Eaten Ch.56.2

Chapter 56: Loyal Dog Wu Zhi

“Brother…”

Wu Zhi finally came to her senses. Panicked, she scrambled off the bed, tumbling forward until she fell to her knees before him. She threw her arms around his leg, clinging tightly.

“Brother, don’t abandon me. I’ll make it up to you—I’ll be good to you. Just like Mom and Dad were to me.”

“You can hit me—just like Dad did. Slaps, punches, the belt, the whip—it’s all fine, I can take it. But Brother, please, don’t leave me. Even if…”

Wu Zhi gathered all her courage, raising her tear-streaked face to look at him. “Even if I’ve gotten better, I’m still not smart. I can’t live on my own. Brother, can you please—please treat me like before? Like your little dog. Woof… woof woof.”

Wu Heng listened quietly until she finished. After a moment of silence, he spoke softly.

“None of that was your fault.”

“No, no—it’s not like that! Mom and Dad did those things to you because of me,” Wu Zhi cried, her voice trembling with fear.

Memories she had buried or ignored flooded back. When she was little, she used to think her brother didn’t like her. She’d run to their parents, asking how she could make him like her more. They told her to leave it to them—she never knew that what they meant was beating her brother until he could barely breathe.

In truth, she was no different from them. They all drank his blood.

If there was any difference at all, it was that the blood she drank had merely been passed down to her—from her parents’ hands.

Wu Heng looked at Wu Zhi for a long while. His face betrayed nothing of what he was thinking.

“Get up,” he said finally. “I’m not going to leave you.”

After he spoke, he leaned back against the wall. He’d already soothed the bird, soothed Xie Chongyi—and now he had to soothe this fool too. He was tired.

His gaze drifted to Wu Zhi, who sat on the floor rubbing at her eyes, crying her heart out. He thought, ‘Taking care of a normal person would be better than taking care of an idiot anyway.’

“Wu Zhi.” Wu Heng suddenly called her name, his voice low and unhurried.

Her reddened eyes lifted toward him.

“Bark.”

Wu Zhi froze for a second—then her face lit up with joy. “Woof! Woof woof woof!”

Wu Heng raised his arm and patted her head.

He didn’t need a sister.

He didn’t need friends.

All he needed was an absolutely loyal dog.

And whether that dog was clever or foolish—it didn’t matter at all.

—

Review phase.

Du Yaoyuan supported executing Ying Liuquan.

“I don’t really agree… Mr. Ying is still our teacher. How could we execute him? That word sounds so scary,” Dou Lu leaned against Ruan Silian’s shoulder.

Ruan Silian shook her head in agreement. “Mr. Ying just couldn’t control himself during his awakening phase. Once that passes, he’ll go back to how he was before.”

Xue Shen nodded twice before adding, “Mental powers are really kind of terrifying, though.”

“I actually think it’s Mr. Ying that’s terrifying—not necessarily all mental-types,” Shen She wiped his violin clean. “If this were a movie, he’d be the classic villain.”

Du Yaoyuan shot him an annoyed look. “Like you’re one to talk.”

Shen She gave an embarrassed smile.

“By the way,” Dou Lu said curiously, “how exactly do sound powers work? Do you just… shout?”

Shen She shook his head. “I’m not sure. At first, I didn’t even know I’d awakened an ability. Later I didn’t get a chance to use it, so I didn’t know what it could do. It wasn’t until Mr. Ying attacked that I realized—my voice can actually hypnotize people, and the sound waves can damage the auditory nerves.”

Xue Shen muttered, “Good thing we had Dr. Chen. Otherwise, our team would’ve had two more deaf people.”

“Where are Xue Qi and Aunt Ji?” Lin Mengzhi was sprawled out in the plus-sized X’s chest fluff. He felt awful, but lying in that soft, furry warmth made it a bit better. Wu Zhi was just as drained—she was curled up beneath X’s wing joint.

Still taking notes on the ground, Xue Shen replied, “Xue Qi was really shaken by Mr. Ying earlier—he hasn’t recovered yet. Aunt Ji’s older, so I told her to rest first.”

He finished speaking, then looked slowly around at everyone. “Now, I’m going to organize everyone’s abilities. I hope none of you lie—it wouldn’t do you any good.”

There was no light in the room.

Outside, snow was falling.

By the dim reflection of snowlight filtering in, Xue Shen turned to a new page and wrote the first name on the list — Ying Liuquan.

