Chapter 1031: Stealing and Touching
The m.u.f.fled sound of the flesh-and-bone-covered body hitting the floor startled Lin Sanjiu and Bohemia for a moment. Amidst the continuous trembling and convulsions, the old lady seemed to be forcefully grabbed by the collar and slammed onto the ground. The back of her head repeatedly struck the floor tiles. Blood and foam gradually overflowed from her mouth, increasing steadily.
A lightning bolt illuminated the dark meeting room, and in that momentary brightness, her eyeb.a.l.l.s protruded high above her eyelids, round and pale, staring straight at them.
In just a few seconds, the old lady was completely dead. In the darkness, they could still hear a large amount of foam dripping onto the floor, dripping and tapping.
"What... what happened? What illness did she have?"
Bohemia"s voice trembled slightly. She took a step forward, but Lin Sanjiu quickly grabbed her arm. "Don"t go near!"
"Did you find something?"
Lin Sanjiu didn"t even know what she had discovered. Her nerves were rapidly pulsating in her mind, but she couldn"t form a clear thought. The rus.h.i.+ng blood in her body left her with almost only instinct to act upon. Pulling Bohemia behind her, she turned around, opened her hands, and firmly grasped the sofa. With all her strength, she forcefully pushed it towards the entrance of the meeting room.
She instinctively moved to block the body outside.
Since the old lady was determined to die in front of them, they couldn"t allow the corpse to remain within their sight. Although she had no idea what a dead body could do to them.
The long shadow made a thud as it collided with the wall, blocking the doorway perfectly. The sofa followed, deeply embedding itself into the body with a splattering sound, sinking into the flesh and blood of the old lady.
That wet, rotten sound made Lin Sanjiu shudder. Without thinking, she shouted at Bohemia, "Get out! Through the window!"
"What is going on? Can"t you explain clearly?"
Bohemia maintained her defiant tone, but her movements were swift. Whenever she felt she couldn"t control the danger, she slipped away like an otter, without leaving a trace. Even if Lin Sanjiu asked her to stay a bit longer, she probably would have left. Holding up a floor lamp, she smashed the window in a few strikes. The rain instantly blew in through the broken window. She wiped her face, turned around, and yelled, "Hurry!"
The meeting room was pitch black, and dimness filled the air, turning the sofa and the smashed up body into hazy shadows. The pouring rain seemed to have turned this house into a solitary island in the deep sea of the night. Looking outside, there was no trace of light. Lin Sanjiu felt a strong signal in her mind, urging her to "run quickly." But she had no understanding of what the danger was or where it came from. She suppressed the urge to stay a few more seconds to observe with her flashlight before turning around to rush out after Bohemia through the window.
The street had transformed into ankle deep vast expanse of water, which they rushed through to the other side of the road. Finally, they had distanced themselves from the house with the red door. They both turned back at the same time and took a closer look behind them.
Just at that moment, another brilliant lightning bolt illuminated the sky.
In that flash of light, the shadow of a face appeared in the window they had just jumped out of. The old lady stood behind the window, her pale, unglazed eyes protruding from her sockets, bloodstains and foaming saliva at the corners of her mouth, and remnants of food on her wrinkled face, covered by a head of disheveled silver hair... As the light vanished, so did she.
1
Even Bohemia, who had experienced countless dangers and battles against powerful posthumans and the bizarre crises in Pocket Dimensions, couldn"t help but let out a low exclamation.
"She... she came back to life?"
In the darkness, the figure of the old lady slowly leaned out of the window. Her body, like a torn bag, folded down from the windowsill, trembling violently. Whether it was blood or organs, a large amount of slippery substance flowed down from where her body had been pierced by the sofa.
"Oh no, she didn"t," Bohemia said with a strained expression.
"Keep running!"
Although the corpse was separated by a street, they didn"t dare to slow down and ran as fast as they could, never stopping for a moment. Ironically, Lin Sanjiu had faced numerous duoluozhong and powerful posthumans, as well as the inexplicable crises in the Pocket Dimensions, but now she was sprinting in the pouring rain to escape from an ordinary old lady"s corpse.
