RotA – Chapter 17

Almost at the same instant, the human-insect in the corner propped itself up on its arms and lunged forward as if spring-loaded.

Chai Yuening didn’t even have time to react before a black vine shot past her from behind at an indescribable speed, whipping the human-insect and sending it flying into a filing cabinet against the wall.

With a loud crash of a heavy object colliding, the human-insect that had slid to the floor from the cabinet squirmed, attempting to counterattack, but the black vine instantly coiled around its boneless body, binding it.

The human-insect raised its head like a snake, swaying its upper body as it let out a horrifying, sharp shriek, as if transmitting some kind of signal to its kind.

The intern technician sitting at the console was now ashen-faced.

She mumbled things like “a dream, please, wake up,” but her hands moved over the controls so fast they were almost a blur.

Behind her glasses, her eyes were wide with frantic effort, now fixed solely on the console and the large screen before her, as if this would allow her to pretend she couldn’t see the surrounding events, which were more abnormal than any nightmare.

The sudden mutated beast attack, the rescuer’s attempt to sever the district’s ventilation connections, the dense fog that had suddenly appeared in the room, and the “human” who had sprouted black vines and started fighting the mutated beasts.

It was all too insane!

And what was even more insane was that the mutated beasts in the air vent were now scrambling to crawl out.

Chai Yuening’s daze lasted only for that brief moment.

As the black vine flung the bound beast toward the vent, smashing it heavily onto two other beasts that had just crawled out, a gunshot rang out, piercing straight through the left eye of a beast inside the vent.

The moment blood spurted, the beast recoiled in pain, causing a brief jam as it collided with those behind it in the already narrow ventilation duct.

Chai Yuening fired again, one shot after another, aiming them all at the jumble of creatures crammed in the vent opening.

Sharp, piercing shrieks, accompanied by gunshots, were deafening. The writhing swarm of beasts clearly retreated half a meter.

The three beasts that had crawled out of the vent were all entangled by the black vines, pinned against the blood-splattered white wall of the control room.

Chai Yuening dashed forward, grabbed the filing cabinet closest to the vent, and scrambled up, trying to block the iron window of the vent, which was wide open.

The human-insect with the shot-out left eye, now pinned beneath its kin, seemed to be thoroughly enraged by Chai Yuening’s approach. It suddenly struggled, shrieking as it opened its gaping, bloody maw filled with sharp teeth.

It twisted its limbs, trying to snatch the prey right before its eyes. The immense struggle propelled it forward a good half-meter, its head instantly bursting out of the vent. Its neck hung down at an extremely contorted angle, unexpectedly crashing into Chai Yuening’s line of sight.

On its incomparably pallid, humanoid face, the left side was a seemingly bottomless, bloody hole, while the right was a hollow, black pupil like an abyss.

The eye contact, so close, made Chai Yuening feel an indescribable sense of suffocation.

She gritted her teeth, one hand gripping the top edge of the filing cabinet for dear life, the other drawing the dagger from her waist and stabbing it viciously into the mutant’s remaining eye.

As she pulled it out, blood splattered across her face.

Chai Yuening didn’t stop for a second, stabbing the struggling, shrieking beast several more times until she saw it had completely lost its ability to attack. Only then did she reach for the vent window, slamming it, along with the mutated beast’s head, against the vent opening.

The latch on the iron window finally clicked shut. Chai Yuening thrust out her right forearm, pressing it hard against the window panel.

The next second, a series of impacts came from the other side of the window, jarring her right arm until it went numb. The dagger she held tightly in her hand nearly fell.

“How much longer!” Chai Yuening shouted.

“The connections to the main city district, District Four, and District Seven have been severed. The ones still connected to us are… are currently District Two, District Nine, and District Five…”

“Forget District Five!”

“…Just give me a little more time!”

The dull thudding, one blow after another, accompanied by the sharp shrieks of the beasts, nearly shattered her eardrums.

The latch on the iron window grew looser and looser, and the heavy panel began to deform.

Chai Yuening’s forehead was slick with cold sweat, her right arm nearly devoid of feeling.

The moment the latch was broken by the force of the impacts, the beasts burst through the iron window. Chai Yuening could no longer hold on, and her body fell uncontrollably toward the floor behind her.

After a moment of weightlessness, the expected pain never came.

A black vine had wrapped around Chai Yuening’s waist. She used her left hand to pull on the black vine for leverage, flipping her body sideways to break her fall and landing steadily on the ground.

Almost at the same instant, another black vine grew wildly, once again sealing the breached vent opening tight.

At the vent, beads of blood dripped down from the vine.

The three beasts that had been released in the corner propped themselves up as if remolded from mud, baring their teeth as they lunged toward the source of the vines.

A series of gunshots rang out, and two of them collapsed.

With an empty click, the last bullet was spent.

The final beast leaped toward the slender figure in the mist.

The next second, with the sound of a blade whistling through the air, a short dagger embedded itself in the back of the beast’s neck.

The beast’s form faltered, and an incredibly hoarse growl escaped its throat.

Chai Yuening strode forward, a flying kick to its forehead knocking it to the ground. She stomped on the back of its head with one foot, pulled out the dagger, and stabbed again.

She struck several more times, only stopping when she could no longer feel the beast struggling beneath her.

