Chapter 51
Chapter 51
Dahu pressed the piece of flesh against the corner of Zhao Xiuming’s mouth with his fingers, trying to force his own flesh between Zhao Xiuming’s lips.
He struggled desperately to rise, blood bubbling from his mouth. With all the strength he had left, Dahu forced out a groan from a body that could bear no more, a body on the brink of death.
He was lying down, and the other man was crouching beside him. They were so close.
Yet to Dahu, the distance felt impossibly vast. However hard he tried, he couldn’t reach.
The strength coursing through his limbs gradually subsided. In the end, Dahu still couldn’t get the flesh into Zhao Xiuming’s mouth.
Zhao Xiuming looked down, his expression calm. Neither pleased nor saddened, he seemed as though he would never respond.
Dahu lost consciousness and sank into darkness. His hand dropped limply.
But a second before it struck the floor, someone caught it.
Zhao Xiuming lifted Dahu’s wrist. Blood stained his pale cheek, and his lips were bright red, smeared with gore.
As Ah Hao and Shuai Zai watched in shock, Zhao Xiuming lowered his head to sniff Dahu’s hand, then licked the blood with the tip of his tongue.
Those cool, indifferent eyes abruptly turned eerie. The whites vanished, leaving his entire eyes black, as though soaked in ink.
Ah Hao backed away in fright. Shuai Zai’s legs gave out altogether, and he fell onto his backside.
Zhao Xiuming frowned and spat. “Tastes awful.”
He dropped Dahu’s arm and stood, even nudging the corpse on the floor with the toe of his shoe. He showed no emotion.
Ah Hao and Shuai Zai felt only sorrow. To think they had been hoping Zhao Xiuming would help, punishing the wicked and defending the innocent.
Before dying, Dahu had been willing to sacrifice even his own corpse for revenge, digging the flesh out of his chest with his own hands. Such grim resolve, such tragic courage, such… despair.
Shuai Zai thought of his little sister and his father, both dead. He wanted to say something, but he had no right to.
Ah Hao burst out swearing. “Fuck! Fucking bastard!”
“What the hell is this? How did it come to this?”
“Uh, I’m not swearing at you, Mr. Zhao. I mean Huang Jinsheng.”
Zhao Xiuming smiled, his voice mild. “Do you?”
Ah Hao hurried to make an excuse. The moment he opened his mouth, Zhao Xiuming stopped him with a smile. “No need.”
“I don’t care.”
Ah Hao was embarrassed and a little frightened. Shuai Zai gathered his courage and asked, “If… if you weren’t going to help, why did you ask us to bring him here?”
Ah Hao looked at Shuai Zai in astonishment. His face said it all: Seriously, man? You actually dared to ask?
Shuai Zai persisted. “Please stop kicking Dahu’s body. If Dahu tastes bad, who do you want to eat? What would it take for you to help him?”
When they were interrogated, Ah Hao and Shuai Zai had insisted to the bitter end that they hadn’t recognized Zhao Xiuming. Fortunately, Zhao Xiuming was an “anomaly.”
Since he wasn’t human, a few strange abilities were perfectly normal. Being able to disguise himself and play any role, for example.
Besides, when Ah Hao and Shuai Zai first reported information about Zhao Xiuming, they had described him as a doctor fluent in foreign languages.
But the investigation into Liu Wenhe’s death had revealed that Zhao Xiuming was posing as a well-behaved student. Convinced that this malevolent anomaly could change his appearance and put on human skin, the gangs had grown even more wary of him.
Cleared of suspicion, Ah Hao and Shuai Zai had gone home in high spirits. Before they could catch their breath, they found the “malevolent anomaly,” Zhao Xiuming, in their home, wearing a gentle smile.
The two were terrified, certain they might meet a violent end. Instead, Zhao Xiuming merely asked them for a favor: shake off their watchers and bring Dahu to the apartment building where they had first met.
