Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Killer Bee and Mantis

Morning came.

Feng Ling woke up sharp and clear-headed, feeling better than she could remember. Her body felt… full. Charged. Like it had finally found a rhythm it was born for.

If her new ability really meant “a powerful body and endless strength,” that explained why she felt so alive.

Unfortunately, it also came with a problem.

She was starving. Not normal hungry—bottomless hungry, the kind that hollowed her out from the inside.

Remembering the instant Bao Zi she’d bought, Feng Ling opened the fridge and set two Bao Zi into the microwave.

She paused, reconsidered, and stuffed the remaining four in as well.

While the microwave hummed, she washed up and tapped a breaking-news push notification on her phone.

“Recently, at Times Square, a vicious aberrant homicide incident caused a total of 27 dead and injured…”

“Aberrants possess humanlike intelligence. They call themselves players. They use human bodies as a medium to act, and refer to this behavior as ‘login.’ After an aberrant logs into a human body, it typically disguises itself and lives as an ordinary person.”

“The public is urged to remain vigilant. If you notice suspicious behavior, call the aberrant hotline immediately… Valid information will be rewarded with 10,000 yuan. Successfully killing an aberrant will be rewarded with 1,000,000…”

Feng Ling froze with her toothbrush in her mouth.

“One million?”

She checked the screen, half expecting she’d misheard.

She hadn’t.

The government had issued a bounty. Kill an aberrant and you got one million. If the aberrant was on the official wanted list, the reward stacked—up to eight million.

Feng Ling’s gaze drifted toward the toilet.

If that news had arrived a few hours earlier, she wouldn’t have flushed last night’s rotten sludge down the drain.

“One million…” she mumbled, then swallowed her irritation. Too late. Gone. She couldn’t un-flush it.

Life moved forward. Today’s expenses still needed paying.

She finished washing up, pulled six steaming Bao Zi from the microwave, threw on a sport jacket, and headed out.

Rush hour on the loop line was packed tight—no seats, no space, just bodies and stale air.

Feng Ling leaned against the window and unwrapped a mint from her pocket.

She’d eaten all six Bao Zi on the way, and the fullness had lasted maybe twenty minutes. Now the hunger was back, gnawing at her like it had teeth.

What kind of ability was this? The message last night said the Ability Card’s genes had mutated. Was the “mutation” just that she could eat like a monster?

She let the mint dissolve and forced herself to plan. Candy. Chocolate bars. Something she could keep on her. The thought of getting dizzy and collapsing from hunger in the wrong place made her skin crawl.

Another expense, she thought grimly. Great.

“Next stop, Tian Shui Park…”

Feng Ling glanced at the electronic station display.

In the window’s reflection, she caught a man staring at her from the passage between carriages—dead-on, unblinking.

Their eyes met.

He smiled.

It wasn’t friendly. It was the kind of smile you gave a locked door you already had the key for.

Feng Ling’s stomach tightened. [What is his problem?]

The man started pushing through the crowd toward her, still wearing that wrong smile.

Something was off.

The train reached Tian Shui Park station. Passengers surged out in a flood.

Feng Ling stepped off with them, fast and decisive, and kept moving. She didn’t run yet—running drew attention—but the pressure in her chest climbed with every step.

He looked like an ordinary commuter. Her instincts didn’t care.

[Get away.]

Could he be an aberrant?

She was tracking the movement behind her when a scream tore through the station.

Feng Ling didn’t look back.

She shoved past a passenger blocking her path and broke into a sprint.

Panic detonated. People scattered. The air turned sharp with fear.

Feng Ling’s heart slammed, blood rushing so hard she could hear it. Her senses snapped taut. In a blink, she lunged forward, jumped, and hit the ground in a roll—

Bang!

A scythe-like bone blade smashed into the floor where her foot had been. The impact rattled the tiles and the bones in her teeth.

Feng Ling twisted up and looked back.

The neatly dressed office worker was gone.

In his place stood something taller, thicker—swollen with sudden mass. His arms had become curved blades, wet with fresh blood. His face held naked killing intent—and excitement, like he’d finally found the prize he’d come for.

Feng Ling ran.

The station snapped into chaos. Everyone bolted for the exits, bodies crashing together as the crowd jammed the ticket gates.

Feng Ling was swallowed in the crush, shoved forward with nowhere to step.

Then the aberrant jumped.

It rose over the crowd and slammed down in front of the gates with a thunderous boom.

Too fast.

Its scythes lifted—

—and fell.

A head flew up from the crowd, tracing a clean arc before blood sprayed across the electronic ad screen.

Feng Ling watched, stunned, as the person ahead of her became two pieces.

The aberrant turned toward her.

It came for her.

Feng Ling tried to break away, but armed guards rushed in from the side and opened fire. The station exploded with gunshots, echoes hammering the walls.

Blood burst across the aberrant’s body in dense blossoms.

It barely mattered.

Even shots that should have dropped it didn’t slow it. If anything, the damage fed it. Its eyes went red. Its back humped, muscles bunching like a beast about to charge.

