EDEH Chapter 84

Sang Jue fell asleep biting the belt.

 

It was his first time sleeping in such a noisy environment, and he had a dream. In the dream, the doctor told him a bedtime story, finally asking gently: “When is our little evil dragon going home?”

 

He wanted to respond “soon,” but before the words came out, the dragon woke up.

 

Sang Jue sat up, the belt sliding from his mouth and falling on the bed, with two rows of deep bite marks.

 

Most of the surrounding beds were empty, with people all gathered at the entrance. Yang Chen was also in the crowd. Sang Jue vaguely heard words like “recruitment” and “front line.”

 

007 said: [Soldiers are gathering deviant civilians to participate in battle.]

 

Sang Jue immediately jumped off the bed, hurriedly stuffing everything into his backpack and squeezing into the crowd, but was held back by a hand on his shoulder: “What are you doing?”

 

He turned back, saying to Yang Chen who was holding him: “I want to go to the surface.”

 

Yang Chen asked: “Are you a deviant?”

 

Sang Jue answered: “No.”

 

Yang Chen said: “Then what are you going for? They want deviants.”

 

Sang Jue’s nose twitched, saying strangely: “But you’re not a deviant either.”

 

Yang Chen said: “I’m a supervisor who retired last year.”

 

Sang Jue: “…”

 

Yang Chen looked very young, around thirty, and he didn’t know why she retired so early.

 

Though she was surprised that Sang Jue wanted to go to the surface with his slight build, she didn’t try to dissuade him much, curving her lips: “It’s fine, just blend in. They won’t check.”

 

The soldiers in front were indeed mainly recruiting deviants, and everyone tacitly accepted this, as if they had already accepted their identity as sacrifices.

 

Ordinary humans were the seeds of fire, the hope for continuing the future.

 

But they weren’t – they were unstable factors, beings that could be sacrificed at any time.

 

Fortunately, the soldiers had no time or equipment to verify their identities. Everyone else didn’t have the evil dragon’s keen nose either, so Sang Jue and Yang Chen mixed in with the deviants without anyone noticing.

 

The registering soldier asked: “Which bed?”

 

Yang Chen said: “16-4.”

 

The soldier scribbled down a row of numbers that probably only he could recognize, then asked without looking up: “Next, which bed?”

 

Sang Jue said: “16-1.”

 

The soldier gave his usual reminder: “Alright, you can queue at the entrance to register your last words.”

 

Registering last words in advance – everyone understood that this trip might be a one-way journey. Recording bed numbers was to facilitate post-war casualty statistics and compensation… or death benefits.

 

Sang Jue asked: “Do you have anything you want to write?”

 

Yang Chen: “No, you’re not writing either?”

 

Sang Jue didn’t have anything either.

 

On one hand, he didn’t think he would die, and on the other hand, the people on this planet definitely couldn’t understand his writing, so there was no need to leave a message.

 

But strangely, not only did Yang Chen not write, but most people just passed by the testament book directly.

 

Sang Jue only saw a deviant in front writing in the book:

 

[I can die, I am a hero. If you dare erase our names from history, I won’t let you go even as a ghost!]

 

He even drew a hanged ghost sticking out its tongue at the end.

 

Sang Jue asked when he was curious: “Why doesn’t anyone leave last words?”

 

Yang Chen glanced at him: “Though this is a military family shelter, actual military families make up less than a quarter.”

 

“Then the others…”

 

“Some are military survivors, some like me are soldiers who retired early due to injury or other reasons.”

 

So it wasn’t that they didn’t leave last words – they had no one to leave them for.

 

Everyone walked through the passage leading to the surface, carrying heavy hearts.

 

The closer they got to the surface door, the more obvious the rumbling sounds became, with dull noises one after another, and the unique hissing of monsters.

 

The steel door slowly rose, morning light falling in everyone’s eyes. Outside the door was a second lieutenant with a solemn expression.

 

Meeting everyone’s gaze, the second lieutenant bowed in salute for a full seven seconds.

 

Without grand speeches or heroic aspirations, the second lieutenant straightened up and spoke quickly: “Please follow me to support District J!”

