Chapter 778: Drainage System
Drainage System
Some stagnant water remained inside the circular passage. Lin Ye turned on his flashlight to illuminate the tunnel as the Penguin Doll led the way ahead. It seemed very familiar with this place, turning back to look at Lin Ye every few steps. Lin Ye cautiously observed the passage’s conditions. Earlier, during his fight with the Jester Doll, his right arm had suffered a severe strain. If he ran into an enemy here, it could cause some trouble. Fortunately, the Penguin Doll was scouting ahead, so Lin Ye only needed to watch his back.
“Huh?” Lin Ye suddenly heard a faint sound behind him, like something stepping into stagnant water. The Penguin Doll nervously hid beside Lin Ye, having heard the noise too. Lin Ye gripped his Throwing Knife and shone the flashlight down the rear passage. A bug with a black carapace crawled out from behind. When it spotted Lin Ye, it was clearly stunned for a moment. The black-shelled bug let out an excited chirp, never expecting to run into Lin Ye here. Lin Ye glanced at the two-meter-long black-shelled bug, grabbed the Penguin Doll, and turned to sprint away.
That carapace looked incredibly tough. Lin Ye had no intention of fighting it here. “How did this damn thing get here?” Lin Ye didn’t know if this was one of its tricks or just a coincidental encounter. The black-shelled bug frantically waved its two rows of insect limbs and quickly caught up to Lin Ye. In such a narrow space, its speed far surpassed his. Seeing the monster closing in from behind, the Penguin Doll jumped out of Lin Ye’s arms and led him sliding across the stagnant water. The Penguin Doll’s slide was lightning-fast, instantly creating a huge gap between them.
Lin Ye was dragged along by the Penguin Doll across the water. He threw a stone behind him, but the black-shelled bug nimbly dodged it. Before long, the Penguin Doll slid Lin Ye out of the passage. Beyond it lay the amusement park’s drainage system, with a torrent of sewage flowing from above into a sink. The sink was nearly eight meters wide, filled with murky liquid. On both sides of the sink were two rows of walkable platforms. The Penguin Doll got up from the ground and started running on the platform, refusing to enter the sewage pool and continue sliding. Instead of immediately searching for the next passage, Lin Ye hid beside the circular passage, waiting for the black-shelled bug to emerge.
The black-shelled bug burst out of the passage in no time. Lin Ye hurled a Throwing Knife at its belly. The knife was knocked away by an insect limb, but it couldn’t block the second knife following behind. Even wearing the Jester Mask, Lin Ye couldn’t keep pulling knives from behind him like the Jester Doll could, but he could retrieve the knives the Jester Doll had thrown earlier. The knife plunged into the bug’s unarmored abdomen, spraying dark green fluid onto the ground. Linye retreated while tossing a third Throwing Knife. The black-shelled bug flipped over, using its carapace to block the knife, then charged at him.
Just then, chaotic footsteps sounded behind Lin Ye. A swarm of Rat Dolls rushed past him from behind. The Penguin Doll followed after the Rat Dolls, seemingly guiding their path. The Rat Dolls surged past Lin Ye, pouncing on the black-shelled bug and gnawing at its body. The bug’s carapace was extremely hard, but the saliva from these Rat Dolls was like acid, easily corroding through it. Several large Rat Dolls with bloodshot eyes ran over from the other side, locking onto the bug’s belly. Lin Ye was about to help when the Penguin Doll grabbed his thigh, apparently not wanting him to get near those Rat Dolls.
The Penguin Doll pulled Lin Ye away from the battle zone and pointed its flipper toward the opposite side of the sink. There was a circular passage there. “How do we get across?” Lin Ye really didn’t want to go into that sewage pool. The Penguin Doll stopped two Rat Dolls heading toward the fight, took two bags of expired snacks from its pocket, and gestured with its flipper. The two Rat Dolls took the snacks, then crouched low. The Penguin Doll climbed onto one Rat Doll’s back, then turned to look at Lin Ye. Lin Ye climbed onto the other Rat Doll’s back. The two Rat Dolls entered the sewage pool and swam toward the platform on the opposite side. The sewage didn’t seem to affect the Rat Dolls at all. They successfully delivered the Penguin Doll and Lin Ye to the platform, rested there for a moment, then swam back to the other side. Lin Ye glanced back at the black-shelled bug surrounded by a swarm of Rat Dolls, then followed the Penguin Doll into the circular passage.
The circular passage rose and fell unevenly along the way. The Penguin Doll seemed unfamiliar with this area too, sticking cautiously close to Lin Ye instead of leading the way. After about ten minutes of walking, Lin Ye reached the end of the circular passage. Outside was a sealed cylindrical space. A terrifying corpse lay at the bottom of the space. “This can’t be the well from the haunted house, can it?” Lin Ye looked up at the top of the cylindrical space. It was at least ten meters high, with walls made of bricks covered in slippery moss.
“I’m going to climb up. Hold on tight.” Lin Ye started scaling the wall with the Penguin Doll clinging to him. There were no obvious gaps between the bricks, making hand-over-hand climbing difficult. Fortunately, Lin Ye still had two Throwing Knives. He could stab them into the wall as footholds to pull himself up. Lin Ye quickly reached the middle of the space. Just then, the Penguin Doll clutching his thigh suddenly let out a piercing screech. “Eeek! Eeek! Eeek!” It was the first time the Penguin Doll had made a sound. Lin Ye looked down. Below the trembling Penguin Doll was a human face with its eyes gouged out.
Lin Ye kicked the corpse away. He hadn’t expected the damn thing to be so dedicated. The corpse quickly climbed back up, but this time it didn’t crawl beneath Lin Ye. Instead, it took a different path where Lin Ye couldn’t kick it. Lin Ye could feel a gaze on his back, as if the corpse was pressed right up against him. “Bro, I’ve watched plenty of horror movies. This kind of scene can’t scare me.” Lin Ye flashed his light behind him a couple of times, and the feeling of being watched vanished. With the corpse out of the way, Lin Ye quickly reached the top of the space. But then he realized the top was sealed with cement.
“Are you kidding me? That’s actually pretty terrifying.” Lin Ye had no desire to find a sealed well in a haunted house. The flashlight beam swept across the top. Lin Ye spotted a concave arc-shaped structure at the edge of the cement seal. “Huh? Could this be a spiral mechanism?” Lin Ye jammed his Throwing Knife into the cement seal and twisted the handle hard. The cement seal began to rotate. After a few turns, he pushed it aside.