Once the matter was resolved, Chen Qinglie didn’t linger any longer and turned to Shen Qi. “Come with me, let’s talk about Nuonuo and Babu.”
Shen Qi followed him.
After some discussion, she learned that Chen Qinglie had already received word from Li Zhengze, who had explained Shen Qi and Nuonuo’s situation and asked him to look out for her.
Chen Qinglie saluted her, his expression serious. “Thank you for your help with the rescue team. Your contribution will always be remembered!”
The sudden formality left Shen Qi a little embarrassed. “It’s nothing, it’s what anyone should do, and besides, Nuonuo’s contribution was much bigger, I just tagged along.”
Nuonuo leaned against her, nuzzling close: 【That’s not true, two-legged beast, you’re amazing too. You work hard to save people every single day, your hands and feet are all calloused now, don’t think I haven’t noticed! Don’t be so modest!】
Shen Qi stroked its leg fur, feeling warm inside while also marveling at how Nuonuo’s use of proper idioms kept improving by the day.
Chen Qinglie said, “It sounds simple, but actually doing it isn’t easy at all. This mall building is tall and sturdy, I’ve been stationed here for half a month, and we’ve taken in several hundred survivors, with more arriving even now.
“But those willing to join the rescue effort could be counted on two hands, and some of them quit after just two or three days. Some of Nuonuo’s credit belongs to you too, after all, without you, it wouldn’t have helped with the rescue work at all. Both your contributions will always be remembered!”
Most survivors weren’t willing to join the rescue team, since it was purely voluntary, aside from extra food, there was no other compensation.
Now that personal cards weren’t yet widely issued, and contribution points were still just a carrot dangled in front of people, the general population didn’t put much faith in them.
Here at the mall, people could do labor in exchange for supplies, one side offered compensation, the other offered nothing but free labor. In comparison, even fewer people wanted to volunteer for rescue work.
“As for Babu and Nuonuo, you probably understand as well, they’re special. As mutant beasts, they have extraordinary abilities and are naturally free-spirited by nature, yet they choose to stay by our side.”
“Fallen beasts can’t be controlled, they’re intent on hurting people, highly aggressive, a large part of why there are so few survivors is because fallen beasts are simply too bloodthirsty. Countless survivors have died at their claws, and I’ve lost many comrades to them as well. Humanity needs the help of mutant beasts, especially ones like Nuonuo and Babu.”
Shen Qi’s heart grew heavy.
The earthquake alone was already a terrible enough misfortune, and mutant beasts and fallen beasts on top of that were both surreal and yet another disaster layered on top, truly, misfortunes never come alone [1]misfortunes never come alone (huò bù dān xíng, 禍不單行) Idiom/Proverb, disasters tend to arrive in clusters rather than one at a time jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3166617_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3166617_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Being human was hard enough as it was.
“What can I do?”
Chen Qinglie smiled. “You don’t need to do anything special. Just protect yourself, and protect Nuonuo, that’s enough! Heaven always leaves a way out [2]heaven always leaves a way out (tiān wú jué rén zhī lù, 天無絕人之路) Idiom/Proverb, fate never seals off every path, no matter how dire things look, some way to survive will present … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3166617_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3166617_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, there’ll be a solution eventually.”
“By the way, the main reason I wanted to talk to you was to ask, would you be willing to have Nuonuo and Babu spar regularly? Mutual improvement and all that. As compensation, I could help train Nuonuo, I used to be a top-tier dog handler, you know!”
It was a win-win, so of course Shen Qi had no reason to refuse. Still, a mutant military dog, trained by a gold-medal handler?
“Captain Li mentioned a mutant military dog that went on a hunger strike and ran off to find its handler, that wasn’t you two, was it?”
Chen Qinglie looked surprised that Shen Qi already knew about this, and said with feeling, “Yes, that was us. If it weren’t for Babu, I wouldn’t have made third sergeant this quickly either.”
Shen Qi’s interest was immediately piqued.
