Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Water Flows Down

He only died just recently. His blood was still flowing out of his body.

Huai Shi crouched down and stared at the body in front of him, confused. He pulled a random stick out of the trash heap and poked around the body; the man’s arm was gone and there was a knife wound on his back. It had pierced through his lung, but the fatal wound was on his throat.

It was a nice clean cut that nearly cleaved his throat in half.

Soon, Huai Shi put down the stick and door he had been holding, covering the corpse up again. He then turned around to glance at the ventilator shaft behind him. After he took a few steps forth, he turned around and walked an approximate distance before taking off into a mad dash and leaping up. Stepping on the wall for support, he moved himself another thirty centimeters up.

With that, he could just reach the shaft in the wall.

However, when he lowered his head to look, he saw that his footprint was overlapping another faint footprint on the ground. When he raised his head and pushed his body up, he saw the fingerprints left in the dust by the window sill.

Someone had come in here before.

That person was about the same size as he was. Either they were both Ascenders who had undergone a second puberty, or the other person was some national running long jump champion, and an indoor rock climbing champion to boot.

The warehouse was completely quiet.

There was not a single sound out of place.

Huai Shi landed silently and looked around him. All he could see was piles and piles of boxes, and wires on the floor. The wires went all the way up front and disappeared into the wall. All Huai Shi saw was a gigantic metal door, a cold breeze blowing endlessly from behind it.

He carefully felt the breeze on his skin. It was definitely damp and cold; this beat-up thing was a refrigerator.

After he gathered up his courage again, he went inside and looked around. All he saw was a pile of pork. The only other things of note in there were two not-yet-frozen corpses.

They had clearly carelessly been tossed in here.

The wounds on these bodies were the same as the one on the guard outside. It had been a single, merciless fatal blow.

Huai Shi reached out his hand and pulled out the sacrificial sword. He looked around cautiously, and after a long time of battling against the air, he had to regretfully admit that he was going to freeze himself stupid.

Also, the killer could have been long gone by now.

Huai Shi walked out of the cold storage and sneezed despite himself. The sneeze echoed in the warehouse for a long time, and it still did not attract any attention.

Looked like this was just a normal warehouse, corpses aside. Right now, however, the Disastrous Dust was rapidly collecting in his hand. Within a few short minutes, he had half a pocket’s worth.

The elementium in the air here was shockingly dense.

The agony and despair emanating here constantly made the entire warehouse as dark and creepy as a haunted house. Most people would not be able to stay here for more than a few minutes, and only an idiot like Huai Shi would actually go around looking for a plastic bag to carry his Disastrous Dust.

In any case, this place was where all those elementium bits were coming from.

There had to be a source somewhere.

After plenty of experimentation and tests, Huai Shi finally found it.

In truth, there was no need to really measure the trajectory and everything. Anyone could see the large crack in the wall, and the secret area hidden behind the wall was not exactly sealed shut right now.

The iris and fingerprint scanners were rendered ineffective too.

After all, there was a whole dead human arm on the tracks. There was no way they could have pushed the fridge on the floor over, right?

Despite the large crack right before his eyes, it still took Huai Shi an age and a half to trace the trail of the Disastrous Dust and find it. He had to reevaluate his investigative skills again…

There was a dark area behind the door.

Huai Shi walked over the corpse and headed right down the path. He could see a staircase leading all the way down, stretching into the deep darkness.

Amidst the silence, he quietly felt his way forward. Vaguely, he saw a figure with its back toward him, and he instantly pulled out his gun, approaching it with caution.

When he pressed his gun against the back of that person’s head, however, that person fell forward like a rotten log, crashing to the ground.

The person was long dead.

Bam!

The sacrificial sword clashed with a dagger that appeared in the darkness behind Huai Shi, emitting a sharp shriek. Someone had snuck up on Huai Shi and tried to assassinate him while he was distracted, but they did not expect Huai Shi to have an overpowered ability like Premonition of Death.

The clash happened in an instant. Huai Shi turned around and kicked off against the ground, dashing forward. In the almost absolute darkness, he rammed into the place where that person was.

Fighting blind was also a skill in itself. Wait, it might be better to call this a battle of cold weapons in the dark. There were limits to a person’s joints, the way they held a weapon, and even the way they used it. If someone knew these limits well, the moment they crossed swords with another, they would immediately be able to guess the opponent’s position, type of weapon, and even their fighting stance.

It may seem dangerous and terrifying, but in the end, it was actually more of a cruel game of deduction not unlike Old Maid.

However, some people have turned that deduction process into a natural instinct.

The two of them clashed in the darkness, simultaneously raising their arm to knock away their opponent’s gun-wielding hand. An instant later, the dagger and the sacrificial sword clashed once more.

In the ink-black darkness, there was a constant stream of sparks flying in the air at uneven intervals.

That was the cruel proof of clashing blades.

