Chapter 71: 69 Hell Terminal

69 Hell Terminal

Ha... ha...

Walking through the underground passage filled with writhing blood vessels, Xin Junmao was tense, observing his surroundings with extreme caution; yet in this secluded and enclosed underground world, his desperately stifled breathing became exceptionally audible.

Xin Junmao dared not stop; he had a feeling that if he were to stop his steps, he might be attacked by sinister creatures lurking in the shadows. This sense of panic forced him to continue moving forward; of course, he actually lacked the courage to linger for long in this devastated world.

"Will the people from the Xuanmi Group be here?" Xin Junmao thought to himself. He did not know if those people had already arrived underground to explore and investigate. At the mere thought that he might have missed an opportunity to encounter them, his inner anxiety proliferated wildly like bacteria.

Sniffing the stench of the underground drains, he heard from time to time the sounds of those sneaky, ugly underground creatures—things like maggots, rats, and toads—moving nearby. With gusts of cold wind and pervasive dampness, it made one feel a chill from the soles of their feet.

Perhaps he was too nervous, or perhaps the hallucinations seen by his "eyes" had caused his brain to conjure up sounds that did not exist in this world. After the traces of those underground rats crawling around gradually faded, they were replaced by a low, flat murmuring.

Amidst that eerie, muttering whisper, he discerned a sense of piety. It was like fanatics chanting the Bible of Death at a midnight mass, or evil monks tolling the scriptures of rebirth during a pale, ominous celebration... Those sounds of unclear meaning were enticing him toward depravity, like a nail driven into the crown of his head, invading his brain bit by bit.

Whenever he was about to lose his resolve, Xin Junmao would take out the bloodstone Comb, as if holding a Dharma Artifact of exorcism high against the invisible demons ahead, attempting to intimidate and force back the evil, and to drive away the gloom and fear in his heart.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

He did not know how long he had been moving forward; the scenery before his eyes had hardly changed. Everywhere was twisted flesh and blood vessels, a sea of scarlet. He did not even know if his route was correct, but upon reaching a certain point ahead, he heard the sound of a train speeding along the tracks. This sound jolted him awake, making him realize that not far from him must be the subway's underground passage.

He shuddered inexplicably, then followed the direction of the sound and turned into the fork in the road closest to it.

"Please, let a normal person appear." Xin Junmao no longer dared to hope for a chance encounter with that elusive group from the Xuanmi Group; he only hoped to see at least one ordinary person, so that he would at least have someone to confide in.

Walking faster and faster, Xin Junmao began to run. He thought that perhaps ahead of him was a perfectly ordinary subway platform, and he would walk through a gate and return to the human world.

It seemed everything had come true. Xin Junmao indeed saw an ajar metal door ahead. He ran up the stairs, pushed open the door, and sure enough, arrived at a subway platform.

But upon seeing the platform, Xin Junmao fell to his knees in horror. His eyes, deprived of sleep for several nights, bulged with even more bloodshot veins. He saw that the sign on this platform read "Heaven," yet what met his eyes was a scene of misery comparable to hell.

This was indeed a platform, but it was also the Hell Terminal where humans were forbidden to set foot. Its so-called Heaven was limited only to those fanatics and Abnormal creatures who had lost their sanity and moral principles. This was the entrance to the dwelling of the alien deity worshipped by those evil, dark things—the Daughter of Gluttony—and the starting point of her underground kingdom.

A subway train was close at hand, stopped right beside Xin Junmao, but the cold temperature and bloody stench radiating from the subway made him recoil. He tremblingly raised his head and vaguely saw that at one end of the train, blood was currently flowing out like a spring, and a figure lay on the cold ground.

Xin Junmao summoned his courage to walk forward. When he saw a familiar, pale face lying in a pool of blood, he ultimately could not help but slip from his own fear, sitting on the ground in a disheveled state.

Zhang Xiaoxiao—he still remembered the female college student he had encountered in the subway duty room that day. She had a fresh, beautiful face and a well-proportioned figure, but more than her appearance, her timid yet warm and kind personality made one feel even more favorably toward her.

Yet, such a girl with a bright future, living in the prime of her youth, had now died tragically before him. The cold pallor and congealed blood had marred her cheeks, and a huge hole had been cruelly torn through her chest. The subway doors opened and closed, desecrating her dead body, pinching purple-black bruises onto her slender waist.

Staring directly into those unfocused eyes, Xin Junmao could only read deep despair and sorrow.

He endured his grief to look at the train carriage where Zhang Xiaoxiao had died. The bloody and horrifying scene inside made him unable to stop retching; in just an instant, he imagined what kind of inhumane and terrifying event Zhang Xiaoxiao had experienced before her death.

Xin Junmao did not stop until he had vomited up all his bile and had nothing left to throw up, at which point he collapsed onto the ground, completely drained.

He clutched his hair, his heart in agony. He did not know why he had to experience these things. Was it some unforgivable crime he had committed in a past life, or some heaven-defying, earth-shattering evil he had done in this one?

He was clearly just an ordinary person, someone who had once been struggling to survive for a confused future... But now? He lived like a vengeful spirit condemned to hell, unable to escape.

Xin Junmao choked back a few sobs, only to find that he was so sorrowful and desperate that he could no longer shed any tears. His dull gaze swept over Zhang Xiaoxiao's corpse, thinking: Perhaps, death really is a form of release.

Xin Junmao began to calm down, and it was at this moment that he noticed the backpack Zhang Xiaoxiao was clutching in front of her chest.

"Why is this backpack completely undamaged?" Xin Junmao sniffled, walked forward, whispered an apology to the deceased Zhang Xiaoxiao, and snatched the backpack from her stiff fingers.

Zhang Xiaoxiao had been pierced through the chest and back by something thick and sharp. If she had encountered danger before she died, with nothing around her, even if she didn't use the backpack as a weapon to fight back, she would at least have used it as a shield in front of her. No matter what, the backpack should not have been in an undamaged state.

Xin Junmao guessed that Zhang Xiaoxiao's backpack contained something important, to the extent that she had to protect it well.

After opening the zipper of the backpack, Xin Junmao only saw things a female college student might usually carry. Other than that, the only thing that looked slightly valuable was the tablet computer she carried with her.

He took out the items one by one, then let out a cry of surprise, pulling a quaint, yellowed book from Zhang Xiaoxiao's backpack.

"'Fish Transformation Miscellaneous Notes', authored by Ye Gong..." Xin Junmao flipped through the pages, immediately jumping to the spot where Zhang Xiaoxiao had placed a bookmark, and then read the strange tale concerning the "Ghost Sea Merman."