Eaten Ch.66

Chapter 66:  Caught a Thief

Wu Zhi stood at the very back. “Haven’t mutant animals already developed self-awareness long ago? Why do you all still seem to treat them as if they’re the same as before?”

Dou Lu’s expression froze. She suspected that Wu Zhi’s ability was similar to Teacher Ying’s — both could make people want to die.

The muntjac was massive in size. After observing from above for long enough, it suddenly leapt down and charged toward them.

Dou Lu exerted her power, and the muntjac’s hooves tangled with one another for a brief moment. Just as it was about to regain its footing, a fireball was half-formed in Lin Mengzhi’s hand — when the knife in his grasp suddenly slipped free.

Pchi—

The blade pierced through the muntjac’s neck from front to back. The half-inch of exposed steel behind its neck dripped steadily, staining red with blood.

A painful, hate-filled cry tore from the muntjac’s throat — Wu Zhi then pushed the knife another half-inch deeper, until the creature crashed heavily to the ground.

Lin Mengzhi and Dou Lu both blinked. Wu Zhi turned toward them with a lazy smile.

“Big Xue was right,” she said. “You’re too slow.”

Lin Mengzhi’s expression was one of pure horror — even more so than the first time he saw a zombie. His face went from red, to white, and back to red again.

Dou Lu was the same.

But that wasn’t necessarily bad. Though the two of them couldn’t immediately accept it and would need time to adjust, deep down they were genuinely happy for Wu Zhi. Whether she’d gotten smarter or not didn’t matter — at least now she had a healthy brain, even if her sense of normality was questionable.

Lin Mengzhi dug a fire-attribute energy core out of the deer’s body. He wiped it clean on his pants and handed it to Wu Zhi.

“Why didn’t you sense there were mutant animals in the village before?” he asked Dou Lu as he hoisted the deer onto his shoulder. “Let’s go inside and take another look.”

Dou Lu walked in front. “There are so many animals in the mountains — I just didn’t sense any that were stronger than us.”

As she spoke, she pushed open the front door of the pretty house. The door creaked open just a crack — and Dou Lu’s expression instantly changed. On reflex, she slammed it shut with a loud bang.

Seeing her expression change, Lin Mengzhi tossed the deer onto a nearby sun-bathing tea table. “Is there a ghost inside?” He pulled Dou Lu aside and, even more cautious than she was, opened the door.

He shut it again in an instant, startled.

“Why are they all zombies?!”

At a glance the living room wasn’t large, but it was packed with zombies. They had already been attracted by the footsteps when the three of them entered the yard and, roused by hunger, were now crowding toward the front door, low growling and lunging in that direction.

Wu Zhi quietly pushed the door open a crack and peered in. A zombie pressed its face right up against hers; a shriveled eyeball dangled from its cheek, swaying.

Wu Zhi ripped the eyeball off in one motion and hurled it to the far end of the living room. Watching the zombies all turn away and chase it, she closed the door.

“They were locked in there by someone — maybe villagers,” she said.

Lin Mengzhi frowned. “Why didn’t they kill them?”

“Couldn’t bring themselves to, I guess. They were the same kind before — maybe even family.” Dou Lu understood that feeling well; some people might never accept it even to their dying breath. Her expression lost some of its earlier ease. She conjured an iron shovel in her palm from thin air and turned to lodge it between the two door handles.

“The villagers have all left. If nobody goes in, they’ll starve to death in a little while.”

Clang.

Wu Zhi snatched the shovel down. “We should finish them off now.”

Lin Mengzhi hesitated. “But—”

“If you keep acting like this, you’ll always be dragging my brother down.” The coquettish tone Wu Zhi had used since childhood vanished completely. The normally gentle, friendly round eyes were now filled with cautious wariness toward the world and a readiness to strike.

Having said that, she stared at Dou Lu and Lin Mengzhi for a long moment, placed her palm against the door, and pushed with all her strength.

The zombies that had been sniffing and lunging where the eyeball landed heard the door open behind them. They turned slowly — and when they saw the fresh food brought to them at the doorstep, they went mad, roaring and charging.

“Shit—shit—shit—” Lin Mengzhi felt his scalp explode into fragments; he had no time to think. He swept his hand and a sea of flame rolled over to the back of the corpse horde, but zombies don’t feel pain — even as they were set alight they still kept coming at him and Dou Lu one after another.

Dou Lu sidestepped a zombie’s swipe; the blade in her hand plunged into the zombie’s forehead, the hilt pushed further in, and with force from her palm the soft skulls of the zombies aligned on that line instantly exploded.

Wu Zhi took two steps back, ran toward the courtyard wall, climbed the wooden ladder, and sat herself on a high perch.

