Chapter Five: Rescue? Please Add to Favorites

In the first-floor bathroom, there was a relentless pounding—mutant mosquitoes kept crashing against the door.

“Ah Yu, do you think Liang Jing will come down to help us?” Liu Zhen, pressing her hands against the door, sounded anxious.

“Don’t worry, A-Zhen, with me here, I’ll make sure Liang Jing comes down and gets rid of those monsters,” Gao Fuyu replied, trying to sound confident despite the tension gripping her. Originally, only two mutant mosquitoes had discovered them, but their earlier cries for help had attracted even more, which now battered the door with unceasing force.

“I knew you were the most capable, Ah Yu. Nothing ever troubles you,” Liu Zhen replied, flashing her watery, flirtatious eyes at Gao Fuyu.

“Of course,” Gao Fuyu grinned smugly, taking pride in her own words. As a local, she tended to speak loudly and acted superior to the migrant workers, always a bit overbearing. She even included Liu Zhen in her self-assured bravado.

A fleeting trace of disdain crossed Liu Zhen’s eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it came. Gao Fuyu, caught up in her self-praise, didn’t notice.

The violent pounding on the door snapped Gao Fuyu back to reality. She realized the flimsy bathroom door wouldn’t hold for long, so she shouted loudly, not caring anymore, “Liang Jing! Get down here and get rid of these monster mosquitoes!”

Upstairs, Liang Jing raised an eyebrow. Was Gao Fuyu courting death? Was this how you begged for help? He’d never liked Gao Fuyu’s tone, but given she was a local and he was an outsider, he usually let things slide. He figured Gao Fuyu must have been driven to desperation, so he shrugged it off.

He glanced at the last locked room on the second floor—Jing Hui’s room. It surprised him that Jing Hui had gone to work overtime that day; being a colleague and roommate, Jing Hui usually worked regular office hours and earned a fixed salary. Unless the factory was short-staffed and needed to recruit at the city’s job fair, there shouldn’t have been any overtime. Yet today, on a weekend, he’d claimed he had to work. Liang Jing suspected the pretty-boy was up to no good, especially since some materials had been stolen from the factory—and he had his suspicions. Still, he kept quiet.

Moving softly, Liang Jing didn’t respond to Gao Fuyu’s shouts. He wanted to assess the situation first. If it was too dangerous, he had no intention of risking his life for others; he wasn’t one for self-sacrifice.

Peering down the stairs, Liang Jing’s expression turned wry and mocking. Of the four rooms on the first floor, only the landlord’s room was open and presumably clear of mutant creatures. The cries for help came from the kitchen and bathroom—specifically, the bathroom.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the two had gotten up to something before things went south. Perhaps he was overthinking it and they had just hidden in there together while fleeing the mutant monsters. Shaking his head, he murmured to himself.

Since the sounds came from the bathroom, there were no mutant spiders inside; otherwise, the bathroom door would already be down, and Gao Fuyu and Liu Zhen wouldn’t be able to shout so energetically. The number of mutant mosquitoes inside was unknown.

So far, Liang Jing had only encountered mutant spiders and mosquitoes in large numbers. Other creatures were rare.

The pounding downstairs continued, and Gao Fuyu and Liu Zhen called out even louder.

“Damn it, Liang Jing, are you dead? Don’t you want to keep living here? Get down here now!” Gao Fuyu was at her wit’s end and furious. What was this migrant worker putting on airs for? If she wanted to get rid of him, there were plenty of ways. The rental market on the second floor was hot—she could just kick him out and rent to someone else or convince other landlords not to rent to him. See how he’d manage then.

“Courting death,” Liang Jing muttered coldly upstairs. Already in a foul mood because of Xiao Gao, he was tempted to wait and let the mosquitoes kill Gao Fuyu. But after a moment’s thought—remembering Liu Zhen was inside too—he reasoned that maybe Gao Fuyu was just desperate. Besides, she was always rude and brash.

Liang Jing quickly devised a plan. Using a mosquito net wouldn’t work anymore. Instead, he gathered the spider webs from the second-floor hall and the kitchen, planning to lure the mutant mosquitoes upstairs and trap them in the webs, making them easy to deal with.

With a thud, a ceramic flowerpot about twenty centimeters in diameter, filled with soil and plants, crashed into the kitchen door under Liang Jing’s strength, smashing it open. The mutant mosquitoes inside were startled, but when they spotted Liang Jing at the top of the stairs, they looked excited and made to fly up, then hesitated.

They weren’t coming up? Was it because of the mutant spiders upstairs—they sensed their natural enemies?

But Liang Jing wasn’t about to give up. He grabbed a red clay teapot and hurled it with all his strength. It flew like a bullet, smashing into the wall beside the bathroom door with a loud crash, shattering both the teapot and the head and thorax of a mutant mosquito, whose long legs twitched feebly on the floor.

A faint, white spiritual glow drifted into his body, much dimmer than before—the effect of the mutant mosquito’s white light seemed much reduced. He wondered if his body was saturated and couldn’t absorb more, or if the mosquitoes’ energy was just too weak.

