapidly.
【If it's you knocking, should I open it?】
After reading the text Gu Qianqian typed, Lu Yibei's eye twitched. She said irritably, “Besides me, don't open the door for anyone who knocks! Understood?”
After speaking, she rolled her eyes at Gu Qianqian, waved towards the bedroom, and the Coat flew over with a “whoosh!” and wrapped around her.
With a series of wriggles, the Coat quickly transformed into a very ordinary white T-shirt paired with denim hot pants.
While the Coat was automatically changing, Lu Yibei put Lingtai Pure Karma into her backpack, grabbed a handful of change for buying groceries from the small plate on the shoe cabinet, and put it in her pocket.
Although the penetration rate of mobile payments was already very high, Lu Yibei still liked to keep some change for buying groceries.
This habit started after she overheard the elders in the Teaching Staff Compound discussing how the QR code of a certain vegetable seller's stall in the market near the Teaching Staff Compound was linked to her younger son's phone, and if people paid with mobile payment, she wouldn't get a single cent.
After getting ready, just as she was about to ask Gu Qianqian for her phone back and leave, she saw Gu Qianqian hand the phone to her. The screen still displayed the text she had just entered.
【Why are you suddenly so good to me?】
In Gu Qianqian's perception, the Disaster was extremely wicked, so Lu Yibei bullying her should be the norm. Agreeing readily to buy her roasted pig trotters after accidentally injuring her was very unusual.
Five roasted pig trotters were very expensive!
Just the braised pig trotters needed as ingredients would cost nearly a hundred yuan, which was already equivalent to a day's wages from one of her odd jobs.
Moreover, odd jobs weren't available every day; on average, it would take her two or three days to earn a hundred yuan.
“Why?” Lu Yibei blurted out, “Because you are...”
Halfway through her sentence, she remembered that Gu Qianqian was the child bride Old Dad had arranged for her years ago. A blush spread across Lu Yibei's cheeks, and her voice stopped abruptly.
You think I want to be this good to you?
This isn't because of the messed-up move my Old Dad pulled?
If it weren't for the engagement, I would have kicked you out long ago!
Lu Yibei thought, turning her face away, and pouted, “Why so many questions? If you don't want to eat, then I won't go!”
She didn't dare to look directly at Gu Qianqian's big, questioning eyes. Those eyes were like those of a newborn baby, pure and innocent. It was hard for anyone with a conscience to lie while looking into those eyes.
Gu Qianqian looked at Lu Yibei, who seemed to be saying something against her true feelings, hesitated for a moment, buried her head in the phone, typed a passage of text, handed it to Lu Yibei, then scurried aside, picked up the cushion from the sofa, used it to hide herself, leaving only her eyes peeking out to observe.
【Want to eat!】
Heh, silly!
Glancing at the text on the phone, Lu Yibei chuckled inwardly, turned to look at Gu Qianqian, and reminded her again, “I'm going out. Remember what I told you.”
Seeing Gu Qianqian nod timidly, Lu Yibei put away her phone, opened the door, and walked out.
————
“Bang—!”
With a muffled sound, the entire house fell silent again.
Gu Qianqian gazed at the direction of the door, and only after a long while did she put down the cushion in her hand, collapsing onto the sofa, wriggling her body like a Baobao.
Gu Qianqian, oh Gu Qianqian, how can you be so depraved?
You actually ran back to freeload again. That's one of the factors that could destroy the world, the Disaster Witch!
She's in a good mood now and gives you something to eat. If she's in a bad mood later, she might eat you instead. It's all just sugar-coated bullets, don't you know?
Gu Qianqian internally scolded her behavior, mimicking the system's tone.
Then...
There was no 'then'.
Since her conscience was already uneasy, wouldn't it be a huge loss if she didn't get to eat roasted pig trotters?
————
Leaving home, Lu Yibei walked towards the market. Before she even left the Teaching Staff Compound, she sensed something unusual and couldn't help but stop, looking around.
