I stared at the symbols, and the lines under my fingertips were cold and hard. The lighter's flame flickered, and the light and shadow danced in the grooves of the symbols. They didn't look like any words - at least not like human words. The arrangement is irregular, twisted and coiled, like the traces left by some kind of living creature struggling in extreme pain, and like roots buried deep in the ground, entangled with each other and penetrating into the texture of the rock. A chill ran up my spine. In Hou Xian's memory fragments, there are grotesque destructions and the outlines of inhuman things, but there are no such specific things carved on the wall. This is not what God left behind, and God does not need this kind of clumsy characterization. This is more like... A warning, someone from the past recorded something indescribable in a way that others cannot understand. Can't stay long. I closed the lighter and the darkness embraced me again. This time, the darkness seemed heavier. The symbols were clearly invisible, but it felt like they were protruding from the wall, silently watching me, the intruder. I dragged my injured leg forward, keeping my right hand on the wall. My fingertips could clearly feel the uneven texture of the symbol, which was cold and stubborn. The passage is endless. The sense of time was completely lost in the darkness and silence. I could only count my steps, one, two, three... When I counted to more than three hundred, my right knee was completely numb and turned into a stiff wooden pile. Every time I landed, there was a dull sound of bone friction. His breathing was extremely heavy in the narrow space, with an echo of the smell of blood. Just when I thought this road would never end, the hand holding the wall suddenly felt empty. I suddenly retracted my hand, and the touch from my fingertips was smooth and cold, with a kind of scalp-numbing toughness. That's not moss, moss is squishy, this thing is more like... Semi-solidified glue, thickly stuck to the rock wall. The lighter came back on and the flame came closer. There is no open space in front of us. The passage is still narrow and forward, but the rock walls on both sides have changed. Those cold, smooth stones with symbols engraved on them disappeared, replaced by a thick, translucent, dark yellow substance, like a huge honeycomb or the secretion of some kind of creature, covering it from the top of the rock wall to about a person's height above the ground. They glowed with a sticky sheen under the firelight, their surfaces were covered with irregular wrinkles and pores, and they were pulsing extremely slowly and almost imperceptibly. I stared at them, my stomach churning. The firelight danced on the surface of the sticky, translucent material, and something could be vaguely seen sealed inside. Fuzzy, twisted silhouettes, more than one, stretched along the passage, disappearing into the darkness ahead. The nearest one was just two steps ahead and to my right, embedded in the yellow material. I gritted my teeth, moved a step forward, and looked closer. The head, torso and curled limbs can just be distinguished, wrapped in translucent gel, like a bug sealed in amber. My throat is dry. The skin is gray-black and clings to the bones. The facial features are blurred, but the mouth is open, a black hole. The clothes on his body were in tatters, with only a few dark rags sticking to his skin. Judging from the style of the clothes, they are very old and definitely not modern. I identified it carefully and found that this costume was... From the Ming Dynasty. It's more like the early Ming Dynasty, definitely no better than Zhu Di's. These things are at least several thousand years old. It's amazing that these things can survive for so long. My throat was dry, and I moved the lighter slowly, shining the light on the other one next to me. This one is even worse, the shape has been completely distorted, as if it has been twisted by a huge force, the bones are pierced out from under the skin, wrapped in the same yellow gel, frozen in the posture of struggling before death. The third, the fourth... The further forward, the more human figures are sealed in "amber". Some remain relatively intact, while others only have stumps and broken arms. They were not randomly discarded, but were deliberately and neatly arranged and sealed on the rock walls on both sides of the passage by some force or something, like some kind of... Trophy display or storage. I suppressed my nausea and carefully identified the blurred fragments of clothing. Most of them are made of coarse cloth, and a few are made of leather. The style is old and matches the dress of the entourage in the team in my memory. Are they from Hou Xian's team? I had no idea, but was quick to dismiss my point. This is not a passage at all, but a display gallery, a road made of dead people leading deeper, a tomb buried in the ground and stacked up over time. The outlines of the clothes from the Ming Dynasty can still be barely discerned, but further forward, the deeper the firelight can shine, the patterns of the clothes become even weirder. Some of them are large robes