Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Qingshui and the others moved the beds blocking the door aside.
“Dorm Leader, you’re with me. Yuhui and Xiaolin, stay here and keep an eye on the situation. If anything seems wrong, call us immediately!”
Chen Yuhui nodded. “Got it.”
“Weapons, food, and phones,” Qingshui reminded them again. “Those are our priorities. Stay calm and don’t make too much noise. Keep a firm grip, and aim for the eye socket.”
Li Wei’an tightened her grip on the knife and nodded.
“Okay.”
Qingshui gently opened the door. Sinister chuckles immediately drifted into their ears. She waited a full minute, and only after confirming the coast was clear did she dart into the dorm room across the hall. Li Wei’an followed close behind.
Click.
The door eased shut.
The two immediately began searching for anything useful.
Qingshui opened the wardrobe and drawers, finding two more fruit knives and some food. She stuffed everything into the backpack on her back.
When she turned around, Li Wei’an was holding two bloodstained phones. Their owners had most likely met a grim fate.
“Let’s go.”
They searched two dorm rooms in succession, but found mostly food. With their limited haul, they returned to the dorm room serving as their temporary shelter. After handing out a few packs of crackers and bottles of water, Qingshui decided to head out again.
“Wei’an, you stay here. Guard the door and keep an eye on your phone.” Qingshui quickly assigned their roles, then looked at the still-trembling An Xiaolin and the tense-faced Chen Yuhui. “Yuhui, Xiaolin, you’re with me. We’ll check the other side.”
An Xiaolin stiffened. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. In the end, she silently took the fruit knife Qingshui handed her. Chen Yuhui drew a deep breath and nodded.
Qingshui signaled for Chen Yuhui to watch the left while she covered the right. An Xiaolin followed a short distance behind them, positioned between the two and mainly responsible for watching their backs.
The door to the third dorm room stood half-open.
Qingshui turned sideways and listened for a moment, then gently pushed the door farther open with the tip of her knife. The stench of blood and decay rushed out.
The room was a complete mess. All that remained inside was a headless woman’s corpse with its insides hollowed out.
Chen Yuhui and An Xiaolin looked sickened, but forced themselves not to vomit. Qingshui, however, noticed the long, slender bayonet clutched tightly in the corpse’s right hand.
Her eyes lit up. A weapon like that was far more reliable than a fruit knife.
She gestured for Chen Yuhui to guard the door, then swiftly slipped inside. Avoiding the pool of blood on the floor, she bent down to retrieve the bayonet.
Just as her fingertips were about to touch its cold hilt…
“Oh-ho-ho… Found you…”
A gleeful chuckle came from the direction of the balcony.
A figure suddenly lunged out from the blind spot beside the balcony door! It was a lunatic in a basketball jersey, an irrepressible smile plastered across his face. In his hands was a thick, heavy wooden chair leg, ripped free from a chair, and he swung it viciously at the crouching Qingshui!
“Qingshui!” Chen Yuhui screamed.
There was no time to spare!
Qingshui had no chance to stand. All she could do was throw herself into a clumsy roll to the side!
Bang!
The chair leg smashed into the spot where she had just been, making even the floor seem to shudder. When his first blow missed, the lunatic let out a strange, giggling snicker and swung the chair leg again at Qingshui, who had rolled up against the wall, cutting off every avenue of escape!
“Aah!” An Xiaolin’s scream rang out from the doorway.
With her back against the wall and nowhere left to retreat, a cold glint flashed through Qingshui’s eyes. Instead of pulling away, she surged forward just as the chair leg came crashing down…
Schlick!
The blade sank deep into the underside of its jaw. The lunatic froze. The excruciating pain only seemed to intensify the “pleasure” on its face. “Hehehe… Harder, won’t you…? It feels so good I’m going to fly!!! Give me another…”
Qingshui snapped her wrist upward with all her strength.
Thunk!
The sound of steel driving into flesh was much duller this time.
The lunatic went completely still, its twisted expression frozen on its face.
Qingshui held the thrust for another second before wrenching the fruit knife free. Dead silence fell over the room once more, broken only by their ragged breathing.
An Xiaolin collapsed beside the door and covered her face, tears streaming between her fingers. Chen Yuhui was deathly pale, and the hand braced against the doorframe was trembling. Still, she stared fixedly at the corpse on the floor, then at Qingshui as she slowly straightened up, knife in hand.
Qingshui paid neither of them any attention. Instead, she frowned and asked an odd question. “The noise… When did it stop?”
“W-what noise?” Chen Yuhui asked in a trembling voice.
It was gone. The relentless thud, thud, thud had stopped. All that remained were faint voices.
They had grown bored of their games.
There was no other explanation. The lunatics had had their fun. Now they would start hunting for fresh humans again.
Qingshui picked up the military knife from the floor. After one glance at the lunatic’s corpse, she swept her eyes around the room, quickly grabbed a power bank and several chocolate bars from the desk, and stuffed them into her backpack.
“Let’s go.” Her voice was slightly hoarse but eerily calm, as though the deadly struggle moments ago had been nothing out of the ordinary.
Chen Yuhui snapped out of her daze and hurriedly pulled the weak-kneed An Xiaolin to her feet. The three of them quickly retreated from the dorm room steeped in death. Qingshui gently closed the door behind them, sealing the two corpses and the stench of blood inside.
The hallway was still dim, with shrill laughter drifting unpredictably in the distance. Keeping close to the wall, they moved swiftly and silently back to their temporary refuge.
Li Wei’an visibly relaxed when she saw them return safely, but then she noticed Chen Yuhui’s pallor and An Xiaolin’s tear-streaked face.
“You ran into one?” Li Wei’an asked in a low voice.
“One.” Qingshui motioned for the other three to help her barricade the door. Then she announced, “We can’t wait until midnight. We move as soon as it gets dark.”
Li Wei’an stammered, “W-why?”
“Didn’t any of you notice that the thudding stopped?” Qingshui explained. “Those lunatics have grown bored. They’ll start searching for whoever’s left.”
“You mean they’ll…”
“Search from the top floor down,” Qingshui said. “We could be next at any moment.”
Chen Yuhui could no longer hold it in. She rushed into the bathroom, and the muffled sound of dry heaving came from inside.
An Xiaolin slid down the wall and sat on the floor. She had nothing left to throw up.
Qingshui crouched and held out a chocolate bar. She neither scolded nor comforted her, merely regarding her calmly. “Eat something and get your strength back.”
“Next time, swallow your scream.”
An Xiaolin looked into Qingshui’s almost frigid eyes and accepted the chocolate with a trembling hand.
Qingshui softened her tone slightly. “You saw it yourself just now. Those lunatics can be killed.”
“The only way we’ll survive is by fighting with everything we have. Do you understand, Xiaolin? I don’t need anyone useless.”
“Pull yourself together.”