Chapter 226: Snake Swamp Ghost City (Part 2): The Devil's Call

I grunted in acknowledgment, then felt something was wrong. I listened again, and the more I listened, the more it sounded like it. It was definitely not speech; I couldn't be sure it was laughter, but it was very similar.

The others also realized it. A Ning stopped calling out. We looked at each other, all somewhat surprised.

The team doctor said, "What's going on? Why are they... laughing? Could it be they're so happy to hear our voices?"

Zhaxi retorted, "Is that how you laugh when you're happy?"

A Ning also looked puzzled. She stopped calling out and continued adjusting the walkie-talkie, trying to make the sound clearer.

The adjustment had no effect, but the sound grew a bit louder. We pressed closer to listen again and could hear it more clearly. It really sounded like cold laughter, so venomous that it didn't seem to come from a normal person, but rather from a madman in an asylum. However, listening carefully, we felt there were other sounds after the laughter, very faint. The two sounds mixed together, and in this terrifying Devil's City, it sounded quite eerie.

Listening to that malicious cold laughter, I felt very uncomfortable. Even Zhaxi, who had been acting cocky the whole way, was now scared, his face pale. He swallowed and said, "What the hell? That laugh is really fucking ugly."

A Ning made a gesture for him to be quiet. She pressed the walkie-talkie to her ear and listened for a while, then said, "This doesn't sound like a human voice!"

"Don't talk nonsense!" the team doctor cried out. "If it's not human, then is it a ghost?"

"Listen carefully," A Ning said, motioning us closer. "The frequency of this sound is very fast, and the pitch is almost flat. It's been going on for five minutes. Can you try laughing like that for five minutes?"

I listened and thought it made some sense, so I asked, "Then what is that sound?"

"At that frequency, it should be a mechanical sound, like a watch pressed against the walkie-talkie. But the frequency isn't fixed, so it could also be someone constantly scratching the walkie-talkie's speaker with their fingernails." A Ning demonstrated. "Combine that with static, and it turns out like this."

"Scratching the walkie-talkie with fingernails? Why would they do that?" the team doctor asked. "Why not shout? Then we might hear them without the walkie-talkie."

As soon as he said that, Zhaxi and A Ning's expressions changed. I also suddenly realized something: "They might be in a situation where they can't shout or speak, and can only communicate with us this way."

"Quicksand pit! They're stuck in a quicksand pit!" Zhaxi yelled. "They might have sunk until only their heads are left. In that situation, even farting would make them sink!"

"Damn it!" We immediately tensed up, all stood up, and looked around at the darkness. In our hearts, we wondered where on earth they were.

A Ning maintained considerable calm. She clapped her hands to keep us from panicking. "Calm down, calm down. They're sending a signal, which means they're safe for now. We can receive the signal, which means their walkie-talkie must be nearby. We should be able to reach them soon."

"But 'nearby' is still a very large area. How do we find them?"

A Ning told us to follow her and started walking around with the walkie-talkie, determining the direction of the signal. I thought, right, why didn't I think of that? And I consider myself a learned person. In this terrain, to receive a radio signal, there must be a gap-shaped terrain around that diffracts radio waves. Moreover, the degree of radio fading is closely related to distance, so by the walkie-talkie's reception strength, we can tell if we're getting closer.

We immediately followed her. After walking around, we found that the signal was strongest deep in the canyon; obviously, the source of the signal was inside the canyon. A Ning called out, and we quickly ran inward, shining our flashlights around. Zhaxi yelled, "Watch your step! Don't just look for them!"

We couldn't care less. We ran and searched at the same time. Soon the canyon ended, and in front of us, a huge crescent-shaped mound blocked the way, a full fifty meters high, like a giant sail, very steep, seemingly impossible to climb.

Anyone who understood walkie-talkies would know the situation. In this terrain, the radio signal would be weakest, just like in a mountain valley. But when we looked at the walkie-talkie, the sound was now very clear, with no attenuation at all. That meant the source of the signal was definitely within the area enclosed by this crescent-shaped mound, about 110 meters in length and width.

"Right here?" We all broke out in a cold sweat, feeling something was wrong, because a sweep of the flashlights showed the area clearly—there wasn't even a ghost.

"Have they already sunk?" A bad thought crossed my mind.

A Ning shook her head. Since the sound from the walkie-talkie was still going, she called out for us to split up and search.

We spread out and carefully searched the ground for traces. Soon Zhaxi called out that he had found something. We rushed over and saw very chaotic footprints on the ground, not ours.

"They were here," Zhaxi said. "This crescent-shaped mound is like a windbreak. They must have been forced in here by the strong wind to take shelter. Since there's almost no wind inside, the footprints remain."

We immediately followed the footprints. On the sandy ground, the footprints were very clear; we could see there were three people. We followed the footprints for over ten meters and reached the base of the mound. The footprints abruptly stopped. There were no turning footprints, nor any quicksand pit.

"Damn, did they walk into the mound?" Zhaxi clicked his tongue.

"No!" A Ning showed an incredulous expression. She looked up at the mound, which was pitch black, nothing visible. "They climbed up."

That was strange. We were all stunned, looking up. The mound in the shadows was completely dark, like a huge black curtain. Our flashlights swept upward, but because it was so high, the small beams couldn't illuminate the whole thing.

What were they doing up there? Was there something on the mound? At this moment, A Ning told us to step back, then took out a flare gun and fired into the sky.

The hot flare flew into the air and exploded, illuminating the entire area like daylight. In that instant, all the scenes hidden in the shadows revealed themselves.

We all cast our eyes around. Our eyes weren't used to such sudden brightness. Before we could see clearly, we heard A Ning scream, "Oh my god!"

We quickly squinted and looked up into the air. Under the flickering light of the flare, we saw that halfway up the huge crescent-shaped mound, there was a massive object embedded in it, half buried inside the mound, and half protruding out into the air.