Chapter 13 - Beating to Death

It was some time before dawn.

The windows had to be blocked and the front and back doors guarded; after some discussion, they decided to take turns.

“But there’s still a Cannibal Player among us, what if…” Liu Jia whispered.

“If the thing outside comes in, everyone is in danger; nobody is that foolish,” Xu Huo reassured.

Professor Han thought it made sense, as he was prepared for the worst, so he volunteered to watch the windows with the heavily made-up woman.

The heavily made-up woman had no objections.

Wang Xiaohui and the middle-aged woman guarded the door, while the “injured” Xu Huo rested temporarily.

Liu Jia and Yan Jiayu took the first watch.

Two hours later, he would take over, specifically asking Yan Jiayu if she needed to rest.

Yan Jiayu said, “I used to carry water and chop wood a lot, I have the strength.

Let Liu Jia go to the front door.” The person guarding the door could rest for a while.

The carriage quieted down again.

To test whether Liu Jia was really blind, the heavily made-up woman deliberately held her breath in the darkness, moving close to Professor Han and making a biting motion.

All remained calm on the other side.

Three minutes later, she made her move!

Her hand suddenly dropped the table, and Professor Han knew something was amiss.

Yet, he dared not let go of the table in his hands, turning his back to the window while yelling, “Liu Jia, be careful!”

The heavily made-up woman let out a cold laugh upon hearing this; the little girl knew after all.

Lying was just to stabilize her, for she feared that, come dawn, she would become the target of public criticism!

This person must die!

First, kill Liu Jia, then kill Professor Han!

She had remembered Liu Jia’s position well, she only needed to raise her hand to remove the threat.

However, what she didn’t expect was that instead of Liu Jia’s soft neck, she was met with a thick metal table!

“Bang!” The blow struck the heavily made-up woman right in the face!

Smashed in the face, her head ringing and vision bursting with stars, the heavily made-up woman staggered back several meters.

Not yet steady, she felt a gust from the right side.

In a panic, she raised her arms to protect her head, but the table, immovable as a stone wall, powerfully broke her shoulder bone!

She screamed in pain, and then another hit struck her back; she spat out a mouthful of blood and yelled, “The Cannibal Player is attacking me!”

But no one responded, and the thudding sounds of beating did not stop.

The heavily made-up woman felt as if all her bones were broken.

“Who are you?

Xu Huo?”

She couldn’t hear any movement from the other party, completely unable to pinpoint their location!

“It’s me,” Yan Jiayu’s voice suddenly came from behind her.

The heavily made-up woman turned in shock, but the metal table had already crashed down onto her crown.

This time she heard the sound of her neck bones misaligning…

After the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, a few seconds later, Yan Jiayu announced, “Amitabha, this benefactor has gone to hell to atone for her sins.”

The sickening sound of pounding and cracking bones still echoed in their ears; the middle-aged woman in the corner, shivering, asked, “Why did you kill her?”

“She was the Cannibal Player,” Yan Jiayu said.

“Xu Huo told me she was the last Cannibal Player, and she just tried to kill Liu Jia.”

“So that was it!” the middle-aged woman said, her tone jubilant, “Mr.

Xu is truly capable!”

“Now we can have a peaceful day!”

Xu Huo spoke softly in her direction from the darkness, “Yes indeed.”

As it neared eight o’clock, the train shivered for a moment, as if it had shed a heavy burden, and stabilized.

Daylight broke.

“Ding-dong!”

“Welcome aboard…”

The announcement arrived as scheduled, and everyone in the carriage breathed a sigh of relief.

After two days and nights, the train was exceptionally quiet, with no sounds heard from either direction.

After looking forward and back and finding no one, Professor Han and the others sat down to rest.

With a whole night of sustained tension, Xu Huo was also somewhat fatigued.

He rubbed his arms and, after moving the heavily made-up woman’s corpse to a corner, he looked towards the Third-Class Seat area.

The blood-stained door was deformed and twisted, with raised scratch marks covering it nearly piercing through the metal.

Such strength was beyond human comprehension.

Through the distorted gaps, it was visible that all the glass in the Third-Class Seat carriage was shattered, leaving only a piece of iron trailing at the end of the train, covered with dried blood and remains, creaking with the motion of the train.

The annihilation of the Third-Class Seat was beyond his expectations; he had thought that with six people left in there, they would last until the third day.

He hadn’t anticipated that the Cannibal Player who failed to feed successfully would mutate the following night, leading to the downfall of the carriage.

The monsters that appeared yesterday, although retaining human body features, had completely diverged from the category of humans.

They were void of rationality, their only purpose to feed.

They emerged at night, and after being awakened by the lights, they had a certain active period and seemed somewhat dull to sound and scent.

These creatures were far more dangerous than the Cannibal Players.

Even though they had no reasoning, they matched what the heavily made-up woman had said — the more they ate, the stronger they became.

But there were too many of them.

Could all those monsters be Cannibal Players who didn’t manage to feed successfully?

How long had the Evolvers been around?

Wang Xiaohui came to his side, and Xu Huo glanced at her, “Don’t look.”

Wang Xiaohui’s eyes were red, “If he had also come over yesterday, maybe…”

Xu Huo maintained his composure, “Don’t be foolish, he couldn’t have gotten in.”

As the woman stared at him in astonishment, he continued, “You could get in because you’re physically challenged.”

One more player meant one more risk.

Even if Xu Huo could stop the other players, he wouldn’t recklessly allow an unknown risk inside.

However, Wang Xiaohui’s physical condition clearly reduced this risk, which is why the other players didn’t strongly object.

Wang Xiaohui seemed to have a hard time accepting this.

After a while, she looked down and said, “I’ve violated the train’s rules, my special ability time was reduced by a third.

If I stay in the Second Class Seat until the final stop, the game will permanently deduct this third of the time.”

After saying this she pushed her wheelchair away.

Xu Huo didn’t say anything; after all, this was his intention.

The world isn’t filled with purely good people.”

Over on the other side, Yan Jiayu pulled up the overturned tables and chairs and found the old man’s coat, with a letter in the pocket, probably left there in case he couldn’t deliver it himself, hence an address was written on it.

“It’s in the Capital City, my grandmother’s house is in the Capital City.

I’ll take it there,” Wang Xiaohui said.

Liu Jia carried He Yang’s small backpack, “I’ll deliver this one.”

One had saved her, and the other was arguably his student.

Professor Han’s eyes reddened and his breathing grew heavy.

As Xu Huo, who found nothing in his search through the heavily made-up woman’s clothing and shoes, suddenly looked up and focused on him, “Your wound might be infected.”

“Evolver’s regenerative abilities are strong, it should be fine,” Professor Han was stunned for a moment, then pulled open his collar to see that a piece of flesh on his shoulder was nearly bitten into dumpling filling, turning purple-black with dark brown pus oozing from the wound.

“He’s not going to turn into a monster too, is he!” the middle-aged woman screamed as she backed away, “That’s how it goes in zombie movies, if you’re bitten, you’ll turn into a zombie!”