A faint "plop" sound, as light as an illusion in the rain, rang in her ear. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of the limp body lying on the side of the street. It was quite far from them, twisting and struggling as if it was trying to stand up, then suddenly its torso shattered into countless pieces—
They had to get it away from them!
As soon as this thought entered Lin Sanjiu"s mind, her Tornado Whip immediately wrapped up a large amount of rainwater on the ground and roared towards the distant exploded corpse. In the mist of water, rain columns, and strong winds, they couldn"t see anything clearly for a while. They could only keep retreating step by step. When winds from the Tornado Whip subsided, the remains of the old lady were gone, and a corner of a distant building had been blown away by the fierce wind.
"it... got blown away?" Bohemia finally slowed down, gasping for breath as she asked.
"Yes," Lin Sanjiu"s heart, which had been racing, gradually calmed down, and her breath turned into white vapor in the rain. They stood in the curtains of water for a few more seconds, before Bohemia suddenly looked up. "We can go back now!"
"What?"
She took out a small black object from a pocket on her waist, unable to conceal her satisfaction even while out of breath. "Did you think you were the only one who was doing anything?"
Before Lin Sanjiu could ask, with a press of her hand, a car parked on the street suddenly lit up with a beep.
"I stole it from that dead old lady"s house," Bohemia seemed to have done a lot of petty theft in the past, "You don"t even know where the junkyard is. Are we going to wade aroud through the water? A car is meant for times like these!"
That"s true...
Carefully, step by step, they walked back to where the car was. It was parked across from the old lady"s house, at a distance from where the corpse had crawled out of the window. Perhaps it was because the old lady couldn"t find a closer parking spot during her last parking attempt. Although they didn"t know what the previous danger meant, they felt relieved as they moved further away from the scene.
Compared to the old pickup truck in the junkyard, this old lady"s car seemed to be in much better condition. As a precaution, Lin Sanjiu turned it into a card first. After carefully examining the card description and not finding anything unusual, they both got into the car.
Being able to sit in a dry place and dry off their bodies while no longer getting stung from the heavy raindrops felt like a dream.
"What the h.e.l.l happened just now?" Bohemia seemed to treat Lin Sanjiu as a Mokugyo Encyclopedic Forum and was about to reach out and ask for answers. "Why did the old lady suddenly die?"
"How would I know?" Lin Sanjiu took off her vest, wrung it dry, and put on a new one. She ignited the engine and replied, "But she obviously knew she was about to die, so she ate everything she wanted to eat."
"That"s not a bad idea." Bohemia was inspired, holding a towel and muttering to herself, "If I were about to die, I would want to eat a—"
"Go eat air—can"t you talk about something serious?"
"You"ve already crippled my abilities. Can"t you let me have a bite to eat?" Bohemia suddenly got angry, "I should have cooked and ate you long ago. Maybe I could have regained some Potential Growth Value!"
"You"re not Ren Nan..."
Lin Sanjiu silently criticized her, but fortunately, she didn"t say it out loud. While Bohemia continued to rant and curse from the pa.s.senger seat, Lin Sanjiu looked around inside the car and her eyes suddenly lit up.
"Look," she hastily interrupted Bohemia, "this car has a navigation system!"
"What"s so surprising about that?" Bohemia suddenly became insightful, "This city is planned so poorly, even the locals would probably get lost without navigation. Ah! The junkyard!"
She finally realized.
Although they couldn"t understand the written language of this world and couldn"t find the address of the junkyard, the p.r.o.nunciation was the same. That meant they could use voice controls with the navigation system. Lin Sanjiu tried a few times and finally found what she believed to be the location of the junkyard among several destinations related to waste recycling in the city. She s.h.i.+fted gears and watched as the winds.h.i.+eld wipers swept back and forth in the rain.
Bohemia, who didn"t have to drive, curled up her legs under her damp robe and looked at the rain outside the window. It seemed like she wanted to rest for a while, however, as her gaze swept outside, she couldn"t help but gasp.
"Hey, hey..."
"I saw it too."
Lin Sanjiu involuntarily held her breath, leaned forward, and glanced at the street outside the winds.h.i.+eld. In the pouring rain, amidst the dark buildings, one after another windows and doors were opening. Countless faces, in the irregular black holes, were constantly scanning their surroundings, as if disturbed ants in a nest.