Chapter 201: Couldn’t Even Do Horror Properly

The zombies standing between me and the hole moved out of the way before I took my second step.

Who knew that something without a brain could be so smart?

I kept walking, watching the zombies shift back against the basement walls, leaving a clear path across the wet concrete floor straight toward the jagged black opening. It was like I was a living sacrifice to a God that I didn’t know.

Too bad they didn’t understand that I wasn’t the sacrifice....

I was the God.

Behind me, several voices rose at once.

"Rouxi!"

"Stop!"

"Are you insane?"

That last one was absolutely Wei, because apparently the man had decided that shouting obvious questions counted as battlefield leadership.

Commander Li moved first, which I was beginning to understand was simply how the man functioned. He took one step after me like he was fully prepared to throw himself between me and whatever was waiting inside the hole again, and I almost sighed.

It was one thing to be noble once.

Doing the same thing twice was starting to look like a medical condition that required treatment.

Chenghai shifted at the same time, the pipe still in hand, while Zhenlan’s gaze cut between me, the zombies, and the opening in the wall. Yuche and Lingyun didn’t move immediately. They knew better. Or, more accurately, they knew me better, which was not the same thing but usually led to fewer arguments.

I stopped before anyone could grab me and looked over my shoulder at the men protesting. "Are you really dumb enough to stand between me and my fun?"

That shut down most of the room.

The soldiers stared at me like they were trying to decide if I had lost my mind or if this was simply how I was all the time.

The answer was yes, but that felt like a private matter.

Wei’s mouth opened, probably to say something loud and useless, but Li held up one hand without looking away from me. Good. At least one person in this basement was learning.

Yuche’s expression didn’t change as he stepped back first, metal still curled around his arms and hands.

He didn’t like it. I could tell by the way his jaw tightened slightly and the way the rusted strips of pipe flexed around him like they wanted something to cut.

But he stepped back, because he understood that stopping me would be a waste of everyone’s time. I was stubborn like that when I made up my mind.

Lingyun sighed, loud enough that half the basement heard him. "Scream if you need us."

I waved one hand without turning around. "You’ll know."

"That is not reassuring."

"It wasn’t supposed to be."

I heard Chenghai swear under his breath, low and ugly, while Zhenlan said nothing at all. That was probably for the best.

If either of them started acting protective after spending half the day trying to get us killed for canned beans and camping supplies, I was going to have words. Possibly vines. Maybe both.

The first step into the hole was disgusting.

The floor changed from wet concrete to something softer under my boots, a mix of broken stone, mud, and black slime that stuck to the soles like rotten glue.

Warm air rolled over me in slow waves, thick enough that every breath felt like licking the inside of an old lunch container someone forgot in a car during summer. The smell was worse inside. Cow shit, old blood, spoiled meat, wet dirt, and whatever came after all of those things sat together too long and decided to become a personality.

I had to swallow hard. Puking all over my feet was definitely not the image I was going for. But seriously... I was going to need something when I got home to get the taste of this smell out of my mouth and nose.

The tunnel curved downward through the broken wall, wider than it had looked from the basement.

Jagged concrete gave way to packed earth within a few steps, and the pipes that had been ripped apart near the entrance disappeared into damp soil and dark streaks of slime. The walls were coated with a black, glossy goo that pulsed faintly whenever the thing deeper inside breathed.

I kept one hand slightly raised as I walked, not because I needed help, but because the baby vine had lifted itself from my wrist and was now watching the tunnel like it wanted to bite something.

What could I say? My baby knew a treasure when it smelled it.

The sounds from the basement behind me faded quickly. Not completely, but enough that the shouting and movement became dull, like the tunnel had wrapped them in wet cloth. Ahead of me, I could hear breathing. It wasn’t mine, and I didn’t know a single zombie that sounded like that.

It sounded like what I would imagine a swamp monster taking a breath of air. It whistled going in and sounded like a wet bubble withering with desperation coming out.

It was probably not my smartest decision, but I continued to follow the sound.

The tunnel opened into a chamber large enough that the hotel basement suddenly seemed cozy by comparison. The ceiling rose into darkness, held up by thick bands of earth and broken concrete where the building’s foundation had been chewed through from below. Massive roots hung overhead in tangled ropes, some as thin as my wrist and some thicker than tree trunks, threading through the dirt ceiling and disappearing into the walls. Black slime coated everything. It ran down the roots, gathered in puddles, and stretched in sticky strands between chunks of concrete like the entire chamber had been wrapped in rotten syrup.

After that, the next thing that I noticed was the fact that there were no bones anywhere to be seen.

I was pretty disappointed in that.

TV had convinced me that the home of the big bad would have bones all over the place, telling the poor blonde that they walking into a place they didn’t want to be. That hint of ’these are the takeout containers of my past meals... now you are next’.

But there was none of that here.

No skulls piled in corners. No ribs. No half-eaten bodies scattered around for dramatic effect. The floor was wet, filthy, and stained dark in more places than I cared to count, but it was completely devoid of everything that I wanted to see.

Frankly, this was just one more disappointment on top of everything else.

That figured.

This thing couldn’t even do horror story properly.