The Creatures that We Are

Inside a dim room, Xiran’s head and body were pieced back together and covered with a tarpaulin. Holding a flashlight, Gao Yang sat vigilant beside it.

They didn’t have enough time, so with a heavy heart, the fifth team gave Xiran a quick farewell.

Can had been crying nonstop. Gray Bear’s eyes were also red. Lithe Snake hadn’t said anything, but simply did what he had to do.

Other than Gao Yang, Ronnie had stayed with the body the longest. He had acted unusually calm after Xiran’s death. It wasn’t that Ronnie wasn’t sad. Gao Yang knew that. The young man had simply not wrapped his head around his friend’s death, so the feelings took some time to register.

Xiran’s glasses were covered in blood, one of the lenses broken.

With great care, Ronnie used the handkerchief he carried around to wipe the glasses clean before tucking them into his waist pack.

He knew that he might not be able to take Xiran’s body back to their world. Just in case, he took something to remember his friend by.

“When I first joined the Qilin Guild, I...only had Xiran as a friend,” Ronnie said.

Gao Yang quietly listened.

“We’re both curious, about what lies behind the, Gates of Closure.” Ronnie looked at the body under the tarpaulin. “Xiran will never know now. I have to live, live until the day I see the truth for him.”

As he spoke, Ronnie slowly lost his signature strange way of dividing sentences without realizing it.

“If I die as well, Captain, you must live to the day you can bear witness for us.” Ronnie’s gaze was firm and heated. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

“I will,” Gao Yang promised him seriously.

…

The broadcast system continued to play the mixtape. Resounding in the hellish Eleventh High School now was a classical-sounding song with a mournful, tragic melody.

Who’s playing the lute, playing the ancient tune of east wind.

Maple leaves color the story. I have already seen the ending.

Along the old path outside the fence, I walked with you hand in hand.

In the time of desolation, even our breakup is silent.

The ten of them walked out of the construction site to the shaded path. Gray Bear and Lithe Snake were in the lead, the former holding a large shovel, and the latter holding his shortsword.

Xiuyi and Black Sparrow were in the second row. Equipped with a pair of brass knuckles, Black Sparrow looked out for any ambush from the sides, while Xiuyi raised his composite bow with an arrow nocked in preparation to deal with rune corpses from a distance.

Can and Yellow Butterfly were in the third row. Can had a one-meter long rebar to defend herself with, while Yellow Butterfly held a gun with both hands in vigilance, the nunchucks hung at her waist.

Ronnie and Old Joe were in the fourth row. Ronnie had a dagger for self-defense and the now lighter supply bag on his back. Old Joe was holding a golf club with another bag of supplies.

Gao Yang and Nine Frost took the rear. Gao Yang had found a crowbar that was the shape of the number seven, while Nine Frost was holding a rock pick hammer.

With the broadcasted music drawing most of the rune corpses to the teaching building, they encountered only stragglers as they walked along the fringe of the campus, and through their teamwork, they were able to take out those rune corpses without much trouble.

Soon, they made it to the parking lot near the school gate. Or it would be more accurate to call it a clearing of concrete floor, parked with three old-fashioned sedans.

Old Joe’s eyes lit up. “Cars!”

“So?” Gray Bear asked. “It’s not as if we can drive out of here.”

“There are cars! And cars come with petrol!” Old Joe turned to Nine Frost with excitement. “Captain, with petrol, we would be able to attack with fire!”

Yellow Butterfly asked. “It’s been eighteen years. Would the petrol still work?”

“Things are different in Rune Caves. There shouldn’t be an expiry date,” said Gao Yang. “It’s worth a try.”

They turned to Nine Frost.

“Let’s do it.” Nine Frost then asked a question, “But how do we get the petrol out of the car?”

Gao Yang had been thinking about that as well, and looking around, he came up with an idea.

He walked to the nearby garden, where there was a tap on the lawn, connected to a hose. On the side was an aluminum water bucket. Gao Yang detached the hose and threw it to Old Joe before bringing the bucket over.

Old Joe gave him an approving look that said, ‘You know me well.’ Then he moved to crouched behind the car, opening the tank cap to insert the hose.

Holding the other end of the hose with both hands, Old Joe made a sharp intake of breath.

Soon, petroleum moved along the hose into the bucket. Old Joe leaned in to have a smell. Then he said excitedly, “I think it’s still good!”

His ease throughout the process made it clear that he had done the same thing quite often before going to jail. In less than the time of a song, he had already emptied the gas tank of all three cars and filled the bucket.

Gray Bear looked from the side with his hands behind his back. He still didn’t understand how the bucket of petrol was going to be of any help.

“Let’s go,” Gao Yang said. “To the campus shop.”

“Oh!” Gray Bear finally caught on. “We can make molotov cocktails!”

They took the long way around the teaching building and made it to the shop. The outbreak happened during the first session of the evening self-study. Thus the shop hadn’t been closed down, and the door remained open.

Inside, a couple rune corpses wandered. It didn’t take long to eliminate the threats.

They rummaged through the shop and found a box half filled with bottled red wine. They emptied the bottles before filling them with petrol.

Then they peeled the clothes off the rune corpses and tore them into strands of fabric, shoving the strands into the bottles for the petrol to soak in.

They made eight simple molotov cocktails in the end.

Given the constraint of the circumstances, they had done their best to maximize firepower. Now they had to find Li Zhuanghu.

They faced another problem, however. The cassette tape would reach the end of its playtime in a few minutes. Then the rune corpses swarming the teaching building would become a threat again. They had to rush back to the broadcast room to flip the tape, but the building was now too dangerous to go through. The first floor alone was crammed with too many rune corpses. It would be a suicide mission.

Gao Yang had an idea. He turned to the others, “We aren’t going back to the broadcast room. Let’s go to the auditorium.”

They made it there before the music stopped playing.

During the evening self-study, the auditorium was closed down. There were no students inside, which meant there were no rune corpses.

The ten of them broke in. Gao Yang headed straight to the stage at the other end. There was a microphone on the podium.

Gray Bear got what he was planning. He laughed. “It’ll work! Since we have the molotov cocktails, let’s kill them all here!”

Gao Yang nodded and observed the auditorium. “When the music stops, we draw the rune corpses to the auditorium with the microphone and shut the door, throwing the molotov cocktails to burn all of them dead.”

“Would Li Zhuanghu be drawn here?” asked Yellow Butterfly.

“I don’t think he would,” Nine Frost said.

Gao Yang agreed, “He seems to have maintained a certain level of intelligence. Although he can’t think like we do, he’s not brainless like the other rune corpses.”

Lithe Snake agreed, thinking back to the moment the outbreak happened. “At the time, instead of making a move himself, he had sent the rune corpses after us. He’s quite cunning.”

“If Li Zhuanghu can indeed control rune corpses, we will have to fight the rune corpses even when we find him,” Gao Yang concluded. “We’ll stand a better chance if we take out his pawns first.”

“Let’s make a plan,” Nine Frost addressed everyone. “Then we’ll split the work.”

Houseau3's Thoughts

Jay Chou's Dong Feng Po.

From the author's playlist and the pop culture references, I have a feeling we're quite close in age.

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