Chapter 159

Chapter 159

“Ugh…”

The instant An Xiaolin regained consciousness, pain crashed over her like a tidal wave. Rough gravel scraped against her cheek, and the back of her head felt as though it had been smashed with a sledgehammer. Every beat of her heart sent another wave of dull, agonizing pain through her skull.

She forced her eyes open. Her vision was blurred, and all she could see was the yellow earth racing past beneath her. The earthy stench of rotting grass roots and stale blood filled her nostrils.

Where… was she?

Qingshui… Yuhui…

Her mind was blank, and even breathing had become excruciatingly difficult. She tried to move a finger, only to discover that there wasn’t a single part of her body that didn’t hurt. It felt as if she had been torn apart and crudely pieced back together.

She seemed to remember… falling off the bridge.

An Xiaolin painstakingly shifted her gaze upward. A hunched figure came into view. It wore a tattered gray cloth shirt whose original color was impossible to discern, and its hair was a tangled clump of dried weeds. It was dragging her across the barren ground, shuffling forward one laborious step at a time.

Every step was heavy and unnatural, accompanied by a garbled chuckle deep in its throat.

It was a Madman.

The instant she realized this, a chill shot from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, colder than the muddy water soaking her body.

A Madman had caught her.

Her survival instinct made her thrash violently. She dug her nails into the dirt, desperately trying to catch hold of any root or stone she could find. But her resistance did nothing to slow the Madman down.

She was too weak. So weak that even her despair seemed feeble.

After what felt like an eternity, the Madman dragged her into the middle of a wide patch of bare earth, then flung her aside like a piece of garbage.

An Xiaolin’s vision went black. She nearly lost consciousness again.

“Hee-hee… It’s here… Everyone’s here…”

More eerie laughter rose around her. She struggled to raise her head, and her pupils abruptly contracted.

Several more Madmen had appeared from nowhere, all dressed in rags with wild, frenzied eyes. They surrounded her, their mouths stretched into grins that nearly reached their ears. Their gazes brimmed with hungry delight, as though they were staring at an animal waiting to be slaughtered.

“So hungry… This time… we have to eat properly…”

“Skin… Skin tastes best…”

They whispered among themselves in hoarse, grating voices. Then knives stained with dark-red blood appeared in their hands.

Brandishing the knives, the Madmen eagerly approached the “piglet” lying on the ground.

“Hold it down… Hold it down!”

Several rough, powerful hands pinned An Xiaolin’s limbs to the ground. Her eyes widened in terror, but all that came from her throat was a rasping wheeze. She couldn’t even scream.

A cold knife pressed against her forearm. The Madman holding it looked blissful, as if it were performing some sacred ritual. The blade sliced through her skin, slowly peeling away a strip of skin and flesh.

“Aah… ngh…”

The sheer agony brought her mind to an instant standstill. Darkness pulsed across her vision.

It hurts… It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!

Veins bulged across An Xiaolin’s skin, and her back arched violently. But with her limbs pinned down, she was nothing more than a lamb exhausting itself in a futile struggle.

“Ugh! Ngh… Aaaaaah!”

One Madman stuffed the still-warm strip of flesh into its mouth and chewed in satisfaction, as though savoring the most delicious food in the world. Another happily swirled the tip of its knife around inside its own mouth before reaching toward An Xiaolin’s wound and stirring it around again.

“Q… Qing…”

“Qingshui… Qingshui, save me… Save me… Please, save me!”

The desperate plea tore from her throat in a broken scream. Instinctively, she begged for that person to save her once again.

But… no one came.

There was only endless pain.

The torment of her body, the despair consuming her mind, and the sickening pleasure of the Madmen pushed An Xiaolin to the brink of collapse.

Slowly, she reached out, her trembling fingertips stretching toward the overcast sky. This sky had witnessed every struggle she had made, every time she had refused to yield. It had also witnessed all her so-called vileness and disgrace.

Why?

Why were those who stood high above everyone else always favored? Why should those who fought with everything they had just to survive be treated like this?

If there was a god…

Without warning, a cold, savage presence surged up from underground. It coiled around her feet and dragged viciously at her soul, pulling her downward.

An Xiaolin abruptly raised her head, a nearly deranged smile blooming across her face.

“If there is a god, I’ll crush you beneath my feet and grind you into pulp!”

She could no longer feel the pain.

A knife reached toward her. She jerked up her head and bit down with all her strength!

Her teeth sank deep into the Madman’s knuckles, and the taste of blood burst across her tongue. Yet the Madman only laughed harder, shrieking, “Feels so goooooood!”

An Xiaolin released her bite. Her once-black eyes now glowed with a horrifying scarlet light. Following the most primal urge in her heart, she raised her head again and opened her mouth as wide as it would go.

Crunch!

All five fingers were severed at their base.

The Madman raised its blackened, blood-soaked hand and jumped around in excitement like an infant with a new toy. Then it shoved the fingerless fist into its mouth and sucked on it, making muffled, gurgling noises.

