Chapter 38.2: “…next time, don’t think about hugging me”
“What the hell is that?” Lin Mengzhi glanced toward the doorway, wondering if he should make a run for it.
Dou Lu tightened her grip on the knife. “Metal element—or some kind of metal ability.”
“What’s the difference?”
“No idea.”
No time to think about that. Lin Mengzhi pinched a few fireballs into existence and hurled them at the man, but the flames struck his body without doing any damage.
“F*ck you!” Lin Mengzhi’s pupils contracted, a curse slipping out. “Dou Lu, you go first! Find Xie Chongyi! Stop squeezing zombies and get your ass here to help me!”
Dou Lu turned to run.
“Trying to run?” The man stepped forward.
Lin Mengzhi stomped his foot down, and a wall of fire sprang up out of thin air in front of the man. The fire wall burned for a long time, the temperature scorching hot. The man instinctively stepped back.
“A new skill!” Lin Mengzhi lit up with excitement. Expanding the wall of fire, he trapped the man inside it. Planting his legs wide in a horse stance, he shouted, “Watch me refine you into ashes today!”
Dou Lu ran outside—and froze at the unbelievable scene before her.
Xie Chongyi stood by the passenger-side window, holding an umbrella. The car window beside him was rolled down, and pale-faced Wu Heng was leaning against it. Both of them were staring in the same direction—toward the shop behind her.
On the surface, the two boys looked like total opposites—one strong, one weak. Yet there was something else, something intangible, that made Dou Lu feel Wu Heng was every bit as powerful as Xie Chongyi.
If she didn’t know these two were her classmates, just from the way they stood there, detached and watching coldly, she could’ve mistaken them for the man’s accomplices.
“Class monitor, there’s an ability user inside—he’s trying to kill us! You have to help!” Dou Lu rushed up to Xie Chongyi.
“He can handle it himself.” The one who answered, however, was Wu Heng. “No need to interfere.”
Are you still human? Dou Lu spun around just in time to see the man land a heavy punch on Lin Mengzhi’s shoulder. His body slammed against the floor-to-ceiling window before crashing hard onto the ground. Even getting back up looked agonizing for him.
Blood trickled from the corner of Lin Mengzhi’s mouth. He tried several times to rise but failed—until a pair of metal-encased legs appeared right in front of his eyes.
The man bent down, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and forced his head up. “Didn’t I say? Fire-type powers are wasted on brats like you. Such a damn waste.”
“It’s really unfair,” the man muttered, genuinely disgruntled. “An offensive ability as strong as fire should’ve gone to adults. Adults know how to make real use of it.”
“Say something!” The man slammed another fist straight into Lin Mengzhi’s chest.
His fist was pure metal, hard as stone. The blow drove a muffled groan from Lin Mengzhi, blood seeping beneath the whites of his eyes.
“Ugh—”
Suddenly, Lin Mengzhi’s hand shot up and clamped onto the man’s throat. A vivid red glow snaked from his neck, up across his face, and down his arm to his wrist.
Boom—! A burst of flame exploded, engulfing his entire palm. The tongues of fire wrapped tight around the man’s throat like a molten shackle.
Drip.
Something was melting.
Golden liquid slid down Lin Mengzhi’s hand, his grip on the man’s neck seeming to soften as the flesh turned pliable.
“Let go!” The man rasped, his features beginning to sag, while he rained down blow after frantic blow onto Lin Mengzhi.
“Let go my ass—didn’t I say I’m refining you?” Lin Mengzhi’s bones were nearly crushed, but still, he refused to release his grip.
Drip. Drip.
Scalding liquid splattered onto the floor, each drop burning through with a hiss, leaving behind a smoking hole.
At last, fear flickered in the man’s eyes. The hand gripping Lin Mengzhi’s hair slackened involuntarily. “Let me go, let me go! I’ll let you walk away!”
He tried prying Lin Mengzhi’s hand off his throat, but the moment his fingers wrapped around the boy’s arm, they burned away one by one.
“Ah! Ahhh! My hands!” His screams turned shrill as his neck melted down to barely half its original thickness.
Lin Mengzhi abruptly let go, staggering back two steps.
With his withdrawal, the flames that had been searing the man vanished into nothing, but the man’s head now dangled precariously from his neck.
