At the moment when the old knife issued a warning, I also felt something approaching behind me, and I suddenly felt an alarm!

I immediately bowed my head and bent over, rolling forward, and the bright flashlight in my hand shone on the position I was in just now!

"Oops!"

But I saw a girl in a sweatshirt appear in front of me, holding a wind lamp in one hand, and blocking the strong light of the flashlight in front of her eyes with the other hand, and she was tilting her head and shouting: "Take it away, it's stinging my eyes!" ”

The visitor was dressed in a sky-blue tracksuit, white sneakers, and a double ponytail on his head - who else could it be, not Haruko?

I breathed a sigh of relief and turned off the flashlight, but after thinking about it, I became suspicious: "Haruko, you don't sleep in the middle of the night, what are you doing with us?" ”

"Tell me more! Didn't I tell you not to go out at night? Let's not talk about this - what's wrong with Brother Liu? Let me see! ”

Liu Haijun, who was on the side, had already begun to talk nonsense in his mouth, and his voice was getting lower and lower......

Chunzi took the lamp and shone it on Liu Haijun's face, and "Oh Oooo" retreated several steps in a row, and his little face turned pale.

She looked around, her voice trembling a little, "Did you meet ...... 'Night Shadow?!'" ”

I chuckled in my heart, thinking that it was indeed the case - this Haruko is not simple!

She knows some truths!

The old knife stood up even more suddenly, and suddenly pulled out the gun from his waist, and aimed the muzzle of the gun at Haruko: "Those humanoid monsters full of black fog were originally called Night Shadows?" And what kind of monster are you?! ”

Being pointed at gunpoint, Haruko took a step back and froze in place: "Old, old knife brother, I, I'm not the night shadow, I'm a living person......"

I also looked at Haruko coldly: "The human heart is sometimes more terrifying than ghosts!" Haruko, let me ask you, is there a black mole on the left corner of your mother's mouth? ”

"yes, but how do you know—" Haruko came to her senses in the middle of speaking, cold sweat streaming down her forehead, and her face turned even bluer.

Seeing Haruko's reaction, I knew I had guessed right.

"Old knife, put the gun down first." I asked Lao Dao to put down the gun, and then said to Haruko, "I'll talk about your mother later-how to treat Liu Haijun's injury, do you know?" ”

Haruko glanced at us slowly, and finally gritted her teeth: "Carry people back to my house, be quick!" ”

……

With Haruko leading the way, we went back more than twice as fast as we did when we came out.

Along the way, Cheng Cheng carried Liu Haijun, who had already entered a coma, without saying a word, and Lao Dao and I wanted to replace him halfway for a while, but we were also refused.

Knowing that Cheng Cheng felt uncomfortable, Lao Dao and I gave up.

When we arrived at the guest house, as soon as we entered the door, Haruko instructed us to empty the contents of the door panel erected by benches in the center of the supermarket, and then put Liu Haijun flat on the door panel.

At the moment when the old knife and I threw all the vegetables and sundries on the door panel to the ground, Haruko had already turned around and carefully tied the door, and pressed against the doorpost, and after doing all this, telling us not to mess with the wounds of the wounded, the heat ran into the kitchen.

I can see it now, Haruko didn't lie to us.

When it gets dark, the town is very dangerous, and she's keeping the doors and windows closed so tightly to guard against the Nightshade, or more monsters we haven't seen yet.

So...... What kind of place is this Blackwater Town?

It didn't take long for Haruko to bring out a dark brown stoneware pot from the kitchen.

The stoneware pot contains a paste-like substance, grayish-white in color, slightly steaming, and a large soup spoon is inserted into the paste.

"What is this?" Cheng Cheng asked.

"Some herbal ash, mostly glutinous rice flour."

Cheng Cheng frowned, revealing an incredulous expression: "Could it be...... You want to use these things to apply to Liu Haijun's wounds?! ”

Along the way, Haruko has regained her composure, and now she probably remembered what happened before when she was pointed at a gun by the old knife, and her words began to be a little angry: "If you don't want Brother Liu to die immediately, give it to me immediately!" Get out of the way! ”

Cheng Cheng looked at me with his eyes, and I nodded: "Team Cheng, believe her." ”

Cheng Cheng got out of the way.

Chunzi directly scooped up a large spoonful of gray-white paste with a soup spoon, and poured it into the two terrifying blood holes on Liu Haijun's face!

It is also strange to say that when this mixture of glutinous rice flour and unknown herbal ash came into contact with the rotten flesh in Liu Haijun's wound, it actually made a "zizi" explosion, and then, a trace of black gas rose from the wound of Liu Haijun's eyes and dissipated into the air.

I watched from the sidelines and couldn't help but be surprised: "I have heard that glutinous rice can remove corpse poison, but I have never seen anyone use it, so I didn't expect it to be true." ”

Haruko snorted, "It's so fresh, it's the first time I've heard of it." ”

"Isn't it?"

"My medicine is that bit of herbal ash, and as for the glutinous rice flour - its practical other starches are also fine, but I only found this bit of glutinous rice flour in the kitchen, so I used it."

