Chapter 7.1 – Knotted Tail
Wang Yu knew that she had done something wrong and that it was irreversible.
After thinking for a few seconds, she decided to divert the trouble and said gently, “Shi Yuan, how about this, why don’t you go play with Lu Bafang, he’s in the tent next to us. He’s much more fun than me.”
“Okay,” Shi Yuan said.
Without the slightest suspicion, he went to find Lu Bafang.
Wang Yu stood frozen in the wind for a while, then squatted down to pick up the coin, and whispered, “If it’s vertical, I’ll win five million.”
With a flick of her finger, the coin flew up and dropped flat on the ground.
Wang Yu tried back and forth many times, and the coin was honestly lying flat every time. She was depressed: “What’s going on, how could it be like this, it was clearly vertical and firm just now…”
While Lu Bafang was wiping his gun inside the tent, he had no idea what kind of heavy responsibility Wang Yu had entrusted to him.
Shi Yuan opened the tent door tentatively, went in, and handed the compass to Lu Bafang: “Your egg.”
Lu Bafang forgot about this, and thought for a while before reacting, either take it or not take it, but he finally took it over and said, “Thank you.”
Shi Yuan: “I can’t find the other egg anymore, my condolences.”
Lu Bafang: “…Thank you.”
Shi Yuan just sat next to Lu Bafang the whole time, waiting for him to finish cleaning the gun before asking, “Do you know where Lu Tinghan is?”
He still wanted to find him.
“I don’t know,” Lu Bafang said.
Shi Yuan asked, “Is there really no way to find him?”
Lu Bafang remembered that Shi Yuan was rescued by Lu Tinghan, and he must be grateful. He said: “General Lu will be back in the aircraft, it may take a few hours. Wait until we see the aircraft land and then go over, maybe we can see him. Of course, you don’t have to thank him in person, just look at him from a distance is enough.”
“Okay.” Shi Yuan was very happy and automatically ignored Lu Bafang’s last sentence. “So what do we do now?”
Lu Bafang thought for a moment, “Have you eaten yet? It’s cold, let’s go have a bowl of potato soup first.”
So Shi Yuan followed Lu Bafang, asking as he walked, “Why can’t we take the aircraft?”
He still wanted to give it a try.
“There are very few aircraft, either bombing or carrying high-ranking officials,” Lu Bafang said. “Money has to be spent on the blade, right?”
“Will you get on an aircraft one day?” Shi Yuan asked.
Lu Bafang smiled: “Maybe! I just admire General Lu, if I were him, I would go out to buy groceries in an aircraft and enjoy the feeling of being in the sky. Of course, there may never be this day. Hahahahaha!”
“Not really,” Shi Yuan said.
Lu Bafang paused and was suddenly moved that Shi Yuan was so optimistic about him.
Shi Yuan heard Xie Qianming say that there may be a spirit in the sky after death, and sincerely comforted Lu Bafang: “You can fly in the sky when you die.”
Lu Bafang: “…”
Lu Bafang: “Shi Yuan, sometimes, you are a bit scary.”
Shi Yuan: ?
When they reached a black tent, Lu Bafang opened the curtain, and a hot breeze with the smell of meat hit them. Inside the tent, potato broth was tumbling in a huge thermal insulation bucket, there was not much meat, and there were a few scattered noodles floating in the soup, next to rice and bread.
Lu Bafang said a few words to the cook, got two bowls of soup and bread, and took Shi Yuan to the next tent to find a place to sit. As soon as he entered the tent, Lu Bafang paused.
“What’s wrong?” Shi Yuan asked.
“Nothing, come on in.”
There were folding tables and chairs in the tent next door, and only a group of soldiers who had just returned from patrol were eating.
The first thing Shi Yuan heard was the sound of “crunching” chewing. The sound was thick and loud, and all those who heard it would think that it must be a fresh and juicy piece of meat.
Shi Yuan looked over and saw a bearded man holding a piece of raw meat, blood dripped down his fingers, he chewed, cracked the bones, and sucked the blood, his eyes flashing with excitement like a beast. Like One-Eyed Dragon, his face was covered with snake scales, and when he spoke, he revealed two sharp teeth and a faintly visible forked tongue.
