As saliva mixed with blood dripped down the strange man's mouth, I hurriedly stepped back in fear, not daring to shine my flashlight on his face again.
I quickly turned and ran back with my bag on my back. I actually didn't get a clear look at the man's true face, but just that glimpse was terrifying enough.
Surely he was not a normal person, whether he was a ghost, I wasn't sure, and I didn't have time to see if he had a shadow.
I ran frantically towards the wall, my heavy breathing and rapidly beating heart clearly felt. But I didn't dare to stop, even though I didn't hear any movement behind me, I was afraid that someone might suddenly appear. Despite being twenty years old at that time, my feelings were truly no different from that of a three-year-old child walking alone at night!
Fatty was sitting on the wall waiting for me, he saw me running over and asked anxiously, "Why the heck are you running, did you see a ghost?"
"Don't talk nonsense, quickly put the ladder down, quick!" I shouted gasping for breath.
After the ladder was dropped halfway, I dared to look back, and the cemetery was still dark without seeing anything following me. My heart, which had been mentioned in my throat, finally sank a little bit.
I climbed over the wall and walked with Fatty towards the bus station. When we reached the bus station, there was no one around, the night bus usually came every hour and we estimated we would have to wait a long time.
"What were you running from, did you see a ghost?" Fatty asked puzzled.
"Sort of, I just saw a pale-faced, black-eyed monster eating a dead cat in the woods!" I replied in a hushed voice.
Fatty was truly shocked and asked me to explain in detail, but I had only exchanged glances with the strange man and didn't know much else.
After all, Li Jiadu Cemetery was where dead people lay, and it was late at night, so naturally few people passed by the front gate. The road was empty, and several streetlights around us were also broken, making the whole road look gloomy and pitch-black, giving off a creepy atmosphere.
"Why hasn't the bus come yet?" Fatty, with "Fangwei" on his back, this little thing kept squirming and scratching through Fatty's jacket, causing him some pain.
"I hope we didn't miss it." I murmured, and as luck would have it, the bus's headlights appeared on the winding road just as I finished speaking. At that time, the bus wasn't as advanced as it is now, and you had to pay by yourself or swipe a card. Generally, there would be a ticket seller on the bus, and the ticket sellers on the night buses had a bad attitude and no one wanted to stay on the bus at night.
After getting on the bus, the ticket seller reluctantly gave us the tickets after taking our money and then sat back in his seat.
There were only four of us on the entire bus, Fatty and I sat in the last row, "Fangwei" kept chattering in Fatty's mouth, and Fatty explained with a smile that it was a dog brought from home and the ticket seller didn't bother to ask further.
After the bus had traveled two stops, it stopped at the gates of Xuanming Temple. By now, we had already left the vicinity of the cemetery, and my heart finally settled down a bit. Thinking back to the scene I had just witnessed, if there was such a strange person in the cemetery, how come the old gatekeeper didn't know? It was really strange, the person looked like a human, but who knows, maybe it was a ghost. But do ghosts need to eat meat?
I was full of doubts but had nowhere to find answers.
At this time, a person wearing a green military coat and a wind hat appeared at the Xuanming Temple station, wrapped up tightly. The fat man glanced at him and whispered, "It's not cold, why is he wearing such thick clothes?"
"Don't mind the idle talk. Take 'Fangwei' home first, put it in your yard, and remember not to let it touch the ground. Use bricks to enclose it. Tomorrow, I'll come to your place and slaughter it," I replied. However, the man in the green military coat chose to sit in the row in front of us, even though there were many empty seats available. Why did he have to squeeze into our area?
I furrowed my brow but remained silent.
A few more stops later, when we reached my home, the fat man and I exchanged a few quiet words and then got off the bus. To my surprise, the man in the green military coat also got off the bus and followed me.
There weren't many pedestrians near my house at night, and very few cars passed by. I walked in the direction of my home along the road. As the man in the green military coat continued to silently follow me for about a hundred meters, I started feeling suspicious. Did he also live near my house? Was it just a coincidence that we met?
As my tension grew, I reached into my pocket and felt the amulet given to me by Daba. I had been encountering a lot of strange and ghostly things recently, and I was afraid that today was going to be no different.
Intentionally, I slowed down my pace, thinking that if the man wasn't following me, he would surely overtake me.
The figure behind me came closer and closer. I tightly grasped the amulet, ready to use it, and kept my eyes fixed on the man, prepared to run at any sign of trouble.
Just then, he suddenly strode past me and continued walking ahead.
Feeling relieved as if a sentenced prisoner had been granted reprieve, I relaxed completely. I even chuckled at myself, thinking I had been overly suspicious.
The man in the green military coat moved further ahead and was several meters in front of me. But just as I relaxed, something extraordinary happened.
The man suddenly stopped, and seeing him stop bewildered me, so I stopped too.
He slowly turned his head, and I felt that something bad was about to happen!
As he turned, his face appeared in front of me slowly. It was as pale as the hospital ceiling, with eyes as dark as pitch, and the most terrifying thing was his blood-red lips, as if a woman had applied lipstick!
"Oh my god!" I shouted in terror. Wasn't this the strange man I had seen eating a dead cat in the dark garden before?
I knew there was something fishy about him, but I never thought I would be right!
This wasn't a martial arts film, and I didn't have any martial arts skills. The only thought in my head at that moment was to run.
I sprinted away, but he also started chasing me. I could hear his heavy footsteps behind me, and I didn't know if it was also him growling quietly. The chaotic sounds surrounded me, and although he seemed to run slowly, I was carrying a heavy bag and soon found it hard to catch my breath.
In a dangerous situation, one's mind often works quickly. While running, I thought that if I kept this up, he would eventually catch me, and I wasn't sure if I could shake off the man who looked like a monster. Maybe running towards a crowded area would be the only chance to escape.
But there were very few people near my house at night. The only place with people was a commercial street behind the elementary school. Even if I ran there, he would probably catch up. Feeling both desperate and out of breath, I decided to confront him.
Just then, at that moment, a few people came walking towards us!
There were four middle-aged men pushing bicycles, possibly workers from a nearby factory. It was like seeing my savior, and I shouted, "Hey, comrades!"
When they heard my shout, the four middle-aged people all looked at me in confusion. I quickly ran up to them, gasping for breath, and said, "Behind me, behind me... someone is chasing me..."
Seeing people, I felt much more at ease, but when I turned around, I was stunned to find that there was not a single soul behind me. The four middle-aged people in front of me looked at me with some astonishment.
"Kid, who's chasing you?" one of them asked.
But I didn't answer. There were no bushes on both sides of the road, and no buildings to hide in, so the strange person should have been chasing me from behind the whole time, so how could they have disappeared? This wasn't magic, it couldn't make a person vanish just like that.
"A strange person just now, wearing a military coat, didn't you guys see it?" I asked urgently.
"No, we were just chatting, kid, are you okay? Is there someone after you?" they asked me even more strangely. I was lost for words; why had that strange person disappeared into thin air? It couldn't have been my imagination. Fatty had seen it too, and the ticket seller on the bus should have seen it as well. How could it have disappeared?
The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt, but in the end, I laughed bitterly and said, "Just a wild dog was chasing me just now, I probably lost it, sorry."
Back home, my parents were already asleep. I went into my room and took out "Mountain and Wilderness Tales" and flipped through it, when a passage caught my attention!