The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 80: Accident

“I saw it too.” Gao Yang had seen a figure suddenly rushing onto the road. He quickly rolled down the window and popped his head out to take a look. It was one o’clock in the morning. This area of the old city region was quiet and desolate. Under the illumination of the headlight lay an unmoving figure. There was no telling whether the person was dead.

“What do we do?” asked Heavenly Dog.

“Just leave it,” Wu Dahai said coldly. “It’s most likely a monster. If they’re dead, they’re dead.”

“No.” White Rabbit’s expression hardened. “We don’t kill wanderers, remember?”

“They rushed out suddenly!” Wu Dahai wasn’t convinced. “Who is to blame when they were the one that didn’t obey the traffic laws? Besides, are you sure it’s a wanderer? What if it’s another type of monster? Wouldn’t it be better to kill them then?”

“Um.” Gao Yang pulled back into the car. “There’s a traffic light at the crossroad.”

In other words, there were surveillance cameras, and they would be held responsible if they hit a pedestrian and drove away. That would lead to more trouble.

With a sigh, White Rabbit put her mask back on and then her socks and shoes. “Let’s take a look. If they’re still alive, we’ll take them to the hospital. If they’re dead, we’ll get an ambulance to collect the body. As law-abiding citizens, we’ll do things by the book.”

The four of them masked on and got out of the car.

Heavenly Dog and Wu Dahai took the lead while Gao Yang and White Rabbit followed in the back. The four of them slowly walked up to the person, making sure to scan their surroundings for an ambush.

Just in case, Gao Yang quietly accessed the system in his head, and he only relaxed once he made sure that the acquisition rate of Luck points hadn’t increased.

“Hey, you alive?” Wu Dahai walked up to the person and asked.

Once he was a little closer, Gao Yang saw that it was a man with red hair. He was dressed in a thin layer of patient gown and lying down in a pool of his own blood. The hit must have been quite serious. His face was covered and obscured by blood as well.

Hearing Wu Dahai’s voice, the man twitched and slowly reached out with a hand. “Save, save me. I don’t want to die...”

The four of them sighed in relief. The man was alive.

“What did you think you were doing, rushing onto the road this late at night?” Wu Dahai demanded with his hands on his hip. “Cars don’t have eyes. Do you have a death wish?”

“Enough already. Let’s get him some help first.” White Rabbit sounded irritated as well. She hated unexpected occurrences.

Heavenly Dog and Wu Dahai checked the man’s injury. It wasn’t too bad. They each lifted an arm and helped the man up, heading toward the car.

“Ugh, that hurts! Gently...” The man kept squirming in pain.

“Stop it! We’re getting to the car!” Wu Dahai said with distaste. “Stop moving. You’re getting my clothes dirty!”

Gao Yang opened the door to the backseat. Heavenly Dog turned to him and said, “Help him up. I’ll start the car.”

“Okay.” Gao Yang went up to support the man when he suddenly sensed a chill rushing from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head—such overwhelming murderous intent!

What was going on? There was no enemy around! Was it from the man?

Gao Yang didn’t have the time to ponder. Following his intuition, he asked, “You alright?”

“It hurts,” the man said, sounding pained. “I don’t think...I can make it...”

Gao Yang activated Lie Detection as he asked the question, and he got his answer.

—The man was lying.

He slowly pulled back without a word and gave Wu Dahai and Heavenly Dog a pointed look.

They let go of the red-haired man without missing a beat and put some distance between them. Without their help, the man slumped to the ground and started groaning out unintelligible things again.

“What’s wrong?” Wu Dahai asked while getting into a fighting stance.

Quietly, Heavenly Dog extended his right hand and pointed at the man on the ground, ready to strike anytime.

“He’s acting,” Gao Yang said in a low voice.

White Rabbit walked up to him. “How can you be so sure?”

It wasn’t time to hide the truth. Gao Yang said, “I...have another Talent. Lie Detection.”

White Rabbit, Heavenly Dog, and Wu Dahai knew what Lie Detection was capable of, so they instantly bought Gao Yang’s conclusion.

