Chapter 57: Emotion Monster

Chapter 57: Chapter 57: Emotion Monster

A pitch-black, blurry humanoid silhouette.

Faintly visible threads.

The raving women...

These three anomalies, layered on top of each other, immediately made Gu Qing think of an Extraordinary event.

To confirm this wasn’t just his imagination,

Gu Qing tapped his sister’s arm,

pointing to the black shadow clinging to a tree in their complex.

He asked:

"Silly Yao, quick, look at that old banyan tree in our complex. Do you see a strange, humanoid black shadow up there?"

"A humanoid black shadow?"

Gu Yao squinted, following her brother’s finger.

After staring for several seconds, she couldn’t help but complain:

"It’s the middle of the night, so it’s already pitch-black and impossible to see anything. And from this far away? Who could possibly see what’s in that old banyan tree?"

"Never mind if you can’t see it."

"So what’s this about a humanoid black shadow? What did you see? Are you just trying to scare me for fun?"

Gu Yao’s brow furrowed slightly, a hint of fear on her face.

Gu Qing knew his sister was timid. Seeing that she was getting scared, he soothed her, saying:

"It’s nothing. I was probably just seeing things."

With that, Gu Qing stepped to the side and made a voice call to Lin Tianyang on WeChat.

The call connected quickly.

"Hello? What’s up, Gu Qing? Calling me out of the blue this late at night."

Lin Tianyang’s voice came through the phone.

Gu Qing first turned down the volume on his phone, then lowered his voice and said,

"Brother Yang, I think an Extraordinary event is happening at my apartment complex."

"Tell me."

Lin Tianyang’s tone instantly turned serious.

Gu Qing quickly gathered his thoughts and told Lin Tianyang everything he had seen in detail.

Lin Tianyang fell silent for a long moment after hearing the report.

He seemed to be analyzing the situation.

After several seconds,

Lin Tianyang spoke again. "Got it. Don’t do anything rash."

"Send me your address. I’ll contact my colleagues over there to handle it."

"Also, record a video of the scene and send it to me. I need to see the situation for myself."

"..."

Gu Qing: "Okay, I’ll record it now."

Lin Tianyang: "Okay. I’m hanging up. Contact me immediately if anything unexpected happens, and I’ll tell you what to do."

Gu Qing: "OK."

After the brief exchange, they hung up.

The first thing Gu Qing did was send Lin Tianyang a shared location pin.

Then he exited the WeChat chat.

He returned to the front of the pet shop.

He opened his phone’s camera to record.

He cranked the zoom to its maximum level

to film the black shadow in the complex’s tree.

But as he did,

something strange happened.

The black shadow, which was clearly visible to his naked eye, couldn’t be recorded by his phone at all.

He tried several times without success.

’What’s going on?’

’Does this mean electronic devices can’t detect the shadow?’

’What the hell is that thing?’

’How is it so strange?’

’Whatever, I’ll stop trying to film it for now.’

Gu Qing gave up on the black shadow and turned to film the three crazed women instead.

He would record them as they wildly insulted Liu Zhiyi and send the footage to Lin Tianyang for analysis, to figure out what exactly was wrong with them.

Just as with the black shadow, he was unable to capture the threads above the three crazed women’s heads on camera.

Gu Qing guessed.

’It must be that only another Extraordinary can perceive these strange phenomena.’

After recording for a dozen or so seconds,

Gu Qing stopped recording and sent the video to Lin Tianyang.

He also informed him

that he could see the strange phenomena with his own eyes, but his phone couldn’t capture them.

Then, he activated Lightning Reflexes.

He and his sister moved forward to protect Liu Zhiyi, lest she be harmed by the three crazed women.

All the while, he kept glancing back at the black shadow in the tree, observing its every move.

Other than that, he did nothing but wait for the Night Court to arrive and handle the situation.

He knew he wasn’t weak; he was at least stronger than a veteran Night Court member like Lin Tianyang.

