Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Bug Nest

It was a story full of holes.

If you fell into a pit and couldn’t climb out, wouldn’t your first move be to call for help? And who had the nerve to crawl into a cave so dark you couldn’t see your own hand—while also conveniently carrying a flashlight?

Feng Ling listened in silence while those two guys kept talking.

Zhou Zhou seemed to catch the inconsistency too. He frowned. “Then who closed the rolling shutter outside?” If both of them fell in, why was the garage door shut?

Brother Chao shook his head. “No idea. Maybe the parking lot manager saw there was a huge hole, worried someone would fall in, and closed it.”

The answer didn’t satisfy Zhou Zhou, but he didn’t press. His eyes stayed sharp, fixed on the deeper darkness ahead.

The air was damp, carrying a stench of rot.

In the black, anything could be waiting.

They went on. The slope grew steeper, the air thicker and more foul, until the only sounds were their footsteps and a faint, intermittent breathing that didn’t always match the number of people walking.

Maybe he couldn’t stand the pressure of that silence. Qin Liang spoke low. “This tunnel’s full of pits and bumps. Doesn’t look man-made.”

“Yeah,” Xiao Li agreed. “If people dug it, it should be smoother.” But if it wasn’t man-made… then what carved it out?

Faces tightened. No one spoke.

“Ow!” Cao Hong Yi, the tallest of them, clutched his forehead after ramming it into a jutting rock.

Zhou Zhou’s voice dropped. “Watch your heads.”

Up front, Brother Chao said, “Almost there. One more slope, and it’ll be easier to walk.”

Feng Ling checked her phone—no signal.

The hole was deeper and narrower than she’d expected. She had no idea where it led.

Behind her, Huang Fu Miao Miao followed without a word, keeping close. Feng Ling couldn’t tell how badly she was shaking in the dark, but she didn’t need to ask.

They went another several dozen meters before the group stopped. Feng Ling waited, then the people in front jumped down one after another.

The landing thuds were clear. A lower shelf.

When it was Feng Ling’s turn, she aimed the flashlight down. Sure enough, flat ground. The drop was under a meter.

She hopped down and swept the beam around.

The space opened up into an unusually wide cavern, almost oval, about the size of a basketball court. The rock walls were dotted with dark, soot-black holes.

Humans wouldn’t dig something shaped like this.

Feng Ling’s first thought was a bug nest.

“Aberrants are in here,” Brother Chao said, hurrying forward and pointing at one opening. “There are a lot of aberrants inside.”

Zhou Zhou moved up to check, suspicious.

Beyond the opening was a smaller cave, about the size of a classroom.

Four or five bodies lay inside. Just as Brother Chao claimed, they looked like badly injured, seriously ill aberrant—barely able to move, half-conscious, rolling weakly and breathing thinly. Even when the light hit them full in the face, they didn’t react. Their eyes were cloudy, blind, unfocused.

Brother Chao looked smug. “See? I didn’t lie. You brought rope. After we kill these aberrant, we tie the bodies up one by one, drag them back the way we came to the parking lot, then call the Inspection Bureau to claim the reward. Easy tens of millions.”

“Why make it so complicated?” Feng Ling asked. “Why not just call the Inspection Bureau and have them come in and collect the bodies? Dragging them out one by one is a lot of work for no reason.”

Brother Chao choked, then stared at her. “…Of course not! How can one person kill this many aberrant? Anyone with eyes would know something’s wrong. That’s why I called you all down here. We drag a few out, claim the money, live it up for ten days or half a month, then come back and drag a few more. Even if the Inspection Bureau questions us, they won’t suspect there are sick aberrant hidden down here.”

Nice fantasy, Feng Ling thought, almost amused.

She motioned Huang Fu Miao Miao over. “Look.”

Huang Fu Miao Miao clung to Feng Ling’s side. She leaned in, took one look, then jerked back behind Feng Ling and tugged hard at her sleeve like she wanted to drag her away.

“What?” Feng Ling asked.

Huang Fu Miao Miao’s lips parted. Her whisper shook. “They’re all dead…”

Feng Ling glanced into the cave again, then looked back at her. “Say it clearly. Who’s dead?”

“They…” Huang Fu Miao Miao pointed into the darkness, voice trembling. “All of them. Every single one.”

“Dead?” Zhou Zhou frowned, eyes fixed on the bodies.

Qin Liang and the others looked just as baffled.

“They’re moving,” someone said. “Why are you saying they’re dead?”

“I don’t know…” Huang Fu Miao Miao gripped Feng Ling’s clothes like they were a lifeline. “I’m not lying. I can only identify living creatures, but those… those are corpses. A polluted entity did this. We have to leave—now.”

Brother Chao’s expression shifted. He stood at the entrance, studying them with suspicion. “What polluted entity? Who the hell are you people?”

No one answered him.

Zhou Zhou stepped forward, grabbed one of the bodies, and hurled it out of the cave.

It hit the ground with a heavy thud. Something inside sloshed, a wet gurgle, and a translucent pale-yellow slime seeped from the mouth and nose.

From this close, there was no mistaking it.

It was a corpse.

Huang Fu Miao Miao hadn’t been wrong. That aberrant was dead—cold dead.

Brother Chao and Fang Ye went rigid with shock.

They’d been guarding this place for two days, never daring to get close. With limited light, they’d seen shadows twitching and assumed the aberrant were alive. They’d never imagined—

All of them were dead.

Three Special Assault Team members drew their guns in a flash, aiming at the weirdly writhing bodies as if they were facing a living threat.

“Don’t shoot,” Feng Ling said. “There’s something else down here. Gunfire’s too loud.”

Zhou Zhou lifted another corpse and tossed it out. “Right. Hold fire. Qin Liang—record.”

“Already recording,” Qin Liang said, voice tight.

A micro-camera beneath his headlamp was capturing everything. Even without a signal, it could store the footage on its internal chip. After the mission, the data would go straight to the research department.

The corpse on the ground kept trembling, as if all the flesh and bone under the skin had liquefied—or as if something was trapped inside, writhing and rolling beneath the surface.

Everyone looked sick.

Feng Ling patted the axe in her hands. “Can I chop it a couple times?”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Zhou Zhou snapped, eyes hard as he turned on her. “You follow my orders.”

Feng Ling tugged the corner of her mouth, silent.

That was one of the reasons she hated dealing with the Inspection Bureau.