“Stop diving! How deep is this water anyway? Is diving even fun?!”
“And you! Don’t hold your breath underwater pretending to play dead!”
A child she called out to was still floating face-down on the water, as if he hadn’t heard, floating motionless like a corpse, as if dead.
“Hey? Somebody call for help! Prepare CPR!”
Gu Lian’s heart skipped a beat. Without hesitation, she jumped from the lifeguard chair, her body arcing through the air before slicing into the water. Splashes spread, and the air trapped around her body turned into bubbles streaming along her sides.
Her gray hair spread out in the water as she performed a perfect dive and fast crawl, her hair trailing lines of ripples.
In the water, Gu Lian quickly approached the drowning person. But the moment she reached him, he stood up from the water, looking at her with confusion, as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’
BAM
Water splashed high as Gu Lian burst through the surface. Her upper body barely out of the water, she pointed a slender finger at the boy playing dead and shouted, “What the hell are you doing? When I called you just now, why didn’t you answer? I thought you were drowning!”
“Huh? You were calling me? I thought you were calling someone else. Sorry, I won’t do it again.”
The boy playing dead scratched his head sheepishly, even sticking out his tongue. His apology was picture-perfect.
“You… be careful next time.”
Gu Lian didn’t feel like scolding him further. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who smiles at you—any more reprimanding and she’d just look petty.
She dove back into the water, swam to the edge of the pool, pressed her hands against the non-slip floor, and pushed herself out of the water.
Feet firmly on the ground, Gu Lian glanced sideways at the kid who had already started playing dead again. Her mouth twitched as she muttered, “Damn, this is really messing with my head.”
Deciding to ignore the kid, she climbed back onto the lifeguard chair, looked over the noisy pool, and sighed. ‘As expected… no job is ever worry-free.’
But compared to her previous life, she still found this kind of life comfortable. A little shouting and cursing was nothing. Her former colleagues? One wrong word, and they’d be settling things in the wild, life or death. Countless times.
This kind of life and work now? Just relaxation.
She had barely sat down when, across the way, a chubby kid was about to dive. Gu Lian’s gaze caught him just in time. She brought the whistle to her lips.
TWEET TWEET TWEET
A sharp but powerful whistle sounded. The chubby kid hesitated at the sound. Gu Lian spat out the whistle and yelled, “No diving in the pool! Understand?!”
Under Gu Lian’s ‘friendly’ stare, the chubby kid reluctantly moved to the shallow end and entered the pool via the steps.
Having just stopped an eager diver, Gu Lian shifted her gaze to a few mischievous kids and shouted, “No div—”
SPLASH
Before she could finish, several kids rushed to the pool’s edge, jumped, curled into balls mid-air, and crashed into the water with a splash. The spray rose high, broke into droplets, and splattered all over Gu Lian.
“… “
The clear water had already soaked her swimsuit. Gu Lian was numb. It had happened so many times, she’d lost count. Those kids were just too wild.
For the rest of the time, Gu Lian gave up. She let the kids do whatever they wanted in the pool, as long as no one got hurt. Let them be.
Time slipped by, and soon it was 8 PM.
The sun had set, and the moon hung high in the sky, casting a soft glow. The pool gradually emptied. Now the vast Swimming Base was empty—not a soul in sight. The deserted pool felt a little eerie, with only the faint sound of water lapping against the tiles.
“Ahh… damn, finally off work…”
Gu Lian jumped off the lifeguard chair, interlaced her fingers, and stretched her arms above her head. She could almost hear the pop pop of her bones. Her body slowly relaxed, revealing her graceful, curvaceous figure.
After one last crack from her joints, a wave of soothing relief washed over her.
Lowering her arms, Gu Lian tugged at her soaked swimsuit and headed toward the staff changing room.
The staff changing room was brightly lit. Gu Lian raised her hand to punch in on the time clock, then walked to her locker, quickly stripped off her School Swimsuit and swim socks.
She put on her shirt in a flash, then grabbed her clothes and draped them over her shoulders.
With a SZZT, the ceiling light flickered and went out. Gu Lian finished dressing in the dark, walked calmly to the exit, and pressed the light switch. The ceiling light illuminated the room again, but the door in front of her had vanished. Instead, a wooden door had appeared behind her.
‘Did I remember wrong?’
Gu Lian raised an eyebrow, walked slowly to the wooden door, grasped the handle, and turned it gently. The dark wooden door swung open.
Before her was nothing but pitch-black darkness—a corridor stretching downward. A breeze blew through the passage, stirring her hair slightly. Gu Lian looked down. In the dim light, she could vaguely see hidden black lines writhing chaotically.
