Eaten Ch.82

Chapter 82: “They’ve become hands used to rub a bird”

Wu Heng didn’t want to carry a single one of them.

On Xie Chongyi’s body, Wu Zhi felt a sense of something being taken away. Her brother was clearly right beside her, yet she still felt as though something on him had been stolen by Xie Chongyi.

She was furious, clenching her teeth so hard they made a grinding sound.

Crunch, crunch.

Crunch, crunch.

Out of the corner of her eye, several hunched zombies were slowly moving in their direction. They couldn’t see—only relied on their sense of smell to move forward. With only a few teeth left, those teeth quivered as they rubbed together, making the same crunching sound.

Wu Zhi vented her displeasure on the zombies. An icicle half a meter long appeared out of thin air above one zombie’s head, plunging straight down through the center of its skull.

One zombie fell. The remaining few were still shambling about.

Their bent shadows flickered unevenly across the bamboo tube’s surface. Suddenly, one zombie’s shadow trembled violently. In the blink of an eye, its face was covered with something like kernels of corn. As they opened and closed, they produced a rapid rhythm—crunch crunch pa-pa-pa—like someone snapping a clapper.

Wu Heng focused his gaze. “Teeth.”

“Mutation,” Xie Chongyi said as he pulled him behind himself. The zombie with a face full of teeth exploded into a blood-red blossom.

Wu Heng used his vines to swiftly eliminate the remaining zombies and collected all the energy cores.

They were all non-attribute, but the core inside the zombie with the many teeth contained more than three times the energy of the others.

Wu Zhi smiled. “Brother, since the stronger the energy, the fewer we’ll have to gather in the future, right?”

“Mhm.” Wu Heng nodded.

Xie Chongyi reminded the little girl, “But our living environment will also become harsher.”

“Was it ever good to begin with?” Wu Zhi snorted.

For ability users, this world was nothing more than a place where the strong prey on the weak. As long as you worked hard to improve yourself, there were still ways to survive.

But for ordinary people, this was truly a hellish world.

The Meili Base was now nothing but broken walls and ruins. Many buildings still had sections suspended mid-air, and dense bamboo had grown lushly among the debris.

The control center, however, had barely survived. The open space in front of the building was packed with people wearing panic-stricken expressions, while guards and ability users were scattered around the edges.

The moment the three of them emerged from the thick bamboo forest, they instantly drew the attention of everyone in the open space and around it. The girl’s white hair and white eyelashes were far too striking—anyone could tell at a glance that she was an ability user. And the two boys beside her… their figures and looks were extraordinarily outstanding, rarer still.

Wu Heng also spotted the hotel owner. He remembered him not because of his face, but because of his size—among a crowd, he was the most conspicuous.

But having so much flesh meant he feared the heat. On a summer night, he couldn’t stop wiping his sweat, with several empty water bottles piled beside him.

Not an ability user, so much meat on him, and still not edible… what a waste. Wu Heng couldn’t help drifting into that line of thought.

He was spacing out when Xie Chongyi looked at him. “Find the person in charge first?”

Wu Heng snapped back to reality and nodded. “Okay.”

The air seemed to halt.

Wu Zhi scratched her hair. “Brother, which one is the person in charge? The class monitor and I don’t know him.”

But Wu Heng didn’t like standing out, nor did he enjoy dealing with people. He thought quietly to himself—it would’ve been better to bring Ruan Silian. Although Lin Mengzhi was good at talking to people, she wasn’t as sharp as Ruan Silian. If you had to describe it, then in social situations—especially when gathering information—Lin Mengzhi was the fish, and Ruan Silian was the hook.

“That one in the black shirt?” Xie Chongyi lifted his chin slightly toward a spot not far away.

Inside the building entrance, Zheng Xi happened to be walking out, followed by two guards.

When Zheng Xi saw Wu Heng, he was first shocked—why had he returned after leaving?—then immediately overjoyed. He moved around the crowd and hurried toward him.

As soon as he reached them, Zheng Xi spoke. “You didn’t leave?”

Wu Heng looked puzzled. “Leave for where?”

“Let me ask you something,” Xie Chongyi stepped between the two of them. “It’s about the mutated bamboo.”

Although Zheng Xi had never seen Xie Chongyi before, he himself was an ability user, so he could naturally sense that the other boy was one as well. Now that the base had been destroyed, having one more capable helper was better than none. So he didn’t bother asking about Xie Chongyi’s identity and instead spoke directly: “What plans do you all have?”

But before Xie Chongyi could answer, a commotion suddenly rose from the crowd not far away. A panicked voice cut through the noise: “My son fainted! Who still has water?! Anyone have water?!”

Wu Heng turned to look and saw that the one who had fainted was the fat hotel owner. A middle-aged couple beside him—likely his parents—were holding him up in extreme distress.

“Elder Ye said the weather will continue to worsen in the coming days…” Zheng Xi stopped mid-sentence. He looked at the three in front of him one by one, then spoke quickly: “Would you mind going to the conference room so we can talk? If you don’t mind, head upstairs first. I’ll settle the survivors down here before coming up.”

After the young man finished speaking, a guard called him over.

He ran to Liu Wenhai’s side and quickly checked him over. “Heatstroke.”

At this point, Liu Wenhai’s entire body was soaked and clammy, his face pale. His eyes remained tightly shut. The middle-aged woman beside him had tears streaming down her face. “There’s no medicine, is there? And nowhere even slightly cooler…”

Before the base fell, they were already short on many things. Now that it had collapsed, they had nothing at all.

