EM CH2

Chapter 2: Picking Up Weapons

Yu An walked out of the storage room carrying the heavy shoulder bag and slipped back into the ward. Not long after, he emerged gripping an iron IV stand in his left hand and dragging a cotton quilt with his right. Tiptoeing, he leaned the IV stand against the outer wall of the nurses’ station, then balled up the quilt and stuffed it into the washroom.

After doing all this, Yu An returned to the inside of the nurses’ station, closed the door, pinched the broken end of the phone cord, picked up the receiver, and dialed the police emergency number.

A calm, gentle voice of a dispatcher sounded from the other end of the receiver. Before she could ask, Yu An lowered his voice and said, “I’m reporting a major homicide. A nurse has already been murdered, and a killer wearing a goat skull over his head is still on a rampage. Yes, the body is right under the desk in the nurses’ station.”

He didn’t mention being kidnapped, but instead chose to describe the most perilous aspects of the situation. His goal was to draw the police’s attention so they would dispatch officers immediately.

As he spoke, he bent down to take another look under the desk. This glance was no minor thing; his chest felt as if it had been blocked by a breath of air.

The space under the desk was empty. The body was gone, leaving only half-dried bloodstains on the floor. The long trail of blood extended out the door, turned right, and went all the way to the deep, dark corner of the corridor.

The goat-headed man must have returned and dragged the body away while Yu An went back to the storage room to investigate.

Yu An truthfully relayed the situation to the dispatcher, but the dispatcher said, “Initial assessment indicates an ‘Aberrant’-related police situation. I am transferring you to the Peeping Eagle Bureau now. Please do not hang up, remain calm, and do not make a sound.”

“Aberrant?” Yu An felt somewhat bewildered. He pressed his throbbing forehead. It was as if he couldn’t remember anything, yet the term felt familiar to him.

A few seconds later, the dispatcher’s voice was replaced by a cold, solemn, and composed female voice: “Hello, this is Peeping Eagle. Tell me your location and the number of Aberrants.”

From the messy desktop, Yu An found some scrap paper used for taking notes. The letterhead uniformly bore the red words “Hongli City Guxian Hospital.”

He stated the name of the hospital. As for the number, this reminded him that he had heard footsteps above him while on basement level one. Did this mean there was more than one killer roaming this building?

“More than one.” Just as he finished speaking, the call suddenly cut off, leaving only silence in the dim room.

It was Yu An who had released his grip on the broken end of the phone cord. The police were already aware of the basic situation, and communicating further wouldn’t hold much meaning. It was too quiet here, and speaking would easily give away his location.

Distant water cannot put out a nearby fire. He turned his hopes to the desktop computer near at hand.

The latest email in the public inbox read, “Maintenance request for broken surveillance camera in basement level 1 morgue.” The sent time was 09:00 AM on January 21st, which was 9:00 AM yesterday. The hospital’s security logistics office replied at 18:00 yesterday afternoon, saying, “We are aware of the situation and will send a repairman tomorrow after we start work.”

A maintenance request submitted in the morning wasn’t addressed by security until quitting time in the evening. This was too despair-inducing. Yu An gave up the idea of seeking help from the security office.

He clicked open a webpage and typed the term “Aberrant” into the search bar. The network was unstable, and the computer’s response time was frustratingly slow.

Term – Aberrant: In year K034, a research base in the suburbs of Hongli City was struck by lightning and exploded, causing a leak of 300,000 tons of biochemical waste illegally sealed underground. The waste was radioactive, and objects affected by the radiation could develop deformed calculi internally, undergo mutation, and become exceptionally resilient in vitality. These are known as “Aberrants.”

Aberrants generally have fixed living territories, but they will also engage in boundary-crossing behaviors, invading human settlements and posing a severe threat to human life and property.

Term – Aberrant Core: The deformed calculi produced within an Aberrant’s body are called Aberrant Cores, which provide energy to the Aberrant. Once the Aberrant Core is extracted or destroyed, the Aberrant dies.

