Chapter 156

Chapter 156

Ji Feifan lowered his eyes.

The air was thick with a cloyingly sweet, bloody stench.

A man’s corpse lay sprawled in the center of the room. He had died horribly-his chest had been torn open by brute force, spilling his organs across the floor.

Several Madmen stood around the body. They swayed unsteadily on their feet, their cloudy eyes gleaming with feverish excitement.

Some drooled as they stared greedily at the mutilated corpse.

Others spun in circles, giggling mindlessly. Two of them were even shoving each other, apparently fighting over who would get to lick the blood off the floor first.

At the center of the chaotic group, a brawny “monster” that scarcely looked human held another Madman aloft by the back of its neck with one hand.

The captive Madman swung through the air like a rag doll, legs kicking wildly even as excited shrieks poured from its mouth. The one holding it handled it as effortlessly as a chick. Thick muscles corded its arm, veins bulging beneath its skin, while its face twisted with almost sadistic amusement.

Cat was crouched beside the corpse.

He reached out and poked the empty chest cavity with one finger. His brows knitted tightly, as though he were disgusted by a toy someone had broken.

“Did you not understand what I said?” he asked. His voice had the distinctive rasp of a teenage boy going through puberty, but his tone was utterly devoid of emotion.

The surrounding Madmen instantly fell silent. Even the one dangling in midair stopped struggling. Every pair of blood-red eyes fixed on the boy.

The boy slowly raised his head and looked at the Madman in the brawny creature’s grip, his gaze brimming with impatience.

“Play gently. Gently,” he enunciated, as if instructing a particularly clumsy apprentice. “If you kill them now, what will we have left to play with?”

The brawny Madman opened its hand and tossed the captive Madman to the floor.

“Since you like playing so much…” The boy rose and brushed the blood from his hands. Then he leisurely lifted an arm and pointed at the Madman that had just been thrown down. “Now you can enjoy it to your hearts’ content.”

Crack.

A sharp snap rang out.

The brawny Madman did not need to think. The instant it heard the order, its massive hand clamped around one of the unfortunate creature’s legs like an iron vise. The nauseating crunch of breaking bone followed.

Blood sprayed everywhere. The warm liquid even splattered the cuffs of the boy’s pants, but he did not so much as glance down.

The instant the scent of fresh blood erupted through the room, the surrounding Madmen went berserk. Screaming, they threw themselves upon their victim.

The sounds of tearing flesh and crunching bone mingled with the dying Madman’s cheers of pleasure, creating a grotesque symphony.

Its organs were ripped out, its arms torn off by brute force, and its head kicked around like a ball.

Ji Feifan stood silently in the doorway of that hellscape.

He leaned against the doorframe with both hands in his pockets, his face devoid of expression. His gaze swept over the Madmen devouring one of their own before finally settling on the boy.

He was used to it by now. Or rather, he had forced himself to get used to it.

From the moment he had been dragged into this “Madmen’s Nest,” he had understood that this was no longer the human world. It was a playground for Cat to toy with his prey. The only thing Ji Feifan could do was turn himself into a “blind dog”-one that obeyed orders without looking at how they were carried out.

Once the boy had finished dealing with the matter, he turned toward Ji Feifan in the doorway.

He tilted his head. “People. Keep looking.” After a pause, his pitch-black eyes bored into Ji Feifan. “Not enough.”

Ji Feifan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He could feel sweat gathering in his palms, but he had to speak.

“It’s winter,” he said, his voice dry and deliberately submissive. “Everyone’s hiding. They’re hard to find.”

The sounds of tearing and swallowing continued inside the room as bloody froth flew through the air.

The boy said nothing. He simply stared at Ji Feifan, and those few seconds seemed to last an eternity. The air itself felt frozen. Ji Feifan could hear his heart pounding wildly. He thought he had said the wrong thing. He thought the Madmen would pounce on him at any moment and tear him to pieces.

Then the boy smiled.

It was not a smile that belonged on a child’s face. The curve of his widening lips held an inhuman malice.

“Madmen are hard to find.” The boy licked his lips, then voiced a line of reasoning that chilled Ji Feifan to the bone. “You are easy to find.”

Ji Feifan’s heart clenched violently.

