Eaten Ch.64.2

Chapter 64.2: No matter who died, he wouldn’t shed a single tear

Behind her, Zhao Rui stumbled toward the only mutant wolf that hadn’t yet been skinned. Practically crawling the last few steps, he collapsed in front of its massive head, gripping one of its ears with trembling hands.

“Zhao Mingxiang! Zhao Mingxiang! Don’t you dare die on me!”

He shouted until his voice was hoarse.

Aunt Wang came running, staggering all the way. When she saw the corpses of the villagers strewn nearby—and the mutant wolf lying motionless with its eyes shut—her vision went black, and she fell straight into Zhao Rui’s arms.

The gray wolf let out the last breath trapped within its chest. Its eyelids lifted slightly, gray-green eyes sweeping over the two people in front of it.

When Zhao Rui saw those eyes open, he grabbed the woman beside him and shook her hard. “Auntie, Auntie! Zhao Mingxiang’s not dead!”

Aunt Wang broke into sobs, clutching the wolf’s body and crying uncontrollably.

A deep, muddled rumble came from the wolf’s throat. It looked at Zhao Rui and said hoarsely, “Take care of my mom for me.”

Zhao Rui froze. Round tears rolled down his cheeks.

Zhao Mingxiang lowered his head slightly, motioning for them to look at his chest—already hollowed out. His breathing came ragged and shallow.

“Don’t trust anyone,” he whispered. “Not even yourself.”

“Zhao Rui…” The gray wolf raised one massive paw—its claws now soft—and placed it gently on the young man’s shoulder. In that instant, as their eyes met, a flood of memories flashed through his mind like a lantern reel—

When they were kids, the two of them used to fight all the time. Zhao Rui was terrible at fighting but excellent at tattling, and both their parents would punish them by making them hold hands for a whole day before forgiving them and returning their allowance.

In middle school, Zhao Rui would sneak into internet cafés to play games, and every time it was Zhao Mingxiang who went there to drag him out.

In high school, after Zhao Rui was rejected by the girl he liked, he had said that for the rest of his life, the only person he’d live with would be him…

He thought of his mother—how proudly he’d told her that he was now the village’s only hope.

And how, reflected in his mother’s hair, he had seen fine strands of white for the first time.

It hadn’t been snowing.

Those were white hairs—ones that hadn’t been there before.

Zhao Rui saw the farewell in Zhao Mingxiang’s eyes. He threw himself forward, wrapping his arms tightly around the wolf’s neck, burying his face in its fur.

“I know, I know, Zhao Mingxiang,” he choked out.

His tears soaked into the wolf’s fur, matting it into wet clumps.

The rumbling sound in the wolf’s throat gradually faded, until at last Zhao Rui lifted his head in a daze—

Somewhere along the way, Zhao Mingxiang had closed his eyes.

No.

They had grown up together.

This—this wasn’t supposed to be how their story ended.

…

Wu Heng sat a short distance away, staring blankly at Zhao Rui and Aunt Wang, who were crying together in a heap. He couldn’t feel the gut-wrenching pain they were experiencing. He was curious, though he understood the value of such pain—only because you love something can you feel the weight of loss.

He scanned the scene and thought to himself: no matter who died, he wouldn’t shed a single tear.

But… he might drool a little.

X swallowed an entire wolf in one go. Full and satisfied, it climbed onto Wu Heng’s shoulder, tilting its head to rest against his cheek.

“A’Heng.”

Wu Heng tilted his head. “Hm?”

“Love.”

Wu Heng adjusted his head, fingers hooked over his knees.

After a long pause, he tilted his head again. “Have you… gained weight?”

X swore under its breath, clearly displeased, and flapped its wings as it flew away.

The space beside him empty once more, Wu Heng finally felt comfortable again.

With the help of Lin Mengzhi and the others, Zhao Rui, Aunt Wang, and the remaining three adults from the village dug graves and buried Zhao Mingxiang and the others. Despair was written across every villager’s face.

