1TWITF[C Chapter 148

“It’s a pity that none of the investigators in this round survived.”

“We can’t afford another failure. To prevent it from invading the new world again, this news must be completely blocked and strictly prohibited from leaking.”

Inside the research institute, the higher-ups firmly sealed the information. Without the knowledge of most people, they secretly added a group specializing in space jump research.

*

Lin Chu, who was being sought by the research institute, was currently in the recreated town. After giving herself a psychological suggestion, she went upstairs to confront Lu Yanli.

Two cups of steaming water sat on the table.

She still maintained her lively posture, leveraging her appearance advantage as usual. Lu Yanli was also as polite, gentle, and refined as when they first met. However, his words made Lin Chu freeze.

“Why don’t you sing it?”

Lu Yanli said matter-of-factly, “I sing terribly.”

“That song isn’t meant for people to listen to. I can avoid it.”

“No, no, no, it has to be you.” Lu Yanli stared at Lin Chu, who was still trying to argue with him. At first glance, they looked like two friends who were joking around, but only they knew what they were really thinking.

Lu Yanli was certain that Lin Chu wanted to kill him, and she knew that he had ill intentions as well. They both knew that the other had seen through their thoughts, but even in an environment without onlookers, they were still pretending.

They had clashed many, many times. Lin Chu’s tricks were as simple as an adult watching a child lie about wanting candy. He had witnessed her death several times, and each time, Lin Chu would show a strange expression.

Lu Yanli thought he saw that strange look in Lin Chu’s eyes again, the one that seemed to foresee his future. He blinked, thinking it was an illusion, and Lin Chu was still trying to resist his command. He suddenly lost his patience.

At that moment, Lin Chu suddenly and clearly sensed the killing intent in his eyes. However, when she met his eyes, she immediately forgot the chilling killing intent she had just sensed.

“Okay,” she nodded.

Lin Chu struggled for a long time. Finally, she said, “Two paintings.”

“Power, power station?”

“It’s… a manual,” she seemed to recall, and after thinking for a long time, she slowly uttered those words.

“A manual for a machine. Because it was always pressed under the machine, it wasn’t covered in dust. I thought it was something very important…”

Lin Chu opened the door and walked out.

Lu Yanli stared at her back, his gaze icy.

Was it really just a manual? Was he overthinking it?

No, he didn’t believe it.

After Lin Chu returned to her room, her eyes slowly cleared. A series of sonic signals suddenly rang in her brain, and Lin Chu immediately came to her senses.

It was the higher-ups from the research institute calling her!

Lin Chu closed her eyes and listened carefully, quickly translating the signal information.

[New world discovered, return immediately]

A professor in the research institute had developed a technology that could install a signal receiving device in the human brain, ignoring spatial barriers. According to him, even if the installer entered a cosmic black hole, they would still be able to receive signals.

She knew that she had to escape this town as soon as possible.

Sing that song the day after tomorrow?

Lin Chu had an idea.

*

Tomorrow, tomorrow was the cultural festival.

Lu Yanli passed through the barbed wire, through the desolate square covered in dust and garbage, and entered the factory building.

The unsettling feeling of being watched had not disappeared. Lu Yanli tried to calm himself down, carefully avoiding the increasingly large piles of fleshy, viscous substances that emitted the stench of rotting protein on the ground, and walked further inside.

Gradually, there were more black, thread-like objects on the ground, like hair, wet and tangled together, still seeping water stains.

Human fat and hair?

The amount of hair and fleshy substances gradually increased. When Lu Yanli finally reached the outer edge of the ring-shaped building, he could feel that the ground seemed to be coated with a layer of greasy oil. Every step he took felt wet and sticky, like stepping into a mixture of insect corpses and paste.

He raised his axe and pushed open the door.

A huge head, lacking facial features, was facing him directly. Lu Yanli, standing in front of it, only reached the thing’s nose.

Its body was gone, and the flesh on its face looked like it was scalded, unable to hold on and falling off in clumps. The hair on its head looked like it had been pulled out, revealing many broken and bleeding wounds. However, it was not bleeding, or perhaps its blood was also fleshy, emitting the smell of human fat.

It was the No-Face Woman!

Then… Lu Yanli heard a strange crunching sound.

It was coming from the back of the head, sounding like… someone was gnawing on its bones.

Lu Yanli immediately retreated and turned to run.

He didn’t want to know who was gnawing on the No-Face Woman’s bones, but that sound was like a maggot in the bone, becoming louder as he quickly exited the door, accompanied by a distinct slurping sound.

It was easy to imagine the action of prying open the bone and sucking the marrow.

