CH 3.2

Chapter 3.2 – Abyss

The caravan continued to move forward.

During the noon break, Shi Yuan went to Lu Bafang with a can of soybeans in tomato sauce. He was still a little afraid of the rest of the team, but it was better than before.

Lu Bafang was squatting beside the car, fighting against a piece of beef jerky that was as hard as iron, gritting his teeth and grimacing his face.

Shi Yuan squatted beside him and asked, “Has any abyss ever disappeared?”

He was asking about himself in a roundabout way.

He thought humans were smart enough to notice that an abyss was missing, and besides, he didn’t know his number yet – It looked like every abyss had a number.

“There is!” Sure enough. Lu Bafang slapped his thigh. “Coincidentally, it was not long ago, the number 0 abyss is missing, don’t you think it’s strange? What an eye-opener, the place where it was turned back to flat land! This thing has caused a big stir, and no one has figured it out yet till now.”

Shi Yuan: “Oh…”

Then he was thoughtful and silent.

Lu Bafang thought that the topic stopped there, and continued to eat beef jerky. In addition to the people in charge of security, everyone ate, rested, and slept. He sneakily took out the beauty magazines he had privately hidden under the car mat to enjoy. Before reading two pages, he suddenly heard Shi Yuan murmur: “I am 0.”

“Cough, cough! Cough!” Lu Bafang choked on a mouthful of beef jerky, almost choking to death. He coughed for a while, looked at Shi Yuan repeatedly, and was surprised: “Why, why did you say that all of a sudden?”

Shi Yuan: ?

Lu Bafang: “But to be honest, you don’t look much like 1…”

Shi Yuan couldn’t understand what Lu Bafang said, and asked, “What?”

“Ah.” Lu Bafang suddenly realized that his thoughts were dirty, and he probably misunderstood Shi Yuan, “It’s nothing.”

Shi Yuan: “Really?”

“Really, come, come, you continue to eat, ah, this beef jerky is really delicious.”

“Tell me.” Shi Yuan widened his eyes and looked at Lu Bafang, his tail waving slightly, “I want to learn.”

Lu Bafang: “…”

Looking at this kind of eyes, who can refuse?!

Lu Bafang: “Cough, cough, that is, uh, how do I say it, it generally refers to stronger or powerful people? Probably? I don’t know very well.” He was vague.

Shi Yuan curled the tip of his tail in confusion. He didn’t ask any further questions, and silently added a note to his human study notes.

Lu Bafang breathed a sigh of relief.

Shi Yuan took a few mouthfuls of soybeans and said again, “Is there a watcher in Abyss No. 0?”

“Yes.” Lu Bafang wondered why the topic came back again, “Isn’t its watcher General Lu?”

“General Lu?”

“Oh yes, you don’t know him.” Lu Bafang said, “I mean General Lu Tinghan. He was the only watcher of Abyss No. 0. He was later transferred and is now in the city.”

“…In the city?” Shi Yuan repeated.

“Yes, you will see him soon.”

Lu Tinghan.

It turned out that his human’s name was Lu Tinghan.

And they’ll be seeing each other soon!

The good news came so quickly, Shi Yuan was so overwhelmed with surprise that he was still thinking about it until he got in the car. He didn’t plan to tell others that Lu Tinghan was the one he was looking for – even he knew that the general was a very big official, and saying it would scare people.

People came back to their cars one after another.

The convoy continued the journey, Wang Yu sorted out the medical bottles and jars, and then remembered something: “By the way, Shi Yuan, aren’t you looking for someone? I just went to ask a friend, he is in charge of communication, if you remember anything you can tell him, he will find a way to help you find – he knows a lot of information.”

“No need,” Shi Yuan said. “Thank you.”

Wang Yu was stunned: “Do you know who you are looking for? So fast?”

“I know.” Shi Yuan thought that Lu Tinghan was so powerful, he must be what Lu Bafang said, a 1. “I want to go to the city, I want to go to the city to find a 1.”

Wang Yu: “…”

Wang Yu: “……”

She was silent for two seconds: “Shi Yuan, I didn’t see that you are quite wild.”

Lu Bafang could not wait to shrink his head.

Before he could think of how to save it, he heard a voice on the channel, “Suspected survivors 800 meters away to the northwest. Coordinates have been uploaded.”

Everyone’s communication terminals vibrated, and a location on the map was marked in red.

Lu Bafang also looked in that direction and said, “It seems… to be two people.”