Because of Du Yaoyuan, Dou Lu and Lin Mengzhi had initially wanted to make some cutting remarks—but every time words rose to their lips, they swallowed them. These people before them seemed so fragile that even a single word might be too much to bear.

“The meat from the mutant wolves—we can’t carry it all. See if you can figure out a way to preserve it… keep it for yourselves as supplies,” Lin Mengzhi said hesitantly to the group in front of him.

“Thank you,” Zhao Rui said hoarsely.

“What are you planning to do next?” Shen Ping’an asked, frowning. “There’s no wall. The surrounding houses are livable, but not safe.”

Zhao Rui’s expression was numb. “Take it one day at a time… I don’t want to go any farther.”

After shoveling a few scoops of dirt, he looked at Shen Ping’an and said, “The village isn’t safe anymore. But there are still plenty of houses around here. If you want to stay, just pick one you like and settle in. When the weather warms up a bit, you can move on.”

“You don’t need to worry about the people in the village. They’re my responsibility.”

When he finished speaking, Zhao Rui lowered his head and threw himself into filling the pit, sweat and tears mixing together as they slid down his chin.

By dawn, everyone finally settled down to rest in a few houses outside the old village wall.

Wu Heng lay on the second-floor balcony of one of them, using his vines to kill the zombies that occasionally stumbled out of the forest.

The place was remote—so remote that even mutant birds couldn’t find food here. Whenever a lone zombie fell, Wu Heng didn’t even have to finish it off; a flock of mutant sparrows that had been waiting nearby would swarm over, and within moments, the corpse would be picked clean.

Once he could no longer see any zombies in sight, Wu Heng swayed slightly and went back inside. The second-floor living room was piled high with thick wolf pelts.

Dou Lu and Ruan Silian were scraping and cleaning the inner sides of the hides with Wu Heng’s vine-blade. Xue Shen and Shen She were in charge of washing them, while Lin Mengzhi handled the drying. Yin Liuquan and Shen Ping’an worked on the finer task—sewing.

The thread they used for stitching the fur coats came from Xue Qi’s spider silk. He could choose not to inject venom into it, making the silk softer, tougher, and more durable than cotton thread. Shen Ping’an kept praising it, saying spider silk was far better to use than cotton. With so many pelts available, he and Yin Liuquan planned to make several coats for everyone, and even sew a few pairs of kneepads for Xue Qi. They also talked about making vests and hats.

As Xue Qi spun silk, he kept an eye on Lin Mengzhi’s drying work.

“Burnt.”

“Caught fire.”

“This one’s ruined too.”

Lin Mengzhi was so irritated he was sweating all over. If it weren’t for Wu Heng and Wu Zhi being afraid of the cold and needing the coats, he would never have stayed up all night serving as their unpaid labor.

Dou Lu sighed, scraping the blade back and forth over a hide, her eyes dimming with melancholy.

“It’s really hard to stay alive now. If my mom knew how much I’ve suffered in just a few days, she’d probably be heartbroken.”

The living room was quiet for a while before Shen She was the first to speak up.

“Maybe it’s a good thing that Du Yaoyuan is dead now. At least we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulders.”

Dou Lu’s face turned purple with suppressed emotion, a mix of frustration and sadness, but she still said, “I’d rather keep worrying.”

The room fell silent again, broken only by the crackling of Lin Mengzhi’s fire.

The dried wolf fur was thick, dense, and soft. Before being cut, the large sheets of hide easily reminded one of the snarling, teeth-baring wolves they had been when alive.

“Did Wu Heng really kill all these wolves by himself?” Xue Qi asked, holding a wolf pelt, both hands sinking into the soft, warm fur.

Lin Mengzhi, thinking he was doubting his childhood friend’s abilities, raised an eyebrow.

“Of course.”

Dou Lu had no doubts.

“Wu Heng has always been strong. I knew it all along.”

Ruan Silian added, “I saw it with my own eyes—he killed them all alone.”