Now he’d stirred up a hornet’s nest. With their fear of predators overridden by rage, the mosquitoes only hesitated a moment before swarming up, buzzing furiously. True to their reputation as the air force, they sped up the stairs as Liang Jing darted into the kitchen to avoid the spider webs. The mosquitoes nearly caught up with him.

Paying them no mind, Liang Jing strode straight into the bathroom. With his great strength, he sent the few mosquitoes that had slipped past the webs tumbling back, where they fell onto the sticky strands, flailing helplessly like fish caught in a net.

"You have obtained 4 copper coins."

All four mutant mosquitoes were slain, none remaining. They became nourishment for Liang Jing’s evolution, with two of them dropping two copper coins each—a drop rate of about fifty percent.

Five faint white glows entered his body one after another, making him tougher, more agile, more energetic, and stronger—closer than ever to superhuman. But there was a downside: his physique was becoming more robust and bulky, his whole body seeming to swell.

“Liang Jing, Liang Jing… are you there?”

“Liang Jing, what’s the situation outside?”

Their voices, hesitant but insistent, came from the bathroom—they didn’t dare come out, unsure if all the mutant mosquitoes were gone.

Annoyed by their incessant shouting, Liang Jing thought, Can you be any louder? Do you want to attract even more mutant monsters?

He ignored them as he searched the first floor for any remaining threats, then locked the front door.

The living room was relatively tidy, showing little sign of damage. He noticed, under the stairs, the dried-out corpse of a mutant spider, smaller than those he’d seen before, surrounded by several mutant mosquito corpses. It seemed that the spider had mutated but was overwhelmed and killed by the swarming mosquitoes before it could hunt and evolve. The struggle between these two natural enemies had never ceased.

As the outside grew quiet, the shouts from the bathroom grew more anxious. Still, Liang Jing had no time for them. Idiots, he thought. Do they not fear attracting more monsters? He busied himself, collecting anything he might find useful. Any item that caught his eye vanished from his hand, appearing in his inventory as he discarded a few things.

He found a thermos with hot water still inside and, without ceremony, used his last two packets of instant noodles to prepare lunch. It was already 2 p.m., and he hadn’t eaten all day—he was starving.

“All right, you can come out now. There are no more mutant monsters here,” Liang Jing called impatiently toward the kitchen and bathroom.

After confirming twice, the pair finally emerged from the cramped bathroom.

Good grief, Liang Jing thought, so his earlier suspicions had been right—the two of them had indeed hooked up, probably planning to enjoy a wild weekend together.

The man’s figure was almost comical—no muscle, pale-skinned, a protruding belly, a flushed chest and neck, a gold chain hanging at his throat, and wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. Not much to look at, really.

The woman was wrapped in a white bath towel, her hair done up, cheeks flushed, and her watery eyes glanced nervously at Liang Jing, a little embarrassed.

Comparing himself to Gao Fuyu, Liang Jing felt a surge of satisfaction. At 178 centimeters, he was just above average height, nearly 80 kilograms of muscle—strong but not bulky like a bodybuilder—his frame solid, his face ordinary but sharp-edged. The very picture of masculinity, he thought, and he scorned women who only liked pretty boys.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, Liang Jing had always looked down on delicate, pale-faced men. In his opinion, men should be strong, tough, and powerful.

“Liang Jing, why did you take so long? Do you have any idea how urgent things were for us? What if something happened?” Gao Fuyu, buoyed by Liu Zhen’s earlier praise, was now impatient with Liang Jing, who was eating his noodles quietly.

Liang Jing raised an eyebrow as he ate. Was this guy insane? He’d just saved his life, and now he was being scolded as though he owed them something?

“Let me tell you, nobody in Clearwater Bay dares disrespect me. If you cross me, you won’t be able to live here anymore!”

With a crash, Liang Jing kicked a wooden stool, sending it hurtling into Gao Fuyu’s door, where it shattered with a bang, splinters flying everywhere and leaving a gaping hole in the door.

The stool was made from heavy wood, sturdy and polished, yet Liang Jing’s kick had reduced it to pieces. If that kick had landed on a person, bones and organs would have been pulverized.

Liang Jing himself was surprised at the force of his kick; after all the enhancements, his physical strength was now greater than that of four ordinary men combined.

The thunderous noise terrified both Gao Fuyu and Liu Zhen—especially Gao Fuyu, who, startled, leapt from his seat and instinctively stepped back two paces, his already pale face turning ghostly white.

“Don’t mess with me, or you’ll suffer the consequences,” Liang Jing said, patting Gao Fuyu’s pale cheek. Gao Fuyu nodded frantically, understanding his situation.

“Now answer my questions. And choose your words wisely. With so many monsters around, it’s perfectly normal for people to die or disappear without a trace. You understand?”

Gao Fuyu was truly scared now. His mind was still stuck in the old, safe world, but Liang Jing was right: with so many monsters, there would be plenty of casualties. If Liang Jing killed him, his body would probably be eaten before the authorities could even investigate.

He shrank back, even his boxers seeming to tighten, nodding furiously, while Liu Zhen looked on with even more contempt.