The webpage detected someone searching for Aberrants and automatically popped up an official scrolling banner: If your life and safety are being threatened by an Aberrant, please click this link immediately to seek help from the Peeping Eagle Bureau.

Below the search bar, numerous related pieces of information popped up. Yu An skimmed through them one by one:

Post: Essential info! A comparison of the advantages of the top three domestic Aberrant hunting companies.

Official Website: Underground Railway Recruitment Notice. Adhering to the concept of better protecting residents’ safety, our company has always been actively absorbing fresh blood…

Hongli News: Devil’s claws reaching out to heavyweights? Obese patients frequently going missing; Aberrants suspected.

Guxian Local News: Urgent! Seeking help from everyone. Found a hole in the sheep pen this evening, and two breeding rams have gone missing. If found, please contact Pizza Manor No. 6. Thank you…

“Two of them…” Yu An searched for the location of Pizza Manor and was surprised to find it so close; the manor was built just a few hundred meters away from Guxian Hospital.

Moreover, Yu An discovered that it wasn’t just the police who could deal with things like Aberrants; there were also specialized hunting companies that made a living off this.

He found the phone number on a company’s official website and attempted to reconnect the phone cord to ask for help, but the faint rattling sound of metal scraping could be heard from the far end of the corridor.

It was the elevator moving.

He was the only one who had taken the elevator, so it should have stayed on the third floor. If it was moving now, it proved that some “person” was pressing the button on another floor.

The elevator and the stairwell were at opposite ends of the corridor. Taking the elevator now was self-evidently dangerous, but there was also a goat-headed freak dragging a corpse towards the stairwell. Yu An was blocked at both ends and had no other choice.

He had no choice but to stand up immediately, hefting the heavy shoulder bag onto his back. The bag was stuffed with things that could save his life; no matter how heavy it was, he couldn’t easily discard it.

The elevator dinged. Ding, third floor. Then, the iron doors clattered open to both sides.

It was here.

Yu An turned back to look for a hiding place among the overturned medicine cabinets and the desk. The nurse from before had died under the desk, which meant hiding there wasn’t safe. A medicine cabinet was overturned on the floor; if he curled up and hid inside it, perhaps he wouldn’t be discovered.

But it was hard to say whether the other party’s method of searching for targets relied on sight or smell. Hiding in the medicine cabinet was too risky. Once discovered, there would be nowhere to run.

Ultimately, he chose to climb up the heating pipe, remove two ceiling tiles, and hide in an elevated position.

Muffled footsteps could already be heard at the end of the corridor, approaching the nurses’ station. The strides were wide, and the floor thumped with each step. It was a huge guy.

Gradually, the heavy footsteps came to a halt. Based on the pacing, the guy had already reached the door of the ward Yu An had gone in and out of.

The silence of the corridor was violently shattered, loud bangs erupting in succession like a pile-up at an intersection. The guy had clearly caught Yu An’s scent and crashed into the ward, destroying everything inside. The entire building seemed to shake.

Yu An’s guess was correct. Its sense of smell was extremely acute; an ordinary person simply couldn’t evade its search in a confined space.

He sat on the heating pipe, his two legs carefully straddling the narrow pipe, barely maintaining his balance.

Outside, it grew quiet, and the footsteps were no longer heard.

Actually, ever since he called the police, Yu An had been pondering a question. The hoofprints left in the blood were the size of a bowl, much wider than the widest part of an adult’s sole. The sound of its footsteps when walking was also louder than a normal person’s. So, was it a person wearing shoes with a goat hoof pattern on the soles, or did he have a pair of goat hooves growing from his legs?

Yu An peeked his head down. His gaze froze slightly; the partially open door had been pushed open at some unknown point.

A pair of legs covered in thick fur stood at the doorway. It wore no shoes, and the feet below the ankle bones each only had two toes.

