“It’s fine, you should rest and get better soon.” Jing nodded to indicate that she wouldn't be afraid, then she laid down on the bed. She closed her eyes even though she felt worried.
“The blood stain on the woven bag smells terrible. Do you want me to take it out of the room?” Before they went to bed, Pang Zi noticed the bloody odor from the bags they used today.
“Just leave them there first, I’ll take them out tomorrow.” Qing Shui restrained Pang Zi, “Go sleep.”
“Okay,” Pang Zi didn’t say much either as he climbed on his own bed.
After settling down everyone in the room, Qing Shui took out the pills that he brought from the hospital today. He hunkered down and spoke in low voice, “Anti-inflammatory pills and antibiotics. You still need to be careful even though your body is stronger now. Take them and get some good rest.”
Qing Shui laid back on his bed as he made sure Chang swallowed the pills.
Chang didn’t take the pills at first as he stared at the little pills feebly. He put them in his mouth without reading any words on the instructions. The foggy world attracted all of his attention.
Later, the night had fully descended.
This night was especially long for a sleepless person; Chang silently counted numbers in his mind to pass the boredom. He kept doing so until his internal clock told him that the time had approached midnight and everyone’s breath became regular. Chang got out of bed without making any sound. He took out a knife from under his pillow and cautiously walked barefooted to the slumbering mother and son.
Chang’s footsteps were so soft and gentle that he couldn't even notice his own movement. This move helped him approach his target without exposing himself, not to mention that his targets were asleep.
However, he was still extremely nervous. Although he already knew how to regulate his emotions and mind, the sourness in his mouth sold out his nervousness.
It was indeed the first time he would kill someone in a calm state. The last time he killed a human was to save Jing. When those thugs made a long cut on Jing’s face with their dagger, he just couldn't repress his rage and killed them. He didn’t feel anything special during the process aside from a slight pleasure. He behaved without any senses when he was furious.
However, this time was different. Chang wasn't angry at all; his mind was peaceful even though he his body was tense. He knew exactly what he was going to do – kill them with the sharp knife, even though they were defenseless and completely vulnerable.
Chapter 52: Hesitation
Chang carefully crept over to the front of their bunk bed, but he wasn’t even able to raise the knife as he gazed at their unruffled faces.
Somehow, this scenario and his hesitation were constantly pushing him to be more decisive as it was the right timing.
“If I were living in a web novel, I would definitely be an incompetent protagonist; I can’t even kill someone who’s totally vulnerable.” Chang smiled mockingly. He forced himself to think of their shameless behavior as if he was hypnotizing himself to feel better and to be more decisive.
From the beginning, they occupied the beds unfairly and accused him as a murderer; they even threatened him to share his food, and the look of them as they chomped greedily…
This recollection eased Chang’s guilt towards killing the mother and son, as he was no longer anxious. Chang stood tiptoed, and his right hand holding the knife passed through the gap between the rail and the bed. He confirmed the position of the son’s neck by touching the pillow with his left hand. He then covered the son’s mouth swiftly, and the knife followed the momentum and made a deep cut.
It was only an instant, and it was a simple process.
Chang only felt four sensations before the son was dead: first was the warm exhalation when he covered the son’s mouth, and second was the sensation of breaking strings when he cut through the muscle of the son’s neck – it was the same feeling from when he cut off the bullfrog’s tongue, but it was much easier this time. The third was the light trembling and convulsion of the son’s body, and the last was a spring of warmth covering both his hands – it was blood.
These four things happening in less than 20 seconds, and thus a person had died. The time he used was less than one-hundredth of the time he waited in the dark. 25 years of the son’s existence was erased in such a short amount of time.
Destruction was always much easier than creation.
Perhaps the slight shaking from the upper bed affected the lower bed, but the mother opened her eyes fuzzily.
The same moment she opened her eyes, she only saw the upper body of a man with a grim face. The next second, the coldness and pain on her neck made her breathing more difficult.
Chang stabbed the knife into the mother’s throat. He finally witnessed the whole process of him killing a person as the mother was sleeping on the lower bed.
The knife went into her neck smoothly and the blade landed on the most fragile and vital part of the neck without any obstructions. Chang didn’t even glance at the knife because he knew the woman would die from this. The reason that he didn’t look at the knife was simple; his attention was caught on her eyes – he never knew the expression in a person’s eyes could change this quickly.
As the knife buried into her neck, Chang saw the confusion in her eyes, and her panic came after. He read her baffled expression after three seconds – at the forth second, the change in her eyes was complicated.
In that one fleeting moment, her fear was the most obvious emotion. As if she thought of something, her fear was covered by sincere pleading.
Her mouth was wide open and she made her greatest effort to say something, but only a deep groaning could be heard. Her limbs clutched together and her hands were waving as if she was catching something in the air. She seemed to want to express something, but the knife in her throat and the gushing blood refrained her from doing so. The mother stared at Chang deeply, conveying her thoughts and hopes by her eyes and mouth.
