Chapter 28: Just Killing

Rabbit? Or perhaps... a rat!

Suddenly, I remembered that century-old rat demon, and my heart skipped a beat. I spun around and rushed back into the cave, saying to Guli Jinsha, “We can’t stay here any longer. We have to leave immediately.”

We hurried out of the cave, stepping into the thick snow, ready to move on.

“Which way?” Guli Jinsha asked, holding her phone. But there wasn’t a trace of signal, and the map wouldn’t even load.

I was holding a compass, trying to calculate our direction. But the needle was spinning erratically, thrown off by a chaotic magnetic field—it was impossible to get a proper reading.

Why is the magnetic field being disrupted? A sense of foreboding crept over me. In this frozen, snowy forest, if we didn’t get out soon, we’d either freeze or starve to death.

The moment I thought of hunger, my stomach began to rumble, and as if on cue, Guli Jinsha’s did as well.

“I can’t get a reading. The magnetic field here is all wrong. Doesn’t matter which way we go—let’s just find something to eat first,” I said. Last night, out of caution, we hadn’t touched the food that was brought to us, and after the ordeal we went through, my hunger was so fierce I felt I could eat a whole cow.

Guli Jinsha clutched her stomach. She was famished too—wounded, blood lost, corpse poison in her veins, though she’d been cured, her body still needed energy to recover.

A squeak came from nearby. A mountain rat poked its head out, nose twitching.

With a whoosh, a long needle shot through the air and pierced the rat’s skull.

I walked over and picked up the hefty rodent, at least five or six pounds. I grinned at Guli Jinsha. “Well, breakfast is sorted.”

Guli Jinsha’s face twisted with disgust, remembering the rat demon.

“It’s a mountain rat; they eat roots. The meat is tender,” I said. Back in med school, a classmate once raved about how delicious mountain rats and bamboo rats were back home. I never believed him until I tried one at a countryside inn. Ever since, I’d never forgotten that silky, tender flavor.

Expertly, I skinned and gutted the rat, chopped off its head, and skewered it for roasting. But the fire wouldn’t catch—the branches were too damp.

Guli Jinsha pulled out a talisman. “Use this—an Explosive Flame Talisman. Don’t ignite it all at once; it’ll burn for half an hour.”

“Such extravagance—but I like it,” I said, already accustomed to her lavish ways. I took the talisman and started roasting the rat.

Soon, the air was thick with the scent of sizzling meat.

“Don’t you think there’s something wrong with this rat? Think about that rat demon. Besides, roasting it like this will give away our position,” Guli Jinsha reasoned, though her eyes remained glued to the golden, succulent meat.

“I know. Besides that rat demon, there’s probably a rat king somewhere on this mountain. But so what? If it comes, it’ll just be another meal. As for our position—well, it’s broad daylight,” I replied with a cold smile.

Guli Jinsha realized the truth. In daylight, neither zombies nor spirits dared show themselves. And if people were tracking us, with her and my skills, we had nothing to fear.

The talisman was still burning when the rat meat was done. I tore half off and tossed it to Guli Jinsha, blowing on mine as I took a big bite.

In no time, all that was left was a pile of bones.

“Shall we catch another two?” Guli Jinsha licked her lips, looking at me hopefully.

“Go ahead,” I rolled my eyes.

“Fine, I will.” She stood up.

But just then, a chill crawled up my spine and every hair stood on end.

“Watch out!” I shouted, tackling Guli Jinsha to the ground.

At that moment, a sharp wave of force grazed my scalp and slammed into a tree trunk nearby with a dull thud, punching a fist-sized hole in the wood.

Clutching Guli Jinsha, I rolled us through the snow into the shelter of the trees.

“You’re hurt,” she whispered, pulling a white handkerchief from her pocket and pressing it to my head.

“It’s nothing, just a scratch. Damn it, the Zhang family’s brought a sniper rifle,” I gritted out, trying to sound casual though cold sweat drenched my back. If I’d been any slower, that bullet would’ve blown my skull open.

“I’m going to kill them,” Guli Jinsha growled, vanishing into the snowy forest.

I took off the blood-stained handkerchief and shoved it into my pocket.

Before long, Guli Jinsha returned, radiating murderous intent, her Qingfeng blade still dripping with blood.

“How many?” I asked.

“Two,” she replied.

“Did you leave any alive?”

“I lost control,” she muttered.

“Forget it. With the only mountain road out blocked, we’re trapped on their turf. But who’s the hunter and who’s the prey is still to be decided.” My eyes flashed coldly, the violence in my heart fully awakened. If they wanted to play, I was in.