with folded collar at the right hem. The color has long faded to a dark yellow that is similar to gelatin, but the shape is still vaguely discernible and they are from earlier. Those incomplete scrolls flashed through my mind quickly - Han? Maybe earlier. A few steps further, the shadows in the gel became more distorted, and the clothes were almost completely rotten, leaving only some traces of braiding, and the dull stone or bone ornaments hanging around their necks and wrists. There is no sense of ceremony in the posture of these people, only tranquility. Curled up and struggling, the body was twisted into an impossible angle. The hands stretched forward as if to grab something or push something away. Most of them were bent to the side at a weird angle. The empty eye sockets were facing the center of the passage. I held onto the relatively clean rock wall on the opposite side, avoiding the sticky coverings, and slowly moved forward. The numbness in my knees had spread to my thighs, and every bend felt like rusty hinges rubbing together. The breath sprayed into the cold darkness, turned into white air, and was sucked away by the deeper darkness. The silence was too heavy, and in his ears there was only the buzzing of his own blood and the subtle crackle of the fire. The edge of the flame's halo swept across the rock wall on the left side in front. There, the colloid coverage seems to be thinner than elsewhere, and the color is lighter, and the original rock texture underneath can almost be vaguely seen. In that relatively clean area, about half a person's height above the ground, there was an obvious scratch mark. Not natural bumps, nor those chaotic symbols. They were several side-by-side scratches of varying depths, carved hard into the rock, and then half-covered by a thin layer of gelatin that slowly seeped out, making them blurry but still discernible. I moved closer, holding the lighter, almost touching it. It's three vertical lines. The carving was so deep that the edges cracked with tiny gravel stubble due to the force. Below the three vertical lines, there are two horizontal lines, which intersect with the vertical lines, forming an extremely simple and rough beginning of the character "Hou". Only two horizontal strokes were carved, and the third horizontal stroke seemed not to be finished in time, or was forced to stop halfway through, leaving only a shallow, dragging mark that disappeared under the newly covered, thicker glue next to it. My heart skipped a beat. Hou. Hou Xian's Hou. He stayed here. Facing this long corridor built with countless dead people, leading to unknown depths, and facing these dead souls from across dynasties sealed in the wriggling colloid, he used his last strength to carve his last name on the stone. He didn't finish carving. Was he exhausted, had he discovered something, or... Was there something that forced him to leave immediately, without even having time to leave a complete name? I raised my head and looked deeper into the passage in the direction indicated by the notch—if this could be considered an indicator. The range that the firelight can illuminate is limited. Those twisted shadows wrapped in gelatin are blurry at the junction of light and dark, extending to the end of the field of vision, as if there is no end. The severe pain in the knee struck again, like a red-hot iron nail driven into the bone seam. I groaned, my body swayed, and I almost lost my balance. The flame of the lighter swayed violently, the shadows on the wall showed their claws, and the sealed outlines seemed to shake. I gritted my teeth and waited for the dizziness to pass. Can't stop here. Hou Xian's trace is cold, but it at least proves that I am not the first living person to come here. He passed through. No matter what lies ahead. I wiped my forehead with my sleeve, whether it was cold sweat or water droplets condensed from the moisture in the passage, and took one last look at the incomplete "Hou" character. Then, he turned around, turned his back on the path he came from and these silent witnesses, and headed in the direction where Hou Xian had not finished, which was also the only direction of this corridor of the dead, and moved step by step into deeper and thicker darkness. "Hiss——" The lighter rolled out with a soft sound, knocked for a moment, and stopped in the darkness a few steps away. The fire didn't go out, but the light changed its angle and shone diagonally on the opposite wall. The amputated leg was still in place, lying at the junction of shadows at the edge of the halo, half light and half dark. The outline of the thick-soled shoes was elongated, like an abrupt punctuation mark in the middle of the empty passage. I stared at it. The firelight shot up from a low place, drawing out a twisted, shapeless shadow behind the broken leg, sticking to the rock wall covered with gelatin. The shadow swayed with the flames and trembled slightly. Gotta pick up the lighter. I took a breath and tried to move my injured leg. The knees were like rusty bearings, and every movement was accompanied by a dull sound of bone friction and a stinging pain like needles. I clenched