Chapter 94: Return to the Jungle
Translator: Letty Editor: DarkGem
Scrambling up from the shattered wardrobe, Chang was dizzy. He ignored his physical discomfort, gaping at the strange soldier and Jing.
The last shot was fired by intuition, since he was struck on the face and blown away by the force, completely losing his balance and sense of direction. A shower of wood fragments and a collapsed wood panel blocked his view. He merely relied on his calculations before the fall into the wardrobe.
Fortunately, the shot hit the target.
However, although the shot was right on the soldier’s chest, it didn’t cause enough damage. In a few seconds, the creature would stand up again. Its chest bone had slightly collapsed, judging from a shallow indent in his chest. A hole was burnt in its uniform, revealing a blood-soaked spider silk bulletproof vest, as well as flesh and blood.
“What the h.e.l.l… This monster is also wearing a bulletproof vest?” Upon seeing it, he raised his handgun again.
However, the creature had tasted the power of the handgun. Before Chang had raised his arm, it had darted aside.
The creature was agile. It was slower than a bullet, but still able to move before Chang could act.
In other words, Chang had lost his target before he had even tried to aim. And when he recalibrated his direction, the creature had left his range already.
After a few tries, Chang realized that shooting the creature was an impossible mission. The creature had also thoroughly understood the lethality of the handgun and didn’t dare to rashly approach Chang, either. Even though comparing to it, Chang was slower, but getting closer to him would still be a dangerous action.
The dynamic confrontation only lasted for a few seconds with one constantly pointing and the other dodging. Jing’s scream broke the deadlock.
“Chang! Run! Run! Another one is coming!”
Her voice filled the room, but soon it was replaced by the same heavy footsteps as those that the creature before them had, getting closer up the stairs. Chang quickly glanced at Jing as though he saw the other creature breaking into the room. His ability apprised him that the coming creature would enter the room in two seconds, and he wouldn’t have a chance to get away if he were to face two gene-altered soldiers.
Without further consideration, Chang looked briefly at Jing, then made a cruel decision as Qing Shui would do—he escaped the room without Jing.
Hesitation signified losing the chance to flee. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to take Jing with him since she was in the opposite corner. The backup soldier would catch them both if he were to grab Jing.
The consequences of such a decision were to be avoided.
If both of them were captured, Jing would have no chance of escaping at all. Chang’s decision wasn’t cold-blooded but rational—because the creature had caught Jing in the air instead of briskly smas.h.i.+ng her, he knew that its mission was to capture and not exterminate.
Therefore, his abandonment was uneasy but the burden of protecting Jing was lifted.
Knowing that the odds were against him, putting up a desperate fight to rescue Jing was a meaningless sacrifice.
It wasn’t a struggle to choose, and he knew that Qing Shui would have done the same.
Chang broke the window as he sprang up.
He and Jing had hid on the top-level of a seventeen floor apartment. As Chang rapidly descended, the creature was about to go down in pursuit, but was forced back by three resounding gunshots.
Diving through the air, Chang regretted that he’d made a wrong choice for their safe house. Even if his body was enhanced, the force of gravity acceleration would only make every piece of his bone crack if he was lucky. Fortunately, he spotted an area with an abundance of trees.
As if he was swimming, he adjusted his descent so that he fell onto the trees. His landing struck the branches, which cus.h.i.+oned his fall. Although he ended up on the ground on his back, he successfully avoided dying from the crash.
“Ah!” The hard contact with the ground made him groan. But he took a deep breath and picked himself up as soon as he found the pain on the back become bearable. He scurried away so that the troop wouldn’t catch him.
The red fog softly floating in the air like it always did, making the figures of the coming troop dim. He bypa.s.sed them and disappeared at the end of the street.
At the same time, the creature stood still by the window, staring at the mysterious red fog. As soon as it lost sight of Chang, it lost the sense of where he fled to as well. It turned around and stood by Jing, matching the other gene-altered soldier.
Five minutes later, a man and a woman walked in. The man was tall and stout, whereas the woman had a distinct hooknose.
The hooknosed woman inspected the room, and her glance ended on Jing. She asked, “One just ran away?”
“Ah.” The creature nodded.
“How did he run away? It doesn’t make sense, I thought you guys were good at this.” The woman tiptoed, carefully observing the creatures wrinkled eyes. “Besides, how did you get hurt?”
“Ah… hurt...” The creature frowned even though it had no eyebrows. It stared at its own chest as if it was just as confused. But it said nothing more.
“There is no point asking them, madam. The intelligence of these gene-altered soldiers is low, they can’t understand complicated phrases.” The tall man walked up, saying, “Instead, maybe that little girl can tell us something.
“Am I right?” The tall man turned to Jing and lifted her up as if she was as light as a feather. “Tell me, where did he go?”
Jing turned her head away, firmly pressing her lips as she pa.s.sed over his question.
“Manguang, put her down. Zhuo said that we need to treat them nicely.” The hooknosed woman took away Jing and let her stand on the ground. “We just missed one, and that’s not a big deal. It was a hard battle for him to escape from these boys. Look at the shattered wardrobe and the marks on the wall, he must have been crashed into the furniture.
“And that means he was injured, maybe not severely but at least it will slow him down. He won’t be able to run too far. As long as I am still here, who needs to worry about losing track of him?” The hooknosed woman grinned as she spoke. “We still have these gene-altered soldiers, and I am still leading the troop. I think we only need one more try, and he’ll become a bird in a cage.”
As Chang hurtled along the street, wind stroked his face. It was hurting badly as if on fire. The left hook had destroyed the right side of his face completely, and he lost half of his teeth. It was his worst injury ever since his whole right face had collapsed without the support of bones and teeth and the skin drooped and sw.a.n.g as he ran. However, ten minutes later, his condition worsened. The injured side became swollen, as if the droopy skin was a deflated balloon being slowly refilled by a hyperemic response. Thus, now his face looked like an unusual-sized bun. It was also pressing against his right eye, resulting in the loss of half of his vision, This sudden change made him feel dizzy.
“I need some sort of treatment for my face...” Chang ripped off a long piece of cloth from the bottom of his s.h.i.+rt, wrapping his head with it and leaving only his left eye out.
“If I don’t get treatment soon, it will become a permanent problem. But I don’t have time to find a doctor, either.” He struggled with thoughts colliding in his mind. “As long as they are still tailing me, I will be caught once I stop for treatment. I have to exterminate them to gain some peace...”
Chang’s palm covered his swollen face, and he was also filled with sorrow over losing Jing. A hint of resoluteness filled his eyes.
“You’ve been giving me trouble, now I shall let you taste the bitterness…”
Upon making up his mind, Chang dashed towards the jungle on the east side of the city.