 

They boarded armored vehicles, with the driver speeding. The ancients used to say about hasty people, “What’s the rush, racing to be reborn?” For them now, they really were racing to be reborn.

 

The second lieutenant asked: “Anyone good with guns?”

 

Sang Jue didn’t speak, and everyone fell silent. They were all deviants who basically didn’t rely on firearms – few had good marksmanship.

 

After a long while, Yang Chen beside him raised her hand.

 

The second lieutenant readily threw her a gun, saying matter-of-factly: “The supervisors have been dissolved, and General Huo isn’t in the city. Things like killing infected people can only be done by ourselves.”

 

Yang Chen’s expression stiffened.

 

The second lieutenant didn’t notice her abnormality and continued: “So I hope that at crucial moments, you won’t hesitate. The more accurate and faster your bullets, the less suffering for the infected, and the less safety risk for other team members.”

 

After a long while, Yang Chen’s voice became hoarse: “You should find someone else.”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Yang Chen directly revealed her identity: “I’m a retired supervisor.”

 

“…”

 

The second lieutenant’s face looked a bit ugly, not expecting an ordinary person to have mixed in. They were already some distance from the shelter now, and sending Yang Chen back wasn’t realistic. Even if they let her off here, Yang Chen might not honestly return.

 

A deviant said mockingly with hostility: “Already retired and still not staying honestly in the shelter, what are you running around outside for?”

 

“Enough! At a time like this, stop being sarcastic.”

 

“She looks quite young, why did she retire?”

 

Yang Chen said flatly: “PTSD.”

 

PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

 

Everyone was stunned, not immediately understanding.

 

Yang Chen said calmly: “Last year there were ninety-eight supervisors who retired due to trauma disorders. I was one of them.”

 

Killing people wasn’t that easy, especially when the people hadn’t committed any crimes.

 

They just had an incurable disease, so they had to face the baptism of bullets.

 

Supervisors usually had only two outcomes – either become numb as the blood on their hands increased, or like Yang Chen, wake up from nightmares every night, tormented by anxiety and fear, driven to unbearable pain by the “splurt” sound of bullets piercing skulls.

 

For a long time, whenever Yang Chen held a gun, her hands would shake uncontrollably, and she couldn’t face anyone.

 

“I was relatively lucky,” Yang Chen said lightly. “At least I didn’t become one of the two hundred and twenty-two supervisors who committed suicide last year.”

 

Everyone immediately fell silent.

 

What was usually presented to the public were casualty statistics for soldiers, mercenaries, and such, while the life and death of supervisors was often of no concern to anyone.

 

They couldn’t help but remember what Supreme Executive Huo Yanji had said to the public that day: “The infamy that only we bore before will be shared by everyone. The guilt that only belonged to supervisors – I hope none of you here will have the chance to bear it.”

 

Yang Chen said: “Some people always say that supervisors don’t like deviants—I indeed don’t like them much. I don’t want to know any deviants, don’t want to be friends with you, don’t want to say an extra word to you.

 

“Because only this way, when I kill deviants who are about to lose control at the testing center every month, can I suppress my emotions and tell myself, this is just a person who has nothing to do with you, you’re just doing your duty.”

 

“…”

 

No one spoke again until they reached District J.

 

Jumping off the armored vehicle, the deviant who had mocked earlier stuffed the gun into Yang Chen’s hands, walking away without looking back: “We’re all rough people, can’t use guns. If anyone gets infected later, we can only rely on you.”

 

Yang Chen: “…”

 

Sang Jue watched all this, carrying his bag, dressed cleanly and tidily, completely out of place with the surrounding chaos of war.

 

Some noticed him, but had no mind to think about it now.

 

District J hadn’t completely fallen yet, but the city walls had collapsed, and countless deviants were locked in fierce battle.

 

This was Sang Jue’s first time seeing such large antlions, a full five or six times his size—you had to know that antlions from centuries ago weren’t even as thick as a thumb.

 

They rolled in the soil, the ground constantly bulging and cracking. One mercenary hadn’t reacted yet when the ground beneath his feet caved in, his body immediately falling down—until a hand grabbed him.