Perhaps Chang was stunned by the expression in her eyes, or perhaps it was his first time concentrating so hard on killing a person, but Chang involuntarily tried to distinguish what her wish was.
“Pl…Plea…se…” the first word wasn’t surprising at all; she was begging for something.
“Don.. don’t… kill… m…” Another few words didn’t affect his feeling either.
“M…my….so….son…” These were her last words.
The whole sentence put together was, “Please, don’t kill my son.” His mind went blank as if he was pulled out from reality. Whatever he saw became blurry, and his stomach convulsed. The hand that was holding the knife started shaking violently.
While his mind wandered away, the son’s blood finally permeated through his bed and a big drop of blood splashed on the mother’s face.
It really was a big drop of blood.
It covered her whole face.
The blood made her eyes red.
“No…” When this drop of blood smeared her eyes, her expression changed again as she realized the situation on the upper bed. She no longer pleaded; her pupils contracted in an instant and her body struggled violently as if she was using her last strength to get the anger and desperation out of her chest. The blood in her throat even dribbled from the corner of her mouth. All the effort she made resulted in a shriveled and weak yet emotional scream.
“No—” the brief and quiet scream was later covered by the bubbling sound from her throat. Her pupils began to dilate after she lost her persistence – but during the whole process, her uplifted hands never withdrew from the air.
“Er…” Chang could not hold on any longer after the scream, he was extremely nauseous and threw up as if he was letting out all of his guilt.
The whole dorm was awakened and they witnessed this horrible and pathetic scene.
However, the first one who recovered from the stunning scene and got off the bed was the person who didn’t sleep at all. He walked to Chang an
d patted on Chang’s shoulder, and glanced at the person who was also awakened – Dr. Huang.
“You woke her up, we need to…”
“Don’t, don’t touch me! Don’t ask me to kill someone again!” Chang pushed away Qing Shui’s hand and he almost emptied his stomach. He slumped onto the ground and the expression of the mother pleading him kept flashing back into his mind.
Chang suddenly realized that even though the mother was impudent and shameless, she was merely a mother, like his own. She was a living person and a mother. She was evil in some sense, but she certainly didn’t deserve death. In her last moment, her biggest reaction was not begging for life, but instead motherly love.
……
Qing Shui stood beside Chang for a few seconds, and he then gave up on comforting Chang. He opened the door to observe if anyone noticed the events in the room. After confirming that no one heard or saw the events that occurred, he went back into the room and wrapped their dead bodies using the bed sheets. He then stuffed the bodies into two woven bags and he called Jing.
“Come, I need you to help me look for somewhere that has no traces of human. We need to throw them out.”
“Uh,” Jing nodded feebly. She looked at Chang, and then she turned to the doctor who was shaking on the bed fearfully, and finally jumped off the bed.
In the icy wind and under the dim moonlight, Qing Shui carried one bag on each side of his shoulders and went out with Jing.
Chapter 53: Confession
As Qing Shui and Jing went out of the room, Chang gradually felt better, and his stomach stopped twitching. He wiped off the residue beside his mouth and stood up from the ground.
Chang took the broom and cleaned up his vomit, and then returned to his bed.
“Don't be afraid, I won’t kill you.” Chang rubbed his blood-covered hands against each other and tried to comfort the doctor who was trembling in fear on the corner of her bed.
“Trust me, he won’t kill you.” Pang Zi accompanied Chang to calm the doctor. He made his voice softer, but at the same time justified himself, “They threatened us, so that's what they deserved! I was wondering the whole day why you gave them our food; I would’ve never guessed your plan until I saw it now!”
Pang Zi patted on Chang’s shoulder with joy.
“I’m just not used to this…” Chang shook his head as if he was shaking away the expression of the woman during her final moment; he went up to the water tank and rinsed off the blood on his hands and knife.
While Chang was cleaning himself up, Qing Shui and Jing came back with empty hands. He stood beside Chang and rinsed his hands along with Chang.
“I’m sorry for what happened just now; I got too emotional…” Chang cracked a difficult smile.
“Don't worry about that, you did much better than I expected.” Qing Shui shook off the water on his hands and grinned at Chang, “It wasn't you first time, was it?”
“No, it’s my second time.” Chang scratched his palm to remove the thick blood. “This time I’m calmer, but the thoughts in my mind were chaotic.”
“Don't think too much, you really did a good job,” Qing Shui praised again.
“But I woke the doctor,” Chang rubbed on the back of his hands.
“Chang, think about this; no one can sleep tightly at the moment, and there’s no way that you can keep her asleep unless you drug her.” Qing Shui chuckled, “Even if she hadn’t woken up by then, the noise I made when moving the bodies was also loud. At that time, even the fine blood gushing sound could awaken the entire room, so stop thinking too much. You’re a really sensitive person.”
“It wasn't me being too sensitive, but rather that those thoughts seemed to come from thin air; I just have to sort them out.” Chang finally cleaned up the blood stain and turned his back.