The bright morning sun of nine or ten o'clock shone down, casting mottled shadows on the Teaching Staff Compound's street through the branches of the plane trees on both sides.
As the wind blew, the tops of the plane trees rustled softly, and a few withered yellow leaves drifted down.
It was quiet all around. On the empty old road, there wasn't a single person. Only the sound of the wind blowing leaves echoed on the familiar street.
“Strange, where did everyone go?”
Although the Teaching Staff Compound was eerily quiet today, it was already past the morning rush hour. No one was rushing to work, dropping off kids, or buying groceries, so it being quiet was somewhat normal.
Lu Yibei didn't think much of it, muttered softly, and then quickened her pace.
There were very few pedestrians and vehicles on the street. The street was dead silent. Occasionally, one or two pedestrians passed by, but they were in a hurry, as if they had something on their mind, leaving Lu Yibei no chance to strike up a conversation. She could only bury her head and walk towards the market.
After leaving the Teaching Staff Compound and walking south for about two or three kilometers, passing through a small alley, she arrived at the entrance of the market.
This # Nоvеlight # market was quite old, built around the same time as the Teaching Staff Compound. Initially, it was just a gathering of small vendors, but over time, under government planning, it became this market.
The area around this market was residential. In the past, even after the morning and evening peaks, it was still lively, and the noise of bargaining could be heard from a distance.
But today...
Lu Yibei stopped in front of the market, staring at the rusty iron gate ahead, her brows tightly furrowed.
Not a sound of hustle and bustle came from behind the gate. Through the slightly open crack, the few stalls that could be vaguely seen were also empty.
“...”
Something seems wrong?
It was understandable for the Teaching Staff Compound to become quiet after the morning rush, but at this time, which was roughly when small restaurants around were purchasing ingredients, the market shouldn't be this quiet.
Damn, it's spooky. I'll go in and check the situation first. If things aren't right, I'll retreat immediately!
Surely I don't have to risk my life just to buy a few pig trotters? Lu Yibei thought.
Passing through the main gate, the alleyway, wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side, was covered in stains, sticky to step on. Stalls were neatly arranged on both sides of the alley.
Whether it was an illusion or not, Lu Yibei felt that the ground in the market today was much stickier than usual, as if she was stepping on some kind of Colloid.
She frowned and continued forward. When she reached the end of the alley, the Coat on her body began to wriggle uneasily, unsure if it was from excitement or fear.
Lu Yibei frowned, gently stroked the Coat, and asked in a low voice, “Did you find anything?”
Coat, “...”
Seeing that the Coat didn't respond for a long time, Lu Yibei raised her head and looked around.
Inside this familiar market, there wasn't a single person.
As if in an illusion, Lu Yibei heard faint sounds like bones being gnawed, which were chilling and made her scalp tingle.
But when she pricked up her ears and listened carefully, the sounds disappeared.
The entire market was dead silent.
All the people who used to buy vegetables, sell vegetables, deliver goods... all sorts of people seemed to have vanished.
The murky air hung heavy, mixed with the smell of rotten tea leaves and raw meat, and faintly, there was also a smell of decay.
Although there were no pedestrians walking in her sight, Lu Yibei felt a sense of crowding, as if in an illusion.
It was the feeling that she was surrounded by people; she couldn't see or touch them, but they were truly there.
When her gaze fell on the dirty, large iron cages holding poultry in a corner of the market, Lu Yibei's body suddenly shivered.
Those animals with pointed beaks, at some point, had all turned to look this way, silently, without making a sound.
Those pairs of cloudy, lifeless eyes, carrying a strange malice, seemed to be watching Lu Yibei, and also seemed to be looking at something else, something invisible to the naked eye, sending chills down her spine.
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“...”
What the heck? What's going on? Is this a daytime haunting? Lu Yibei thought.
“Clang—!”
A sudden muffled sound came, as if something heavy had been knocked to the ground.
