Before everything goes out

Amidst the bloodstains.

Despite having four broken limbs, Zhang Cheng's mind was racing.

His gaze swept over Li Fei, then over the mute boy huddled behind him, and he quickly realized that the basement had been thoroughly explored.

"You killed everyone else?"

"Um."

Li Fei nodded, not wanting to continue the topic.

He drew his pistol from his waistband and aimed the still-warm barrel at Zhang Cheng.

Does human flesh taste good?

"It's alright, it can't compare to the meat of ordinary animals anyway."

"Corrupt people like you eat human flesh?"

"How would I know? At least that's how it is for a few of us. I don't know about the others."

"Okay, is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Li Fei nodded and cocked his pistol.

He had already asked all the questions he needed to ask before entering the villa.

"Wait, didn't you just say that if I answered well, you'd consider letting us both off the hook?"

Although he had a premonition, Zhang Cheng still asked in a serious tone.

Do you think your answer was good enough?

Li Fei countered with a question.

"At least I didn't lie to you. You can check the accounts with Qianmei if you don't believe me..."

"No need for that, I believe you're not lying to me."

A moment of silence.

Seeing that Li Fei's gun barrel remained motionless, Zhang Cheng rolled his eyes and spoke again.

"Oh, by the way, before you make your decision, I have a treasure hidden in my house, stolen from the amusement park. If you accept my treasure, you'll let us go, and I promise I won't eat people anymore. How about it?"

"That's something to consider. Where?"

Li Fei stood up.

Just as they were about to head towards the villa, Zhang Cheng called them back.

"Come back, feel inside my jacket, there's a wallet."

Zhang Cheng raised his head and pointed to his chest with his chin.

After Li Fei turned it over, he indeed found a wallet inside the denim jacket.

Brown leather with a glossy finish.

It looks like it's made of horsehide, but it's a bit rougher, and you can feel some rough edges when you touch it.

The strange thing is...

The wallet was no bigger than the palm of my hand, and it was so empty that it was obvious that it didn't contain anything, but it was surprisingly heavy when I picked it up.

It weighs at least five or six pounds.

Li Fei almost dropped it on his first attempt.

"This wallet is bigger than it looks and can hold a lot of things. The knife that was used to cut you on the table was pulled out of it. Feel it, there are other things inside."

As Zhang Cheng explained, Li Fei unfolded the wallet, looked into the inner pocket, and his eyes sharpened.

It was pitch black inside, and you couldn't see the bottom.

"Reach out, reach in and you'll see."

Zhang Cheng looked on with anticipation.

Li Fei hesitated for a moment. Since he wouldn't die anyway, he wasn't afraid of any traps, so he reached in.

In an instant, a strange look appeared on his face.

The wallet, which was originally the size of his palm, now easily fits his entire hand. From the outside, the wallet has not been stretched or deformed, and there is no visible change.

Sight and touch, a bizarre contradiction.

In this novel experience, he continued to reach in, until his forearm, his upper arm...

He couldn't even touch the edge of the wallet until his entire right arm was submerged in it.

"There's an axe I put in there before; you can touch it."

Zhang Cheng offered this advice.

As soon as he finished speaking, seemingly because of his description, Li Fei pictured an axe in his mind and actually felt a wooden handle in mid-air.

Upon grabbing it, it turned out to be a wood-chopping axe.

A wooden handle, an iron blade—an ordinary wood-chopping axe.

"I see..."

Li Fei recalled.

Before sitting down to eat, he was certain that Zhang Cheng was not carrying any weapons. But when he suddenly attacked, he was in a daze and he did see Zhang Cheng pull out a machete from somewhere, catching him off guard.

He was puzzled at the time, since Zhang Cheng clearly had both hands on the table, there was no way he could conjure weapons out of thin air.

It turns out it came from this wallet.

"How is it? Not bad, right? This stuff is called decay, it's very rare."

Seeing the curiosity on Li Fei's face, Zhang Cheng asked cautiously.

"It's alright. Is there any instruction manual?"

Li Fei turned the wallet over.

It was confirmed that, apart from the inner pocket, the outer card holder section was of normal construction.

After fiddling with it for a while, he suddenly had the idea to try flipping it over, but found that the lower edge of the thing was quite hard, making it impossible to flip over.

"Nothing special, anything bigger than the opening can go in, just don't put in any live animals. I once put a rabbit in, and it died as soon as I took it out. I guess there wasn't enough air inside..."