Wang Yu said, “It’s so rare that we can save so many people on this trip.”

Three drones flew over, and in the picture that was sent back, the land was withered and yellow, and the horizon was endless. A man and a woman stood in the middle of the wasteland and waved vigorously, shouting: “Here! Over here! Help us!”

They were well-wrapped, dust masks, thick coats with hats, cut-resistant gloves, combat pants, hiking boots, not a trace of skin showing—a necessary measure of protection for those who hiked in the wasteland.

The convoy came to a halt.

A man’s voice came from the command channel, and Shi Yuan recognized that it was “Captain Cai”. The on-board instruments were operating at high speed, thermal imagers, sonars, pollution detectors…all data were normal. Captain Cai gave an order, and the three off-road vehicles left the team and drove to the survivors.

Shi Yuan also looked in that direction.

He thought to himself, these humans are quite good, happy to help their own kind, not like the monsters who often kill each other.

The survivors were still waving, and for some reason, there was a humming sound coming from underground.

It was getting louder and louder.

Shi Yuan looked at the people around him, Wang Yu, Lu Bafang, and the driver big brother didn’t respond at all, and no one on the communication channel said anything about it. Shi Yuan hesitated. Could it be that this is another common sense that he didn’t know?

By the time he realized that the sound was not actually captured by human ears and instruments, it was too late.

The ground cracked with a loud bang and the three cars close to the survivors were overturned! Several giant tentacles broke through the ground and swept up the vehicles and lifted them into the air. Everything happened in an instant, the ground shook and more tentacles approached from the ground like vipers. The earth and rocks cracked inch by inch with a loud noise, the channel was full of electric currents, and someone shouted hoarsely, “Enemy attack!!!”

The tentacles have bright, bird-like feathers, so bright they look like works of art. They rolled gently, and the half-ton off-road vehicle was twisted into a twist.

Numerous bullets pierce them. They drooped limply and shriveled, and green blood oozed from their wounds, but new tentacles reached out. The convoy started quickly, engines roaring, the accelerator slammed to the floor – countless experiences had proven that fleeing from a strange infected creature was the best option in the face of its attack.

The convoy was experienced, the high-speed cars kept their formation, the heavy firepower squad was responsible for breaking the rear, machine guns were set up, and the sky was filled with green blood. Two more cars overturned in the chaos, and Shi Yuan was shaken from his car as it fell east and west, unable to tell which direction was which.

The world was noisy, and amidst the explosions, Shi Yuan heard a humming sound from underground again.

It was approaching fast.

Before he could say a word, the off-road vehicle he was in was overturned – the tentacle did not hit the middle of the car but only the right side of the door. The door flew out like a scrapped metal, the driver swerved sharply, the car rolled over, so Shi Yuan also flew out.

He thought in the air: I should be wearing a seat belt.

The tail gave him a strong balance. He adjusted and stretched his body in mid-air, landed softly like a cat, rolled a few times, and had nothing but a pile of mud and dust on his body.

Before he could stand up, there was another “Bang!” sound.

He glanced sideways, and Lu Bafang was lying not far away with his teeth gritted, and it was obvious that he had fallen hard.

There was a hail of bullets overhead. Shi Yuan didn’t dare to stand up, so he crawled beside Lu Bafang and asked with concern, “Aren’t you wearing your seat belt?”

Lu Bafang’s head was injured and he didn’t understand what Shi Yuan was talking about, otherwise, he would definitely complain about which normal person would care about traffic safety now!!

When he came to his senses, he immediately drew his gun and dragged Shi Yuan to the bottom of the slope next to him.

A raised slope shaded them. The convoy had already left, and only the heavy firepower team left behind, forming a loose half-moon-shaped formation.

They had fallen alone.

In a place where tentacles could strike at any moment.

“Don’t make a sound,” Lu Bafang said in a breathy voice, blood dripping down his forehead. He cautiously stuck his head out to see—

The tentacles were still waving.

And bizarrely, the two survivors were standing still too! They had no intention of running away and were even waving.

Shi Yuan also poked his head out.

Before they could see clearly, the survivors… flew?

一一一一一一

**TN

1 means seme/top/gong, 0 means uke/bottom/shou

Reminds me of Jeepers Creepers, when the monster pretended to be a scarecrow and then flew suddenly. >.<

Btw, I’m also translating ‘He Holds a Rose from the Abyss’, it’s almost done now. Just the extra chaps left.