That night, Shen Qi was fast asleep in her tent, with Nuonuo lying at the tent entrance, resting with its eyes closed.
Liang Chunhua walked out of the group tent, groggy and drifting further and further away.
Nature called, and Nuonuo only glanced up briefly before quickly losing interest and looking away, not even bothering to sense anything further.
A gust of wind blew past, carrying a cool breeze, and with it, a faint trace of the smell of blood.
Nuonuo grew alert and rose to keep watch.
“Ahh, aaaahhhh!!”
Almost the moment the scream rang out, Nuonuo let out a fierce bark.
【Poop-scooper, get up quick, something’s happened!】
Shen Qi jolted awake and hurried out of the tent, pulling her shoes on.
The first thing she saw was a gushing wash of bright red.
It was Liang Chunhua who was hurt, screaming nonstop as she scrambled and crawled toward the crowd, shouting, “You worthless beast! Go bite them! There’s plenty of them to bite! I fed you all these years for nothing! Aaaaahhhh—!!!”
A medium-sized yellow dog with blood-red eyes had lost all trace of reason, the hunger and violence in those eyes were horrifying to behold. It seemed deaf to Liang Chunhua’s screaming, following only the urges within it.
Tear her apart! Trample her! Devour her! Drag this two-legged beast down to hell with it!
The yellow dog wouldn’t let go, its sharp fangs sunk deep into Liang Chunhua’s calf, and if anything, its grip tightened even further after her screaming.
It shook its head, tearing off a large chunk of flesh and chewing it with relish.
Everything happened in an instant, even the rescue team members who rushed over at the sound couldn’t save Liang Chunhua in time, which showed just how fast and sharp-fanged the yellow dog was.
Liang Chunhua no longer had the strength to scream. Her artery had been bitten through, and she’d already lost too much blood, now, with another chunk of calf muscle gone, the intense pain had drained her face to an ashen gray.
Only now did she realize just how half-hearted Nuonuo’s earlier scare tactics had truly been. Facing a real vicious beast, she had no way to fight back at all!
“Help, help me! That little girl, doesn’t she have a dog? Someone drag this beast away!”
Shen Qi didn’t expect that even now, Liang Chunhua would still try to drag Nuonuo into it. Privately, she had no desire to let Nuonuo risk itself for this.
She grabbed hold of Nuonuo with one hand, keeping it still.
But the crowd couldn’t just sit there waiting to be attacked forever.
This yellow dog looked completely out of its mind, daring to eat human flesh in front of so many people. Who knew whether they’d be the next one bitten, the next one eaten?
The rescue team, well-prepared, all carried live weapons, no one was in the mood to question why an earthquake rescue team had guns, everyone just hoped this equipment could protect them through the crisis.
Shen Qi and Nuonuo stood beside the rescue team, quite a few able-bodied survivors had also stepped forward, some holding branches or sticks they’d picked up.
A great battle was about to break out.
The yellow dog paid no attention to the wariness of the bipedal beasts around it, in truth, it had completely lost all reason by now, and had largely lost its sight too, relying only on hearing, smell, and instinct to fix its target on Liang Chunhua.
The yellow dog lunged again, but this time a burly man blocked its path, none other than Liang Chunhua’s son, who had also taken a stand alongside the rescue team.
The yellow dog moved fast and felt no pain, as the fight dragged on, the burly man began to fall behind.
Li Zhengze had just gotten in touch with a rescue helicopter, with Liang Chunhua’s blood loss, she needed medical attention immediately.
The rest of the rescue team scrambled for an opening to shoot the yellow dog down, but the harder they tried, the harder it was to find one, the dog moved too fast and stayed too close to the burly man, making a shot far too risky for friendly fire! Cold sweat beaded on their foreheads as they held back, torn between action and caution. The other able-bodied men weren’t sure what to make of the dog either, and seeing the burly man struggling alone, none of them wanted to be the first to charge in.
For a while, no one could break the deadlock, some in the crowd had already begun sobbing quietly, as if they could see a fatal outcome coming.
Shen Qi stopped watching and asked Nuonuo, “Is this what you meant by ‘turning bad’?”
Nuonuo: 【Yes, but don’t worry, once they turn bad their abilities are limited. If I go, it’s nothing to fear.】
Shen Qi, faintly surprised by how much Nuonuo’s speech had improved lately, it could even use proper idioms now, pushed down her worry and asked, frowning, “You want to go? Isn’t that too dangerous?”
Nuonuo: 【Let me go, I’ll be fine.】
Watching the battle turning worse and worse for the burly man, alarm bells rang in Shen Qi’s head. She quietly drew the short dagger she always kept on her, gripping it tightly in her hand. In her tension, she failed to notice the flash of guilt that flickered through Nuonuo’s eyes, and instinctively chose to trust it.
“Go then, be careful.”
Once Nuonuo joined the fight, the losing battle turned into a stalemate again.
The burly man finally got a chance to catch his breath, dragging his wounded body back and out of the fray. If the bleeding wasn’t stopped soon, he’d lose too much blood too.
Just then, the helicopter arrived, and Liang Chunhua was loaded aboard along with her son for treatment.
“Doctor… please, please take me too! I… yes! I have a heart condition, I need treatment too!”
“Me too, me too, I have asthma! It could act up if I get too excited! Doctor, please take me too!”
There was some commotion in the square, but given the special circumstances, everyone could only focus on their own tasks for now, fighting monsters, conducting rescue, providing treatment, each their own job. The helicopter’s assignment was to transport Liang Chunhua and her son for treatment, anything else wasn’t their responsibility, and they couldn’t disobey regulations to carry random extra passengers.
