Volume 5 Chapter 43: Siege

Countless human-faced strange birds surrounded us like sculptures. They landed silently and stood there without making a sound. I suddenly remembered the gargoyles in horror movies abroad. Could these birds be the prototypes for these monsters that are stone statues during the day and animals at night? Moreover, judging from the eyes of these birds, they seemed to be intelligent. Were they surrounding us for some strange purpose?

Soon my premonition was fulfilled. Suddenly a bird flew over us, dropped something on the ground, and then “bang” landed in front of us. Blood splattered everywhere. I looked and saw that it was Ye Cheng. His neck had been bitten off and he was coughing non-stop, but his eyes were already glazed over and there was no hope for him.

Then another corpse was thrown down. I didn’t know who it was, but his head was gone and he was covered in blood.

After Chen Pi A Si and we parted ways, he rushed directly into the imperial tomb. Obviously, they had also been attacked by this strange bird. Ye Cheng must have been captured by this giant bird in the center of the imperial tomb. Without the guidance of Uncle San’s password, these people ended up in such a miserable way. I really couldn’t have imagined it.

I thought Chen Pi A Si would not be spared, but the next few bodies thrown away were all A Ning’s men. Obviously, not all of them had escaped just now. Fortunately, I did not see the bodies of San Shu and Pan Zi, which made me feel a little relieved.

The fat man was really a little scared at this point, and asked me, “What do these birds want with us?”

I told him, “It seems that they are gathering their prey. I am not an expert in this area and I don’t know what they want to do. Do you still have any explosives? We might have to learn from Dong Cunrui.”

The fat guy shook his head: ‘All the explosives went to the King of the Ten Thousand, and you didn’t say you wanted to save some.’

I thought to myself, this is trouble. I never thought that I, Wu Xie, would die like this. There were birds all around, with no gaps at all, and there was no chance to run.

Just when I was panicking, the fat guy suddenly pulled me back: “It’s too bad to be attacked from both sides. There’s a crevice here. Let’s hide in it. One of us will block one side, and we won’t die so easily.”

I looked back and saw that it was a crevice between two giant rocks in the underground rift valley. It was one person wide and open on both sides. It might be inconvenient to move in, but it was a great place to defend.

It was better to die immediately than to die after putting up a fight. We quickly removed the bullet belt from the corpse and quickly slipped into the gap. The space inside was very small, and I could still move around a little, but it was very difficult for Fatty. I guess it would be hard for the birds to get in.

The fat man had experienced many life-and-death situations, and he was much calmer than I was. As soon as he entered the gap, he immediately piled up a few stones as a cover, and said to me, “They can only come in one by one. As long as we kill a few of them, we can block the entrance and we can hold out a little longer.”

I smiled bitterly to myself. We didn’t have many bullets, and there was no time to change them anyway. If the bullets in the magazine were used up, it would be the end. But now it’s not time to die yet, there is still a glimmer of hope.

My mind was still in a daze when I suddenly heard the birds outside start to squawk. Through the gap, I saw the leader of the flock, a strange bird, suddenly open its mouth disproportionately wide, revealing a mouth full of fangs. Then, from its mouth, a creature resembling a macaque suddenly spat out, moving extremely quickly, and immediately jumped to the ground. It first looked around cautiously, then ran into the pile of corpses and began to tear at them. I looked carefully and found that the monkey had no skin and was covered in blood, which seemed to be an organ of the strange bird.

Then other strange birds began to spit out this creature, and countless “monkeys in the mouth” squatted out of the bird flock and rushed to the pile of corpses in the middle. There seemed to be no class distinction, and they all came up to eat at once. In an instant, there was blood and scattered meat everywhere, and there were conflicts between them.

My face and the fat man’s both scrunched up in disgust. We couldn’t bear to think that we might end up like that.

The number of “monkeys in the mouth” was so great that the bodies outside were soon eaten clean, and the smell of blood in the air reached an unacceptable level. The fat man’s eyes were bloodshot. He knew that the next step would be for us to be eaten. He took a sip of white wine and said, “Damn it, you want to eat me, but let’s see if you have the teeth to do it.”

I was a bit shaky and took a sip of his wine, which burned my throat. Wine is indeed a good thing. Men feel very different with and without wine.

Outside, the “monkeys” searched around the wreckage. Suddenly, one of them noticed us in the gap and let out a strange scream. Then the other “monkeys” came over curiously, peering out of their faces to take a look at us.

It was only then that I could see clearly that the “monkey” had no lips. No wonder its fangs were so sharp and hideous. What surprised me most was that all the “monkeys” had a bronze six-sided bell hanging around their necks. Some were still intact, while others had only half of them left. But these bells didn’t make a sound as the monkeys moved.

I was very scared at the time and didn’t think about what it meant, but afterwards I thought that these bronze bells must have something to do with the whole mystery, even though they didn’t seem to belong to the same culture.

The “monkey in the mouth” was still very cautious at first, and they surrounded the hole for a long time. The fat man and I didn’t dare to breathe, holding our guns and waiting for them to come in. After a while, a few of them couldn’t hold back any longer, suddenly hanging down from the top of the gap, jumping into the gap at once, and pouncing on the fat man tentatively.

The fat man was caught off guard and almost shot the strange monkey’s head. As the bullet came out horizontally, it also took the corpse flying out and fell into the pile of corpses. Then his gun went off, the bullet swept, and the monkeys let out a terrified howl. Several monkeys were instantly blown to pieces.

All the monkeys suddenly noticed us in the gap, and the scene got out of control. The leader of the monkeys let out a shrill cry, and all the monkeys began to squeeze into the gap. I swallowed my saliva and knew that my nightmare was coming.

Before I could even pray, two monkeys had already jumped into the gap, hanging on the top of the gap and opening their huge mouths at me. The 56-caliber was too long to use the butt of the gun to smash, so I had to kick one out with a flying kick, and then shoot the other one twice to kill it. Then another one rushed in, and I was not mentally prepared to shoot again, so I just started sweeping with the gun.

For five or six minutes, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just saw one hideous monkey after another rushing in, only to be swept out by me. There was blood everywhere, and the monkeys were crazy and fearless. Sometimes several of them even squeezed into the gap together, getting themselves stuck, and I kicked them out with my feet. However, more and more monkeys came like a tide. The bullets flew past, and even if only half of the body was left, as long as it could move, it would still go straight into the gap, it was really vicious.

Soon the bullets were exhausted. I originally thought that it would be fine to hold out for an hour, but in actual combat, the consumption of bullets is not something you can control. I still had a lot of bullets, but as long as the monkeys did not stop charging, we would not have a chance to reload.

The fat guy’s M16 jammed first. He was already so mad that he threw away his gun, took out his knife and tried to fight them hand-to-hand, but they didn’t give him the chance. In an instant, five or six monkeys had jumped on him and started biting. The fat guy screamed in pain and killed two of them with his hands, but four more jumped on his face at once.

Then my five or six bullets were also empty, and I heard the trigger click several times. My heart suddenly felt cold, and then several red lights rushed to my face in an instant. Before I could even draw my sword, I was hit in the shoulder and inner thigh. I subconsciously used my injured hand to scare it, but it was useless. In the midst of struggling, all I could think of was that Wu Xie and Wang the Fat Man would never be able to escape from the secret realm of Changbai Mountain.