394: Chapter 388 White-haired Mouse 394: Chapter 388 White-haired Mouse Humming an unknown tune, Jiang Dalong clutched a cigarette in his mouth.
He had only walked a mere thirty-forty meters when he stopped in his tracks and looked back.
Below the arch bridge, his 250cc motorcycle still stood in its original position, but his cousin Chen Hai, who had just parted from him, was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did this kid run off to?”
“Could he have gone up to the mountain nearby?”
Jiang Dalong murmured as he glanced around.
The stretch of road he was on was carved between two small hills.
In truth, the road was situated halfway up the mountain.
Further ahead, the fish ponds and farmland beneath the roadside ledges truly belonged at the base of the hills.
From where he had parked his motorcycle, by following the foundation of the arch bridge that spanned across the road, someone slightly agile could actually have climbed to the top of the hill!
Having walked this thirty-forty meter distance, Jiang Dalong’s steps were not fast, but it had only taken him a few dozen seconds.
In such a short time, where could Chen Hai, who had just been there, have run off to?
Although he hadn’t seen his cousin scale the mountain, he felt that his guess wasn’t too far from the truth.
“The kid, ever since he went to Capital City for university, how has he become so mysteriously different from before?”
“Aren’t university students supposed to base everything on scientific evidence?
How come he’s started believing in feudal superstitions?”
“I’m really starting to wonder if he’s been skipping classes all day at school and has let his studies go to the dogs!”
Jiang Dalong chuckled mischievously to himself, saying things he would never utter in front of Chen Hai—he would keep them bottled up inside.
But now, with his cousin Chen Hai not in front of him,
his muttering was so low that only he could clearly hear; under these circumstances, he naturally wasn’t worried about being overheard.
Where Jiang Dalong stood now, the mountainsides flanking the road were no longer just hilly terrain but had turned into steep embankments.
There was only a small stub of his cigarette left in his hand.
After a final, deep inhalation, he flicked his fingers and sent the glowing cigarette butt tumbling down the road to the embankment below.
“I fell over there just ahead a little while ago.”
“There aren’t any stones or anything like that on this road.
I really don’t know how bumping through here on my motorcycle could have been so jarring!”
Under the cold light of the moon, Jiang Dalong suddenly felt a chill.
He tightened his clothes around him and moved forward once more.
On this mountain road, wandering back and forth in the dead of night, it was a good thing no one else was passing by at this time.
Otherwise, people might mistake him for a madman.
But he had no other choice; who had made him believe his cousin Chen Hai’s tall tales and come here with him in the middle of the night?
“Brother Long, Brother Long…” Only after taking a few more steps did he faintly hear someone calling him.
The voice seemed to come from Chen Hai, and it sounded so familiar to him.
“Hadn’t the kid run up to the mountain?”
“What’s he calling me for at this hour?
Is he not planning to stay here anymore and telling me to head straight back to the county?”
Though a bit puzzled in his heart, Jiang Dalong still responded.
He halted and turned to look back.
Unfortunately, there was just empty space behind him.
His cousin Chen Hai, whom he had expected to be there, was nowhere to be seen.
“What kind of trick is this kid pulling?”
“His sudden disappearance…
Could it be that he didn’t actually run up to the mountain and is preparing to play some prank to frighten me?”
“But he shouldn’t be so childish by now, should he?”
Tilting his head, Jiang Dalong was clearly confused.
He looked here and there, sweeping his gaze around, and could now be absolutely certain that his cousin Chen Hai truly wasn’t behind him.
“Other than the sound of the wind, there is no other noise.
Perhaps I misheard just now?”
“Let it be.
I’ll just go a bit further ahead and then come back.”
“That guy Hai was dead certain when he told me to walk this road twice before heading straight back to the county!”
“No matter whether he’s up to some mischief or not, he’ll have to come out later…”
With these thoughts in mind, Jiang Dalong, who had been looking over his shoulder, turned back around.
Although a crescent moon hung in the sky, the darkness around him seemed to deepen.
Everything had been perfectly fine before, but now a circle of strange mist had appeared around him at some unknown time.
“Not right, something’s very wrong!”
“Could it be that Conggui Mountain is really as strange as Hai said?”
A shiver went through him, and despite always priding himself on his courage, Jiang Dalong couldn’t help but tremble several times.
“Brother Long, Brother Long…” The faint sounds of calling echoed near his ears once more.
He seemed to remember, some guy friends had told him before.
