RotA – Chapter 59

When the scent of humans was masked by the drug, the danger of operating in the Fog Zone was indeed significantly reduced.

However, the drug developed by the Fog Zone Base could only prevent humans from being the primary target of mutated beasts for a certain period. It couldn’t, like Chu Ci, make the beasts mistake them for a black vine, thereby achieving an effect that was almost akin to invisibility.

But in any case, such a drug could already greatly increase humanity’s chances of survival on the surface.

Taking the Fog Zone Base’s weapons out to hunt for the first time, Chai Yuening tried her hand on a small, reportedly edible mutated beast. It was indeed far more effective than ordinary bullets.

The instantaneous killing power of these bullets was no less than that of regular ones, and if one shot didn’t kill, there was a follow-up paralytic effect from an electric shock. A small mutated beast would lose its ability to counterattack after a single hit, and for a medium-sized one, it was just a matter of a few more shots.

Chai Yuening couldn’t help but think that if the Underground City Base had possessed such weapons, perhaps its outer city wouldn’t have fallen so completely.

After all, the ones that had managed to enter the base back then were mostly small and medium-sized mutated beasts.

This thought flickered through her mind, and An Li’s voice pulled her back to reality.

“That thing runs so fast, yet you hit it in one shot. Your marksmanship is amazing! If we take you hunting in the future, we could fill a whole truck in an afternoon!” An Li’s face was filled with the most ordinary kind of happiness. “Were you a military officer in the human base outside?”

“I wasn’t,” Chai Yuening replied.

“I thought you were,” An Li said. “Uncle Liu came from the outside, and his marksmanship is the best here, just like yours—fast and accurate. He used to be a soldier in the city that floats in the sky. He was a very formidable officer.”

“Is he the one with wings?” Chai Yuening vaguely remembered that Uncle Liu.

If she recalled correctly, he was a being who had grown a pair of wings, his four limbs already mutated into bird-like forms.

That inhuman appearance didn’t look like it could hold a gun at all.

“Yeah.” An Li nodded, sighing with emotion. “Years ago, when his mutation wasn’t so advanced, his hands could still hold a gun. Not anymore.”

“…That’s a real shame.”

“But his fighting skills are still very strong,” An De interjected. “Over the years, thanks to him constantly teaching everyone close-quarters combat, we’ve been better able to protect ourselves without guns.”

An Li nodded. “Uncle Liu said that once he learns to fly, he’ll take us out to fight mutated beasts. Those stupid beasts that can’t fly will only be able to watch, unable to reach us!”

A soldier had lost the hands that held his gun, but he had never lost his conviction to protect others.

As the vehicle drove through the boundless fog, Chai Yuening couldn’t help but gaze out the window, toward some unseen, distant place in her heart.

After hunting six small mutated beasts and one medium-sized one, the off-road vehicle returned with prey tied even to its roof.

They slowed down, heading back, happy and fully loaded.

To the humans living in the Fog Zone, most mutated beasts were treasures from head to toe.

Small ones could be disinfected and eaten. Medium and large ones had a certain research value and could be sent to the laboratory building first, to be dissected for materials after the research was complete.

Those with fur could be made into clothes and quilts, those with carapaces into armor, and hard parts like teeth and bones could be processed into weapons or various tools.

The remaining flesh and blood, when thrown into the traps on the base’s periphery, could also serve as bait to lure in a few foolish little creatures.

An De drove the car to the entrance of the base warehouse, rolled down the window, and shouted loudly. Strangers immediately came forward from all around, helping to unload the prey with laughter and chatter.

Suddenly, a few screams shattered their cheerful laughter.

Chai Yuening ran out of the warehouse door, and a black shadow shot past her feet.

When she looked up, a strange bird, much larger than a person, was hovering in the air. Its feet were tightly clasped around a girl under the age of ten, its sharp talons already piercing the child’s flesh, blood dripping down from the sky.

The little girl was crying and screaming, her eyes filled with terror.

“Uncle Liu!” An Li cried out in alarm. “Xiao Tang, Xiao Tang is in his grasp!”