Ignoring my embarrassed face, Haruko filled the bloody holes in Liu Haijun's eyes with a paste plaster, took the stoneware pot in his hand, turned around and went back to the kitchen, and when he came back, he held a thin hemp gray coat in his hand.

"I don't have bandages at home, this dress is cotton and linen, and it has been boiled and sterilized with boiling water, so hurry up and wrap it for Brother Liu." Haruko handed the linen coat in his hand to Cheng Cheng, turned around and carried a wooden stool, sat down, and stared at us with dark eyes, "Okay, I'm done, now are you going to interrogate me?" Let's start early. ”

Cheng Cheng was helping Liu Haijun bandage - after Liu Haijun was drugged, his breathing seemed to be much smoother, and the unconscious painful expression on his face was also reduced, and it seemed that there should be no danger to his life.

And Lao Dao and I glanced at each other, Haruko is so cooperative now, we both don't know how to speak.

In a hurry just now, although the old knife pulled out a gun at Haruko, it was an impulse, and after calming down, naturally there would be no more such behavior, not to mention that we all saw with our own eyes just now that Chunzi saved Liu Haijun's life.

The old knife gave me a look and motioned for me to speak.

But Haruko preemptively said, "That...... If you don't ask, I'll just say it myself. I told you not to go out when it gets dark because there have been a lot of monsters in our town lately...... Like the monster you encountered just now, it is one of them, that is, the 'Night Shadow' in Qiao Zhenbang-"

"Wait a minute!" I suddenly interrupted Haruko's words, "What did you just say?" ”

"There's a monster ...... in town"

"The last sentence!"

"The monster you encounter is called Nightshade."

"Yes, Nightshade! You say this is the monster in Qiao Zhenbang? Which one? ”

Haruko was surprised: "Don't you even know? I thought you all knew! Don't you need to investigate the suspect's information first? ”

Haruko's question was hard to answer, and we were a little speechless for a moment.

It is true that thoroughly investigating all the information of the suspect during the investigation is a necessary lesson for any police officer and detective, but this time our action is very special and accidental.

First of all, the confirmation of the suspect Qiao Zhenbang can be regarded as an emergency - and after that, the "emergency" has been following our entire pursuit operation: Qiao Zhenbang's sudden escape, Cheng Cheng's resolute order to pursue him, the strange events encountered along the way, and the severance of communication with the outside world have finally caused the situation we are facing now.

Cheng Cheng still had a gloomy face, and asked Haruko: "Since you all know, why didn't you tell us earlier?" Say! What else are you hiding from us! Otherwise, I can arrest you right now on charges of obstructing official business and harboring criminals!" ”

"Catch me? Hehe. Haruko suddenly had a self-deprecating smile on her face, even almost a miserable laugh, "Okay, you can arrest me." Anyway, the 'eternal night' is about to fall, and none of the people in our town can escape...... Of course, you can't run either. ”

Cheng Cheng laughed angrily: "Threatening the police officer? Very good. ”

He reached for the handcuffs with his backhand, and Haruko defiantly stretched out his hands......

Seeing that the scene was out of control, I hurriedly stopped Cheng Cheng: "Team Cheng, don't be impulsive first, I know that Liu Haijun's matter is very uncomfortable, but this can't solve the problem, right?" ”

The old knife came over and patted Cheng Cheng on the shoulder, Cheng Cheng glared at Chunzi, and angrily carried a stool from the side and sat next to the bed where Li Haijun was lying.

I turned my head and persuaded Chunzi again: "Chunzi, you have also seen it, your Brother Liu has become like this now, how can Team Cheng, as the commander of Brother Liu, not be excited?" You understand. ”

Haruko snorted and turned her head away, looking like she didn't want to pay attention to me.

I've always been sure that Haruko isn't one of those monsters (and Cai Zhiheng and He Jun are the same), but each of them has secrets hidden in them, and they are inextricably linked to those monsters, and they are obviously hindering us from investigating.

However, after seeing the monster with the human head and snake body, I vaguely guessed Haruko's distress.

I approached Haruko, leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Haruko, if you can cooperate with us well, then I can keep your mother's affairs secret for you for the time being." ”

Haruko's body trembled when I said the word "mother", and apparently, she also remembered, I once asked her, "Is there a black mole on the left corner of your mother's mouth", which means that I have seen her mother.

Haruko was silent for a few seconds, and finally nodded: "Okay, I promise you." You wait here for a while, I'll show you something—it's about Qiao Zhenbang......"

Haruko quickly returned from upstairs with a large stack of books in her arms.

When we looked at it, it turned out that all of them were Qiao Zhenbang's books, and there were seven or eight books in total.

Haruko took out a copy of it and handed it to me: "This is one of Qiao Zhenbang's masterpieces, "Night Shadow". ”

"Night Shadow"?

Haruko said that the humanoid monster we met covered in black mist was called "Night Shadow", which originated from Qiao Zhenbang, but when I held this book in my hand, I still had an extreme sense of unreality.

