Chapter 489: She Heard “Her Own” Voice

“Five Roasted Pig Trotters, right?”

“Mm-hmm!” Gu Qianqian nodded, her eyes shining slightly.

Lu Yibei rubbed her slightly aching brow, let out a long sigh, and said, “Alright, I’ll go buy them for you in a bit.”

She had spent quite a while, finally resorting to typing on her phone, to figure out what Gu Qianqian was actually saying.

The whole process wasn’t much easier than figuring out what the pangolin had said.

“But, after I leave, no matter who knocks on the door, don’t open it, okay?” Lu Yibei instructed.

No one else can see you. If you foolishly run to open the door, you might scare someone half to death… Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly.

“Mm-hmm!” Gu Qianqian nodded again, then as if remembering something, picked up the phone Lu Yibei had given her, and started typing away.

[What if it’s you knocking? Should I open or not?]

After reading the text Gu Qianqian had entered, Lu Yibei’s eye twitched, and she said irritably, “Except for me, don’t open the door for anyone! Got it?”

After speaking, she rolled her eyes at Gu Qianqian, waved toward the bedroom, and the jacket flew over with a “whoosh!” and wrapped itself around her.

With a squirm, the jacket quickly transformed into an ordinary white T-shirt and denim shorts.

While her outerwear was automatically changing, Lu Yibei put the Pure Lotus Sword into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and grabbed a handful of change from the small dish on the shoe cabinet, stuffing it into her pocket.

Although mobile payments were already very common, Lu Yibei still liked to keep some change on hand for buying groceries.

Ever since she overheard the old folks in the compound discussing how a certain vegetable vendor’s payment code was linked to her youngest son’s phone–so if you paid by mobile, the vendor wouldn’t get a cent–she’d developed this habit.

Once everything was ready, she was about to ask Gu Qianqian for her phone back and head out, when Gu Qianqian handed the phone over, the screen displaying her newly typed message.

[Why are you suddenly being so nice to me?]

In Gu Qianqian’s understanding, Calamity was vicious and evil, so Lu Yibei bullying her should be normal. Agreeing so readily to buy her Roasted Pig Trotters after accidentally hurting her was very unusual.

Five Roasted Pig Trotters are expensive!

Just the braised pig’s trotters needed for the ingredients would cost nearly a hundred yuan, which was about a day’s wage for her part-time job.

Besides, part-time jobs weren’t available every day; on average, it took her two or three days to earn a hundred yuan.

“Why?” Lu Yibei blurted out, “Because you are…”

Halfway through, she remembered that Gu Qianqian was the childhood betrothal her father had arranged for her years ago. Lu Yibei’s cheeks flushed, and her words stopped abruptly.

You think I want to be so nice to you?

Isn’t it all because of my old man’s ridiculous arrangements?

If it weren’t for the engagement, I would’ve kicked you out ages ago!

Thinking this, Lu Yibei turned her face away, pouted, and said, “Why so many questions? If you don’t want to eat, then I won’t go!”

She didn’t dare meet Gu Qianqian’s big, confused eyes. Those eyes were as pure as a newborn’s, and anyone with a shred of conscience would find it hard to lie while looking into them.

Gu Qianqian looked at Lu Yibei, who was clearly saying one thing but meaning another. After hesitating for a moment, she typed a message on the phone, handed it to Lu Yibei, then ran off to the side, grabbed a cushion from the sofa, and hid behind it, peeking out with just her eyes.

[I want to eat!]

Heh, silly girl!

Glancing at the message on the phone, Lu Yibei chuckled inwardly, then turned to Gu Qianqian and reminded her again, “I’m heading out. Remember what I told you.”

Seeing Gu Qianqian nod timidly, Lu Yibei put away the phone, opened the door, and left.

——–

“Bang—-!”

With a dull thud, the whole house fell silent again.

Gu Qianqian stared at the door for a long time before putting down the cushion and slumping onto the sofa, wriggling like a little maggot.

