Chapter 164
Chapter 164
“Hee-hee… hee-hee…”
Ji Feifan carried the food, watching from the corner of his eye as the shadow beside him followed close at his heels.
The “ring of intestines” that had once hung around the Madman’s neck was gone. It had gotten so bored that it had torn the thing off and swallowed it whole.
But Cat hadn’t started any slaughter games these past few days, cutting off the supply of fresh organs. Now, the Madman’s murky eyes were glued to Ji Feifan’s neck, and wet gulps sounded in its throat.
“Tch.” Ji Feifan’s brow twitched violently as he cursed in disgust, “What are you staring at your daddy for, moron?”
“Keep cursing me, keep cursing me, heh-heh-heh…”
The Madman bared a mouthful of jagged teeth, drool dripping down its chin. “Keep going, hee-hee-hee… I really want to cut off your mouth and put it on me… Ha-ha-ha-ha… Rip out your intestines and use them as a jump rope…”
Ji Feifan ignored it and kicked open the rust-covered door.
The crash was deafening, but the people in the cage barely reacted. There seemed to be even more of them now. Several had grown so emaciated they were almost unrecognizable, their eye sockets deeply sunken, like a group of desiccated corpses.
The moment they saw it was Ji Feifan, their gazes turned venomous. If looks could take physical form, he would have been sliced to ribbons and torn limb from limb by now.
Ji Feifan had long since become immune to such stares. He felt nothing, save for a trace of cold mockery.
If you were in my place, you’d go even further than I have just to stay alive.
What makes any of us nobler than the others? The only difference is that I’m a survivor and you’re captives.
Among the crowd, a disheveled woman glared at him and suddenly spat a thick wad of phlegm. In a hoarse voice, she cursed, “Race traitor!”
Ji Feifan stared at her face for two seconds. His gaze turned cold, and he strode forward, grabbed her by the collar, and slammed her head against the iron bars.
He picked up a rock-hard piece of bread and brutally forced it into her mouth, pushing so hard that the corners of her lips nearly split.
“Instead of wasting your strength cursing people, shut up and conserve your energy.” Ji Feifan leaned close to her ear, his voice low. “The ‘game’ starts again in a few days. I hope you can run fast enough to stay alive a little longer.”
“Cough, cough…”
The woman’s face flushed crimson as she choked, tears streaming from her eyes. Forced to chew the bread, she devoured it desperately. Then her movements suddenly paused before she began swallowing with even greater frenzy.
The Madman watched excitedly, clapping and cackling. “Eat more… Eat more… Then your meat will be nice and firm… More fun, hee-hee-hee…”
The other survivors turned white as sheets at the sight, but their bodies reacted honestly. With trembling hands, they grabbed the food and stuffed it into their mouths, forcing it down no matter how hard it was to swallow.
They knew these Madmen were about to begin another round of torment. Only with full stomachs would they have the strength to run a few extra steps in that deadly chase.
Ji Feifan swept his gaze over several faces and sneered. Then he turned and left. The Madman behind him apparently hadn’t had its fill of this “feeding.” It stayed in the middle of the room to indulge its urges on the captives before giggling and hurrying after Ji Feifan.
As the woman watched them leave, she took advantage of the chaos of everyone eating and quietly shrank into the darkest corner of the crowd.
Shielded by the shadows, she lowered her head slightly and spat out a slip of paper that had nearly disintegrated from her saliva. The ink had bled, leaving the diagram blurry and indistinct, but with her keen understanding, she instantly deciphered its meaning.
Seven vehicles. Around forty Madmen. Cat won’t participate.
…………
It began to snow again.
The four of them walked across an open snowfield, half a foot of snow crunching beneath their boots.
They had been walking for nearly an hour without encountering anything. All they could see was snow, mountains and forests stretching on without any discernible end, and the occasional village.
Then Qingshui abruptly stopped. The three behind her halted as well and followed her gaze.
Before them lay a vast expanse of rolling, snow-covered slopes tinged with withered yellow. To the left, a chain of low hills stretched into the distance. To the right, a broad concrete road wound down with the contours of the mountain and connected to a wide, flat snowfield.
Qingshui crouched beside the grass, her brow deeply furrowed. She carefully surveyed their surroundings and caught a faint trace of a sickly-sweet scent, barely concealed by the freezing wind.
“Something’s wrong.”
“There are Madmen here,” An Xiaolin said. She had also caught the sickly-sweet stench unique to the Madmen.
Yet as far as they could see, the vast snowfield was completely empty.
Where exactly were they hiding?
“Go back!” Qingshui decided at once.
The moment the words left her mouth, she rose and began backing away. But in that instant, the air around them seemed to freeze, and a bone-deep chill crawled up her spine.
Ye Que didn’t move. Her expression had gone rigid. Then she slowly turned to look at the three beside her.
Qingshui and the other two felt their hearts plummet. They had seen that expression far too many times. Whenever it appeared, it meant the shadow of death was already hanging over them.
Then uncontrollable laughter ripped through the howl of the wind and snow.
“Hee hee… Hahaha…”
Before the laughter had even faded, the distant snowfield suddenly came alive.
No, the snow itself wasn’t moving. Something beneath it was burrowing and thrashing wildly!
Crash!
A dark figure burst from a distant slope. It jerked its head up. There was no contour or relief to its facial features; an enormous mouth split all the way to its ears had pushed its eyes and nose aside. Its face radiated an almost delirious joy.
It didn’t say a word. Dropping onto all fours like a giant spider, it scuttled madly toward Qingshui and the others at an astonishing speed.
Then, as though a signal had been triggered, the entire snowfield behind it began to boil.
Crash! Crash!
Several figures broke through the snow and surged toward them, bringing with them a suffocating sense of pressure.
More terrifying still, some of the Madmen were holding hands as they circled around from the distance. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, as if they intended to form one enormous ring and trap the four living people in the middle.
They began skipping gleefully.
Amid the swirling snow, the rag-clad monsters looked like a flock of sheep frolicking freely across the grasslands, bounding forward with joyous steps and laughing as they closed in.
“Surround them… surround them… hee hee hee…”
“Round and round… we’re going round and round… hee hee…”
“Grind the meat up… grind it into mush… hee hee hee…”
They ran faster and faster. Mouth after mouth split open to the ears amid the wind and snow, revealing blackened gums and blood-red teeth. They looked like masks of human skin that had been violently ripped apart.
Anyone who witnessed such an absurd and grotesque scene would feel a chill seep up from the soles of their feet and their scalp crawl.
As she watched through the hazy curtain of snow, Qingshui even felt that what was landing on her face wasn’t snow at all.
It was blood.