Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Four

Feng Ling sat quietly, her back against the hospital bed.

When she put her mark to real use, she discovered something: after Killer Bee was digested, the ability didn’t stay the same. It shifted.

Now her body could lie perfectly still, yet her vision could ride that ribbon of mist out of the ward, past the corridor and the pantry, down through a first-floor window, and into the street.

Cars rolled by. Pedestrians drifted along. Street trees stood in neat rows.

Everything looked drained of color, flat and ashen. Only the mist remained thick and vivid—too bright to ignore, tugging her forward like a leash.

She followed it into a storm drain at the corner. In the sewer, it was dark and wet, the air heavy with rot. She traveled for what felt like forever, then surfaced again, took a winding route, and arrived at a townhouse complex.

The mist slipped into one villa—and Feng Ling saw something that made her skin prickle.

In the first-floor living room, a woman the color of fresh blood crawled halfway out of a pool of gore that was moving on its own.

Her body was made of countless blood worms fused together. The gunshot wounds were too severe; as she tried to knit herself whole, fist-sized holes kept tearing open in her torso. Hundreds of worms spilled out—along with clinking bullet heads that bounced across the floor.

The worms dropped, writhed, and hurried back into the pool, dissolving into the thick, sticky red.

The woman’s face twisted with agony. Her crimson lips opened and closed again and again.

Feng Ling couldn’t hear a thing, but she could imagine the curses spilling out of that mouth.

The woman lay in the blood, worms surging out of the wounds, then being sucked back in—over and over, a miserable cycle of repair. Slowly, the fist-sized holes shrank to bottle-cap size, then to fingernail size, until only pinpricks remained.

Her body finally finished healing.

She rose out of the blood pool completely. Her skin was smooth and glossy, and not a single wound remained.

Feng Ling watched the whole process and couldn’t help thinking: this aberrant really did have the nerve—and the capital—to storm the bureau alone.

All because of those worms.

Unless a rocket blew her into paste, any injury could be repaired. It wasn’t just hard to kill. It was close to impossible.

How do you kill something like that?

The woman, unaware she was being observed, grabbed a blanket from the sofa, draped it over herself, and lay down as if nothing had happened.

Feng Ling waited. When the woman didn’t move, she withdrew her sight.

The pale red mist still lingered.

The mark lasted twelve hours. As long as that time wasn’t up, Feng Ling could follow it again whenever she wanted.

Footsteps approached outside the ward.

Feng Ling raised her eyes and saw a nurse come in carrying a fresh blood bag.

The nurse’s eyes were red, like she’d just taken a scolding, but she kept her tone professional as she swapped the bag out. “You lost too much blood. After this one, you’ll need two more.”

Feng Ling asked, “How much is the medical bill, roughly?”

The nurse hesitated. “That… I’m not sure. We usually only treat people from the bureau.”

She seemed to think Feng Ling was worried about the cost. “Don’t worry. Whether you’re an inspector or not, the bureau will cover it in advance until you recover. It won’t delay your treatment.”

Feng Ling’s gaze slid to the new blood bag. “How do you store plasma?”

“Huh?” The nurse blinked, then answered carefully, “In a blood-bank refrigerator at around 4°C. Is something wrong?”

Feng Ling smiled. “Nothing. Just curious.”

The nurse looked puzzled, but she didn’t ask more. She left the ward in a daze.

Feng Ling closed her eyes.

She could feel it—blood returning, strength returning. Her body was repairing fast. By tonight… no. Maybe in two hours, she’d be back at full capacity.

“Plasma needs to stay around 4°C,” she murmured to herself. “Not too cold, not too hot… Those bloodsuckers should be similar. Too cold and they freeze. Too hot and they… cook?”

Night settled over the city. The noise died down. Silence crept back in.

Feng Ling drove a rented small truck into a villa district that looked half-abandoned. She parked and killed the engine.

The plan had changed.

She’d prepared plenty: gasoline, alcohol, charcoal, flour… even a few old cotton mattresses from a scrapyard.

The target’s method was straightforward: paralyze the victim with bugs, then drink their blood.

She could resist the paralysis toxin. She could interrupt the bloodsucking with her bone blade. The only real problem was stopping that woman from escaping.

Her original plan had been to seal every door and window with fire.

But when she checked the mark, she saw three more people inside besides the woman.

Accomplices?

Four of them?

Killing one aberrant was something she could do with her eyes closed. Killing four, with three unknown abilities in play, was a different story.

Should I leave?

Feng Ling sat in the truck, jaw tight.

She’d nearly died in an ambush today. Now she’d found their nest—and she couldn’t even strike back?

She got out anyway. She walked through the iron gate standing wide open.

Since she was already here, she might as well take a look. Measure them. Learn what she could.

There was no security guard at the gatehouse. Maybe he was slacking. Maybe they never hired one to begin with.

Two rows of black townhouses stood ahead. Beyond them was a construction site stacked with cement, sandbags, and scattered materials.

After Qing Jiang City was labeled a high-risk zone, a lot of sites shut down. The bosses ran off to safer cities with their money, leaving half-finished projects to rot.

These aberrants had picked their spot well. The villa they’d taken was the only high-end model home in the whole development.

In the yard, the plants had gone wild. Thick leaves swallowed the light spilling from the first floor.

Feng Ling climbed the wall in the dark, circled to the back, and peered through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

Inside were the woman who’d ambushed her, two men—one fat, one thin—and a little girl in a skull mask.

The girl looked twelve or thirteen. Bruises mottled her body. She was curled on the floor like something thrown away.

The woman sat on the sofa with the blanket around her shoulders and said, “Did we grab the wrong person? We questioned her forever and got nothing. You’re ruining my rest.”

“No way!” the fat man bellowed. “She posted anonymously on the forum to recruit a team for the Maze! We baited her for half a month before we finally got her to meet up. It can’t be wrong!”

“Then why doesn’t she know where the Maze entrance is?” the woman asked.

“She does!” the fat man shouted. “She’s just stubborn—won’t talk until she sees the coffin!”

“Enough.” The thin, tall man finally spoke. He frowned at the woman. “What happened to you today? Where’d you go, and why are you covered in injuries?”

The woman adjusted the blanket, bored. “Went to the bureau. Didn’t the news say an aberrant got shot dead at Tian Shui Park? The Ability Card would’ve been collected. I wanted to see if I could pick up leftovers.”

“Did you?” Fatty leaned closer, eyes shining.