Eaten Ch.52.2

Chapter 52.2: Warmth

The children didn’t understand. They peeled the wrappers and popped the candies into their mouths, drooling a little as the sweetness spread.

Villages near tourist areas had never been truly poor—sometimes, they’d even been better off than city dwellers. But now, such things no longer mattered. Money, possessions—none of it could feed you. A bag of rice was worth more than gold, and candies were rarer still.

“Big Brother…”

Wu Heng turned his head—only to find Wu Zhi’s face pressed right up against his, eyes full of silent resentment.

“…”

Expressionless, Wu Heng shoved a candy into her mouth, then turned back to the window to watch the children outside.

“Do wolves come bother you often?” he asked.

“Wolves?” The little boy who’d been patting snow into a ball looked up, his innocent face suddenly changing. “Wolves eat people. They ate Xiao Li.”

“Was Xiao Li your friend?” Wu Heng asked softly.

“Mm. Xiao Li and Meng Ya—they were both eaten by wolves.” The boy pointed at himself. “I’m Tao Tao. She’s Lu Lu, and that’s Xiao Wei.”

Lu Lu looked the youngest of the three, but she was the only one who’d answered Wu Heng’s first question. Chewing on her candy, she said, “They come down the mountain a lot to look for food. They used to run into the village, but they can’t get in now. Still… we can hear them at night, howling—‘awoo, awoo…’”

Wu Heng asked, “There are a lot of wolves?”

“Lots and lots! One, two, three, four, five, six… a whole pack! Dozens of them! They’re as big as trucks!”

That was far too many—and far too big. Whatever faint awkwardness Wu Heng had felt earlier because of Xie Chongyi’s words instantly disappeared.

“Big brother, do you still have more candy?” Lulu leaned forward, hands outstretched, eyes wide with longing.

Wu Zhi darted out faster than lightning. She braced her hands against the windowsill, scowling fiercely—a rare expression for her. “No more!”

Wu Heng ignored the squabble between the children. He stood and began to inspect the first floor, tracing along the walls. Then he checked the furniture before heading upstairs. He took his time, surveying each room one by one.

The first floor’s tiled surface didn’t show much, but the second floor was lined with deep red wooden planks. Every paw print stood out clear as day.

Long strips of flooring had been gouged so deeply that some pieces had curled up; claw marks several centimeters deep, as if someone had hacked at the wood with a knife. Even the walls of one room bore faint blackened bloodstains.

Wu Heng’s tongue instinctively remembered the sweet, savory taste of wolf meat from the night before. If he had the strength for it, he would have killed the entire pack just to eat them all.

—

Night fell.

Someone passed by outside the house while everyone inside was sprawled in every direction, fast asleep like a pile of pigs.

The woman in the red headscarf, who had started with polite knocking, was now pounding on the door. In the end, it was Xie Chongyi who woke up first and went to open it.

“Hurry up, dinner’s ready.”

For once, Xie Chongyi’s usually cold and distant eyes softened slightly as he tried to decline politely.

But the woman pushed right past him and bustled into the house.

“Don’t sleep, don’t sleep! Up you get—come on, time to eat! Boys your age eat like there’s no tomorrow. You’re still growing! You can’t just skip meals. Quick, quick, or there won’t be any left for you—then you’ll be going to bed hungry!”

In the haze of half-sleep, someone murmured a single word—“Mom.”

But when they woke up fully, they realized it had only been an illusion.

The group was herded toward the dining area by the woman in the red headscarf, like a flock of chicks being shooed along. The villagers, even in the apocalypse, still held on to the old-world warmth they once showed to guests. Whatever wariness they might have had vanished the moment the door opened.

They stepped into a cozy earthen house. A fire burned in a pit at the center, with two large pots simmering beside it, steam rising in thick white curls until the entire room seemed wrapped in mist.

Wu Heng swept his gaze around. Aside from their own group, there were fewer than twenty people in total—likely all that remained of the village’s survivors.

A few women bustled about with ladles, handing each person a bowl of corn porridge and a steamed bun. The soup—potato broth—was there for anyone to ladle for themselves.

No one spoke. The sound of slurping filled the air as they ate heartily, sweat beading on their foreheads from the heat.

Only Wu Heng and Shen Ping’an exchanged a brief glance, silently tipping the contents of their bowls into the ones beside them when no one was looking.

When most had finished and put down their bowls and chopsticks, someone finally broke the silence.

The speaker was an elderly man, clearly aged but not frail, his thin frame upright, a pair of glasses perched neatly on his nose. He rested both hands on his knees, leaning slightly forward toward the fire as he addressed the young strangers across from him.

“Where did you come from? And where are you going?”

Ruan Silian smiled gently as she thanked one of the women refilling bowls, then turned back to answer, “We’re from Hanzhou, heading to Jingzhou.”

“Jingzhou? That’s far!” A middle-aged man beside the elder exclaimed. “Why go so far? Why not stay in Hanzhou?”

The question was complicated—too complicated to answer simply. Fortunately, the old man interjected before anyone had to explain, smoothly steering the conversation elsewhere.

“What’s it like outside now?” he asked.

“It’s bad,” Dou Lu said quietly. “Hanzhou has already fallen.”

It had been so long since she’d seen this many living people together that the warmth of the room seemed to seep into her chest. For the first time in ages, she didn’t want to leave.