Ah Hao and Shuai Zai naturally assumed Zhao Xiuming meant to intervene. That was why Shuai Zai now had the courage to ask.
Still nudging Dahu’s body with his toe, Zhao Xiuming spoke as casually as if making conversation. “You’ll bring me anyone I want to eat?”
“What if I want to eat you two?”
“What if I want to eat your gang boss?”
“What if I want to eat a newborn baby?”
When Shuai Zai heard him mention eating himself and Ah Hao, he thought that cutting off a finger would be all right, as long as they weren’t killed.
Eating the gang boss would probably take a bit of work.
But at the mention of eating a baby, Shuai Zai could hold back no longer. He shouted with indignant conviction, “I don’t think you’re that kind of person!”
“And please stop kicking Dahu’s body.”
Zhao Xiuming didn’t answer his first statement, but he did respond to the second: he kicked Dahu again.
As Shuai Zai struggled to find words, Zhao Xiuming said softly, “Get up, Dahu.”
Shuai Zai was about to say that Dahu was completely dead and couldn’t possibly wake up again…
When the corpse on the floor actually moved!
Dahu convulsed all over, his body twisting into unnatural positions.
Ah Hao lost it. He sprang up onto the sofa, too distraught even to cry. “Holy fuck! Holy fucking shit! What the fuck is this? He’s alive, fuck!”
Shuai Zai’s eyes, meanwhile, lit with fervor. He looked up at Zhao Xiuming with an expression that said, I knew you were a good person, and pounded his thighs over and over in excitement, each blow making a loud thump.
Dahu’s joints pointed every which way. His bones cracked and splintered incessantly, as though something inside him were chewing and gnawing them to pieces.
Bones jutted out and sank back in. His organs shifted and roamed through his body. The human skin on the surface kept healing, even pushing the blade out of his chest on its own as the wound rapidly closed.
At last, Dahu’s skin turned an unnatural white, with a faint sheen that looked distinctly plastic.
His eyes slowly opened. His eyeballs swung wildly inside them, like spring-loaded balls even his skull couldn’t contain.
Once he finally managed to straighten his joints, he actually reached for Zhao Xiuming.
Fangs grew in his mouth. He mumbled at Zhao Xiuming, “You… you smell so good…”
Zhao Xiuming rewarded him with a slap, looking a little troubled. “Not very bright, is he?”
“Give him some time. He might still be useful.”
Dahu’s head turned with the slap, but he seemed not to feel a thing. Still confused, he took the opportunity to turn toward Ah Hao and Shuai Zai, drool streaming from his mouth.
Ah Hao felt his hair stand on end, a chill creeping up his back.
He looked to Zhao Xiuming for help. “Don’t let Dahu eat us! We’ll work for you!”
Zhao Xiuming raised an eyebrow and smiled meaningfully. Instead of answering Ah Hao, he made a shushing gesture and looked toward the door.
Ah Hao and Shuai Zai immediately understood. Someone was outside!
On the other side of the door, a male player in a silver-white uniform had stopped, his brows tightly furrowed.
He had tracked his way here with an item that detected anomalies. Now its red light was flashing madly, warning him that danger was right in front of him.
The players had already intended to approach Huang Jinsheng. The news that the Incense Masters of Zimu City’s two gangs were meeting him had not been deliberately concealed. The players weren’t going to let this opportunity pass.
Rather than rashly entering the teahouse, they had found good positions from which to watch. With their items’ assistance, they wouldn’t alert any NPCs.
Nor had the players missed the “interlude” in the tea room. They recognized Dahu as one of the NPCs who had accompanied Liu Wenhe to pick them up and drop them off.
When they saw Ah Hao and Shuai Zai take Dahu away, they sent a player after them, just in case.
Time passed. The players near the tea room were concentrating on watching Huang Jinsheng when an emergency distress signal on the team channel at their wrists startled them.
“Captain… Five says he’s seen Zhao Xiuming. He might be our mission target.”