 

Sang Jue grabbed a slender steel bar nearby and fiercely stabbed it into the collapsed hole! A hissing sound came from underground, something struggling and writhing incessantly, with surrounding soil blocks constantly collapsing.

 

He braced against the ground and pulled the deviant up.

 

The other was still shaken: “Thank, thank you—”

 

In the distance, a soldier’s arms had completely transformed into tentacles. He was almost trapped in the center of the antlion group, with only a small patch of ground left under his feet. His sucker-covered tentacles absorbed four or five grenades and thrust them straight into the ground.

 

He shouted loudly to those around him: “Everyone get away!!”

 

“BANG!!!!”

 

The grenades exploded in a cloud of earthy yellow smoke, foul-smelling black-green liquid mixed with human corpses, raining down on the ruins like drops.

 

An observer flapping his wings in mid-air screamed with all his might: “The seventh wave of antlions will arrive in three minutes! All personnel retreat fifty meters east!!”

 

“Don’t enter buildings! Standing on ruins with steel reinforcement is safest!!!”

 

“Number 37! Two antlions are approaching you stealthily!!”

 

Standing on the ground, human vision was ultimately limited, making observers particularly important. They watched in all directions and listened to all sounds. After a night, their voices were hoarse to the point of breaking, but they were still reporting the battle situation with full effort.

 

District J was in chaos—the perfect opportunity for Sang Jue to slip away.

 

The deviant antlions had eliminated past weaknesses and amplified their strengths, so their sense of smell, hearing, and vision were almost nonexistent, but the bristles all over their bodies made their sense of touch particularly keen.

 

Therefore, they didn’t discover Sang Jue’s special existence.

 

The long steel bar he’d picked up became the best weapon. Sang Jue fiercely stabbed it into the soil in front of him, and an antlion trying to ambush him struggled for a moment before going still.

 

Sang Jue pulled the steel bar out again.

 

He stood in the defeated ruins, the city walls collapsed. Walking a few more sections would let him escape this chaos and find his prince.

 

Ahead was endless wasteland, behind was the gray high-rises that didn’t know how much longer they could stand. Human corpses and monster mucus intertwined and dissolved, with only the sounds of fighting and roaring in his ears.

 

No one cried.

 

Everyone cried.

 

A deviant fell into his comrade’s arms, limbs convulsing uncontrollably, eyes rolling back: “Can’t control it anymore, kill me…”

 

“What the fuck are you saying!!”

 

His comrade’s eyes were bloodshot, howling helplessly. Only at times like this did they understand how lucky it had been in the past to not have to personally kill comrades and friends, to have supervisors as objects of hatred.

 

He raised his tentacle, scalding tears mixed with snot falling—”Bang!”

 

It was Yang Chen, gripping her arm and forcing herself to control her trembling as she fired.

 

She gritted her teeth, not looking at the splattered blood, and pulled the deviant: “Let’s go!”

 

But the next second, an antlion drilled out of the soil from the side. The deviant, who hadn’t had time to retract his tentacles, swept Yang Chen away with one tentacle while directly twisting off the antlion’s square head with another!

 

The headless antlion shuddered twice, its body still crawling on the ground, its sensitive bristles helping it identify the direction of food.

 

Yang Chen rolled on the ground twice. When she looked up again, she saw another antlion drill out behind the deviant, its scythe-like sharp mandibles flanking toward his waist, instantly drawing blood.

 

He grabbed the mandibles, gritting his teeth and using all his strength, his face turning red, the veins in his neck seeming about to burst, actually breaking the extremely strong mandibles with his bare hands!!

 

Yang Chen didn’t even have time to get up, kneeling on the ground in embarrassment, taking advantage of the antlion’s pain to aim at its abdomen and fire three shots at the vulnerable contracting and expanding sac.

 

“Clang!” The massive body crashed down, raising a cloud of dust.

 

The deviant got up, not using his bloody hands to help Yang Chen: “Quick! I’ll get you over there!!”

 

Fighting all the way, using every bit of strength.

 

When Yang Chen reached the battle line fifty meters away, it was also when the deviant collapsed.

