Daomu Biji: Restart
Book 3: Chapter 23: See Out of the Corner of Your Eye

Fatty and I didn’t dare speak as we followed Poker-Face into the darkness. This situation is really abnormal. I guess I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

Poker-Face made a gesture when we reached the boundary between the firelight and the darkness. Fatty and I both nodded in understanding.

The white noise was probably about ten meters away from us in the darkness, but we couldn’t see anything there. Poker-Face wasn’t ready to use a flashlight just yet, which meant that he wanted to sneak up on whatever was there. He suddenly changed his gesture, and the three of us moved at the same time, rushing into the darkness as fast as possible.

As soon as we entered that dark area, we all crouched in the grass as we continued moving forward.

The white noise continued on in front of us for a while, and then that male voice appeared again.

But this time, the voice sounded so strange that I couldn't understand what he was saying.

I paused. The tone sounded very urgent now.

I came to a complete stop as I heard the voice in the grass up ahead say something else, but I still couldn’t hear it clearly.

In the dark, I could see that Poker-Face had also come to a stop and was now crouching on my left. I couldn’t actually see him clearly, but I could tell from his body shape.

I continued creeping forward and soon saw something up ahead. There was a small red dot flashing about seven or eight meters away from us—it was the indicator light on a satellite phone. The red dot would flash a few times every time there was static, but it wasn't very bright at all. It seemed that the phone just had this indicator light and didn’t actually have a lighting function.

When I looked at that little red dot, I immediately felt that something was wrong. The dot wasn’t in the grass, but up in the air. In other words, something was holding this satellite phone up.

I looked at Poker-Face next to me and found that he hadn’t moved from his previous position. As it turned out, I had accidentally taken the lead. Now I was only three or four meters away from that little red dot.

I felt a little flustered.

I strained my eyes and was finally able to make out a vague figure squatting behind the little red dot. It was too dark for me to see clearly, but he seemed to be holding a satellite phone and making a gesture like he wanted to hand it to me.

I looked back at Poker-Face to see when he would come up so that we could rush over together, but Poker-Face’s shadow just continued to squat there, completely motionless.

I didn’t know what was going on, so I could only stay still. At this time, however, the red dot in front of me dimmed and my eyes lost focus. The white noise also temporarily disappeared.

I started to break out in a cold sweat and looked back at Poker-Face again. This time, I found that he was finally crawling towards me.

I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention back to the darkness in front of me. The red dot didn't appear again.

It was in this moment that I suddenly felt that something was wrong. The way that Poker-Face was crawling just now was so uncoordinated that it wasn’t like him at all.

I turned my head and looked out of the corner of my eye. Poker-Face’s shadow was slowly crawling towards me in the dark, but I really couldn’t see it clearly. All I could see was a black patch of color.

I didn’t know why, but I instinctively felt that it was wrong.

As I looked at that vague shape out of the corner of my eye, I couldn’t help but feel that the way it was crawling was different from how Poker-Face would usually move.

It took me a while to figure it out, so by the time I completely turned around, the shadow had already crawled to my feet and was moving into a crouch.

In an instant, all my hair stood on end and I broke out in a cold sweat. I immediately decided that this wasn't Poker-Face, because the shadow that was crouching in front of me had a big head.

I took a step back and pulled out my flashlight—I couldn't adhere to Poker-Face's instructions at this time. I turned on my flashlight and pointed it at the shadow.

But as soon as I looked, I was surprised to find that nothing was there. I didn’t see anything illuminated in the flashlight’s beam at all.

I swept my flashlight around but still didn’t see anything. Even Poker-Face and Fatty weren’t around. What’s going on? I immediately stood up and looked in the direction of the bonfire. I’ll just run back, I said to myself.

I started running towards the bonfire, moving so fast that it didn’t take me long to reach the boundary between firelight and darkness. But when I was near the bonfire, I suddenly heard my own satellite phone—which I had placed by the fire—start making noises again.

The voice was completely incomprehensible, but it seemed to be saying a long sentence.

I went up and picked up the satellite phone, recalling that Poker-Face had turned it off earlier. I looked around with my flashlight again, but Poker-Face and Fatty were nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they were still lying in the grass.

I shined my flashlight on the place where I was just now, but there was nothing there.

I broke out in a cold sweat as I had a strange flash of inspiration. I turned my head and looked out of the corner of my eye at the direction my flashlight was shining in. I knew that there were some things I could only see if I used my peripheral vision.

Out of the corner of my eye, I vaguely saw a person standing on the dark grassland, right at the edge of the circle of light cast by the bonfire. Based on their posture, they seemed to be trying to walk into the range of the bonfire’s flames.

As the night wind blew and the flames flickered, that vague person’s hand reached out and actually touched my hair.