She looked up and saw that in the mist, the blood-stained black vines were emitting a red glow, more distinct than that of the black vines on the ground.

It wasn’t blinding, but rather like blood seeping into the dense fog.

The violent impacts at the vent gradually subsided. After a few seconds of dead silence, only the faint scraping sounds from within the ventilation duct remained, slowly, gradually receding into the distance.

The beasts’ attack had stopped.

To be precise, the swarm in the ventilation duct had retreated.

The young technician sitting to the side mumbled in an extremely low and trembling voice, “All connections to the outer districts have been severed. Can we go… now?”

Her voice grew quieter and quieter, the last two words as faint as a mosquito’s buzz. As soon as she finished, she fell completely silent.

Everything that had just happened was like a grand play that had suddenly ended.

The black vines began to retract as if instantly withering, making a rustling sound like a slithering snake before falling silent, leaving only the heavy, rapid breathing of the people in the room.

The bizarre vines had turned back into human hands.

The mist slowly dissipated.

Scarlet blood slid down that slender right arm, past the fingertips, and dripped onto the floor.

Chai Yuening could once again see Chu Ci’s face clearly.

The air seemed to freeze. They stood less than two meters apart, their eyes meeting.

For a moment, Chai Yuening found those reddish-brown eyes so cold they didn’t seem to belong to the person she knew.

“What in the world are you…” she asked, her voice trembling.

Chu Ci watched her quietly, not answering for a long time.

“You’re not human?” Chai Yuening asked again.

In that instant, she saw Chu Ci lower her gaze.

After a brief silence, Chu Ci looked up, a trace of self-mockery in her eyes. She reached for the gun at her waist and tossed it to Chai Yuening.

“You can shoot,” Chu Ci said faintly.

“…”

Chai Yuening hesitated, wanting to speak. She took a long, deep breath and retorted with a frown, “What would I shoot? The beasts are gone.”

A flicker of surprise couldn’t help but cross Chu Ci’s eyes.

Chai Yuening: “You’re injured.”

As she spoke, Chai Yuening bent down and rummaged through her small pouch, pulling out an infection test kit. She took a few steps forward and handed it to Chu Ci.

Chu Ci took it hesitantly. Before she could react, she saw Chai Yuening begin to bandage the wound on her right arm.

She was silent for a long time before asking in a low voice, “You saw everything. Is there any point in testing?”

“Can’t rule out the possibility of a secondary mutation,” Chai Yuening said, her bandaging hand pausing for a fraction of a second before continuing. “If… you were to turn into one of those things that hurts people, I would definitely shoot.”

Silence spread through the dimly lit control room.

Chai Yuening glanced at her pocket watch, only then realizing it was already half past twelve at night.

Time ticked by, second by second. Chu Ci and the unnamed young girl were as quiet as statues, with only Chai Yuening constantly kneading her right arm, which was numb with pain.

Before long, the test results came back. Just like when they first met, no matter what kind of injury she sustained, no trace of infection could be detected on Chu Ci.

“Whoa, what in the world are you?”

It was the exact same question, but Chai Yuening’s tone had shifted from the earlier shock and fear to an indescribable sense of wonder.

“I’m going to infect you,” Chu Ci said with a frown, a hint of displeasure in her voice.

“You won’t,” Chai Yuening replied.

“You don’t even know what I am, and you’re so sure I won’t hurt you?”

“Yes, I don’t know anything,” Chai Yuening said, looking up at Chu Ci and speaking earnestly. “But I at least know one thing. You saved me. Even knowing I might kill you for it, you still chose to save me…”

As her words fell, Chai Yuening felt Chu Ci’s gaze soften considerably. She subconsciously glanced at the intern technician sitting beside them.

The young girl immediately sat up straight and waved her hands frantically. “I didn’t see anything! It was all foggy just now, I couldn’t see a thing!”

The lie was so clumsy that for a moment, Chai Yuening didn’t know what to say.

But the girl seemed to realize her excuse had no credibility whatsoever, so she quickly changed her tune. “I—you saved my life. I will never tell anyone about what happened!”

“…” Chai Yuening pondered for a few seconds, then said, “No, you saw nothing.”

“Huh?” The girl blinked blankly, then nodded like a chicken pecking at grain and reverted to her original story. “I didn’t see anything!”

Chai Yuening nodded and looked at Chu Ci. “I didn’t see anything either.”

Chu Ci: “…”

Chai Yuening: “Let’s go.”

With that, Chai Yuening wiped the blood from her face, pulled up the girl whose legs had gone weak, and walked toward the door.

Chu Ci followed after her. “Don’t you have any questions?”

Chai Yuening stopped and said in a low voice, “If you want to talk, I’m all ears.”

Chu Ci countered, “And if I don’t want to?”

Chai Yuening mulled it over for a moment, then smiled nonchalantly. “Then I’ll just assume you forgot.”

The night was so quiet. The sound of their guide’s footsteps receded into the distance, each step so clear.

Chu Ci unconsciously touched the freshly bandaged wound, where a small, crooked bow was tied.

She pressed her lips together and quickened her pace to catch up.

Just as always, she watched that person’s figure, following in her footsteps.

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Author’s Notes:

A quick identity reveal? No, no, no, she has more than one secret identity. There are more to be revealed later.

The precious treasure picked up from the Fog Zone is anything but ordinary.