Chapter 126 - Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (5)
Ch126 – Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (5)
Having suffered a shock, the living coffins in the parking lot began to start up one after another and flee.
Father Ding was still stunned, simply unable to believe his ears. “……They…… can speak?”
To be specific, they’d learned to emulate speech.
By vibrating their leaves at high speeds, they could simulate a human-like voice. Because this voice was on the sharp side, it sounded more like that of a child.
In Ding Qiuyun’s memories, most mutated plants learned this skill after the apocalypse broke out.
After falling for it a few times, every time he heard a child cry out for help, he would put up his guard, and absolutely wouldn’t go out to help that easily.
Chi Xiaochi refused to think about where the Boston ivy had learned the line “Uncle, open the door”. He signalled for Father Ding to hurry and leave this dangerous place.
Father Ding came back to his senses and immediately stepped on the accelerator. However, after moving only half a metre, the car stopped, jolting violently, as if it were being pulled back by something.
Father Ding’s face fell. “There’s something on the tire.”
The Boston ivy had already climbed up to the second floor. On the way up, it had probably already used its new skills to absorb a lot of human flesh and blood, growing rapidly and becoming strong enough to stop a fleeing car.
Chi Xiaochi didn’t hesitate any longer. He pulled on leather gloves to protect his fingers, took out a sweater from his bag, and grabbed an automatic lighter from the passenger compartment. After lighting the sleeve on fire, he said, “Dad, don’t let go of the accelerator. After I go out, lock the door. When the car can move again, drive, straight in the direction of Wutong East Road. Don’t look back.”
“Qiuyun!”
As the flames blazed higher, Chi Xiaochi turned and looked back at Mother Ding.
The light of the flames lit up the young man’s light brown pupils.
He smiled and said, “Ding-jie, don’t be afraid. I’ll catch up.”
Chi Xiaochi steadied himself, opened the door, and tossed out the flaming sweater, instantly forcing back the monsters that were pressed to the window, peeping in sinisterly.
Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he leaped out of the crack of the open door.
With a bang, the door slammed shut.
It was impossible to rid oneself so easily of instincts that had evolved over tens of thousands of years. Plants would always be afraid of fire.
At that moment, Chi Xiaochi returned complete control of the body to Ding Qiuyun, who tacitly took over. As he held a ball of burning flames in his right hand, he pulled out a hidden dagger from the waist of his winter clothes.
As he used the fire to chase away the vine of Boston ivy that had tried to wrap around his ankle, he swept the cold edge of his blade behind his neck at the same time, cutting in half the Boston ivy that had already wound around his neck!
With a “puchi”, warm plant juices splashed across his face.
He pulled off the vine that was trying to climb onto his face and into one of his seven orifices. Then, making sure the space below his feet was safe, he rushed towards the right rear wheel of the car.
A dense mass of vines were wrapped around the tire like the hair of a malicious ghost. Even as they were crushed by the rapidly spinning tire, with juices flying everywhere, they still didn’t let go.
However, as soon as they met fire, the vines immediately retreated, screeching.
As soon as they let go of the tire, the car instantly turned, tires screeching, and drove away, kicking up a cloud of dust as it left.
Chi Xiaochi let out a sigh of relief.
Father Ding was a decisive person, and trusted his ex-army son very much.
That was good.
After his parents left safely, Chi Xiaochi turned his gaze to his motorcycle that had been parked on one side.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much Boston ivy on it.
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After several consecutive twists, the frozen motorcycle still failed to start normally.
Seeing that their prey couldn’t escape, the Boston ivy actually stopped to watch.
……They had actually, like cats, developed the nasty habit of playing with their prey.
With them observing him, other than if this person took off the clothes he was wearing and lit them on fire once more, there was no way for him to start another huge fire.
But if he did that, he would soon freeze to death, and his corpse would be torn to pieces and eaten.
The few vines at the front held up their heads like cobras. They pulled back their leaves and shook them, letting out a sharp, childlike laugh, “Heehee.”
Chi Xiaochi pulled a certain something from his half-open bag.
……A windproof lighter.
When the tiny, light blue flame popped out, the sentient Boston ivy didn’t even flinch, their laughter contrarily becoming sharp enough to change in tone.
Ever since gaining nearly human intelligence, they had been tirelessly soaking up all kinds of new knowledge.