If a dog, even after mutating, still remembered its trainer fondly enough to seek him out, that said something about Chen Qinglie as a genuine dog lover, and since Babu’s intelligence had increased after mutating, it must have thought it over and decided Chen Qinglie’s abilities were worth respecting before choosing to stay with him.
Shen Qi asked Nuonuo, “Would you be willing to spar with Babu? Willing to train under Captain Chen?”
Nuonuo glanced at Shen Qi, whose interest was obvious, then at Babu, who looked eager for a fight, and puffed out its chest. “Woof!” A single mighty, dignified bark.
【I’m willing!】
Shen Qi turned to answer Chen Qinglie, “Then I’ll entrust Nuonuo to you and Babu,” but caught a somewhat odd look on his face.
Shen Qi: “……What’s wrong?”
Chen Qinglie: “You… you can actually understand what It’s saying? It can communicate with you too?!”
Oh no, she’d forgotten how unusual her and Nuonuo’s situation actually was.
It seemed, then, that other people genuinely couldn’t understand the language of mutant beasts, but Shen Qi was different, she could not only understand exactly what Nuonuo and Babu meant when they made sounds, but she could also receive Nuonuo’s “voice transmitted directly into her mind.”
Shen Qi said, “I… I guess I can?”
Chen Qinglie stared at her with a complicated expression for a good while before saying, “I understand, you don’t know why either, it just suddenly happened, and now you can communicate with Nuonuo, right?”
“Ah, the higher-ups have been puzzled about this for a while now. The anomalous particles released by the earthquake seem so powerful that they mutated all the animals, so why haven’t humans shown any major changes? Turns out, it’s not that there are none, it’s just that no one’s seen them yet.”
Shen Qi’s heart tightened, was she being too conspicuous, standing out like this? Would she be dragged off somewhere to be studied?
Chen Qinglie’s next words put her worries to rest: “Don’t worry, with mutant beasts and fallen beasts already out in the open, a human who can talk to animals like some kind of Disney princess is perfectly normal too.”
“Let me share a little insider tip from the authorities, some people have shown signs of possible mutation as well, like suddenly having a photographic memory, or suddenly becoming incredibly fast on foot, or suddenly turning into a bottomless-pit eater.”
“But all of those stay within the range of normal human limits, nothing as obvious as yours, nothing as surreal as what you’ve got. The official stance is to encourage and recruit, to try to build good relationships with people like this. So you don’t need to worry too much.”
Shen Qi let out a sigh of relief, quietly resolving in her heart that even with the authorities’ relatively positive stance, she’d still keep her unusual abilities well hidden. Positive as an overall attitude was one thing, but no one could guarantee there wasn’t a single dark corner anywhere.
She changed the subject, teasing him, “Captain Chen sure knows a lot, you must’ve watched plenty of Disney princess movies, huh?”
Chen Qinglie’s handsome face flushed red. “It’s not, ugh, it was all my sister forcing me, I didn’t want to either!”
Shen Qi said, “It’s fine, a manly man pairing well with a bit of pink and princess-heart charm, nothing wrong with that.”
Chen Qinglie… Chen Qinglie’s ears turned red all the way down to his neck.
He would absolutely never admit to Shen Qi that, honestly, he thought Disney princess movies were actually pretty good…
……
Meanwhile, in the neighboring city of Y.
Dust and debris flew, ruined walls and broken buildings all around. A fallen beast, eyes wide, finally succumbed to the dagger buried in its throat, breathing its last.
The man’s expression stayed calm as he pulled out the dagger with a firm tug, drawing out a stream of dark, foul-smelling blood.
Looking closely, this fallen beast appeared to have once been a dog, its body somewhat enlarged, with festering sores in places, along with knife wounds, gunshot wounds, and varying degrees of fractures in all four legs.
Fallen beasts had no thoughts of their own, felt no fear of pain, and were driven purely by hunger and savagery, this made them wander the city like walking corpses, constantly attacking humans, placing an enormous burden on the military teams tasked with clearing them out.
Shen Hexiu, as usual, had followed the troops in clearing the streets and was getting ready to head back to the resting point with the convoy.
