茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

The tall and lanky young man stared at his loosely clenched fist. He distinctly remembered he picked up a crispy-skinned pig’s foot off the ground just moments ago. The feeling of getting hit in the head and the feel of it in his hand was fresh in his memory. How could it suddenly vanish?

“Are you still feeling the effects of last night’s drinks?” The middle-aged man furrowed his eyebrows and asked.

“No, wait a minute, clearly… What’s going on, eh?” The young man’s hand still maintained its clenched position. He inspected the ground where he picked up the pig’s foot earlier, looked around helplessly, his eyes reflecting both confusion and bewilderment.

“Stop having a fit, hurry up, finish offloading the car, then go soak your feet, take a nap, and we can go get wasted again in the evening.” The middle-aged man yawned and gave his young companion a kick.

The young man had to temporarily suppress his doubts and went into the cargo compartment to assist the middle-aged man in unloading the last electric bike.

But halfway through, he suddenly cried out, “Uncle, did…did you see that?” On the seat of the bike that just got unloaded, lay a surprisingly delicious-looking-yet-oddly-eerie crispy skinned pig’s foot.

The paunchy middle-aged man also looked at it, somewhat stupefied, because he’d seen it too, “Did you sneak this during lunch? Damn, it’s disgusting. You think this funny?”

“No! I didn’t hide it, someone flung it at my head just now! It’s this thing! Uncle, you see it too right?” The young man said somewhat excitedly.

From inside the warehouse emerged a dark-skinned man with a scar across his face. He looked somewhat menacing. Frowning, he said, “What the hell are you guys doing? It takes so long to unload a single bike, and all that fuss. Are you performing a stand-up comedy skit? Hurry!”

“Brother Ba, there’s a pig’s foot here, very strange! Someone used it to hit me! But… but…” The lanky young man quickly reported to the scar-faced man, but he was at a loss as to how to describe the weird incident just now.

“What pig’s foot?” Scar face asked, looking puzzled.

“Brother Ba, this kid is probably still drunk, found a pig’s foot and began to play…”

The middle-aged man was speaking and reached to pick up the pig’s foot from the bike’s seat. As he turned around, he was surprised to find that the pig’s foot was gone. He looked a bit stunned for a moment.

“It’s gone again! Uncle, Brother Ba, it’s really gone! The pig’s foot was just here and now it’s gone!! Uncle, you saw it too, didn’t you? You saw it too!!” The young man was so excited, he almost jumped up.

“Shut up!” Scarface slapped him on the back of the head, pushing him aside.

After examining the bike’s seat, Scarface gave his two partners a look and grumbled, “Stop screwing around, haul it in quickly. We have more work tonight.”

As the words left his mouth, the young man suddenly looked into the distance and yelled, “Brother Ba, over there, over there!”

Both the middle-aged man and scarface followed the sound and looked towards the warehouse door. At the junction of the roads, a dark object rolled out and fell in the middle of the road.

“It’s the pig’s foot, it’s definitely the pig’s foot, uncle, Brother Ba, don’t you see it?” The young man pointed at the dark object on the ground, speaking loudly as if to prove he wasn’t hallucinating.

This time not only him, both the scar-face man and the middle-aged man clearly saw the pig’s foot in the middle of the road. It seemed to have been thrown out from the side of the road junction.

Scarface looked slightly uncertain. The motorcycles and electric bikes they had previously stolen were directly sent to some underground modification plants where they stripped down the parts or handed them over to their regular dealers for modification and resale.

However, recently the Citong police have launched a special operation against criminal gangs involved in motorcycle and electric bike thefts and their sales channels. Therefore, they had nowhere to store the stolen electric bikes and had to temporarily store the new plunder in the abandoned warehouse of this abandoned factory.

At this point, naturally, they were worried about being noticed and discovered by the police, so they wanted to avoid any complications.

But on second thoughts, if the police or someone after them were involved, they wouldn’t go to the trouble of throwing out a pig’s foot.

So, with a narrowed gaze, Scarface walked over, opened the back door of the four-seater van, took a wrench, and strode towards the pig’s foot. The lanky young man and the plump middle-aged man followed closely behind.

After getting closer, Scarface took a few looks, then kicked the pig’s foot aside, increasing his pace and heading towards the corner of the street.

But when he reached the corner, there was not a soul in sight.

The lanky young man who followed him ran over to pick up the pig’s foot, yelling repeatedly, “We must keep an eye on it…”

Of course, the three men standing at the corner didn’t notice that while their attention was focused on the pig’s foot and they were walking towards it, a petite silhouette with a ponytail emerged from the narrow alley between the two buildings next to the warehouse. She lightly threw a handful of tungsten steel balls into the abandoned warehouse and also quickly went to the van and tossed a few balls into the compartment.

Then the figure hid back into the narrow alley beside the warehouse.

That figure, naturally, was Xia Libing.

After Xiang Kun briefly explained the plan to her, she immediately made her way to the side of this warehouse, then stealthily “co-manifested” a “crispy-skinned pig’s foot” half a meter above the lanky young man’s head.

As for the food that Libing can co-manifest, now she can’t let them deform like in dreams, nor can she move them across space for the time being.

However, these objects still possess some basic physical characteristics. So they will fall down as soon as they’re co-manifested in the air.

The pig’s foot that hit the lanky young man and the one that appeared on the electric bike seat were both by her. However, the one that appeared at the end of the road was co-manifested by Xiang Kun – it was beyond the range she could co-manifest.

