Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 811: Chapter 604: Filling the Well

"Where is it strange?" Zhang Songde panicked, "Explain yourself!"

"I... I don’t know, it was kind of far away, but... but they seemed to be dancing, looking up at the sky," Fang Zhou stalled for time.

"Do you feel something is off?" Lou Huixiang whispered, being a cautious man. He stood by the table at a distance from Fang Zhou, scanning him up and down with a vigilant gaze, trying to make sure there were no abnormalities.

"What do you mean by ’something is off’?" Fang Zhou turned and asked.

Before Lou Huixiang could speak, Fang Zhou, who was squatting behind the door, was suddenly pushed down, "Move away, this is none of your business!"

After confirming there was no issue, Zhang Songde roughly pushed Fang Zhou aside. Now his confusion and suspicion were greater than before. Indeed, his guesses were right; all that not being able to look or speak was fake, just a Blinding Technique by that old rascal, Xiang Fengchen.

There was something he had not mentioned; soon after he returned, he faintly felt that something was off. There was a chilly sensation on his body. He didn’t know whether there was something wrong with him or with the room, but now he was confident he had found the reason—it was all the mischief of those three guys, Xiang Fengchen.

Their door lacked a Gate God. Tonight, in reality, those three had been targeted by a ghost. They didn’t want to die, so they devised a plan to divert the disaster for everyone’s supposed benefit.

Zhang Songde secretly rejoiced, thankful for his own precaution, otherwise he wouldn’t even know how he might have died.

Taking Fang Zhou’s place squatting behind the door, Zhang Songde peeked through the door gap. Indeed, in a corner of the courtyard, there were two figures.

One was Xiang Fengchen, and the other was Nalan Shuo. They looked very strange, one standing and the other squatting, right behind them was that well.

Looking around the vicinity for a moment, Zhang Songde had yet to discover Yang Xiao’s figure. It was unclear whether he was hiding or had not come out at all.

His suspicions intensified. The ghost they encountered tonight was the ghost in the well; the footsteps of "pitter-patter" the previous night had left a deep impression on him.

Near the well, there was a dark red dot of light. Zhang Songde understood it was a burning incense. He guessed the old man, Xiang Fengchen, was trying to draw out the ghost in the well.

"Not exorcising the ghost, but summoning it. There definitely is something wrong!"

Zhang Songde leaned closer, hoping to see more clearly, but contrary to his wishes, the figures he saw grew increasingly blurred. Soon, when he realized something was wrong, he could no longer distinguish between Xiang Fengchen and Nalan Shuo. The figures blurred like smudged ink, their limbs becoming indistinct.

Something is not right. Zhang Songde came to the realization late. The problem didn’t seem to be with the people outside. He rubbed his eyes instinctively, only then did he realize that the corners of his eyes had, at some point, been dampened, feeling wet and sticky upon touch.

This wasn’t tears or water, but a disgusting kind of mucus, similar to that found on fish bodies. It was precisely this mucus that had clouded his vision.

Zhang Songde was shocked. He did not remember coming into contact with such a substance. What was more horrifying was that the mucus was chillingly cold, and no matter how much he tried to clean it, he couldn’t get rid of it. Soon, his face and neck were filled with the mucus, feeling as if something was continuously pouring onto him.

Now, Zhang Songde was in complete panic. He turned to Fang Zhou and Lou Huixiang for help, but despite his mouth gaping open, he couldn’t shout a word; the mucus had blocked his throat. It was as if alive, zealously burrowing into his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

The scene that appeared before Fang Zhou and Lou Huixiang’s eyes was even more terrifying. Both were scared and retreated continuously, only to see a bloated ghostly figure appear behind Zhang Songde. Two pale, swollen arms wrapped around Zhang Songde’s neck from behind as his massive body hung on Zhang Songde like a burst sack.

Disgusting, foul-smelling mucus continuously dripped from the putrid corpse, coating Zhang Songde’s head and body like wax from a candle.

"Help me, save..." Dragging the corpse, Zhang Songde staggered towards Fang Zhou, his vision becoming increasingly blurry, reducing people to mere ghostly shadows. ƒrēewebnovel.com

As his pupils dissolved bit by bit, if he had charged out the door at that moment, he would have found his miserable appearance was exactly like the Gate Gods outside.

The Gate Gods’ eyes were blinded, damp all over. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

The candle flame on the table jittered for no reason, and as its light dimmed, it suddenly turned a ghastly green. Simultaneously, the temperature inside the room dropped drastically, and the sound of water splashing noisily resonated from behind.

Lou Huixiang’s expression drastically changed, and Fang Zhou’s face turned even paler as they saw a well suddenly appear in the dim corner, unreachable by the candlelight.

Covered with dry leaves and soil at the edge, it was unmistakably the well from the courtyard, but not exactly the same—it appeared newer.

The well rope was coiled around it, and the winding frame above the well was not as decrepit as the one they were used to. This must be the well from decades ago, even earlier.

