Mutation
Chapter Thirty-One
Startled, I immediately forgot all about "Bozhou," "Baili," and the fact that the kite had just bitten my mouth. I even forgot that I was still half-dead and ran into the cave.
He almost fell to his knees after taking less than two steps due to the pain in his chest and abdomen, barely managing to stop before he fell flat on his face.
The kite flew past me, and moments later I heard it shout angrily, my forehead covered in sweat: "Go open the cave entrance! Let's go!"
A moment later, Lan Feiyu rushed out first. She quickly ran to my side, grabbed my arm, and dragged me toward the cave entrance.
I was in so much pain that tears almost welled up in my eyes. I managed to hold them back, but when I looked at Lan Feiyu, it was as if I was looking through a layer of mist. Before I could even ask her a question, Lan Feiyu had already thrown me to the side of the cave entrance and started struggling to push the rock blocking the entrance.
Amidst the rising and falling screams and cries, the girls stumbled, some running, some crawling, as they rushed toward the cave.
What infuriated me was that Lan Feiyu was clearly struggling to push the boulder, and even the monkey Zhizha jumped over to help. I was in so much pain that I could barely stand up, let alone exert any strength. But after the girls escaped, they all huddled together to the side, and not a single one of them took the initiative to help Lan Feiyu.
Do you think you can rely on others to escape?
I couldn't help but shout, "You all push together! What are you standing there for?"
Fortunately, the girls were just momentarily stunned and didn't intend to stand by and watch. After my reminder, they all looked as if they had just woken up from a dream, and they all ran over and hurriedly pushed the stone.
While I breathed a sigh of relief, I was also puzzled. What had scared them like that?
The answer soon appeared before me. Iris stepped out first, holding a narrow, long sword in her hand. Her expression was unusually tense. Without turning around, she shouted at us, who were crowding at the cave entrance, "Get out! Get out now!"
As soon as she finished speaking, I heard what sounded like Sister Mu Qing's heart-wrenching screams, her voice piercingly mournful: "No, don't leave me, please, don't leave me and my sister..."
As the boulder was pushed aside halfway, sunlight slanted into the cave. When what seemed to be Sister Mu Qing appeared before me, dragging the remains with one hand, I was so shocked that I almost lost my footing.
Iris clicked her tongue, quickly retreated to my side, reached out and took my arm, and said coldly, "Your Achilles tendons have been severed, yet you can still walk. It seems you're no longer human."
My whole body was ice cold. Before I could speak, Yuanzi had already half-carried and half-dragged me toward the cave entrance. The other girls had already retreated from the cave in an orderly manner under Lan Feiyu's command. Yuanzi handed me to Lan Feiyu, then turned around and hurled the long sword in her hand at that "person".
The force of that move was so great that I watched helplessly as the slender sword, gleaming with cold light, pierced straight through "her" shoulder, pulling "her" backward. Amidst "her" heart-wrenching screams, Yuanzi pushed Lan Feiyu with her palm, and the three of us almost simultaneously turned and left the cave.
As soon as Lan Feiyu got outside, she immediately let go of me and rushed over to push the rock. This time, Yuanzi was there, so I didn't need to remind her. The two of them worked together and, without much effort, blocked the boulder back into the cave entrance.
I had just breathed a sigh of relief when I heard a wail coming from inside the cave, and my heart sank again. I leaned closer to the rock and could make out that it was someone screaming, "Don't leave me." The four words were repeated over and over again. Before long, even those four words disappeared into the desperate and angry roar of a trapped beast.
I couldn't help but shiver and looked at Lan Feiyu. At almost the same time, Yuanzi asked Lan Feiyu, "What happened? Could it also be caused by the 'drug people'?"
Lan Feiyu's face drained of color, turning ashen. She bit her lip slightly and replied, "Mr. Tao didn't mention this. But... this is the only assumption we can make."
Yuanzi's face darkened, and she did not immediately respond.
Lan Feiyu briefly recounted what had happened to me and Yuanzi. She and the other girls were surrounding the heartbroken Mu Qing. The kind-hearted girls, seeing Mu Qing's sisterly affection and her terrible, pitiful death, perhaps also thought about how, although they had escaped death, the road ahead was fraught with danger. One of them started to sob, and soon, except for Lan Feiyu, everyone was whimpering and crying.
Frustrated, Lan Feiyu didn't join them in weeping. She stood to one side, silently examining the corpse. When her gaze inadvertently drifted upwards and landed on Mu Qing's hands, she was instantly chilled to the bone:
Mu Qing's hands were covered with purplish-black spots, instantly obscuring her fair skin. Even more terrifying, those ominous spots were spreading towards Mu Qing's wrists at a visible speed.
Perhaps because she had not yet experienced pain or other discomfort, Mu Qing did not notice anything unusual about herself and continued to hold her sister's body, unwilling to let go.
Lan Feiyu gasped. She tried to calm herself down and told the other girls to leave first. However, she had just patted one of the girls on the shoulder when she suddenly heard a scream from the neighboring house. She looked in the direction of the sound and saw one of the girls with tears still on her face, staring at Mu Qing and the corpse on the ground with a look of horror.
The corpse began to gush out streams of black water from its seven orifices. In the blink of an eye, Mu Qing's hands were not the only thing that was strange; her face was also covered with spots, and blisters appeared on her skin as if it had been burned.
The scream not only jolted the girls, who were still immersed in grief, but also made Mu Qing finally realize the changes in herself. She looked at her hands, opened her mouth wide, and suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood. She stood up unsteadily, and her limbs stretched and thinned in waves. Lan Feiyu heard the sound of joints splitting and bones breaking and knew that something was wrong. She hurriedly told the girls to run away. Yuanzi arrived at just the right moment.
I was terrified and asked, my mouth dry, "Then, was the corpse poisoned? Yuan...Yuanzi, did you touch the corpse?"
Iris looked at me with a cold gaze and nodded silently.
I turned my gaze to Lan Feiyu. She hesitated for a moment, then looked at me and said, "I didn't touch her directly, but I was close enough that when she vomited blood, some of the blood splattered on my face. I don't know if it's related."
In that instant, I truly felt like I was facing a terrible disaster. I stared blankly at Lan Feiyu, then at Yuanzi, with only one thought in my mind: I mustn't cry.
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