The Heretical Husband Is Too Good at Acting! - Chapter 10

Although the two captains had entered this place by mistake, they had clearly made certain preparations beforehand.

Each of them took a flashlight out of their pockets—small single units, but the illumination was quite powerful, the beams of light brightening a large area in front of each of them.

Shen Junyao gave his flashlight to Chen Mo.

Feeling that he didn’t need extra care, Chen Mo instinctively declined: “I can use my phone.”

Shen Junyao simply said indifferently: “Just take it.”

Chen Mo heard the casualness in his tone and felt it was pointless for two grown men to push such a small gadget back and forth. He could only take it silently, secretly deciding to help the other person light the way when the time came.

Shen Junyao then gave him a dagger and said, “Let’s just walk around first and see what the situation is.”

The space inside was indeed very large; they walked for a long time without finding an end. To verify certain suspicions, they retraced their steps according to their memory of the direction half an hour later, only to find that the furnishings of the places they had passed seemed to have undergone a subtle change. As a result, they failed to find their initial starting point, let alone the escalator that originally led to the second floor.

They had no choice but to continue exploring this level.

It was truly an incredibly vast and seemingly boundless hypermarket. The environment was clean and tidy, with shelves filled with a wide variety of goods, a dazzling array. Occasionally, one or two shopping carts were parked in the aisles, with some items randomly placed inside. If the lights overhead were on, it would look like a normally operating supermarket in every way, except for the lack of customers inside and the absence of an exit outside.

Chen Mo followed behind the two captains, passing through one shopping area after another, yet never making any new discoveries. Finally, he couldn’t help but take another look at his phone.

The time displayed on the screen was 23:37.

An hour and a half had passed since the lights went out. Darkness enveloped the entire supermarket, and the range of vision was quite limited. Only the light source from the flashlights swayed slightly with their movement, like invisible scissors cutting through the darkness, yet also like being swallowed by the boundless gloom.

No one had spoken for a while, and the atmosphere grew inexplicably heavy.

It wasn’t that Chen Mo felt afraid, but he couldn’t say he liked this feeling of the unknown, the silence, and the dullness.

He cleared his throat and made a joke that wasn’t particularly funny, saying, “We’re like thieves who sneaked in after the supermarket closed.”

Zhang Tao laughed heartily in support and picked up the thread: “You don’t say, I actually hope a security guard comes out right now to confront me.”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but mutter: “Didn’t they say there are quite a few people trapped in here? And that there are monsters. How come we’ve been walking for so long and haven’t seen a single ghostly shadow?”

Shen Junyao suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked toward a certain direction in the darkness: “It’s coming.”

The other two also stopped and followed his gaze.

Yet, they saw nothing.

For a period of time after Shen Junyao finished speaking, there was absolute silence all around, except for the nearly inaudible breathing of the three of them.

But no one doubted Shen Junyao’s judgment.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, a slight, almost imperceptible friction sound came from the distance, like the footsteps of some kind of creature moving between the shelves.

Chen Mo gripped the flashlight tightly, the beam of light scanning back and forth in the direction of the sound, but for a moment, he found nothing unusual.

Gradually, the rustling sound became more and more obvious. In the darkness, several blurry figures darted through the shelves, approaching them at a startlingly high speed.

“Stay safe!” Shen Junyao reminded him softly, stepping sideways to block the path in front of Chen Mo.

The beam of light in Chen Mo’s hand flashed across those figures. With just a hurried glance, he saw their appearance clearly—they had characteristics similar to the “Split-Mouth Monster” he had killed that day, yet there were also obvious differences.

Both were humanoid creatures. The similarity lay in their bizarre body proportions; this wave of monsters had very wide shoulders and very long upper bodies. Their arms were one thick and one thin, while their legs were very short. They were wearing blue T-shirts and black trousers—their attire was unexpectedly identical to the staff uniforms of this supermarket.

The difference was that these monsters had heads but no facial features or hair. On top of their necks sat an irregular ball of flesh, large or small, looking very abstract.

They had no mouths, yet they emitted indistinct sounds. Chen Mo listened carefully and found that what they were saying was: “The shop is closed, please leave immediately.”

There were a total of seven or eight blue-clothed faceless monsters. Their voices were mechanical and hollow, carrying clear hostility and killing intent.

Accompanied by these constantly repeated words of expulsion, those monsters pounced toward them like wild beasts, their movements incredibly fast.

Chen Mo hardly found an opportunity to act; Shen Junyao consistently kept him firmly protected behind him.

The monsters came on aggressively, but they didn’t seem as formidable as they looked.

Or perhaps it was because Shen Junyao’s strength was too great; several monsters in his hands were like clay figures, easily thrown back to fall on the ground in distorted postures.

The beam of Chen Mo’s flashlight fell upon the corpses of those monsters, and he soon discovered something unusual.

These monsters had been struck down by Shen Junyao’s immense strength, and some bodies had even split into several pieces, yet there were no bloodstains on the ground.