“Hanzhou’s so big—how could it possibly fall?” The middle-aged man clearly didn’t know much about the world beyond their village. “I thought all it’d take was a few rounds of artillery to clean those things up.”

The woman behind him had dull, tired eyes. She sighed over and over. “No wonder the police never came to catch those zombies. Turns out it’s just as bad outside as it is here.”

Xue Shen leaned back against the dusty wall. “There aren’t any police anymore. Everyone’s just trying to keep their own heads above water.”

“Did a lot of people die out there?” one of the aunties asked nervously.

Xue Qi nodded. “Since we left… you’re the first living people we’ve met.”

“My god…”

The middle-aged man tossed a few more logs into the fire. “A week ago, our village head said he was going to get help. He never came back. At first, we thought he’d run away, but now… I guess he must’ve…”

Xue Shen tried to comfort him. “Actually, you’re doing pretty well here. Self-sufficient, safe, with some sort of defense—it’s better than being down the mountain.”

“Self-sufficient, my foot,” the old man—clearly the village chief—sighed heavily. “With all this snow, the crops we sowed are frozen dead, and the potatoes in the cellar won’t last forever. Once we’ve eaten everything edible, we’ll have to go out and find more. We old folks don’t matter much, but the little ones can’t go hungry.”

The firelight flickered across everyone’s faces, illuminating eyes full of despair and fear.

“Don’t worry, Village Chief. When the time comes to go out for supplies, leave it to me.”

A clear, confident young voice rose from a shadowed corner.

Everyone turned toward it.

A young man sat perched on a wooden stump. He was probably the youngest survivor in the village—buzz cut, a small earring glinting in his ear, his expression carrying a hint of that rough, streetwise boldness. His long legs were awkwardly folded under him, and the red plaid cotton jacket he wore was a size too small, the mismatched outfit lending him a comical air.

“What do you mean you’ll go? You’ll just go die out there!” Auntie Red-Scarf—fierce as ever—raised her soup ladle like a weapon. “You’ve seen what it’s like outside! Don’t act brave. Worst comes to worst, we’ll just eat dirt and chew bark.”

Then she huffed and gave a crooked smile. “That’s my son, Zhao Mingxiang. I’m his Ma. You lot can just call me Aunt Dawang.”

It was obvious to everyone that even though she scolded and cursed, her face was full of pride.

Wu Heng, as usual, didn’t join in on the after-dinner chatter. He sat on a small wooden stool, arms stretched out toward the fire. The warmth seeped into his fingers, pleasant enough that he could almost feel the poppy spirit inside him swaying with contentment.

As he warmed his hands, his gaze occasionally flicked toward the young man in the corner—the one playing with a loop of string. Wu Heng wasn’t interested in people, but in the idea of people as food. And yet… there was something about Zhao Mingxiang that drew him in, something strange and compelling.

A cold hand suddenly reached over and smacked the back of his.

Wu Heng curled his fingers back.

“Move over. I want to warm up too.” Xie Chongyi extended his hands toward the fire.

Wu Heng shifted aside a little.

Xie Chongyi glanced at the pair of hands beside his.

They didn’t look like other men’s hands—no pronounced knuckles, no bold ridges of veins. His fingers were slender, soft-looking, almost boneless. The veins on the backs of his hands lay faintly under the skin, long and pale green, not quite human.

As Xie stared, his own fingers suddenly reached out and closed around Wu Heng’s hand—then just as quickly let go.

“Where are your bones?” he murmured, astonished.

Wu Heng turned his palm upward, examining it as though it belonged to someone else. “They changed after the mutation. Sometimes when I touch my own hand, it feels like I’m holding a few snakes. Does that disgust you?”

Xie Chongyi said quietly, “No.”

Wu Heng swallowed once, then took the initiative to slip his hand back into Xie Chongyi’s palm.

“Then… you can touch it more.”

He soon realized that being touched by Xie Chongyi was, unexpectedly, a very pleasant thing.

The two of them kept up their quiet, subtle movements by the fire—an easy, unspoken rhythm between them, completely at odds with the way they’d been ready to fight that morning. The rest of the group, focused on discussing how to deal with the dwindling food supply, didn’t notice a thing.

“Monitor,” Wu Heng said after a while, sensing that Xie Chongyi’s mood was rather good.

“Mm.” Xie Chongyi’s lazy hum was barely audible over the crackle of the fire.

“Do you have any plans for tonight?”

Xie Chongyi’s pupils, faintly red in the firelight, slid over Wu Heng’s face with casual disinterest. “Do you?”

“I was thinking,” Wu Heng said, lowering his gaze. The light danced on his eyelashes. “Maybe we should deal with the wolf pack in the mountains.” His tone was calm, steady, like deep water.

“Why bother?” Xie Chongyi didn’t take the bait of his roundabout phrasing.

“I’m worried the mutant wolves might cause trouble when we’re on the move. And their energy cores could be very useful for the fire-type in our team.” The boy met Xie Chongyi’s eyes squarely, his heartbeat unflustered. “You said it yourself—we should think of the team.”

Xie Chongyi’s cool fingers brushed over the back of Wu Heng’s hand, slow and deliberate. “You forgot the most important reason.”

Wu Heng blinked. “What reason?”

Xie Chongyi’s lips curved faintly, voice smooth as ever.

“Because you like how they taste.”

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