Death Spiral [Infinite Flow] - Chapter 61

Chapter 61 – Butterflies in the Stomach

Xu RenDong climbed into the ventilation duct and everyone else climbed onto the chairs and followed closely behind him.

The ventilation duct was slightly narrow, just large enough to accommodate an adult crawling. So everyone lined up in a straight line and slowly followed Xu RenDong to crawl in a single file.

Xu RenDong still had an impression of the factory map. He remembered that although there were many forks in the last section of the ventilation duct, there was no need to turn. As long as he kept moving forward, he could reach the end. The only problem was that the pipe was too stuffy and looked endless. The journey was as depressing as Xu RenDong imagined.

He climbed in the front with a flashlight, stopping from time to time to remove the exhaust fans that he encountered. The fan was large and the edges of the iron sheets were sharp. They could easily scratch your hands if you weren’t careful. Obviously no one had been by to clean it previously so the fan was full of greasy dirt and was even a little hot. Xu RenDong removed the fifth fan and looked ahead cautiously. He was about to climb forward when he heard a rumbling sound from the inside of the pipe.

Immediately afterwards, the air in the pipe began to flow quickly!

Someone restarted the fan? !

Xu RenDong was shocked and the teammates behind him were even more so: “What’s the matter?” “Isn’t there no way ahead?” “Who did it? Was it the foreman?”

The middle-aged man at the end of the line yelled: “I knew this guy wasn’t reliable! Let’s quit now!”

Xu RenDong said: “Don’t freak out! Calm down!” But his words were meaningless. Everyone had already begun retreating under the stimulus of the middle-aged man and began to backtrack while making frightened noises.

Because the pipe was narrow and you could not simply turn around, everyone crawled out backwards at a very slow speed. After the fan was turned on, the duct became even hotter and hot wind blew on their faces. The wind was still mixed with a lot of dust and the smell of engine oil. Everyone had to cover their mouths and noses and even then they coughed, choking.

Xu RenDong squinted his eyes and wondered if these people didn’t have brains? The person outside turned on the fan to force them out, which meant that person must still be in the control room now. If they retreated now, wouldn’t they just run into that person?

Sure enough, the screams of the middle-aged man soon came from the end of the pipe.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

 The rest of the team panicked and asked the people behind them: “What’s the matter?” “What’s happening back there?!”

The screams of the middle-aged man continued. The girl closest to the middle-aged man cried out: “There is someone behind us! Someone stabbed him with a knife! Go forward! Quickly! Don’t go back!”

Agonized screams and cries came from behind them in the ventilation duct and the sound was extraordinarily piercing. Everyone was so shocked that they turned their heads and continued to crawl forward in a hurry, shouting: “Go forward! Go!” “Hurry up! Someone is catching up from behind!”

The teammates soon returned behind Xu RenDong. Everyone rushed forward for a while and soon came to the next fan. The fan was operating at high speed and the metal fan blades blurred as they turned. It was impossible to remove this fan.

Xu RenDong was pushed by the people behind, almost directly into the fan. Furious, he turned his head and shouted: “Don’t push! There is a meat grinder up front!”

Following him was the medical student, who also helped shout: “Wait! Calm down! Let’s find a solution!”

The screams of the middle-aged man became weaker and weaker. Before long, the girl also let out a sorrowful wail. While she was dying, she let out a desperate cry:

“Why is it you! How come you—” After that, there was no more sound.

Everyone’s hearts clenched. In the darkness, their breathing was abnormally rapid. The smell of sweat and engine oil mixed together, making people feel breathless.

There was no time to hesitate. Xu RenDong took out a steel rod from his backpack and stabbed it in the whirling fan.

Lian Qiao: “Be careful of shrapnel!”

After making a harsh scratching sound, the steel rod was twisted into bits by the high-speed rotating fan. In an instant, flames blazed everywhere. Broken steel pieces splashed out through the air, slashing across Xu RenDong’s palm and scraping off several pieces of meat. Suddenly a sharp pain came from the back of his hand but Xu RenDong did not let go but, still holding the steel rod, slammed it in deeper.

Broken steel flew around and several of them flew to the faces of teammates behind. An angry roar came from behind: “What are you doing! Hurry up and remove the fan!”

“Boo–” The fan made a metallic wail and the twisted steel rod finally stuck in a gap and the fan came to a halt.

The back of Xu RenDong’s hands were dripping with blood. In the deepest wounds, even the white tendons could be seen. He was about to dismantle the fan when he heard a “oh!” behind him and someone vomited. Then he heard something wing-like flutter by his ears.

