Chapter 82.2 Ghost Market
Song Qingluo had already walked away, so Lin Banxia quickly followed him.
This was the first time they had come at night. Compared with the daytime, the surrounding buildings looked a bit more unfamiliar. After entering the community, Li Xinyu felt uncomfortable. She crossed her arms and whispered: “I feel like something is weird…”
Lin Banxia said: “It is quite strange.” Looking around he said, “No one turned on the lights.”
Li Xinyu: “…” After being reminded by Lin Banxia, she realized that there were no other light sources in the entire community except the street lights. It was only ten o’clock in the evening, but every floor was dark. From a distance, it looked like a monster’s mouth, tempting them to enter.
Li Xinyu shuddered inexplicably.
“Let’s go to Building 18 and have a look.” Lin Banxia suggested.
“Okay.” Song Qingluo agreed.
In fact, whether that thing was in the community or not was a mystery, but Lin Banxia thought about it carefully and felt that the organizational form of these people was indeed very similar to ants. Well-organized, but without thoughts of its own, it could only be dominated by the collective. No, to be precise, it could only be led by the queen ant.
Ordinary ants were born to serve the queen. Whether they were looking for food or growing the colony, all their actions revolved around the core queen.
So now, where is the queen who controls everything? Lin Banxia thought, could it move its body at will? No, that’s not possible, because if it could easily move itself, then there was no need to choose this old community as its nest. This would be safer, because it could unscrupulously search for people in a densely populated city. For heretical objects that were infectious, unless necessary they would not create such a special area where abnormalities could be easily discovered.
However, judging from the information discovered by Song Qingluo and the others, this was the only area in the city with such abnormalities. From this, it could be inferred that it had to have some purpose in creating this place.
Lin Banxia was thinking as he followed Song Qingluo. Seeing that they were about to reach the eighteenth building, Song Qingluo suddenly stopped.
Lin Banxia asked strangely: “What’s wrong?”
Song Qingluo said: “Something’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong?” Lin Banxia asked.
Song Qingluo said: “There are people around.”
When Lin Banxia heard this, he looked around. There were no street lights nearby, and everything was dark and vague, but he saw that there seemed to be shadows moving in the darkness, first one, then two, and finally there was a dense mass around them.
Li Xinyu was startled, and quickly took out the flashlight from her backpack and shined it around. It was okay when she didn’t, because what she saw frightened her so much that she almost couldn’t hold the flashlight steady. At some point, a large group of people appeared around them. They were men, women, old and young, wearing different clothes, but staring at them with the same eyes. Li Xinyu felt goosebumps appeared as they stared at them.
At first glance, this group of people seemed to number at least a hundred. They formed a circle around the four of them, and then slowly moved towards them. Their footsteps were soundless, almost like ghosts.
“What should we do?” Lin Banxia asked, his hand touched the dagger on his leg. To be honest, he could attack monsters without any scruples, but there were only people around him…
Song Qingluo didn’t respond and scanned the crowd as if he was looking for something: “Give me some time.”
“Okay.” Lin Banxia said.
Seeing the people surrounding them getting closer and closer, Lin Banxia smelled the familiar sweet smell again. The source of this smell should be someone in the crowd. However, there were too many people, and it was difficult for him to find it. Li Xinyu, who had a keen sense of smell, pointed in a certain direction and shouted: “The smell there is stronger! Is that thing here?”
Song Qingluo turned and looked, his dark eyes like a piece of frozen ice. He glanced at Lin Banxia: “It’s right there. I have to pass through the crowd.”
Lin Banxia gritted his teeth and said, “How are you going to get there?”
Song Qingluo said: “Throw me over.”
Lin Banxia then remembered that Song Qingluo’s weight was different from that of ordinary people. He was much lighter. Lin Banxia carried him on his back and felt that he weighed at most twenty or thirty kilograms. Although Lin Banxia couldn’t throw a normal person weighing more than a hundred kilograms, twenty or thirty kilograms was still no problem, so he simply stretched out his hand and grabbed Song Qingluo’s thin waist, and then with a strong force, he threw Song Qingluo directly into the sky like a sandbag.
Li Xinyu and Zhou Zhixiang were both dumbfounded. Before they could react, they saw Song Qingluo being thrown by Lin Banxia like an acrobat. He flew into the night sky lightly and disappeared.
