Before Ye Lin could finish, An Ke spoke up.
"And its eyes are structured like a fish's."
"The Aberrant's eyes are on the sides of its head. That arrangement usually creates blind spots."
"I noticed its eyes couldn't move, either, so its forward field of vision is probably limited."
"Exactly."
Ye Lin nodded and glanced at An Ke.
She hadn't contributed much in the fight, but her reactions had been decent. At least she was doing better than the other two.
Its limited vision would also explain why the bodies behind the door had been piled along the sides.
"So all we need to do now is keep quiet? Could we even stay safe by hiding in their blind spots?"
He Zheng's eyes lit up, and the question burst out of him.
Ye Lin shook his head.
"Keeping the noise down might help. Staying out of sight probably won't."
"There are too many of them. If we run into a group, some of them are bound to see us."
"Fuck. Of course it couldn't be that easy."
He Zheng cursed under his breath and looked anxiously down the passage ahead.
Beyond the corner, the corridor split three ways. The lights overhead had changed to dark red emergency lamps, dim and sinister.
The passages looked like the intestines of some enormous monster.
Everyone stopped, their breathing growing uneasy.
"So which way do we go?"
As He Zheng asked, he happened to glance up. His expression froze.
"Huh? Wait. Is that writing?"
Closer inspection revealed signs above all three passages. He Zheng brightened, only for his face to fall again.
He couldn't seem to understand what they said.
"Decontaminated Quarters"
"Containment Corridor"
"Lab & Research Zone"
...
"What the hell does that mean?"
The group stopped and stared at the English signs overhead.
Zhang Tie, the tallest of them, just stood there with his mouth open, blinking at the incomprehensible words.
Even Ye Lin was frowning, apparently thinking something over. He Zheng turned to the others.
"Seriously? None of you knows any English?"
"I repeated two grades and spent all my time screwing around, so I've got an excuse. What's yours?"
"An Ke?"
He pressed her for an answer, pinning his hopes on someone who seemed to have a brain.
But before An Ke could give her hesitant response, Hu Jia spoke up.
"I know this!"
"The first one should mean rooms that have been disinfected. The second is somewhere you keep things, so a storage area? And the third is where they do experiments. A work area?"
"You sure?"
Hu Jia had expected everyone to be impressed. Instead, He Zheng seemed not to believe him. Flushing, he hurried to defend himself.
"Of course I'm sure!"
"I'm in the science track. I've always been top of my year, and I already had guaranteed university admission! If I hadn't wanted to see how high I could score on the exam, I wouldn't even..."
His eyes dimmed.
He regretted it. God, he regretted taking the college entrance examination.
If he hadn't walked into that exam hall, perhaps he would never have been dragged here. He would never have had to face an exam this cruel.
"Huh. Wouldn't have guessed you were a straight-A student."
"Fine, then. We take the first one? The disinfection area? Sounds safer."
Ignoring Hu Jia's dejection, He Zheng snorted and turned to Ye Lin.
He had a terrible opinion of Hu Jia. Being slightly useful this once didn't change the fact that the kid was too much of a coward to be worth a damn.
To his surprise, Ye Lin headed straight for the third passage.
"Not the first one. We take the third. The laboratory area."
"Huh? Why? You can read that, Ye Lin?"
He Zheng stared, and the others looked at Ye Lin in surprise as well.
When Ye Lin ruled out the disinfection area, He Zheng instinctively rounded on Hu Jia.
"Did this kid translate it wrong? Is the first one not a disinfection area?"
Ye Lin shook his head and spoke as he walked.
"No. His translation isn't wrong. The context is different."
"And the third is our only option."
He paused briefly and looked up at the emergency lights.
"In an ordinary setting, Hu Jia's translation would work. But there are Aberrants here."
"Fish heads on human bodies. They're clearly products of genetic engineering." Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
"In a biological research facility, the first passage means living quarters you can only enter after decontamination. Not somewhere things are disinfected."
"The second is a containment area, and the third is a biological research laboratory."
The others stared. Hu Jia faltered too, realizing what he had overlooked.
He Zheng gave Ye Lin a strange look, a thousand questions racing through his mind.
He had felt something was off ever since Ye Lin pulled out that gun. Now the kid seemed more mysterious than ever.
Pushing those suspicions down, He Zheng couldn't help asking another question.
"Then shouldn't we be taking the first one even more?"
"Wouldn't going into the biological research lab be suicide? Isn't that where the Aberrants escaped from?"
"No. It's the exact opposite."
Ye Lin breathed out and explained quietly.
"Have you forgotten the bodies by the door?"
"First, they've been dead for over two weeks. That means the Aberrants have been here even longer."
"The Aberrants eat people. They need food, but they didn't eat those bodies. That means there's still food somewhere, and plenty of it."
"So where would they keep a large supply of food?"
He Zheng's expression changed. However slow he was, he understood what Ye Lin meant.
There would be no food in containment, and there couldn't be much in the labs. The only place that might store large quantities of food was the living quarters.
Fuck!
He Zheng glared furiously at Hu Jia. If they'd taken the first passage, they would have walked straight into the monsters' mouths!
"No need to blame him."
Ye Lin shook his head, signaling He Zheng to calm down.
"There'll be plenty of Aberrants in the living quarters, but the laboratory won't be much better."
"These monsters are already moving around. Whichever passage we choose, we'll run into them."
"We're taking the third because we don't have a choice."
"Why don't we have a choice?"
An Ke spoke up, frowning as though she had an idea of her own.
Ye Lin turned and gave her a slightly surprised look. If he remembered correctly, this was the first time she had volunteered a question.
He let it pass. After a moment's silence, he answered slowly.
"Because whatever can save us..."
"Can only be in the laboratory area."