By this point, Zhang Songde had almost gone completely blind, the cold, sticky liquid having corroded his right eye, but with his last breath, he was still trying to make his way toward Fang Zhou, each step landing on the ground with a "splat."

His last shred of sanity told him that his only chance of survival today lay with Fang Zhou—if he could just reach him, he might live.

Even though there was only a slight chance, he had to try—of course, a more significant possibility was that he’d drag Fang Zhou down with him.

Even if it meant dying, he wanted to bring someone with him, as he couldn’t bear not to.

It didn’t matter who it was—Lou Huixiang would suffice, but he was an experienced player and probably not so easy to deal with. Fortunately, at this moment, a blurry figure not far away seemed too terrified to move, just standing there motionless. Using his last bit of strength, Zhang Songde finally moved his stiff body forward and grabbed Fang Zhou.

He also heard the sound of water. After being embraced by the ghost, he seemed to form a subtle connection with the well; he could sense the ghost wanted to drag him into the well, and what he could do was to throw Fang Zhou in first.

In the tasks he had encountered, ghosts usually could only kill one person at a time. By using Fang Zhou to fill the well, he might have a chance to live.

In his dying moments, Zhang Songde displayed incredible determination. Fang Zhou struggled continuously in his arms but still couldn’t break free as Zhang Songde’s arms, slick and icy, held him tightly—so forcefully that one could hear the sound of bones breaking.

"Almost there, just a little more!!" Zhang Songde, dragging his wet, cold legs, inched Fang Zhou toward the well edge. Now completely blind, his shattered eyeballs oozed down like broken eggs.

At that moment, his desire to survive overcame everything. He couldn’t see the edge of the well but could sense its location; the creepy and icy feeling was unmistakable, and he could hear the rushing water, sounding like a death knell.

As they got closer and closer, Fang Zhou in his arms seemed resigned to his fate and no longer struggled. Everything was going as Zhang Songde hoped. He struggled to move his feet and finally reached the edge of the well, which led to an unknown place and blew chilling wind—he even suspected that it led directly to the Underworld.

"Go down, go down!!" Zhang Songde exerted all his strength to push Fang Zhou toward the well, his voice hoarse and unclear, and no one could understand what he was shouting, but no matter how hard he tried, Fang Zhou’s body seemed stuck at the edge of the well, unable to be pushed in.

At that moment, Zhang Songde realized something was wrong. He remembered the well was quite wide, and Fang Zhou wasn’t fat—he should have easily fit inside. Moreover... Fang Zhou had stopped struggling; it made no sense for him to be stuck at the edge of the well.

He instinctively reached under Fang Zhou, feeling bloated, slick, cold—beneath the loose skin, like a water-filled balloon, it trembled left and right. At that moment, Zhang Songde panicked. No wonder he hadn’t heard Fang Zhou scream all this way—this wasn’t Fang Zhou at all; he had embraced the wrong person, and it was clearly the ghost in the well!

The next second, a pair of bloated arms firmly choked Zhang Songde’s neck and dragged his head downward into the well. In the last moment of consciousness, apart from fear and frustration, Zhang Songde felt an intense resentment towards Xiang Fengchen, convinced that he was killed by his tricks.

All the while, Fang Zhou and Lou Huixiang, who had been spectating everything, were petrified with fear, covering their mouths, daring not even to breathe. They had seen with their own eyes how Zhang Songde had embraced the ghost, burying his head in the decomposing flesh, making an indistinct choking sound, and, holding onto the body, staggered like dancing, toward the well that had appeared out of nowhere, until finally, the ghost tightened its grip around his neck and brutally dragged him into the well.

There was no sound of heavy objects falling into water; Zhang Songde and the Drowned Ghost simply vanished into thin air, and moments later, even the well itself disappeared.

The candlelight, as if relieved of some suppression, brightened again, casting a warm orange-red glow.

The chilling sensation dissipated, and the room temperature gradually returned to normal.

Simultaneously, as the well disappeared from the room, Nalan Shuo standing in the courtyard suddenly felt a gust of cold wind hit his face. He turned his head in surprise, realizing the wind was blowing out from the well.

Sensing an ominous feeling, he looked up at the sky to see that the originally clear night sky had gathered dark clouds, and the moon had changed, turning into a fuzzy, frayed crescent, with danger signals floating in the air.

Half-crouched on the ground, Xiang Fengchen’s face was a picture of horror as he stared at the green porcelain bowl in front of him. A tiny, fine crack had appeared at the bottom, spreading visibly outward, with water droplets seeping from the side of the bowl.

From the well beside him, chilling Evil Qi blew out, and the sound of rushing water emerged from below, as if something huge was surging up from the bottom of the well.

Seconds later, the weathered well rope suddenly tensed, accompanied by creaking noises, and the wooden winding frame above the well started to shake violently, as something was climbing up the well rope.