Xue Shen nodded.

“Wu Heng’s ability level should be comparable to Old Xie’s. You should all learn from him.”

Dou Lu grimaced.

“Is that something I can just learn by wanting to?”

Ruan Silian looked at everyone with a hint of sympathy, her expression softening.

“Wu Heng’s techniques… there are so many of them, and they’re incredibly strong. He’s better than everyone, and he hardly fears pain or battle.”

She recalled how Wu Heng had fought the alpha wolf.

“His strikes were clean and precise. Lu Lu and Lin Mengzhi aren’t weak, but they tend to hesitate, taking too long to think. Wu Heng hardly had any time to think—one move after another, seamlessly.”

Xue Shen picked up a wet wolf pelt and tossed it at Lin Mengzhi’s feet, speaking coldly: “It’s not that he had no time to think. It’s that he never stopped thinking.”

His gaze swept over everyone, sending chills down their spines.

As expected, the class rep’s next words came sharply: “Since Wu Heng is stronger than you, if there’s something you don’t know, go ask him. Don’t be lazy. Don’t slack off.”

“Before we reach Nansu, I want to see noticeable progress in each of you.”

Everyone in the living room immediately wore a sour, miserable expression.

It felt painfully like being in school with a teacher cracking a whip on your backside.

Xie Chongyi came in, covered in wind and snow. Before he even stepped onto the stairs, Dou Lu was already stationed there, on alert.

Seeing it was Xie Chongyi, she darted back to her spot and resumed scrubbing and cleaning.

The boy went upstairs, carefully avoiding the scattered wolf fur that made the floor look like a grassy plain. He scanned the rooms, and the first thing he asked was,

“Where’s Wu Heng?”

Xue Shen glanced at the balcony.

“He was out fighting zombies just now.”

But the balcony was empty.

Lin Mengzhi understood immediately and didn’t even look up.

“He probably went to sleep. Alright, he can eat and sleep now.”

Realizing he was only pointing out a flaw, he quickly added, “And he can still fight.”

Xie Chongyi nodded but didn’t offer to help with the work. He strolled through each room with his hands in his pockets and returned to the starting point.

“Not in any of the rooms.”

Xue Shen didn’t understand what Xie Chongyi was fussing about. Neither he nor anyone else would worry if Wu Heng disappeared for a while—it wasn’t like it would put anyone in danger.

Besides, Dou Lu had already checked: there were no high-energy mutant creatures within dozens of kilometers, and zombies were nothing to fear.

“Old Xie, come help,” Xue Shen said bluntly, tossing a few pelts at Xie Chongyi’s feet.

Xie Chongyi looked down and nudged them away with his toe.

“So cruel.”

Xue Shen asked, “Are you going to wear it or not?”

Xie Chongyi smiled. “I’ll wear it.”

But he still didn’t help with the work. He walked through the upstairs again and still didn’t see the person he was looking for.

The fourth floor was the top floor. Two rows of flowerpots had long since been buried under heavy snow. Looking out from the roof toward the mountains and forest, Xie Chongyi realized the trees had grown taller and denser; even in winter, they hadn’t stopped expanding their territory.

The spring that would eventually arrive would be unlike any other—a terrifying spring when all things would awaken.

Having found no one outside, Xie Chongyi returned to the group. He didn’t sit on the cold wooden benches but instead chose to sink into a pile of dried wolf fur, even sliding his hands into the soft, fluffy fur to warm himself, clearly intending to be lazy.

However, the moment his hand plunged in, he touched something icy.

He didn’t pull back immediately but pressed the cold object, feeling its soft, boneless texture. Above it was the same icy, delicate skin.

Xie Chongyi squinted, already guessing the truth. He withdrew his hand, ran his fingers along the edge of the wolf pelt, and gently lifted it.

The Wu Heng he had been searching for was there—curled up beneath the heavy pile of pelts, sleeping peacefully.

<< _ >>