The people around them were getting closer and closer, and their space was getting smaller and smaller. Seeing that they were almost nose to nose with these people, Li Xinyu’s mentality suddenly collapsed and she shouted while waving the dagger in her hand: “Don’t come closer! Don’t come closer to me! You’re not welcome!”
Unfortunately, this kind of threat obviously had no effect on these people. Within a few words, the space where they stood was forced to shrink again, and the three of them were forced to get closer together.
Lin Banxia was always calm, not because he was not afraid of death, but because he remembered what the old man said yesterday.
“If you want to find him, you have to become him.” This exhortation always made Lin Banxia feel that it was the answer to this mystery.
He originally wanted to think about it carefully, but he didn’t have much time now. The crowd around them moved closer to them again. Just when they were about to close around them, the people suddenly stretched their hands towards the three of them.
This was the first time Lin Banxia had such an experience. Before he could even pull out the dagger, countless arms buried him. It was as if ropes were forcibly wrapped around their bodies. In the blink of an eye, the three of them were firmly suppressed to the ground, unable to move.
The sweet and greasy smell was very strong, filling his nose. Lin Banxia vaguely heard the sound of fighting coming from the darkness. Lin Banxia was about to look over there, but a crisp sound rang in his ears, as if something exploded next to him.
“Ah!!!” Zhou Zhixiang screamed in horror, “Here we go again, here we go again!!!”
Lin Banxia didn’t realize what the phrase “Here we go again” meant at first, until the second crisp explosion sounded again, and he saw with his own eyes a person standing not far from him, swelling like a balloon filled with water. Then, they exploded. The sticky liquid suddenly splashed all over Lin Banxia.
“What are they trying to do?” Li Xinyu screamed, “Help!!!”
Then came the third and fourth explosions. A large amount of sugar water kept spraying on them, sticking them to the ground like little bugs. The sweet and greasy smell seemed to flow along their noses, flooding into their minds, making Lin Banxia’s head hurt.
However, even so, those people still held them down and did not let go for a moment. As long as Lin Banxia looked up, all he saw was expressionless faces. They were like puppets, having completely lost their consciousness, they could only be manipulated into acting.
The sticky liquid stuck to his skin, making Lin Banxia feel particularly uncomfortable. Zhou Zhixiang next to him suddenly coughed heavily. At first, Lin Banxia thought he was just choking. Unexpectedly, his coughing became more and more intense. Then there was a sudden pause and complete silence.
The hands that held him also let go, and Lin Banxia watched helplessly as the struggling expression on his face gradually calmed down, turning into a look as numb as the people around him.
There was no need to guess what would happen next. Li Xinyu screamed in horror and began to struggle with all her strength. However, her struggle was only a drop in the bucket in front of dozens of people. Not surprisingly, they felt like they were being nailed again. Like dead birds, they pinned to the ground.
“Help! Help! I don’t want to be like that! Mr. Lin help!” Li Xinyu cried, her face pressed to the ground, looking helplessly at Lin Banxia, begging for help.
Just as Lin Banxia was about to say something, he saw her expression change, and then she coughed violently like Zhou Zhixiang. Those sticky liquids seemed to have penetrated every one of her pores, swallowing her up like ants swarming over food, completely assimilating her into their companions.
Finally, the hands holding Li Xinyu was released. She slowly got up from the ground and stared at Lin Banxia on the ground with familiar, insensitive eyes. Lin Banxia even suspected that the next moment she would reach out her hand and hold him down like the others.
Lin Banxia was a little helpless. He didn’t expect things to develop like this. All he could do at this time was to wait quietly, waiting for himself to end up with the same fate.
Time passed so slowly, and the change that Lin Banxia was waiting for did not come. Staring into countless pairs of eyes, Lin Banxia inexplicably felt a trace of embarrassment.
It was as if everyone was asking him with their eyes: Why are you still unchanged?
Lin Banxia also murmured in his heart, wondering why he didn’t react at all. Could it be that the absorption effect was not good? How embarrassing.
It was unknown how much time passed, but the atmosphere was getting worse and worse. Just when Lin Banxia was worried about whether this thing would become angry, the hands grabbing him moved again. This time, they did not restrain Lin Banxia, instead they carried him up like an ant carrying food and headed towards the building.
The author has something to say:
Lin Banxia: I don’t know what’s going on, I just don’t like it
Song Qingluo: It seems that we still have to pickle it from the inside.
Lin Banxia:??
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