On the steep cliff, you can vaguely see the flickering light of fire. The fire on the opposite side has become much smaller, and there is an unpleasant burning smell surrounding it. When you smell it in your nose, you feel like your throat is being blocked.
After climbing up, Chen Tao discovered that this place was halfway up a cliff. Somehow, there was such a small piece of flat land. He took a flashlight to look up and down, and found that there were similar stone platforms like this every few meters on the cliff, both up and down. There is no end in sight, which reminds Chen Tao of many terraced fields in mountainous areas.
A small bonfire was lit in the center of the stone platform, using vine branches. The burning smell was very unpleasant. The atmosphere around them was very heavy, and no one wanted to say a word.
Chen Tao leaned under a boulder and stared blankly at the fire in front of him, his mind filled with the chaotic scenes just now. He raised his head and glanced around, his eyes dull.
Everyone was injured to varying degrees.
Boss Zhang sat on a boulder and bandaged himself with gauze between his teeth. His movements looked very funny, but Chen Tao couldn't laugh at all. On the contrary, he felt that this man didn't look so annoying now.
Ah Cheng stood blankly on the edge of the cliff smoking a cigarette. Chen Tao could only see his back, lonely and sad. Having lost his brother who had been through life and death, this man as big as a mountain felt more sorrowful than anyone present.
Haozi sat next to Chen Tao and sorted out his equipment, his hands holding nails trembling. There were too many Soul-Destroying Rats, even a submachine gun couldn't withstand them, let alone Haozi who was flying nails with his hands. Yan was cooking something on a smokeless stove not far away, with a cigarette butt crooked in his mouth, showing no emotion. At least in Chen Tao's view, among the people alive, he is the only one who is optimistic.
Uncle Wang was seriously injured and was completely unconscious. Uncle Long and Shangui were taking care of him. Seeing that Uncle Long was too busy to pay attention to himself, Chen Tao reached into his backpack, took out a bag and threw it to Haozi and said, "Help me change the plaster again."
Haozi was gritting his teeth and stuffing nails into his sleeves. This time, he felt that he was really showing off. If it weren't for those two incendiary bombs, his arms would be useless! If I had known better, I should have gotten a gun...
Hearing Chen Tao's voice, he stopped what he was doing, looked at Chen Tao who had turned his back, and slowly lifted up his shirt. The original plaster was soaked with sweat. Perhaps because of the excessive movements, two corners had turned up and lay crumpled on it.
Under the dim firelight, Haozi couldn't see clearly the condition of Chen Tao's back, but the musky smell emitted by the plaster was many times better than the smell of burning corpses.
"Be patient!" Haozi used force on his hand and pulled off the pieces of plaster with a stinging sound. Chen Tao gritted his teeth and didn't make any sound.
"Those soul-catching rats..." Haozi said while helping Chen Tao apply the plaster, "I heard grandpa said before that he met Grandpa Chen once when he was young."
"He said that when he saw this kind of thing for the first time, he was shocked by them. Not only did the soul-destroying rats bite the corpses of people and animals, but even the dead soul-destroying rats were eaten clean. "
Chen Tao didn't say anything, and Haozi put a plaster on again, patted it a few times and said: "There were so many bullet casings on the ground just now, and countless soul-destroying rats were dead, but there was not even a corpse to be seen. ...I think they should have carried them to the shore and eaten them..."
Haozi pulled up Chen Tao's coat and saw that he still didn't speak. He somewhat knew what he was thinking, and sighed helplessly:
"That boy named Yang..."
"He is so powerful, he will definitely survive!" Chen Tao stood up and looked at the endless abyss in the distance, which was so black that it seemed like it could swallow people's souls.
"If he dies, I still have a few small bottles he gave me in my bag, and I can still build a tomb. But the soldier..."
Chen Tao looked at the flickering lights on the other side and didn't know what to say except sighing.
"For a family like ours, death is extremely common. Maybe one day, I will..."
"Okay! Let's go see Uncle Wang. In order to save me, he was seriously injured by the Rat King who suffered a thousand cuts." Chen Tao interrupted Haozi's words. He didn't want to hear what was behind him, not at all. .
Uncle Wang was leaning under a boulder, his shirt had been taken off. Shangui took out the medical bag from his backpack, handed it to Chen Tao, and raised his head at him.