The people around them listened as her muffled sobs grew into wails. Crying, she used several bottles of water that others had kindly given her to wet her husband’s discarded shirt, then struggled to wipe down Liu Wenhai’s head, back, and underarms.

Zheng Xi crouched down, scanning the crowd. “Everyone, go inside first. Several ability users and I have reinforced the building. It’s safer inside than out!”

“Wu You, come help move him in.”

Hearing that they could take shelter inside, the survivors who had been sitting limp on the ground jumped up in relief and rushed toward the building.

Escaping for survival had long since become the most commonplace scene in the apocalypse, yet every time Wu Heng faced it directly, a strange feeling surfaced in his heart.

He didn’t sympathize with pitiful people.

But once he decided someone was pitiful… didn’t that mean sympathy had already quietly appeared?

“Wu Zhi, go take a look at Boss Liu. You might be able to help him.” Xie Chongyi smiled as he looked at her.

Wu Zhi squeezed the ear of her monkey plush until it was deformed. “Why should I help him?”

Xie Chongyi bent down slightly and looked straight into her evasive eyes, speaking softly: “There doesn’t need to be a reason. You help simply because you can.”

Wu Zhi inhaled deeply and called out in a small voice, “Brother—”

“Go,” Wu Heng said.

Wu Zhi deflated. “Okay…”

She went to the first floor to help with the survivors, while Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi walked upstairs together. In the dim stairwell, Wu Heng’s voice drifted slowly, “Class Monitor, you’re really kind.”

Hands in his pockets, Xie Chongyi answered casually, “You only realized now?”

Wu Heng’s face carried a wounded look. “But you’re not kind to me.”

Xie Chongyi suddenly stopped walking, leaving Wu Heng standing on the step above him. Their eyes were level—one unreadable, the other boldly confident.

The boy stretched out his well-defined hand between them.

“What’s wrong?” Wu Heng bent down a little to look.

“When I was in Jingzhou, during morning training, the instructor told us our hands were meant to hold up the hands of every suffering person. In afternoon classes, the teacher said these hands were meant to write the beautiful chapters of the world. But now, they’ve done neither. They’ve become hands used to rub a bird. Do you think they’re kind?”

While Xie Chongyi spoke, Wu Heng slowly straightened up. His thick lashes lowered, his voice contradicting his heart. “They’re very kind.”

But how kind could Xie Chongyi really be, when he wouldn’t let Wu Heng eat him?

Because if it were him—if he became truly kind—he would willingly feed himself to the other.

“Hey, you two haven’t gone up yet?” After settling the survivors, Zheng Xi walked down the first-floor hallway. Seeing the two standing one above the other on the stairs, he froze for a second.

The two boys immediately moved at the same time, faces calm as ever.

—

There were quite a few people in the conference room—around twenty or thirty. All of them were ability users, and more than half wore the base guard’s uniform.

When they saw two unfamiliar boys following behind the person in charge, their expressions were puzzled.

“Brother, wait for me!” Wu Zhi gasped as she ran in.

A girl with snow-white hair—no one in the conference room had ever seen someone like that. Before they could start whispering about why Zheng Xi had brought in a few outsiders unrelated to the base, the temperature inside the room suddenly dropped.

A woman sitting in the corner sneezed. “Is it getting cooler?”

“Chief, did you turn on the air-conditioning?”

Zheng Xi didn’t answer them. Once the three had taken their seats, he looked toward an elderly man with graying hair who sat to his left at the conference table. “Elder Ye.”

Leaning on his cane, Elder Ye stood up. “Wu You showed me the bamboo samples. Preliminary identification: Cizhu (慈竹), a species usually found widely across the southern regions. It likes shade and moisture. Now that the weather has heated up, and since Meili Base is located near the middle reaches of the Meili River, its sudden expansion into our base is likely due to searching for water. And judging by the geography—Meili Base faces away from the sun, has water, low UV exposure, and short daylight hours—it appearing here isn’t strange.”

“Bamboo has one of the fastest growth rates in the plant world. It doesn’t only grow from the tip; every bamboo joint lengthens at the same time. You’ve all seen what it looks like after mutating. Whether we stay or leave, we need to decide early.”

“Leave where? There are still several hundred people in the base. All of them traveling together? Who knows how many dangers there are on the road? And who can handle that workload?”

“If we don’t leave, should we just stay here? Look at what it’s become out there—a deep mountain forest!”

“Just clear out the mutated bamboo, then!”

“But the base is already destroyed. Even if we deal with the bamboo, where will everyone live afterward?”

“If you ask me, ability users already have their own families to care for. We’ve done enough for the base’s people up until now. From here on, everyone should look after their own. Don’t rely on anyone, and don’t drag anyone down.”

Zheng Xi pressed his palms together against the table, head lowered, saying nothing.

Seeing the person in charge remain silent, everyone assumed he was thinking through a solution, so they gradually quieted down. After a bit of small talk, their attention shifted to the three who had not spoken since entering.

“Why is your hair white? Are you sick?”

Wu Zhi glanced at her brother and nodded.

Across from her, separated by Wu Heng, Xie Chongyi let out a soft laugh as he pressed a knuckle to his brow. The brother and sister really did share the same habit—always pretending to be pitiful.

“You’re all ability users?” The guard across from them was a woman wearing short sleeves. She had short hair, dark skin, but very white teeth, giving her an open and lively appearance.

Wu Heng realized she was asking him.

His fingers rested lightly on his knee. After exchanging a look with Wu Zhi, they both shook their heads.

“We’re not. He is.”

The siblings raised their hands in unison and pointed at Xie Chongyi with their index fingers.

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