Night of Despair

Chapter 77: Unexpected Outcome

“I really have a stomachache!” Li Rushan acted annoyed and quickly wrote.

“I really twisted my leg!” Yu Hong, not to be outdone, quickly wrote and then patted his thigh.

The two faced off, neither giving in to the other.

After more than half a minute, Li Rushan ultimately grew worried about his daughter and didn’t want to waste more time, so with a stern expression, he decided to go first.

But he didn’t go directly to the car door; instead, he walked to the side of the car and swung a club at the window.

Bang!

The window shattered, but the wooden boards nailed inside blocked it, and the interior was still not visible.

Li Rushan didn’t waste words. He took out a magnesium stick, lit a rag he found from somewhere, and stuffed it into the crack in the window.

After stuffing, he turned and ran, not forgetting to gesture to Yu Hong.

Yu Hong also ran, and the two sprinted about fifty meters before turning to look at the bus.

By then, the inside of the bus was evidently ablaze, casting a faint red glow.

“What kind of cloth is so powerful?” Yu Hong wrote curiously.

“Special trait oil cloth, as long as it works,” Li Rushan replied offhandedly, but his gaze remained fixed on the bus.

Time passed slowly, and as the bus burned more intensely until flames began to squeeze out from the doors and windows, he finally nodded slightly.

“Let’s go, to the second one. Do it the same way!” he wrote.

“…” Yu Hong was speechless. Why didn’t they do this earlier instead of pretending to check inside the bus?

Shaking his head, he followed Li Rushan as they burned one bus after another. Li had clearly prepared, stuffing one miraculous oil cloth after another into the smashed windows, lighting the wood at the windows, and then the flames grew larger, filling the interior.

Five buses, until they had completely set the fires, no sounds came out.

The buses seemed to transform into five torches, illuminating the surrounding forest brightly.

“Let’s go,” Li Rushan wrote. “As long as the Language Person’s carriers are thoroughly destroyed, we’ll be safe and can communicate normally. The greatest danger of Language Persons is being instantaneously infected by their words without understanding them.”

Yu Hong nodded vigorously.

This was exactly his issue; not understanding these Evil Shadows, hardly anyone could escape this mode of contagion.

No wonder the people who fled from Yuhe City all died on the way.

The two waited by the fire, watching the flames completely consume, burn, and thoroughly destroy all the body carriers inside the buses.

There was no choice, Language Persons were too dangerous and too covert. Before the outbreak, it was extremely easy to assume it was one’s own mental issue because the Red Value detector didn’t react or detect the voice of Language Persons.

“Maybe I should strengthen the Red Value detector… If it could detect the issue with Language Persons’ voice right away, their threat level would be greatly reduced,” Yu Hong thought to himself.

He stood by the road, quietly watching the fiercely burning buses, suddenly feeling worried about the stuttering girl.

If she encountered a Language Person… with her intellect, she would definitely be infected from the start, just like himself.

“Detectors are necessary now, and also the silver talisman array is barely holding against the strength of the Evil Shadow. Is the Evil Shadow getting stronger, or is the Language Person intrinsically stronger than the Withered Woman?” Yu Hong didn’t know.

He left this question for Li Rushan.

Li Rushan shook his head.

“Evil Shadows themselves continually evolve through killing, increasing their strength and evolving, constantly elevating the danger level until they reach War Level, Nightmare Level or even Despair Level. We even suspect that the so-called Evil Shadows might have evolved from shadows.”

He wrote a rather long text, and then ran out of paper.

So he could only helplessly shrug at Yu Hong, stopping there.

They waited for over an hour until the five buses were completely destroyed, then turned back the way they came.

“By the way, about Language Persons, I have a suspicion,” Li Rushan suddenly remembered the scene when he first saw Yu Hong standing in front of the stone house, ignoring the paper balls thrown at him as if he couldn’t see them at all.

He felt this point might need to be mentioned.

“Just regarding earlier,” Li Rushan had just started writing.

Boom!

Suddenly, a huge explosion came from behind.

The two quickly threw themselves forward, turning their faces to look back.

They saw from the direction of the five buses, an even brighter blaze had erupted, clearly one of the buses had exploded.

“This time, it’s definitely gone,” Yu Hong scrambled to write a sentence on the ground with a rock.

“….Hmm,” Li Rushan nodded, looking towards the bright direction of the fire, he suddenly wondered whether bringing his daughter from the safe Hope City to this place was the right thing to do.

“By the way, what were you trying to say just now?” Yu Hong wrote on the ground.

“Hmm… it was about before,” Li Rushan replied, also writing on the ground with a rock.

He recounted the scene he had witnessed earlier to Yu Hong.

“From the moment the Zhou Family sisters arrived, I should have already been affected visually,” Yu Hong replied.

Li’s reminder made him fully alert again, aware of how dangerous his situation had been before. @@novelbin@@

Thinking back, when he swung the Wolf Fang Club in the cave, it didn’t make any noise, perhaps because he hadn’t even grasped the Wolf Fang Club in his hand.

The power of the Language Person seemed more and more dangerous.

The two of them soon stood up again and headed back the way they had come.