Gu Qianqian, oh Gu Qianqian, how could you fall so low?

You actually came back to freeload again. That’s one of the factors that could destroy the world–the Calamity Witch!

She’s in a good mood now and gives you something to eat, but if her mood sours later, she might just eat you instead. It’s all sugar-coated bullets, don’t you know?

In her heart, Gu Qianqian mimicked the systems’ tone, scolding herself for her behavior.

And then…

There was nothing more.

Since she already felt guilty, if she didn’t get to eat Roasted Pig Trotters, wouldn’t that be a total loss?

——–

Leaving the house, Lu Yibei walked toward the market. She hadn’t even left the faculty compound when she sensed something odd and stopped, looking around.

The bright morning sun at nine or ten o’clock shone down, filtering through the branches of the plane trees on both sides of the street, casting dappled shadows on the compound’s road.

A breeze rustled the treetops, and a few yellowed leaves drifted down.

It was quiet all around. The old, empty road was deserted; only the sound of wind and falling leaves echoed on the familiar street.

“Strange, where did everyone go?”

Although the faculty compound was eerily quiet today, it was already past the morning rush hour. No one was hurrying to work, taking kids out, or buying groceries, so it being quiet was normal.

Lu Yibei didn’t think much of it. Muttering softly, she quickened her pace.

There were few pedestrians or vehicles on the street. The road felt lifeless. Occasionally, one or two people passed by, but they looked hurried and preoccupied, giving Lu Yibei no chance to strike up a conversation. She could only keep her head down and head for the market.

Leaving the faculty compound, she walked two or three kilometers south, passed through a small alley, and arrived at the entrance of the market.

This market had been around for quite some time, built around the same era as the faculty compound. It had started as a gathering of small vendors, and over time, with government planning, had become the market it was today.

The area around this market was all residential. Even after the morning and evening rush hours, it was always lively; from afar, you could hear the noisy bargaining inside.

But today…

Lu Yibei stopped in front of the market, staring at the rusted iron gate ahead, her brows tightly knit.

No sound of commotion came from behind the gate. Through the slightly open crack, she could vaguely see a few stalls, all empty.

……

Something seemed off?

It made sense for the faculty compound to be quiet after the morning rush, but at this hour, it should be when the nearby small restaurants were buying ingredients. The market shouldn’t be this quiet.

Damn it, this is creepy. Better go in and check things out. If anything’s wrong, I’ll leave right away!

No way I’m risking my life just to buy a few pig trotters, right? Lu Yibei thought.

Passing through the gate, the alley wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side was stained with filth, sticky underfoot, with stalls neatly lined up on both sides.

Lu Yibei couldn’t tell if it was just her imagination, but the ground in the market felt much stickier than usual today, as if she were stepping on some kind of gelatinous substance.

Frowning, she continued forward. When she reached the mouth of the alley, her jacket squirmed uneasily on her body, though she couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear.

Lu Yibei furrowed her brow, gently stroked her jacket, and asked in a low voice, “Did you notice anything?”

Jacket: ……

Seeing the jacket remain silent for a long time, Lu Yibei looked up, glancing around.

In this familiar market, there wasn’t a single person.

As if hallucinating, Lu Yibei heard faint gnawing sounds, like bones being chewed, sending chills down her spine and making her scalp tingle.

But when she strained her ears to listen, the sound vanished without a trace.

The entire market was deathly silent.

The usual shoppers, vendors, delivery people… all sorts of people seemed to have vanished.

The murky air drifted about, carrying the smells of rotten tea leaves and raw meat, with a faint undertone of rot.

Though there were no pedestrians in sight, Lu Yibei had the illusion of being crowded.

It felt as if people were packed all around her–she couldn’t see or touch them, but their presence was real.

When her gaze landed on a corner of the market, on those filthy iron cages holding poultry, Lu Yibei suddenly shivered.

Those sharp-beaked animals, at some point, had all turned to look her way, silently, not making a single sound.

