CHAPTER 320: CHAPTER 4: THE EERIE TOWN

The object reflected in the rearview mirror was a long-collapsed watchtower, its top once adorned with a searchlight and a place for guards had vanished, leaving only a rusty steel structure.

Below the steel structure, there was a mass resembling a "fleshy entity"—this mass had already fused with the steel structure, constantly extending to the top.

There, the "fleshy entity" had grown into a spherical bud, its surface covered with cracks... upon closer inspection, one could see that these cracks were densely packed with eyeball-like things.

At the base of the fleshy entity, a dilapidated humanoid doll leaned crookedly, its limbs long since broken, held together by the bio-organic tissues provided by the fleshy entity. In the doll’s hand, nailed firmly, was a dark red-stained rubber baton.

On the doll’s arm, the dirty armband was essentially a "flesh ring" formed from a chain of rotting meat.

This eldritch creature, just a glance is enough to drive one’s sanity to zero.

Thankfully, Sun Hang’s character attributes didn’t include a sanity stat.

"So the light just now came from those eyeballs?" Sun Hang murmured to himself, "But these eyeballs probably don’t have a 360-degree view... otherwise the eldritch creature wouldn’t have revealed its true form in the rearview mirror..."

Sun Hang retracted his gaze and continued driving forward.

The outlines of the buildings gradually enlarged, becoming clearer, and the lights grew more numerous and brighter... For some reason, Sun Hang felt these warm yellow lights gave him a sense of warmth and security, like a wanderer returning home after decades abroad, seeing the familiar oil lamp hanging at his doorstep...

"Damn, could I be a native of the Yundian Region?" Sun Hang took a deep breath and stopped the car.

Maoyun Town, called a town, yet by today’s standards, several villages in the Shuzhou Region were larger in scale—this so-called town didn’t even have a road leading into it, only a narrow, bumpy, muddy trail cutting straight through its center.

Unlike the wilderness with its cracked, dried land everywhere, Maoyun Town seemed to have just experienced a rainstorm. Sun Hang’s boots squelched in the mud with every step, leaving footprints two or three centimeters deep.

He pulled out the mirror he found in the car—a box of powder for touch-ups thrown there by Yang Qi, though it seemed she hadn’t used it for a long time. Once Sun Hang opened it, the shattered powder inside immediately crumbled and scattered.

Fortunately, Sun Hang didn’t need these things.

"Is this considered buying the case and returning the pearl?"

Sun Hang rubbed the small mirror inside the case with his thumb, using the car lights to aim the mirror at the ground.

Thankfully, the mud remained mud, though it seemed mixed with some dark red liquid; it was at least better than Sun Hang had anticipated.

When he first got out of the car, he subconsciously thought the road was paved with something like rotting flesh, much like the Zerg’s creep in StarCraft.

There’s a saying: as long as expectations are set low enough, you’ll never be disappointed.

If situations are imagined as the worst, then as long as reality isn’t as bad as it could get, all news will be good news.

"Finding a town inhabited by ’humans’ is indeed good news." Sun Hang muttered to himself, "The grandpa guarding the town entrance was quite amicable to me, that’s even better news."

Sun Hang slightly rotated the box, aiming the mirror towards Maoyun Town not far away.

Originally, he would see a chaotic scene in the mirror, at worst a wasteland... but in reality, Maoyun Town appeared much the same in the mirror as it did to Sun Hang’s naked eye.

The most apparent difference was that those warm yellow lights turned into a stark white, cold hue.

"...It’s really just a small town?"

Sun Hang put the box away, tucked it into his pocket, then took out the assault rifle from the passenger seat.

But soon, he put the rifle back.

The ’humans’ don’t provoke me, I don’t provoke ’humans’... The two eldritch creatures Sun Hang had encountered before, whether the "old woman" or the "grandpa" at the entrance, neither showed any malice towards him...

This meant these eldritch creatures seemed to have regarded Sun Hang as one of their own... And from the "grandpa’s" words, it could be assured the town was not xenophobic—at least not towards "outsiders" like Sun Hang.

If Sun Hang entered with such a conspicuous weapon, it might even provoke hostility from the "townspeople."

"I better go in first and have a look," Sun Hang finally decided to only take the fifty-cent bill and the "rice cake" the old woman shoved at him before locking the car door, walking with uneven footsteps through the mud towards the town.

For some reason, be it timing or something else, there weren’t many "townspeople" on the streets; most buildings remained tightly shut, even those with lights on were no exception—only occasionally a few shops with an open front, with baskets propped by stools at their entrance, holding various odd items.

As for the shopkeepers and vendors, they remained obscured in the shadow behind the doors, with vague humanoid shapes or a hookah extending from the dark, with a thread of smoke swirling upwards.