…

“Uncle, give me a cigarette to perk me up,” said a youth of seventeen or eighteen to the middle-aged man beside him. Both had automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

The man tossed him a cigarette. “Zhang Shan, your habit is worse than mine.”

Zhang Shan lit up, grinning. “I’ve had more women than you too, uncle.”

“You brat. How many, then?” the man asked.

“Not as many as my eldest cousin, but at least a hundred. Last time at Yanshui High, I lined up ten schoolgirls in a row—what a night…” Zhang Shan’s grin turned wicked, his eyes glinting a sickly green.

“Kid, it’s just a volley. I could do that when I was ten,” the man scoffed.

As Zhang Shan prepared to retort, the man waved him off. “Enough nonsense. Finish your smoke and let’s find those two. If we catch them, the commander will reward us far more than a few schoolgirls.”

“Yeah, I just hope they walk into my sights. I’ll turn them into Swiss cheese.” Zhang Shan hefted his rifle, miming a shot.

Suddenly, his scope was filled with a pair of jet-black eyes. Startled, he looked up and saw a mocking smile.

He tried to fire, but a searing pain in his gut sent him flying like a shrimp.

As he crashed into the snow, he saw his uncle’s lifeless eyes staring back at him, and a woman with a buzz cut pulling her blade from his uncle’s chest, the blood impossibly bright.

I stood over Zhang Shan, looking down at him.

“Have mercy, don’t… don’t kill me…” Zhang Shan whimpered, trembling, a dark stain spreading in his pants.

“You know fear? Did you ever think of those you tormented? I thought I was scum, but you’re beneath even that.” Rage seethed through me as I smashed the rifle butt into his mouth, shattering his teeth.

Zhang Shan’s mouth filled with blood, yet he looked up at me like a begging cur.

“Once, others looked at you just like this, begging for their lives. Did you spare them?” My anger flared, and I kept smashing his skull with the gunstock.

His head became a bloody pulp, only his eyes still moving faintly. Yes, he remembered—those people had begged too, just as pitifully. In the end, he was no different from them…

I tossed the rifle aside and kicked the tree hard, sending snow cascading down.

I pulled out a cigarette, but the lighter wouldn’t catch.

Guli Jinsha came over and snatched the lighter, lighting the cigarette for me.

“So this is all it takes to kill a man,” I said, forcing a grim smile. Over the past year, these hands had saved more lives than I could count, but now, killing was easier—brutal, almost effortless.

“Humans are scarier than ghosts,” Guli Jinsha murmured. She was different from me—she’d grown up in this world and seen far more than I had.

I drew on the cigarette, the tingling aftershock of killing slowly fading. Before, my enemies had been ghosts or zombies, mere monsters to me. I’d never felt what it was like to end a human life. It was a different feeling entirely.

What truly frightened me wasn’t the act of killing, but the realization that I felt a kind of pleasure from it. It went against everything I’d ever believed.

I finished my cigarette in a few quick puffs, flicked the butt away, and started searching the corpses for anything useful.

“You recover fast—already looting bodies. When my master forced me to kill a demonic cultivator for the first time, I vomited for three days and had nightmares for weeks,” Guli Jinsha said.

“How old were you?” I asked, checking the bodies.

“Twelve,” she replied calmly.

“Your master was ruthless,” I said, surprised.

“If not for him, I wouldn’t be alive now,” she countered, a note of deep admiration for her master, Mo Wuji.

I shrugged and changed the subject, “Why the buzz cut? I bet you’d look gorgeous with long hair.”

“I’m from the Moon Tribe. Moon women stand tall and proud—long hair just gets in the way.” She puffed out her chest, full of pride.

I gave up arguing. She was right—among the matriarchal Moon Tribe, women were sovereign, and men merely their appendages.

From the two bodies, I found a compass each. Unlike my own, these weren’t affected by the magnetic field, which was odd.

I checked their direction—neither pointed north. Walking a short distance, I noticed both compasses adjusted themselves as I moved.

“Did the first two you killed have these?” I asked.

“They did, but I didn’t look closely. Just tossed them,” Guli Jinsha replied.

“These compasses—I bet they point to the Zhang family’s base, maybe even the lair of that vengeful ghost,” I speculated, convinced I was right.

“Shall we take a look?” Guli Jinsha licked her chapped lips.

I clenched my fist and said through gritted teeth, “Yes, why not? When night falls, zombies and spirits will be everywhere, along with those damn rats. We probably wouldn’t survive. If we can’t retreat, then we advance.”