Chapter 414 Hunter & Hunted
Human skin can be remarkably tough.
The man slurped the piece of red flesh with its skin on, closing his large fat lips together.
Chomp. Chomp.
Thick and juicy, blood oozed from the flesh each time he chewed on it. Blood trickled down his flabby chin disappearing into the folds of skin between his layers of fat. The chewing sounds resounded in the dark, quiet night.
Ji Shanqing wanted to look away, but his eyes were glued to the fat man"s masticating mouth. He staggered backward subconsciously and accidentally knocked into the person behind him with a thud.
The sound immediately drew the fat man"s attention. He looked up. His face was still buried in his victim"s flesh and fat. He looked at Ji Shanqing with his crazed eyes, and Ji Shanqing snapped back to reality. Realizing that Lin Sanjiu was somehow standing behind him, he heaved a sigh of relief. However, due to that shock, he was already covered in a cold sweat.
"That person seems like a lunatic too," Ji Shanqing whispered to Kin Sanjiu as he watched the fat man take another bite of the woman"s body, trying his best not to draw the attention of that fat man. "Sis, quick, let"s go."
"What is he doing?" Lin Sanjiu tilted her head and asked. Her voice was unnecessarily jarring due to the silence around them. Before Ji Shanqing could answer her, the fat man suddenly looked up. Even though he only moved a little, it seemed like laborious work for him. Considering that, it was difficult to imagine how he could bite through that woman"s neck so nimbly.
"I"m eating candies," he said with his mouth full. With a mushy mess of flesh in his mouth, he suddenly spat out a piece of skin. There were gooseb.u.mps on the piece of skin beneath the saliva and blood. However, the gooseb.u.mps were already punctured with multiple bite-marks.
Just when Ji Shanqing felt a wave of disgust, Lin Sanjiu added, "What sort of candy?"
"I think I"ve seen you guys before," the fat man"s voice suddenly changed. "You guys must be new here. You should come and greet your senior."
Ji Shanqing suddenly remembered how this man acted when they first saw him. At that time, that man muttered the same line continuously, "You guys are here again. Don"t you have enough…" or something like that. From the looks of it, he must have mistaken them for one of his hallucinations.
"Mexico, Mexico," the fat man sounded more coherent than Lin Sanjiu. When he said that, he sounded sane, but the next moment, his words faltered again, "When it"s your birthday, there"s a little horse. When you break the little horse, candies will come out. These people are like those horse-shaped pinatas. Once you break them, you will get candies."
Ji Shanqing took a few seconds to understand what the man was saying. Watching the fat man tearing through the dead woman"s body, Ji Shanqing figured that that man wouldn"t attack him yet.
"You"ve already eaten seven candies? How do you eat them?" he asked cautiously.
"Super Mario," the man blurted out without any reason. Even though he had stuffed his mouth full of human flesh, he exclaimed very excitedly, "Ding dong!"
"Most of the time, it is hard to understand the logic behind the thoughts of the mentally ill. Perhaps, the man had inadvertently witnessed a duoluozhong eating someone else and that further exacerbated his condition, so he started eating duoluozhongs?" Ji Shanqing could only think of this explanation. After waiting for a while, Ji Shanqing watched, holding back his disgust, as the fat man gulped down the flesh.
"Those candy people like fat and meaty people. I need to eat more so that those candy-people will look for me," the man suddenly turned serious while he clearly articulated his thoughts.
"What will happen if you eat those candy people?" Lin Sanjiu asked inquisitively.
Remembering that Lin Sanjiu was equally delirious, he immediately wrapped a hand around her wrist. If his owner tried to take a bite of the duoluozhong, he might as well unwrap himself there and then. The fat man did not answer them this time.
The fat man threw a cautious glance at Lin Sanjiu as if he was afraid that they were hungering for the woman"s corpse. The fat man grabbed the short-haired woman"s limbs and dragged her closer to his body. He flipped the body over and tore her clothes. Then, he buried his head in the corpse, biting through her abdomen.
At that moment, Ji Shanqing vaguely remembered that the short-haired woman did say that she liked organs the most.