Xia Yangyu came over, admiration written on his face. “Brother Shen, it’s such a waste that you’re not enlisted, you were born to be a soldier!”
Shen Hexiu was no stranger to comments like this, plenty of people had said similar things to him even before the earthquake.
As he recalled, back when he was a teenager living in a small town, the girl from next door had once told him: “Brother Hexiu, you’re so skilled, just like a police officer, so reliable. Are you going to be a police officer when you grow up? Or join the military?”
Thinking of that cautious little girl, bristling with defensiveness on the outside yet soft-hearted underneath, that “little hedgehog”, Shen Hexiu’s expression softened for just a moment. Counting the years, it had been quite a while since they’d last seen each other.
He laughed, answering half-seriously, half-jokingly: “My family’s fairly well-off, you know, they made me study finance, wouldn’t let me join the military.”
……
The “little hedgehog”, Shen Qi, had no idea that a certain big-tailed wolf she hadn’t seen in years was secretly thinking about her. Right now, something else was puzzling her far more.
She stared in disbelief at the vacuum-sealed pack of braised meat on her bed, carefully trying to recall whether she’d locked the door before leaving her room.
She definitely had. She’d locked the door, no doubt about it.
So how had this braised meat ended up on her bed?
Shen Qi picked up the bag and examined it closely, it was actually the exact brand she used to love, spicy flavor, great with rice.
Although Shen Qi felt her little partitioned room’s lock was fairly secure and unlikely to be breached by anyone, food didn’t just appear out of thin air. To be safe, she mentioned it to Captain Chen and asked to have a soldier who was good with locks check whether hers had been tampered with.
“Nope, it hasn’t been picked. Why the sudden concern? Did someone sneak into your room?”
Shen Qi didn’t expect that Chen Qinglie, this former gold-medal dog handler turned third sergeant, also happened to know how to fix locks.
She instinctively kept the matter of the braised meat to herself, only saying, “No, it’s just, I’ve never stayed in a room like this before, it just feels a bit unsafe somehow.”
Shen Qi thought to herself, whoever could sneak food to her, unnoticed, in a world as hard as this one, without ever showing their face or trying to win her favor, what could they possibly be after by doing so?
Ulterior motives usually boiled down to money or romantic interest, and given whoever this was had the skill to slip in and out of her room without anyone noticing, money or romance would come easy to them, what could they possibly gain from just sending her food?
And besides, this strange experience felt oddly familiar to her somehow.
But where exactly was that familiarity coming from?
Nuonuo circled the packet of braised meat, sniffing at it again and again, thoroughly puzzled.
This smell, so familiar, and yet so mixed with other scents that the faint hint of familiarity got buried, barely noticeable at all.
Shen Qi didn’t notice Nuonuo’s confusion. Once she’d let the matter go, she stopped dwelling on it, after all, it was vacuum-sealed, so there shouldn’t be any issue, and ended up eating it with rice for dinner that very night.
While eating, Shen Qi clearly heard the sound of someone swallowing saliva.
Her chopsticks paused for a moment, then she went back to eating with even more relish.
It had only been a little over half a month since the earthquake, but even with so many survivors packed into the mall and supplies running low quickly, the authorities kept sending new supplies periodically, as long as you were willing to work, there was still oil and substance in what you ate.
The mall was an important supply and resettlement point, with far more troops stationed here than at the East District square, so families with dependents didn’t need to worry either, anyone with the will to work could simply do labor in exchange for supplies.
Right now, the ones swallowing their saliva were all people who preferred idleness, waiting around to be handed charity.
Back at the square, the elderly, women, and children had made up the majority, with very few able-bodied adults, and most of those had families to care for.
That was exactly why the rescue team had struggled to recruit help, and why a single fallen yellow dog had been enough to leave everyone in a bind.
That place had also received far less material aid, besides the rescue team, the other survivors had barely had proper meals at all.
But here at the mall?
Just on the floor Shen Qi was staying on, she could see plenty of able-bodied young men and women, all under the military’s supervision, looking to be in noticeably good spirits, yet there were still plenty of people sitting there gnawing on dry compressed biscuits with water, living rougher than even Shen Qi had while traveling on the road.