Lu Yanli fled quickly. Beside the road was a signpost that had not yet collapsed, and its smooth surface reflected a long, red-haired figure behind him.

Who could it be?

Lu Yanli didn’t care so much, rushed out the door, pulled down his sleeves to wrap his hand, and tried to throw a clump of fleshy stuff that had fallen on the ground behind him as he ran.

Slippery, difficult to grasp, it lingered on the surface of the red-clothed woman for a moment before penetrating through, as if it had been blocked by a fragile barrier for a moment.

He knew that thing could hear him.

Lu Yanli knew that they were starting to fight.

He ran faster.

The whole town was unsafe, and conversely, it was the same no matter where he escaped to in the whole town.

As long as he waited until tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the cultural festival, as long as he waited until tomorrow.

The sky darkened, and in the night sky, what flickered was not stars, but lanterns painted with human faces.

Lu Yanli thought that the princess had been contained and that he was temporarily safe. But at the end of the road, another figure suddenly appeared.

That figure was also dressed in blood-colored clothes, with a disfigured face, half of his face was covered with hideous blue veins, and it slowly walked towards him.

Lu Yanli recognized at a glance that it was himself.

Outside the spirit medium town, he had once called out, a future self. He also gave one of the jade pendants to him. But now…

Lu Yanli didn’t have time to think about how the future self died, he just wanted to know one thing—where did the jade pendant go?

That figure was still walking towards him, almost in the blink of an eye, he reached his near. So close that Lu Yanli could feel the stench and cold temperature of the other person.

Pale hands stretched out, and his legs seemed to be imprisoned, unable to move.

If he hesitated for a few more seconds, he would be killed by his future self!

“For you!!”

But its movements suddenly stagnated, almost like a freeze frame in a movie, and then, it was like a drawing that was gradually being erased from a piece of white paper, being erased little by little from top to bottom.

Lu Yanli knew that his behavior was very risky, but he knew even better that his jade pendant should have fallen into the princess’s hands. If it weren’t for this, it would be difficult to explain that the ghost of his future self also entered the town.

The idol was just an idol, unable to move around on its own. It had been developing its believers, and combined with the fact that even if the idol killed people, it could only do so through control or a series of strange phenomena, such as paper figures, curses, and songs, instead of being able to directly attack like the princess. Lu Yanli had a bold guess—it needed a physical body.

If that was the case, then there was a possibility of cooperation.

“Why not go to the surface world? Is it because it’s about to be destroyed?” He was still talking to himself, and he didn’t expect to hear an answer. But not long after he said this, a small red statue fell in front of him.

“What does it matter if it’s about to be destroyed? There are still a lot of people there,” Lu Yanli said.

The statue wouldn’t answer him. Lu Yanli put the statue away, turned around, and went back to the power station.

He wanted to see the No-Face Woman.

Returning to the power station again, stepping through the gate, the huge head inside the gate was gone, leaving only a pool of thick yellow flowing viscous liquid on the ground. Many paper figures fell beside the liquid, opening their mouths as if they were sucking on it.

A scene that should have been disgusting and nauseating, Lu Yanli didn’t react much, or rather, he had seen too much of it and found it ordinary. He even pinched one of the paper figures, and after struggling twice, it stopped moving, perhaps sensing something. A terrible face suddenly became stiff. Lu Yanli tore it open, he didn’t bring a pen with him, so he used a knife to engrave words on it.

He needed a helper to deal with his future self, and the person who could enter the spirit medium town and see this information might be able to cooperate.

Who would it be?

Only one person was needed, and it didn’t matter who that person was. Anyway, after that person saw this information, he had to help him.

But he didn’t expect that this piece of paper, along with the entire town, was taken to the past. It wasn’t until many years had passed in that closed space-time that it was delivered to Lin Chu’s hands.

After Lu Yanli finished all this, when he looked back, all the thick substances on the ground had disappeared, and the paper figures were gone. The night was deep, and he used the dim light of the swaying lanterns in the air to walk back, and the blurry shadows were drawn very long.

Tomorrow was the cultural festival.

What would happen at the cultural festival? He didn’t know, he just wanted to know how to survive.

Lu Yanli walked all the way to the small wooden house at the entrance of the tunnel. There were a total of two rooms. The bed that had been split in half in one of the rooms had not been repaired, and bloodstains remained on the ground and walls.

He recalled the scene when he first entered the town. His gaze did not linger on the bloodstains, and he turned to rest in the other room.

The next morning, the sky was bright.

Lu Yanli heard… human voices?

Many town residents were walking along the road, talking and laughing happily. Hearing Lu Yanli open the door, they all turned to look at him.

However, the faces that turned back all lacked facial features.