But he was, by nature, cautious.

If he could avoid courting death, he would.

After all, he was a newcomer to the Extraordinary World and was still unfamiliar with many things.

If he acted rashly, he could easily suffer a disastrous and unexpected failure.

’It’s strange. How can Sister Zhiyi be so calm when she’s being bullied like this by those three crazed women?’

Every time Gu Qing looked at Liu Zhiyi, he found it unbelievable.

No matter how the three crazed women insulted her or smashed things in the shop, she stood stock-still with a placid expression, showing no trace of panic or fear.

’Back when she was my teacher, she’d get angry and call out any student who talked during class.’

’One time, after our class bombed an English test, she got called in for a talk with the department head and even cried when she came back.’

’She’s a completely different person now.’

’Did she mature with age?’

’Yeah, that must be it.’

’She’s transformed from that innocent girl fresh out of college into this unflappable older sister figure...’

As Gu Qing was musing to himself,

suddenly, the black shadow he’d been watching from the corner of his eye made a move.

Another thread, one he hadn’t seen before, had appeared among those controlled by the shadow. Like a venomous snake, it slithered silently toward the pet shop.

Gu Qing was instantly on high alert.

Every nerve in his body tensed.

His eyes were glued to the thread.

In just a moment,

the thread crept into the pet shop.

Its target: Gu Yao.

It suddenly accelerated, shooting toward the top of her head.

The attack was so sudden that an ordinary person would have had no time to react.

Fortunately, Gu Qing had already activated Lightning Reflexes.

Seeing the thread suddenly dart toward his sister’s head, he instantly reached out, pulled her in front of him, and narrowly dodged the attack.

"What are you doing pulling me like that?"

Gu Yao, a little dazed, looked up at her brother in confusion.

Gu Qing had no time to explain; his full attention was on the thread in the air.

The next second!

The thread abruptly vanished into thin air,

disappearing completely from Gu Qing’s sight.

Gu Qing’s heart clenched.

He pushed his senses to their limit,

watching for the slightest sign of movement.

But it was all in vain.

Three seconds later,

the thread that had just vanished reappeared out of thin air, connected tightly to Gu Yao’s head like an antenna.

"Shit!"

Gu Qing cursed inwardly and immediately reached for Gu Yao’s head to rip the thread off.

However,

the thread was bizarrely intangible.

He could see it but not touch it.

No matter how he tried to grab or pull at it, his fingers passed right through.

"What are you doing?!"

"Stop messing with my head!"

"Are you crazy?!"

Gu Yao—who had always been a timid, gentle, good girl who never argued with anyone—suddenly roared at her brother, her face contorted with anger.

Her breathing was ragged, her eyes filled with malice. She clenched her small fists, looking as if she was about to lash out at any second.

Gu Qing had never seen his sister this angry before.

He was stunned for a moment.

But he quickly realized

it was the thread’s doing.

That bizarre thread had turned his normally timid sister into an irritable, aggressive person, just like the three crazed women.

Once he realized this,

Gu Qing didn’t hesitate for a second.

He lifted his hand and knocked Gu Yao unconscious with a single karate chop.

He carried her to a sofa and laid her down.

Then, with a single bound, he flashed behind the three increasingly frantic women and knocked them out in the same manner, letting them collapse to the floor.

"Sister Zhiyi, please look after my sister for me! I’ll be right back!"

Tossing out the words at lightning speed,

Gu Qing delayed no longer, immediately turning and charging toward the black shadow in the tree.

Anxious to protect his sister, he could no longer wait for the Night Court to arrive and handle it.

He worried that if too much time passed, the bizarre thread connected to his sister’s head might cause some irreversible, negative side effects.

Therefore, he had to race against time and eliminate that black shadow as fast as possible.

As long as that bizarre black shadow was destroyed,

the strange thread connected to his sister’s head would surely vanish as well.

...

P.S. Holding out my bowl and begging for monthly passes and recommendation votes!