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Chapter 38 – Esophagus 10
Late at night, the air inside the wardrobe became depressed and dull.
Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao hid inside the closet. The space was small. They huddled very close and could hear each other’s breathing.
Ye QingLiu and the baby hid inside another closet. They had already fed the baby milk powder and it would not be hungry for a while. As for the smell of milk, there were so many children outside who had stolen milk powder. Lamia probably wouldn’t notice this little baby anymore. Ye QingLiu had difficulty carrying the baby, so she agreed to wait with the baby until the other two had found Lamia’s hiding place, the elevator and button, before coming out.
The closet was pitch black. It was unknown how long they waited in this silent darkness until Lian Qiao said softly and suddenly:
“It’s starting.”
Xu RenDong sighed inwardly.
What Lian Qiao meant was that the massacre had begun. Sure enough, after he finished saying these words, Xu RenDong’s ears caught a faint exclamation which sounded like a child’s neck unsuspectingly being caught during sleep. A gasp had been squeezed out of his throat.
Then there was the sound of something falling from a height. With a bang, it hit the floor hard.
As with this crash as a signal, the commotion began. Screaming, knocking over tables and chairs, running… the entire second floor was in chaos. Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao hid in the closet and so were unable to see the situation outside, but just from the noises, it was easy to imagine the tragedy outside.
“Brother RenDong.” Lian Qiao suddenly spoke. He asked in a low voice, “I decided on my own not to let you tell them the condition of death. Will you blame me?”
Xu RenDong asked, “Why would I?”
“…” Lian Qiao was silent for a moment, “I know you wanted to save everyone. But at the time, it was already too late. Even if we told them the truth, it would only make them panic for nothing. Maybe they would still get furious and want to pull us down too. I don’t want to die with them, so…”
Xu RenDong knew that he felt guilty and reiterated: “I don’t blame you.”
“Really?”
Xu RenDong smiled: “I’m just an ordinary person, not a god. I can’t save everyone. You’re the same.”
Lian Qiao didn’t speak any more. In the darkness, Xu RenDong couldn’t see his face clearly and didn’t know what his expression was at this time. The closet suddenly descended into a suffocating silence and only the noisy crying from outside could be heard. It was a mess.
Listening to their miserable voices, Xu RenDong’s mood was unexpectedly calm. People wanted to die, he couldn’t stop them. As for those unfortunately standing on the wrong team… well, they only be said to be unlucky.
After all, he died more times than everyone here combined. When speaking of misery, who was more miserable than him? He doesn’t have the leisurely heart to sympathize with others.
Lian Qiao suddenly said: “Brother RenDong, have you experienced this kind of predicament before?”
Xu RenDong: “Huh?”
Lian Qiao: “Such as… the elevator and the buttons are still missing and most of your teammates are dead. All that’s left are two rookies…”
Xu RenDong couldn’t help but smile when Lian Qiao heard call himself a rookie: “Why do you rate yourself so low?”
Lian Qiao said piously: “Because last time I won by lying down because of you. This time too. You discovered that the food was the condition of death and so on. I was completely lost…”
Before Xu RenDong had time to speak, Lian Qiao quickly began to resolve himself, muttering to himself. “But you are right, big boss, although I might not be that great however perhaps there is something inside me that I haven’t discovered yet. Big boss, you know how to discern a real pearl frome fakes right, and so you discovered me. After all, if I were trash, why would you take the initiative to form a team with me…?”
Xu RenDong thought about it seriously: “…because I am your fan?”
Lian Qiao: “…”
Xu RenDong’s words blocked Lian Qiao’s subsequent long speech back into his stomach, choking him speechless. There was a suffocating silence in the dark closet. After a while, as insensible as Xu RenDong was, he still noticed the embarrassment in the air. He was about to say something to ease the atmosphere but Lian Qiao suddenly laughed lowly.
“Brother RenDong, you are so funny.”
Xu RenDong is very self-aware: “I am obviously the kind of person that stops a conversation in its tracks, how am I interesting?”
Lian Qiao suppressed his laughter to a very low volume. In the tightly spaced closet, the low laughter that lingered sounded a bit ambiguous.
“You…” Lian Qiao’s breath was close to his ears, making Xu RenDong’s ears itchy. This sensation felt weird and made him uncomfortable so he changed his posture and moved his body farther away from Lian Qiao without saying a word.
At this moment, a loud noise suddenly came from outside—
Boom!
Something hit the closet!
“Ah” Lian Qiao exclaimed comically like a screaming chicken being pinched around his neck. At the same time, he grabbed Xu RenDong’s hand abruptly and Xu RenDong was shocked- how did he locate his hand in the dark so accurately?
Xu RenDong didn’t know what was happening outside so he didn’t dare to act rashly. He held Lian Qiao’s hand back. Lian Qiao’s palms quickly swelled with cold sweat within a short time, making Xu RenDong’s hands clammy. Even through this thin layer of sweat, he could feel Lian Qiao’s fear.
Lian Qiao was so nervous that he was short of breath. Xu RenDong pressed his arm to comfort him and silently pressed his ear to the cabinet door.
Through the thick wooden door of the wardrobe, the sound outside felt unreal. He faintly heard a vague “ka-cha-ka-cha” sound, like the noise a wild animal made when chewing on crunchy bones. This association creeped him out, but he knew his guess was likely to be correct because otherwise he couldn’t hear the children’s cries anymore.
—Lamia eats children. 80% of the children, the ones who stole the milk powder, have been slaughtered by her. And now, it was time for her to enjoy a delicious meal!
Xu RenDong restrained the nausea in his stomach and took a deep breath. Lian Qiao probably guessed the situation outside so he tried his best to restrain his fear and not let his precious physical strength be wasted on trembling.