“There is only one thing I need to tell you – everything you do is to survive in this cruel world!”
To survive!
Somehow Qing Shui’s word freed him from his worries. They were more useful than any polished persuasions. Chang laid down and let Qing Shui’s words wander in his mind; he didn’t even look at how Qing Shui was proposing the “secret deal” with the doctor, nor did he take care of Jing, who he was always concerned about. He was so relaxed that he fell asleep almost at the same moment his head touched the pillow.
He slept until the next morning.
When Chang opened his eyes, he realized this was his first time that he slept through the morning since the red fog. The fog had already brightened up by the sun light; he knew it was almost noon.
As he suddenly sat up, the first person he noticed was Qing Shui.
“Finally, you woke up.”
“Yeah.”
“Something went wrong.”
“What happened?”
“That doctor sold us out,” Qing Shui pointed at the door.
“How do you know?” Chang’s heart sunk, and he bounced up from the bed.
“I feel it.” Qing Shui’s index finger knocked on the bed beam. “She seemed strange since last night, and then she smiled to me when she went out of the room. It was weird, because it was the first time she ever smiled as I remember.”
“It must be a fake smile!” Qing Shui rubbed his hair, “and that fake smile must mean that she’s hiding something!”
The door opened again as Qing Shui spoke, and several armed soldiers walked in – the one who brought them over was the doctor.
“Someone reported to us that you murdered your roommates, and we also found pieces of nails and hair with blood around the courtyard.” The leader was the captain that they had met several times. He frowned, “I don't need any explanation because we are soldiers, not policemen or judges. We have confirmed that the corpses were the residents of this room; they also went missing this morning, therefore you are under great suspicion.”
The captain seemed reluctant, “Forgive me, but we really don't have time to investigate. Since you were reported and are the only suspects, we have no other choice but to deport you. Even if this might be unjust, this is the only thing we can do to protect the base.”
“We understand.” Qing Shui nodded as the captain said, he didn’t continue on the topic but turned to the doctor, “Why did you do this to us?”
“I was only looking out for myself; I’m afraid I would be killed by one of you while I was asleep.” The doctor’s face returned to a dull look, but this time it was mixed with grim.
“I’ve told you already that we won’t kill you.” Chang was baffled.
“Hahaha, why would I believe in you? To be honest, I don't trust you at all, nor what you have said.” The doctor stepped forward, “Each one of you is pretending; you shared food to us in the afternoon and then you killed them at night! What else could you not have done?”
“And you, you’re Chang, right? Don't look at me with those innocent eyes! None of you are innocent, I knew it the first day we met.” The doctor became louder as she spoke, as if she was venting out her anger and grievances, but it might’ve also been a channel for her to express her fear these days. “Since the first day, you were taking the beds that didn’t belong to you! That family took three bed for four people and you were much greedier than them, you took four beds! Have you ever thought of how there was only one bed should for my family?”
“You were even able to fall asleep with peace in your mind. How dare you pretend that you are being nice to me? I bet you never thought of giving one of your beds to my parents when they were dying!” Her voice was desperate, “Maybe you have thought of giving out one bed to us… but there must’ve been some other reason or excuse that you used to make yourself feel better for not giving your bed. Humans are selfish, I didn't blame you, so don't blame me for making such a decision today either.”
“I have no sense of security in staying together with you all, so I reported you. After you leave the base, you might not even have a shelter and be eaten by some monsters. Of course, you might be able to go through the f
irst night, but what about the second…” The doctor’s voice was getting lower and lower, and her expressionless face returned. “But who cares about that? The only thing I want is to sleep here safely…”
Her voice became quieter as the door was opened again suddenly. Jing, Pang Zi and Lin were detained back to the room.
Looking at Jing and Pang Zi, Qing Shui was disappointed, “Captain, could you please let us stay in the base? We have meat, a lot of meat. It can be used to save someone’s life, perhaps that could cancel out part of our crime…”
Qing Shui pointed at the barrels, but the captain was obviously not persuaded.
“Like this, we can hunt. We only ask for a shelter to stay in and we will hand a part of the food we obtain to the military…”
The words made the captain raise his brows, but he still shook his head determinedly.
Qing Shui understood how important it was to maintain the stability in the base from the captain’s attitude. He heaved a long sigh and took a deep breath as he said, “Well, we are EMs.”
*EM refers to person with special ability, who also gained ability from encephalon mutation.
Chapter 54: Decision
“You’re an EM?” The captain frowned as Qing Shui confessed; his eyes clearly revealed a look of disbelief.
“Yes, an EM in the cognitive category. I can calculate that your breath frequency is 17.5 per minutes and your heartbeat is 85 per minute, just based on your last breath. And from how you’re standing and talking now, I know that your pulse is a little bit slower than your heartbeat, because you have light cardiac dysrhythmia.” Qing Shui stood with his hands behind his back. “This is something I learned from your physical condition; it’s easy to prove whether I’m lying or not just by having your body checked.”
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