Chen Tao understood what the mountain ghost meant. After Uncle Wang was injured and fell into coma, it was Uncle Long who took care of him. After Uncle Wang was injured, Uncle Long seemed very worried. Chen Tao didn't know who Uncle Wang was and what his relationship was with Uncle Long, but at a critical moment, Uncle Wang used his own body to block the fatal blow of the soul-destroying rat for Chen Tao, which he couldn't understand.
"Uncle Wang..." Chen Tao walked closer, but he didn't know how to speak.
"Give me the gauze." Uncle Long helped Uncle Wang up. On his back, three bloody gashes were shocking. The skin and flesh of the wound were turned out, and Chen Tao could even see the white bones underneath.
"How is this possible!" Chen Tao stared at Uncle Wang's back with wide eyes and disbelief. To be more precise, it was the tattoo on Uncle Wang's back. It was a series of intertwined lines, like some kind of mysterious totem, and Chen Tao had seen this kind of tattoo before!
"Why does Uncle Wang have lines on his back that are similar to those of the Bronze Man? What's going on with all this!"
Chen Tao felt that he could no longer think about anything in it. His mind was in confusion now. At first, he simply thought that it was just an ordinary bronze villain. But now, everything that happened has exceeded Chen Tao's imagination, and even all the speculations he had made along the way were overturned. That bronze man was more complicated than he thought!
"What are these people hiding in this family?" Chen Tao stood there blankly, forgetting what Uncle Long had told him for a moment.
"Don't be stunned, gauze!" Uncle Long shouted to Chen Tao.
Chen Tao hurriedly handed the medical bag to Uncle Long. After thinking about it again and again, he asked cautiously,
"Uncle Long, this..."
Uncle Long waved his hand to signal Chen Tao not to speak. He looked up at a few people in the distance and whispered: "Now is not the time to talk about this. There are some things that even if I tell you, you can't believe me."
"I……"
Chen Tao wanted to say something else, but was interrupted directly by Uncle Long. "Go get some food and let everyone have a good rest."
"Okay..." Chen Tao sighed helplessly, stood up and walked towards Yan.
"Boy, life is short, you should enjoy yourself in time! Come and try my craftsmanship." Yan held a cigarette butt in his mouth and served Chen Tao a bowl of compressed biscuits.
"You...don't feel anything about this at all?"
"I've seen it too much, and I've become numb. Boy, you..." Yan raised his left index finger and shook it, making a "you can't do it" gesture.
Seeing Yan's usual arrogance, Chen Tao lazily said nothing, took the lunch box in his hand and gave it to Uncle Long, and then greeted the rest of the people to eat.
"Those soul-destroying rats probably won't be able to get through. Now that the steel cable has been cut, we have to find another way out." Uncle Long said after taking a sip of something.
At first, no one wanted to cut off the steel cable. However, as the fire on the opposite side became smaller and smaller, several soul-destroying rats tentatively climbed onto the steel cable. Just in case, Ah Cheng was asked to use a shovel to cut off the only way out. Now that there is no way up or down, everyone can only stay on this half-length stone platform.
"Uncle Long, there is a group of people in front of us, this..." Chen Tao looked at Uncle Long and said.
"Young boy, given the current situation, they have more people and better equipment than us! If we encounter a fight with them, we will definitely suffer a loss!" Boss Zhang said.
"Maybe we can also talk about cooperation..." Uncle Long frowned and muttered. "That group of people should be old acquaintances."
"Cooperate? You have a good idea." Yan curled her lips and spread her hands, "I'm afraid they won't want to!"
"Then we can only rely on our own abilities!" Shangui fiercely pressed a bullet into the magazine. His submachine gun jammed and was thrown away. Now that Uncle Wang was unconscious, he had to use Uncle Wang's first.
"Eat and drink enough, and have a good rest. For safety reasons, two people will keep vigil tonight, changing every hour." Uncle Long drank up the paste in the lunch box, got up and set up the tent.
After experiencing several attacks by the Soul-Destroying Rats, everyone's physical strength has reached its limit. Fortunately, now that they have escaped, they are temporarily safe.
When it was his turn to watch the night, Chen Tao stared blankly at the other side of the canyon, and began to miss the days in the shop, making a pot of old tea, leaning on the stool, watching the people coming and going on the street... fantasy He smiled and shook his head,
"People always have to pay the price for their persistence..."
