Starting as a dockworker

Chapter 11 Warehouse Night Watch, Haigen Disappears!

"Brothers, give it your all, let's finish this job quickly, then I'll take a quick look..."

After lunch, the nine dock workers worked harder, their pace quicker than usual.

No one tried to cheat or shirk responsibility; everyone had the same goal.

Live!

Bring the money home alive!

It's not that no one thought of sending the money back first, so that it could be left to their family after they died.

But ever since they took the money, Manager Zhang has arranged for the rice shop's guards to prevent them from leaving.

Therefore, once they received the silver dollars, they could only keep them on their person.

I finished my afternoon work two hours ahead of schedule.

Before it got dark, everyone lay down in the warehouse to sleep.

As the sun set, dinner was served, and everyone went to eat.

Just like before, the meal was plentiful, like a last meal before death.

Li Xiao ate heartily.

Both of his pieces of equipment are related to food; he can improve faster by eating well.

After dinner, before it got completely dark, everyone returned to the rice warehouse to get some rest.

The laborer, Haigen, somehow found a wooden bucket and placed it aside.

Someone asked, "Why are you carrying a bucket?"

Haigen laughed and said, "What else can we do? Pee, of course. We'll pee next to this bucket tonight so we don't get hurt by anything dirty on our way to pee."

Everyone burst into laughter after he finished speaking.

Li Xiao also laughed. He had to admit that these people were quite clever.

Time passed, and night fell.

The entire Huang family rice shop fell silent immediately, with only the sounds of cicadas and frogs croaking.

Everyone took it seriously, piecing the mat together and sitting in a circle with their eyes open.

Although the situation was somewhat awkward, it was the only way to survive.

"How about I tell everyone a story?"

A laborer, around thirty years old and nicknamed "Dog," spoke up.

This person is not of high status, but he is usually quite talkative.

"Great idea, tell me a bit, or I'll fall asleep..."

The idea was immediately met with applause from the others.

Next, the laborer named Gouzi imitated the storyteller at the herbal tea shop on the street and began to tell a story, but he had a bad memory and told it very poorly.

They were talking about a laborer named Da Niu, who fell asleep sitting down, drooling.

The person next to him woke him up, and his first words were, "Is it dawn yet?" which made the others laugh.

"Dog, stop talking, I'll do it."

Old Gang also got interested and interrupted the dog's endless chatter, starting to tell a story.

And the ghost stories he told were ones he'd heard from old people on the streets!

He had only just begun speaking when everyone's hair stood on end, and they immediately became alert.

Clearly, this story is the best way to refresh and invigorate everyone.

Old Gang swallowed hard, lowering his voice even further, almost to the point of whispering:

"That was in the previous dynasty. The old man who guarded the granary every night could hear rustling sounds coming from the corner of the grain stack, like someone gently scratching the wall with their fingernails."

He held up the lamp to shine it, but there was nothing there.

"But one night, he paid attention and deliberately sprinkled a thin layer of incense ash in the corner where the noise was coming from."

"The next day, at the first crow of the rooster, he took the oil lamp and went to check..."

"On the incense ash, there is a clear imprint of half a palm."

"The fingers are long and thin, but the joints are bulging so badly, they don't look like a living person's hand..."

"The old man was terrified, but what was even more sinister was that every night after that, the handprint would crawl a little further into the granary, and the imprint would turn grayish and smell of moldy old rice bran."

"On the seventh night, another helper was on night watch. In the middle of the night, he heard the scratching sound from the ceiling again. He was young and hot-blooded, so he went over there cursing and swearing, carrying an iron pickaxe. He looked up at the ceiling..."

Old Gang's voice stopped abruptly. He pointed upwards and said mysteriously.

"Guess what you saw?"

The crowd was quite bold, and they all looked up at what was above.

But there was nothing on top except for the roof.

They lowered their heads again and hurriedly asked, "What did you see?"

Old Gang chuckled, "That old man, tongue lolling out, was hanged from the roof beam by a black rope..."

After hearing this, everyone in the group shuddered; it was terrifying.

The scene became quiet; no one dared to breathe loudly.

Now that no one is sleepy, how can anyone fall asleep?

Li Xiao, however, didn't seem to feel anything...

Perhaps he watched too many horror movies in his past life; this kind of story couldn't scare him at all.

I guess the last sentence of this story, which makes everyone look up and then down again, is just the old man trying to scare everyone.

But considering the situation tonight, Lao Gang didn't do that.

But the next moment, Li Xiao's hair stood on end, and his whole body was covered in goosebumps.

Ghost stories aren't scary; what's scary is experiencing a ghost story.

All nine people had their eyes open, but right before their eyes, one person was missing...

Li Xiao thought he was seeing things, so he scanned the area again, but nothing had changed.

Haigen, who was originally sitting in that direction and had just been gasping for breath along with everyone else...

His straw mat is still there, but he's gone!

It just vanished into thin air.

There were no screams, no sounds of struggle, not even the rustling of clothes.

Right under everyone's noses, in the circle of nine people sitting together, he vanished without a trace, like a drop of water swallowed silently by darkness.

"Ah Si, what do you think of my story?"

Before anyone else noticed this, Old Gang, having finished telling his story, patted Li Xiao on the shoulder with a smile.

Li Xiao said, "Not good... Haigen is gone."

After he finished speaking, everyone was stunned for a moment, and then looked in the direction where Haigen was.

It was as if we hadn't looked, but once we did, everyone's hair stood on end, and they were trembling with fear.

This is too eerie. Everyone's eyes were open, but the person just disappeared.

There wasn't a sound at all; I had no idea how such a large, living person could have died...

They looked around in terror. Apart from the area illuminated by the flashlights, the surroundings were a deep, dark void, seemingly capable of swallowing them whole...

Old Gang asked, "Dog, Haigen was right next to you just now, did you see anything?"

The dog shook its head: "He was always by my side, I don't know how he died..."

"It's over, Haigen has been murdered..."

Old Gang took a deep breath and looked at Li Xiao, asking, "A-Si, what should we do next?"

At this moment, Li Xiao was using the "Blindly Observing Fire" spiritual technique with his eyes closed to survey his surroundings.

To be precise, it started immediately after they discovered that Haigen was missing.

However, his closed-eye fire-observing technique only allows him to see a 100-meter radius around himself.

There were only seven flames within a hundred meters radius, and the eighth flame belonging to Haigen could not be found at all.

There were no other colors of flame either.

This means that the dirty stuff has taken Haigen away and gone completely...

Li Xiao thought for a moment and said, "Let's go to sleep. We have work to do tomorrow."

Liu Kai said with a look of horror, "Sleep? How can I sleep? Haigen is gone."

Li Xiao said, "So what? You should have known when you took the money that it wasn't easy to get it. This is money to buy your life... But don't worry too much. As it stands, this thing only harms one person per night. If it could really harm a large number of people, all of Huang's men would have run away long ago."

With that, he lay down on the mat, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Seeing that Li Xiao was asleep, the others also lay down on the mats to sleep, their minds heavy with worry.

Some people couldn't sleep all night, while others, like Li Xiao, drifted off to sleep.

The next day arrived in the blink of an eye. Light streamed in through the window, waking everyone from their sleep.

The first thing to do is check if anyone else has disappeared.

Fortunately, apart from Haigen, who disappeared right under our noses last night, everyone else is...