The snow on the roof melted quickly from Lin Mengzhi’s use of his ability, turning to water and falling like rain.

Zombies weren’t confined to the first floor — they streamed from the second and third floors too. Seeing the endless tide, Dou Lu and Lin Mengzhi grew serious.

The villagers must have locked all the zombies inside this house. Inside were not only their neighbors but also the hikers and tourists they’d mentioned earlier.

The number was staggering.

Lin Mengzhi kicked down two zombies at a time, pulled out translucent energy cores from their bodies. The thumb-length cores were reforged by flame into blades that shot into the crowd like meteors.

Wu Zhi watched the two, sweat soaking their brows, fight the zombies. She counted the zombies; allowing for error, she totaled between 120 and 130.

They were ordinary zombies — none had evolved abilities. In her estimation, Dou Lu and Lin Mengzhi should be able to finish them off within ten minutes.

The girl lowered her eyes and swung her leg. Suddenly a sharp pain erupted at the crown of her head.

She looked up toward the source of the pain. A young-looking zombie that still appeared relatively clean was standing behind a floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, staring at Wu Zhi. A thin veil of frost had formed on the glass in front of it.

Wu Zhi’s eyes lit up.

Without hesitation, she reached out — two forces collided in the air. The icicles along the eaves, which had been steadily melting, froze again and continued to spread with frost.

Her eyes turned crimson, her long hair lifting behind her as if stirred by wind. Blood beaded at the corner of her mouth, and her heart throbbed violently with pain.

Crash—Bang—

A loud noise erupted behind Lin Mengzhi. He nearly jumped onto Dou Lu’s back in fright. When he turned around, a zombie had fallen hard onto the ground right behind them.

Not far away, Wu Zhi’s arm hung limply at her side. Her vision spun; she shook her head weakly, eyelids fluttering shut as her body tilted backward.

“Wu Zhi!”

—

Wu Heng bit into one meat patty after another, the warmth already faded to a comfortable temperature. A tall stack of plates sat balanced on his lap.

The wolf meat had been freshly butchered the night before. In this frozen world outside, the ice and snow served as nature’s own freezer. Chopped into fine pieces and seasoned simply with two condiments, the flavor of the wolf meat shone through unmasked — tender, fragrant, both lean and fatty in each bite, filling the mouth with rich aroma.

Balancing the plate, Wu Heng thought to himself that for the next month or so, he would treat Ruan Silian and Shen Ping’an with noticeably better temper than anyone else.

Shen Ping’an was simmering a large pot of wolf meat and radish. The radishes had been dug up from the snowy ground at the foot of the mountain — the stash of mutated radishes that Auntie Wang had hidden away but hadn’t managed to take with her, now conveniently theirs.

The wolf meat went in first, still with a thin layer of skin. When cooked, the skin turned translucent and springy, the broth rich and savory. Only at the end did they toss in a huge basket of radishes.

No one looked outside, no one thought about the past or the uncertain future.

In the kitchen, the thick smell of cooking filled the air — hot oil meeting fresh ingredients, a fleeting echo of the warmth and comfort of the world before the apocalypse. For a moment, it gave everyone the illusion of being home.

Ruan Silian flexed her sore, swollen hands, but the basket of meat patties beside her hadn’t grown any fuller.

That was when Xue Qi, who had been helping, finally realized something was off.

“Wu Heng, stop eating already! Otherwise none of us will get to have dinner today!”

Yesterday, when Auntie Wang had sighed about how much Wu Heng could eat and what a good appetite he had, Xue Qi thought it was just one of those casual things elders always said.

Wu Heng sat with his back to the kitchen, holding a meat patty with a crisp golden crust, chewing expressionlessly.

Just then, a burst of hurried footsteps came from outside the front door.

Lin Mengzhi stumbled in, carrying the massive roe deer and covered in grime. Dou Lu followed close behind, a limp, unconscious Wu Zhi on her back.

“Where’s Doctor Chen?! Hurry and have him look at Xiao Zhi!”

Wu Heng told Dou Lu to lay Wu Zhi down on the kitchen floor — it was warm there.

He rolled another patty in his hand, took a bite, and walked closer to Wu Zhi, bending down to look at her.

Dou Lu, panting and hands on her hips, told the others what had just happened — how Wu Zhi had suddenly fainted, without any warning at all.

Lying on the floor, Wu Zhi’s eyes were tightly shut, her lips pale. Even her hair seemed to carry a faint white sheen.

Wu Heng wiped his hands on her coat, then pinched a strand of her hair between his fingers. With a bit of pressure, the whitened strand darkened back to black — and the bit of white that had stained his fingertips turned to liquid, dripping down like melted frost.

