Cats are about the upper size limit of feline creatures that can be kept as pets by humans.
Among animals of similar size, cats rank near the top in fighting ability.
A human simply can’t match a cat’s speed.
Jiang Cheng swung the stick—and only felt a sudden weight in her hands and a blur before her eyes.
Moli had pushed off the stick with his paws and, like lightning, brushed past Jiang Cheng’s face, lunging toward something behind her.
Right behind her came the sound of a body falling to the ground and a roar.
Jiang Cheng whipped around in horror.
Pinned to the ground by Moli was the security guard—the same guard who had somehow come out of the building and gotten behind her!
She had left the glass door open when she charged out earlier. It was still ajar.
But hadn’t the guard been dead?
Then Jiang Cheng understood. The killing intent she had sensed from Moli wasn’t directed at her.
This little black cat was trying to save her!
The security guard let out the same hoarse, raspy roar as the mutated neighbor. He rolled on the ground, flipped over, knelt up, and grabbed the black cat with both hands—then bit down hard!
Jiang Cheng, who had managed to stay calm from the moment she first saw the mutated neighbor, finally broke. She screamed, “No—”
The guard turned his head back toward her. His eyes were pitch black. His skin had a gray-green, bruised tinge.
Dripping from his mouth were bits of fur, flesh, and blood—the remnants of the little black cat.
Jiang Cheng felt a chill run through her entire body.
So her neighbor’s mutation wasn’t an isolated case.
In that instant, her mind flashed through everything: the hallway where she had screamed for help yet no one opened their door, the unanswered emergency and property management calls, the silent roads.
Even she herself had only just woken up from a feverish unconsciousness.
She began to understand, dimly, that something terrifying was happening. People hadn’t fully awakened yet.
But not everyone who woke up would still be human.
She had just killed one monster—and now another monster had been born.
Both of them still had warm bodies. But with a living, breathing human as large as Jiang Cheng radiating the sweet scent of flesh and blood, the little black cat held no attraction for the guard.
The guard threw Moli aside and tried to stand up.
All these thoughts flashed through Jiang Cheng’s mind in just a few seconds.
From the guard falling to the ground, grabbing Moli, biting him, throwing him aside, and trying to stand up—all of that took only a few seconds.
The distance from the building’s glass door to the top step was only about five or six paces. With long enough arms, someone leaning forward could reach Jiang Cheng easily.
So Jiang Cheng had no time to hesitate. The moment she understood that Moli hadn’t been attacking her but saving her, the moment she saw that the security guard had mutated into a monster—she swung the stick without hesitation, like hitting a baseball, aiming straight for the guard’s head!
But she had miscalculated.
Her neighbor had been killed only after his arms, legs, and bones were already injured. But this security guard had all four limbs intact.
The guard turned his head and bit down on the wooden stick, then grabbed it with both hands and swung it around. A tremendous force yanked the stick from Jiang Cheng’s grip. She was standing right at the edge of the steps, and the ground was slick with the neighbor’s brain matter. She lost her footing, stumbled backward, and tumbled down the stairs.
Fortunately, from the building entrance to the ground was only six steps—a gentle slope. The fall hurt, but she hadn’t lost the ability to move.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Jiang Cheng rolled over. When she looked up, the guard was still biting the mop stick.
His teeth had actually embedded themselves into the wood. He pulled hard, yanking the stick out of his mouth—and pulling out several of his own teeth along with it. He tossed it aside casually. The stick spun through the air and landed somewhere in the distance with a clatter.
The guard’s pitch-black eyes “looked” at Jiang Cheng at the bottom of the steps. He took two steps forward.
After mutating, these monsters grew stronger—but their limbs became less coordinated. The neighbor had broken his own wrists and arms because he couldn’t slow down in time.
The guard tried to walk down the stairs but couldn’t keep his balance. He fell straight off the steps.