The uncomfortable chewing sound lasted for a long time, until the two people hiding in the closet were all stiff as sculptures. Lamia was satisfied and gradually walked away with her belly round.
The two people counted the seconds silently in their hearts. At a certain moment, the two squeezed each other’s palms tacitly at the same time.
Confirming each other’s determination, Xu RenDong raised his hand and cautiously pushed open the wooden door of the closet.
“Hss…” The scene in front of them caused the two to take an indrawn breath at the same time. Then they were choked by the smell of blood.
The whole room was covered with messy corpses. The children’s room was covered with what looked like wicked red paint. There was blood and internal organs scattered everywhere. Some of the people’s upper and lower bodies have been separated, half on the bed and half on the ground, with their pink intestines hanging outside. Some people’s chest has been chewed off in half, and the ribs are shattered like butterflies with the heart and lungs gone. There were more fragments of corpses so distorted that it was impossible to tell what organ it had been, and the owner of the corpse can only be reluctantly guessed from the clothes they were wearing.
Although Xu RenDong had been mentally prepared to see this, he was still shocked by the tragic scene. He had just taken a step and then, without knowing what he was stepping on, he slipped and fell forward suddenly. Fortunately, Lian Qiao grabbed him quickly. Xu RenDong fell back into Lian Qiao’s arms and felt Lian Qiao’s chest rise and fall violently as if he had seen something very bad.
Xu RenDong couldn’t help but want to turn his head but Lian Qiao covered his eyes and whispered: “Don’t look, let’s go.”
Xu RenDong realized that what he had stepped on just now was definitely not something good. But he was still unable to ask softly and curiously, “What is it?”
“…” Lian Qiao frowned slightly and sighed, “Little Fatty’s head. It’s probably this thing that hit the cabinet just now. Let’s leave it alone. Let’s go or else we won’t be able to catch up with Lamia.”
Xu RenDong couldn’t have imagined that what he stepped on was the head of his teammate and a chill suddenly rose from the soles of his feet. He was in a daze, almost being dragged forward by Lian Qiao. However, the less he dared to think about it, the more he couldn’t help but recall the touch of his feet just now. Soft, bumpy… was that the little fat kid’s face? The cheeks and lips were soft and the raised part was his nose?
Suddenly, there was a rush of nausea in his stomach. Xu RenDong covered his mouth and blocked the retching sound in his throat.
Lian Qiao glanced back at him with an unbearable expression in his eyes. He comforted him: “Don’t think about it, you didn’t mean it.”
Xu RenDong nodded and signaled that he was okay, but the feeling of nausea still came up in bursts. He forced himself to focus on tracking Lamia. Lamia hadn’t gone far, and the two of them hid lightly behind the door frame. From a distance, they saw the slender and pale figure going downstairs, still carrying an arm in each of her hands. As she walked, there was a “crack” and nibbling noises.
At this time, it was late at night. Only the children’s room in the entire monastery was lit and the rest was dark. The two followed Lamia cautiously. They dared not follow too close for fear of being discovered. All the way until Lamia walked to the corner of the lobby on the first floor did the two then dare to quietly go downstairs. They hid behind the big sofa and continued to peek out.
Lamia didn’t know anything about the two of them following, probably because the pleasure of the massacre made her relax her vigilance. She touched her round belly, sashayed to the end of the hall and stopped in front of the tall wall.
“Is there some kind of mechanism there?” Lian Qiao frowned and lowered his voice, “It’s impossible, I checked that wall before and there was nothing.”
Xu RenDong shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know.
They saw Lamia stretch out her slender and pale fingers. She drew a picture on the wall. The wall was gray, and when she stroked her fingers up, she actually left a white vertical line on the wall. Immediately afterwards, she drew two horizontal lines and one more vertical line. In the end, a white frame appeared on the gray wall. The frame was about the size of a person and it looked very clear in the moonlight.
What was she doing?
RenDong Lian Qiao held their breath for fear of missing the slightest detail. When Lamia raised her hand and pushed, the wall in the middle of the white frame was silently recessed, revealing a bottomless tunnel.
She actually drew a door out of thin air!
Just as the two were feeling amazed, Lamia had bent down and crawled into the tunnel. The door was closed immediately after her. It was tightly attached to the wall and it was restored as before. The entire monastery fell silent, as if nothing had happened except for the faint smell of blood in the air.
Lamia disappeared, along with the mysterious door.
Xu RenDong went to the front of the gray wall and touched the place where the door had appeared. There was nothing. The wall was gray and, like his brain at this time, totally blank.
Lamia’s secret room was hidden behind here but how could they get in?
If they couldn’t attack Lamia when she took off her eyeballs to rest, then how could they, two 35-year-old children, have a chance to win? Is this world really so difficult with no way out for them?
Xu RenDong couldn’t help frowning. His finger ran across the wall unconsciously, imitating Lamia, and he drew a vertical line on the wall.
Lian Qiao looked at his fat baby arm and suddenly smiled: “Brother RenDong, if we paint a door our size, Lamia will definitely get stuck and won’t be able to get out.”
Xu RenDong immediately produced an image of Lamia stuck inside a tiny, child-sized door with her huge belly bulging and trapped. He couldn’t help laughing: “You’re right. But how do we paint the door?”
Lian Qiao’s eyes were bright, like a shrewd little leopard: “Do you remember the old nun? Didn’t she teach us that lesson?”
Xu RenDong was stunned. Something in his heart flashed and he immediately understood what he meant.
Lian Qiao smiled: “If this doesn’t work, then we can only hold hands and wait for death.”
Xu RenDong also smiled: “Okay, let’s try it then.”
***
The author has something to say:
Painting a stalk in tribute to the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” which is also the source of inspiration for Lamia.
Lamia: This fat head is not tasty, bah.