Lin Mengzhi stared, mouth agape in shock. He reached out too, though his hand went to Wu Zhi’s face instead.

Her skin was icy cold. Lin Mengzhi shivered and pulled his hand back, only to find the same thing had happened to him — a thin layer of frost clung to his palm, and when it touched something warmer, it melted into beads of water.

Xue Shen tried taking Wu Zhi’s temperature, but the thermometer couldn’t register anything.

“I don’t know what happened,” Lin Mengzhi said, voice trembling. “We were fighting zombies, and she was safe, up on the courtyard wall — then suddenly…”

He choked up, thinking she’d been attacked by some unknown mutant creature and was dying. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her with us.”

Wu Heng sat cross-legged beside Wu Zhi. He had already finished his meat patty and kept his gaze on her the whole time. He didn’t look nearly as anxious or distraught as Lin Mengzhi.

Dr. Chen arrived through the wind and snow — tall and upright, his bearing clean and refined, though half of his face was horribly rotted, making him difficult to look at directly.

“Where’s the patient?” he asked.

After examining Wu Zhi, he quickly reached a conclusion.

“Oh. Ice-type ability.”

“Ice-type?”

“Wu Zhi’s an ice-type now?!”

What had seemed a disaster instantly turned into good news — everyone was overjoyed.

Only Wu Heng, who had known all along what Wu Zhi’s real ability was, showed confusion on his face. Ice-type? How could that be?

“Where’s the family member?” Dr. Chen buttoned up his white coat and stood. “I’d like to speak with you privately.”

Wu Heng followed Chen Meng outside.

Once they were far enough from the others in the kitchen, Chen Meng turned to him.

“I remember the patient’s medical history very clearly. She’s a fire-type — if she were to awaken, it would definitely be a fire-type ability. Ice belongs to the water attribute; the two couldn’t be further apart. As her family, do you have any thoughts on this?”

Wu Heng shook his head. “No idea.”

Chen Meng went on, “After awakening, has she used her ability at all?”

“No.”

After a moment of thought, Chen Meng said, “Then it’s possible the patient has been hiding something from you. I’d suggest you communicate with her more. Only by understanding the truth can we avoid delaying treatment.”

Wu Heng nodded. “Understood. When will she wake up?”

“Water and fire are opposites. Two completely conflicting attributes in one body — she’s going to suffer for several days. If she can endure it, she’ll wake up. If she can’t…” Chen Meng’s tone turned heavy and mournful. “You should be mentally prepared in advance.”

Wu Heng remained calm. “Alright.”

A faint, half-lipped smile appeared on Chen Meng’s ruined face. He liked family members like this — the kind who didn’t start every sentence with ‘Baidu says’ or ‘DeepSeek says’, and didn’t complain ‘She was fine when we brought her to your hospital!’

He pointed at the dead deer by the door. “That the consultation fee?”

Wu Heng followed the direction the zombie doctor was pointing, and saw the creature that looked very much like a deer appear in his line of sight. His eyes flickered. “No, that’s not it.”

“My consultation fee then—”

“There’s mutant wolf meat outside in the snow. Go get some yourself.”

The mutant wolf meat was piled like a mountain. Even with his storage space packed to the brim, it was only the tip of the iceberg — the zombie could eat as much as he wanted.

After Dr. Chen left, Wu Heng carried the muntjac — a creature he’d never eaten before but had long wanted to try — into the kitchen. Then he walked over to Wu Zhi, bent down, and lifted her into his arms horizontally, carrying her back to her room on the second floor.

—

Wu Zhi had awakened an ice-type ability, which greatly boosted the team’s morale.

In the days that followed, the group split into three smaller teams. Using the village as their center, they each chose a different direction to venture deeper into the forest — partly to patrol, partly to hunt, and also as training.

The peace at home was left under Wu Heng’s watch.

Xue Shen’s requirements for him were minimal.

Because he was afraid of the cold, Lin Mengzhi and Shen Ping’an gave him a brazier. The charcoal was something the group had learned to make themselves — digging pits and chopping trees to produce it. Though their charcoal-making skills weren’t exactly refined, it was enough to keep them warm.

Xie Chongyi also moved the flower seedling that had never grown an inch from beginning to end up to the second floor where the brazier was.

At home, only Wu Heng, Wu Zhi, and Ruan Silian remained. Even Ying Liuquan was forced to take up a hatchet and head out.

The leaders of the Elysium Team had strongly objected to letting Ying Liuquan join them, and in the end, it was Xie Chongyi who took him in.