Hence, they recognised what this was.
On the way here, more than one person had already tried using this kind of thing to scare them.
However, today’s lighters were all designed to be explosion-proof. They were incomparably sturdy. Even if one used all their strength to smash it on the ground, it wouldn’t break.
They would just quietly wait for this human to find that he couldn’t scare them away, and begin to go crazy.
When this human became too scared, and threw the lighter onto them, they would all rush forwards, and drill into every orifice of the human body before them and out another, absorbing blood and flesh and accumulating the energy to attack the next person.
Just as the Boston ivy were vibrating their leaves, communicating the next step of their plan to one another, Chi Xiaochi then took out something else.
That afternoon, he’d bought a small hand-held fire extinguisher from the mall, about the size of a moisturising spray.
And just a while ago, as he waited for the sealed tanks to fill up with water, he had taken the fire extinguisher apart, and filled it with the hard liquor he had bought.
Chi Xiaochi raised the can and shook it. Then, he aimed the nozzle at the burning ember, and pressed the spray button.
With a hiss, raging flames surged out, and the corner of the parking lot was completely lit up by fire.
The blustering group of Boston ivy were completely caught off guard. They screamed as they burned, huddling under the car next to them.
Chi Xiaochi, “Heeheehee.”
After clearing out an area with a radius of about one metre around himself and the motorcycle, Chi Xiaochi began to start the motorcycle.
When the motorcycle started, the thrumming roar of the engine made one’s blood boil with adrenaline. Chi Xiaochi picked up his helmet and put it on as fast as possible. Only after clearing the field one more time did he step on the accelerator.
He ran right over the abundant Boston ivy and off in the direction that the Ding parents had left in.
After driving for a while, through the brown glass of his helmet, Chi Xiaochi saw a startling scene.
While he was fighting with the Boston ivy just now, Chi Xiaochi had heard the vague sounds of shouts and screams coming from this direction. However, these sounds could be heard throughout that parking lot which was like hell on earth. Only now that he got closer, did he get a good look at what had happened.
The He family’s car had been forced to come to a stop on its way uphill. The glass of the window had been forced open, leaving only bones scattered everywhere, and the little girl with corpse spots on her arm was going around, picking up bones with only spots of flesh and blood remaining on them.
The girl’s hands, face, and even her mouth, were splattered with a mixture of human blood and plant juice.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what had just happened.
According to Ding Qiuyun’s memories, other than those who were absolutely starving, predators, and scavengers, most of the mutated creatures weren’t hostile to the new humans.
The Boston ivy ignored the little girl, and took away her sole family member in this world, leaving behind only scattered bones.
As she picked up the bones, tears fell from her eyes, while countless escaping vehicles roared past the driveway next to her. With the lessons they’d just learned, no one dared to stop.
And every car that passed by, inevitably drove over the human bones the Boston ivy had dragged everywhere.
The little girl had long since lost the strength to fight with the Boston ivy. She cried out in a hoarse voice, “Don’t run over my daddy, don’t run over my daddy.”
No one heard her voice.
Everyone was following the instincts of a creature at risk of being murdered: Flee at all cost.
Chi Xiaochi’s motorcycle stopped not far from the girl. He looked at the white skull at his feet, reached out and picked it up, then drove over to the girl.
He asked his first question.
“Your mother?”
As the little girl sniffled, she placed a thigh bone which had been broken in half into her little blanket. She shook her head.
The second question: “Do you have any other family members?”
The little girl raised her bloodshot eyes and said in a soft voice, “They’re all afraid of me.”
Chi Xiaochi looked at the lurking vines not far away from them. He handed the skull to her. “Do you want to come up?”
Holding her dead father’s bones in her arms, the little girl sat behind Chi Xiaochi.
She no longer had any other place to go.
Chi Xiaochi, with this new human he’d picked up on the way, drove into the endless night.
The guardrail at the entrance of the parking lot was already broken from having been run into. A high-rise building in the distance had caught on fire, plumes of white smoke rising from its windows, as if it had become a giant chimney. Through the windows, he could already see the vague flashes of open fire, but the fire truck the people inside might have been waiting for would probably never arrive.
