Chapter 94 Chapter 93

Langdon had no idea where to flee.He can only react instinctively to guide himself out of danger.He struggled to crawl under the chair, his elbows and knees ached.Even so, he had to keep rolling.Somewhere he heard a voice telling him to go left.If he can climb onto the main aisle, he can rush to the exit.He knew that was impossible.There is a firewall blocking the main aisle!As Langdon scrambled frantically, he thought of other ways to escape.At this time, approaching footsteps came from the right. The chair suddenly came to an end, and Langdon was caught off guard.He was already at the front of the church, and he thought he was still ten feet away.It turned out that he was wrong.Overhead cover was gone without warning.Half of his body was exposed at the front of the church, and he froze for a moment.But just from this vantage point, in the alcove on the left stood a huge thing that had brought him here.It turned out that he had forgotten all about it, and Bernini's statue "The Indulgence of Saint Teresa" stood there, which was a bit like an erotic still life... The saint lay there, happily Arched and mouth open in a moan, an angel above her took aim at her with a flaming spear.

The bullet hit the chair above Langdon's head with a loud thud.He felt that he raised his body like a runner starting a race, rushed out involuntarily, and rushed towards the right front of the church with his body bowed and his head lowered.The bullet whized from behind, and Langdon fell to the ground again, skimming the marble floor uncontrollably, and crashing into the railing of the alcove on the right. At this moment, Langdon saw Victoria, collapsed against the back wall of the church, in a heap.Victoria!Her bare legs were tucked under her body.Somehow, Langdon felt that Victoria was still alive, but he just couldn't save her in time.

The killer immediately circled around the leftmost pew in the church and approached Langdon mercilessly.He knew it would be over in an instant.The killer raised his pistol, and Langdon had no choice but to roll over the railing and into the alcove.He fell to the floor on the other side of the railing as the incoming bullets clattered against the marble columns. Langdon quickly ducked into the semicircular alcove, feeling like a trapped animal.The only thing in the alcove standing before him seemed unexpectedly fitting—a sarcophagus.Maybe it was just for me, Langdon thought, even the coffin's dimensions seemed tailor-made for him.This is a simple coffin made of marble. Even the funeral is really simple.The coffin was lifted off the ground and rested on two marble slabs.Langdon looked at the gap under the coffin, wondering if he could squeeze in.

Footsteps echoed behind him. Langdon had no choice now but to sway and slide toward the coffin, pressing himself against the floor.Holding the marble slabs on both sides for support with both hands, he dragged himself like a breaststroker and struggled to climb into the gap under the coffin.The gunfire rang out again. With the whistling sound of bullets, Langdon experienced a feeling he had never had in his life... A bullet flew by.The sound of the wind whistling in his ears was like a whip whip, and the bullet kicked up a cloud of dust on the marble, which almost killed him.Blood churned through him, and he walked the rest of the way hunched over.Across the marble floor, he crawled out to the other side of the coffin with difficulty.

There was no escape. Langdon was now facing directly the back wall of the alcove.He was sure that the small open space behind the coffin would be his burial place.Soon it would be, and he knew it when he saw the barrel emerge in the void beneath the coffin.Heisha Xingping raised his pistol and aimed at Langdon's waist. Impossible to miss. Langdon suddenly felt a sense of latent self-preservation.He bowed his body as high as the coffin, face down with his hands spread out on the ground, and the wound made by the glass in the archives stabbed.Regardless of the tingling pain in his body, he hurried to push the coffin.He pushed himself up on both hands, as if doing an awkward push-up, and he was just arched when the gunshot rang out.The bullet flew under him and shattered the porous travertine wall behind the coffin. He could even feel the strong draft of the bullet whizzing by.He closed his eyes and braced himself, hoping that the thunderous gunshots would stop soon.

Just then the gunfire stopped. The whistling sound of the gun changed to the icy click of the trigger being pulled as the chamber was empty. Langdon opened his eyes slowly, almost blinking his eyelids for fear of making a sound.He resisted the shuddering pain and maintained the posture just now, bowing his body like a cat, not even daring to breathe.The sound of the gunshot almost knocked out his eardrums, and he listened carefully to the sound that the killer was about to leave. There was silence all around.He thought of Victoria and longed to save her. Then there was a deafening sound.It was hardly a human cry, but the rude growl of a beast.

The coffin above Langdon's head seemed to tilt sideways suddenly.Hundreds of pounds of heavy objects staggered towards him, and he collapsed to the ground.Under the action of gravity, the lid of the coffin was the first to slide off the coffin and fell to the ground, shattering beside him with a crash.Then the entire coffin rolled off the support board and fell on him upside down. As the coffin rolled, Langdon realized that if he wasn't trapped under the coffin, he would be crushed by the coffin boards.He drew back his legs, shrunk his neck and tightened his body, his arms clinging to his sides.Then he closed his eyes and waited for the blood-curdling impact.

As soon as the coffin fell to the ground, the entire floor shook under him.The upper edge of the coffin fell just millimeters above Langdon's head, making his teeth chatter in terror.He thought his right arm would definitely be crushed, but he didn't expect it to be miraculously intact.Opening his eyes, he saw a bright light.The right edge of the coffin did not completely fall to the ground, and part of it was still resting on the two supporting boards. But, directly overhead, Langdon found himself staring at a truly dead face. The corpse that had been placed in the coffin was stuck to the bottom of the coffin and hung above his head, as is often the case with decomposing corpses.Like a timid lover, the skeleton swayed for a while, but finally couldn't resist the gravitational force, and fell off reluctantly with a "crash".The skeleton flew towards Langdon, rotting bone fragments rained down, and dust fell into his eyes and mouth.

Before Langdon could react, someone's arm reached under the coffin through the gap, searching the pile of remains like a hungry python.The hand groped for Langdon's neck, then clung to it.The steely hand was now around Langdon's throat, and he tried to fight back only to find his left sleeve pinched under the coffin.With only one arm free to move, he will undoubtedly lose this fight. Langdon's legs were bent in the little space he had, his feet tentatively finding the bottom of the coffin above.After finding it, he curled up his legs and put his feet flat and kicked hard.The hand on the neck tightened more and more. He closed his eyes and kicked his legs like a ram.The coffin moved a little bit, but it achieved its purpose.

With a harsh grinding sound, the coffin completely slid from the supporting board to the ground.The coffin board hit the killer's arm with a "bang", and the killer let out a painful scream in a low voice.The hand was instantly released from Langdon's neck, and it was jerked back with a jerk.When the killer finally freed his arm, the coffin hit the flat marble floor with a loud bang. Once again the surroundings were plunged into darkness. There was silence all around. Outside the overturned coffin, no one will be desperately hitting because of frustration, and no one will come in to spy, and there is no movement outside.As Langdon lay in the dark among the pile of bones, fighting back the terror that crept into him, he thought of her again.

Victoria, are you still alive?Victoria would soon realize the fear, and if Langdon knew the truth and thought for her, he'd rather she was dead.