The snow in the forest showed no signs of melting — in fact, it had grown even deeper.

In the food-scarce winter, animals that did not hibernate were desperately searching for sustenance.

Walking behind Xie Chongyi, Ying Liuquan was suddenly knocked to the ground by a flock of red-eyed sparrows. They were about the same size as normal sparrows, but their beaks had become like twin blades — one peck could draw blood.

Xie Chongyi approached unhurriedly, crushed two or three sparrows that tried to attack him, and said calmly to the young man on the ground covering his face, “Teacher Ying, they’re just a bunch of sparrows.”

After saying that, the young man turned and continued walking forward.

He hadn’t gone far when a shrill screech erupted from behind — the flock of birds had begun attacking one another. Very soon, they dropped one after another into the snow.

Trembling, Ying Liuquan climbed to his feet and gathered all the sparrows into the cloth bag he carried with him. It was the first time he had ever earned his own spoils.

After tying the bag tightly and slinging it over his shoulder, Ying Liuquan hurried to catch up with Xie Chongyi.

He stole a quick glance at him, feeling that his own cowardice earlier had been truly pathetic.

At the foot of the mountain, three to five other people were also trudging along through the wind and snow.

Their faces were flushed red from the cold. Only two of them wore thick down jackets; the remaining two men and one woman were thinly dressed, shivering as they walked.

Suddenly, one of the women’s eyes lit up. She pointed ahead, at something faintly visible beneath the snow — a hint of metallic color.

“Is that… a car?”

“A car? In a godforsaken place like this?”

“Let’s go take a look.”

Carrying their small packs, they broke into a run. As they got closer, they saw that the snow-covered object was indeed a vehicle — a bus, half-buried in the drifts.

The tallest man sniffled, wiped the snow off the window, and peered inside. His eyes froze for two seconds, then his breathing quickened. He shouted excitedly, “There’s supplies inside! Food! Clothes!”

At the mention of food, the group was overjoyed. Heaven knew how much they had starved along the way — their provisions had long run out, and worse, they had been robbed multiple times by larger teams. They’d survived by digging up roots and gnawing on tree bark. If they were lucky, they might catch a stray dog — but that wasn’t food fit for humans.

And now, with this windfall of supplies from the heavens, they were so thrilled they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

They could hardly wait to climb into the bus and feast.

“Hurry up, open the door!”

The short man at the back, shoulders hunched against the cold, frowned. “This doesn’t seem right… What if this car just stopped here temporarily? Wouldn’t that be stealing?”

“Stealing? Who cares? Who would park a bus out here in the middle of nowhere? And even if they did—who can prove it’s theirs? I could just as well say it’s mine!”

“Exactly! We’re starving to death and you’re worried about stealing? Fine, you can keep your morals and starve! Maybe someone will give you a shiny little ‘Moral Citizen’ banner when you die!”

The door was locked, so one of the men smashed the window with a punch, knocked out the broken glass, and climbed inside. From there, he unlatched the door, letting the others—who were practically jumping with impatience—scramble aboard.

“There’s instant noodles! Biscuits! Bottled water!”

“This bus sitting here like this is a total waste!”

“Maybe the owner got eaten by something…”

Before long, the bus floor was littered with opened snack wrappers and empty bottles. The sound of ravenous chewing echoed outside.

The short man stood by the door, dizzy with hunger, swallowing hard, but still forced himself to resist—blocking out the sounds of eating and refusing to climb aboard.

In the distance, amid the endless whiteness of snow, a small black dot appeared—and it was moving closer.

The short man squinted, rubbing his frozen eyes. The black dot was taking on a human shape.

Wu Heng had come this way to fetch a few packs of the crispy noodles and biscuits that Wu Zhi liked. The snacks in his spatial storage were all candies and chocolates.

Before he could get close, he saw a man standing beside their bus—his lips trembling, his face pale white, probably frozen from the cold.

The boy’s calm gaze swept over the scene, taking in the two smashed bus windows—and the faint, shifting silhouettes inside.

The youth, dressed in fur and looking almost like some mountain tribesman, suddenly vanished from the short man’s field of vision.

The short man had never seen anything like it. Startled, he stumbled back a step—

—but a gentle force pressed against his shoulder from behind. His eyes widened as he turned.

It was a young face—cold, striking, and almost unnaturally beautiful in its eeriness.

At Wu Heng’s feet, green vines slithered back into the ground. Yet in his palm, one tendril remained, clinging to the man’s nape like a leech, writhing faintly.

Wu Heng’s lips parted slightly, their pink hue soft against the snow’s pallor. His voice was mild, almost melodious—yet it sent a chill straight to the bone.

“Caught a thief.”

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