Riots had already broken out in the shops on both sides of the road. Some people had fallen on the ground, heads bleeding profusely, while some were kicking at the doors. The bird-like chirps of the alarm systems mixed together, forming a cacophony of noise, so loud that it made one’s head hurt.
Chi Xiaochi drove along the Wutong East Road. Next to him were vehicles driving along at high speeds, fighting each other to overtake him from behind, then disappearing off into the horizon.
Chi Xiaochi felt like a stalk of wheat that a swarm of locusts was sweeping past.
However, his body felt abnormally warm.
“Lou-laoshi, don’t regulate my temperature,” Chi Xiaochi, realising something wasn’t right, reminded 061, “After we leave, Ding Qiuyun still needs to live in this world.”
At the moment, Ding Qiuyun’s body had yet to adapt to the extreme cold weather of the end of days. Chi Xiaochi had to consider his future.
He then thought of something, “Right, Liu-laoshi, right now, you should try to be as quiet as possible——”
At that moment, the little girl holding her father’s bones behind him suddenly let out an “yi”.
Chi Xiaochi looked back. “En?”
The little girl said in a small voice, “……Your little dog.”
Before the little girl could explain further, Chi Xiaochi realised that there was a familiar, warm thing wrapped around his neck.
……He thought that little thing had stayed in the car.
The little baby leopard seemed a little uneasy. It used its wet nose to gently nudge the back of his neck, nudging Chi Xiaochi until he felt a little ticklish. “Aowu.”
Chi Xiaochi quietly comforted it, saying, “It’s alright.”
Soon, in front of them appeared the Ding parents’ car.
The car had already stopped, it’s stop lights blinking. Mother Ding’s face was pale from the cold, but she still wasn’t willing to go into the car to warm up, stubbornly remaining outside the car to wait. Only when she saw her son’s figure, did her body that had been stooped from nervousness relax slightly.
The Ding parents’ actions of casually parking the car was actually very wrong. If a young and strong hooligan with no morals had come by, they would have lost the car.
Chi Xiaochi planned on finding an opportunity to teach his parents this, to avoid them having to suffer a loss before knowing to regret.
He pulled the little girl over, wanting to introduce her to his mother, but before he could open his mouth, the familiar jangling sound of a bell clapper hitting the sides of the bell drifted over.
Chi Xiaochi’s body stiffened. He looked over towards the source of the sound.
A young girl stepped out from the Ding family’s car, her head covered in the white wadding from a fire extinguisher.
She knew that her current appearance wasn’t very presentable, immediately beginning to sweep away the white wadding in her hair, the bell on her wrist ringing with her motions. “Hello hello, I was really too cold, so I wanted to borrow your car to warm up a little. I’m——”
As for what she was going to, what she wanted to, say next, Chi Xiaochi knew it all.
She was a young girl with a really dog-blooded life.
When she was just born, she was diagnosed with cancer by the hospital. Her parents weren’t responsible people either, abandoning her in a trash bin in the winter, wanting to give her, as well as themselves, some relief.
In the end, her loud cries attracted a good-hearted person. She was taken to an orphanage, and after a physical examination, it was determined that she wasn’t actually sick, she was a healthy child.
The database had misclassified her data, leading her to be wrapped up in such a dog-blooded situation from the moment she was born.
Fortunately, she was a sufficiently strong person, not developing a gloomy personality from her time in the orphanage. She loved to talk and loved to laugh, and was very likable. She often went out to work, working as a porter in small supermarkets that hadn’t adopted the practice of using artificial intelligence. She could lift three cases of beer at the same time, an accomplishment she was deeply proud of.
When the apocalypse arrived, she had been on duty at a warehouse, and ended up being surrounded by a group of rats. After a lot of effort, she managed to use a fire extinguisher to escape and ran out to the main road, looking to find a companion.
After the girl briefly introduced her intentions, she introduced herself, saying, “My name is Yan Lanlan.”
She held out a hand, the bell on her right wrist ringing out nonstop with her movements.
Dinglingling, dinglingling.
The young man across from her seemed to be lost in a trance, but quickly firmed up and gently shook her hand. “……Ding Qiuyun.”
At that very moment, just as Ding Qiuyun was meeting Yan Lanlan once more, two cold messages were sent from a large AI terminal.
“……Some artificial intelligence still operating normally detected.”
“The head system will send a μ virus to the terminal that is still running, to force it to stop running.”