If someone tells you that the plot you read in a certain horror book will become reality, and the monsters in the book will also appear in reality, will you believe it immediately?

Even if I have a bizarre copy of Blacktown on me right now, I still think the premise that "monsters will actually appear in the book" is very weird and unreal.

Qiao Zhenbang is a famous horror, and this "Night Shadow" naturally describes an extremely terrifying story.

Of course, I didn't have time to read the whole book, but I just turned a few pages roughly, and luckily Haruko gave us a synopsis of the book.

The story of "Night Shadow" is also a bit interesting.

Roughly speaking, there was a man who rented a store with a backyard to a couple, but found that the couple behaved very strangely, and he was told that the backyard of the store often made strange noises at night.

The landlord became curious, and took advantage of an opportunity to go to the store with his sister and another friend to secretly install a stealth camera, but they were almost discovered at the last moment, and they got separated while escaping.

When he got home, he received an incomparably horrific image from the stealth camera - the couple was actually a pair of ogres, and the strange sounds that often came from the room, which were the muffled screams of living people with their limbs tied up and towels stuffed in their mouths, as they were dismembered alive!

After eating, they will use aqua regia to dissolve the remaining stumps and broken bones.

And, he saw...... The person who was eaten this time turned out to be his friend!

The landlord quickly called the police, but when the police went to check the scene, they did not find that the couple was just killing pigs in the backyard, the blood on the ground and the meat in the refrigerator were all pigs, and his friend also reappeared alive.

When his friends came to visit him, he avoided him in terror, and his friends had to shout outside the door to be careful, to leave immediately, and that he could not have listened to a "dead man."

Everyone thinks that the landlord is sick with a heart, but only his sister believes him and tells him that everyone has fled and she has seen his friend taken away by the couple.

Next, his sister told a story about a ghost: a legend has it that a person who is eaten by a tiger will turn into a ghost, and if the ghost wants to be reincarnated, he must lure the next person to eat the tiger. The terrible thing is that in order to be reincarnated, the ghost will not hesitate to lure his parents and brothers to the tiger to eat, and even if the person who is seduced knows that the other party has become a ghost, he is likely to be eaten by the tiger voluntarily because it is difficult to give up the family affection of flesh and blood!

My sister said that his friend is now a ghost!

At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and it was his friend shouting his name outside.

His sister tried her best to prevent him from opening the door, and kept telling him the story of the ghost, but he still couldn't let go of the friendship and opened the door—

As soon as the door opened, his friend took his hand and ran, but he said that his sister was still in the room......

But when he turned around, he saw that the house was not his home at all, but in the storefront!

His sister has been transformed into a humanoid monster shrouded in black mist!

Only then did he wake up suddenly—it turned out that the person who was dismembered and eaten by the camera was not his friend, but her sister!

His sister has turned into a monster that resembles a ghost, "Nightshade"!

When Nightshade sees its prey escaping, it spits out a mouthful of black mist, and when it touches the human body, it will quickly corrode away the flesh and blood, and finally corrode a large hole deep into the bones!

The two ran outside and found that the entire street, including the policemen, had been eaten by the couple and turned into a night shadow!

At the end of the story, the two protagonists are surrounded by the night shadows, and in the midst of extreme despair, they let out a final scream......

……

……

The story of "Night Shadow" brings pure black despair, this story is a bit like the "Cthulhu Mythos" created by the American Howard Philip Lovecraft, gloomy and desperate, the monsters that appear in it are often both unexplainable and powerful enough to have no way to resist, the only way is to suppress their curiosity, once they find strange clues, don't explore!

The ancient gods of the Cthulhu Mythos are the root of all evil, magic, and mysteries, and cannot be explored.

They come from other planets and bring life to Earth - but they are by no means kind, they make life only to enslave! - They are as powerful as gods, and thus they are the origin of all the myths on earth. Humanity simply has no power to fight against it, and once they wake up, humanity will only perish!

Even those who try to probe their secrets, or who come into contact with them, will be consumed by boundless fear upon a glance, and then completely insane or die.

The Cthulhu Mythos is undoubtedly crazy, terrifying, and evil.

And the story in "Night Shadow" also has similar qualities.

The couple who are the villains, as well as the monster "Night Shadow", are extremely powerful, and the protagonist can't fight against them at all......

And, until the end of the book, there is still no explanation, why there is that terrible couple?

Why did the person who was eaten by the couple become a ghostly "night shadow"?

All this, there is no explanation.

- Some people may think that no explanation is the best explanation, but I obviously will not be satisfied with that.

Because...... This is the key to our lives!

I was keenly aware of this, handed the "Night Shadow" in my hand to Cheng Cheng, and asked Chunzi: "Have you seen all of Qiao Zhenyu's?" Is all his story of horror and despair? ”

"That's right. All of his and the final ending is the death of the protagonist's side, and the monsters that appear in the book are unsolvable. Haruko's face turned a little pale, and her eyes trembled a little when she looked at me, "So, you know now, right?" We...... There is no escape. ”