Chapter 11 - The Day Before Awakening

Shu Jun fell into confusion for a moment.

After the first time he woke up, the mutated monsters’ attitude towards him had improved a lot, but he actually had done nothing special. As for communicating with the Erosion Marsh, he wasn’t sure if all that ‘howling’ he heard from the marsh was a form of communication. The request from Zhu Yanchen was like asking a toddler who had barely learnt to walk to win the gymnastics championship.

“How do I do that?” He kicked a mutated monster that was trying to attack Zhu Yanchen and humbly asked for advice.

“I don’t know.” Zhu Yanchen answered very calmly.

“……”

“Your current Harmony is 19%. Theoretically, you should be able to do that as long as it’s more than 15%.” Zhu Yanchen neatly dodged another mutated monster and stretched the handcuffs’ chain to a straight line.

Shu Jun sighed. The mutated monsters were rushing relentlessly towards Zhu Yanchen, completely ignoring his killing intent. The soft howl of the marsh in the distance had started fading away. He really didn’t know how to ‘communicate’ with it. If he really howled back to it right here, he himself would feel very stupid.

Shu Jun decided to hold back for now and focused on summoning his skill. The wind surrounded Zhu Yanchen and created a transparent barrier around him. Even so, the mutated monsters continued to step on each other, crowding around them and not letting them escape. One of them was exceptionally strong; it stood on the chair, planning to take Lao Wei away.

Seeing this, Shu Jun quickly recalled something. This old man could live in harmony with the mutated monsters and had specifically asked to meet the two of them in this house. Such was a deadly strike — This was in fact no place for negotiation of truce. This run-down house was a trap from the beginning.

The old man sounded very kind when they eavesdropped last night. Now it turned out that it was all an act.

Shu Jun felt a little annoyed.

Seeing that the mutated monsters didn’t attack Shu Jun, Lao Wei squirmed on the chair and turned to face Shu Jun, showing a weird smile.

“Not bad, not bad.” He said to Zhu Yanchen: “It seemed that you also brought a good mutated monster yourself, but unfortunately, it isn’t very useful. No matter how strong it is, one single monster can’t deal with so many others.”

Zhu Yanchen raised his hand and fired. Undoubtedly, he intentionally angled the gun so that the bullet flew past Lao Wei’s melting ear, hitting the wolf-shaped monster behind him. Its black blood splashed messily on Lao Wei, having him startled and twitch his melting face twice.

“Shu Jun, listen to me. It doesn’t matter if you can’t perform the requests I asked just now.” Zhu Yanchen raised his voice slightly, as if trying to overwhelm Lao Wei: “If we work together, this old mister won’t be able to run away.”

Of course, Marshal Zhu’s plan would definitely not point them to a dead-end situation.

“Do we take him hostage?” Shu Jun licked his chapped lips and stared at the old man on the chair.

He felt as though he had been living inside a fog in the past few days, with his body feeling extremely uncomfortable and the accumulation of so many unpleasant surprises. The truth about this world had turned his  displeasure into anger, but this anger couldn’t be vented on Zhu Yanchen, who had been giving him a helping hand. Thinking about him letting his guard down last night and being deceived by Lao Wei, Shu Jun couldn’t help getting angry again.

But since Zhu Yanchen had planned to come here long ago, he must have made enough preparations. Just now, Marshal Zhu wasn’t at all surprised by Lao Wei’s attack. Since he was willing to go into such a dangerous ground, it was highly likely that he was targeting Lao Wei.

“We take him hostage.” Sure enough, Zhu Yanchen repeated softly.

Shu Jun was finally able to vent his anger. He twisted two mutated monsters’ necks with his bare hands, then his sharp claws pierced the third monster’s abdomen, spreading its stenchy internal organs all over the floor. The monster turned around and tried to take Lao Wei to leave the room through the window on the other side, but was quickly decapitated by Shu Jun with a wind blade.

Lao Wei fell to the ground together with his chair.

The mutated monsters hidden inside this room had almost all died, and the number of those that entered the room from outside couldn’t keep up. Seeing that this strategy of sending waves of monsters to attack couldn’t hold the two of them, Lao Wei’s confident look began to fade away.

He struggled to pull out a bamboo flute from his clothes and blew it hard.