Those pairs of cloudy, lifeless eyes, filled with inexplicable malice, seemed to be staring at Lu Yibei–or perhaps at something else, invisible to the naked eye–making her back go cold.

……

What the hell is this? What’s going on? It’s broad daylight–am I seeing ghosts? Lu Yibei thought.

Clang–!

Suddenly, a dull thud rang out, as if something heavy had been knocked to the ground.

Lu Yibei instinctively looked toward the source of the sound. As her view shifted, a sharp discomfort flared in her eyes.

Her eyes felt as if they’d been set ablaze in an instant, a burning pain spreading from within.

Her vision blurred and twisted, light and shadow warping, lines of reality and illusion tangling chaotically before her eyes.

A few seconds later.

As the discomfort in her eyes gradually faded, a bizarre, twisted tableau slowly unfolded before Lu Yibei, everything in sight tinged with dark red.

Then she saw a group of “people.”

In a daze, the daylight dimmed from far to near, everything bathed in a yellowish hue, as if noon had suddenly turned to dusk.

In the dead-silent market, dark red mist seeped in from nowhere, filling every corner.

Through the hazy fog, pale-faced, vacant-eyed “people” crowded the entire market.

Some seemed to be hawking goods, some carrying baskets, others bending to pick fresh produce… all frozen in some action, utterly motionless.

Like wax figures, or as if their time had stopped, fixed at a certain moment.

Strands of semi-illusory, dark red flesh and blood hung down from above like tendrils, attaching to their bodies, burrowing into their skulls, weaving through their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, writhing greedily as if sucking out nutrients.

With each wriggle, the figures faded a little more; some were already just blurry outlines, as if a breeze would make them vanish.

Isn’t this the same dark red flesh and blood I saw before at the West City lime kiln?!

Seeing this, Lu Yibei’s heart tightened. She followed the direction of those dark red tendrils and suddenly looked up, her pupils contracting violently.

Heavy, dark red mist pooled atop the market roof. Within the dense fog, some colossal being, hovering between reality and illusion, sprawled across nearly the entire roof.

Its amorphous body churned constantly, briefly forming the organs and tissues of various creatures, only to dissolve again in an instant.

Boom–boom–!

The ground beneath her suddenly trembled, and in the distance, the earth split open inch by inch.

Amid flying dirt and stones, that dark red flesh–like a cross between liver and some kind of fungus–erupted from underground, blooming everywhere like blasphemous flowers of flesh.

As soon as those bloody masses hit the ground, they sprouted slender, ever-shifting tendrils, swarming together like a pack of vicious hunters, quickly crawling out of the market and vanishing from sight.

Only then did Lu Yibei realize why the ground felt so unusually sticky today.

With the eruption of that dark red flesh from underground, the entire market floor was coated in a layer of viscous, putrid blood-like fluid.

The rooftop covered with a massive living creature, the dark red flesh crawling and writhing everywhere, the ground coated in putrid blood…

Standing in the midst of it all felt like being inside the cavity of some bizarre organism, evoking thoughts of certain indescribable scenes.

“Gag… gag…”

Lu Yibei snapped back to herself, dry heaved twice, then covered her mouth and fled in panic toward the exit of the market.

Though she had already experienced many strange and terrifying events in her dream memories, the disgusting scene inside the market and the stench hanging in the air were still unbearable for her.

She sprinted out of the market and onto the street, taking several deep breaths in a row, greedily drawing the air into her lungs.

Just then, that crisp sound, as if something were gnawing on bones, reached her ears again.

“Crack, crack, crack…”

This time, as Lu Yibei listened carefully, she discovered the source of the sound.

It was coming from her own body–more precisely, from her butt.

She froze for two seconds, then twisted around sharply to look behind her, and saw on her perky little round butt a tentacle formed of dark red flesh, like a tail, stuck into her back pocket, swaying and wriggling.