The warriors at the same table as him were all reinforcements from the city. They did not eat raw meat, but they were still different from ordinary people: some had antlers on their head, some had hands like wolf claws, and others had calves covered with bird feathers.
They sat lazily and feasted as if they didn’t care about their surroundings. They were clearly unarmed, but Shi Yuan smelled the blood of monsters on them, heard the screams of monsters, and those bloody smells and screams passed through time and space, and came at him like a mountain. He could feel that this group was different from ordinary soldiers. They had killed many, many monsters, too many to be imagined by Shi Yuan.
‘…this is a dangerous group of people!
Can’t be discovered by them!’
He didn’t have time to look carefully, the wolf-clawed man’s gaze fell on him.
A cold, highly critical gaze, like a knife piercing his skin to dissect his soul.
Shi Yuan’s whole body froze.
His appearance was so unusual that the man stared at him for five or six seconds before looking away.
His anthropophobia intensified.
Shi Yuan was so nervous and scared that the tip of his tail curled into a knot.
“Don’t stare at them,” Lu Bafang said to him in a low voice. “They came with General Lu and are his capable subordinates.”
Shi Yuan curled his tail and followed Lu Bafang to the corner, burying his head in the potato soup.
The group was talking and laughing loudly, and the man with the pale skin and antlers said, “…you have to stick the knife into its third joint, so that when you turn and twist, the head will come off.”
“Why do you think so much about it?” Wolf Claw threw the apple in his hand. “Just that little head, it broke as soon as it was twisted and the bones didn’t even crack.” He lifted the apple high and held it so tightly that the flesh was squeezed until it burst with juice and dribbled into his mouth.
“Rude.” Antler folded the napkin slowly. “Next time, don’t cry and beg the General to send me to save you.” He laughed a little and dropped something on the table, which gurgled and rolled twice, “If it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t have brought back a single mutant.”
Shi Yuan’s eyes widened.
What was rolling on the table turned out to be the head of a monster!
The giant bird’s head was staring straight ahead, frozen and unseeing. Wolf Claw said: “What, you want to watch it for appetite? This is no match for the bear head last time!”
The group erupted in laughter. Antler lowered his head and stroked the knife in laughter. It was a good knife. The cold air was still there, and the knife was vibrating. It was the one that cut off the monster’s head.
They continued to discuss monsters, and Shi Yuan vaguely heard words such as “fire”, “electric shock”, “dismemberment”, and so on.
And he could feel that he was sized up from behind several more times by those people.
The soup was very good, the gravy was boiled into the potatoes, and it was soft and fragrant in one bite, but Shi Yuan became more and more nervous, and the knotted tail became tighter and tighter, and he wanted to escape immediately.
Shi Yuan: QAQ
‘Humans are really scary, ah!’
Fortunately, after six or seven minutes, the group went out, leaving only Shi Yuan and Lu Bafang in the tent.
Shi Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.
After drinking the last sip of soup, Lu Bafang explained: “They are ‘mutants’, specially arranged, and ordinary people can’t move them. Of course, they probably don’t look up to us.”
“… Mutants?” Shi Yuan was confused.
“Yes.” Lu Bafang nodded and glanced at him. “Shi Yuan, you are also a mutant. The wolf claws and antlers on their bodies are all sequelae of infection. They were infected and treated, but left these…monster-like characteristics,” he explained. “For ordinary people, sequelae are illness and pain, but for talented people, sequelae strengthen physical functions – their strength and reaction speed are better than ordinary people.”
After speaking, he quickly glanced at Shi Yuan.
Shi Yuan suddenly understood: these humans thought that his horns, scales, and tail were also sequelae of infection, and they were still a very serious kind.
That’s why he could blend into the crowd.
But they were really natural, and Shi Yuan liked them a lot.
Shi Yuan hugged his natural tail and rubbed it, feeling much more at ease, thinking to himself that humans really lost a billion yuan by not having tails.