Faint, rustling giggles echoed from below, as if a seductive female voice was whispering in her ear, urging her to enter this corridor. Just go in, and she could go home.
‘…’
Gu Lian glanced at the dark corridor and listened to the murmurs that blurred the line between illusion and reality. Silently, she closed the wooden door again. The whispers stopped instantly.
‘Another Weiyi incident…’
Gu Lian walked very calmly to the wall she had originally stood by. She had encountered this several times already. Though those Weiyi were creepy, they could still be dealt with by brute force.
Hehehe…
A strange laugh came from behind the wooden door. But the next second, the sound of Gu Lian lunging forward cut through the air. She drew her foot to her abdomen, then kicked like lightning, bringing a whistling gust of wind. The kick slammed into the wall like a meteor.
BOOM
The whole room shook. A sudden gale burst forth. Under the impact of this air pressure, the other three walls cracked slightly, and stone chips fluttered down from the ceiling.
Accompanied by the crumbling sound of breaking stone and a thunderous explosion like a blank round, the stone wall was kicked open into a hole half a meter wide. The edge of the hole, where the wall was 20 cm thick, looked as if it had been blasted, with chunks falling off.
The surrounding obscene whispers abruptly stopped. Gu Lian flexed her right leg and stepped through the hole. Outside was still the brightly lit pool, but the eerie, sinister atmosphere had vanished.
“Tch, these days, anything can happen.”
Gu Lian let out a dismissive scoff, turned back to glare at the empty room, then slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the Swimming Pool Base.
She had seen a few types of Weiyi in that blood-red file.
The first type is biological Weiyi born from Cryptic Energy. This kind can infect corpses, beasts, or even humans, turning them into mindless monsters. It can also generate similar Weiyi out of thin air—this is the most common.
The second type is Cryptic Incidents. These are usually environment-based. Cryptic Energy creates a kind of illusion. In the illusion, living things can move freely, but the physical objects remain stationary. For example, if your illusion is a swimming pool, you might think you’re swimming in water, but you’re actually crawling on the ground. One wrong move, and you could bury yourself in the earth. And these illusions have a time limit.
She didn’t know why, but today she encountered a Cryptic Incident. Really damn eerie.
After Gu Lian left the Swimming Base, a few flesh tendrils sprouted from the wall that had been broken open. These tendrils quickly twisted together, forming a wall identical to the original.
The moment the wall was repaired, a single eye was squeezed out from the surface, glaring venomously in the direction Gu Lian had left.
Whoooosh~
That eye was bloodshot, and around the pupil was a ring of black. But if you looked closely, you’d see it was actually formed by a circle of writhing insects.
The white wall suddenly transformed into flesh tissue, and two meter-long, flesh-colored tentacles extended outward.
The iris of the eye bulged completely, almost half the eyeball forcing itself out of the wall.
Tendrils like threads connected to the edge of the eye, and a strange creaking sound began to echo through the center of the pool.
The tentacles detached from the wall, allowing the eye to make contact with the tentacles’ surface.
The wrinkled skin sank in with a SQUELCH, and the eye was fully embedded in the junction of the two tentacles. The tips of the tentacles began twisting and scraping against the floor.
Glaring hatefully at where Gu Lian had disappeared, the tentacle monster writhed its body and crawled away into the distance, leaving a trail of transparent fluid.
With a CLANG, the tentacle monster lifted the manhole cover in the lower part of the Swimming Pool Base. Its tentacles extended inside, and its body, which seemed far too large for the manhole entrance, squeezed itself in with effort.
THUMP
The manhole cover was pulled back into place. And so, the massive tentacle monster vanished completely into the silent swimming pool building.
“Squeak, squeak—squeak, squeak—”
It sounded like the gnawing of some rodent, coming from the Swimming Base. Dozens of tentacles, covered in sharp teeth, coiled at the bottom of a small pool. Those jagged, serrated tentacles were wrapped around a burly, strong man. The serrated edges scraped a large chunk of flesh off the man’s back.
The corpse, already bleached and pale from soaking, was entangled and intertwined by dozens of tentacles. If Gu Lian were here, she would have recognized him as the burly man who applied for the job alongside her. But now he was just a corpse.
TAP TAP
The sound of high heels striking the tiles echoed. A figure in high heels appeared beside the pool, crouched down, and reached a hand into the water. In response, a thinner tentacle wrapped around her fingers.
With her free hand, the figure pulled out a smartphone. Her finger hovered over the contact labeled “Gu Lian.” The corners of her mouth curled upward. The lights flickered on and off, and in that intermittent glow, one could vaguely make out that this was a woman.
PS: Brothers, my brain cells are really running out. Can you please like and comment more? Only then will the author have the motivation to type!