Xu RenDong instinctively stretched out his hand and something itchy fell onto his palm.  He focused his gaze and saw it was a big gray moth!

However, the moth stayed in his hands for only a moment before, in the next second, it turned into a round metal object shining with silver light.

The elevator button!

Can even moths turn into buttons?

Before he could think about it, he stuffed the button into his pocket, unloaded the fan at the fastest speed then turned his head and said, “Okay! Let’s go!”

Everyone immediately followed. The medical student saw that the ground that Xu RenDong had crawled through was full of blood. He was shocked: “Are your hands okay? With this amount of bleeding, your arteries are probably broken!”

Xu RenDong crawled forward and asked without looking back, “Are there any large arteries on the back of the hand?”

Medical students: “…No, they are all relatively small.”

Xu RenDong: “Then it’s okay, I won’t die for a while.”

Medical student: “…” You deserve to be a nine-time boss, your mental fortitude is commendable. You won’t even blink if your hands are chopped off.

An exclamation sound came from behind again: “Somebody’s body has been dragged away! That person behind is about to catch up! Up ahead, hurry up!”

When everyone heard this, they were even more shocked. They all crawled forward in  panic, fearing that after the person behind them died, it would be their turn next. After removing the fan, Xu RenDong did not throw it away but took it all the way to the next fan port, using the previous fan to block the next fan.

It was obviously only a few hundred meters away but at this time the duct looked extremely long and endless. Xu RenDong focused all of his attention on removing the fan, without any time to care about what was happening behind him. He only knew that the medical student was still behind him, so at least the thing behind had not caught up to him yet.

But what was the thing that was hunting them down?

There was no time to think about it. As Xu RenDong started to remove the last fan, his eyes suddenly lit up!

The exit was here!

He jumped out of the ventilation duct and suddenly felt light. His folded body stretched out. There was a bright room in front of him and a silver-white elevator stood alone in the middle of the room, waiting for them.   

The medical student followed and jumped down to the ground with a puff. He was overjoyed after seeing the elevator: “The elevator is really here!”

Xu RenDong took out the button and slapped it on the elevator groove. After a “ding” sound, the elevator door opened.

The teammates crawled out of the pipe one by one. Holding a mace in his hand, Xu RenDong stood at the exit and asked one by one, “Is there anyone behind you?”

The last one who came out was Zhang XiaoXiao. Her face was pale and her voice was trembling: “There’s no one else! The person chasing us has a large pair of scissors in his hand. I heard him hacking the person behind me…”

Before she finished speaking, she covered her mouth with another retching noise. Moth wings could be seen fluttering in the gap between her fingers.

… It’s you again, it turns out you really are a reliable supplier of moths.

Xu RenDong gave her a push. He pointed to the elevator and said, “You go first.”

Zhang XiaoXiao covered her mouth and said vaguely: “Aren’t you coming?”

Xu RenDong said: “I want to wait for someone.”

Zhang XiaoXiao was shocked and said: “Wait for who? The people left behind must already be dead! Are you going back to rescue them?!”

Xu RenDong saw in his left eye that Lian Qiao had already started beating the boss. Lian Qiao was facing the enemy so he had to stay here. If something happened to Lian Qiao, he could still take care of him. If he went into the elevator, he would be powerless.

He couldn’t explain this to Zhang XiaoXiao so he could only say with a cold face: “Don’t worry about me. Hurry up and don’t get in my way.”

Zhang XiaoXiao glanced at the elevator. The others were already waiting in the elevator, their faces full of anxiety. They kept urging her to come up quickly. Zhang XiaoXiao rushed into the elevator.

When the elevator door was about to close, the medical student inside suddenly ran out again. As everyone watched, shocked, the elevator door closed. The medical student was left outside.

Xu RenDong said in surprise: “What are you doing?”

Medical student: “After thinking about it, I still feel that I can’t just forget about it.” He was unable to help himself and grabbed Xu RenDong’s hand. He asked, “Big brother, do you have alcohol gauze?”

Xu RenDong realized that he wanted to bandage his wound. He turned around: “There is some in the backpack.”

The medical student unzipped the zipper and while looking for the alcohol gauze, he grinned and said, “Hey! You are quite well equipped. You really deserve the name Nine-Instance Boss.”