my back teeth and shifted my weight to the left, two steps away from the lighter. Wherever the firelight could reach, the ground was wet, reflecting light like broken glass. The thin layer of goo covered everything, even my own shoe prints were blurred. Just when I reached out and my fingertips were about to reach the cold metal shell of the lighter, the shadow behind me tilted slightly to the side. It's not caused by the swaying flames. The flames burned steadily. It was the shadow that moved on its own. My hand stopped in mid-air, and the hairs on my back stood up instantly. I'm forbidden to move. But my shadow, on the wall, was silently and contrary to common sense, detached from its body and moved slowly. I froze in place, my fingertips hanging half an inch above the cold lighter. He held his breath, and the only thing left in his ears was his amplified heartbeat, thump, thump, thump, hitting his ribs. The severe pain in my knees was still reminding me of it, but something colder was creeping up my spine. The shadow on the wall, my shadow, is still moving. The flames were shining diagonally upward from the lower left, and my shadow should have been elongated and cast on the gelatinous rock wall on the right, with a clear outline. But now, the shadow's head - where the outline of my head should have been - was tilting to one side extremely slowly, and its neck was pulled into a weird angle, as if someone was gently twisting a doll's head with invisible hands. As for the shadow's arm, it was originally stretched forward because of my gesture of reaching for the lighter. At this moment, the shadow of the arm is shrinking back, bit by bit, shrinking towards the shadow's torso, as if to embrace itself. But I didn't move at all. I could even feel my muscles that were tense with fear shaking slightly, but my posture didn't move at all. The shadow betrays the body. Cold sweat instantly soaked the lining of his back. I forced myself to turn my eyes and look at the light source. The lighter lay on the ground, the flame burning steadily without any shaking. The angle of the light has not changed. It's the shadow that moves on its own. No, wait. It's not just the shape that's changing. I stared at the shadow. Under the firelight, the shadow was thickly black, but at this moment, at the edge of the black outline, especially the "head" and "shoulders", there seemed to be a little... Other color seeping out. It's not black, it's a darker, dirty dark red. The dark red smudged slightly at the edge of the shadow outline, as if ink had spread on wet paper. Immediately afterwards, a hole slowly "opened" in the blurry darkness on the shadow's "face". There is no sound. But the crack was extending and twisting, eventually forming an upward curve that was extremely exaggerated. A smile. My shadow, on the wall, smiled a huge, silent, dark smile at me. My stomach tightened suddenly, my throat was dry, but I could only make a little breathy sound. Can't watch. There seems to be similar vague fragments in Hou Xian's memory fragments - things in the dark can imitate, cling to, and draw shapes from your fear. You can't give it shape, you can't confirm it. I closed my eyes sharply. The darkness is purer. But the moment the eyelids are closed, other senses are amplified. The pain in the knees, the damp, cold and musty smell in the passage, the unpleasant slippery feeling of mucus under the feet, and... A very slight, wet friction sound. Hiss... Hiss... Not far behind me, in the direction of the rock wall covered with gelatin and sealed with corpses. It was as if something heavy and wet was slowly sliding across the semi-solidified gel surface. Rather than the sound of an animal crawling, the sound is more sticky and dragging, with a sour, slowly peeling texture. The sound is moving. From my right rear, around the arc, to my left, that is, the wall in the direction where the lighter rolled down, and slowly moved over. Carefully, slowly, but surely, it moved closer to the light source. Is it afraid of light? Or are you attracted to light? Eyes still closed. My mind was racing. Don't throw away the lighter. This could be the only source of light, something is approaching the lighter, what does it want to do? Or... The friction sound stopped. Stopped next to the lighter. Very close, almost between my outstretched hand and the lighter. The silence came back, heavier than before. I could even hear the pulse of the blood vessels in my temples. Seconds, or minutes - the sense of time is completely confused. "Click." There was a very light sound, the sound of a hard object hitting something. It was my lighter. It was touched by something, and there was a sound of the metal shell moving half an inch on the ground. Can't wait any longer. I opened my eyes suddenly and jumped forward desperately, grabbing the lighter on the ground with my left hand. The severe pain in my right leg exploded under this attack. I groaned and almost fell to the ground, but my fingers finally grasped the cold metal body. The moment I held it, I immediately used my thumb to push the flame adjustment valve to the maximum. "Whew!" The flames suddenly