74: Chapter 74: The Uncanny Under the Bridge 74: Chapter 74: The Uncanny Under the Bridge It was 3 p.m.
Zhang Xiaoman was standing by a small river, staring at the scene enveloped in thick mist before him, frowning in thought.
“Something’s not right…
this is very strange…”
He muttered to himself.
The scene in front of him was bizarre, with grey, murky mist shrouding the area ahead while the surrounding regions remained clear.
When it came to mist, it surely couldn’t be that only a small area ahead was affected.
“It seems that there might really be something strange here.”
Zhang Xiaoman became extremely alert and slowly advanced along the river.
However, rather than calling it a river, it was more like a small drainage ditch.
It was only about three meters wide and half a meter deep, with the muddy bottom clearly visible at a glance.
This place was located south of Southern City, in a village, one of the three locations Li Xiang had told him about yesterday where bizarre events were reported.
The local villagers had mentioned online that this place was shrouded in mysterious mist, and under a small bridge, they could often hear ghastly and horrifying howls.
Zhang Xiaoman was initially just trying his luck, letting others help him gather information.
But what surprised him was that his first exploration site seemed promising.
He looked around and saw no one else.
Zhang Xiaoman activated the Sand Soldier Appearance Skill, summoning two fully armed Sand Soldiers from the soil.
He then adjusted his hood and mask before stepping into the thick fog.
As soon as he entered, Zhang Xiaoman immediately smelled a strong stench, like a rotting marsh filled with corpses, almost making him retch.
This stench had been faint and barely detectable outside the mist, but he hadn’t expected it to be so nauseating upon entering.
Zhang Xiaoman couldn’t help but frown deeply, thinking to himself that no matter what kind of monster it was, just for daring to emit such a foul “fart”, he would beat it mercilessly.
He reached into his pocket, took out his thermal imager, turned it on, and looked through the viewer.
However, what surprised him was that all he saw were snowflakes; the device seemed to have malfunctioned.
It was working just fine before I came.”
Zhang Xiaoman was perplexed, inspecting the thermal imager and restarting it several times, but nothing changed.
He then took out his cellphone to check it, and Zhang Xiaoman was shocked to find that it too had no image.
After thinking for a moment, a somewhat astonishing speculation suddenly emerged in his mind.
the mist causing this!?”
Having thought this, Zhang Xiaoman took a few steps back to leave the range of the mist.
When he looked at his phone screen again, he saw that the image that had previously disappeared had now reappeared, and the thermal imager had also returned to normal.
“This mist can even interfere with the operation of electronic devices!”
Zhang Xiaoman was genuinely surprised now.
If one were to ask what weapon humanity could wield against these bizarre entities, it would undoubtedly be the power brought by high technology.
But if even these could not be used, it was hard to imagine what kind of fate humanity would face when encountering monsters in the future.
This thought made Zhang Xiaoman shiver without feeling cold.
However, he knew now was not the time to explore this issue, so he hesitated no longer and re-entered the mist.
Without the aid of detecting equipment, Zhang Xiaoman’s field of view became very small.
Considering the possibility of a surprise attack, he had to slow down his pace, cautiously exploring forward along the small ditch.
Ordering one Sand Soldier to clear the path ahead and keeping another by his side for protection, Zhang Xiaoman’s muscles were tensed, not daring to relax even in the slightest.
After walking about five hundred meters in this manner, he finally saw an old, slightly dilapidated bridge, which must be the “bridge from which terrifying screams were reported” mentioned in the intelligence.
The bridge was tiny, spanning the small ditch with a little arch underneath, just big enough to allow two or three people to pass through at the same time.
Zhang Xiaoman commanded a Sand Soldier to ascend to the head of the bridge and then carefully looked around but encountered no attacks, nor did he hear the so-called terrifying screams.
He first frowned in thought, then shifted his gaze to beneath the bridge.
“Perhaps the oddity lies there?”
Leaning over to look in that direction, he couldn’t see anything amiss and had no choice but to go down with the Sand Soldier for a closer look.
The edge of the ditch featured a descending slope; carefully, Zhang Xiaoman followed the slope down to the roadside, arriving near the bridge’s arch.
As he got closer, he felt as though he could hear something.
It sounded like someone crying or perhaps the noise of wind leaking through a window.
Suddenly, he remembered the story Master Liu had once told him, the description of which matched exactly the scenario he was now facing.
As his thoughts raced, Zhang Xiaoman had already approached the underside of the bridge.
As he drew near, the sound became clearer and, by the time he reached under the arch, he could see the inside.
There, on the wall of the bridge’s arch, were streaks of dark red lines, resembling terrible blood vessels.
In the middle of these lines, a flesh ball resembling a heart throbbed continuously, with a small, round mouth on it, out of which mists were spewing forth.
Zhang Xiaoman’s eyes lit up.
However, just then, the eerie heart suddenly contracted, its surface muscles writhing, and suddenly it completely changed its appearance.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a face exactly like his own.
Then, the mouth on the face opened wide, and immediately let out a terrifying wail, the sound shrill and piercing, making it quite unbearable to listen to.
However, although Zhang Xiaoman found the sound unpleasant, it didn’t cause him any other discomfort.
Perhaps the scream of this thing was merely nauseating.
Of course, it might also be that his now 3-point spiritual power resisted the other’s Spiritual Attack.
All in all, this eerie heart didn’t seem to have anything particularly terrifying about it.
Zhang Xiaoman didn’t think further and immediately ordered a Sand Soldier to cautiously move forward, intending to end this annoying thing with one shot.
However, just at that moment, a splash erupted suddenly from the ditch nearby, and within the mud, a figure was rapidly rushing towards him.
Startled by the noise, Zhang Xiaoman instantly turned his head to look.
The next moment, amidst the splashing water, an ugly monster suddenly leaped out of the water, its mouth full of sharp teeth expanding within his field of view.
PS: The will come after 12 o’clock.