Chapter 329: The Unexpected Meeting Between A Victim And A Perpetrator
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
“Doctor, please be careful, the road ahead is dark.”
A fat middle-aged man with a forehead covered in sweat said as he smiled ardently and gratefully. Meanwhile, the large octopus he was holding in his arms wobbled. The octopus flailed its arm slowly in the air as if it barely had the strength to move. When the fat man noticed the octopus moving, his spirit rose and he quickly offered, “If you are ever around, please come by!”
“Alright… You don’t have to accompany me,” the cat doctor quickly replied. The red bow tie on his neck looked slight off-color under the blue light. His small backpack looked a lot bulkier than before as it was filled with items. The posthuman who had sewn the bag for the cat had specifically designed it so that it was easy for the cat doctor to use. When the cat doctor pressed the straps of the backpack, it would automatically open and rotate to the front of his body so that he could conveniently grab any items from the bag.
The cat had received quite a few good Special Items from the fat man as payment for his consultation fee and the cat knew that this particular customer was rather generous. However, the cat doctor felt that he probably won’t ever walk pa.s.s here again.
“I’m leaving now. I hope your wife will recover soon.” Meowie gave two “humans” a little polite nod before he continued towards the Corpse Disposal Collection Point.
No matter how much he earned from that job, the cat preferred working on humans.
Following the directions from the fat man, Meowie Hu walked for at least half an hour before he arrived at a sector made of steel scaffoldings. The floor was made of a dense steel mesh which created net-shaped patterns on the cat’s paws. Even though the mesh flooring was st.u.r.dy, the cat doctor trod carefully, following the serial numbers as he walked toward his destination.
When Meowie heard some noise, his white paws suddenly stopped.
He could hear a faint squelching sound echoing through the dark, empty, steel scaffolding. After listening to it for some time, Meowie Hu still couldn’t figure out what that sound was. As the sound reverberated through the walls, he couldn’t even tell where it was coming from. After a few minutes, the sound disappeared without any warning, just as mysteriously as it had started.
Seagral Square was made of all sorts of strange structures, so it wasn’t all that extraordinary to hear some unusual sounds. The cat thought about it for a moment and continued toward the Corpse Disposal Collection Point.
He soon reached the particular resting spot where Lin Sanjiu and the two Souls were previously. A faint smell lingered in the air. It was so faint that humans might not detect it, but it was undoubtedly the smell of dead bodies.
“Oh!” Meowie Hu blurted delightedly once he sniffed that smell with his wet, pink nose. With that, he quickly sprinted behind the wall.
He had at least ten different experiments he wanted to conduct on those dead bodies. As a doctor who had basically learned on the job, he still hasn’t figured out some of the internal biological systems. Even if he couldn’t bring these corpses away immediately, he was satisfied just to cut open a body and familiarise himself with that feeling for just ten minutes.
The cat froze in his track when he saw the silhouette of a human amidst the darkness. As the cat also moved soundlessly, the human in a distance seemed unaware of the animal behind him or her. Meowie Hu stared at that person’s back and twitched his whiskers. He did not move and did not make a sound.
Somehow, even though he knew that humans couldn’t resist his charm, he was somehow hesitant to approach that person. He looked around and lowered his tail. Treading soundlessly, he hid behind a corner and peeked with only his eyes and ears showing.
The person was at the far corner and was standing extremely close to one of the large body bins. The person’s body was leaning forward as if he or she needed the support of the bin to even stand properly. Even though Meowie’s eyes were fully dilated, he still could not see that person’s face.
The person slowly lifted one of his arms with much effort and reached over to open the cover of the adjacent bin. His movements were… quite strange.
The bins behind him have all been opened. Meowie did not know if that man was the culprit. “Could this person be also searching for cadavers? ” Meowie thought to himself.
Meowie Hu certainly didn’t want the best cadavers to be taken away. Just as he was considering if he should approach that man, he saw a glove suddenly reaching out from the bin which the man was opening.
Perhaps, “reaching” wasn’t the right word. It sort of wobbled out of the bin. The soft, skin-colored glove wobbled out of the bin and slowly grew longer. It was then that Meowie Hu realized that that was not a glove because it was followed by the saggy skin of a forearm.