Xu RenDong fixed his eyes on the ventilation duct and allowed the medical students to bandage his wounds. It didn’t take long for the metal fragments stuck in the palm of the hand to be taken out. Then both hands were tied with gauze and didn’t hurt as much when moving.

After the medical student bandaged him up, he immediately ran into the elevator without any nostalgia. He waved to Xu RenDong from the elevator door that was about to close: “Thank you big boss. Come to XX Chinese Medicine Hospital to find me if you are sick in the future.”

Xu RenDong: “…” I don’t want to see you, okay?

After the medical student left, the small room returned to silence. Xu RenDong once again turned his attention back to the ventilation duct but, after waiting for so long, there wasn’t any movement from inside.

He aimed his flashlight into it but the pipe was dark and bottomless. There was nothing to be seen in the areas that the light could reach. No matter how he looked he couldn’t discover anything. 

Why wasn’t the monster chasing after them? Did it think that because everyone cleared the instance so it knocked off work early?

Xu RenDong felt a strange sensation in his heart. At this moment, there was a shining silver thing in the field of vision of his left eye. It shook and then a line of text appeared on the phone screen:

“Hey, I’ve cleared the level! The total time is 5 hours and 23 minutes! Big brother, how is it going with you?”

Xu RenDong glanced into the ventilation duct again. It was dark and silent. He wasn’t sure if there was anything inside the ventilation duct and he didn’t have the courage to climb in again to check.

Forget it, it wasn’t necessary. 

Xu RenDong continued to stare at the exit of the duct as he stepped backwards into the elevator step by step. But up until the elevator door slowly closed in front of him, nothing strange got out of the pipe. There was the low running noise of the elevator and Xu RenDong finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It’s finally over…

He took out his cell phone and was about to notify Lian Qiao when a trace of anxiety suddenly flashed through his heart.

He remembered that the girl at the end of the line yelled “Why is it you” before she died. If it was the foreman or a monster who was chasing them, why would she say such a thing?

Was it a gentleman?!

Xu RenDong was taken aback by his own thoughts but quickly calmed himself down. He had repeatedly confirmed that the gentleman had no vital signs and had even stabbed him a few more times for good measure. If all of this couldn’t kill him, then there was only one explanation.

The gentleman was not a person from the real world but must be a monster that belonged here.

In any case, as long as he leaves the instance, then the gentleman can no longer affect him.

At this point, Xu RenDong settled down. He chatted with Lian Qiao casually and soon the elevator arrived.

After the clearance this time, the hoarse and deep mysterious sound appeared in his mind again. He immediately took out his phone and recorded it:

“*** is ***, you want to ***. You will experience countless tortures, but this is not a punishment, it is ***. When you reach the ending point, you will understand ***.*** to live.”

The new keyword unlocked this time was “ending point”. Xu RenDong was a little disappointed. The new information was as good as no information. Who was the one that was setting the keywords? Were they just trying to make up the number of words?

He got out of the elevator and returned to the familiar apartment. The time in the real world began to flow again.

At the same time, in a certain city, in a certain corner of the world that Xu RenDong didn’t know about, a man appeared beside the highway out of thin air.

Cars sped past him. The man turned his head and glanced into the darkness and something seemed to disappear behind him. He let out a sound tinged with  dissatisfaction and took out a wooden doll from his pocket.

The doll was only the size of a palm and the drawn features were very vivid. Especially that face, the features were as fine as a real person’s. Even the look of horror was exactly the same as a living person.

Such a realistic looking wooden doll can be regarded as a work of art. But at this time countless cracks appeared throughout the doll’s limbs and a large area of ​​blackness appeared in its throat. The doll truly looked like it was once alive and had a horrified look on its face. It looked as though it had died not long ago.

The man just glanced at it once then threw the doll into the farmland behind him. His face was gloomy and filled with unhappiness. His hands rubbed irritably together and fine white chalky substance fell from his fingers.

The man stood by the highway for a while and then suddenly climbed over the fence and walked towards the middle of the highway.

The car that was speeding down the road saw a figure in the distance. It desperately honked its horn but the man remained motionless, seemingly indifferent to the oncoming crisis.

The sharp sound of brakes screeched across the road. The driver’s heart beat wildly. He had no time to brake and evade. He could only watch the man getting closer and closer to him. Finally, he saw the man’s face clearly. It was a plain face with no discernable characteristics and was easily forgettable. However, strangely, there was a smile on the man’s face. An eerie smile of excitement.

Just as the car was about to hit the man, time stopped.

The elevator belonging to the man appeared again.