 

The pain of losing control twisted his face, his lips constantly twitching: “It hurts too much, too much…”

 

Yang Chen raised her gun, biting her jaw, as if returning to last year, which also seemed to be around February.

 

She had met a female deviant at a tavern, and they got along well.

 

She had clearly warned herself not to get close, not to get close, but she still couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it. Two months later, she saw her again at the supervision station testing center, contamination index 68.

 

She was the ‘executor’ that day, firing the last shot of her supervisor career.

 

Tears mixed at the corners of her mouth, bitter and salty.

 

A soldier strode over, about to fire for her, when he heard the fallen deviant murmur: “Even if you told me the truth, told me deviants must die within thirty years, I would still choose this path…”

 

Amidst the gunfire and explosions, everyone hiding behind the ruins was stunned.

 

People didn’t hate the truth—they hated the lies.

 

Yang Chen closed her eyes, “Bang!” A gunshot rang out, just like every time before. The bullet precisely penetrated the skull, passing through the brain. The condemned didn’t suffer for even a second, instantly losing consciousness.

 

Warm red sunlight rose from the horizon, illuminating the blood-soaked ruins.

 

“Observer!!”

 

There were still people in the air who hadn’t evacuated in time. A soldier roared: “Behind you—!”

 

Too late. An antlion leaped from the soil, its long jaws directly attacking the flying human. The observer only caught a glimpse of a massive shadow in his peripheral vision—

 

He closed his eyes, instinctively pulling out a grenade to perish together with the monster behind him, but in that instant, a long steel bar came whistling through the air with lightning speed, directly piercing the antlion’s hard carapace, going straight through its back and abdomen.

 

The observer immediately reacted, dodging upward. The powerful steel bar directly impaled the antlion to the ground, immobilizing it.

 

Sang Jue tried to pull out the steel bar, but the soldiers over there were shouting for him to come back quickly, so he had to give up. The steel bar was embedded in the collapsed wall structure—quite troublesome to pull out.

 

He stepped over the fallen beam and returned to within the battle line.

 

Yang Chen wiped her eyes, saying hoarsely: “Where did you go? I didn’t see you just now.”

 

Sang Jue blinked: “Just wandering around.”

 

The rescued observer had no time to thank him, immediately flying higher to scout the situation.

 

The breathing space lasted less than half a minute before the seventh wave of antlions was about to arrive.

 

No one knew how many more waves of monsters were coming, no one knew how long this battle would last—but they couldn’t retreat.

 

Every step back meant losing another part of humanity’s last sanctuary.

 

Fighting, roaring, and the silent death knell continued to rage from daylight until nightfall, the ruins completely stained with blood.

 

They hid behind the broken remnants, their voices so hoarse they couldn’t speak a word.

 

Until a familiar voice rang out from the city’s broadcast system, commanding steadily: “All combat personnel in District J, attention. The next wave of antlions is approaching. ‘Bombing’ will commence shortly. Please return to safety lines immediately!”

 

“It’s General Huo! General Huo has returned to duty!!”

 

Regardless of what feelings or attitudes residents had toward Huo Jiangmian, for the soldiers who had followed him for over ten years, he was an anchor of stability.

 

Sang Jue looked at the excited soldiers around him.

 

Humans were truly complex. Just yesterday, 007 had told him that Huo Jiangmian had already left the city.

 

At that time, the battle horn had already sounded. Huo Jiangmian clearly didn’t want to care anymore, yet he still returned to the city today.

 

The broadcast continued, Huo Jiangmian saying gravely: “Both the main city and the underground city are humanity’s foundation. If the main city falls, it would be like breaking bones and losing half a life. I and the other generals will guard the front lines with you all, fighting to the death!

 

“Don’t despair. Commander Lin Shuyi from District 7 has arrived with his team. Support forces from Districts 5, 9, and 14 are already en route. General Huo’s troops are on their way back to the city!

 

“The future of humanity rests in each of our hands—let us all remember: humanity never surrenders.”

 

Throughout the city, countless people raised their fists and roared: “Humanity never surrenders!!”

 

**

---