“Look, what’s that up ahead?”
Shao Xingyang pointed toward a spot in front of them. It appeared to be a small cluster of buildings. As the group drew closer, they realized it was an abandoned rural residential area.
The stone-brick walls were covered in moss, and the original dirt paths were completely overtaken by wild grass. If not for the few houses that hadn’t collapsed, it would have been impossible to tell that this had once been a place where people lived.
“Completely deserted,” Shao Xingyang remarked, glancing at several single-story houses that were still standing. “Humans simply can’t survive in environments outside the bases. If the original residents are still alive, they must be in a base by now.”
“The buildings we usually see in the base are all modularly constructed; they look like they were made with copy-paste,” Yan Hong said, touching a green-stained wall. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a house that looks like this.”
“Stay away from the structures. These houses don’t have deep foundations and are at risk of collapsing at any moment,” Tang Zeyu said, calling back the members who had strayed from the group.
“But since this is a rural area, do you think there are any free-range chickens or ducks left behind by the farmers?” Lu Shiyu’s eyes scanned the surroundings.
“Even if there were, they would have been eaten by mutated creatures after the mutation began,” Shao Xingyang spread his hands in a helpless sigh. “Poultry has zero self-preservation capability.”
“Found one!”
“There really is one!”
The group looked in the direction Lu Shiyu was pointing. A snow-white, round head poked out from a thicket of weeds, staring at them curiously with two round, black-bean eyes.
“A duck?” Yan Hong put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe there’s actually poultry that managed to survive safely in the mutation apocalypse.”
“Great, dinner is sorted for tonight.” Shao Xingyang rubbed his hands together and walked toward the duck.
“Wait, do you really think an animal like a duck, which has no self-defense skills, could live until now among a bunch of monsters?” A drop of cold sweat rolled down Chen Yunliang’s face, and his brow furrowed slightly.
At that moment, the duck let out a sudden cry: “Quack.” It was short and crisp, sounding exactly like a normal duck. This made Shao Xingyang even more certain it was just an ordinary duck. As he walked, he turned back to Chen Yunliang and said, “Maybe it’s because ducks can hide in the grass and water? There are no absolutes in this world.”
Lu Shiyu also had a sudden bad feeling. She said to Tang Zeyu beside her, “Why do I feel like Shao Xingyang is about to be unlucky again? Every time he’s this confident, something goes wrong.”
Tang Zeyu casually slapped a mosquito dead and said, “Let him be. He’s the type who remembers the food but not the beating—a glutton for punishment.”
“Haha, then he’s quite the glutton.” Lu Shiyu’s premonition grew even stronger.
“Little ducky~ do you want to come play in big brother’s stomach~?”
“Quack, quack.”
The little duck let out two more crisp cries. When Shao Xingyang knelt down to pick it up, everyone felt like something was about to happen. However, even after he lifted the duck and turned around to show the others, nothing occurred.
“This duck isn’t afraid of people at all; it even lets me hold it.”
Shao Xingyang held the white, plump duck like it was a treasure. The duck appeared to be an ordinary duck—it didn’t have any strange organs or exhibit odd behavior. It was a duck so normal that it was abnormal.
Chen Yunliang’s brow furrowed even tighter. “How can it be a real duck?”
“Could we have missed something?” Yan Hong also began to doubt her eyes. “Hurry and check if we missed any abnormal parts.”
“Hey! What are you guys whispering about?”
Shao Xingyang was about to walk toward them with the duck when Chen Yunliang finally realized what felt wrong.
“Wait! If this duck really grew up naturally, it should have turned back into a wild bird long ago. If it isn’t afraid of humans, there’s only one possibility…” Once he understood, Chen Yunliang shouted at Shao Xingyang in a panic, “Drop that duck, quickly!”
“What?” Just as Chen Yunliang spoke, the duck happened to quack, causing Shao Xingyang to miss what he said. He took a few large strides to get closer. “I didn’t hear what you just said! Say it again!”
“Throw the duck away! There’s something wrong with it!”
“Something wrong with the duck?” Shao Xingyang stopped and held the duck up to look at it. “What could be wrong with this?”
The cute little white duck tilted its head at him, looking exceptionally adorable and harmless.
“Isn’t it pretty cute?”
However, seeing how anxious Chen Yunliang was, Shao Xingyang decided to listen to his teammate and release it. He was looking around for a place to put it down when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his arm.
The previously cute and adorable duck was now baring a mouthful of fangs, biting down hard on Shao Xingyang’s arm. Blood flowed down from where the sharp teeth had sunk in.
Shao Xingyang tried to pull it off, but the duck’s mouth was like it had been welded onto his arm. His gaze turned cold, and using his free hand, he snapped the duck’s neck with his bare hands. Only then did the duck let go, allowing him to rescue his arm from its beak.
“Damn, that was sneaky.”
Shao Xingyang looked at the ring of tooth marks on his wrist. Fortunately, the fangs hadn’t damaged the bone or tendons; it wasn’t a major injury.
Just as he thought the matter was over and was about to head back carrying the dead duck, he saw the others looking behind him with horrified expressions.
“What now?”
Shao Xingyang turned around and saw many more of the same white, round heads poking out from the grass, their eyes blinking as they stared at him. A scene that could have been considered somewhat “moe” now felt incredibly eerie. It wasn’t just eerie; a cold chill crawled up his spine. Countless pairs of black-bean eyes were fixed on him, their gazes seemingly nailed to his body.
