While Bai Long was eating her noodles, the gang of college students had already, under Cheng Qian’s arrangement, picked out the first supply squad.
“Teacher knows you few are usually the quick-witted ones. This time, do your best to bring back plenty of supplies. The apocalypse may be here, but our Shipbuilding Class Two has to stick together all the more! Everyone’s dinner tonight is riding on you!”
“Teacher believes the apocalypse will end sooner or later!”
Cheng Qian stood before the squad. His voice wasn’t loud, but every word landed with weight.
It reminded Bai Long of the old, “chicken-blood” (i.e., empty, pump-you-up) [1]打鸡血 / “chicken-blood”—Chinese slang for hollow, over-the-top motivational hype, the parenthetical 废话/”hot air” in the original underscores it’s nonsense jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2611445_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2611445_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); college professors she used to know.
The students who’d been chosen numbered a dozen or so, standing in two rows.
Bai Long noticed one of the students seemed to quietly roll his eyes at Cheng Qian.
Cheng Qian, still in the throes of his impassioned speech, didn’t notice.
In the end, Zhao Xin didn’t send the college students out bare-handed.
He had someone fetch them a few iron bars for self-defense.
Wu Hao volunteered to be their squad captain.
With an esper like him along, the squad’s odds of survival were higher too.
Bai Long only watched them head out the gate, then paid it no more mind.
An Ran was in the middle of explaining the whole esper business to her.
“When your powers awaken, your body has this really agonizing reaction. At the time I almost thought I’d come down with some terminal illness.”
Recalling that harrowing ordeal, An Ran couldn’t help but shudder.
“A fever’s actually one of the milder ones. When it happened to Uncle Zhao, he bled so much he nearly bled himself dry. We were all about to charge out and find him a doctor.”
At this point, the expression on An Ran’s face darkened.
“Come to think of it, the very first ones to suffer after the apocalypse began were actually the doctors and nurses.”
She pulled up some old news to show Bai Long.
“The Star Alliance hasn’t issued an official explanation yet, but plenty of people saw footage of patients who’d suddenly dropped dead reanimating and biting people.”
A video was playing on her star-ring.
The picture was very shaky, but you could still see it: a person who’d been lying on a bed with a white sheet over their face abruptly sat bolt upright, twisted around, and sank their teeth into the neck of the person beside them.
That person hadn’t even had time to stop their grief-stricken wailing over a loved one’s sudden death before they lost their life entirely.
Next came the surrounding doctors, nurses…
In the blurry, jolting footage you could clearly see blood spraying, panicked howls…
Vivid crimson bloomed across snow-white clothing.
An Ran leaned close to Bai Long’s ear and murmured, “The Star Alliance hasn’t given the details, but we figure the awakening of esper powers must be tied to the body’s abnormal reactions.”
“Like my ability is eye-radar. When it awakened, I was completely blind for several days. Uncle Zhao’s whole body, his blood vessels and skin, ruptured. His ability is 【body】 enhancement.”
“And there’s Hao, for those few days his two hands suddenly severed below the elbow. The skin and flesh were still connected, but the bones inside had completely separated. Later his arms could turn entirely into cleavers, able to chop straight through even rebar.”
After everything that had happened, An Ran had firmly filed Bai Long away as one of her own, telling her every bit of information she knew, plain and simple.
“Oh, and we’ve got one more esper, he’s leading a team out right now…”
An Ran was about to say something more when she looked up and saw Cheng Qian walking over.
She immediately shut her mouth and said politely, “Teacher Cheng, did you need something?”
Cheng Qian looked at Bai Long and An Ran sitting side by side on the planks. His expression didn’t change as he said mildly, “I hear you’re an esper too. I wanted to ask, do you know if there are any abnormalities before someone becomes an esper?”
“After all, we’ve got quite a few students in our class. If even one or two could become espers, they’d be able to lend you all an extra hand later on.”
He spoke earnestly, as if he were thinking of An Ran and the others’ best interests.
An Ran’s expression stayed flat as she pulled out the tone you use to fob off a superior. “Mm-hm, sure, sure. If I find out, I’ll definitely tell you.”
Cheng Qian could see she was brushing him off, but since she’d put it that way, it wouldn’t do for him to keep prying.
Once Cheng Qian was well out of earshot, An Ran curled her lip. “I hate that type the most. Same as that whack-job [2]神金, internet slang, a deliberate scramble of 神经病/”mental case,” meaning someone unhinged or absurd jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2611445_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2611445_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); counselor I had back in college.”