Clutching at his skull, he staggered forward. “My head! My head’s falling off!”
The metallic sheen across his body began to solidify again. Relief crossed his face. “Good, good… still okay…”
Just then, wind and rain swept across the threshold. At some point, the gas station’s doors had opened, and a ghostlike figure slipped inside. A youth appeared out of nowhere, striding swiftly up to the man—then driving a combat knife straight into his eye.
The gold plating drained from the man’s skin. Blood gushed from his throat, his eyes bleeding out as well.
Wu Heng yanked out the blade, dug into the man’s chest, and pulled out a metallic energy core. He held it out toward Lin Mengzhi. “Mengzhi, you were too slow.”
“You keep it,” Lin Mengzhi said, voice trembling, unwilling to take it. “A’Heng… he was human.”
“So what?” Wu Heng shot back. “Would you rather he killed you?”
Lin Mengzhi shook his head. “I just… can’t wrap my head around it yet.”
They had slain plenty of zombies these past days—but all of them combined had not shaken them as deeply as this one moment.
Monsters and zombies were no longer of their kind, but that man just now had been one of their own. And from how smoothly he killed, it was clear—this wasn’t his first time. They weren’t the first people to pass by this gas station.
For people of the same kind to slaughter one another—before, they never would’ve dared imagine it.
Wu Heng glanced at Lin Mengzhi for a moment but said nothing. He stepped forward and pushed open a door. Behind it was clearly a makeshift kitchen: the basics were all there, and the half-eaten food on the stove and the dirty pots in the sink proved the man had been living here for some time.
Wu Heng opened the nearest cabinet, hoping to find something useful—maybe the fuel container they needed.
As soon as the door swung open, an arm dangled limply out, and a pair of eyes—wide and staring—glared lifelessly into the room.
“A’Heng…”
Bang.
Without hesitation, Wu Heng slammed the cabinet shut.
Lin Mengzhi still felt shaken, but he didn’t want his nerves to get in the way of what needed to be done. He asked, “Was there a fuel can in there?”
“No.” Wu Heng’s tone was flat. He turned away. “Let’s go.”
“Oh…” Lin Mengzhi didn’t think twice, trailing after him, muttering under his breath, “Why didn’t your class monitor come help me earlier?”
“You need combat experience. The more, the better. That’s how he helps you.” Wu Heng closed the kitchen door without changing expression. “If there’s no fuel can, just use the big water jugs.”
“What about the water in them? Isn’t it a waste to pour it out?”
Wu Heng paused, casting him a long, shadowed look.
“…”
By the time Shen Ping’an and Ying Liuquan’s car arrived at the gas station, Lin Mengzhi, Wu Zhi, and Dou Lu had already downed three jugs of mineral water. Lin Mengzhi, hiccupping from how full he was, was busy siphoning gasoline. “I’m telling you, I won’t be able to use my powers later.”
“Where’d you get the jugs?” Xue Shen asked, rolling up his sleeves.
“Drank them ourselves,” Lin Mengzhi replied.
Wu Heng stood beside the car, his gaze fixed on the store. Inside, several walls were scorched black from Lin Mengzhi’s flames. The glass panes were clouded with soot. And on the ground still lay the corpse of that man.
He didn’t go back into the kitchen afterward. The corpse in the cabinet hadn’t frightened him—he was only thinking: had that man in the shop been living off human flesh all this time? Was the body in the cabinet just one he hadn’t finished eating yet?
He himself had never eaten a person. Even with Wu Shiming and Zeng Like, it had been the Poppy that dealt with them—what he received was only the sense of being full.
Was it… tasty?
“Lin Mengzhi didn’t blame us for not going to help?” Xie Chongyi held up his umbrella, tilting his head toward Wu Heng.
Wu Heng: “No.”
“Then his temper’s not bad at all.”
“Mengzhi’s always had a good temper. Even when he does lose it, he’s easy to coax.”
Xie Chongyi lowered his gaze. “Let’s not talk about him.”
Wu Heng gave him a puzzled look.
“How are you feeling now?” Only Xie Chongyi knew the truth of Wu Heng’s condition.
Wu Heng pulled off one of his gloves. His fingers, warmed by being kept covered, looked flushed, and in his palm the poppy’s petals seemed to be recovering a little.