Finally, the first duck opened its yellow beak, revealing the sharp fangs inside, and let out a “Quack!”
“F*ck! Everyone run…” Shao Xingyang turned to tell the others to run, only to find they had already sprinted far enough to leave only shadows behind.
“…” Shao Xingyang almost choked on his breath. He managed to squeeze a sentence out of his throat: “You bastards…”
On the other side:
As she ran, Lu Shiyu asked, “We ran first—will Shao Xingyang be okay?”
“Don’t worry. If he couldn’t outrun a bunch of ducks, he’d have died outside the base long ago,” Yan Hong said, showing no concern at all. Instead, she said to Lu Shiyu, “Don’t keep worrying about others. You’re the weakest among us. In the future, when you encounter danger, be more conscious—hide when you should and run when you should, so you don’t end up dying without even knowing how.”
“Oh, okay,” Lu Shiyu replied obediently.
Tang Zeyu identified a relatively tall house. He grabbed Lu Shiyu’s hand and swung her up onto the perimeter wall. Then, the others climbed up one after another, moving along the wall to the rooftop before finally stopping to rest.
“It should be temporarily safe here,” Tang Zeyu said, patting the back of Lu Shiyu, who was startled by the sudden toss. “There’s a high probability those ducks can’t fly. Let’s take shelter here for now.”
Lu Shiyu took several deep breaths to calm her heart. “How do you know they can’t fly?”
Tang Zeyu pointed to the ubiquitous wild grass. “These ducks aren’t large even when mature; they’ve retained a size similar to normal ducks. This suggests this size is suitable for their survival. Inferring from the environment, these ducks usually hide in this grass to avoid predators.”
Lu Shiyu immediately raised another question: “If they hide to avoid predators, what kind of creatures hunt them? We haven’t seen any other animals nearby. Could it be some kind of plant?”
As they spoke, Shao Xingyang had already been chased near the house by the duck army. Ducks do, after all, have wings and some limited flight ability. Every now and then, a duck would flap its wings and lunge at him, making Shao Xingyang’s desperate escape quite a ordeal.
“Hey! Over here!” Lu Shiyu waved her arms and shouted at Shao Xingyang. He noticed them on the roof and ran toward their position, successfully vaulting up onto the rooftop in a series of motions.
“Whew… whew… Finally… shook them… off.”
Shao Xingyang panted heavily, hands on his knees. A regular person wouldn’t be able to recover for quite some time after such a thrilling escape.
“Strange. Why aren’t they coming over?” Chen Yunliang looked down from the house.
“What? Are you afraid they won’t come over?” Shao Xingyang asked in a high-pitched voice.
“Something is indeed wrong.”
Tang Zeyu watched the duck army below. Even though they weren’t coming up, his expression was more solemn than if they had.
Lu Shiyu also leaned over to look down. She saw those terrifying, aggressive ducks had stopped a few meters away from the house and were no longer approaching, let alone trying to get on the roof.
The ducks remained in place; a few were pacing back and forth. The flock was agitated, letting out bursts of quacking, yet they never took a single step across the boundary. It was as if they were wary of something and didn’t dare get closer.
Eventually, some of the ducks chose to disperse, waddling back to the grass where they had gathered. Others, however, refused to give up and squatted below, waiting for the group to come down and walk into their trap.
The ducks’ abnormal behavior was caught by the group. Chen Yunliang took Shao Xingyang’s bitten arm and inspected it. The tooth marks were deep, and several other wounds on his body were clearly intended to kill. It proved that these seemingly innocent ducks truly intended to swarm and eat him. But why did they give up on their prize so easily?
“Ow, ow, ow! Pinch it more gently!”
“Stop complaining. I’m healing you.”
Lu Shiyu looked at the ducks below with some worry. “If they keep surrounding us here, we won’t be able to leave.”
“I think the biggest problem right now isn’t why they’re still here, but why those other ducks left.”
Tang Zeyu watched as more and more ducks chose to depart. The premonition in his heart grew stronger; it felt as if something bad was about to happen.
“What is this?”
Yan Hong was squatting on the edge of the eaves. Because she was light and agile, she didn’t have to worry about losing her footing and falling. At this moment, she was standing on the edge in a very dangerous posture, looking downward. There seemed to be something strange under the eaves.
“Is something wrong?”
Lu Shiyu heard her and walked over from the other side. Yan Hong told her to look down. Lu Shiyu didn’t have balance as good as Yan Hong’s, so Tang Zeyu had to hold one of her hands to prevent her from falling before she dared to lean over.
What she saw was a very strange object that even startled Lu Shiyu. On the wall beneath the eaves, a large ball of thorns was stuck to the surface. Judging by the subtle movements of the spines, this ball of thorns was actually alive.
The group had been in such a hurry when they came up that they hadn’t noticed this thing hidden here at all.
“So disgusting. It looks like a bunch of coiled caterpillars,” Yan Hong commented with a disgusted expression. After speaking, she held her long blade, wanting to poke the mass off.
When Yan Hong first poked it, it didn’t budge. After shifting angles and finding a leverage point, she gave it a forceful pry from the base. The black ball of thorns flew out in a beautiful parabola. Then, it unfurled in mid-air to form a hollow circle.
Yan Hong: “?”
Lu Shiyu: “?”