Editor: Kitty
The murderer, Two-headed snake, seemed to turn a blind eye to Crow and the others’ intrusion. He lowered his head to check whether the poor man was dead, and thereafter found that the poor victim was still slightly breathing but was likely on his last breath.
But Two-headed snake did not feel any pity towards him at all. He raised his baseball bat again, and it seemed that he was going to hit him again now to kill him! Seeing this, Crow and the others sucked in their breaths. Crow hesitated as he thought whether he should head forward to stop this or ignore it. On the contrary, it was Wolf who took the lead. He reached out and threw the ragged broomstick he had been holding in his hand at Two-headed snake.
Two-headed snake finally responded, stepping aside to avoid Wolf’s attack. Finally, he realized that there were several more people in the carriage and raised his head to look at Crow and the others.
Two-headed snake was a handsome man of imposing presence. His features were elegant with distinct eyebrows, his figure tall and thin, and his arms strong. There were some bloodstains on his face. It was not known whether it was his or the victim’s. He carried a blue and white baseball bat, and that bat was also stained with a lot of blood.
Although he could be regarded as a good-looking man, the look in Two-headed snake’s eyes was too cold. If one needed to find a befitting description of him, the name ‘Two-headed snake’ was extremely appropriate for him. His eyes were as cold as a snake’s eyes.
However, this snake did not seem to have any interest in Crow and the others. He merely took a glimpse at them and returned to squat near the victim.
The victim lying on the ground by his feet was not dead, and his chest was still slightly rising and falling. However, Two-headed snake did seem to be satisfied. He seemed determined to put the poor victim to death. Although he avoided Wolf’s attack, in the next second, he once again stepped on the victim’s back.
The victim trembled, and Crow even clearly saw that the poor dying guy was stretching out his arm weakly to crawl forward. Crow immediately understood the victim’s intentions. He knew that the man wanted to escape and live.
Crow had always felt that he was not the kind of person with much sympathy, and in this bad enclosed environment, everyone around him may be covetous and cruel. So from the moment Crow woke up on this train, he kept telling himself to disregard whether everything happening was righteous or unjustifiable; he only needed to survive.
But in this instant, Crow could not stand it.
A murder was going to be committed in front of someone. If one did not rise gallantly to the occasion, were they even a man?!
Since Crow was, of course, a man, he went forward. Although his fighting capabilities were not particularly good, his body moved faster than he thought. But what Crow did not expect was that several people nearby actually started to move as well. The fastest one to act was Wolf. Black cat seemed to be irked by the troublesome matter, but he still acted. Owl followed after him.
The several people who cooperated together immediately subdued Two-headed snake. They seized the man in a flurry, threw away his weapon—the bat— casually found some clothes, and rolled them into a rope to tie Two-headed snake up.
After being subdued, Two-headed snake did not struggle too much. He merely looked at the crowd of people with cold eyes, as if he did not know he was being subdued. He said leisurely, “You’d better kill that guy quickly, or the one who will have an unfortunate encounter will be you guys.”
“What do you mean by that?” Crow frowned as he asked.
But Two-headed snake did not answer him. He only squinted his eyes and sneered. Seeing that he could not receive an answer of proper value, Crow turned to look at the victim lying on the ground. The poor victim was lying there weakly while still trembling slightly. Crow did not take a closer look just now because the situation was too dangerous.
Now, once Two-headed snake was tied up, Crow turned his head and looked at the poor victim. No matter how he looked at the victim, he felt that there was something strange about him.
The victim was lying on his stomach all the time, and his face was blocked by his hair, so Crow could not see his face clearly. Although he was wearing the same clothes as Crow, a closer look revealed a small difference in the colour of their clothes. Crow and the others’ clothes were a dark shade of greyish-blue while the victim’s clothes were a shade of dark grey.
The victim’s stature was small, but because of his loose clothes and slightly long hair, Crow couldn’t tell whether he was a man or a woman for a while. Crow’s attention was drawn to hand that the victim revealed—
He had withered arms and tree branch-like fingers, and his skin colour appeared to be a lifeless shade of green.
“This guy looks a little strange.” Owl noticed the difference, so he crouched down carefully beside the victim, took the bat that belonged to Two-headed snake, and poked the poor victim.
“Are you alright?” Owl asked them that.
The victim lay motionless, completely immobile, as if he was dead.