Then it crashed into the guards.

Scythes rose and fell. Blood splashed. Screams cut short.

Feng Ling ducked behind a pillar, mind sprinting.

Speed. Blades. A monster that could carve through people like paper.

What could she do?

Her gaze snagged on a bright red fire box.

While the aberrant focused on the guards, Feng Ling dashed to it, yanked out a fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, and charged.

She squeezed the handle.

White foam blasted out like a blizzard.

It wasn’t meant to kill—it was meant to blind.

If she took its eyes, its speed wouldn’t matter. Fast or not, it would be thrashing in the dark.

The aberrant roared and swung at her anyway.

Too fast.

Feng Ling raised the extinguisher to block.

Clang!

The bone blade struck metal and split the extinguisher’s shell, cracking it open like a tin can.

A second scythe flashed in.

Feng Ling twisted aside—

—but the blade still grazed her back shoulder. Skin tore. Flesh opened. Hot blood spilled down her arm.

The pain flashed bright and clean.

Feng Ling didn’t hesitate. She turned and ran for the exit.

Up the stairs and escalators, people stumbled and fell. Some were injured. Some stepped on bodies just to move forward. The aberrant’s pursuit turned the stampede into a slaughterhouse.

Feng Ling burst out onto the street—

—and found chaos waiting there too.

Cars had collided. Drivers were abandoning vehicles. Pedestrians sprinted without direction, just away.

A motorcycle lay toppled near the curb.

Feng Ling dragged it upright and swung on. Blood from her shoulder streamed down her arm, slick and warm.

She glanced at herself—half drenched in red—and anger flared so hard it steadied her hands.

“Bastard…”

In the rearview mirror, the aberrant charged out of the station entrance, relentless.

Feng Ling’s eyes went cold.

“Fast, are you?” she muttered, teeth bared. “Then chase.”

She yanked the bike around, blasted across the median at top speed, and tore toward the park plaza ahead.

The aberrant pursued. Its lower body warped, sprouting rows of insect-like limbs. Its jaw split wide, revealing saw-toothed mouthparts. It hissed—a sound that crawled under the skin.

Death was right behind her.

Feng Ling became strangely calm.

She pushed the motorcycle to its limit and drove into the park. The path ran along Tian Shui River, sunlight glittering on the water beyond tall reeds. The river was her line in the sand. Once it hit water, this oversized insect couldn’t keep its advantage. It couldn’t.

She reached a maintenance shed near the embankment and slammed the bike to a stop. The door wasn’t locked. Inside were landscaping tools and abandoned tourist junk—old tents, cracked umbrellas, forgotten odds and ends.

Feng Ling grabbed a heavy axe.

As she turned, her gaze landed on a kite propped against the wall.

Her mouth curled.

She took the kite too.

Back outside, she moved fast. The motorcycle had bought her distance, but she knew it wasn’t enough. The aberrant would catch up.

She climbed over the waist-high railing and slid down the embankment.

Near the waterline, two trees stood close enough together.

Perfect.

Feng Ling wrapped the kite line tight around them, pulling it taut until it sang. Then she kicked off her shoes and stepped barefoot into the reeds, both hands locked around the axe handle.

She stared toward the embankment, breathing slow.

Come on, she thought. Faster.

It arrived sooner than she expected.

The aberrant crested the embankment with terrifying speed. Its upper body still hinted at human shape, but the lower half had fully become a crawling insect mass. Six legs hammered the ground, driving it straight toward Feng Ling as if it could see through reeds and shadow.

As if it had been watching her the whole time.

If it knew her position, the trap should have been useless.

Feng Ling smiled anyway.

“Good,” she whispered. “Closer.”

The instant the aberrant lunged, Feng Ling turned and threw herself into the deep water.

Half her body plunged under.

Behind her, the aberrant’s eyes burned red. It surged forward, speed spiking to something inhuman, and swung its scythes down at her—

Slash!

The bone blade cleaved the air where her neck had been.

Feng Ling sank beneath the surface.

Water exploded upward. Reeds shook and bowed.

A shriek ripped across the sky.

Feng Ling surfaced, gasping, and saw the result.

The aberrant had hit the kite line at full speed.

Its body was cut clean in half at the waist.

The upper half crashed into the reeds, twitching violently. The lower half sank into wet mud, legs scrabbling uselessly. Blood poured out in thick, relentless streams.

Feng Ling’s eyes flashed with something hot and satisfied.

She waded through the bloody water with the axe, looming over the dying aberrant.

Then she raised the blade and brought it down.

Crack.

The axe smashed through bone and spine.

The aberrant’s body jerked once—straight as a snapped wire—then went still.

Two silver Ability Cards rose slowly into the air.

Feng Ling stared, about to look at the patterns—

—and that savage hunger surged again, clawing up her throat.

Before she could think, her hand reached out.

The moment she touched the cards, they dissolved into her skin.

Text flared in her mind:

[You obtained the ability card “Killer Bee”.]

[You obtained the ability card “Mantis”.]