“I thought you were going to tell him.”
Bai Long was a little puzzled.
An Ran had just volunteered all of this to her on her own.
She’d assumed it wasn’t really something that needed keeping secret.
An Ran gave her a rather odd look. “How could you and him be the same? There’s a difference between close and distant.”
She pointed between herself and Bai Long, then gestured toward the direction Cheng Qian had left in, her face full of distaste.
Although at first An Ran had taken Bai Long for a man, once she got closer she saw the loose hair draped over her shoulders, and her fine, dashingly handsome features.
Bai Long was a girl, a very dashing girl.
Bai Long kept a blank face, but the skin behind her ears flushed faintly red.
She wasn’t good at handling this kind of direct goodwill, and for a moment didn’t know how to respond.
“Besides, you did save all our lives.”
An Ran, oblivious to Bai Long’s odd reaction, was about to pick the interrupted topic back up when someone called her away.
Bored sitting there, Bai Long noticed a few of the college students who’d stayed behind clustered around Auntie Wang.
From the radiant smile on Auntie Wang’s face, she’d been thoroughly sweet-talked into a good mood.
Auntie Wang scooped a small bowl of leftover plain noodles out of the pot and said in a low voice, “This is all there is. Now don’t go telling anyone I gave it to you.”
The few students, cradling the little bowl of noodles, walked off smiling.
But they were heading in Bai Long’s direction.
“Hey there, miss, you look a lot like someone I know.”
The girl holding the bowl had short, floppy-eared hair and a round face with round-framed glasses.
She looked very kindly.
Bai Long didn’t answer, just turned the two eggs over in her hand and watched her, not sure what she was after.
“You’re not a Water City local, are you? Did you flee here from somewhere else?”
The short-haired girl’s eyes crinkled into a smile, her words crisp and clear. “I think I’ve seen you before, on the garbage planet.”
“You look so much like the beastkin on the garbage planet.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough for quite a few of the shipyard workers nearby to hear.
“A beastkin?!”
A startled cry, seemingly carrying no small amount of shock.
Before Bai Long could say anything, Li Da, sitting not far from her, shot to his feet first.
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting? You got any proof?”
Li Da was furious.
Who even was this person?
Strolls right up and slanders his buddy out of nowhere!
“Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just thought she looked so similar…”
Wang Yi dipped her head slightly, her words tumbling out flustered. “I thought she seemed to have beast eyes… so I assumed…”
The girl, in the full bloom of youth, had the rims of her eyes going faintly red, she looked very pitiful.
The instant the words “beast eyes” came out, even Li Da fell silent for a moment.
“You must’ve seen wrong,” Li Da said, refusing to believe it.
“Right, Boss? There’s no way you’re a beastkin!”
Bai Long felt the gazes converging on her, as if trying to peer through the sunglasses on her face to inspect something.
She hadn’t originally known how to tell humans and beastkin apart.
Now she did.
Barring surprises, her eyes were different from an ordinary person’s.
Tsk. Even in the apocalypse, people were still pulling this kind of thing.
Bai Long was tired. She missed her cold, motionless, silent coworkers who couldn’t talk back.
“This lady definitely isn’t a beastkin. I was making a fuss over nothing and got it wrong…”
“Right, I’m a beastkin.”
The half-finished sentence stalled in Wang Yi’s throat, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking at Bai Long in surprise.
She just admitted it, point-blank?!
If she’d fled from the garbage planet, shouldn’t she be hiding her identity all the more?
Things were going so smoothly it completely overshot Wang Yi’s original plan, which had only been to drive a wedge between the shipyard and Bai Long.
For a moment she didn’t know how to respond either.
Bai Long stood up and brushed the fine dust off her cloak.
“I’m the beastkin you’re talking about.”
She said it utterly naturally, as casually as remarking on nice weather.
Right after that, everyone in the circle around Bai Long stood up.
People who’d been all smiles toward her moments ago instantly backed off several meters, as if getting close would infect them with some nasty plague.
Everywhere Bai Long’s gaze fell were faces full of disgust and gloom.
Just like the people who’d found out she worked at the funeral parlor.
“This has to be a lie…” Li Da mumbled in disbelief.
Bai Long’s gaze met An Ran’s, off toward the back.
An Ran’s eyes were full of shock.
Bai Long watched her quietly.