In a blink, the low howling sound of the Erosion Marsh in the distance became louder, and the eyes of the mutated monster that was attacking Zhu Yanchen turned bloodshot. The creature switched from its defensive stance and bit Zhu Yanchen’s arm that was holding the gun.

As the mutated monster suddenly became aggressive before Zhu Yanchen could have time to adjust his movement, a deep wound quickly formed on his upper arm.

His dripping blood carried a very vague shade of black-and-grey.

“This thing’s saliva is poisonous. If its bites a few more times, even a healthy person won’t be able to hold himself. If you cherish your life, ask your pet… subordinate to stop.” Lao Wei obviously remembered the warning shot just now and changed his word just in time.

“Not a subordinate, but a partner.” Zhu Yanchen said with a hiss. He glanced at his wound, stepped on the mutated monster’s throat and fired several shots at its head.

Zhu Yanchen might look nonchalant, but Shu Jun had reached his limit.

To internally reflect on the relationship between him and Haze was one thing, but to watch others hurt Haze right before his eyes was another. After all those days of panic, all that anger from learning the truth and all that powerless self-blame, Zhu Yanchen’s injury was the last spark of fire that blew up the fuse, exploding all the negative emotions he had been bottling up.

Shu Jun didn’t know whether he should be angry about others hurting Zhu Yanchen, or about the very fact that this guy was completely indifferent about his own injury.

But at this point, he was too lazy to tell.

Shu Jun unconsciously twisted the metal chain, making a coarse crackling sound, and broke it off with his bare hands. With the restraint broken, Shu Jun was like a beast finally getting out of the cage, bolting forward and directly pressing his sharp claws on Lao Wei’s throat.

He wasn’t losing his mind, but his appearance right now obviously shocked Lao Wei to the core. The old man swallowed hard and remained motionless.

“Make those monsters stop.”

Shu Jun revealed his sharpened teeth: “Otherwise, I will bring you along while killing them myself — But let me tell you first, I don’t yet know how to use these claws, so I may accidentally pierce a few holes into you. Don’t complain when that happens.”

Lao Wei lowered his head: “I’m getting old and about to kick the bucket already. Your threat is really something. You boy over there… Well, my friend, you’re still young, you should listen to me. It may not be too late if you treat the wound immediately. Otherwise…”

This old man was bolder than he thought.

Seeing that Shu Jun was a person who he could talk to, Lao Wei’s eyes began to shift left and right and his speech started twirling. But he refused to calm those crazy mutated monsters. Just by looking at Zhu Yanchen’s fighting skills, Shu Jun knew clearly that he could have defeated these monsters by himself, but there was a restriction here. Marshal Zhu was inside an erosion zone, which subjected him to environmental constraints. In this condition, he might win by working with other people, but they would definitely suffer a lot.

Shu Jun felt it hard to breathe and subconsciously blew up the wind around him. The wind wasn’t transparent this time, rather, it was scattered with black erosive substance, circling murderously around him. The mutated monsters suddenly reacted. They shrank their ears and retracted their tails, starting to race out of the room.

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And Shu Jun’s hand, which was clutching Lao Wei’s neck, once again started to transform, and the pitch-black erosive substance started oozing out. As Shu Jun’s breathing became more rapid, the bracelet on his wrist twitched slightly. He glanced at it.

[Harmony: 21%; Resonance level: 7; Erosive substance level is slightly out of balance.]

I don’t understand what this is saying, whatever. Anyway, my consciousness is still here. After the mutated monsters had run away, Shu Jun turned his gaze back to Lao Wei.

Perhaps because those grey eyes were too oppressive, Lao Wei didn’t try to randomly talk back anymore and became very compliant. Zhu Yanchen simply bandaged his wound and walked forward, trying to take away the bamboo flute in Lao Wei’s pocket.

“Stay away from me.” Shu Jun warned: “I’m not in the right state.”

He was hungry again, and he had never been this hungry before. Luckily, the old man in front of him didn’t feel appetising at all. It seemed that when it came to food, he had no special preference towards humans.

Perhaps because he saw Shu Jun’s eyes turning green from hunger, Zhu Yanchen was cooperative and didn’t come close: “You were beyond my expectation. Rather than making the monsters listen to you, you directly scared them away.”

