Chapter 106
Chapter 106
“Heh…”
The man laughed, his voice airy and tinged with a strange, sated satisfaction.
It was him. The Madman leading the group that had been tracking and hunting Wen Lianfeng and the others all this time.
In a flash, Qingshui’s gun was raised. Her body reacted faster than her mind.
She pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet tore from the barrel.
But at that exact moment, the enormous pipe began to shake violently.
Rumble-!!!
Rumble-!!!
The pipe beneath their feet convulsed as wave after wave of bone-rending tremors erupted through it, throwing everyone off balance!
Qingshui’s shot went wide. The bullet grazed the top of the man’s head, drawing a thin spray of blood!
“Run-!!!”
Before the scream had even faded, an even more terrifying sound came crashing toward them.
Water.
They had been listening to it for hours-that dull, ceaseless roar. But now, the sound had changed.
It was drawing closer, rising from a low moan into the thunder of an army bearing down on them.
Rrrrrrumble-!!!
The next second, the flood burst into the passage, roaring as it crashed toward everyone inside!
In the blink of an eye, everyone vanished beneath the water. The Madman disappeared into the sewage as well.
Qingshui only had time to see the mutilated body of the buzz-cut woman at the front swept up by the first wave. Light as a fallen leaf, it struck the ceiling of the pipe before swiftly disappearing into the churning murk.
Then the second. The third.
The woman among the survivors who had lost an ear had only just opened her mouth when floodwater poured down her throat, silencing her before she could make a sound.
The force of the impact sent Wu Wujie’s massive frame staggering. His pointed shovel flew from his grip and vanished beneath the turbid water in an instant.
Chu Jingchu clung desperately to a section of bracing on the pipe wall, her knuckles white, half her body already swallowed by the raging current.
Song Yunqing…
A towering wall of water swallowed Qingshui’s vision.
The world spun.
Up, down, left, and right lost all meaning in the muddy water. Foul, reeking runoff flooded her nose and mouth, wrenching a soundless rasp from her throat.
Her fingers clawed frantically at the water, but found nothing to hold on to. The current tossed her around like a rag doll, slamming her shoulder, ribs, and knees into the bends of the pipe again and again.
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle-
Water filled her ears. Every sound became a distant, distorted echo.
The Madman’s crazed laughter. Human screams. The deafening roar of sewage swallowing everything. And the heart hammering wildly in her chest as it fought for oxygen-
She struggled desperately to force her head above the surface, her vision blurred. Garbage, splintered wood, and black clots of blood floated on the churning brown water.
Qingshui coughed violently, spewing mouthful after mouthful of filthy water as she desperately sucked in air-
Then she saw it.
Less than ten feet ahead of her, beneath the roiling surface, a survivor was being held down by three pairs of deathly pale hands. His face broke the surface one last time, his mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream as bubbles streamed upward.
Then he was dragged under.
A dark red cloud billowed through the water, only to be diluted and swept away by the flood.
“Hee hee hee hee! You’re drowning! You’re drowning!”
The Madmen’s hysterical laughter came from every direction. They darted through the water with twisted bodies and unnatural speed, like humanoid frogs.
They seized anyone still struggling to stay alive. Some tore into their victims with their teeth, while others simply held them down, forcing them beneath the surface until the bubbles stopped rising. Then they would laugh and move on to the next one.
Qingshui fought to steady herself in the whirlpool. Raising her gun, she pulled the trigger at a deathly pale, grinning face closing in on her.
The bullet punched straight through its forehead. The grin froze, and the Madman sank beneath the water.
But the recoil knocked her off balance, slamming her back hard against the pipe wall.
Agony tore through her.
She could barely keep hold of the gun.
Another surge ripped her away from the wall.
She tumbled through the water, limbs flailing, unable to tell up from down or gauge how deep she was. Just as the flood was about to swallow her whole again, her fingers hooked around something.
Cold metal.
A bracket bolted to the pipe wall.
Summoning every last ounce of strength, Qingshui clung desperately to the iron bracket jutting from the wall and hauled her entire upper body out of the water!
Gasp! Gasp!
Stars burst across her vision with every breath. The flood roared beneath her arms and around her waist, its force nearly tearing her from the bracket.
Amid the chaos, a familiar figure appeared in the rushing water below.
Quan Lin.
The flood was tossing him in violent circles. His face vanished and reappeared between the waves, his lips pressed tight, his eyes squeezed shut, and his brow twisted in pain.
There was no time to think.
Qingshui fixed her gaze on the rhythm of the flood. The waves rose and fell, each impact coming roughly two seconds apart. Calculating frantically, she waited until the water reached its highest point, then thrust out her hand!
Her fingertips almost brushed his cheek.
Then she saw it clearly.
That wasn’t Quan Lin.
It was only his severed head.
The rest of his body was nowhere to be seen. The ragged stump of his neck looked as though it had been torn apart by brute force, scraps of flesh drifting in the water.
At the same moment, a pair of bloodred eyes emerged.
The man was pressed against the opposite pipe wall, clinging to another rust-covered bracket. The flood forced its body to lean back slightly, yet it remained as steady as a demon.
It raised the gun in its hand, the gun that had belonged to Quan Lin.
Water dripped from the barrel as it aimed directly at Qingshui, still clinging to her bracket.
The current battered its face, throwing up sprays of murky water, but there was no trace of panic in its eyes. There was only an almost reverent cruelty.
It smiled. Its grin stretched wider and wider, and then its finger squeezed the trigger.
In that instant, Qingshui didn’t even have time to think. Her body moved faster than her mind.
She had already released the bracket.
Without hesitation, without struggling, she let the tremendous force of the flood wrench her beneath the surface!
Bang!
The bullet tore through the spot where she had been a fraction of a second earlier.
The wave smashed Qingshui underwater. Freezing cold. Suffocation. The world spinning around her. Her ears rang until all she could hear was the thunder of water surging past.
The current caught her and dragged her downward.