“It seems to hate the cold.”
Whether plant or animal, every symbiotic being carried its own strange magic—becoming a blue spider, or a flower blooming in the palm.
Xie Chongyi bent down to examine the black flower in his hand. “Most plants fear the cold. No wonder you kept saying you were freezing today.”
“I remember your ability has always shown up as vines. Why is there a flower?” As he spoke, his breath rose in a warm cloud, falling across Wu Heng’s palm.
“It always blooms. It just hasn’t grown up yet—it’s not at flowering age.” That was only Wu Heng’s guess. In his storage space, the Poppy was still just a tiny stalk, thin and weak.
Xie Chongyi’s curiosity deepened. “Do you know what flower it is?”
“Mhm.” Wu Heng nodded.
“What flower?”
Wu Heng slipped his glove back on. “Why should I tell you?”
Xie Chongyi lifted his eyes and looked at Wu Heng for a few seconds. He gave a short laugh, straightened up, and said,
“Then next time, don’t think about hugging me. Normally, keep your distance too.”
Wu Heng frowned at him, a hint of displeasure hidden in his expression.
He hated being threatened the most.
“Then I just won’t hug you.”
Xie Chongyi smiled. “Good.”
He closed his umbrella, walked around the front of the car, pulled open the door, and said,
“Let’s go.”
—
The three cars set off together.
The rain still hadn’t stopped. There wasn’t the faintest glimmer of light on the road. Now and then a zombie appeared, and the howls of mutant animals echoed close by. Everyone kept their nerves taut, not daring to fall asleep—everyone except Wu Zhi.
By five in the afternoon, the sky had already gone dark, and the rain grew heavier.
The cars kept close together, never stretching too far apart. At most, they turned a corner before being able to see one another again. If they spread out too much, it would be hard to lend help in time if something happened.
Wu Heng sat in a daze when X suddenly leapt from Wu Zhi’s head into his arms.
It had just settled into position when the car suddenly screeched to a halt.
The bird smacked into the glass with a thud, shrieked in panic, then frantically flapped back into Wu Heng’s arms.
Wu Heng narrowed his eyes toward the outside.
A green pillar stood blocking the road.
“Is that a mutant plant?” Lin Mengzhi craned his neck curiously, reaching for the window switch.
“Don’t move,” Xie Chongyi said in a low voice.
Lin Mengzhi froze, pulling his hand back. From inside the car, he strained to peer up along the length of the pillar, but the rain and fog obscured most of it—he couldn’t make out what it was at all.
Ying Liuquan’s car came up behind them and also braked hard. The young man’s face paled in fright. What is that thing?
“What the hell is that?” Du Yaoyuan rolled down his window.
Just then, the pillar blocking the middle of the road suddenly moved on its own!
The creature’s movements dragged branches and leaves with it, lashing against the cars with sharp, crackling slaps.
Wu Heng watched in shock as more than one colossal pillar-like leg shifted rapidly from in front of their vehicle toward the car beside them, shaking the ground as it moved.
Not a plant—an animal.
Crash!
“Holy shit!”
One of the legs punched straight through the backseat where Xue Shen and Du Yaoyuan were sitting. Another leg was already lifting high into the air, ready to drive down through the windshield.
Xue Qi caught the scent instantly—something familiar, something of his kind. He leaned forward, looking up, and met a pair of bulging, crimson eyes. His whole body jolted.
“It’s a stick insect! A mutated stick insect!”
“Insect?” Lin Mengzhi swallowed hard. “I thought it was a plant…”
Dou Lu pressed her face against the window. “What kind of bug has legs that long?”
“Brother, look in front of you!” Wu Zhi’s face blanched in horror.
A head shaped like a mantis’s lowered into view, its eyes the size of footballs, pressed right against the windshield, swiveling to inspect the humans inside. Shiny droplets of rain slid down its hardened carapace. The massive legs on either side of its body were the very same they had mistaken for tree branches just moments ago. Their car wasn’t even a third the height of one insect leg.
And behind it—more eyes. Dozens, then hundreds, glowing red in the rain-soaked night, dense and unbroken, stretching on like a sudden strip of blazing scarlet lights.