The fat man suddenly started eating in a hurry, perhaps because he enjoyed the woman"s abdominal flesh very much. He chewed through the flesh quickly. Ji Shanqing did not know if humans could tear through raw meat with their bare teeth, but the fat man was consuming that woman at a visibly faster speed than he expected. Without looking up once, the fat man stuffed his head into the whole chaotic mess of innards. He looked like a pig gorging at the troughs.
While watching, Ji Shanqing felt that he had more than enough content for the nightmares he would have the following few days. Listening to the short-haired woman describing her cannibalism was very different from witnessing it up front. Resisting the urge to shudder at the sight and holding back his disgust, Ji Shanqing turned to Lin Sanjiu and prompted, "Sis, let"s leave here quickly."
Ji Shanqing did not know how the fat man actually identified the "candy people" he mentioned. If that man figured out that both of them weren"t part of his hallucination, there was no telling what that man would do. Thankfully, Lin Sanjiu followed him and did not continue asking absurd questions like "how do the candies taste?"
Amidst the sounds of the man munching on the duoluozhong, the footsteps of both Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu grew further and further away from the man.
"This world is too weird," Ji Shanqing sighed while he started worrying about his outer wrapper again. He turned around and watched the fat man from afar. Like a zombie, the fat man had his head still buried in the corpse and was engrossed in his food. Ji Shanqing quickly turned to Lin Sanjiu and whispered, "Sis, I think we should find a secluded place and stay there for the 14 months, okay?"
"Why 14 months?"
An unfamiliar voice suddenly rang out behind them. Ji Shanqing was stunned for a second. Multiple thoughts flashed through his mind and for a moment he couldn"t even decide which of these thoughts were scarier—
Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu stopped. Ji Shanqing"s mind went a little numb as he turned to look behind them. He didn"t know when that person behind him approached. Neither could he comprehend how the fat man could catch up to them in a few short seconds, but what puzzled him the most was...
"You...you," Ji Shanqing finally understood the full meaning of the word "tongue-tied" when he stammered, "You are not crazy?"
There was still a large amount of fresh human blood smeared on the side of the fat man"s mouth, his face, and his chest. There was even something like the slippery remnants of a small intestine hanging from the man"s collar. However, Ji Shanqing could tell from a single look into the man"s eyes that he was not mentally ill.
The fat man, who had now regained his sanity, looked quietly at Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu with a cold gaze. His jaws were still moving as he chewed on the last pieces of human flesh in his mouth. He swallowed them with a straight face. After clearing his throat, he gave them people a faint smile.
"Didn"t this lady ask me what would happen after eating the candies?" When the man spoke in his natural voice with a calm att.i.tude, Ji Shanqing almost couldn"t find a hint of similarity between his current and his previous sharp and ear-splitting voice.
"Well, this is what it does." When the fat man smiled, deep wrinkles appeared between the lumps of fat around his face. His eyes were immediately buried beneath the layers of fats. "My mental condition is temporarily normal now."
Pulling the corner of his owner"s clothes, Ji Shanqing took two steps back, stealthily. He let out a dry cough and asked, "You just ate human flesh."
Even though the short-haired woman was theoretically a duoluozhong. Her appearance and form was still of a normal woman.
"She eats human flesh too, doesn"t she? If she didn"t eat any human flesh, she wouldn"t have lasted. Since she is a cannibal, then she should also know that she could be eaten." The large fat man seemed to find his own statement very humorous. He c.o.c.ked his head and scrutinized Ji Shanqing, "In these two years, after the apocalypse, my mental condition has been erratic even after eating these cannibals, but, this is my first time seeing someone maintain his sanity without eating another human being. How do you do that? Why didn"t you starve to death?"
Ji Shanqing bit his lip and hesitated for a moment and repeated the story about him waking from a vegetative state. Surprisingly, the fat man immediately nodded.
"Ah. Although it"s hard to imagine, that seems like the most plausible explanation." Through the layers of fats on his face, the man stared at them with his opaque and yellowish pair of eyes. "Well, it"s not possible that you people just appear from another world."
He laughed. Noticing the odd change in Ji Shanqing"s expression, the fat man immediately pat his tummy and laughed harder. The piece of intestine-like flesh fell through his collar as his body shook as he laughed. He waved his tubby hands, "What"s that expression? Don"t worry. I won"t lay my hands on you two. After all, if both of you have not eaten any human flesh, you are of no use—"
"Of no use?" Ji Shanqing frowned, he was standing sideways as if he was prepared to run any time. "But why?"
