SFS Chapter 328 Evil Things
Chapter 328 Evil Things
“We can’t go too far,” Levi said to Yan Xun and Lily, looking back at Lily who was waiting for them. “The sun will be setting soon.”
"It will take us some time to return."
"If we walk another half hour, we'll have to turn back."
Koy raised both hands in agreement, and Yan Xun nodded as well. The three of them followed Lily, who kept her head down, as they walked forward.
"Are they really taking refuge here?" Koy asked as they walked.
“There were no such cases in the city at the time,” Yan Xun said. “It’s understandable that they were afraid.”
Nobody wants to be treated like a monster by others; who knows what will happen next?
“I think Liam’s brother is…” Koy stopped abruptly, glancing awkwardly at Levi in front of him, then muttered to himself, “Levi isn’t an outsider, he should be fine.”
He convinced himself of this and continued, "He seemed perfectly normal to me."
"How was he that day?" he asked Levy again.
“Same as usual,” Levy said. “He leaned against the car window, greeted me, told me he was in a hurry to get back to the city, and said he hated rainy days.”
"You mean Liam handled a secret mission assigned to him by the boss even on a rainy day?" Yan Xun asked Coy. "What time did he arrive at the farm that day?" He then asked Levi.
“Around 9 p.m.,” Levy said.
"The secret mission you mentioned... you mean cooking those things?" Yan Xun asked Ke Yi.
“I don’t know,” Coy said. “We can’t pry into other people’s secret missions.”
"But Liam was nowhere to be seen all day that day."
“He probably went to handle his own secret mission first, and then went to the farm,” Koy shrugged. “Even if you ask the boss, he won’t tell you what that secret mission is.”
“Perhaps he had Liam retrieve a diamond or gold from somewhere,” Coy said. “He took the money and fled.”
“Liam’s family is still there. If he wanted to flee, he would have notified his family in advance,” Yan Xun said.
The other party was on a secret mission that he handled on the day of the rainstorm, and then disappeared. He could have notified his family in advance.
“Someone is watching his home all the time,” Koy said. “He couldn’t possibly let his family leave before the organization finds out.”
“The best solution, of course, is to abandon your family,” Koy said matter-of-factly.
Yan Xun still insisted on her initial point of view: "Liam will not abandon his family."
Although he didn't talk much with Liam, the fact that Liam was doing such dangerous work clearly meant for his family... Of course, most importantly, since this instance started with two strange events, the reason for Liam's disappearance could not possibly be that he kept the diamonds or gold for himself.
While the two were arguing, Levi, who was in front, continued to search for traces of those people.
He seemed to have noticed something soon and made a shushing gesture towards Yan Xun and Koy.
The two stopped arguing, and Yan Xun followed behind Levi, crouching down with him. Soon, Lily returned and sobbed beside Levi, as if she had discovered something.
Levi patted Lily's head reassuringly, then took out some jerky from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Ahead,” he whispered, “I see some blood and signs of a struggle.”
Yan Xun cautiously peeked out. He looked around for a while but didn't see any figures or any trace of a campfire.
To avoid alerting the enemy, they could only crouch and move forward slowly. Soon, Yan Xun saw the bloodstains that Levi had mentioned.
There were some scattered bloodstains on the ground, and a few clumps of hair nearby, which looked like some kind of animal. There were also marks on the tree trunk.
Besides human footprints, there were also some animal footprints on the ground.
"Luckily, they only encountered coyotes, which don't usually travel in packs," Levy said. "There should be one among them who's fairly good at fighting..."
"So only some people sustained minor injuries."
“They won’t have gone far after they were injured,” Levy said, standing up. “They should be nearby.”
They followed the bloodstains on the ground, but soon the group realized that the bloodstains would attract their attention, and after walking another ten meters or so, the bloodstains disappeared.
“Looks like they found out.” Koy asked Yan Xun to borrow a pitchfork and started searching the ground. “Someone must be worried that the bloodstains will give them away.”
So which direction should we go now?
“They can’t go very far,” Levy said.
He casually pointed in a direction, "Let's go this way first, and if we don't find it, we'll go back."
He looked up at the sunlight blocked by the tree canopy. "We don't have much time."
