The abandoned building, by the gate, the guardhouse.
Zhang San and Li Si were inside, chatting idly, occasionally arm-wrestling and flexing their muscles.
This was the dull and monotonous daily life of investigators.
That's right,
Zhang San and Li Si were a pair... well, a partner in an investigator team. Both were Level Three investigators, but compared to newcomers like Ke Yuan, they had richer experience.
They had once joined forces to eliminate... four, maybe three, malevolent spirits.
Victories were numerous.
Thus, they were dispatched here to guard the malevolent spirit in the abandoned construction site.
The Spirit Investigation Bureau had discovered the malevolent spirit here months ago, but after a comprehensive investigation and assessment, they concluded...
This malevolent spirit is terrifying, beyond our might!
However, this abandoned building was located within the city, unlike some desolate mountains and wild lands where they could simply ignore it if it couldn't be handled. This was not an option here.
Even though the area was secluded, pedestrians still passed by. If this terrifying malevolent spirit were to act up and decide to go for a stroll, the situation would become dire.
This was why the investigators were stationed here, with several teams taking turns, and occasionally auxiliary personnel filling in.
Zhang San and Li Si had been on guard duty for nearly a week, so bored they could have flown. Besides playing on their phones or wrestling, there was nothing else for them to do.
They couldn't leave, either.
They had to order takeout for meals. No, they couldn't even get delivery here; they had to rely on their colleagues to pack food and bring it from afar.
"I don't know where these malevolent spirits keep coming from, there are more and more of them."
"Ah, if only we could fight them! I want to let them taste my fists the size of sandbags and beat the shit out of them! Knock them out cold!"
"Don't malevolent spirits not have shit?"
"That's not necessarily true. I once saw a manifested malevolent spirit at the provincial bureau, and it was utterly disgusting. Rather than saying malevolent spirits don't have shit, it was as if the entire creature was made of shit.
"I had nightmares about shit every day for a while after that."
"So, it's both an advantage and a disadvantage that we can't see them, right? If everyone could see them, the world would have descended into chaos long ago, and we wouldn't be maintaining this semblance of order." Zhang San said.
Li Si, after finishing dozens of squats, added, "True, but for us investigators, not being able to see them is incredibly frustrating. It makes warning and searching incredibly difficult. Especially for us, guarding a malevolent spirit, I'm afraid one day we'll wake up, open our eyes, and a hideous face will appear right in front of us, with its gaping maw."
"It won't be that bad, it won't be that bad. We've made preparations, haven't we?" Zhang San said. "Besides, this malevolent spirit has been holed up here for months, hasn't moved an inch. It's very stable. If all malevolent spirits were this reclusive, our jobs would be much easier."
He gave a thumbs up.
One word: stable!
Being stationed here was merely out of caution, like a vacation, though not a comfortable one at all.
After Zhang San finished his warm-up exercises, he was slightly sweating and felt like having a vigorous pre-meal wrestling match with Li Si.
However, he noticed that Li Si in front of him had gone rigid, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.
What's wrong with him?
Did exercising damage his brain?
Zhang San initially thought this, until he heard the jingling of bells, which made him jump and tremble. He whipped his head around to look at the entrance of the abandoned building behind him.
The bell hanging there was swaying slightly.
Around the special powder scattered in several circles in front of the gate, wisps of smoke were rising.
This situation indicated...
No need to indicate!
Zhang San's pupils suddenly constricted again. At the entrance, in the area where the dim yellow sunlight couldn't reach, a colossal shadow was faintly discernible.
It wasn't clear enough to see, only a massive, gray-black silhouette.
Bloated, hideous!
It was moving forward, step by step.
He was greatly alarmed. Malevolent spirits... aren't they normally invisible!
The giant shadow emerged from the dark, lightless abandoned building, moving step by step into the area outside the building, still covered by the dim afterglow of the setting sun, which had not yet completely fallen.
Roar~!
Zhang San faintly heard a roar. It was the malevolent spirit roaring. The world in his eyes gradually turned crimson, and his ears were filled with noisy, sharp sounds.
He felt extremely agitated, wanting to tear something apart.
At this moment, the Buddhist beads on Zhang San's wrist emitted a faint glow, and then shattered.
The same happened to Li Si's.
The two investigators snapped out of their daze, their eyes still tinged with red. They immediately turned their heads, their pupils filled with terror.
'The malevolent spirit in the abandoned building... it came out?'
'It moved!'
'It manifested!'
Zhang San and Li Si, both strong and muscular with six-pack abs, hid in the guardhouse, trembling, panting, and covering each other's mouths tightly.
Only when the great dread that had been lingering in their hearts slightly subsided did Zhang San and Li Si collapse to the ground, gasping for breath, their bodies completely drenched.
After another dozen seconds, Zhang San exclaimed in alarm and grunted, "Quick, quick, notify the bureau, something big is about to happen!"
Baijiang City, a major crisis!
...
The street outside the abandoned building was desolate and deserted.
However, if anyone were on this street at this moment, they would see a massive black cloud slowly emerging from the entrance of the abandoned building.
Faintly, one could also hear roars.
Very faint.
As if it were an illusion, yet it could stir the deepest anxieties in people's hearts.
But deep beneath the surface of reality, in a world unseen by ordinary people, the terrifying malevolent spirit 'Serpent Mother', whose body had stretched to over ten meters long, was moving out inch by inch.
Its upper body was composed of seven or eight giant snakes, their ends tightly coiled and intertwined like ropes. These snake heads were baring their fangs and claws, roaring with all their might.
Their skin was gray, like dilapidated, peeling walls.
Its lower body, however, appeared exceptionally bloated, as if dragging a ball, which seemed to be the reason for Serpent Mother's slow movement.
As it moved, gray spots like peeling wall plaster fell from its body, and a thick, black-gray mist swirled around it. In this world submerged beneath reality, its appearance was far more terrifying than any other malevolent spirit.
One glance was enough to make its image unforgettable.
Terrifying, disgusting, penetrating the very marrow of one's being.
*Patta—*
At the end of the street, a shopping bag held by a girl fell directly to the ground. She seemed oblivious, her eyes fixed on the terrifying figure at the end of the street, her heart filled with shock and fear.
Her eyes were like water, reflecting the entire wide, desolate street.
At the end, seven or eight roaring, struggling snake heads.
The gray patches were exceptionally clear in her eyes.
But it wasn't just that; it also reflected figures of shambling, rotting bodies, wandering aimlessly down the empty street.
Suddenly,
an ugly body stretched its neck from the side, winding around twice, and extending in front of the girl. Its mouth split open to its ears, and the gray mist it exhaled seemed to spit onto the girl's cheek.
A hoarse voice echoed in her ears.
"Can... can you see me?"