Bang!

A sudden gunshot interrupted him.

Turning his head, he saw Qianmei, who was tied up beside him, with her head blown apart by a shotgun, and a few drops of sticky blood splattered on his face.

"Didn't you fucking say..."

Startled, Zhang Cheng looked up.

He wanted to see Li Fei's expression but couldn't; all he could see was a dark gun barrel pressed directly against his face.

"I have indeed considered it; you cannot live."

Li Fei's voice was calm, and the gun barrel remained steady.

This is the end.

Zhang Cheng's last remaining hope was finally extinguished.

In fact, the moment Li Fei stepped into the villa, he knew that Li Fei would never let him go.

I was just handing over the wallet because I wanted to make up another story, to take the blame for the cannibalism, maybe that would clear Qianmei's name...

did not expect.

The man in front of him, who resembled Huanzi but was not Huanzi, didn't give him a chance to make up a story.

Facing imminent death, Zhang Cheng swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue and said no more. He simply looked at Qian Mei'er, whose head had been smashed, and gave a bitter smile.

"I was incompetent in this life, let's be together in the next."

Gunshots.

...

...

An hour later.

After spending some time searching the entire villa, Li Fei finally confirmed that there was nothing left inside that they needed.

They had their own clothes, and they didn't need any weapons.

So he took the two rabbits, some cooking seasonings, and returned to the doorway.

at this time.

She Qingqing was leading Ertong around the villa, sniffing around, trying to find clues about Snake Seven once again.

On the other side, a familiar smell of burning could be heard.

Turning around, Niu San had already piled up the bodies of Zhang Cheng and his group in the open space, burning them and sending up billowing black smoke.

This is to prevent the corpse from turning into a zombie.

Although they weren't actually sure whether the corrupted would also turn into zombies, he thought it best to burn them just to be on the safe side.

That's fine, the problem is...

"What is he doing?"

Li Fei looked at the overturned wooden table in the center of the open space.

Food was scattered all over the table, mixed with the blood of the people and some unrecognizable limbs—the marks left by the battle.

at this time.

The little mute boy silently tidied up the remains and piled them into a large bucket next to the flower bed.

He still had a smile on his face and still moved nimbly.

even.

With each additional item he tidied, his smile grew even brighter.

"He was like this when you came in and searched things. I told him not to collect them, but he wouldn't listen. It was really creepy. Has he gone crazy?"

Niu San muttered to himself from the side.

After looking at her for half a minute with a complicated expression, Li Fei stepped forward.

"Hey, you don't need to pack these things. We'll be leaving here soon, so just leave them there."

The little mute boy did not respond to his words.

He just knelt on the ground with a grin, gathering another round of filth in his arms.

"I'm telling you to put it down, do you understand?"

"Ugh."

The little mute boy nodded, then shook his head repeatedly.

He smiled at Li Fei, revealing his yellowed front teeth, then stood up and carried the filth back to the trash can...

Before I had taken two steps, I heard a gunshot.

Bang!

The trash can a few steps away shattered with a crash.

The filth flew everywhere, and some of the dirt even got on his face.

Startled, his small body trembled slightly. He turned his head, but his face showed no fear or anger, only that numb smile.

Stiff and rigid.

It looks like a mask welded onto the face.

"I know you're cleaning; it's the job they gave you. If you don't clean, they'll treat you like a useless person and then eat you up, right?"

The little mute boy stared intently at Li Fei.

Then he nodded.

"The reason you keep laughing is because a child cried and got eaten, right?"

The little mute boy was stunned for a moment.

As he nodded again, the smile on his face finally faded a little.

Seeing this, Li Fei put down his gun.

He took a few steps forward, knelt down in front of the little mute boy, and embraced him.

The fluffy hair felt sticky to the touch and had an unpleasant odor that was hard to get used to.

However, he didn't care.

He simply patted his back lightly and spoke in the gentlest voice possible.

"It's okay. We're different from them. From now on, you don't need to be afraid. I promise."

The little mute boy froze.

In Li Fei's warm embrace, his tense, thin body, along with the smile on his face, finally gradually relaxed.

The filth he was holding fell to the ground.

"Mmm..."

In the muffled syllables sung with a sobbing tone.

He bit his lip, and two streams of hot tears silently rolled down his face.