Chapter 21 Return Journey
Xu Xiangyang lowered his eyes and saw the girl's hand tightly gripping his arm, the pale skin beneath it stretched tight over distinctly visible blue veins due to the excessive force.
Wh-what's the matter?
"Don't look... above..."
Lin Xingjie repeated the words she had just said. Her voice was shaking slightly, disjointed, and seemed extremely forced. The girl's palm nearly left marks on his arm, causing Xu Xiangyang to furrow his brow in pain.
This surprised him, because it was the first time Xu Xiangyang had witnessed such a fragile side of the girl.
His neck was like a machine caked with rusty gears, hardly able to move. Goosebumps covered his skin, but driven by concern, he still tried hard to turn his stiff head to look back, wanting to see Lin Xingjie's current condition.
The girl with black hair had her head bowed, her hair limply falling down, obscuring her face, her slender body trembling, shivering as if enduring some heavy burden or immense pain.
"Don't look... above!"
Even so, she was still trying to remind herself.
"..."
Xu Xiangyang pursed his lips tightly.
The rustling sound, still not disappearing, had now taken residence on the ceiling, grown louder, and moved closer. It was whirling in his ears as if ten thousand tiny bugs were crawling over his head, possibly ready to drop down at any moment...
—Can no one hear it?!
Xu Xiangyang gazed at the bustling crowd ahead, their backs and the napes of their necks, the clamorous voices. He wanted to cry out for help but felt as if someone had covered his mouth with a hand, with only the sound of air passing "hehe" coming from his throat, unable to utter a single word...
No one noticed.
No one paid any attention.
People passing in front of them, behind them, by their side, all walked past as if nothing had happened.
At this very moment, Xu Xiangyang and Lin Xingjie seemed to be isolated in a distorted space overlapping with the real world, locked together with that "something" above their heads...
"...I can't hold on! Wh-why?!"
Xu Xiangyang heard the girl standing behind him let out a muffled groan, the strength in her hand relaxing suddenly, and her body lost its balance and leaned against him.
He hastily turned around, supporting Lin Xingjie's body with his hands, resulting in both of them crouching down together.
Though not exactly an embrace in the strictest sense, this was indeed the most intimate physical contact the boy and girl had ever shared. But naturally, Xu Xiangyang was in no mood to care about this. He wrapped one arm around Lin Xingjie's slender waist, while with the other hand he brushed aside the fringe on her forehead, revealing a face as weak as if she had just recovered from a serious illness.
"Are you, are you okay?"
"I'm fine... It's just... I'm a bit tired..."
The girl half-lying in Xu Xiangyang's arms was gasping for air and gave him a very forced smile. Her complexion was pale, her forehead covered with beads of sweat, and her hair damp as if she had just finished an intense workout.
In just over a dozen seconds, Lin Xingjie seemed to have exhausted all her strength, leaning limply against him.
The problem is... it's out of control... how can this happen...
She lowered her eyelids with great concern.
—And almost at the same moment, an astonishing disturbance came again from right above their heads.
This time, it was not the irritating noise formed by the weak echoes of massive insects moving, but something even more astonishing...
"Breathing" sound.
Xu Xiangyang couldn't help but imagine a scene of "a huge mouth opening and closing above his head," with a column of wind composed of fierce winds, sweeping everything around into the gaping maw and the dark deepness of its cavity under the effect of suction.
What exactly was above their heads? A giant? Or a monster?
What followed was a spine-chilling sound of chewing, the surface of soft limbs being squeezed, being cut, followed by the echo of liquid splashing, like the wail of a woman crying in misery, all mixed together... Even some kind of liquid splattered out from above their heads, dripping down onto the skin of the neck, and slowly sliding into the lining of the clothes...
Xu Xiangyang could no longer endure it. While trying to pull Lin Xingjie away with one hand, he suddenly looked up.
No matter what it was, he had to see it clearly! Even if there was a horror beyond imagination, a monstrous creature looming above, he had to muster the courage to face it, not just sit there waiting to be devoured!
...
Below the dark overpass, there seemed to be a problem with the refraction of light: shimmering ripples spread through the space, and everywhere one looked showed signs of distortion. For Xu Xiangyang, this was a scene he had just witnessed yesterday, a very familiar sight—
A vague and massive shadow, like a tide, slithered greasily across the ceiling; a distorted figure on the edge of the huge shadow's "mouth" was desperately struggling, writhing its body. Although it was a shadow with no clear features, it vividly displayed an exuberant vitality, reminiscent of a bug crushed under a shoe, still convulsing and twisting in its juices.
However, such struggle was doomed to be in vain. The wriggling shadow that emerged from the body of the yellow-haired thug was sucked into the massive vortex of light and shadow, completely vanishing from sight.
"This...!"
Xu Xiangyang was not the first to have seen this elusive, illusory shadow, and he could only imagine a "creature" of enormous proportions. On the contrary, he was starting to get accustomed to Xiao An's existence. But this was the first time it revealed its true nature in front of him—