Eaten Ch.102.1

Chapter 102.1: A Good Person

“Is that his bird?”

“No,” Xue Shen, who was questioned by the guard, raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe it is.”

“How long will the zombie tide last?” Dou Lu tried to sense it and found that the zombie horde actually stretched out for dozens of kilometers. She froze for a moment. Zombies don’t feel fatigue—unless their heads get separated from their bodies—but ability users don’t have endless energy. They still need rest, and they need to replenish their strength even more.

“It seems like we’ve never run into a zombie tide before,” Shen Ping’an said.

“Indeed, we haven’t.”

Dou Lu quickly came down from the watchtower. First, she sensed where Sheng Jiang was, then found him. Looking up, she asked, “Will the zombie tide subside on its own?”

Sheng Jiang was pressing a light blue injector into his arm. His eyes were lowered, a few bent strands of hair falling beside his face. Hearing her question, he let out two short laughs. “What are you thinking? This place is full of the food they need.”

“When you encountered something similar before, how did you deal with it? Did you just keep fighting?” Dou Lu’s mouth was dry.

“Previously, Wu Dian and I had only heard about zombie tides. News usually came from other bases’ leaders or our companions. We’re not sure yet how many zombie tides have occurred worldwide, but within our country, there have been a total of seven of various sizes. Only three bases successfully held out.” Sheng Jiang tossed the empty injector into his bag, pressed the needle mark, and lowered his sleeve. “Can you tie a bun?”

Dou Lu noticed that much of his hair had come loose. “No.”

“Then you…”

“My friend tied it for me.”

Outside their silence was the endless shrieking of zombies and the flood-like surge of their foul stench.

“What happens to the bases that didn’t hold out?”

“They fell,” Sheng Jiang answered without any hesitation.

Dou Lu couldn’t stop trembling all over, but seeing his calm face made her feel that Kuhuang might not necessarily fall. She gritted her teeth, turned, and went back up the watchtower.

Above the ground, the parrot spread its wings and glided. Waves of zombies were sliced down one batch after another. From the posture of the mutated bird, it was easy to see how relaxed and at ease it was. The zombies had no ability to fight back—it was the absolute ruler here.

It dove headfirst into the pitch-black forest. Beneath the tall, dense canopy, zombies packed every bit of open space. They staggered forward, growling endlessly. The air in the woods was stagnant and suffocating with stench.

A clean, deep, slender black silhouette entered X’s vision. It swooped toward it, branches and leaves scattering along the way.

The closer it got, the more puzzled X felt.

The black silhouette belonged to a woman. Her shoulder-length hair was smooth and neat, but the lower half of her face was gone. Her jawbone was crooked, and her eyes gleamed a scarlet red. Beneath the ruined, decaying face was a professional women’s business suit, covered in dried blood.

She held a violin bow in one hand and struggled to drag a cello with the other.

Her expression was sluggish as she walked forward. Her red pupils rotated, and she finally saw the gray bird perched on a tree trunk not far away.

X tilted its head and let out two chattering cries, ignoring the arms reaching up to grab at it from below, and flew back.

Xie Chongyi was in a great mood, drinking water at the rest station.

He poured another cup for X and held it out.

X had no time for his chit-chat. It flapped its wings and hopped onto the table. “Cello.”

“You want to learn?”

“Cello!” X raised its volume.

Xie Chongyi lowered his eyes, pinched its beak, and poured a large mouthful of water inside.

Don’t get dehydrated—otherwise Wu Heng would start fussing again later.

X was clearly anxious. It paced on the table restlessly, but it obviously didn’t know how to express itself.

It learned things quickly, but it had taken in too much random information. It started reciting every name it had heard recently. It knew what it said had nothing to do with what it had seen, which only made it more anxious. It jumped and angrily pecked a nearby guard twice.

The guard was caught off guard. “You crazy bird!”

Xie Chongyi had been quietly observing it the entire time. “You noticed something unusual.”

X immediately looked at Xie Chongyi with bright, shining eyes. “Yes!”

It paced back and forth, urging the humans to continue speaking, and echoed, “Awesome, cello, listen to her, awesome, she’s gorgeous…”

Xie Chongyi bent down and flicked its forehead. “Why didn’t you say the keywords earlier?”

When X lunged to peck him, he straightened up and quietly said to Xue Shen beside him, “The zombie tide has an initiator. She’s a woman with a decent appearance, and her identifying feature is a cello.”

A cello—both Xie Chongyi and Xue Shen couldn’t help but think of Shen She.

“What does she want?” Xue Shen tossed a piece of dried rabbit meat into X’s mouth.

Xie Chongyi glanced at Xue Shen unexpectedly. “I thought only Lin Mengzhi and Dou Lu asked questions like that.”

Xue Shen remained completely calm. “You’re not wrong.”

“Talking shit about me!”

A sudden voice rang out. Xie Chongyi and Xue Shen jolted in fright, turning to see X mimicking human speech. Xie Chongyi made a fake splashing motion with the empty cup, and X immediately hopped away, chirping proudly.

It got carried away and didn’t notice the door behind it. Someone from outside pushed it open forcefully, the door hitting X with a loud smack. It turned, ready to flare up—only to run into Wu Dian’s stern, expressionless face.

“Stop fooling around. Go switch out with the people outside so they can rest.” Wu Dian had a long, half-human-height slim rod slung over his shoulder, its hazy jade color unclear. After speaking, he left.

“He’s wind-type,” Xue Shen said.

Xie Chongyi grabbed the steel helmet from the table and put it on his head. “His level is higher than all of ours. If you want to talk about him, I suggest doing it to his face.”