They only looked like humans.

In reality, it was unknown what they actually were.

On the other side, several monsters also emitted muffled sounds, raising their disproportionate arms high to strike at Zhang Tao.

Zhang Tao dodged nimbly. In the moment he turned, his dagger silently pierced into the monster’s side. Those monsters fell to the ground like they were heavily wounded and stopped moving, and there was no blood on them either.

The two captains raised their blades and the monsters fell; Chen Mo had no place to use his skills and could only watch the excitement from the side.

In just a few seconds, all seven or eight monsters were struck down.

“These should be the ‘staff’ those people mentioned.” Zhang Tao also shone his flashlight on those “corpses,” reaching a conclusion after observing for a moment.

“What staff?” Chen Mo asked.

Zhang Tao explained: “According to the memories of those four escapees, there are two types of monsters in the supermarket’s ‘Inner World.’ One is this kind of faceless monster wearing a staff uniform. They often appear in groups. Their individual combat power isn’t very strong, but they are harder to deal with when a large group swarms in. They are called ‘Staff.’ There is also a type similar to the Split-Mouth Monster you killed last time. They are also weird-looking but wear white tops and black pants—that’s the supervisor’s uniform. They are called ‘Supervisors’ by the trapped people. They usually act alone and feed on the trapped people. They move nimbly when their stomachs are empty, and the fuller they are, the slower they move.”

These monsters were dealt with at a very high speed, and it seemed they wouldn’t pose any actual threat, yet Chen Mo still felt a bit uneasy.

He didn’t want the conversation to end and have the surroundings return to the previous silence, so he followed up on Zhang Tao’s words: “There are only staff and supervisors? No boss or something?”

Zhang Tao said, “There were only four escapees in total, so the information provided is very limited. We have to figure out the specific situation ourselves.”

While they were talking, Shen Junyao crouched down and pushed the shoulder of one of the monsters with his hand. The monster’s body shook slightly under his touch. It felt more like inorganic silicone or some kind of relatively soft plastic, rather than the tactile sensation a living organism should have.

“Their movements are quite flexible, and they look like some kind of living entity. They even speak when they attack. But look, they have no throat or vocal cords, nor any other vocal organs.” Shen Junyao stood up. “Judging by these fragments, they don’t seem like real living entities either. I suspect they might be some kind of puppets temporarily endowed with the power of movement.”

“Puppets?” The last time Chen Mo heard this word was in a xianxia novel. Curiosity led him to also crouch down and examine them closely.

Zhang Tao strongly agreed with the captain’s guess.

“It’s very likely. When they were ‘killed,’ there was no bleeding, no screaming, and they showed no reaction of pain. This is not the reaction a normal living organism should have.”

After conducting a careful inspection, they moved the seven or eight “corpses” to a corner and piled them together before continuing their journey into the darkness.

Over the next few hours, they experienced several more attacks, all from these groups of blue-clothed faceless monsters.

However, starting from the second wave of attacks, Chen Mo was unwilling to be kept behind.

When a monster pounced toward them with a muffled warning, Chen Mo bypassed Shen Junyao, rushed forward first, and swung his hand to interrupt the monster’s pouncing motion. His fist smashed heavily into the monster’s chest. With a dull thud, the monster’s eerie, silicone-textured body bounced back and fell to the ground.

Shen Junyao glanced at him sideways, while Chen Mo raised an eyebrow slightly and said, “It’s my turn this time.”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of Shen Junyao’s mouth.

Yet he did not retreat either, cleanly and efficiently repelling another monster.

The two cooperated with tacit understanding, one on the left and one on the right, quickly clearing out the monsters.

Now it was Zhang Tao’s turn to be idle. For the first time, he rubbed his nose and didn’t make a sound.

Then he discovered that for the rest of the night, he never had another chance to act.

Watching those two as if they had started some kind of competition, vying to intercept the monsters, Zhang Tao endured it and endured it, but finally couldn’t help himself: “What’s wrong with you two? Leave some work for me, will you?”

Zhang Tao wasn’t complaining; he was just confused. How did this strange competitive spirit arise between these two?

Except for the first attack, the monsters thereafter didn’t even get a chance to reach him; they were all snatched up and dealt with by them.

To say they had some conflict didn’t seem like it either.

In short, it was a bit weird.

Chen Mo and Shen Junyao looked at each other and smiled in unison.

Shen Junyao suggested indifferently: “Let him handle the next wave?”

Chen Mo agreed: “That works.”

Thus, when the next wave of over a dozen blue-clothed faceless monsters rushed over, Zhang Tao was quite flustered for a while.

After finally dealing with all the monsters, Zhang Tao got annoyed: “You two really just stood there and watched?”

Chen Mo: “Didn’t you say to leave some work for you?”

Shen Junyao nodded: “You’ve been idle all night; we’re letting you stretch your muscles.”

Zhang Tao: “…You guys are cruel.”