The Lost Tomb Vol. 7

Chapter 43: Burrs

I didn't know whether these hairs were simply stuck to my wound or really growing from inside, but I was very uncomfortable either way. I had a strong, uncontrollable urge to pull the hairs out, but as long as I did that, the whole wound would hurt. The pain went very deep, so the hair had obviously reached far into the wounds.

This situation probably stemmed from the aftermath of my fall, when the broken jars had cut me and brought the hairs into the wounds. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull the hair out, but it wouldn't budge even after the flesh inside had come out. Moreover, I found that the deep part of the wound immediately started itching, as if the hair was burrowing in further.

Xiao Hua was also creeped out when he saw my wounds. I thought about what he said about the hair sensing his blood and creeping up on him, and realized that it was very likely that the hair was actually alive. If it was really growing in my wounds... I imagined it crawling all over my body, along my veins and nerves, and immediately wanted to chop my hands off.

If I died and someone opened my cranial cavity and discovered that my brain was full of hair... such a strange scene could only be made into a horror movie.

Xiao Hua calmed me down, pulled out his dagger, and used a small torch to sterilize it before telling me to lie down. He sat on my shoulder, stepped on my wrist, and then asked me, "What do you think of Xiuxiu?"

It was a weird question that would even stump others, but I immediately knew he was trying to distract me. Instead of waiting for an answer, he immediately focused on my palm and I felt a sharp pain come from that area. As the hot dagger pierced my wound, I focused all my attention on not passing out.

Xiao Hua moved very fast, and I was sure that he would be unaffected no matter how bad the inside of my wound was. The sharp pain lasted little more than thirty seconds before he finally let go of my hand.

Blood flowed from my wound, but the hair was gone. Xiao Hua showed me the tip of his dagger, where a small pottery chip the size of a fingernail lay. Something that looked similar to flesh was stuck on it, and I could see that the hair, pottery chip, and flesh were practically intertwined.

In the light of the fire, it was obvious to see that the hair was growing from the pottery chip and actually passed through the muscle tissue.

"It must have grown from this piece of pottery, but it seems to have stopped growing." He said.

"Stopped? How do you know?"

"See for yourself." He showed me the pottery piece. "Although the muscles are wrapped in hair, all the hair filaments have grown out of your body, not in."

I looked at it, and sure enough, it was just like a hair transplant where the part that was inserted into the scalp had no root and was just a fixed point. But since the hair had obviously passed through my muscles, it must have grown after the pottery was embedded in my wound.

"Is it poisonous or not? You'd better help me get it all out first."

He remained silent, but had a strange look on his face as he stretched the pottery piece out to the inner part of his bloodstained iron garment and put it down. Not long after that, the hair suddenly twisted slightly and slowly started probing in the direction that had the most blood. When it reached it, it began to curl up.

I thought to myself, what kind of hair is this? It's basically just a thread-like leech.

He looked between it and my wounds, completely baffled.

"This thing is very sensitive to blood. If I didn't have this iron garment on just now, my wound would be full of hair. But if these hairs are so bloodthirsty, then they should have started growing along your veins and burrowing further in after entering your wounds. But it's obvious to see that the hair in your wound is growing outwards, like they want to escape from your body."