The boy rose from the blood-soaked floor and approached him one step at a time. He was not tall, but the pressure radiating from him weighed upon Ji Feifan like a mountain.
“You people,” it said, staring into Ji Feifan’s eyes and enunciating every word, “aren’t you going to make another airdrop?”

“Airdrop.”

Ji Feifan’s pupils contracted sharply. The government. Rescue. Supplies. Weapons. Those words had once represented hope, but hearing them from this monster now sent a bone-chilling dread through him.

He looked at the boy’s faintly smirking face and, for the first time, felt fear seep from the very marrow of his bones.

It watched him, waiting for an answer.

Ji Feifan fell silent. His mind raced as he weighed the pros and cons. A few seconds later, he lowered his gaze to conceal the turmoil in his eyes and spoke in a voice so calm it bordered on numb.

“Understood.”

The boy looked at him, that eerie smile still hanging on his face.

“Good.” It reached out as if to pat Ji Feifan on the shoulder, but he subtly retreated half a step. The boy forcibly pulled him back, then shoved him away. “Go.”

Ji Feifan stumbled back two steps. Without the slightest hesitation, he spun around and left. Only when he reached the corner did he slump against the cold wall and gasp for breath.

He raised a hand and stared at his trembling palm. It was slick with cold sweat.

“An airdrop…” he muttered, his voice echoing through the empty corridor.

The word was like a seed, sprouting wildly in his deadened heart. If another airdrop really was coming, and if he could get his hands on those weapons… His thoughts began racing beyond his control.

How could he get them? Where could he hide them? How could he use them?

He rapidly sketched out a map in his mind, examining every possible escape route. How many Madmen would he have to deal with outside? Where were the blind spots? Where could he set an ambush?

Calm down.

Ji Feifan drew a deep breath. Cold air poured into his lungs, finally restoring a shred of reason.

People. He needed to find people-people willing to fight back.

The instant the thought took shape, a chill shot up his spine.

Every hair on his body stood on end.

Ji Feifan whipped around–

The boy was standing right behind him, less than half a meter away. Those pitch-black eyes stared at him without blinking, his face filled with an almost innocent curiosity.

When had he come out? How had he gotten there? Ji Feifan hadn’t heard a single footstep.

“What are you thinking about?”

Ji Feifan froze, his throat tightening as his mind went blank. Should he tell the truth? Lie? Would it be able to tell?

He never got the chance to answer.

The boy suddenly leaned close, the tip of his nose nearly brushing Ji Feifan’s neck. He inhaled deeply. His breath was warm and damp, carrying the sickly sweetness of rot, like a snake slithering across Ji Feifan’s neck.

Ji Feifan went rigid. He wanted to retreat, but his legs felt filled with lead and refused to move.

Once the boy had finished sniffing him, he straightened and reached out with his deathly pale hands, gently patting Ji Feifan’s cheek.

“Don’t even think about resisting, Little Dog.”

A vein throbbed violently at Ji Feifan’s temple.

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in that instant. He wanted to shove it away, curse it, turn around and run… His blood boiled, and every muscle in his body screamed at him to fight back.

But he knew he couldn’t escape.

There were Madmen everywhere outside. And this boy could make them obediently tear their own kind apart in front of it. It wasn’t an ordinary Madman. It was the king of these monsters.

It reminded Ji Feifan of the woman at the villa-Sister Li, who hadn’t become a Madman, yet was more deranged and cold-blooded than any of them.

He had tried to escape before.

Not long after he was captured, he had made a run for it in the middle of the night. He hadn’t even made it a kilometer before a pack of Madmen, alerted by his escape, dragged him back.

That night, all alone on an airstrip in the wilderness, he had been “played with” by a group of Madmen driving cars until morning. The torment had been worse than death, and it had made one thing perfectly clear: there was no escaping this place.

So he had to endure.

He had to find a way… to fight back.

Cat watched him, the corners of his mouth slowly curving into a satisfied smile.

Ji Feifan also did his best to pull his lips into a submissive smile.

“All right.”

Cat nodded in satisfaction and withdrew his hand. “Good boy.”

Ji Feifan stood rooted to the spot. The sensation of that touch still lingered on his face, cold and soft and utterly horrifying.