Volume 8 Chapter 6: The Orientation of the Stone Sculpture

My scalp went numb, my heart rate sped up, and I became nervous.

Pan Zi swallowed and said, “I didn’t notice… but it definitely wasn’t this side.”

The fat guy said, “Damn, there’s a ghost. Could it have turned itself around? Or did we trigger some kind of mechanism?”

I said that was impossible. I had seen it clearly when we approached. It was obviously stone. And it was a single piece, so there was no way it could have a mechanism.

Pan Zi stared at the stone carving and said, “I didn’t look closely enough. Maybe the carving has two sides.”

“Two sides? Your head. I looked back several times when we were leaving. There was definitely no face on the back of the stone carving.” The fat guy said, “And, there’s something wrong with this face.”

Indeed, compared to the front, the face of this stone statue looks very strange. It is also expressionless, but the expression on the face is full of gloom and resentment. It is frightening to look at.

“Damn it, it must have turned itself around. Is this thing alive?” Pan Zi said. “We’ve run into a stone spirit.”

I said, “We’re not walking in a straight line. Maybe it’s the angle. Don’t scare yourself.”

The fat guy scolded, “Bullshit angle, there must be a problem, you’re fooling yourself.”

I was a little embarrassed, and the fat guy said, “Do you want to go back and take a look?”

Pan Zi shook his head, suddenly took out a gun, loaded it, aimed at the giant face, and tried to shoot. We were shocked by this move and almost couldn’t react in time. The fat man immediately raised the gun, and the bullet whizzed past with a bang, hitting the dragon-brain incense wood next to the stone statue, knocking the whole tree over. We immediately looked at the stone statue and thought to ourselves, “This is too much. If it were really alive, you wouldn’t have provoked it directly.”

The fat guy was already ready for battle, his hands on his hips. Several people looked at the stone sculpture, ready to react to any movement.

However, looking at the statue, there was no reaction at all. The strange face was still cold and expressionless, and nothing had changed at all. It seemed to be just an ordinary stone statue. After waiting for a while, Pan Zi unloaded his gun and said to us, “Look, it’s nothing, it’s just a stone. Maybe we really got it wrong. The roads here are winding and crooked. Let’s go, don’t dawdle.”

I also breathed a sigh of relief, saying that I was really scaring myself, and being in this kind of place really made me nervous. I even lost the ability to judge correctly.

The fat guy frowned and still didn’t believe it: “When I was stationed in the border area, I worked on a lathe and my eyesight was very good. How could I have made a mistake?”

“A lathe is a lathe, but this is a forest, and the reference objects are complicated. It’s not surprising to see it wrong,” I said.

Pan Zi urged us to hurry, but the fat guy refused to budge. He took Pan Zi’s gun, put down his own equipment, and said to us, “Don’t move. I’ll go and take a look. It’ll only take two minutes.” Then he walked in the direction of the statue.

We knew how stubborn he was, so we let him go. I sat down to rest, and Pan Zi cursed.

I saw the fat man put his gun on his back and walk back carefully. Halfway there, he suddenly stopped and took a step back, not knowing what he had seen.

Pan Zi was impatient and yelled at him, “What the hell are you doing? Hurry up!”

Before he finished speaking, the fat man suddenly turned around. He turned and ran, yelling at us, “It’s alive! Run!” At the same time, I saw the “face” of the strange bird in the distance change. Its eyes were raised and its mouth curled up in an unbelievable way. It had gone from expressionless to a hideous grin.