“I don’t know how I did it. It might have something to do with the wind.” Shu Jun raised the corner of his mouth, the wind carrying black erosive substance still hovering around him.

As the two were talking, Lao Wei stared at Shu Jun’s eroding arm, his gaze becoming increasingly complicated.

“Let’s take him first.” Zhu Yanchen and Shu Jun kept a distance of three steps between each other. “Village of The Impaired isn’t a permanent village. They might have seen that we didn’t come here with any favourable intention and are probably on the way to escape. But they have to take the Erosion Marsh with them too. If we chase after them with all our strength, we can catch up.” 

As his words fell, he pulled out an equipment that looked like a pocket watch: “If it’s just to detect the reaction of the marsh, it may be useful… Huh?”

Shu Jun was so hungry that his head was spinning, and he just wanted to end the matter early: “Let’s go, we’ll chase after them. A Yan, do you have any emergency ration there, let me first — huh?”

Shu Jun didn’t have any Erosion Marsh detector, but he also noticed that something was wrong.

Unbeknownst to them, the soft howl of the Erosion Marsh had approached nearer. To be precise, it was right outside the door. A very strange emotion came with the sound — This Erosion Marsh was different from the one back in the corpse disposal site. Its emotion felt simpler.

For comparison, the one right now sounded like a wild animal that was looking at a human who pretended to be its own kin. It felt both curious and scared at the same time, and unsure of what to do.

…Shu Jun had fought against Erosion Marsh countless times before, but he had never embraced the ‘emotion’ of a marsh, so he felt a little confused.

Zhu Yanchen had asked him to stop the marsh and make it not run away. It seemed that Shu Jun had succeeded doing that. Shu Jun could feel that the Erosion Marsh outside was whispering and observing him secretly, but he didn’t know how to talk back to it.

How about communicating with it using the wind that carried the erosive substance? Let’s use this form of physical contact for now, because he also didn’t want to be lifted into the air by those liquid pillars again.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he blew a wind through a crack in the door. Only then did Shu Jun realise that unlike those mutated monsters, Erosion Marsh had no intelligence at all. He had no particular need to try to communicate with it.

I must be so hungry that my brain has stopped working, Shu Jun thought.

“A Yan, the Erosion Marsh is right outside, you can go see it if you want to.” Shu Jun’s expression twisted as he held Lao Wei with one hand and probed the mutated monster’s corpse on the ground with the other hand. He tried to overcome his nausea and looked for a piece of meat to fill his stomach.

Zhu Yanchen nodded and tightened his protective clothing. He took out a tiny equipment that Shu Jun couldn’t recognise and was about to open the door.

At this moment, the emotion of the Erosion Marsh outside the door seemed to change drastically.

“Wait!” Shu Jun yelled.

The confusion, curiosity and fear that he could feel earlier had disappeared. Now he could only feel only one very primal instinct — A desire to fight.

When has that ‘you are my own kin’ kind of emotion vanished?

Shu Jun no longer cared about his hunger. With the mutated monster’s leg still in his mouth, he grabbed Zhu Yanchen and ran away from the other end of the room.

The bracelet on his wrist vibrated violently, as if it was about to explode in the next second. Outside, the Erosion Marsh was making an ear-splitting scream. Amid the fierce emotion he was sensing from the marsh, Shu Jun could figure out a little meaning.

[I want information.] 

As the Erosion Marsh was burning with a desire to fight, only this simple thought kept repeating in its mind.

[I want information.]

If you just want information, do you have to be so annoying? Shu Jun couldn’t help but curse in his heart.

To his surprise, the Erosion Marsh outside the door went quiet for a moment, then it broke through the door.

[I want information!] Its emotion was getting a bit more intense now.

“…”

This was the first time he tried to converse with an Erosion Marsh on his own volition, and it could be considered quite a failure. Just as the thought flashed through his mind, a liquid pillar grabbed his leg and dragged him to the ground.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Shu Jun quickly said in his mind, but unfortunately, it wasn’t very effective. The screaming noise that only he could hear grew louder, carrying in with it both anxiety and dissatisfaction.

Fine.

He used the last bit of effort to throw Zhu Yanchen and Lao Wei out of the house.

If you want to fight, then let’s do it one on one.

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