Chapter 139: 136. The Terror at the Amusement Park

136. The Terror at the Amusement Park

Wang Daye, the sanitation worker who does the daily cleaning for JOJO Amusement Park, was currently sweeping the sparse fallen leaves on the street under the scorching sun. He would stop now and then to wipe away sweat, or stand for a moment to support his waist; feeling tired from the sweeping, he hid under a closed hot dog stand to cool off.

Wrinkling his squinting eyes on his dark, aged face, Wang Daye drank some water while lost in a daze, thinking to himself: if things continued like this, how many more days could he actually work here?

He had left the countryside to work and earn money in the big city before he was even eighteen. In his early years, he could still work on assembly lines in factories, and the money he saved went into marrying a wife and raising his children through school. Now that he was old, he had finally found a sweeping job to earn a little money to supplement his household expenses; if he even lost this job, he dared not imagine what he could find to live on in the future.

Looking at the amusement park street, once bustling but now completely empty, and seeing that he was the only living soul around even after staring blankly for a long time, he couldn't help but lament this terrible world, the terror that occurred at the amusement park three days ago surfacing in his mind.

If not for that incident, how could this largest amusement park in the entire Magic City be devoid of a single person during this peak summer season?

That day was much like today, the sun scorching his back. There were many tourists then, so many that Wang Daye's already poor hearing couldn't make out what the people around him were saying at all. There was laughter, screaming, noise... it was all there. As for what exactly those people around him were saying, even if they spoke at a normal volume, he wouldn't necessarily be able to hear it clearly if they were half a meter away.

He had grown accustomed to a life of being hard of hearing. His family had urged him to buy a hearing aid, but he thought the thing was too expensive and delicate. He considered himself an uncultured, rough man; if he accidentally broke it, wouldn't the money be wasted, and wouldn't that be heartbreaking?

Precisely because of this, Wang Daye hadn't noticed the changes in the amusement park at the first moment that day. Even when people were screaming in terror, running, and shouting hysterically, he hadn't perceived it immediately, simply playing his usual role and doing his cleaning work in obscurity.

It wasn't until he, silently sweeping with his head down, finally noticed a fresh corpse lying on the ground, covered in blood and stabbed with several holes, that he slowly realized what had happened.

At the time, he wasn't immediately frightened. After all, in a place like an amusement park, things like terrifying pranks or young people's "cosplay" were common and not rare.

It wasn't until he discovered a pair of blood-stained white sneakers and a sharp knife dripping with blood appearing within the view blocked by the brim of his sanitation worker's cap that he looked up and saw a man covered in blood standing before him with vacant eyes. Feeling the increasingly thick, pungent smell of blood and the gradually dropping ambient temperature, he finally shuddered in shock, realizing that something was terribly wrong.

That man, who had suddenly gone mad in the amusement park and obtained a sharp knife from who knows where, was shirtless, with a composite pattern centered on an "Inverted Pentagram" carved into his forehead. He held the knife and stabbed whoever he saw, killing anyone he laid eyes on, completely ignoring gender or age, being extremely cruel. While killing, he was also muttering something under his breath.

Now that the madman had turned his gaze toward him, Wang Daye felt as if he were suffocating. He trembled, wanting to run, but found his legs shaking like chaff, heavier than if they were filled with lead, unable to take a single step.

Fortunately, the Enforcers arrived in time. Suddenly, several gunshots rang out; he was so scared he squatted down on the spot, covering his head and closing his eyes. He only felt a gust of wind brush past him, then heard the sound of heavy objects and metal falling to the ground.

Perhaps because his emotions were too agitated, with his heart racing and blood flowing fast, Wang Daye felt as if his fragile hearing had been restored for a short time.

After hearing the Enforcers use the word "neutralized," he opened his eyes in terror and curiosity, seeing the madman with wide, angry eyes lying dead before him.

The madman had been hit by several bullets, blood gushing from the gunshot wounds on his body. He was shaking all over like a slaughtered hen, and just like the innocent people he had stabbed to death all over the street, he too was dying.

Wang Daye heard the dying madman whisper: "It's your turn... the mission is handed to you..." After saying this, the madman died.

Wang Daye didn't know if he had misheard, or if it was a hallucination caused by his extreme fear.

He didn't have time to think about so much at the time, feeling only the relief of having escaped with his life.

Since that day, the outside world said the amusement park was unclean, and all sorts of negative labels followed one after another. Fewer and fewer tourists came to the amusement park, and even the Enforcers and those men in black who came in and out to investigate stopped coming now.

Without tourists, there was no income; without income, how could the enterprise afford to support employees and pay their wages?

Wang Daye had already heard news of internal layoffs and downsizing. Someone as dispensable as him would likely be included in that...

Wang Daye sighed. He patted his cold legs and looked toward the location where the incident had occurred, as if he could still see the madman, who had died with his eyes wide open, muttering and whispering, mouthing the words "handed to you." He couldn't help but shiver, then felt a sharp pain in his ankle.

Rolling up his pant leg, Wang Daye looked at his left leg and pulled aside his sock to look at the ankle that was causing the sharp pain, only to see a red mark similar to a burn on it.

"Why is it getting redder?" Wang Daye gritted his teeth in pain. He had suffered much in his half-life, but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid of pain; on the contrary, he was very sensitive to it, to the point that he had never dared to get an injection or undergo surgery in his half-life when he was sick.

From the day the madman killed, Wang Daye had been able to feel the abnormality in his ankle. At first, it was just some uncomfortable heat, but the pain increased day by day, to the point where it was hard to bear; it felt as if someone had branded his ankle with a hot iron.

He picked up the water bottle placed to the side, took off his shoe and sock, and poured water onto the burning ankle.

As the cold water poured down, the pain didn't decrease but increased instead. The burning pain went straight into the flesh beneath the skin, making his eyes widen. He wanted to roar and shout but could only let out a hoarse cry.

Wang Daye was in so much pain that tears squeezed out of his eyes. He hurriedly hoisted his left foot up and blew hard on the ankle. The part that had been burned red was now wrinkled and raised, as if it had truly been burned by a hot iron.

Subsequently, Wang Daye stared, stunned, at the newly appeared burn scar, because the scar was exactly the same as the pattern the madman had carved into his own forehead that day.