The three of them lifted the blue tarp and stepped out of the arcade room.
Wu Dahai reached up and pulled down the rolling shutter. "Old Huang, don't blame me, alright? I'm just a wage slave in the organization. The rules are set by the big shots."
Qing Ling was standing silently by the roadside outside.
"Qing Ling? Or Qing Ling?" Gao Yang asked cautiously.
"Qing Ling." She turned to look at him. "Did you win?"
"Yeah." Gao Yang gave a wry smile. "But that was just the warm-up. There's a second test."
Qing Ling didn't look surprised at all. "I figured as much."
"So I was the only idiot who thought winning the game would be enough?" Officer Huang sounded genuinely hurt.
"Honestly, whether you're good at games or not doesn't matter at all. The real point was to test your patience—and to get a read on your character. Our organization doesn't judge people solely by strength." Wu Dahai rubbed his nose proudly.
"Since we passed the character test," Gao Yang asked, "does that mean the next part is about actual power?"
"Obviously. We don't recruit scrubs. Anyone whose talent sequence number isn't in the top 100 gets an automatic pass."
Gao Yang's heart sank. Isn't that exactly me? Looks like I'll have to bluff my way through this one. Worst case, let Qing Ling and Old Huang join first. I can just idle and farm luck points slowly. Once I've got enough, I can awaken a new talent. No rush.
"This thing… can I take it?" A hoarse, elderly voice came from not far away.
Gao Yang turned and saw an old man—clothes ragged, back hunched, carrying a filthy trash basket on his back and holding a rusty pair of fire tongs in his hand.
The old man was standing next to Officer Huang's police car, pointing the tongs at an empty cola bottle on the hood. "If you don't want it, can I have it?" he asked again.
"Oh, sure, no problem." Officer Huang walked over enthusiastically, poured out the last few drops of cola, crushed the bottle flat with his bare hands, and dropped it into the old man's basket.
"Heh, young people sure have strength." The old man's face was covered in deep wrinkles, but his smile was oddly serene.
"Of course. Police academy training—every day." Officer Huang pulled a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket. "Grandpa, want one?"
"Sure." The old man's cloudy eyes lit up for a moment.
Officer Huang deftly took out a cigarette, placed it between the old man's lips, and lit it for him with a lighter.
"Mmm… nice." The old man took a long drag, clearly savoring it. He didn't say thank you—just turned slowly and shuffled away.
The four of them watched his retreating figure.
"At his age, still picking through trash… tough life," Officer Huang said with real sympathy.
"If you'd seen Grandpa Zhang when he was young, you wouldn't feel that way." Wu Dahai gave a cold laugh. "I grew up around here. Back then, every kid on the street was terrified of him."
"Really?"
"Grandpa Zhang was a butcher. Vicious bastard. He always resented his wife for not giving him a son—beat her every day, sent her to the hospital more than once. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore. Drank pesticide and killed herself. The day she did it was right after their daughter finished the college entrance exam. She held on until then so the girl could focus on the test."
Silence fell over the group.
"After the daughter went to university, she cut all ties with him. Never came home again. With his wife gone, Grandpa Zhang lost his spark. Stopped butchering pigs, started drinking himself stupid, then got into gambling and lost the house. Been on welfare and collecting trash ever since."
For once, Wu Dahai dropped his usual flippant tone; his gaze grew deeper. "This old man has lived a whole life. Right now, even though he looks the least human, I think he's finally starting to look like one."
He let out a mocking snort. "Of course… he's still just a beast."
"Keep it down," Officer Huang warned quietly. "He's not that far. He might hear you."
"No worries. He's a Lost One. Even if he hears, he'll automatically tune it out."
"He fell," Qing Ling said suddenly.
Wu Dahai looked back. Grandpa Zhang had collapsed face-down on the ground.
"Grandpa Zhang?" Wu Dahai hurried over. "You okay?"
A night breeze blew past. Gao Yang stared at the motionless figure lying there and suddenly felt something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it—it was an instinctive warning, the kind his newly sharpened "Perception" gave him.
"Wait! Don't go over there!" Gao Yang shouted, stopping Wu Dahai.
Wu Dahai froze three meters away. "What's wrong?"
The next second—everyone except Wu Dahai saw it.
Grandpa Zhang stood up.
Not slowly, not like a normal person getting to his feet. Ignoring gravity entirely, his rigid body shot upright with a whoosh, as though pulled by some invisible force.
Qing Ling drew her long knife in a flash. Officer Huang yanked out his pistol.
Gao Yang didn't hesitate—he immediately backed away. He knew perfectly well that right now he was dead weight. The best contribution he could make was not getting in the way.
Seeing the three of them go on full alert, Wu Dahai instantly realized something was terribly wrong. He spun around.
Grandpa Zhang's head was cocked at an unnatural angle. His limbs were stiff and taut, like a broken chopstick with its head snapped. His mouth twitched violently, white foam bubbling out as he repeated in a slurred, frantic chant:
"Human… human… human human human human…"
Then his skin began to melt—as though scorched by invisible flames—evaporating into wisps of bloody mist. Raw, dripping muscle tissue was exposed. His body convulsed wildly. Patchy explosions of blood burst from inside him.
His voice shifted from pained groans to frenzied howls: "Human! Human! HUMAN!"
His chest cavity ballooned rapidly. Ribs tore through flesh, splitting open like the gaping maw of a carnivorous flower. From within sprouted a grotesque tumor covered in human facial features—eyes, mouths, ears, noses—all mashed together.
If you had to describe it, it looked like someone had taken countless eyes, mouths, ears, and noses, wrapped them in thick plastic, and thrown them into an oven to melt and fuse into one hideous mass.
The tumor bloomed slowly like a flower bud.
Grandpa Zhang's upper body twisted into vine-like tendrils that wrapped around the "bud." His lower body corroded and melted, sinking deep into the ground like roots.
In less than thirty seconds, Grandpa Zhang had transformed from a human into a grotesque, blood-soaked "man-eating flower."
"What the hell kind of beast is that?" Qing Ling frowned deeply.
"No idea," Officer Huang said grimly.
"Fight or run?" Qing Ling asked.
"Run. It doesn't look like it'll chase us, and it's clearly lost all reason—"
Before Officer Huang could finish, one of the creature's intestines had already morphed into several bloody, fleshy "vines." One of them lashed straight toward Wu Dahai.
Wu Dahai startled and bolted.
Snap!
The vine wrapped around his ankle and yanked hard. Wu Dahai crashed face-first to the ground.
"Don't touch me! Get off—get off me…!" He thrashed wildly on the pavement, clawing at anything he could reach, but it was useless.
In seconds he would be dragged right to the creature's "feet" and devoured.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out. The bullet severed the vine coiled around Wu Dahai's ankle.
A spray of blood mist erupted from the stump. The vine immediately retracted. The severed section loosened and slithered back across the ground like a nimble snake, merging seamlessly back into the main body.
Moments later, a new vine had already regrown.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
This time, three vines shot toward Wu Dahai at once.