Conflict surfaced on An Ran’s face, but she didn’t come over.
Bai Long lowered her eyes. To be honest, she wasn’t surprised, she even felt a long-lost sort of familiarity.
Before she transmigrated, scenes like this had been nothing new to her.
Now she just understood more clearly what a heinous, unforgivable existence beastkin were in these people’s eyes.
“So?”
Bai Long turned and looked down at Wang Yi. “I’m a beastkin. Want an autograph?”
“Huh?”
Wang Yi was stumped by the question.
She, too, had been born on the garbage planet.
It had taken everything she had to test her way out of that miserable place and reach District Twenty, but the instant she saw Bai Long, she was dragged back to her own unbearable past.
The lowliest of identities, the filthiest of environments…
Meeting Bai Long’s clear, bright eyes, Wang Yi seemed to see her own lowly former self.
She’d clawed her way, step by agonizing step, out of that despicable garbage-planet identity.
By what right did a beastkin, once trampled on by thousands, now get treated better than she did?!
“Do you have any shame at all?”
He Tian, standing beside Wang Yi, rolled his eyes and stepped several meters away from Bai Long.
“Hard to say who’s more shameless, really.”
Bai Long let out a faint scoff, still rolling the eggs in her hand. “Better than the kind of person who badmouths others while crouching behind them, waiting for classmates to risk their lives just to feed her.”
“Isn’t that right?”
Bai Long looked at Wang Yi.
Having said her piece, she didn’t wait for Wang Yi to answer, she simply turned and walked off.
“Looks like I’m not welcome here either.”
Bai Long walked over to where the supplies were stockpiled. “I won’t ask for much. Give me half the supplies I brought back, and I’ll leave right now.”
“No way!” The several people guarding the entrance refused at once. “These supplies weren’t brought back by you alone, there’s An Ran and Zhang Zi’s share in here too! Why should we hand over half to you again?”
“If you ask me, An Ran and the others never should’ve given her half in the first place.” Someone nearby let out a cold snort.
Bai Long turned to look at the one who’d spoken. “Or I could just kill the three of them, then I won’t want the supplies either.”
Although she didn’t spell it out, An Ran’s trio, also present, knew exactly what she meant.
There was no denying it: without Bai Long there at the time, the three of them couldn’t possibly have made it back alive.
Let alone come back carrying this much in supplies.
But the others clearly had no intention of giving up these hard-won supplies.
“As an uninvolved party, let me say a fair word.”
At this point, Cheng Qian came out.
“While you did take part in Little An’s group’s operation, without you, they might still have made it back alive.”
Cheng Qian’s voice came slow and even, lending him an inexplicable air of credibility.
“Little An is an esper, and the other two—Little Li and Little Zhang, aren’t weak either. Them working together to escape was only a matter of time, they didn’t necessarily need you.”
Cheng Qian stood among the throng of shipyard employees, righteous and stern.
Many of the shipyard workers were swayed and began chiming in.
“Exactly. Little An is an esper after all. Clearing the zombies around here all this time has been thanks to her ability.”
“Right, think about it—Little An didn’t need any saving. With her own power she could’ve dodged most of the zombies.”
“And she looks so scrawny, did she really save Little An and the others? Couldn’t there be some mistake? How could a beastkin possibly be that kindhearted?”
“Tch, what good could ever come from a beastkin? She definitely pulled some dirty trick and conned Little An.”
An Ran stood in the crowd, ill at ease.
She didn’t dare meet Bai Long’s bright, clear eyes.
Bai Long’s eyes were like a mirror-still lake, reflecting back the heart she was running from.
But she was a beastkin.
An Ran still remembered the miserable fates of the humans the beastkin had abducted.
The image of humans gunned down at the beastkin’s whim, corpses sprawled across the road, was still fresh in her memory.
“Not a single beastkin is any good!”
This was the memory carved into their minds since childhood.
An Ran stood rooted in place, wanting to say something, but her feet seemed nailed to the ground.
Cheng Qian watched Bai Long, isolated and helpless, her circumstances flipped on their head, and the gentle smile on his face grew all the more profound.
It was at that moment the stone gate slowly swung open.
A squad came in.
It was the first batch of college students and Wu Hao’s team.
“It’s bad! Hao got bitten!”
A swaying, purplish-blue figure staggered, step by step, into the cavernous shipyard.
Jagged, sharp teeth aimed eerily at the people inside the building.
References[+]