The moment she noticed the tentacle, her pocket suddenly squirmed, and, as if sucking in a noodle, slurped the entire tentacle inside.

Immediately after, the crisp sound of gnawing on bones began to emanate from her pocket.

Lu Yibei, “…”

In the silence, she calmly pondered, analyzed briefly, made a bold hypothesis, and drew a conclusion.

“Good grief! You actually ate that filthy thing?” She slapped her jacket and scolded, “Do you even know what that was? You dare eat anything, aren’t you afraid of getting diarrhea?”

“No wonder you didn’t answer me just now–you were too busy eating, weren’t you?”

“I’m warning you! If you turn into something like that from eating too much of that filth, I’ll throw you away, believe it or not!”

Hearing that Lu Yibei was going to throw it away, the jacket squirmed anxiously, rubbing against Lu Yibei in a pleading, coquettish manner.

“……”

Stop scolding, stop scolding, Lady Witch, I know I was wrong!

(*´д`*)

Lu Yibei pressed her forehead helplessly. “I really don’t know what to do with you. If you do this again…”

“Boom–boom–boom–!”

She was only halfway through her sentence when a series of loud booms suddenly came from afar, as if some giant beast were stampeding by. The ground shook violently, and then the blaring of car alarms echoed through the street.

A car accident?

Judging by the sound, it seemed pretty serious…

Lu Yibei muttered inwardly, her expression grave as she glanced back at the market filled with dark red flesh, then looked at the distant street outside the alley, took a deep breath, and walked toward the street.

After walking a distance and passing through the alley outside the market, she reached the main road and stopped at the roadside, only to find that the car accident was far more tragic than she had imagined.

The sky was dim, as if it had suddenly shifted from noon to dusk. In the distant jungle of reinforced concrete, strange and twisted shadows moved about.

On the highway, thick black smoke mixed with a pungent odor drifted through the air.

Dozens of cars had crashed into each other in a chain collision. Two buses, after a close encounter, had pushed several sedans against the walls of roadside buildings, crushing them into iron pancakes. The shrill alarms of the cars echoed loudly.

The road and street were covered in jagged ravines, as if gouged out by flying car parts from the accident.

A broken fire hydrant sprayed a column of water several meters high, and snapped power cables lay exposed on the street, crackling with sparks.

Yet, amid all this chaos, not a single person was fleeing.

The pedestrians on the street, the shopkeepers in the stores, the passengers and drivers in the cars…

Everyone was just like those “people” in the market–even if gravely injured, blood flowing everywhere, they maintained a certain posture, frozen in place, their bodies crawling with semi-real, semi-illusory dark red flesh.

At a glance, it was as if some “error” had occurred in this world, and all these people had been swept into the rift of that error, unable to escape.

“……”

A ruined, crumbling city, omnipresent dark red mist, as if walking in the shadows between illusion and reality…

I feel like I’ve seen this scene somewhere before?

Lu Yibei thought, her gaze sharpening slightly. Just then, her phone suddenly rang.

“Two tigers love to dance~ Hey! Little bunny obediently pulls up the radish~ Hey! I’m learning…”

Is it Ah-Hua? Or Su Mi? But until I entered the market, my phone had no signal at all?

Lu Yibei wondered as she pulled out her phone. When she saw the signal interruption icon in the upper right corner of the screen and the caller ID was complete gibberish, she swallowed hard.

“……”

Nothing has been normal since I left home today.

At a time like this, a weird string of gibberish calls me when there’s absolutely no signal–whoever wants to answer can answer, but I definitely won’t!

If I pick up and some creepy voice invites me to play some bizarre game, wouldn’t that be the end?

With that thought, Lu Yibei unhesitatingly swiped the red button on the screen and hung up.

And then…

The call went through.

Immediately after, Lu Yibei heard her own voice.

“Hello, hello? Is this Lu Yibei? Long time no see! I finally got in touch with you! So, does the scene you’re seeing now look familiar?”

Lu Yibei, “……”