Lu Yibei subconsciously looked in the direction the sound came from. As the scene in front of her changed, a strong sense of discomfort suddenly came from her eyes.
Her eyes felt as if they had been ignited in an instant, and a strong burning pain spread from the inside out.
Her vision blurred in waves, light and shadow twisted, and it was difficult to distinguish whether the lines before her eyes, twisting and dancing chaotically, were real or illusory.
A few seconds later.
As the discomfort in her eyes gradually faded, a bizarre and twisted picture scroll slowly unfolded before Lu Yibei, and everything she could see was dark red. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Immediately after, she saw a group of "people".
In a trance, the sky darkened from far to near, and everything within sight was covered with a layer of dim yellow, as if it had suddenly changed from noon to evening.
In the dead silent vegetable market, a dark red mist permeated from somewhere, filling every corner.
Through the hazy mist, "people" with pale faces and dull eyes crowded the entire vegetable market.
Some of them seemed to be hawking, some seemed to be walking with vegetable baskets, or bending down to pick fresh vegetables... Without exception, they maintained a certain posture, motionless.
It was as if they were wax figures, or as if their time had stopped, frozen in a certain moment.
Threads condensed from semi-illusory, semi-real dark red flesh and blood hung down from above, attaching to their bodies like tentacles, piercing into their heads, and freely passing between their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, wriggling as if greedily absorbing nutrients.
With each wriggle, the figures of those "people" would fade a little, and some of them were even left with only blurred outlines, as if they would dissipate with a gust of wind.
Is that the kind of dark red flesh and blood I saw at the West City Lime Factory before?!
Seeing this, Lu Yibei's heart tightened. Following the direction where the threads condensed from dark red flesh and blood hung down, she suddenly looked up, and her pupils immediately contracted violently.
A heavy dark red mist accumulated on the roof of the vegetable market. In the thick fog, some kind of behemoth, between illusion and reality, lay dormant, almost completely covering the thousands of square meters of roof.
Its irregular form constantly surged, briefly changing into the tissues and organs of various creatures, and then collapsing in an instant.
"Rumble—Rumble—!"
The ground beneath her feet suddenly vibrated, and the distant ground exploded inch by inch.
Amidst the splashing earth and rocks, the dark red flesh and blood, with a texture like liver or some kind of fungal cluster, spurted out from underground, blossoming like flowers of flesh and blood filled with blasphemous meaning.
As soon as the splashing flesh and blood landed, they spawned small, slender tentacles that constantly changed shape. In groups, like a pack of ferocious hunters, they quickly crawled out of the vegetable market and soon disappeared from sight.
Only then did Lu Yibei realize why she had felt the ground in the vegetable market was unusually sticky today.
As the dark red flesh and blood surged out from underground, the entire ground of the vegetable market was covered with a layer of viscous liquid like decaying plasma.
The roof covered with a massive living creature, the dark red flesh and blood crawling and wriggling everywhere, the decaying plasma covering the ground...
Being in the midst of it felt like being inside the cavity of some strange creature, reminding one of some indescribable scenarios.
"Ough... Ough..."
Lu Yibei came back to her senses, retched twice, then covered her mouth and ran frantically out of the vegetable market.
Although she had experienced many strange and terrifying events in her dream memories, the disgusting scene inside the vegetable market and the foul stench lingering in the air were still unbearable for her.
Running all the way out of the vegetable market and onto the street, Lu Yibei took several deep breaths, greedily inhaling the air into her lungs.
Just then, the crisp sound, as if something was gnawing on bones, reached her ears again.
"Crunch, crunch, crunch..."
This time, upon listening carefully, Lu Yibei discovered the source of the sound.
The sound was coming from her body, or more precisely, from her butt.
She was stunned for two seconds, then twisted her body sharply and looked behind her, only to see a tentacle condensed from dark red flesh and blood on her perky little round butt, like a tail, stuck in her back pants pocket, swaying and wriggling.
The moment she discovered the tentacle, her pocket suddenly wriggled, sucking the entire tentacle inside as if slurping noodles.
