Volume 9: The Days Can’t Be Lived Anymore
Deadlock1
Still alive?
Reason told her that she should let go, but her emotions told her——if all of them let go, then that Da xiongdi would be cold2.
That Da xiongdi was a pretty good person…
There was not much time for her to hesitate, and soon she made a decision——she chose to do her best to dodge the incoming feathers under the condition of not letting go and not slackening her strength, and the two people beside her had clearly made the same choice as her.
The hard, ice-cold feathers cut open her clothes, broke her skin, and then with a few muffled thump thump sounds, they entered the floor up to their ends.
Only then did fresh blood flow out from the wounds. A bloody smell, mixed with an indescribable foul stench, spread through the air.
The strange bird pressed its eye against the window frame above. That frame was exactly as big as one of its eyes, achieving a bizarre sense of overlap. Its turbid eyeball rolled around quickly, like an eel swimming in sludge, slippery and disgusting, greedily watching the few people in the room.
“What do we do!” Ren Yue said, “Are there any handy weapons?!”
Shang Zhou gritted his teeth and, upon hearing her, answered with difficulty: “If there were weapons, we would have grabbed them long ago!”
So are they just going to wait for death like this?!
“Crack——” The overburdened window frame emitted a crisp sound. Long cracks split open where it connected to the surrounding wall and showed a tendency to spread outwards.
Da xiongdi loosened his blood-drenched hands: “You all should let go!”
“Although this is the best way, but——” Ren Yue’s feet pushed against the floor, using all her strength to pull him back, “Since we didn’t let go just now, how can there be any reason to give up halfway?!”
The arrow-rain of feathers was launched again, and this time the quantity was much greater than the last. They did not have enough space to dodge and were successively wounded by the feathers. Even the most agile Xiao Lou suffered some light injuries, and the immobile Da xiongdi became even more of a target, continuously letting out muffled groans representing pain.
His eye sockets were red, and his body trembled nonstop, but not because of fear or pain, but because of a stinging nose and feeling moved.
They were merely passersby who had met by chance, like duckweed on water3.
Unnecessary…
Truly unnecessary…
So it turns out that in an era like this, humanity still exists… as long as humanity is not extinct, then humankind can still be saved, right?
The scratched shoulder swelled up. That claw had been continuously injecting a scalding hot liquid into his body. His throat tasted of iron, and a mouthful of fresh blood sprayed out, but the color of the blood was an abnormal green.
It was very painful. A pain like his body was being torn apart.
His five viscera and six bowels4 began to stir, clamoring wantonly inside his body, staging a concert that started something new and unique.
He sprayed out another mouthful of green blood, tilted his head slightly, and saw the shocked expressions of the several people.
Something tore through flesh·and·blood and drilled out from his shell. He screamed in pain, but what came out was a shrill bird cry.
“Rip——” was the sound of his left arm separating from his body. That strange bird tore off his entire arm and half of his shoulder, then left the window holding the food in its beak.
The few of them fell into a heap due to inertia, sprayed all over their bodies and faces with green blood.
Ren Yue’s hand was trembling, but she still moved him away from the windowsill at the first opportunity, dragging a trail of green blood across the floor.
Xiao Lou and Shang Zhou at the side also quickly moved to the doorway. The three of them squatted down and surrounded Da xiongdi, only able to watch helplessly as his wound bled outwards, unable to do anything.
His injuries were extremely severe. The area at his shoulder was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, and a piece of broken bone stuck out from within the churning flesh.
Da xiongdi fainted for an instant, then was quickly woken by the pain, asking with a hoarse voice: “What… happened to me?”
Shang Zhou replied: “The situation is not good. The shoulder injury is severe, with excessive blood loss. If there isn’t professional equipment and tools to help…”
Da xiongdi interrupted him: “What I’m asking… is my appearance… what changes have happened?”
Shang Zhou pressed his lips together and answered truthfully: “Feathers have grown on your face… you’ve become very much like that bird.”
The sound of gnawing from outside the window never stopped, and from time to time, a couple of cheerful chirps could be heard.
Da xiongdi, with a breath like a floating thread5, said: “My… my body is also so itchy… it should… it should also be growing feathers…”
Ren Yue was so anxious she wanted to cry, but she held it back and comforted him in a low voice: “It’s okay… don’t be afraid… it’s okay…”
“It should be… you shouldn’t be afraid…” Da xiongdi managed a smile, “If I turn into a monster… I trouble you to please kill me immediately…”
“Okay…” Ren Yue responded, wiped her tears, and climbed up, carefully grabbing the nearest piece of glass shard to them.
Xiao Lou and Shang Zhou were on guard at the window, preventing that strange bird from launching another attack. Da xiongdi painfully □□ed out loud, his legs kicking about randomly on the floor, occasionally letting out a hoarse bird cry.
Ren Yue pinched the glass shard and squatted in front of him, her heart feeling as if a giant rock was pressing down on it, making it somewhat hard to breathe.
Feathers pierced through the man’s clothes, growing rapidly as if on hormones. His fingernails began to sharpen, and his five fingers also showed signs of fusing together.
Ren Yue’s hand was trembling, and tears were streaming down, but she still held the glass shard steady, suspending it above Da xiongdi’s throat.
Shang Zhou looked back at her and suddenly said: “Let me do it. You go watch the strange bird.”