Judging by its silhouette alone, this guy was a full two meters tall, with a physique even more muscular than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Perhaps it couldn’t be called a human. Its entire body was wrapped in thick, bulging muscles. It wore a complete goat skull mask on its head, with two curved goat horns.

The goat-headed freak had caught the scent of food. It walked into the nurses’ station step by step, searching for living creatures within the room under the faint light of the computer screen. A whooshing sound like a bellows was its heavy breathing.

The overturned medicine cabinet tripped its foot. The goat-headed freak raised its iron hoof high and stepped right through the cabinet with a single stomp. If Yu An had been hiding inside, he would definitely be a lump of canned fermented tofu by now.

After the loud crash, the room suddenly fell silent. Yu An covered his mouth to stop himself from making any sound.

Unexpectedly, a patch of already loose wall plaster cracked under his friction. Yu An quickly reached back to grab it, but only managed to catch half. The other half fell right in front of the goat-headed freak, along with some debris.

The goat-headed freak slowly raised its head and looked toward the ceiling. The moment it made eye contact with Yu An, it actually let out a loud, resonant goat bleat.

He hadn’t misheard; it was a goat’s bleat. A loud, lifelike “baa” sound that pierced the ears.

It was chewing something in its mouth. As its upper and lower jaws ground together, bright red juices splattered outward. When it opened its mouth to bleat, a cylindrical object dropped from its mouth and rolled forward twice.

Yu An felt his world tremble for a moment.

Rolling bloodily into his line of sight was half a finger.

He knew what the outcome of sitting and waiting for death would be, so he made a prompt decision. He flipped over and jumped down from the heating pipe, landing with both feet on the desk. He first yanked up the landline phone and hurled it forward, hitting the goat-headed freak squarely in the face. The coiled cord attached to the receiver tangled onto the goat horns on its head.

Taking advantage of the interval while the goat-headed man tore at the phone cord, Yu An cleanly slashed through all the wires connected to the back of the desktop. He hoisted the heavy computer and hurled it at the goat head with all his might.

With a loud boom, the goat-headed man was smashed into lowering its head. The glass monitor shattered, and smoking, fragmented parts fell downward. Yu An leapt from the desk and clung directly to the goat-headed man’s back. It smelled incredibly rank, emitting the stench of pasture forage and feces.

Yu An tightly gripped a goat horn with one hand, reached into his backpack with the other, pulled out a heavy bottle, and smashed it down forcefully.

The glass bottle, filled with transparent liquid, shattered against the goat head. Broken glass flew in all directions, liquid splashed, and a strong, pungent smell of alcohol erupted in the narrow nurses’ station.

This pungent odor severely disrupted its senses. The goat-headed man was startled and thrashed its head around frantically and restlessly.

Only then did Yu An realize that this goat skull wasn’t a mask; it had grown out from the flesh and blood of the neck. It was this monster’s true head.

Flesh, blood, and bone fragments were wedged between the white bone fangs, and a few strands of human hair were stuck in the gaps between its teeth. It had just been feeding.

It really was an Aberrant.

Actually, after browsing the webpages about Aberrants, the only useful conclusion Yu An had drawn was that a human killing an Aberrant was considered self-defense.

Yu An had long been prepared. Taking advantage of the momentum, he jumped out the door and tossed four bottles of alcohol inside one after another. The glass bottles shattered all over the floor like firecrackers. Then he flicked his lighter on, tossed it through the doorway, and pulled the door shut without hesitation. He dragged the IV stand he had placed by the door beforehand, wedged it diagonally against the handrail, and pinned the door handle so it couldn’t be opened from the inside.

A pillar of blue flame shot up from inside the nurses’ station, and the booming sound of iron hooves stomping the ground came from behind the door. Although the door panel was subjected to violent impact after impact, it only deformed slightly. At the very least, it could hold for another two minutes.