In the dead of night, when strange things call your name from behind, if you’re a real man, you shouldn’t stand but squat down to pee, and whatever you do, don’t turn around, nor respond.
The previous time the calling sounded, he hadn’t thought too much about it.
But now, as his scalp tingled, he didn’t say another word and just prepared to pull down his pants to squat on the ground.
“Brother Long, Brother Long…” The calling voice seemed to carry a demonic allure.
Jiang Dalong hadn’t even unbuckled his belt before his entire being started to blur.
“Hm, I’m right here…” As he replied, he turned around once more to look behind him.
Not far away, a ravishing beauty dressed in a white gown was giving him flirtatious looks, beckoning him repeatedly with her hands.
“My husband, it’s getting late, time to go home and rest!” The woman in white beckoned and sent a seductive wink to Jiang Dalong.
“Go home and rest?
Hm!” Jiang Dalong, whose senses were already getting foggy, nodded expressionlessly, almost mechanically.
He opened his arms and strode towards the direction where the woman in white stood.
“Devil, meet your death…” A furiously shouted command, resembling the roar of thunder, resounded out of nowhere.
Chen Hai, who had vanished earlier, appeared suddenly about fifteen meters away, sprinting toward this side.
A ring of fire suddenly appeared in the void around Jiang Dalong, dissipating the dense fog in an instant.
Without the interference of the fog, the groggy Jiang Dalong had noticeably regained some clarity in his thoughts.
Having walked to the edge of a hill, he immediately halted in his tracks.
Before his eyes, the figure of the woman in white had vanished.
All he could see was a somewhat illusory creature, over half the size of a man, with the body of a white-furred rat and a hideous woman’s face for a head, floating in the void not far from him.
“Cousin, I…” Seeing Chen Hai approaching with large steps, Jiang Dalong opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.
But his voice was trembling, and his entire body was uncontrollably shaking.
If Chen Hai hadn’t appeared in time, by now, he might have stepped into the void and fallen down the hill.
The drop down this steep hillside, albeit not quite ten meters, wasn’t much less.
Falling down from there, even if by some luck Jiang Dalong wasn’t killed, he would’ve landed in the fish pond below, filled with mud.
Thinking of this terrifying consequence, realizing that he had been a hair’s breadth away from life and death, Jiang Dalong felt a shiver of fear.
Especially after seeing the white-furred rat with a woman’s face, the fear in his heart was greatly magnified.
“It’s impossible, in this world, how could there still be True Men…”
Not far away, the white-furred rat phantom looked terrified, her condition just as dire.
She was surrounded by a circle of flames.
The moment it touched the flames, the burning pain made it wail miserably.
It firmly believed that the flames could reduce it to ashes in an instant.
With these flames present, it could only remain where it was.
Any thought of escape was now sheer fantasy.
Seeing Chen Hai who conjured a sea of flames with a wave of his hand, the rat, stricken with panic, immediately knelt down, pressing its forelimbs together and repeatedly bowing to Chen Hai.
“True Man?
In this world, are there still any True Men?”
Chen Hai stopped beside Jiang Dalong, his expression indifferent, a wry smile on his face.
This white-furred rat had definitely never seen a real True Man.
In Chen Hai’s view, the creature must have misunderstood his ability to wield flames as something else.
“Brother Long, it seems that your aspiration to follow in Xu Xian’s footsteps and commit to a sun snake is going to be difficult to achieve!”
“As you can see, there are no Snake Demons here, only a white-furred rat!”
“How about settling for a human-rat romance instead?”
Witnessing the still-shaking Jiang Dalong at his side, Chen Hai patted his shoulder, jokingly teasing him.
“Senior, as long as you are willing to spare me, to let me live!”
“I am willing to serve this brother with my true form, ensuring that he’ll experience ecstasy and extreme pleasure!”
The white-furred rat was quite sensible.
As soon as Chen Hai’s words fell, it already provided a response promptly.
“I refuse human-rat romance, absolutely refuse human-rat romance…”
Shaking his head as if it were a rattle-drum, Jiang Dalong spoke, his teeth still visibly chattering.
In the New Legend of White Snake, the Snake Demon Bai Suzhen is so beautiful!
But this white-furred rat in front of him – just the thought of copulating with such a monster, he could get sick to his stomach for days, unable to eat a bite.
“I’m sorry, Rat Demon, my cousin is just not into you!”
“In that case, you are of no value to me!”
When his gaze fell on the white-furred rat, Chen Hai’s expression suddenly became severe.
He stretched out his hand, reaching through the surrounding flames, to grab at the white-furred rat.