If others chose to live that way, it wasn’t Shen Qi’s business, she, for one, intended to eat and drink well regardless.
Today was a rest day, starting tomorrow, she’d go out to work, likely something similar to her time with the rescue team.
She would always plan for the worst, there was no way she’d settle for scraping by, waiting around for order to return to how it used to be. The animal mutations were a warning sign, the days ahead would probably only get harder.
Once she’d thoroughly searched every inch of this mall, top to bottom, inside and out, and still hadn’t found Little Tiger, she’d move on and continue searching elsewhere.
That night, after washing up and returning to her room, Shen Qi turned on the light and carefully checked every corner of the small partitioned space.
Nothing seemed wrong, nothing was missing, nothing extra had appeared.
But just as she was about to give up and climb into bed to sleep, she noticed a snag in the bedsheet, as if a thread from a sweater had gotten caught and pulled out, leaving a long loose strand hanging off the edge.
Shen Qi was certain, that bedsheet had been completely intact before today.
She leaned in close to examine it and, sure enough, found several strands of hair on it, a mix of gray and white, longer than her own hair.
A flicker of amusement crossed Shen Qi’s eyes. She decided not to look into it any further, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
That night’s sleep wasn’t restful at all, she spent the entire night trapped in a dream she couldn’t wake from.
She dreamed of the stepfather who had long since been beaten to death by debt collectors, pinned beneath rubble with only his head sticking out, his eyes full of malice.
“You worthless girl! Why did you tell them where I was hiding? I finally managed to escape, and when the earthquake hit, why didn’t you save me?! It hurts so much, come down here and keep me company!!”
He clearly hadn’t lived to see the earthquake, clearly he had died long ago.
But in the dream, it was as if she knew none of that, as if she’d gone back to before she turned ten, thin and weak, easy to bully, only able to cry as her stepfather chased her down the street with a stick.
She was so scared, running, running, running, but no matter how she ran, she couldn’t escape the rubble, and at every turn, she found herself once again face to face with her stepfather’s bloody, mangled face.
Was she going to die? Had that day finally come?
Suddenly, a long-haired giant beast dropped down from the sky. In Shen Qi’s vision, it was nothing but a blur of pixelated mosaic, only its drifting fur catching her attention, landing squarely, precisely, on top of both Shen Qi and her stepfather.
Her stepfather was crushed to death right beside her, his body covered in knife wounds and bruises from being beaten with a stick, as if he hadn’t been crushed at all, but rather beaten to death by someone.
A dagger was buried in his chest, the exact spot of the fatal wound.
Shen Qi, too, lay crushed beneath the giant beast, but she felt no discomfort at all, the beast’s fur was like a soft, weightless blanket, gentle and warm.
Oh, well, it wasn’t entirely without sensation, after being pressed down for so long, her chest did feel somewhat stuffy.
Being wrapped in that fur felt wonderful, in her hazy state, Shen Qi found herself experiencing the same sense of security a fetus might feel in its mother’s womb.
She finally broke free of the nightmare, and slept soundly through the rest of the night.
The next day.
Shen Qi woke up gasping, her chest aching with a dull, repeated pain.
She wasn’t alarmed. She scanned the small partitioned room and, sure enough, found something new by her pillow.
An apple, a pear, and a small handful of vibrant, deep-red cherries.
A new day, a new beginning, Shen Qi picked up the apple and sniffed it, humming a tune, in an excellent mood.
The work of clearing rubble and organizing supplies was mostly finished by now, survivors looking to work now had only two options left, reconstruction or street clearing.
Whichever one they chose, they couldn’t avoid running into fallen beasts, so fewer and fewer people were willing to sign up for work.
Besides, the military wasn’t going to let survivors starve, even doing nothing at all still guaranteed a baseline ration each day: one pack of compressed biscuits and one bottle of water. So why bother taking the risk?
Plenty of people thought this way, and as a result, life for many kept getting harder day by day.
References[+]