“Mr. Ying still hasn’t woken up. What should we do?” Ruan Silian looked sorrowfully toward the far corner, where that emerald-green mummy lay.

Du Yaoyuan, wrapped tightly in a blanket, muttered, “If he wakes up, we’re done for.”

“Let’s just let Mr. Ying die off to the side for now,” Xue Shen said, adjusting his glasses as he wrote down mental-type and added a question mark after it.

“Why a question mark? Isn’t he definitely a mental-type?” Dou Lu craned her neck to look.

“He’s classified as mental-type, but that doesn’t necessarily mean his ability is mental-based.” Xue Shen glanced at Wu Heng and Shen Ping’an. “Both of them tested as wood-type, but their powers themselves don’t actually follow the wood attribute.”

“So complicated,” Lin Mengzhi groaned weakly. He suddenly felt like crying for no reason, his head full of images of his grandma shuffling along on unsteady legs. “Mr. Ying’s ability must be emo.”

Xue Shen raised his pen. “Honestly? You might be right.” He added another note after the question mark: emo?

“The specifics of how his ability works and its attack range—we’ll ask him once he wakes up. Next.” He flipped to a new page, eyes landing on Xie Chongyi. “Old Xie.”

Xie Chongyi lifted his eyelids slightly to show he’d heard. He was half-reclining against X’s wing; X didn’t dare move an inch.

“If I remember right, you’re space-type,” Xue Shen said. He was at least familiar with his own teammates. “D—spatial distortion, defense, teleportation… Can you also do storage, duplication, tearing, fusion, linking, or precognition?”

Xie Chongyi: “…No.”

Wu Heng lowered his eyes, listening quietly. Xue Shen probably didn’t know that Xie Chongyi was a dual-type ability user.

Only he knew.

Wu Heng snuck a glance at Xie Chongyi—who was gently stroking X’s feathers. The bird looked like it was on the verge of a panic attack.

“Wu Heng, what… are you exactly?” Xue Shen looked over at him — the boy had been staring blankly into space. Where he sat, the snowlight couldn’t reach, yet his exposed skin was pale as if it glowed.

There was a calm stillness about him, almost as if he’d slipped into another plane entirely — but “harmless” was the last word anyone would use. He resembled something hidden deep within a rainforest — a venomous snake, coiled and silent, dangerous precisely because it was easy to overlook.

Wu Heng picked at his fingernail. “A kind of plant.”

Xue Shen had said earlier that lying was not allowed, but he knew when to stop pressing. As long as he understood the basics, that was enough. He wrote down vine-type plant, then asked, “And what’s your connection with Shen Ping’an?”

Dou Lu instantly sat upright, eyes sparkling.

“Say it, say it, hurry!”

Xue Shen sighed. “I mean in terms of abilities, Dou Lu. Please stay on topic.”

Dou Lu slumped back against Ruan Silian’s shoulder again, bored. Ruan Silian reached over to pat her cheek gently.

Shen Ping’an opened his mouth as if to speak, but hesitated.

Wu Heng thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “I saved him—but not in the usual way you’re thinking of. I turned him into something like me—a plant organism. Luckily, he survived. As I grow stronger, he’ll grow stronger too.”

He paused, then added quietly, “Unfortunately, for the rest of his life, he can only exist as an extension of my plant body—a branch, so to speak. At any time, I could prune him, or absorb him back into myself.”

When he finished, he even sighed a little.

Lin Mengzhi pouted. “What’s so unfortunate about that? Anyone under your protection should be grateful. Hey, Wu Zhi, come on, laugh with your brother—hahaha—”

Wu Zhi couldn’t even force a smile. She stared at Lin Mengzhi like he was an idiot.

Across from them, Shen Ping’an gave a barely perceptible nod, as if agreeing with Lin Mengzhi.

“Can’t you just… not absorb him?” Du Yaoyuan asked urgently.

“Sometimes,” Wu Heng said, brows furrowed, “I get hungry.”

There was genuine trouble in his tone. The hunger that came when his plant body needed nutrients could drive him to the edge of madness.

“Hungry? Then just eat food!” Du Yaoyuan groaned, lying on the floor and tugging at his hair.

Wu Heng shook his head gently. “No. I don’t eat food. I eat people.”

Du Yaoyuan had just rolled over when their eyes met — Wu Heng’s gaze had been fixed on him for who knew how long. The tremor that coursed through Du Yaoyuan’s body was instant, primal. There was no need for Wu Heng to demonstrate his ability; the oppressive gap in their power was enough.

He sat up straight, shrinking into himself, trying his best to make his presence invisible.