Ren Yue truly couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She did not hesitate for long, turning to hand the glass to Shang Zhou, and then quickly swapped positions with him.
Shang Zhou did not hesitate for long. He looked at Da xiongdi’s pained expression and said softly: “Do you still want to hold on?”
Da xiongdi was in so much pain he was about to lose his mind: “Help… me…”
Shang Zhou raised his hand and stabbed the glass down towards his throat.
However, he only inserted·it an inch before meeting an obstruction, finding it difficult to advance even a little further.
Da xiongdi’s eyes suddenly flew open, no longer clear within them, having become turbid like that strange bird’s. He let out a sharp screech, the sound waves turning tangible and rippling outwards, blasting the piece of glass on his neck away and inserting it into the ceiling.
Shang Zhou was also shaken and sat on the ground with a thud. Ren Yue saw that things were not right and quickly pulled him over. The next second, Da xiongdi’s claws, which had become like a birdman’s, landed on the spot where he had just been.
“Wooo——” The broken glass on the ground rustled, and a cold wind poured into the room. The blood on the floor and on their bodies showed a tendency to freeze.
In the room, aside from their own bodies which they couldn’t touch, they could touch everything else. Xiao Lou dismantled the horizontal rod from inside the wardrobe with her bare hands, walked to the two of them, and pulled them up one by one: “It’s too late.”
Ren Yue wiped away the tears and the green blood that was blocking her vision: “I’m sorry, it’s my fault for hesitating.”
Xiao Lou shook her head: “It’s not your fault.”
Da xiongdi had completely lost consciousness, turning into the same kind of monster as the one outside.
The flesh and blood of his empty left shoulder began to squirm, growing outwards into a bare bird claw, which was then covered in a thick layer of feathers in an instant.
He flapped his wings, bringing up a huge gust of air, once again blowing the glass shards flying, which clattered down onto the floor of the first story.
The few of them were also forced to continuously retreat because of this, and soon slid to the side of the window.
The one outside was like a fly that had smelled a foul odor, flapping its wings and flying back to the second floor, its claws digging into the window frame and reaching towards them.
The few of them scattered with difficulty, becoming separated just like that. The strange bird that Da xiongdi had turned into flapped one wing, flying up none too balanced, and charged straight for Shang Zhou who had harmed him.
Shang Zhou dodged in a panic and was sent flying by its collision, falling into the open wardrobe and making a loud “thud”. There was no movement for a long while; it was unknown if he was knocked unconscious or had activated his own ability.
However, the two birds inside and outside the room did not place their attention on him anymore, turning to attack Ren Yue and Xiao Lou instead.
Xiao Lou broke the rod in half on her leg and threw one half to Ren Yue: “One for each of us, can you hold on?!”
Ren Yue: “I’ll do my best!”
The two of them took separate stances. Xiao Lou was responsible for Da xiongdi, and she was responsible for one claw of the big bird outside the window, and thus the chaotic battle began.
Ren Yue didn’t have much time to observe the battle situation on Xiao Lou’s side; the giant strange bird’s claw had already taken all of her attention. When the rod struck it, it was just like hitting a piece of hard metal. Other than making her hand go numb from the shock, it seemed to have no other effect.
The arrow-rain of feathers appeared again. One feather passed through the side of her waist, causing her movements to freeze for a moment, and then she was slapped in the face by a claw, sliding several meters across the floor, past the grappling Xiao Lou and Shang Zhou, and directly crashing into the leg of the bed.
The wound burned with a fiery pain, and her nose also felt a sharp ache. Blood streamed from both her nostrils. She felt that her nose had definitely been broken, but it wasn’t; she had only been disfigured.
But her life was almost gone, so whether she was disfigured or not was secondary, because she had been sent flying, and that giant claw was now free, grabbing towards Xiao Lou who had her back to the window. At the same time, Da xiongdi also extended his sharp claws towards her neck.
This was almost a deadlock.
To the left was the wardrobe, to the right was the bed, and beside the bed sat Ren Yue who hadn’t gotten up; if she dodged backwards, she would certainly be caught by the strange bird; if she stood still, she would have her throat cut open by Da xiongdi…
She gritted her teeth, rapidly calculating how to reduce the losses to a minimum, yet the time left for her was not ample.
Ren Yue endured the pain and scrambled up, using all her strength to run towards Xiao Lou, roaring: “Look in front of you!” Then she poked the rod towards the strange bird’s claw, like a mantis raising its arm to stop a chariot6.
The sharp claw split the wooden rod from the middle, finishing splitting the wood in the blink of an eye, and pierced into Ren Yue’s chest.
She endured the pain and kicked out, using the inertia to take two steps back while clutching her wound, and fell down beside the bed.
Xiao Lou’s figure was in a sorry state. She repelled Da xiongdi with one strike and asked with a frown: “Still alive?”
Ren Yue replied weakly: “Can’t die!”
Xiao Lou said: “Probably soon.”
Ren Yue laughed out loud: “Are you sick?”
Xiao Lou also smiled.
The scene just now of that idiot charging over while injured to help her block the attack from behind had truly shaken her.
She could have completely hidden by herself. Although the result would still have been death, she would have absolutely died later than her, and perhaps could have even exchanged it for a sliver of hope.
But she didn’t; instead, she stood out.
If she were to die together with this idiot, it seems like it wouldn’t be so bad?
At least she, Lou Jingmo, had not been without someone who genuinely liked her.
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