Yan Xun naturally had no objections. He was completely unfamiliar with this place and could only follow the two of them.
Fortunately, after walking for about half an hour, they finally found a few tents.
These tents weren't primitive; they looked like camping tents someone had brought specifically for them. They didn't approach immediately. "Is this their campsite?" Koy asked, half-squatting and leaning on Yan Xun's back.
Yan Xun threw him off.
“It should be.” Levi also half-squatted.
He observed for a while, then said, “Now stand up and walk over naturally.”
"What's the reason?" Koy tried to grab Levi, who was about to stand up.
“No reason is needed.” Yan Xun also stood up. “The discovery of an unfamiliar body outside the farm is the reason.”
Seeing that the two of them had stood up, Koy had no choice but to stand up as well.
They deliberately made obvious footsteps, but the people inside the tent did not react.
Levy stopped 2 meters away from the tent.
"Is anyone inside?" he asked.
A weak cry for help came from inside the tent, "Help..."
The three exchanged a glance. Koy gripped the pitchfork, Levi pulled a knife from his back waist, and they slowly approached the tent.
Yan Xun observed the surrounding environment and found that, except for the one that made the sound, all the other tents were open.
These tents are all empty.
Koy used a pitchfork to pry open the tent and saw a man lying on a sleeping bag with a swollen belly...
"Ugh." He let out a dry heave.
Yan Xun glanced at it and couldn't help but feel like gagging.
A gash had appeared on the opponent's stomach, from which countless feather tubes emerged.
The man wailed in pain, reaching out his hand as if to ask Yan Xun and the others for help.
But it was all too late. Before he could even finish a sentence, a fleshy ball emerged from the opening in his stomach.
The fleshy ball was covered with feather shafts.
It seemed to sense something, wriggling a few times in the direction of Yan Xun and the others before collapsing to the ground and falling silent.
All of this changed too quickly; from when Koy opened the tent to when the fleshy ball appeared and died, it was only a minute.
Koy threw down the pitchfork and vomited in the bushes nearby.
Levi seemed to react quite well. He picked up the fork that Koy had dropped and poked at the lump of flesh. "Is this what they have in their stomachs?"
Yan Xun crawled onto the sofa and went to the side of the dead man.
The man's stomach was empty; his once bulging abdomen had become shriveled as the contents had crawled out. He looked around, trying to find anything related to the man's identity.
In the end, only one photo of the two of them was found.
There was some money in the luggage next to the tent, and judging from his clothes, he must have had a decent job before.
Besides that, there was nothing else to prove his identity.
Levi pinned the flesh ball to the ground with a pitchfork. He saw Yan Xun squatting beside the dead man and then crawled into the tent.
When he saw the group photo in Yan Xun's hand, he said, "I vaguely recognize the woman next to him."
"Hmm?" Yan Xun turned around.
“Three weeks ago, in the afternoon,” Levy said, pointing to the woman in the photo wearing a skirt. “She came to the farm with some other people.”
"They asked me if I had seen a man around 30 years old."
“She gave me a photo…” Levy said. He stared at the photo in Yan Xun’s hand for a while, then looked at the man’s gaunt and distorted face. He looked about 10 years older than he did in the photo. “It seems that he is the one she is looking for.”
"He's really changed a lot."
"You mean..." Yan Xun glanced at the photo a few more times, then looked at the man lying on the ground, "This isn't a photo from before?"
“At least she looks the same as in the photos,” Levy said.
Yan Xun turned to look at the ball of flesh that was pinned to the ground by a steel fork.
I was reminded of the elderly man who looked visibly aged next to the house in the cornfield.
“It seems this is not a gift from God,” Levy said.
He smiled at Yan Xun and said, "It's a curse."
"It's punishment."
Koy, who was outside the tent, finally vomited and returned to the tent, saying, "Excuse me for disturbing you."
"But I think we should go back immediately."
He pointed to the sky above, "The sun is about to set."
Upon hearing this, Yan Xun crawled out of the tent, picked up the steel fork, and took the fleshy ball off with him.
"Ugh." Koy gagged again in disgust. "Couldn't you have thrown it further away?"
Lily, who was lingering outside the tent, was quite interested in the fleshy ball.