Crow also unconsciously became worried, so he moved a little closer and said to Owl, “Let’s turn him over to have a look?”
Owl nodded in agreement, and just as they were just about to start doing it, something terrible happened.
Suddenly, the victim trembled violently as if he had been electrocuted. These violent convulsions also startled Owl and Crow, who were near the victim. They took a step back inadvertently and raised their guards. Because of the enclosed carriages and unreasonable situation they were forced into, added on to the previous words of Two-headed snake, they all subconsciously thought that what might happen next was definitely not something pleasant.
But also, to their surprise, nothing happened.
After the victim convulsed for a while, he became completely motionless again. Crow and Owl waited for a while before turning the victim over to look at their front. He found that the person was terribly thin—as thin as a matchstick—and it was as if just a layer of skin was hanging on his skeleton. His face was also an unhealthy hue of blue, and because he was so thin, his face also changed shape; only ‘ugly’ was an apt adjective to describe his face.
Other than his startling thinness, the victim did not have any unexpected features. Also, he had died after Crow and others subdued Two-headed snake; because he may have suffered severe beatings before, he failed to survive. He was not breathing now, and at this moment, his eyes would forever remain shut.
But Crow and the others soon found a problem after studying the deceased. His identity seemed to be different from that of Crow and the others. Although their clothes looked quite similar, there were some small differences; for example, his clothes did not have the name card with a temporary code name engraved on it.
“That is to say, this dead fellow is not a member of the group of five involving us.” Although Wolf said that he had thrown away the note left for him by the secret chamber, it was obvious that he had carefully read the note.
“Who is he then?” Owl asked subconsciously. He still had a hand covering his abdomen. The wound was previously inflicted by Wolf, but Crow noticed that Owl did not bleed; his hands and clothes were very clean.
Some doubts arose in his heart due to this, but Crow did not question him. He turned his eyes to his new companion, Two-headed snake, who had been killing the victim in the very start.
“Why did you kill him?” Crow asked.
But Two-headed snake disregarded him.
Crow sighed and felt that several people on the train were not easy to get along with. Needless to say, although Owl had a harmless look on his face, his personality was a bit capricious. As for Black cat, although he was very cooperative, he was too quiet, and from his voice, it sounded as if he hadn’t spoken for decades; let alone Wolf, who always had that ferocious smile plastered on his face. That smile, along with his face, would scare any coward.
Now, they had a new member in their team, Two-headed snake, whose eyes were as ghastly and cold as a snake and who had just killed a person.
Crow suddenly felt that he might be the most normal person in the group.
But it was really ridiculous for him to have this idea.
“Let’s go and see what the hint that was left to us in the carriage says.” So Crow suggested this to Owl, and the two men ran to see the hint left on the connecting door of carriage No.9. Once again, the hint demonstrated the relationship between odd and even numbers and the difficulties of the enclosed carriages. On it, the words inscripted were as follows—
[There’s a monster in carriage No.9]
[It has a deceptively big appetite, and it remains hungry constantly]
[So feed it what it wants]
[So that in this way, he will be able to give you the key]
After reading this paragraph, both Crow and Owl realized that peacefully passing through the carriages would be too difficult to accomplish.
“Is there a monster in this carriage?” Owl asked.
“Actually, this feels easy to solve,” Crow said, “What do you think that a monster who is hungry would look like?”
“Just like the thin, bamboo-like corpse we saw moments ago?” Owl guessed.
When Owl said this, the two of them did not utter out a word. They collectively turned their heads to look at the deceased lying on the ground.
The deceased was as thin as a bamboo pole and looked extremely strange and terrifying. But to say that he was a monster? Crow and Owl had doubts about that. Owl said, “But the deceased… he’s dead. Maybe we can find the key somewhere on his body?”
“We can also ask Two-headed snake… what happened before we got to this carriage. Of course, that is only if he cooperates.”
Crow decided to ask Two-headed snake himself because the communication between Owl and Mr. Wolf was unpleasant. It made Crow realize that Owl may not be suitable for this kind of thing, so Owl went to Mr. Black cat to ask him to investigate carriage No.9 together with him. Although Mr. Black cat did not talk much, he always cooperated.
Mr. Wolf was not gregarious and did not like to be ordered by others, so he swayed towards the corner alone.
T/N: Thank you so much for the Ko-Fi, Kitty ! It’s much appreciated
Thank you, everyone, for reading as well!