Both of them unanimously chose not to shoot with their guns, trying to defeat their enemy as quietly as possible. The fight was only several seconds long, but their weapons had already crossed several times. Finally, the two of them discovered each other in the darkness at the same time. They turned and strode forward, swinging their blade with full force.

The sacrificial sword and the dagger met once more.

A shower of sparks burst forth from the clanging metal, illuminating the two fighters and their masks, inches away from each other.

One wore a Peppa Pig mask.

The other was My Little Pony.

In an instant, there was a deathly silence.

The brutal killing intent vanished in an instant, replaced by an unspeakably intense awkwardness.

“…”

In the silence, My Little Pony on the other side was the first to speak up with a couple of coughs. “What a coincidence.”

“Yeah.” Huai Shi nodded. “Such a coincidence.”

The atmosphere turned awkward again.

“…”

If they kept staring at each other like this, there would be no end to things. The other person asked again, “How should I address you?”

“A real man sticks by his name through thick and thin—”

Huai Shi replied confidently, “Just call me Huaihai Road Peppa. And you are?”

“It’s an honor to meet you.” The other party introduced themselves, “Lutai Road Pony.”

And so the atmosphere turned awkward again.

There was no way they could continue fighting after that.

Huai Shi had never heard of any Lutai Road Little Pony before, but why was this fishy smell so familiar?

Huai Shi was silent for a long time before he asked, “Have you eaten yet?”

“Yeah.” Little Pony nodded.

“Out for a walk?”

“Yeah…”

There went some more pointless conversation. Perhaps it was because the stranger knew that Huai Shi was in a similar boat, or maybe they just did not want to waste any more time. Either way, Little Pony was the first to suggest,

“Shall we walk together?”

“Yes, let’s.”

Huai Shi took one step back.

The two of them slowly put their blades away and put some distance between them. Their backs were against the wall and their guards were all the way up. At the same time, they gestured at the other person to take the lead. It would be even better if the other party revealed their back, of course.

Then they both came to the realization that the other guy was no fool and could not be tricked so easily.

In that case, they could only proceed together.

Strangely… By the time Huai Shi realized what was happening, it seemed like he might have a new teammate?

As they walked down the short staircase, the two of them casually exchanged some polite words of no consequence, trying their hardest to figure out where this copycat came from.

Eventually, the two of them stopped at the end of the staircase.

It was a fork with two paths. One led up, seemingly heading somewhere else, while the other led down, to a deeper basement level.

Little Pony looked around, their gaze finally settling on Huai Shi.

“Up? Down?”

Their meaning went unsaid, but it was clear enough. Since the two of them could not trust each other, it would be better to just split up.

However, should Huai Shi go up or down?

He scratched his head and thought it over for a long time before saying, “People climb up the ladder, while water flows down the hill.”

So he wanted to go up?

Little Pony waved at him and headed for the path that led down, but to his surprise, Huai Shi followed behind like a shadow. Little Pony was instantly stunned. “I thought you said people climb up, didn’t you?”

“That’s why sometimes it’s better to be a cola fountain of serotonin.”

Huai Shi replied extremely sincerely, saying something that sounded quite philosophical.

Come on, he was so bad at investigating things. It had taken him more than ten minutes to find a hidden door that was already open! If he went down alone, he might not even know a critical clue if it floated past his eyes.

StarCraft players were just so sad.

In that case, he might as well stick with a partner. Both of them were thieves anyway. Huai Shi did not want to keep any loot, and he could lend a hand when needed. It was reasonable for him to ask for some intel sharing in exchange, right?

Of course, he was never going to admit that it was a little too dark and creepy here, and that he was a little spooked…

“Are you sure?” Little Pony gave him a long look before pulling their gaze back.”Whatever, just don’t get in my way. I get first choice of the pickings once we find the stuff.”

“You can have them all.”

Huai Shi waved. He was not at all interested in the loot and the People of the Pure Land’s belongings. He was only here to find someone, and if he could find out why these people were hiding in the warehouse that used to belong to him, that would be an added bonus.

As they advanced, the two of them suddenly stopped dead in their tracks.

There was someone in front of them.

Or rather, they finally saw something that looked like a door.

They could see a small room behind the window, with luzhu huoshao[1] boiling on a stove. The TV was broadcasting some song and dance. The middle-aged man standing guard here was sitting in a chair with his back against the window, watching TV attentively as he ate his snacks. He did not even look at the security camera screen in the corner.

Little Pony pulled out his blade, but Peppa pushed them back.

“Come on, don’t be so violent.”

Huai Shi sighed. “Let me do it, let me…”

He put his hood back on, picked up the guard’s baton and torch, then walked over and knocked on the window. He was about to do a rerun of his old gospel business, but then he saw a human head slowly bobbing up and down in the pot of luzhu cooking on the stove. There were a few arms and legs stewed until they were deliciously soft too…

The guard in the room turned around, but Huai Shi opened his mouth a few times and could not find the words.

Finally, he just sighed…

…and drew his sacrificial sword.

Some things were better solved with violence, after all.T

[1] a type of Beijing street food