“No,” Yan Xun said, “we need to investigate.”
Koy looked at the ball of flesh with disgust. "I absolutely will not help you get this."
"But I'll put it in your car."
“No!” Koy refused. “My pig is still in the carriage.”
“I’ll pack it all in a box,” Yan Xun said. “You won’t run into your pig.”
After thinking for a while, Koy had no choice but to compromise. He looked at Yan Xun warily, "Don't bring it back to the room tonight."
Levy listened to their argument from the side, without urging them on, but patiently waited.
Before leaving, Yan Xun went to see the empty tents again and found a few more photos.
"Do these people look familiar?" Yan Xun asked Levy.
Levy glanced at it.
The photos showed both men and women. He casually replied, "Of course."
“They’re all dead,” he said to Yan Xun.
“This,” he said, pointing to a dark-haired man and then to a red-haired woman beside him, “their bodies were found outside the farm.”
Yan Xun was not surprised at all by Levy's answer.
He put away the photos and looked at the empty tents.
It is speculated that they probably noticed something was wrong with their stomachs and wanted to go out for help, but they were pushed out by the fleshy ball in their stomachs as soon as they arrived at the farm.
Yan Xun looked at the meatball on the steel fork.
These things die within half a minute of coming into contact with the outside world, but no one can guarantee that not a single living individual will emerge.
Aside from those who died outside the farm, there might be some who managed to escape to even more distant places... Liam?
Suddenly, Yan Xun remembered the brown-haired youth.
Did he see these women who suddenly became pregnant on the road, and help them in addition to the elderly couple?
"Hurry up," Koy urged.
The return journey was relatively smooth, and they reached the edge of the farm before dark. Yan Xun heard wolf howls along the way, but did not see any coyotes.
“There were five tents in total,” Levy said, “but there were far more than five bodies outside.”
"Some tents are too small and can only accommodate one person at most."
According to Levy, he had been discovering these bodies for four weeks, and the number far exceeded the tent's capacity.
“There was some blood in one of the tents,” Yan Xun said. “I saw the bandages that had been changed.”
"It seems the injured couldn't go too far, so they temporarily split into two groups: one group stayed here, while the other continued deeper into the forest."
Yan Xun was just curious about how they communicated.
In modern times, could we still use certain forums or anonymous communication boards?
Some group chats that can only be joined with a password.
But in their time, there weren't such convenient and simple ways to communicate.
Another point is that if they had known that so many people were in the same situation as them, they wouldn't have hastily chosen to hide in the forest outside the city.
Yan Xun put down the steel fork under Koy's disapproving gaze. He really didn't understand why Koy was making such a fuss.
"You dislike this so much?" He deliberately pushed the steel fork forward a little.
Koy let out a wail, startling Lily in front of him, who turned around to look a few times.
“This is disgusting!” Koy yelled.
“These lumps of flesh have human faces on them!” he shouted, unable to bear it any longer. “Don’t you find it disgusting?”
He questioned Yan Xun and Levy.
Upon hearing Koi's words, Yan Xun held the fleshy ball up in front of him.
He observed carefully and finally saw a human face that was about to grow out from among the dense feathers.
"Ugh." Koy gagged again.
Yan Xun glanced at him a few more times.
"You have good eyesight."
Koy hurriedly waved his hand, signaling Yan Xun to take those things away quickly.
Levi watched Koy's actions, then looked at Yan Xun. In the end, he chose to walk to Yan Xun's side and look at the meatball on the steel fork.
"This is for you," he said.
"Do you mean the meatball or the steel fork?" Yan Xun asked.
"All."
Yan Xun understood. Although Levi didn't say it, he also disliked the fleshy ball.
“You can put this in the warehouse,” Levy said.
Yan Xun shrugged. "I don't have the key to the warehouse door."
“I’ll take you there,” Levy said.
He gestured for Yan Xun to follow him. The two walked to the warehouse, where Levi opened the door and gestured for Yan Xun to put the meatball and the steel fork onto the cart.
“I now believe you are an exorcist,” Levy said.
Yan Xun showed an expression of willingness to hear the details.
"Because you can remain so calm even when you see something so evil."