Eaten Ch.58.2

Chapter 58.2: The Elysium Group

Dou Lu pressed both her palms tightly against the ground, her brows knitted and expression tense and serious.

Du Yaoyuan kept urging impatiently, “Can you do it or not? Why are you so useless?”

Sweat beaded on Dou Lu’s forehead. “What’s the rush? If you’re so great, you do it.”

Every living thing—even each individual—had its own unique energy field. As a rookie, it wasn’t easy for her to quickly detect and pinpoint it. After a long while, she finally looked up and slumped down on the ground. “There are tons of mouse holes underneath… several big nests of them.”

“And babies…” Dou Lu’s face showed hesitation. “I don’t think I can bring myself to do it.”

“I’ll do it!” Du Yaoyuan growled through gritted teeth. “A thousand daggers! Go, go, go, go!!! Aaaahhhh!!!”

The number of daggers that actually appeared midair didn’t exceed ten.

Face flushed red, Du Yaoyuan looked at the others beside him. “Don’t look down on me. I can perform at the level of that number all the same.”

The daggers plunged into the ground together. Sweat poured down Du Yaoyuan’s face like rain. He collapsed to his knees as the daggers flew back out—half of them bloodstained, half completely clean.

Dou Lu put her hands on her hips. “Classmate, your accuracy’s pretty average, huh.”

With that, she took the daggers that had already been used, rotated her five fingers, and the daggers twisted and reshaped, merging together into a long sword. With a sharp swish, it stabbed into the ground.

Du Yaoyuan gaped in shock as Dou Lu controlled the sword’s path through the underground tunnels, one brow raised at him. “You think everyone’s as brainless as you? I just went from one to thirty.”

The longsword smoothly reached one of the mouse tunnels. Just as it aimed directly at a nest of aggressive mutant voles, it suddenly burst apart—not into the daggers it had originally been, but into metal hooks. They glinted like silver fish, each one hooking onto a field mouse.

The voles’s pupils glowed red, their fur soft and sleek, all huddled together in dense clusters. She could hear their screams—sharp, squeaking cries of pain.

Seeing her dazed, Du Yaoyuan gave her a shove. “Told you you couldn’t do it.”

“Bullshit,” Dou Lu muttered, feeling a pang of discomfort. “I just think—it’s cruel.”

She yanked her arm back, and over a dozen hooks dragged up more than a dozen plump field mice, bursting through the tunnel walls and flinging them onto the ground.

Her technique wasn’t as steady or precise as Wu Heng’s. Some hooks had caught the mice by their necks, others by their legs, so when they hit the surface, most were still alive.

Dou Lu quickly withdrew her power, backing away again and again. “No, seriously, I can’t handle this.” She turned her back on the scene.

The voles squealed in pain on the ground.

They were prettier than ordinary rats, their fur glossy and smooth.

Du Yaoyuan, on the other hand, felt nothing of the sort. He rolled his eyes, thinking to himself that women were always too soft—until a small field mouse, eyes brimming with tears, hopped straight into his arms.

Well, not that small—just smaller than the others, but still hefty, close to twenty jin.

Squeak, squeak.

He froze, realizing maybe he shouldn’t have been calling people soft. Anyone who saw such a chubby, round little creature would probably melt too.

The vole’s short, thick forelimbs rested on Du Yaoyuan’s chest. His heart gave a hard thump. He was just about to say the words “I want to keep it,” when a sharp bird cry rang out above his head.

It was X.

Before Dou Lu could even wonder why X had given that alarm-like cry, Du Yaoyuan felt a sudden, violent pain in his throat— the field mouse in his arms reared up and sank its teeth deep into his shoulder. Its eyes were blood-red as it gulped down human blood with loud, choking slurps.

“Shit shit shit shit shit, you damn thing!” Du Yaoyuan grabbed the mouse by the scruff and flung it far away. He turned to see a fist-sized hole in his shoulder, blood spurting.

The thrown mouse rolled, righted itself, and sprinted back toward them.

Wu Heng had wanted to help, then changed his mind.

A couple of bites wouldn’t kill you, but being clumsy and weak the whole time—yeah, that would.

Lin Mengzhi hastily drew a fire shield, but it only had the shape of a shield; it had no protective power.

The bloodshot mouse tore straight through the shield, its four claws raking into Lin Mengzhi’s chest— the fabric tattered, the wind whistling through the holes.

Once it landed, the mouse bit hard into Lin Mengzhi’s thigh. After gnawing, it leapt behind Dou Lu and clawed out three strips of flesh.

In that moment they finally understood why Xue Shen had been repeatedly warning them about their low defenses that morning.

Three ability-users were tumbling about, locked in combat with a single field mouse.

Dou Lu’s hair was a mess from the vole’s scratching; in the chaos she finally got control, clamping one hand around the creature’s soft neck.

Squeak, squeak.

Tearful-eyed, the mouse waved its forepaws as if begging for mercy.

She hesitated for only two seconds. With a motion of her palm, the mouse stopped struggling and lost its life.

At that instant Lin Mengzhi’s voice rang out, oddly triumphant: “I used the fire shield — this time it’s a real shield!”

Dou Lu sat on the ground, dazed for a moment. She wiped at the tears threatening to fall with her sleeve, then looked at Lin Mengzhi. “Team Leader, stop playing. Come over and let’s gut them together.”

Lin Mengzhi didn’t even think before saying, “What’s there to dissect? A’Heng, you handle it.”

“Handle… what?” Du Yaoyuan looked utterly baffled.

“Mhm.” Wu Heng lowered his head and casually licked the blood off his fingers. From his calf, vines slithered out—splitting into over a dozen tendrils that burrowed into the field mice’s bodies like leeches. When they withdrew, the tips of each vine glistened with blood.

As they passed the dumbfounded Du Yaoyuan, one particularly mischievous vine even wiped itself clean on his pants.

“Y-you, you—you—!” Du Yaoyuan’s face was turning an alarming shade of green.

Lin Mengzhi, already used to the sight, gave a smug little grin—the confidence of a man who’d been traumatized once before. “What’s wrong?”

“This plant of Wu Heng’s—why the hell does it eat organs?” Du Yaoyuan said in disgust.

“Not just organs,” Lin Mengzhi replied, lips curling into a mysterious smile. “It eats people, too.”

Only then did Du Yaoyuan and Dou Lu realize—the first two mutant voles from before were gone. All that remained were bloody stains on the ground.

X swooped down, landing in the middle. Before giving its report, it quickly bent its head, grabbed one of the vole in its beak, and swallowed it whole.

Wu Heng glanced at it. “Who said you could freeload?”

The three exhausted, hollow-faced teammates beside him all looked at the bird with matching expressions of “yeah, exactly.”

The big bird shuffled forward, body quivering, clearly trying to look ingratiating. It lowered its head and made a few soft “ka-gu, ka-gu” noises.

Wu Heng couldn’t understand, so he asked, “Are the mutant wolves far from here?”

X shook its head repeatedly.

No sign of the mutant wolf pack.

“What about food?” Wu Heng narrowed his eyes and pressed on.

X cautiously lifted its left foot.

Wu Heng’s long lashes drooped. “So you didn’t find food either.”

X turned its head in agitation, the feathers around its neck puffing out completely.

Du Yaoyuan, being the closest to the big bird, could even hear its heart thudding wildly—thump, thump, thump.

In the past, Du Yaoyuan could never have understood why a high-intelligence mutant parrot—one that could freely change its size—would be afraid of Wu Heng. But now, he understood perfectly well.

Lin Mengzhi had long since stopped involving himself in “child-rearing” matters. He tugged Dou Lu along, and the two squatted down to process the pile of mutant voles. The largest weighed forty or fifty jin, the smallest more than ten; after removing organs and fur, they would still have a good two or three hundred jin of clean meat left.

As Dou Lu clumsily skinned one of the mice, she kept sneaking glances at the scene not far away—at the huge, cowardly bird and the unruffled Wu Heng. “Do you think Wu Heng’s gonna hit it?”

“No.”

X awkwardly bent its enormous body, rubbing its feathery side against Wu Heng until it nearly knocked him over.

“I’m not mad,” Wu Heng said, pushing away the bird’s fluffy head. “You hungry?”

X lifted its right foot and said softly, “Hungry.”

The boy’s movements were quick. The energy core that the vines had over-absorbed not long ago was now fully digested, making them stronger, thicker, and more flexible—bold, even. They’d even learned to regenerate from severed ends and parasitize independently.

The vines slid into the underground tunnels, blocking off several passageways. They poked through holes of all shapes and sizes, then struck cleanly and decisively.

The young ones were left alive, along with two full-grown voles capable of foraging aboveground.

Mutant voles piled into small mounds on the surface. The vines eagerly devoured their organs—as many as there were, they seemed capable of eating. Du Yaoyuan watched the green tendrils slither in and out of the pile of corpses, threading through mouths, noses, ears, and bellies. He couldn’t even put into words what he was seeing; it made his skin crawl.

Dou Lu felt the same. She held up a piece of vole hide and swallowed hard.

Lin Mengzhi, though, was unfazed—he was used to it. More than anything, he just thought his childhood friend had grown even stronger.

X was simply delighted. Like eating jelly, it gulped them down one after another—eleven in a row—before letting out a satisfied burp and finally stopping.

It was full, but the rest of the prey still needed to be cleaned and packed up. That wasn’t its job. So it flopped onto its back, belly to the sky, thinking that the future looked quite promising.

—

A huge shadow of a bird glided across the sky above the village, its wings churning up air currents that rustled noisily. Even the nearby mountains and forests seemed to echo with the sound.

The survivors in the village heard several children shriek and rushed out to see what was happening.

The moment they saw an enormous bird — far larger than any normal species — they immediately grabbed their children and ran back inside, shutting their doors tight. But curiosity gnawed at them; before long, they were all peeking nervously out from behind their windows.

“How can a bird be that big? It’s bigger than an eagle!”

“That’s not just bigger than an eagle — that’s like an airplane!”

“Mom, can the gray bird carry a few big bags on its back?”

X glided down and landed, the two heavy sacks of mutant field mouse meat it carried in its talons thudding onto the ground. It stopped right in front of their house, several more bags strapped to its back. It let out two loud squawks, and when no one came out to unload the cargo, it started cursing furiously.

“Fool, your mom, your dad, your grandpa, Class Monitor!”

Xie Chongyi opened the door and came face-to-face with X.

“Unload,” X said.

Xie Chongyi’s lips curved in amusement. “New words Wu Heng taught you?”

X flapped its wings and turned around. Once Xie Chongyi reached up and cut the hemp ropes, the hundreds of pounds of meat thudded heavily onto the ground. At once, X flopped into the snow nearby, rolling around to clean its feathers.

Half an hour later, Wu Heng and the others returned to the village. Aside from Wu Heng, the other three had gone to the bus to have Dr. Chen tend to their wounds. They paid him with two plump mutant voles as his consultation fee. Dr. Chen treated them with great care, leaving not a single scar.

The middle-aged woman guarding the entrance opened the door for them, frowning deeply. “You actually managed to find your way back?”

“Heh, we’ve got abilities, don’t we?” Lin Mengzhi grinned, patting her on the shoulder. “We brought back some good stuff—let’s have a feast tonight!”

The middle-aged woman figured the kids were probably just making things up to save face — after all, she could clearly see that all four of them had come back empty-handed. Still, she didn’t have the heart to bruise their pride, so she smiled and humored them. “Alright.”

“What should we make? Maybe a soup? Something warm — I’m freezing!”

“I want something spicy, but we didn’t find any chili on the bus. Let’s ask around the village later, maybe someone’s got some.”

“A’Heng, you too — can you eat mutant animal meat once it’s cooked?”

“…I can.”

The three who had brought back the huge haul of food were strutting around, chests puffed out — even the ones who usually weren’t cocky were acting bold, and the ones who were already bold became downright swaggering. Xue Shen and Shen She kept showering them with praise, flattering them so much they were nearly dizzy with pride. The trio thumped their chests and declared that as long as the snow hadn’t melted, food would be their responsibility.

But the moment Wu Heng mentioned that he would only leave the village when he got hungry, all three of their bravado deflated at once.

Without Wu Heng, they didn’t even dare step outside the village.

It had been a long time since the village felt this lively.

When they saw the mountain of mutant voles meat delivered to the big kitchen, everyone was left speechless, faces frozen in disbelief — even Zhao Rui couldn’t help blurting out, “Holy shit.”

Mutant voles were destructive creatures, expert diggers, and these ones were huge. And yet these kids had somehow managed to bring back so many of them—and were even willing to share the meat with everyone.

Truly… truly unbelievable.

“Meat time! Meat time!” a few children, not even waist-high, ran in circles around the stove, squealing with joy.

Ever since the apocalypse began, deaths had come one after another, and monsters appeared again and again to wreak havoc on their lives. But what truly destroyed them wasn’t the monsters — it was the loss of hope.

They lived deep in the mountains and forests, completely cut off from the outside world. They had no idea what was happening beyond, or whether anyone out there was trying to fight back. The worsening weather, dwindling food supplies, and — most fatal of all — the inability to see any hope for the future, were what truly drained their will to live.

But today was different.

By a twist of fate, the village had welcomed a group of young people — reckless and impulsive, yes, but also vibrant and full of life.

It wasn’t just because their arrival meant that the twenty-some villagers could finally eat fresh, delicious meat again. More than that, it was because the presence of these young people made them believe, however faintly, that the world might one day return to what it once was.

Their powerful abilities, their undiminished warmth even in the bitter cold of winter, and their kindness that the apocalypse could not erase — these were what hope was made of.

Auntie Wang’s face was lit up with undisguised joy.

Meat — real meat! How long had it been since they’d last tasted any?

She deftly chopped the mutant vole meat into even pieces with a cleaver, dumping bowl after bowl of it into the massive stew pot. Then, from who knows where, she produced two half-meter-long radishes, peeled and chopped them carefully, and added them to the meat. Soon, the pot was filled to the brim. She set the lid on, humming a tune as she crouched by the stove to feed the fire.

A middle-aged man was in charge of stir-frying. Ingredients were scarce; he fished out a few handfuls of pickled long beans from some jars by the wall, giving them a shake, then opened a drawer and took out a few cloves of garlic — with great care, as if handling treasure.

Xue Shen asked curiously, “Pickled vegetables are still safe to eat? Don’t the microbes mutate too?”

The man gave a shy smile. “I came up with a new recipe after the apocalypse. The old ones, of course, couldn’t be eaten anymore.”

“That’s amazing,” Xue Shen said sincerely.

The middle-aged man looked up and said, “When you all set out again, I’ll send you off with a jar of it.”

Xue Shen said sincerely, “Thank you very much.”

For once, Wu Heng didn’t feel irritated by the noise and bustle around him. After warming himself by the fire, he leaned back against the wall and dozed off.

Wu Zhi dragged over a small stool and scooted closer. “Brother.”

The boy opened his eyes, dazed for a moment. Then he shifted slightly and pulled two fire-type energy cores from his pocket. “These are for you.”

“For me?” Wu Zhi’s face lit up with delight.

“You know how to use them?”

Wu Zhi carefully cupped the cores in her hands. “I do. You can automatically absorb and digest one if it matches your attribute. But you can’t skip levels, and you can’t use more than one at a time.”

She absorbed one, then tucked the other safely into the little cloth pocket of her stuffed monkey.

Afterward, her expression turned timid again. “Brother, I want some candy.”

Wu Heng glanced at the others — all busy with cooking or chatting — and, without drawing attention, took a piece of chocolate from his pocket. He unwrapped it quietly. “Open your mouth.”

“Ah—”

Wu Heng discreetly tossed the chocolate into Wu Zhi’s mouth.

Tasting the sweetness, and realizing her brother didn’t dislike her after all, Wu Zhi was overjoyed. She threw her arms around his arm, bubbling with happiness. “Brother, I love you so much!”

Wu Heng didn’t respond. Across the firepit, he noticed Xie Chongyi — who, at some point, had started watching him.

The flames burned brightly, flickering, which was probably why Wu Heng hadn’t noticed him earlier — or the way he’d been looking.

Xie Chongyi came around to the right side of the firepit and sat down. He didn’t speak right away; instead, he tossed a few more dry logs into the fire.

Just as Wu Heng thought he must not have seen or heard anything, Xie Chongyi turned to him. Resting one elbow on his knee and his chin in his palm, his clear eyes glimmered with a half-smile.

“Brother,” he said softly, “I want candy too.”

<< _ >>