shot up, from a bean-sized ball to an orange-yellow flame nearly half a foot long. It suddenly illuminated a small area around it, dispersing the thick darkness and stinging my eyes that had adapted to the dim light. I gasped, and with the sudden bright light of the fire, I quickly looked towards the place where the sound had just sounded - there was only a slippery reflection on the ground, and a shallow scratch left by the movement of the lighter. Nothing. No foreign matter, no traces. But I was holding the lighter, and there was a cold wetness on the back of my hand. Not slime on the ground. The humidity was colder, with an indescribable smell, like a mixture of decaying plants and some minerals in an old tomb. I slowly raised the back of my hand and brought it to my eyes. Under the firelight, the skin on the back of the hand was stained with a few very fine, dark yellow threads. Like some kind of mycelium, or like melted and semi-solidified colloid, it is tightly adhered to the skin and slightly reflective. I used my fingers to twist it. The thing was extremely slippery and tough, and I couldn't twist it off at once. I felt a chill in my heart and immediately rubbed my trouser legs hard until my skin turned red and the smooth and cold feeling disappeared. Raising my head, I raised the lighter, the flame swaying with my movement. The light shines on the wall where the shadow was causing trouble just now. On the wall, there was only my normal shadow that was stretched and swayed due to the change in posture. The weird, smiling silhouette disappeared. On the rock wall, the dark yellow gelatinous covering is still there, pulsing slowly, and the twisted human figures sealed inside appear more shadowy under the dancing firelight, but they are still and silent. It seemed as if everything just now, the strange movement of shadows and the sound of friction, were all hallucinations caused by pain and darkness. But the cold feeling on the back of my hand and the subtle, very light dark yellow stain on my trouser legs after wiping them all reminded me that it was not an illusion. There's something here. It's hidden in the gaps between light and shadow, behind those gelatinous coverings, or even deeper. It is watching and waiting. Hou Xian didn't finish carving his name. Did he also encounter this thing? Did he notice the shadow moving while he was carving? I leaned on the ground, dragged my almost unconscious right leg, and stood up with difficulty. There was a sharp pain like a bone dislocation in my knee, which made my eyes go black. I leaned on the relatively clean side of the rock wall, panting, and glanced at the deep passage ahead and the disgusting "amber" walls on both sides. The fire burned quietly, illuminating a radius of about ten paces. Ten steps away, the darkness was so thick that it seemed to have a substantial weight. Can't go back. There is only a hopelessly long path filled with symbols, and possibly more unknown dangers. You can only move forward. Along this road paved with dead people, follow the direction of Hou Xian's unfinished surname and walk towards this passage. I took a deep breath, and the smell of rotten air and clammy air rushed into my lungs, bringing with it a stinging wakefulness. Gripping the lighter, turning the flame slightly lower to save fuel, I stepped forward. The left leg went first, dragging the right leg which was completely powerless and could only barely touch the ground, and moved deeper into the darkness step by step. This time, I tried to walk in the center of the passage, away from the sticky, slow-breathing gelatinous walls on both sides. The corner of my eye did not dare to relax at all, and I was wary of any unnatural reflection on the ground, any slight movement on the wall, especially my own shadow. The shadow was cast directly in front of me by the firelight. It moved with my movement and had a normal shape. But I always felt that on the edge of the swaying light and shadow, outside the range barely illuminated by the fire, there was something following quietly and at a rhythm that was completely synchronized with mine.
1.👀In the beginning, the protagonist travels to a world where humans and monsters coexist🌸. But it turned out that it was a half-succubus🍒In order to survive, it can only extend its sinful little hands like those monsters [Thinking] 2.👀You ask? Who is the protagonist [what] The protagonist is... The planter of the world hundreds of billions of years ago 🍒, the creator of the ten world gods, and even the controller of destruction and death 💋 Such a powerful identity, as well as full-level special effects, lead to the ultimate succubus. What will happen? [Think]
Story synopsis: The protagonist Jiang Ling'er unexpectedly meets Si Yehan from the soul-transporting world of Douluo, but she has been destined to be a child since she was a child. Her partner is Ling Feiyu, the prince of the Dongling Empire. What kind of sparks will there be in the future... Character characteristics: Alluring, foodie, delicate, Recommended star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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