Soon, those gurgles turned into the sounds of delighted chewing.

“You’re eating behind our backs! I want some too! I want some too! Hee-hee-hee!”

Not to be outdone, the other Madmen began gnawing on their own fingers. One of the crazier ones simply swung its knife, chopped off another Madman’s fingers, and stuffed them into its mouth for a hearty feast.
In an instant, the clearing became the site of a bloody, joyous feast.

An Xiaolin lay on the ground, silently watching the demons cavort around her. Her gaze was hollow, yet within it lurked a deathly madness.

She rolled down the hillside.

Two Madmen tried to chase after her, but the others grabbed them. In moments, their limbs and heads had been hacked off, turning them into new “sucking tools.”

An Xiaolin tumbled endlessly through the forest. Branches tore her skin, and jagged stones battered her bones, but she could no longer feel any pain. Her consciousness was fading, her soul seemingly about to leave its shell and fly toward some unknown destination.

Medicine.

The hazy word stubbornly surfaced in her crumbling mind.

Take medicine. Take medicine. Take medicine. Take medicine…

The thought spread like rampant vines until it consumed her entire mind.

At some point, An Xiaolin found herself on her knees. Then she began crawling swiftly through the undergrowth. She crawled out of the forest and into a village, from one night until the next.

Vast fields appeared ahead of her. After evading one wandering Madman after another, An Xiaolin finally found an abandoned clinic.

She frantically rifled through every cabinet and drawer, her fingers cramping from the strain. At last, she found several blister packs of ibuprofen.

She gulped down the pills. The dry tablets lodged in her throat, but she paid them no heed.

Once she was done, she collapsed to the floor, feeling her life drain away bit by bit. Yet her heart seemed unwilling to surrender. It beat harder and harder, as though trying to burst through her chest.

Cloth.

Bandage.

More words surfaced in her mind. Lying on the floor, she clumsily wrapped every wound on her body with the gauze she had found.

Then… she stopped breathing.

Her eyes remained wide open in defiance, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

Was she dead?

She drifted in a void, unable to sense anything. Hearing, touch, sight… It was as though all five of her senses had been stripped away.

Somewhere in that emptiness, there seemed to be a patch of white light. She struggled desperately toward it, but no matter what she did, she could not catch up.

She stubbornly kept moving. Just as she finally drew a little closer, something seemed to shove her down with tremendous force.

“Ungh–”

An Xiaolin’s eyes flew open. Her mind was blank, yet as though pulled by invisible strings, she picked up a rusty ax from the corner and walked outside.

Go… north… go… to the shelter…

In her mind, a tall, straight-backed figure was always walking ahead of her. Whenever An Xiaolin tried to catch up, the figure would move faster. But the moment she stopped, it would fade away.

And so she trudged onward with empty eyes, through day and night, never stopping.

Until the gentle burble of running water came from ahead. Drawn by the sound, she staggered toward it.

Still holding the ax, An Xiaolin sat beside the stream and slowly lowered her head.

The clear surface reflected a terrifying face, covered in blood and swathed in gauze.

Who… was that? She stared blankly for two seconds. Only when the figure in the water mirrored her movements did she seem to realize something.

That was… her.

In that instant, she came back to herself.

I’m still alive? I’m still alive? I’m alive!

Despite being alive, she suddenly covered her eyes and began to break down in silence. Through the gaps between her fingers, crimson seeped from the area around her right eye.

“No, no… I don’t… I can’t possibly…”

She could not even shed tears. Sitting in the stream, she stared blankly at her reflection in the water.

She was still alive… but she seemed to have become a Madman…

No. Even a Madman couldn’t have survived wounds like these… What was she? A Madman? Or… a monster?

Hollow-eyed, An Xiaolin raised a hand. A small pool of clear water rested in her palm.

Water… clear water…

“She doesn’t want me anymore.”

An Xiaolin’s left eye abruptly widened, and the corner of her mouth began twitching uncontrollably. The image of that figure bathed in sunlight suddenly surfaced in her mind.

Where did she go? Would she be afraid of me? Would she fear me? Would she try to kill me?

Qingshui!!!!!!

An Xiaolin abruptly grabbed her own hair, pulling so hard she nearly tore off her scalp. She plunged her head deep into the water. As suffocation set in, her back began to tremble violently.

“You can’t… abandon me.”

Her head snapped up, water streaming down her horrifying face. Nothing remained in her eye but a nearly obsessive desire.

Find her, and then… then…

She rose to her feet and staggered onward.

The figure guiding her forward in her mind instead stirred the darkest desire buried within her.

Kill her… Kill her… Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her.

If she abandons me, I’ll kill her and keep her by my side forever.

An Xiaolin stopped dead.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached for her left eye.

Then her fingertips tensed, and without the slightest hesitation, she dug them into that blood-red eyeball.

“Squelch–”

Warm liquid spurted out, but she did not even flinch.

She gouged out her own eye, as though doing so could tear out the madness called “desire” that was about to devour her.

She would keep moving forward until she caught her.