Immediately after, the crisp sound of gnawing on bones came from her pocket.
Lu Yibei, "..."
In silence, she calmly thought, analyzed briefly, made a bold assumption, and reached a conclusion.
"Good heavens! You actually ate that filthy thing?" she said, tapping her Coat teasingly. "Do you know what that was? You dare to eat anything, aren't you afraid of getting diarrhea!"
"No wonder you didn't respond when I asked you something just now, you were busy eating, weren't you?"
"I'm warning you! If you eat too much of that filthy stuff and turn into something like that, I'll throw you away, believe it or not!"
Hearing that Lu Yibei was going to throw it away, the Coat wriggled anxiously, rubbing against Lu Yibei in a spoiled manner.
"..."
Stop scolding, stop scolding, Devil Woman Adult, I know I was wrong!
(*´д`*)
Lu Yibei helplessly rubbed her forehead, "I really don't know what to say about you. Next time you do this..."
"Boom—Boom—Boom—!"
Lu Yibei was halfway through her sentence when a series of loud noises suddenly came from the distance, as if some giant beast was stampeding past. The ground shook violently, and then car alarms blared throughout the street.
A car accident?
By the sound of it, it seems quite serious...
Lu Yibei muttered to herself, looked solemnly at the vegetable market filled with dark red flesh and blood behind her, then looked at the distant street outside the alley, took a deep breath, and walked towards the street.
After walking a distance, passing through the alley outside the vegetable market and reaching the main road, Lu Yibei stopped by the street and found that the car accident on the street was much more horrific than she had imagined.
The sky was dim, as if it had suddenly changed from noon to dusk. In the concrete jungle in the distance, strange and twisted shadows moved through.
On the road, thick black smoke mixed with a pungent smell drifted in the air.
On the road, dozens of cars collided in a chain reaction. Two buses, in addition to their close contact, pushed several cars against the walls of buildings along the street, crushing them into metal pancakes. The piercing sound of car alarms blared.
The road and street were covered with jagged grooves, as if made by car parts that had flown out during the accident.
A damaged fire hydrant sprayed a water column several meters high, and broken cables were exposed on the street, crackling and flashing with sparks.
However, in such a chaotic scene, not a single person fled.
Pedestrians on the street, shop assistants in the stores, passengers and drivers in the cars...
Everyone was like the "people" in the vegetable market. Even if they were seriously injured and bleeding profusely, they maintained a certain posture, frozen in place, with semi-illusory, semi-real dark red flesh and blood crawling all over their bodies.
Looking at it, it was as if some kind of "error" had occurred in this world, and these people were all caught in the cracks of that error, unable to extricate themselves.
"..."
The dilapidated and decaying city, the ubiquitous dark red mist, the shadows that seemed to walk between illusion and reality...
I seem to have seen this scene somewhere before?
Lu Yibei thought, her gaze slightly focused. Just then, her phone suddenly rang.
"Two tigers love to dance~ Hey! Little rabbit, be good and pull up the radish~ Hey! I'm learning..."
Is it Xiao Hua? Or Su Mi? But, my phone didn't have a signal until I entered the vegetable market, did it?
Lu Yibei thought, took out her phone, and when she saw the signal interrupted icon in the upper right corner of the screen and the completely garbled caller ID, she swallowed.
"..."
Nothing has been normal today since I left home.
At a time like this, a strange garbled number suddenly called, completely without a signal. Anyone who wants to answer can answer, but I definitely won't!
What if I answer and a strange voice comes from inside, inviting me to play some inexplicable game with him? Wouldn't that be the end?
Lu Yibei thought, and without hesitation, swiped the red button on the screen to hang up the phone.
And then...
The call connected.
Immediately after, Lu Yibei heard her "own" voice.
"Hello, hello? Is this Lu Yibei? Long time no see! I finally managed to contact you! How about it, is the scene you're seeing now very familiar?"
Lu Yibei, "..."