According to the plan, after Xiang Kun lures them away with the pig’s foot, he would circle back, enter the “Super Sensory State” and wait for the three “car thieves” to fall for the trick.

Scarface, armed with a wrench and accompanied by his two associates combed through the junction area but found no one.

“Damn, it’s probably some local brat…” Scarface spat, picked up his wrench and headed back, saying to the lanky young man, “Where’s the pig’s foot, I saw you picked it up earlier?”

“Right, it’s here…uh…” The young man extended his hand, and then stalled, his hand was empty yet again.

He had been staring intently at the pig’s trotter in his hand, but in the moment he lost focus and looked up, it disappeared?

“Strange!” Scarface frowned.

“Brother Ba, let’s go. I’ve heard strange things about this place before…” The middle-aged man was a little nervous, glancing around warily as he talked. Despite the ample sunlight, there was something unnerving about the deserted factory.

Returning to the entrance of the warehouse, Scarface had the middle-aged man move the last electric bike inside, while the young man went to close the cargo truck. Scarface himself took a seat in the driver’s seat.

After pushing the electric bike into the warehouse, the middle-aged man suddenly felt as if the already dim warehouse had become even darker, giving him a disorienting sensation.

Due to the inexplicable appearance and disappearance of the pig’s trotter, the middle-aged man was already uneasy. Now, faced with this strange phenomenon, a strong sense of terror welled up within him. As he instinctively tried to backtrack, his gaze landed on a large figure looming in a corner of the warehouse.

The middle-aged man noticed that his already large stomach seemed to be expanding even more. His body felt increasingly heavy, his breath short. It seemed as if he could no longer support his own weight, and he uncontrollably fell to the ground.

The large figure drew closer and began to emerge as if dissipating a veil of darkness. The middle-aged man finally saw what it was – a monster over four meters tall, its face covered in eyes and with several arms.

The sight of the monster invoked an ever-growing terror within him. His body’s changes became more pronounced. His hands, swollen like poorly inflated balloons, could hardly lift him from the ground, and the middle-aged man couldn’t help but whimper.

Unusual noises within the warehouse and the sudden whimpering alerted the tall, skinny young man who had just closed the truck and the Scarface in the driver’s seat.

“Brother Ba…Ba…what happened to uncle? Should…should we go in and check?” The tall, skinny young man approached the driver’s cabin, his voice shaky.

“You go and check,” Scarface ordered with a frown.

“I…I can’t go in there by myself.”

“Damn, useless!” Scarface cursed. Hesitating for a second, he eventually reached for the wrench from earlier, opened the door of the truck, and headed towards the warehouse along with the young man.

Despite its lack of power and lighting, the inside of the warehouse was easy to see from the entrance. Thus, as they walked in, they saw the middle-aged man sitting on the floor, bawling like a child, his face covered in tears and snot. The surroundings were seemingly normal.

“Uncle, what’s wrong with you?” The young man rushed over, trying to help him up.

But the middle-aged man felt like a dead weight, impossible to lift. He seemed to resist, sinking further onto the ground.

Soon, however, the young man was no longer trying to help the middle-aged man up. The warehouse had suddenly darkened, and a huge monster appeared before them, its eight eyes looking down on him.

The skinny young man felt as though he was swiftly aging. His skin wrinkled like dried orange peels, his vision blurred, his teeth loosened, and he could distinctly feel his life force draining. Despite being able to see the middle-aged man sitting there and Scarface standing nearby, he felt as if they weren’t really there, as if he was the only person in the space, with intense feelings of loneliness and fear permeating his consciousness.

Scar face too had seen the monster. His body was taut with extreme fear, not just of the monster, but also of the middle-aged man on the ground and the standing young man. Although his partners looked the same as before, he found them somehow terrifying, with eyes that seemed to see through him, ready to attack him at any moment.

But no matter how scared or terrified he was, his legs wouldn’t move. His body shook uncontrollably. Thoughts of betrayal and deceit by his partners kept popping into his mind.

In the alleyway between the warehouse and another building, Xiang Kun and Xia Libing sat against the wall side by side.

Xiang Kun had his eyes closed, engrossed in the “Super Sensory State.”

Xia Libing, on the other hand, had her head slightly tilted, curiously listening to the faint noises coming from the warehouse.

There were cries, murmurs, howls, curses, and shrieks, making one think something terrifying was happening inside or that people were rehearsing a play.

But Xia Libing knew better. This was Xiang Kun using his new ability to create collective illusions for the three “car thieves” – his first attempt with this power, apparently refined from the abilities “Apple” had newly “developed” the previous night.

She really wanted to sneak to the warehouse door to peek inside.

However, Xiang Kun had instructed her to keep her distance to avoid being affected by the illusions.

After a while, the varied sounds inside the warehouse gradually ceased. Footsteps could be heard, followed by the clumsy embarking of the three men onto the truck, intending to leave.

However, Scarface in the driver’s seat couldn’t get the truck to start, no matter how much he twisted the key. The engine wouldn’t ignite.

“Brother Ba, let’s go, let’s go!” The young man on the back seat yelled, his eyes red with fear.

“I can’t, I fucking can’t get it to start! What a piece of shit car!” Scarface was frantic too, trying his best but failing to start the truck.

It was then that the overweight middle-aged man in the passenger seat, wiping the tears from his face, took a deep breath and solemnly declared, “Maybe it doesn’t want us to leave…”

Scarface paused in his attempt to start the vehicle, gulped, and turned to look at his partners. “What was that thing? You saw it too?” He turned to the young man. “You both saw it?”

I recommend a new Cyberpunk-style book, “Cyber Hero Biography.”