Chapter 278: Third Night: Peeking

After staring for a few seconds, I realized something was wrong—the bloodshot redness of the eyes didn't seem like ordinary blood vessels; it was truly dyed red by blood, and the color even seeped out of the eye sockets. Moreover, the eyes didn't blink at all, as if they had frozen solid.

A living person can stay still, but they absolutely cannot resist blinking—that's common sense. Suspicion immediately arose in my heart.

Groping around my body, I pulled out a few fire sticks, twisted off the waterproof reed stems, lit them, and carefully pushed them toward the square opening.

As I approached the opening, the scene inside was illuminated. When I saw it, I was completely stunned—a chill ran from my forehead all the way to my feet.

What came into view was a hideous, distorted face, already somewhat swollen. It could barely even be called a face, because its chin was gone. The entire lower half of the face had been torn away by something, leaving a bloody mess. The whole tongue hung out, without a chin to connect it, directly extending from the throat, making it look extraordinarily long, like a rotten snake.

This was a dead person. I immediately felt like vomiting, barely held it in, and felt a wave of terror.

Judging by the hairstyle and gear, this person was also one of Third Uncle's men. He hadn't been dead long; he must have been washed in by the water and gotten stuck in this pile of branches. But if this was a dead man, then who had called me just now?

I immediately looked back at the corpse. Just then, the fire stick burned out, and the ghastly face sank back into darkness. I could only see those blood-red eyes still glaring at me with malice.

Goosebumps broke out all over my body. I looked around—this was a pitch-black underground pool. There didn't seem to be anyone else around, and I hadn't heard any sound of movement.

Cold sweat poured down. My neck stiffened, and I suddenly realized something was wrong. Strange things were definitely happening here. I couldn't stay any longer. No matter what, I had to take Fatty and leave immediately. Taking a deep breath, I crawled back, untied the remaining strong vines around my waist, secured them around myself, leaned down, grabbed Fatty's hand, and pulled him upward.

Fatty was way too heavy—his waterlogged clothes made him feel like a block of lead. I only had one leg to push with. After dragging a few times, he barely moved, and I almost slid down myself. I knew pulling by hand was useless. I looked around and saw that Fatty still had the makeshift stretcher harness I'd made tied around him. I bound the stretcher's vines to my own, used a wooden stick to loop it under Fatty's armpits, crossed it across his chest to create something like a stretcher handle, braced the other end on the ground, then used my own weight and strength, gritting my teeth like a Yellow River tow tracker, pulling upward.

This is the triangular mechanics in architecture. Back then, the teacher taught us how to use a stick and a rope with one's own body weight to make a traction hoist.

With my body weight helping, it was much easier. I pulled on the vines and slowly ran into the shaft, lifting Fatty out of the water bit by bit, until finally I managed to get most of his body above the surface. But by then, the vines around my waist had nearly bent me in half.

I found a relatively thick crevice in the rock, wedged my spare wooden stick into it, pulled the vines around my waist over, secured Fatty, then crawled back into the water, lifted Fatty's feet up, dragged him over to a safe area, and untied the vine harness from him. Seeing no immediate trouble from the pile of branches, I immediately started CPR on him.

I hadn't received professional training; I only knew from TV dramas. I remembered that if the heart stops, the critical time is eight minutes—within that window, the chance of revival is high. Fatty still had a faint pulse and weak breathing. This seemed like symptoms of poisoning. I didn't know if CPR would help.

I fumbled through the motions, not sure if I was doing it right, but I had to keep going. After pressing for less than two or three minutes, Fatty suddenly coughed, his whole body twitched, and he spat out a lump of yellow fluid. Then he took a deep breath, and his chest started rising and falling. But after only one or two breaths, his eyes rolled back, and his breathing became weak again.

I looked at the bloody puncture on his neck. Obviously, the venomous snake was really potent—the bite was precisely placed. Fatty was incapacitated but not dead. As long as the poison remained in his body, no matter how I tried to save him, it would be useless. I took off my clothes, scooped up some water from the pool, used my dagger to cut open his wound, washed it, and let out the black blood. Then I continued pressing on his chest to keep him going, while racking my brain for what to do.

After only two compressions, I suddenly heard another eerie sound from behind me, again from within that pile of branches.

In my panic, I didn't catch what it said, but it sounded familiar. It startled me stiff. I whipped my head around again and used my mining lamp to shine at the hole I had dug in the branch pile.

I vaguely saw that bloody corpse eye still staring blankly at me, ice-cold, making me extremely uncomfortable. And what made my scalp tingle was that I saw the corpse's tongue—it was actually moving.