They first arrived at Yu Hong’s stone house.

“How long will it take to speak normally after destroying the carrier?” Yu Hong asked.

“About three days, just bear with it,” Li Rushan replied. “You can speak freely on your own in the safe house, just don’t answer any calls from outside.”

“Got it,” Yu Hong nodded.

“See you later then,” Old Li waved his hand and quickly headed back to the post office, clearly eager to return, worried about his daughter’s safety.

Yu Hong stood in the courtyard, watching his figure gradually disappear into the woods, until he was out of sight, then he too climbed the stone steps and went back inside.

He needed to repair the talisman array in the safe house as quickly as possible in the next few days and complete the Pyroxene Secret Room, so that he could sleep peacefully.

Standing at the door, he looked at the black withered luminous stone grass outside and sighed.

Bang.

The door closed completely.

The next morning, Li Rushan came to find Yu Hong, and the two went again to check the convoy to ensure the vehicle was completely burned; oddly, the inside was empty, not a single body to be found.

But without any bodies, how had the vehicle been driven there?

The two couldn’t understand.

Yet, knowing there were no bodies, they felt much more at ease.

After searching the area again, assuring themselves there were no missing bodies, they finally felt relieved and returned separately by early evening.

The same occurred on the third day.

Yu Hong gradually settled down, and of course, what made him feel secure wasn’t just the complete eradication of the Language Person but also the repair of all the talisman arrays on the walls in his safe house.

He had restored the integrity of the Pyroxene Secret Room in the safe house and achieved the effect of a secret room again.

Also, through the stimulation of Inner Qi, new luminous stone grass began to grow quickly again outside the door in the courtyard, sprouting a new batch that spread across the yard.

Though the young luminous stone grass emitted weak radiation, it gave Yu Hong a deeper sense of security.

Because luminous stone grass could drive away black bugs and prevent ordinary Evil Shadows from disturbing his rest.

The fourth day. The two of them maintained their silence, apparently being traumatized by the Language Person, and stayed in.

They endured another three days.

Until the day before the supply team arrived.

Early in the morning, Li Rushan, carrying a big bag, came to the courtyard outside Yu Hong’s place.

“Little Yu?” He knocked on the door in a set rhythm while softly speaking.

“Are you there?” he asked in a hushed tone.

Click.

Yu Hong opened the door, fully dressed in his entire gear, blocking the doorway so the other couldn’t see inside.

“Can you finally talk?” he breathed out, writing on a board.

“I still need to be cautious; I just got the news that Yuhe City suffered terribly. A sudden eruption of the Language Person’s Evil Shadows caused at least two hundred thousand deaths. The entire war-level city, Hope City, became a city of death within days!” Old Li sighed.

“Two hundred thousand people…” Yu Hong heard the number, unable to grasp what it meant, but he knew it was a massive casualty count.

If placed in a plain, lined up in formation, just over ten thousand people would fill all one’s vision.

And two hundred thousand people…

“If unprepared, the killing power of Language Person is indeed unstoppable…” he sighed, responding.

“Now, the whole Yuhe City is gone, affecting the three surrounding Hope Cities, with countless dead and injured. Joint military headquarters are still urgently rescuing,” Li Rushan said helplessly. “The People’s Army also mobilized, and they also sacrificed many people to form a large quarantine circle to contain the spread of the Language Person.”

“….” Yu Hong was speechless; this was only an Evil Shadow, which was just one of the higher danger levels, and there were three more levels beyond that…who knows how much more terrifying they could be.

In this world…one truly didn’t know how long it could last.

“You came looking for me, is there something you need my help with?” He knew Old Li didn’t visit without a reason; usually, it was he who went to see him. This time, the other party taking the initiative meant there definitely was a matter. It couldn’t just be to inform him of the news.

“Yes, given the massive casualties, to contain the quick spread of the Evil Shadow, they got more production lines from the Silver Tower to manufacture Large Pyroxene Stones and started mass printing Advanced Array Pattern Talisman Arrays, so I won’t be buying your Large Pyroxene Stones and talisman arrays anymore,” Li Rushan stated earnestly.

“Huh?” Yu Hong was stunned; it could work like that.

“Of course, I personally still need them, but the purchasing price will have to be reduced. After all, many customers for the talisman array and Large Pyroxene Stones died in this wave. With the distant Hope Cities receiving supplies from above, it’s impossible to continue purchasing at the previous prices.

Previously, the supply team took Large Pyroxene Stones and talisman arrays from me to resell at a markup, but now this demand has greatly reduced, and the profits can’t cover the transportation costs, so…you understand,” Li Rushan hinted to Yu Hong with a raise of his eyebrows.

“…In that case, I can still repair advanced equipment, weapons, and some small machines,” Yu Hong thought for a moment and responded.

“That will work,” Li Rushan smiled. “I’m setting up a large underground constant temperature breeding farm. I also need an air circulation machine with sterilization capabilities. I’ve ordered a broken one from the supply team; when it arrives, help me check and see if you can repair it.”

“…..” Yu Hong was speechless. Was this guy not buying functioning ones, specifically purchasing broken ones for him to fix?