“You sure about that?”

“Because with how rigid he is, he’d think talking behind his back is disgraceful and saying it to his face is upright.” Xie Chongyi walked out the door, Xue Shen following beside him. He fastened the buckle, lifted his gaze slightly, and continued, “Mainly because it’s easier to hit him that way.”

Xue Shen chuckled twice. “Why isn’t Wu Heng with you today?”

Xie Chongyi also laughed. “Why would he be with me?”

“…I suppose so.” Xue Shen was briefly speechless, then shrugged and followed the baffling logic. “He has no reason to be with you.”

Those kinds of remarks couldn’t provoke Xie Chongyi at all. Whether there was a reason or not was something only he and Wu Heng knew, so he simply smiled indifferently, then pointed at the base gate. “Let’s switch this round. You go outside, I’ll take the watchtower.”

—

In Kuhuang’s inner city, Wu Heng and Lin Mengzhi were forbidden from leaving.

Liu Ning was furious. He looked helplessly at the silent youth before him. “Killing everyone at the slightest disagreement is a bad habit.”

The other boy said nothing. Liu Ning opened the notebook in his hand and held it up in front of him. “Men, women, elderly, children—three hundred sixty-three people. Do you understand what that number means? That’s no fewer than a hundred families. If they lined up, it’d be about five hundred meters long. In your school, this is almost the size of ten entire classes of students.”

Wu Heng had heard questions like this many times. He felt nothing—just lowered his head and waited for Liu Ning to finish.

But Lin Mengzhi would never stand still and get scolded.

“They’re not people! They’re rats! Rats! Rats!”

“But they weren’t rats originally. Have you tried saving them?” Liu Ning pressed at her temples, her head aching. “Elimination is the final resort after exhausting all positive means. But from the very beginning, you went straight to the final step.”

Wu Heng gathered his thoughts. He stopped Lin Mengzhi, who was about to continue arguing. His gaze fell on the neatly arranged corpses of the rat-people behind Liu Ning. “Too troublesome.”

Liu Ning: “What do you mean?”

“You need many complicated methods to determine whether their lives can still be saved. But I don’t have to do things the way you do.” Wu Heng’s fingers brushed the corner of his mouth before slowly lowering.

“You have a simpler method?” Liu Ning crossed her arms. Wearing high heels, she was much taller than Wu Heng—eye-level with Lin Mengzhi. Her tight dress, with its low neckline, was squeezed upward by her posture, revealing two pale arcs.

Lin Mengzhi’s eyes began to move uncontrollably, widening in disbelief—this defied the laws of science!

But Wu Heng remained completely unaffected. His gaze was dark and unshaken.

Wu Heng replied, “Every type of creature has a different taste. One bite and I know.”

“You’ve eaten humans?”

“Kinda—”

“He has NOT!” Lin Mengzhi snapped back to his senses, his face flushing red. “How could he possibly eat humans? What kind of joke is that? It’s his ability—do you understand what an ability is?!”

“Right, that makes sense. Then I don’t have a problem here.” Liu Ning nodded. “However… what you said is only your one-sided claim. Your ability hasn’t been scientifically verified. So although I personally believe you, you need to understand—not everyone will have the same personal feelings toward you as I do, and therefore choose to trust your words.”

“In short, your ability cannot prove your innocence. The rat-woman was brought into the base by you. And the three hundred-plus infected who weren’t given any genetic testing before being killed were also killed by you. Wu Heng, you will be punished.”

Wu Heng’s expression didn’t change at all. He let out a soft “Oh,” and said, “I’ll run.”

Liu Ning burst into laughter. “Do you know that Mr. Mo and Wu Dian are S-rank ability users? Escaping right under their noses… that’s a little difficult.”

“You’ve told me the level of difficulty. That means you’re helping me,” Wu Heng said coolly.

“Not really. Telling you won’t matter anyway.”

Lin Mengzhi found the whole situation outrageous. “But A’Heng helped you people! He stood guard at the gate all day, at night he even helped you catch that woman! And those rat-people—by taking care of them, he saved countless people in this base. And you still talk about punishment? Do you have no sense of reason?”

Liu Ning looked at the boy who was loudly arguing with her and tugged the corner of her lips. “If merits canceled out faults, then criminals wouldn’t exist in this world.”

A loud ringing exploded in Lin Mengzhi’s head. “Who the f*ck are you calling a criminal?!”

“Calm down.” Liu Ning patted Lin Mengzhi’s cheek. “We have more important things to handle right now.”

“Isn’t it just making us keep doing your damn errands?” Lin Mengzhi scoffed.

“I hope you can calm down. It won’t do you any harm.”

To be honest, Liu Ning didn’t dislike these young people at all—except for that Teacher Ying.

“Maybe you weren’t wrong. The detector really couldn’t detect the infection carried by the rat-woman, and the three hundred-plus people were indeed thoroughly infected, beyond saving. But unrestrained violence is unreasonable in any era. It not only endangers society—it devours human nature.”

“You’re a plant symbiote. As far as I know, the final outcome for every plant symbiote without exception is being devoured by their own mutant plant. You probably don’t know the details. The detail is: the ability user being devoured feels nothing during the process. They simply become increasingly cruel, vicious, and enamored with violence.”

Liu Ning said, “So how can you guarantee that your thoughts and actions right now belong completely to you?”

Wu Heng remained unmoved.

Lin Mengzhi glanced at him, swallowing hard. “What do you mean?”

Liu Ning took a step forward and leaned down.

“Never stop being human. Never stop thinking. Don’t give it the chance.”

After saying that, she left the two of them and went to join the security team and doctors in handling the wounded.

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