Chapter 053: The Flying White Rabbit

Squeak… hiss… squeak… hiss…

The sound behind him was shrill and drawn-out, like a mountain goat whose throat was being squeezed in its death throes.

Li Tianque shivered involuntarily, then turned warily toward the direction of the sound.

By now, the mountain area had been completely sealed off. No outsider could possibly get in, and the rescue teams and special operations soldiers had retreated to the foot of the mountain. Where, then, was this noise coming from?

Could it be some kind of wild animal?

Pondering this, Li Tianque edged closer to the source. The sound came from the corner where the triangular rock wall met the well.

There, rubble and the rock face formed a pitch-black gap, an abyss of darkness.

He couldn’t make out what lay inside; from his current angle, it seemed shrouded in a chilling aura.

Li Tianque observed carefully for a while but found nothing out of the ordinary, so he withdrew his gaze.

It was in the act of looking away that a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

There must have been a white rabbit just now… a little white rabbit darted past…

No sooner had this idea surfaced than he instinctively turned his head, startled, to stare at the dark crevice in the rock.

A white rabbit…

How could a white rabbit be suspended in the gap of a rock wall?

A flying white rabbit?

What a bizarre notion.

When Li Tianque looked again to confirm, he was stunned.

It turned out that, within that pitch-black gap, there was no little white rabbit at all, but instead a ghastly, deathly pale human face!

And that eerie sound was once more emanating from the darkness behind the face.

At the same time, a faint sobbing could be heard.

“Who’s there?” Li Tianque barked, shining his phone’s flashlight in that direction.

The distance was still too great; he couldn’t see clearly, but he could vaguely make out something white, like a human face, floating in the darkness.

Summoning his courage, Li Tianque approached, clambering over stones until he was closer to the rock wall’s fissure.

At the reach of his light, it was indeed a human face.

The face was as pale as snow, barely retaining the contours of a human visage, but with no clear features—so indistinct that it was impossible to tell if it belonged to a man or a woman.

The face seemed as if, after lying dead for many days, it had grown a dense layer of mold or cobwebs—coarse and bizarre, with a texture almost like stone.

Looking more closely, Li Tianque realized there was a body beneath the face.

At that moment, the sobbing sound grew stronger, and two pairs of hands stretched out from the darkness.

Startled, Li Tianque staggered back two steps.

Now the hands were fully extended, and the figure was writhing in pain, struggling.

It was only then that Li Tianque saw the truth: the pale face caught in the rock fissure was wedged tightly in place.

The sides of the face were embedded firmly between unyielding stone, making escape impossible no matter how desperately the figure struggled. The muffled, weeping sound of distress also came from behind the face.

Realizing it was a living person, Li Tianque’s heart settled a little.

But judging by the state of the man, he was clearly struggling to pull his face free from the rock gap. Closer inspection revealed that what was stuck in the gap wasn’t his actual "face" at all!

Stepping closer, Li Tianque confirmed that this was a rather stout man, but his head was tightly encased in a pale stone mask for reasons unknown.

At this moment, the man was frantically trying to extricate himself.

When the fat man sensed Li Tianque’s approach, his struggle grew fiercer, and the muffled cries from his mouth intensified.

"Don’t panic, I’ll find a way to get it off you," Li Tianque soothed as he stepped nearer.

Now he could see the stone mask more clearly. It was not a mask, but a round, white stone.

Its shape was somewhat like a tortoise shell, and from the shell’s edge, soft tendrils extended, coiling tightly around the man’s cheeks and preventing him from escaping.

Li Tianque tried to pry the strange stone off with his hands, but it was no use—the thing clung to the man’s head like a giant suction cup, impossible to dislodge.

Suddenly, Li Tianque noticed the man had stopped struggling and instead began gesturing with his hands, trying to signal something.

Watching closely, Li Tianque saw him first point to his own face with his right hand, then mimic a pinching motion with his left, while the fingers of his right hand curled slightly downward, as if grasping something in midair.

Next, the fat man used his left hand to pinch his right index finger and pull upward, then went on to pinch and pull his middle, ring, and little fingers in sequence.

Li Tianque quickly caught on: the man was using his right hand to mimic the stone’s tendrils, and his left to show how to pull them off.

"So you want me to start with those tendrils?" Li Tianque asked.

The fat man grunted, apparently in agreement.

Li Tianque reached for the tendrils on the stone, but as soon as his hand touched them, they withdrew instantly, hiding beneath the shell where he couldn’t reach.

Whenever he tried to touch another spot, the previously withdrawn tendrils would extend again.

He struggled for a while, but couldn’t manage to grasp a tendril, let alone break one.

At that moment, the fat man signaled again, this time rubbing his thumb against his closed fingers in the classic gesture for a lighter—he wanted Li Tianque to use fire to burn the tendrils.

Li Tianque searched his pockets but found no lighter; he must have left it in the car in his haste to set out.

The fat man gestured again, indicating that there was a lighter in the backpack behind him.

But Li Tianque didn’t retrieve it. He knew that even if fire could burn the tendrils, it would also likely scorch the man’s face.

So he came up with a safer idea.

"Don’t worry, I have another way to get this thing off. It might hurt a bit, though—bear with it!"

The fat man responded, unable to hide his eagerness.

Li Tianque thought to himself that after suffering under this strange stone for so long, the man must be half-mad with desperation—at this point, a little pain was nothing; he’d probably agree even if it meant losing an arm.

Li Tianque put on his thousand-volt gloves, activated them, and a number flashed in his mind: 40 volts.

Thirty-six volts is the safe limit for humans, but he reasoned slightly higher should still be tolerable for a short time.

"Here I go!"

With that, Li Tianque pressed his hands to the man’s head and released the current.

A visible surge of electricity crackled over the strange stone, and this time, the exposed tendrils had no chance to retreat; they trembled violently.

Li Tianque’s movements were reminiscent of Benimaru Nikaido’s brainwashing electric wave in King of Fighters, as he unleashed a torrent of energy onto the fat man’s head.

With a muffled pop—like the cork of a kettle being yanked out—the tendrils finally retracted, and the stone tumbled off the man’s head.

After a strenuous effort, the bizarre stone was finally removed.

(End of chapter)