Jiang Cheng was already running for her life. Without a weapon, she—an unarmed young woman—stood no chance against a mutated monster.
She sprinted toward where the stick had landed. When she picked it up, calm and courage returned to her body.
She turned around. The security guard was stumbling after her—his running posture just as unsteady as the neighbor’s.
Jiang Cheng gripped the stick firmly, standing her ground, her body tensed.
The moment the guard lunged at her, she dodged nimbly and swung the stick hard against the back of his head!
The guard collapsed to the ground. Jiang Cheng stepped forward and struck the back of his head repeatedly with the stick.
The guard actually tried to push himself back up—nothing like a normal human, who would be dazed and unable to rise after one blow to the head.
Fortunately, the “strength of an emergency” was no joke.
After a few strikes, each one knocked the guard back down just as he was getting up.
Finally, after several hits, the guard’s skull shattered. Just as his hand grabbed Jiang Cheng’s ankle, she gripped the stick with both hands, held it upright, and plunged it into his brain—stirring it around.
The monster finally lost its drive, becoming a corpse.
Jiang Cheng stepped on the guard’s head and yanked the stick out.
But one of her ankles was still firmly clamped in the guard’s iron-like grip. She had to crouch down and use considerable effort to pry his fingers open and free her ankle.
By now, she had abandoned the idea of going to the property management office to find people.
She realized that a terrifying mutation had spread over an alarming area. Her neighbors, the property management, perhaps even the entire city—all might be affected. Mutated monsters could be anywhere, including the management office.
Nowhere was safe.
She decided to go back. Under these circumstances, returning to her own apartment and locking the door was the safest option.
And Moli—she had to get back and check on the little black cat.
That little black cat had saved her life.
If Moli hadn’t pounced when he did, the security guard—standing silently just a few steps behind her—would have lunged and bitten her to death immediately.
Little black cat, don’t die!
But just then, she heard a girl’s scream: “Help! Help! Aaaaaah—”
Jiang Cheng paused, her foot halfway toward the building.
She couldn’t ignore a girl crying for help. The youth apartment community had fewer female residents than male, but the selling point of the development was building a community of young people. Most residents were young, around her age.
Jiang Cheng ran toward the sound, entering the community garden.
Under the streetlight, she saw a man pinning a girl to the ground. At first glance, it looked like an assault.
But it wasn’t.
He was tearing at her flesh—biting her!
A mutated monster!
Jiang Cheng swung her stick and knocked the man off the girl. Without pausing to check on the bloodied girl, she raised the stick and brought it down on the man’s head again and again—until she heard the sound of his skull cracking.
That sound was like music to her ears.
It meant she had destroyed another monster.
Sure enough, after a few more strikes, with his skull shattered and brain matter spilling out, the monster stopped moving.
But Jiang Cheng didn’t dare relax. Who knew if monsters could come back to life? In some horror movies, demons and monsters could revive repeatedly, impossible to kill for good.
Jiang Cheng summoned every ounce of her strength and brought the stick down one last time with a brutal swing.
Crack—the stick snapped in two. The broken piece bounced back and nearly hit her.
The mop stick wasn’t made of good wood, but it wasn’t thin either. Before today, Jiang Cheng would never have believed she could snap a mop stick in half with her own strength.
Come to think of it, human skulls shouldn’t break that easily either.
Had she grown stronger? Or had human bones become more brittle after mutation?
There was no time to investigate. She tossed aside the broken half of the stick and hurriedly checked on the girl on the ground.
The girl’s shoulder was mangled, torn to shreds. Trembling from pain and terror, she gasped and sobbed, tears streaming down her face.
“Can you get up?” Jiang Cheng tried to pull her.
But the girl seemed unable to rise. She gasped rapidly and begged, “Call an ambulance! Ambulance! Please save me!”
But the surroundings were still silent. Still no sound of cars from the road.
That meant Jiang Cheng, the three mutated monsters, and this injured girl were among the first wave of people to wake up. Most people hadn’t awakened yet.
