abcnovels
Chapter 358: 356: Blood Shadow
Chapter 358: 356: Blood Shadow
Chapter 358: Chapter 356: Blood Shadow
“I’m going!”
Matthew, solemn, turned and left without looking back. The light beam shone on him, casting his elongated shadow against the wall, leaving the audience with a sense of tragic heroism, as if a warrior were descending into the chilly waters of Yi River, never to return.
Bi Fang was quite at ease as he walked away, leaning against the wall and gazing after Matthew until his figure vanished into the light.
As long as Matthew followed his instructions, there shouldn’t be too much risk involved.
Half a minute—that’s how long it takes a normal person to run at least one hundred and fifty meters, enough to escape the danger zone.
[It’s a bit scary to walk through the sewers alone]
[Agreed, it wasn’t so bad with two people, but now, alone with just a flashlight, it feels kinda scary…]
[Feels like we’re watching a horror movie]
[The Brave Man Shrinks His Feet]
In his dormitory, Cao Lifeng couldn’t help but withdraw his feet from outside the covers back under them and pinched the corner of his blanket to make sure it was tight before continuing to watch.
Following behind Matthew, the drone captured him walking alone, flashlight in hand, meandering through the dark passageway. The water flow next to him was almost stagnant, with an occasional light splash as if something had fallen into the water.
The clear snot reached the corner of Matthew’s lips, only to be sucked back up.
He wore a gas mask, yet it seemed Matthew could still smell the stench, which reverberated within his brain, even causing his eyes to start swelling and tear up from the irritation.
“I never knew Master Fang’s sense of smell was this strong. Just walking up to here is unbearable for me; I can hardly imagine what it would be like under his nose.”
[Master Fang truly has an extraordinary sense of smell!]
[Is there really such a thing as a natural talent for smell?]
[Yes, there is. I have a senior in my graduate program with this talent. Just by smell, he can tell you what experiment you’ve been conducting.]
[The difference between humans can sometimes be even greater than that between humans and dogs.]
[“Humans have a poor sense of smell” is actually a 19th-century meme. The human olfactory bulb is small in proportion to the entire brain, but not smaller than that of other animals. In laboratory tests for specific odors, humans can detect some scents better than both rats and dogs, each species having their strengths and weaknesses in scent detection.]
[Ah, an unknown expert has appeared!]
[Useless knowledge increased!]
Matthew looked at the barrage of comments on the drone and felt a bit of the tension in his heart fade away in the face of the unknown darkness.
The audience was right; it’s natural to be scared when walking alone at night, let alone in such a dark tunnel.
Thinking this, Matthew quickened his pace. A distance of a hundred meters was a matter of mere seconds. Using the military-grade LED flashlight to illuminate the map, he quickly reached his destination. Looking down at the fault at his feet, he shifted the beam of light upwards, revealing a manhole cover.
“Generally speaking, a place with manhole covers indicates a deep well.”
Since the drone was following him, Matthew felt a responsibility to retain Bi Fang’s audience, so he began to give a brief introduction to them. Of course, most of this knowledge came from what Bi Fang had told him, with some insights gained from studying sewage system maps.
“There are three manhole covers here; it must be a septic tank!”
Modern septic tanks all have Grade 3 Septic Treatment, always equipped with three manhole covers.
Below the well there was another passage. To get a clearer view, Matthew tied his flashlight to his waist belt, climbing down a metal ladder. Halfway down, he reached through the rungs to hold his mask steady with one hand, while the other hand unfastened the flashlight to illuminate the surface of the water in the well.
The wastewater well was only four or five meters deep, with rainwater seeping through the soil and accumulating at the bottom. The water was pitch-black, how many years of stagnant decay it contained was anyone’s guess.
“Just now, Bi Fang warned me to stay far away from these stagnant waters, or if I were to fall in, the best-case scenario would be disability, worst case, death. This kind of wastewater contains a variety of microbes, parasitic eggs, and an extremely high number of toxic substances. If someone were to fall into it, they could suffer acute lung injury, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute… uh.”
Matthew frowned, trying hard to recall, but the long list of professional terms was just too hard to remember; the fact that he could remember so much was already no small feat.
“What was it again? I forgot, but basically, there are a lot of diseases, and the chance of these diseases occurring is extremely high, and they can easily cause disability or death. Plus, many toxic gases are heavier than air and settle at the bottom, leading to oxygen deficiency. Oh my god, Master Fang was right, I feel like I’m having difficulty breathing already, I need to hurry up and get back.”
Matthew took a few deep breaths from his gas canister to recover his strength, then shook his flashlight around inside the well.
Dimly, something blood-red floated on the surface of the water. Matthew squinted, lowering his hand further; he wanted to see more clearly.
The patch of light from the flashlight swayed in the pitch-black depths of the well, like a searchlight.
The circular patch of light moved about, gradually illuminating what was below, and the blood-red colour inside the well became clearer, resembling… a human shape.
Matthew’s face showed a look of horror, as the vivid, striking red in front of him resembled freshly spilled blood!
As the light trembled and moved in front of the red, the audience finally saw the blood-red object. It was a blood-coloured coat, hooked and hanging at the bottom of the well by a wire mesh, as if someone was standing in the black water.
At this moment, the hearts of all the viewers watching the program skipped a beat; such a shocking scene almost uncontrollably triggered their micturition reflex!
Only the uniform “Holy shit!” in the bullet comments could express their feelings at the moment.
[Holy shit!]
[I nearly peed myself just now!]
[Not talking anymore, I’m going to change my pants]
[I’m straight up—straight up!]
[Stop dilly-dallying and finish up quickly, let’s get out of here, this place isn’t for humans]
Numerous viewers, who were frightened into a psychological shadow, quickly urged Matthew to finish everything and then leave.
Matthew readily agreed and went to the platform beside the bottom of the well, taking out antifreeze and gasoline from his bag.
The gasoline had been siphoned from the off-road vehicle. It wasn’t much, just half a can, but it was indeed an excellent combustion agent.
He poured both liquids onto the ground, then climbed back up the iron ladder. He poured potassium permanganate onto a piece of newspaper that had absorbed some antifreeze, crumpled it into a ball, and violently hurled it toward the bottom of the well, then ran back without looking back.
In the sealed passageway, substances collided, and a chemical reaction was happening rapidly; just a single spark would be enough to blow the entire deep well sky-high.
The feeling was like a military dog running through a hoop of blazing fire, surrounded by terrifyingly high temperatures and flames.
If he were tested on the hundred-meter dash in such a place, Matthew believed that even at over thirty-five, he could still score an excellent time!
The two-hundred-meter distance went by in a flash, and Matthew clearly saw Bi Fang’s figure not far away.
Seeing Matthew running over, Bi Fang had a measure in mind; he stepped forward, grabbed Matthew’s collar, turned the corner, and hid inside a recess in the wall.
In the distant well, the paper ball landed in the water, rapidly generating heat. The crumpled paper began to shrink and smoke, and the flames quickly followed, with one last spark appearing.
The next second, the flames shot up violently, and the fire soared into the air.
The entire waste water well blazed furiously, and the coat in the water seemed to dance in the flames, dancing as it turned into ashes.
“Boom!”