Xue Shen, however, frowned. “You have to eat people? I haven’t seen you eat anything this whole time.”

Only then did Wu Heng withdraw that unnervingly calm expression he’d worn when looking at Du Yaoyuan. “Mutated animals work too.”

Xue Shen’s brows furrowed further. “Then you’re even harder to feed than Dr. Chen.”

He jotted something down — noting Wu Heng and Shen Ping’an’s peculiar dietary needs — then asked, “What about your skills specifically? If it’s just vines, how far can they grow and spread? How durable are they?”

Everyone exchanged looks. How were they supposed to know that?

Xue Shen continued, “If we can figure that out, we can plan battles more efficiently and train your abilities strategically. For example — plants are usually weak to fire, stronger on land than in water or air, and seasonal types might fear heat or cold…”

Lin Mengzhi rubbed his hands together. “That’s easy enough to test. A’Heng, come on — hit me.”

Wu Heng, still sitting cross-legged on the floor, turned his head just in time to see a fireball flying toward him. The world flared bright as day.

With a sharp swish swish, several slender, supple vines burst from the ground. They twined and coiled around the ball of flame, piercing through it again and again until it scattered into a drift of glowing embers.

“You’re not afraid of fire?!” Lin Mengzhi exclaimed in disbelief.

No living thing was immune to fire.

Wu Heng’s voice, however, was cool and steady. “Mengzhi — you’re just too weak.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” Dou Lu perked up, brimming with energy. She stretched out both hands, trying to seize control of the magnetic field within the plant itself.

The main vine that had been lazily coiled over Wu Heng’s shoulder slowly lifted its head.

“I got it!” Dou Lu cried out in delight — but when she looked up, her expression froze solid.

A vine tip was hovering right in front of her left eye, so close that she could already feel the phantom pain of her eyeball being pierced through.

Before she could even swallow her fear, Du Yaoyuan lunged forward. He caught the vine spike in one hand and slammed it toward the ground. With his other hand, he condensed the air into a dagger and brought it down with full force.

Snap! The vine tip was severed.

The broken piece was barely ten centimeters long, yet it still writhed violently on the floor, its life not yet extinguished.

“The hardness sucks…” Du Yaoyuan muttered, holding his blade — and then, before anyone could react, the green fragment suddenly leapt straight into his left eye.

His words cut off in an instant. He dropped to the floor, screaming in agony.

“Holy shit!” Dou Lu, who was closest to him, shot to her feet.

Ruan Silian reached out and patted Du Yaoyuan’s shoulder. “Du Yaoyuan?”

Lin Mengzhi and Shen Ping’an were completely frozen, their minds replaying the scene of that vine darting into someone’s eye over and over.

Xue Shen snapped his notebook shut. “Wu Heng, what the hell was that?”

Wu Heng rested his hands on his knees, his tone calm and detached. “That’s how plant symbiotes work. I can control and use them, but sometimes… they come up with their own little ideas.”

“Little ideas?!” Du Yaoyuan roared from the floor, clutching his bleeding eye and gasping for air. “Get that thing the f*ck out of me right now!”

Wu Heng raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “This has never happened before. I don’t know how to fix it.”

A sharp pain from his left eye shot through Du Yaoyuan’s entire body. It felt like that strange thing inside was grinding his brain into pieces.

It’s not trying to eat me, is it?

All the color drained from his face. Slowly, he lifted his hand from his eye — his palm pooled with blood, and the entire left side of his face was slick and red.

“Wu Heng, motherf*cker,” he hissed through clenched teeth. The agony surged again, forcing him to slap his hand back over his eye as he rolled on the ground, screaming in pain.

Xie Chongyi stood up and walked past Wu Heng, crouching down beside Du Yaoyuan. “Let me see.”

He gently pried Du Yaoyuan’s hand away. Xue Shen grabbed his chin to steady his blood-soaked face.

Leaning in, Xie Chongyi examined the left eye closely. It was smeared with blood, but beneath that… it still looked like a normal human eye. So where had that vine gone?

Xie Chongyi clicked his tongue softly. Then he placed his palm silently over Du Yaoyuan’s left eye.

A long moment passed before he withdrew his hand, his expression unreadable. Dou Lu immediately asked, “Well? What is it?”

Xie Chongyi said quietly, “Du Yaoyuan — it’s parasitized you.”

————————————————————

Author’s Note:

Someday, every corner of the world will bloom with poppies.

Everyone: …Okay, that’s a horror movie.

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