The world was still silent, still brewing.
No one knew whether the next person to wake up would be human or monster. The longer she stayed outdoors, the more dangerous it became.
She let go of the girl.
The girl screamed, “Don’t go! Don’t leave! Save me!”
Driven by the fear of being abandoned, the girl actually managed to push herself up into a sitting position.
But Jiang Cheng wasn’t leaving her behind. She walked over to the monster she had just killed, crouched down, and started stripping off its clothes.
The man had been wearing a shirt. Jiang Cheng yanked it open, popping all the buttons. She pulled the shirt off the corpse, turned back, folded it into a long strip, and crouched down beside the girl. “Lift your arm.”
Seeing the girl crying, tears and snot streaming down her face, Jiang Cheng simply grabbed her arm, passed the shirt strip under her armpit, and tied it tightly around the wound on her shoulder to stop the bleeding.
Her shoulder had been gnawed to shreds. Jiang Cheng knew it hurt terribly, but she wouldn’t die immediately. Stopping the bleeding was the urgent priority—she had already lost too much blood.
The girl struggled in panic, partly from pain and partly from fear. “What are you doing? No! What if it gets infected? Just call me an ambulance! Please, call an ambulance!”
“Shut up and listen!” Jiang Cheng cut off her cries. “I don’t know what’s happening, but everyone was unconscious. I called the police and property management—no one answered. Everyone should still be unconscious. Listen—there aren’t even any cars on the road.”
“You and I woke up early. But not everyone who wakes up will still be human. Some people turn into these monsters.”
Pitch-black eyes, gray-green skin. Enormous strength.
They had poor balance, as if they hadn’t fully mastered their bodies yet.
“This is the third monster I’ve killed!”
“There are still many people who haven’t woken up. We don’t know if they’ll be monsters when they do.”
“We have to get back inside right now. Being outdoors is unpredictable—someone else could wake up and mutate at any moment. We need to get back to a room immediately!”
The girl was stunned into silence, her eyes wide.
Yes—she had just seen it. The person who attacked her like a wild beast really did have changed eye and skin color.
And she herself had only just woken up after passing out in the garden in the evening.
Everything Jiang Cheng said was true.
“Th-then…” she stammered.
Jiang Cheng finished tying the knot, stopping the bleeding. “I’m going back. You need to get up and go home. Be careful.”
The girl grabbed her. “I can’t get up. C-can you help me?”
She wasn’t faking it. The pain was unbearable. The monster had bitten her savagely—the ground where she had been lying was littered with bits of shredded flesh, too horrible to look at. Terrifying and disgusting.
The bone of her shoulder was exposed. She had lost a lot of blood and was feeling dizzy.
Jiang Cheng hooked her arm under the girl’s uninjured side and pulled her up.
But the girl’s legs trembled and buckled from the pain, blood loss, and fear. She begged Jiang Cheng, “Can you walk me to my place?”
Jiang Cheng asked, “Which building are you in?”
The girl gave her building number.
It wasn’t the same building as Jiang Cheng’s, and the two buildings were separated by the garden. At this moment, the garden was like some unknown monster’s lair—at any moment, a biting monster could leap out of any shadow.
Jiang Cheng thought for a second and made a decision. “You’re coming with me. To my place.”
She lifted the girl’s uninjured arm, ducked her head underneath, and used her shoulder to support the girl as they headed toward her building. “It would be too dangerous for me to go to your place and then come back. Come to my apartment first. Let’s worry about everything else later—right now we need to get inside.”
The girl understood the priorities. “Okay. Let’s go to your place!”
But even with Jiang Cheng supporting her, every step jostled her body, sending waves of pain through her wound. She gasped, trembled, her legs weak.
Jiang Cheng dragged her toward her own building.
Somewhere over there, a little black cat lay, its fate unknown.
Please don’t die!
TOC | More chapters later
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