In a short span of time, the skin suit slipped to the group. It sort of flopped into a pile on the ground. The man with the weird body movements carried a dead body out from the bin with his stiff movements strenuously. It was a proper dead body. He threw that body at the sack of skin. The skin seemed to come alive and swallowed the body in a split second. Once again, there were those squelching sounds.
Meowie’s fur stood on end. As he was close to the origin of the sound, he finally knew what that sound resembled. It sounded like the sound of leather being stretched…
The pile of human suit disappeared in less than two minutes. After it “consumed” that body, the human suit slowly stood up, unsteadily.
The dead body belonged to a large bloke. After it had been swallowed by that human suit, all that remained was the stuff of nightmare fuel. The dead body was wearing another human face. Under the deformed eyeholes of that foreign human face, one could see the smashed in and destroyed features of the original dead body. As the foreign human face was not large enough, there were tears all over that piece of skin. Meanwhile, the substance within that dead body seemed to slowly disintegrate as if consumed from inside. From that opening, Meowie could see the contents of the dead body slowly melting away and filling up all the tears within the human suit and merging together with it.
The man seemed unfazed. When that man walked to another bin, the cat doctor saw that he was the same thing. However, that particular human suit was too large, so his skin gathered around all his joints. Thus, his movements were sluggish and his skin looked as if it would fall any second.
“Duoluozhong!” When those words surfaced in the cat doctor’s mind, the second human suit which had just been filled suddenly made a cold, buzzing sound. The cat felt his heart palpitating. He quickly stood up but it was late.
“There’s someone,” the second person suddenly said with a dry, cracked voice. The cat doctor felt a black shadow looming overhead, it was heading directly toward its face. He quickly covered his face…
When that human skin with an intense stench touched his fur, Meowie Hu knew that he was in trouble. That thing did not seem to be corrosive, yet, for some reason, he could feel that the fur on his back was melting into that human skin.
As he let out a terrified meow, Meowie Hu scrambled to press the straps of his backpack. The backpack which had been slightly corroded swung to the front of the cat’s chest.
Everything was black. The cat had already been wrapped by the human skin. The human skin slowly tightened around him. The cat doctor didn’t know what he managed to grab in this frantic situation. After some clattering sounds, his paw touched an item with a hard surface.
[Tomb Raider 2]
Run, Lara!
This is a Special Item with a description that seems off. The selling point of this game series is its female protagonist who explore various tombs. It had once been very popular. When it became a Special Item, it retained some features of the game.
Feature 1: No matter what kind of explosion or destruction erupts behind the user, no matter how bad the path is in front of the user, the user will always be able to escape.
Feature 2: Even if the user is buried under tiles and concrete or swallowed by a sandstorm, the user will always be able to climb out of it.
Feature 3: When the user is running, no bullet will hit the user.
Note: There is another series from the movie franchise which can ensure that the protagonist won’t die. However, as it is too valuable, people usually just die from fighting over it.
Meowie Hu took a large breath of air. After struggling and regaining his freedom, Meowie Hu didn’t care how many red crystals he dropped while he ran away at full speed with his four legs.
To Meowie’s knowledge, though it was difficult to escape from duoluozhongs, his pursuers seemed slow. Perhaps, they still need some time to get used to their bodies. The two wobblings human suits chased after the cat doctor but soon fell further and further away from him.
Meowie threw a quick glance behind him and did not even dare to slow down for a second. He sprinted into an elevator and smashed the elevator’s b.u.t.ton rapidly. The door closed and the elevator slowly rose. Through the gla.s.s walls of the elevator, the cat watched as the two duoluozhongs wobbled and stopped some distance away. It was only then that he finally lay flat on the ground.
“What’s with that?” After some time, the cat doctor noticed and rearranged his untidy bow. “The invaders in Red Nautilus had died out long ago. Why would there suddenly be duoluozhongs?”
However, there was no one in the elevator and, naturally, he couldn’t get an answer. The cat rummaged through his backpack and took note of his losses. Suddenly, the elevator stopped and made a “ding” sound.
When the door open, a group of normal-looking posthumans walked into the elevator. There were around ten people in the group and they seemed to know each other. When they entered the elevator, they were talking to each other and did not seem to notice the cat in the corner of the elevator.
The cat doctor let out a sigh of relief. He was certainly scared by them but how could they be like those previous duoluozhongs.
But, his ears perked up when he heard their conversation.
“So, our queen want us to rush to the port?” a woman donning a scarf said softly.