Chapter 35
Chapter 35
In the dark, muddy alley, Zhao Xiuming saw six men advancing slowly with clubs and machetes.
They hurled abuse in Cantonese. The surrounding residents switched off their lights, not even daring to watch.
Ah Hao wore only a leather suit. His curly hair was soaked with sweat. Raising his empty gun, he threatened them in Cantonese. “Come any closer and I’ll shoot you bastards!”
The man called Shuai Zai wore a white tank top and denim jacket, with a chain around his neck. He clutched his belly, blood beginning to seep between his fingers again.
He thought the eerie doctor would help. Even if he wouldn’t, if the doctor wanted to eat people, they could all die together.
Gritting his teeth, Shuai Zai shouted to Zhao Xiuming outside the alley, “What are you waiting for? Come help!”
He knew the doctor couldn’t understand. He was saying it for their enemies’ benefit.
Sure enough, hearing that someone was behind them, the six immediately turned warily.
They’d thought Ah Hao and Shuai Zai had brought reinforcements. Instead, only one handsome man stood at the alley entrance, and he wasn’t particularly burly.
One of the six, wearing a red bandanna, jeered, “Mama’s boy! Go running back to your mother!”
He went over to teach Zhao Xiuming a lesson. Once he got close enough to see his face clearly, Red Bandanna hesitated.
The man wasn’t as short as he’d imagined, or especially frail.
He looked refined, with a face like a young girl’s. Nothing like thugs in gangs such as theirs.
How could someone like this know Ah Hao? So he asked, “You look like a good little boy. What do you want?”
Unable to understand, Zhao Xiuming gave him a puzzled look.
Red Bandanna lost patience. He wasn’t a good person to begin with. Swinging his iron bar down, he barked, “You mute? Speak!”
Had this good little boy been scared stupid? He wasn’t even dodging. Then he couldn’t blame Red Bandanna for being rough.
The iron bar came down. With a crack, Zhao Xiuming raised his hand and sheared it in two, leaving a perfectly clean cut.
Red Bandanna didn’t understand. Ah Hao tried to inflame the conflict. “Doctor! Doctor! That guy in the red bandanna… he insulted your mother! Your mother!” He threw in the English word for emphasis.
Shuai Zai gestured too, pointing at Red Bandanna and struggling with English. “Red! He! Fuck you! You! You!”
Zhao Xiuming said nothing. A figure stepped out of thin air behind him, as though he’d been hiding there and had simply moved aside.
But that made no sense.
The new man was so tall and powerfully built that Zhao Xiuming couldn’t possibly have hidden him. How had Red Bandanna failed to notice him?
And his clothes were strange: a black gas mask, a dark overcoat, and a pale turtleneck sweater.
Broad shoulders, long legs, an overwhelming presence.
The man raised a leather boot and kicked Red Bandanna straight through the air. He hit the ground, spat blood, and couldn’t get up.
Zhao Xiuming stayed where he was, watching with a smile.
From the moment Red Bandanna attacked, he hadn’t intended to dodge. As though certain he wouldn’t be hurt, he hadn’t so much as lifted an eyelid.
Seeing their leader struck down, the others shouted and charged.
A hand settled at Zhao Xiuming’s waist. The man carried him aside, ignoring gravity as he walked along the wall as easily as level ground.
Zhao Xiuming suddenly remembered Zhou Qingyan’s “crazy” account of a monster grabbing Li Zhehan by the head and carrying him along the hospital’s outer wall.
The memory still made her shiver. Now he too was being carried up a wall.
Perhaps their position wasn’t quite so strange. The man held him close, one arm around his waist, the other lifting his fingertips. It was a dance hold.
Elegant and mysterious. Eerie and absurd.
It was only a few steps, and Zhao Xiuming didn’t even have to walk. He looked down. Sure enough, the people below were staring up with their mouths open.
A low, amused voice sounded beside his ear, a little wicked, yet tender and fond. “Woof.”
Zhao Xiuming smiled too and offered a compliment near his ear in Cantonese. “…You look lovely today.”
The man seemed even happier. He pointed at the people below and made a throat-slitting gesture.
So happy he was willing to kill everyone for him?
“Ha.” Zhao Xiuming laughed and looked down with an unreadable expression.
Ah Hao and Shuai Zai could see the lively interest in his eyes. There was no killing intent, only curiosity and eagerness to try. Alarm bells screamed in Ah Hao’s head.
That was exactly the look the anomaly had worn when it took off its mask to scare them in the apartment!
Ah Hao knew this wouldn’t be a simple scare. This time, they really could die.
He dropped to his knees and knocked his forehead to the ground before Zhao Xiuming. “I didn’t know who I was messing with! I’ll never do it again!”
“You’re not human. Settle your grudge with whoever hurt you! Go after them!”
He pointed at Red Bandanna, who still couldn’t get up, and the thugs holding blades.
Yet one man with dyed hair swore, “Playing spooky tricks, you pretty boy? You want to die?”
He actually drew a gun from his waistband. Emboldened by the weapon, the others roared and rushed forward.
Zhao Xiuming signaled for the man to put him down. Standing outside the encirclement, he watched the crowd charge his way.
Then he suddenly turned his head, as though sensing something, and smiled. In English, he said, “Little Darling, kill them.”
The alley was only a few people wide. There were no streetlights, and moonlight couldn’t reach it. Fortunately, nearby residents ran little shops to make a living, and some hadn’t had time to bring in everything from outside.
A fish-ball stall’s pot hadn’t been properly hidden away. Steam still rose faintly from it.
Beside it, a sliver of light showed beneath the dessert shop’s roller shutter.
The hair salon had no shutter. A battered wooden board blocked its entrance.
The residents had probably seen the gang fight and rushed to get out of the way, planning to reopen once it was safe. Quite a few were likely peeking out.
Garish illuminated signs jutted from the buildings on metal brackets. Their harsh red and green lights flickered, dimly illuminating only parts of the alley.
Fortunately, the shadows at its mouth were clear enough to show human shapes splitting down the middle and liquid spraying.
Screams rang out without pause. After the first fool to charge was torn apart, the others finally understood what Ah Hao had meant.
Not human. He really wasn’t human!
They began to run, but even those few steps were far slower than the mysterious man’s killing.
The last one had already reached the alley mouth when both feet were severed, sending him crashing to the ground.
He crawled forward on blood-soaked hands, trying to grab the person within reach. His fingertips had only just touched Zhao Xiuming’s shoe when a tremendous force dragged him back into the alley.
When it fell quiet, only the terrified Red Bandanna and the shaking Ah Hao and Shuai Zai remained.
Afraid and obsequious, Ah Hao also sounded moved in a way he couldn’t quite explain. “They were evil bastards who’d done every rotten thing imaginable. Good riddance! You did well to kill them!”
Shuai Zai looked as though a deep grievance had been avenged. Despite his fear, he turned and stabbed Red Bandanna.
Then he began to sob, his words slurred. “Dad… little sister… you’ve been avenged…”
He knocked his forehead to the ground before Zhao Xiuming. “I can die without regrets. Go ahead!”
After a long silence, Shuai Zai raised his head. Zhao Xiuming stood before him with an indifferent expression, beckoning to the murderous man beside him.
The man in the strange mask approached and obediently lowered his head, placing Zhao Xiuming’s hand on top of it to ask for a pet.