“We’ll talk about you hiding your Talent later,” White Rabbit said, irate. She looked down at the man on the ground. “Stop acting. Who are you? What do you want? Who sent you?”

The man stopped groaning and slowly got to his feet. With his head lowered, he stayed silent for a still moment.

Then he suddenly burst out laughing, the sound perverted and mad. “Haha, hahahaha... What a shame, what a real shame. I almost got you.”

He stretched, his joints making cracking sounds. Then he wiped the blood off his face with both hands, revealing a sinister appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, and the left side of his face seriously burned, the skin uneven with bumps and divots, making it hard to look at him.

White Rabbit stared at him with steel in her eyes, her gaze glinting with murderous intent. “I’m asking you one last time. Who are you, what do you want, and who sent...”

“Do you think you have the upperhand?” The man cut her off haughtily and gestured at the four of them. “One, two, three, four. Four versus one. You’ll win for sure! That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

White Rabbit frowned, wondering if she should strike first.

Gao Yang was confused about where the man’s confidence came from as well. If he really had the strength to easily take on all four of them, he wouldn’t have needed to go to such lengths to deceive them. He could’ve just attacked them like War Tiger had in his little test.

Then a shudder ran down Gao Yang’s spine. He realized something: the man put on the act in order to get close to them. Perhaps that was his checkmate move...

Before Gao Yang could follow that thought, the red-haired man rolled up his sleeve to reveal his right hand. It was completely skinless all the way to the elbow, revealing dark red muscle tissues. It looked like a fake limb made of red wax.

The man smirked and made a fist with his right hand. “Detonate.”

The air went still for a moment.

Boom, boom!

Two explosions assaulted Gao Yang’s eardrums. When he realized what was happening, White Rabbit had already tackled him to the ground.

Gao Yang picked himself up. He was seven to eight meters away from the car. And next to it, two bloody men lay prone on the road with their blood splattered everywhere. Crimson vapor and white smoke rose into the air. All he could smell was blood and gunpowder.

Gao Yang froze.

The two men were Wu Dahai and Heavenly Dog. Wu Dahai lay on the ground, missing his entire right arm. Blood was still gushing out from the stump of his shoulder, and he had lost consciousness.

Heavenly Dog was on the ground as well, and there was a fist-sized hole in his back, still bleeding. While he was conscious, he had lost all ability to move, and his bloodied eyes faintly blinked.

Gao Yang finally put two and two together; the man had detonated their body parts!

Shock, fear, anger... A myriad of emotions warred in Gao Yang’s head, overwhelming his rationality. He stood rooted to the spot, at a loss of what to do for the moment.

Was this how awakeners fought?

Only the fittest survived. Dangers lay in wait at every corner. One never got out of bed with the certain belief that they would get to see the sunrise again.

When Gao Yang regained control over himself, White Rabbit had jumped with both legs and was flying toward the red-haired man like an arrow.

Her teammates had collapsed and were dying, but she didn’t have the time to hesitate or wallow in sadness and regrets. She knew that she could only save them by counterattacking at full force immediately and defeating her enemy.

The red-haired man didn’t expect White Rabbit to be this quick. They had been more than ten meters apart, yet she moved into his space in half a second like she had teleported. When he caught her figure, White Rabbit was already making a kick at him in the air.

The man quickly raised his right hand to shield his head, and the fierce kick landed on his forearm, breaking the bone immediately with a crack. The force wasn’t completely offset and ended up hitting the man’s head, sending him flying to the side.

He only stopped rolling on the ground after five to six rotations, and it felt as if the world was spinning around him, his brain rendered a mushy mess in his skull. He couldn’t afford any moment of distraction, however. He picked his bloody body up. Without giving him a moment to breathe, White Rabbit rushed at him again.

With his dangling right hand, the red-haired man made a fist with all the strength he could muster.

Boom!

White Rabbit was just about to activate Jump with her body leaning forward and her legs bent, but then there was suddenly a bloody hole the size of a ping pong ball in her right leg, and she lost her balance, falling hard to the ground.

“Gah...” White Rabbit held onto her right leg, her face drained of color.