Chapter 176
Chapter 176
The SUV’s engine rumbled dully through the snow as its tires crushed the drifts beneath them.
After killing the fourth Madman, the woman in the passenger seat finally couldn’t take it anymore. Clutching her gun tightly, she asked in a trembling voice, “Where are you going? Aren’t we supposed to be leaving the city?”
Ji Feifan didn’t answer. He slammed on the brakes, and the SUV skidded across the snow before finally stopping. The engine died, plunging the cabin into dead silence.
The woman in the passenger seat stared at him. The three women in the back held their breath as well, none of them daring to speak.
Ji Feifan had been silent ever since they got into the vehicle. His hands were locked around the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the impenetrable darkness ahead as though he meant to bore a hole through it with his stare.
“Keep an eye on our surroundings.”
Ignoring their gazes, Ji Feifan repeated the warning to the woman beside him. He pulled a pair of binoculars from inside his coat and peered across the distant snowfield.
Through the lenses, everything below was in chaos. Wrecked vehicles and corpses lay tangled together, and only two cars were still fighting desperately.
It was Cat!
It was still alive!
Ji Feifan’s pupils contracted. His fingers clenched around the binoculars so hard that the cold metal dug painfully into his skin, but he didn’t even notice.
It’s fine. It’s the only one still alive. The only one. It’s about to die. It’s about to die!!
Now was his chance.
He lowered the binoculars and reached for the steering wheel.
“You can’t possibly be thinking…” The woman in the passenger seat grabbed his hand before he could turn the wheel, her face white as paper. “That’s Cat! Going there is suicide!”
“Killing Cat is the only way we’ll survive!” Ji Feifan violently shook off her hand. His voice was hoarse, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Think about it! If Cat doesn’t die, it’ll chase us to the ends of the earth! Even if we escape the city now, we’ll never escape its grasp!”
The woman’s lips moved, but no words came out.
She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, with unknown darkness behind her and bottomless terror below. She didn’t know which was worse–or whether all this was merely another new game devised by those monsters.
But there was nothing she could do. She could only watch helplessly as Ji Feifan gripped the steering wheel again.
Ji Feifan turned his head and was just about to step on the gas when he caught sight of a pair of eyes in the rearview mirror.
Pitch-black. Icy. Utterly devoid of warmth.
They belonged to the girl in the back seat. She was staring daggers at Ji Feifan, the hatred in her eyes so intense it seemed ready to spill out. He had seen that look far too many times before.
It was how the survivors he’d tricked into his car looked at him when the Madmen surrounded them.
Nothing but hatred.
Every hair on Ji Feifan’s body stood on end as a chill shot up his spine. He instinctively recoiled–
A cold gleam sliced past his neck. The sharp blade cut through his collar and sent a spray of blood into the air.
The wound wasn’t deep, but the flesh had split open, and warm blood trickled down inside his collar.
“You bastard who sells people!! Hahahahaha… Hahahahaha… Die, you bastard!”
The girl lunged forward from the back seat, her small knife covered in blood and madness filling her eyes.
Bang!
The gunshot exploded inside the cramped cabin, making everyone’s eardrums ache.
A flower of blood burst between the girl’s eyebrows. Her eyes flew wide, and her body collapsed limply onto the back seat.
Her eyes remained open, and a smile still curled her lips, as if she were waiting for something.
Ji Feifan panted heavily, his hand trembling uncontrollably. He couldn’t feel the pain in his neck. All he felt was cold. The chill spread from his neck to his chest, then from his chest into his limbs, making him shudder.
Then his blood began to burn. Everywhere it flowed seemed to swell and throb.
An unfamiliar, violent emotion surged from deep inside him, filling him with the urge to howl and destroy.
When he saw the terror on the face of the woman in the passenger seat, he suddenly wanted to stop the car, drag everyone outside, and hack them to death. He wanted to hear them scream and beg for mercy. He wanted to watch them struggle in the snow.
No-wait.
The instant that thought surfaced, he realized what was happening.
Calm down. Calm down. No, no, no, no, no!!
Ji Feifan’s entire body shook as he screamed frantically inside his head: Ji Feifan, you goddamn son of a bitch, you’re human! You’re human, human, human, human, human!!!!
But that voice grew fainter and farther away. Another voice rose from deep within his body to replace it, hoarse and distorted, like Cat’s laughter.
“No. You’re a dog. You’re a dog…”
The woman in the passenger seat stared at him, her face deathly pale. She immediately pulled the trigger, but Ji Feifan seized her hand and twisted. The gun fired, and the bullet struck the roof, the deafening blast making their eardrums ache.
Ji Feifan twisted harder. With a crack, the woman’s wrist snapped, and she let out a piercing scream.
But Ji Feifan didn’t stop. His face contorted, his pupils dilated, and the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably as he raised the gun and aimed it between her eyebrows.
“Aaaah!” The woman’s scream cut off abruptly.
The three women in the back had already thrown open the doors and were stumbling through the snow.
Ji Feifan didn’t pursue them. Remaining in the driver’s seat, he raised the gun, aimed at the three fleeing figures, and fired three shots in succession.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The three women fell one after another, their blood staining the surrounding snow red.
Ji Feifan lowered the gun. He looked at the body of the woman in the passenger seat, the girl’s corpse in the back, and the three motionless figures lying in the snow. He felt nothing.
All he could see was Cat’s face.
That deathly pale face with its mocking smile. The face he had seen through the binoculars, still alive.
Kill Cat. Kill that bastard.
Kill it, kill it, kill it!!! I want to live!!
Ji Feifan started the engine. The SUV roared and charged toward the battlefield.