The door to the nurses’ station was a security door, unlike the wooden doors with windows in the ward area. This was the reason Yu An would rather step back into a murder scene than choose anywhere else as a temporary hiding place.

However, when smashing the alcohol bottles, it was inevitable that the liquid inside would splash onto Yu An himself. The viscous flames flared up along Yu An’s fingertips and rapidly crawled onto his clothes, blazing into a raging fire.

Without a hint of panic, he ducked into the washroom, wrapped himself in the quilt he had soaked by leaving the tap running beforehand, rolled around on the floor a few times, and completely smothered the flames.

Yu An lay on the ground, completely soaked, his body temperature dropping rapidly. Enveloped by darkness, the exhaustion and cold were despair-inducing.

Not far in front of him, something had dropped onto the floor.

It was black, the size of a fingernail, and appeared to be a Bluetooth earpiece.

Yu An struggled to crawl forward, reached out, grabbed the earpiece, and put it in his left ear.

After a burst of noisy static, he heard a man’s voice.

“Stand up.”

Stand up… The voice wasn’t gentle, but it possessed a reassuring power. Was it a police officer? Yu An gritted his teeth, supported himself against the wall, and stood back up.

“Run down the corridor to the very end and come find me in the surveillance room.”

At this moment, the unfamiliar man in the earpiece became Yu An’s only hope. Without looking away, he ran forward, leaving the goat head’s roars and crashes behind.

Passing by a fire safety corner halfway down, Yu An lifted a heavy dry powder fire extinguisher from inside and continued forward. This thing could explode if subjected to a violent impact; unless absolutely necessary, no one would want to use it as a weapon.

Being too far from the corridor lights, the lighting grew dimmer and dimmer. It felt like walking through the throat of a giant beast, so oppressive it was hard to breathe.

The door with the surveillance room sign was just ahead, but the darkness at the end of the corridor was blocked by a tall, massive figure. Yu An immediately recognized the silhouette of its goat head.

Yu An couldn’t explain why he trusted the man in the earpiece so much either. He gazed at the surveillance room so close at hand, just as a believer gazes at the gates of heaven. Nothing else mattered; he just wanted to get inside.

He decided to risk it all and fight hard.

Yu An locked his gaze on the dead center of the goat head as if a sniper scope had locked onto a target. Gripping the fire extinguisher, he turned slightly, wound up towards his back left, and swung with all his might—

Suddenly, the surveillance room door behind the goat-headed man was kicked open heavily by a foot wearing a knee-high leather boot.

Next, a burst of sharp laughter flew out from the door, and the sound effect of a bungee-jumping zombie dropping from the sky to steal plants automatically played in Yu An’s ear: Yee-haw!

A pink figure leaped out the door, both hands holding a hollow tube dismantled from an iron bed frame high in the air. He landed swiftly, straddling the goat-headed freak, and drove the sharp iron tube into its thick, hard back, pinning it solidly to the floor. His long hair flew up and down with his movements.

Attacked from behind, the goat-headed freak’s body suffered a violent impact. It fell forward, its chest and abdomen slamming hard against the floor with a loud boom. Its four limbs struggled, and it shook its head, roaring in pain, but soon, the ear-piercing bleats came to an abrupt halt, and the violent noise subsided.

The man tilted his head back, revealing a mouth full of serrated triangular teeth. Immersed in the afterglow of slaughter for a long time, he seemed to only just notice there was another living person nearby. He let go of the iron tube and stood up, tightened the metal buckle at the wrist of his deerskin glove, and approached Yu An step by step, his scarlet eyes cutting like knives.

He had long, curling, pale plum-colored hair and wore a long trench coat over a burgundy shirt. Pinned to his chest was a silver name tag. The logo on it was the subway symbol from public directional signs, with his name embossed below it: “Zhao Ran.”

This person looked to have a danger level ten times higher than the goat-headed freak. Yu An could hardly distinguish whether this was reality or a dream, guiltily wondering if he had accidentally stumbled upon and triggered the scenario boss.