"By now, you should more or less understand the situation, right?" the fat man flashed his bloodstained teeth in his b.l.o.o.d.y mouth, "Once those crypt particles escaped from the ground and proliferated through the atmosphere, almost everyone on Earth consumed some form of contaminated food within the first 24 hours and went crazy… a few billion lunatics. This world was almost destroyed. Atomic bombs were launched. Airplanes fell from the sky. There were traffic accidents on the streets. Even though I didn"t lose my mind that day, I couldn"t even count the number of accidents that happened that day. Those cannibals were lucky. Due to various reasons, they did not eat anything that day. They quickly realized that they could prevent themselves from going insane if they ate the flesh of the mentally ill humans.
"This isn"t the only residential area they use to gather the mentally ill. Is this the work of duoluozhongs? What is a duoluozhong? Oh… So, you people call the cannibals duoluozhong. That name is quite apt," the fat man lowered his eyelids and turned to look at the dead body of the short-haired woman that lay not far from them.
After the woman"s neck and chest cavity had been bitten to bits, she barely looked human. Ji Shanqing did not dare to look in the same direction. His gaze was fixed on the fat man.
The fat man suddenly chuckled and smacked his purple-red lips.
"In the beginning, it was the ca-- duoluozhongs" idea to gather all the contaminated food. This quickly became popular… More and more duoluozhongs stored the food they found here. They brought the mentally ill humans they found but had no appet.i.te to eat. Gradually, this place became their communal canteen.
"Unfortunately…" when the man said this, he lowered his head slightly. From his parted mouth, Ji Shanqing could see the man"s slightly pointy teeth covered in blood. Ji Shanqing did not know if those were just normal canine teeth, "They did not know of the existence of the types of lunatics like us.
"Just as the flesh of the mentally ill could filter the crypt particles. Duoluozhongs" flesh can also stabilize our mental condition. You asked me why. I don"t know. All the scientists are dead, hahaha!" the fat man suddenly laughed, "A residential area full of the lunatics, what could be a better place to attract duoluozhongs? They thought they came to harvest what they sowed, but they have no idea that they are our self-delivered food."
When he raised his head and burst out laughing, blood-tainted spittle flew out from his mouth and sweat dripped from his body. Ji Shanqing, who was a clean freak by nature, couldn"t help taking a step back.
"You mentioned that duoluozhongs" flesh only works temporarily," Ji Shanqing asked hesitantly, "So, when you are mentally unsound…"
"You"ve seen me when I am mentally unsound," the fat man opened his arms, his flabby arms started quivering, "To me, this is a perfect system. If I eat enough duoluozhongs, I will fully recover my sanity one day..."
Ji Shanqing did not notice what he did next. A light suddenly appeared in his hand, and a rectangular projected image suddenly appeared. In the projection, there were a group of excitable men and women dressed in red and blue clothes. They were outdoors and were playing some sort of variety show game. It was as if someone had switched on a projector and was showing a television programe.
Of course, there wasn"t anyone doing that, and there was also no projector.
"This means that the fat man is using a sort of evolved ability," in a split second, Ji Shanqing was overwhelmed by the various questions in his head. He was shocked and perplexed, "That person can"t be a posthuman! But, if he isn"t a posthuman, how could he develop an ability? Does this mean that if someone loses their ability temporarily, they will not be transported to another world?"
"Can you see this? It"s quite mysterious. It only appears when I am sane. When I first saw it, I thought I went completely insane," the fat man laughed again. This time, he eyed Lin Sanjiu, "Is she your sister? She has psychosis now, right?"
Ji Shanqing couldn"t even nod his head. The fat man was unfazed. He stuck his hand into the collar of his s.h.i.+rt and pulled out a slippery intestine after prying away his fats.
"Let her eat this," he held out the small intestine in his hand, "I will only be rea.s.sured if she joins our group."
"Your group?"
"We call ourselves, Jaegers," the fat man flashed a wide smile. "Look up."
Lin Sanjiu seemed to understand what the fat man said and looked up with Ji Shanqing. Pale, white faces slowly peered out from the windows of the ten-plus buildings around them. They were like white toadstools which had spouted from a dead black log. There weren"t many faces, but each of them stared at Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu.