Daomu Biji: A Thousand Faces

"It’s not like there’s a second tunnel-digging monster here."

"But based on the chronicle, he's a good man, isn't he? Didn’t he also cure the chauffeur just now?" Ah Tou asked. She firmly believed what her instincts were telling her. Not only did Long Immortal not make her feel threatened, but she also felt that he gave off a sense of respect and divinity.

"At the end of the chronicle, he had already turned into a monster who could kill people. Then the village became ruined and all of the good things immediately disappeared," Liang Yanyan said. "It’s easy to interpret human nature. Hell knows what Long Immortal would encounter after he lost his ability to cure people. It’s highly probable that he became a real monster."

"I don't think he did," Ah Tou said.

“Why not?”

"Having an ability to save or kill people is much better than having no ability at all. He didn’t become a bad person when he had a breakdown. Instead, he had a sudden epiphany. That’s why I think he isn’t just an ordinary person.” 

"Most epiphanies in the world are fake," Liang Yanyan took a puff of the cigarette and continued moving forward. She remembered the time when the wounds on her back were just beginning to heal and scab over. She could only lie on her stomach, and it took three months before she was able to touch her wounds at all. At that time, she also had an epiphany. She understood that from that moment on, she wouldn’t feel the same as other people who lay on their beds, leaned back on the couch, or leaned against anything else. 

Her epiphany was that people only began to examine what they possessed after they had things taken away from them. 

Long Immortal began with nothing, but the first thing that was taken from him was his ability to save others. That was when he would re-examine himself, and also when the devil who whispered in his ear would appear.

Ah Tou had nothing more to say, so she just followed Liang Yanyan and kept moving forward. The whole tunnel was the same size and her calves and waist soon became very sore. In the end, she simply started crawling. Liang Yanyan was still walking, but her clothes were all wet and muddy. "I don’t understand. All I did was draw Long Immortal at Boss Xie’s house, so why would he want to kill me? Wasn’t he a ghost before? How come he seems to be a real thing now?” 

"We’ll find out if we can find Black Glasses," Liang Yanyan began taking her clothes off. They were too tight for her in this enclosed environment, so she wrapped them around her waist instead. 

She suddenly looked down at her cigarette At this time, the thin wisp of smoke rising from the end suddenly began to billow violently, as if a gust of air was rushing out from up ahead.

Ah Tou immediately understood—something was moving. She didn't know how she had suddenly learned how to tell things from the smoke. Liang Yanyan flicked her cigarette butt towards a tunnel opposite them and immediately retreated. She pulled Ah Tou into another tunnel and immediately turned off her flashlight. Ah Tou had been using her phone as a flashlight and was too nervous to turn it off quickly, so Liang Yanyan snatched the phone and threw it directly towards the other tunnel.

It was dark all around them, except for the tunnel across from them which was lit up because of the phone’s light. But before the phone had even reached the ground, Ah Tou saw a strange, long snake-like thing appear over there at a rapid speed. The thing instantly caught her phone and retreated into the darkness, the light slowly dimming as it got further away. 

Ah, she couldn’t afford another phone. This one had already cost her five thousand yuan.

Now their surroundings were really dark, and there was only the glowing red dot of the cigarette butt in the distance. Ah Tou was just about to speak, but Liang Yanyan covered her mouth. In the darkness, the cigarette butt also went out in an instant.

They were completely quiet, not even daring to breathe. The only thing Ah Tou could hear was her own heartbeat, which felt like it was going to beat its way out of her throat. Then, she heard something moving silently in the darkness.

The noise was very slight, sometimes appearing in front of them and sometimes behind them. It took about four or five minutes—which felt like half an hour to Ah Tou—before the noise completely quieted down.

After waiting another four or five minutes, they still couldn’t hear any movement. Liang Yanyan turned on her flashlight and the two breathed a sigh of relief. But just when Liang Yanyan was about to say something, Ah Tou suddenly heard movement come from behind them. Both were shocked and immediately turned around to look. As Liang Yanyan raised her flashlight up, they saw a particularly large face peering out of the darkness behind them.

The face was so long that Ah Tou’s mind instantly blanked out. Then, she saw very long and thin fingers dragging Liang Yanyan into the darkness. The flashlight’s beam quickly disappeared at the end of the tunnel.