“He’s lost all human form. Can he still be saved…” Chai Yuening couldn’t help but ask.

“He’s lost his self-will and started attacking humans. He’s completely mutated,” An De said, raising his gun.

Many others raised their guns just as he did, but their eyes were full of hesitation.

Even if a completely mutated person couldn’t be saved, there was still a child involved.

If they fired, the child would most likely be dropped to her death.

Just as the strange bird was about to fly away, a vine wrapped around its ankle, and around the little girl clutched in its talons.

The strange bird beat its wings, furiously turning back to attack the source of the vine, but as it neared the ground, it was bound completely by the vines and fell, unable to move.

It shrieked in rage. The astonished people snapped back to their senses and rushed forward to retrieve the sobbing child, clutching her small body and running toward the infirmary.

Chu Ci’s strangeness only caused a moment of surprise. In this place, no one would cast a strange glance at another for their peculiarities.

They locked the mutated beast in a cage, and the small base once again returned to calm.

Only, the cheerful laughter had turned to silence, and a touch of sorrow had appeared in everyone’s eyes. But it was not hard to see that everyone had long grown accustomed to such sorrow.

The large cage holding “Uncle Liu” was placed by the people in the open space between two facing buildings, as if to constantly remind the newcomers that there is no true paradise in this world; danger is everywhere.

After nightfall, Chai Yuening stood at her window and saw An Li crouching by the cage, lost in thought for a long time.

Chu Ci stood behind her and asked softly, “What will happen to it after tonight?”

Chai Yuening couldn’t answer that question.

She was also wondering. How would the people of the base deal with this mutated beast that was once human?

They hadn’t killed it immediately. Was it because they couldn’t bear to, or did they need to study it? Or perhaps they wanted to take something from it, like its feathers, talons, bones…

She suddenly found she didn’t want to think about it anymore.

That night, she lay in bed, unable to fall asleep no matter how she tossed and turned.

As the sky outside the window gradually brightened, she heard An De calling An Li’s name while driving a truck out of the garage.

Chu Ci was asleep beside her pillow. She got up quietly, threw on a coat, and ran downstairs.

She saw An De fire two shots at the strange bird. The muzzle was fitted with a silencer. The strange bird collapsed, and people moved the cage onto the open-bed truck.

“What are you doing here?” An Li turned and saw Chai Yuening.

“You’re…”

“We’re seeing Uncle Liu off,” An Li said. “Want to come with us?”

Chai Yuening paused for a moment, then saw An Li wave at her and hurried to catch up.

After getting in the truck, she looked at the motionless mutated beast and asked hesitantly, “Is it dead?”

An Li shook her head. “It’s a tranquilizer gun.”

The young girl’s voice was very soft, but it couldn’t hide the sorrow in her heart. “He was my teacher. He taught me combat and marksmanship… He was a teacher to many people here.”

Chai Yuening: “Where are you taking him?”

An Li: “I don’t know. There’s no direction. We just go to a random place, as long as it’s far enough.”

One truck, seven people, and one mutated beast drove away from the small human base at dawn.

“Any one of us here could suddenly stop being ourselves,” An Li said softly, leaning against the cage. “We don’t want to harm our former companions after we mutate, and we don’t want our companions, who clearly can’t bear it, to have to kill us with their own hands. So, if we can safely subdue them, we’ll send our mutated companions back to the Fog Zone, as far away from the base as possible…”

They finally stopped the truck in an open area.

They moved the cage off the truck, the lock was gently opened, and the mutated beast inside remained sound asleep.

Everyone hid in the distance, waiting quietly.

They couldn’t leave just yet. If their former companion encountered danger at a time like this, it would die in its sleep.

After an unknown amount of time, the large bird woke up.

It crawled out of the cage and flew into the sky without a trace of reluctance.

Chai Yuening watched the figure recede into the distance, an indescribable feeling in her heart.

“Where will it go?”

“Who knows? If it still has a sliver of memory… perhaps it will want to go home.”

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Author’s Notes:

Uncle Liu took flight.

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