The helicopter flew off amid the noise, but the chaos in the square didn’t settle. Crying and cursing mixed together, adding even more tension to the situation.
In fact, the situation right now was far from good.
Shen Qi’s brow furrowed tightly, her fingers white around the dagger’s grip.
Nuonuo had lied to her, the first time it had ever done so, and she’d believed it, of all times.
It wasn’t nearly as simple as Nuonuo had claimed. Nuonuo was large and sharp-toothed, sharp-clawed, but its talents seemed to have gone almost entirely into its sensing ability, fighting was not something it did easily. At best, it was evenly matched with the yellow dog, occasionally even taking a hit from its claws.
Pain slowed Nuonuo’s movements, but the yellow dog felt no fear at all, as if the flesh Nuonuo tore off wasn’t even its own, every charge was reckless and unrelenting, completely unaffected by its wounds.
As time went on, Nuonuo’s injuries kept piling up, growing more severe by the moment.
Shen Qi forced her gaze away with difficulty, turning to look at the able-bodied survivors around her.
They’d come out carrying sticks and clubs, were they just going to stand there and watch? She understood Captain Li and the others holding back out of caution, but with so many grown men standing there and not stepping in, was it simply that they were afraid of getting hurt themselves, or were they waiting for someone else to wear the enemy down first so they could swoop in for an easy win?
Under Shen Qi’s gaze, most of them guiltily looked away.
Shen Qi closed her eyes briefly.
Fine. They all had families to think of, at a time like this, she couldn’t fault anyone for valuing their own life. Only she, Shen Qi, was truly Nuonuo’s family, the others weren’t, and had no responsibility toward it.
She’d grown too comfortable these past couple of years, and had forgotten, at any time, in any circumstance, you could never rely on anyone else even a little. Human nature was selfish, you couldn’t count on it.
Her thoughts churned, all within the span of a single breath, and when Shen Qi opened her eyes again, they were full of resolve.
By the time she darted forward, no one had even registered what was happening.
“She… she…”
“She charged in? That’s… that’s way too bold, is she suicidal!”
No one had been willing to go with her, but that meant she could just as well go alone.
Her Nuonuo, she would save it herself, and if it came to it, they’d die together. What was there to fear?
At that exact moment, Nuonuo had just barely dodged one of the yellow dog’s attacks, but in its panic, its injured leg touched down wrong, and it stumbled, losing its footing. The yellow dog, pressed right against it, wouldn’t miss this chance to bite, its jaws aiming straight for Nuonuo’s throat.
Shen Qi arrived at exactly the right moment.
The dagger flashed cold, and Shen Qi, summoning the same courage and resolve she’d had at ten years old resisting her stepfather, aimed a precise strike at the yellow dog’s throat.
The yellow dog, caught off balance by the force of the blade sinking into its flesh, was thrown off and stumbled down mid-lunge, howling as it turned its hatred toward Shen Qi. In fact, the scent coming off Shen Qi’s body cleared the yellow dog’s mind for just a split second.
Another… two-legged beast… this one… smells so good… must taste even better…
The yellow dog shook its head, and that flicker of clarity was quickly swallowed again by savage hunger, it seemed not to even notice the wound on its neck, wanting only to lunge forward again.
But Shen Qi already knew, she had won.
The yellow dog was thrown aside, putting distance between itself, Shen Qi, and Nuonuo, which meant the rescue team could open fire.
“Bang bang bang!” Gunfire rained down densely onto the yellow dog.
The bullets landed mostly on its head, then its limbs and abdomen, even if it wasn’t killed instantly, it wouldn’t be getting back up again.
After the gunshots, the yellow dog collapsed stiffly, black blood pouring from its wounds, giving off a foul stench.
Seeing the danger resolved, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. A clattering sound rippled across the square, as people’s hands shook and their sticks and clubs fell to the ground.
Shen Qi’s strength gave out, and she collapsed to the ground.
That one strike had looked simple, but it had taken every ounce of strength she had, pushing nearly past her limits, otherwise, given the yellow dog’s charging speed, there was no way it would have been knocked back like that.
With the sudden release of tension, Shen Qi felt an intense muscle pain, almost like a cramp, she could barely even hold onto the dagger. Nuonuo, covered in wounds, hurried over to her side, standing guard.
“Woof, aroooo—”
【Poop-scooper, don’t relax yet!】
Sensing Nuonuo’s agitation, Shen Qi immediately gripped the dagger tight again and shouted, “Stay alert!”
The first to react was Li Zhengze, he knew Shen Qi wasn’t one to joke about something like this, and with a moment’s focus, he too noticed Nuonuo’s unease. A bad feeling crept over him, and he immediately raised his gun, ordering the rest of the rescue team, “Stay alert! Weapons ready!!”
“Whoosh—”
Danger had not yet arrived, but its sound had.
“What’s that? What’s that noise?”
The crowd, first startled by Shen Qi’s loud warning, then unnerved by Captain Li’s caution, had grown restless, some even resentful, feeling the danger had already passed and that this was just overreacting, the young girl loved the spotlight, sure, but why was the rescue team going along with it too?
The sound grew louder and louder, like the whooshing of a strong wind blowing through treetops.
Wait, wind?
Something clicked in Shen Qi’s mind, and Li Zhengze sharply noticed the same thing, the two spoke up at the same time: “Watch the sky!”