The Infected

Hearing Sun Hang's unmasked footsteps, the young woman simply started running. Sun Hang, on the other hand, took the stairs in great strides, covering three to four steps at a time. His pace was even faster than her running up each individual step.

Soon, the young woman came into Sun Hang's view. She glanced back at him and then shoved the piled-up debris in the stairwell.

The tattered wardrobe and discarded Simmons mattress toppled over, instantly blocking the entire stairwell tightly.

The stairwells in these old apartment buildings were narrow. It would take Sun Hang considerable time to either squeeze through the gaps or clear the debris. The woman looked back, and a hint of a smug smile flickered in her eyes above her mask.

But what she didn't expect was that Sun Hang didn't squeeze through the gap. Instead, the hand holding his gun reached through—

"Bang!"

The gunshot echoed in the stairwell. The woman screamed and immediately collapsed onto the ground.

Sun Hang hadn't aimed for a vital spot. He shot her in the calf.

The bullet pierced the fabric of her tight jeans, and crimson blood slowly seeped from the wound, dyeing the dark blue material a purplish-red.

The smugness in the woman's eyes instantly turned to resentment and fear. She scrambled to her feet with her hands and feet, glancing at Sun Hang before limping her way up to the higher floors.

Sun Hang didn't fire a second shot. Instead, he pushed aside the debris blocking the stairwell and kicked down the Simmons mattress that was blocking his path like a wall. He calmly continued upward.

His steps were steady. The hand holding the gun was extended slightly outward, causing the metal slide of the gun and the metal railing of the stairs to constantly collide, making a "ding ding ding" sound... To the person being chased, this crisp clinking sound was like the tolling of a death knell.

With the young woman dragging an injured leg, being caught by Sun Hang was only a matter of time.

Sun Hang wasn't in a hurry. He also wasn't worried about an ambush by the woman's accomplices in the building—besides the young woman, he couldn't smell any other "scents," nor did his subconscious detect any signs of danger.

Even if there was an ambush, it wouldn't pose a threat to him.

Finally, the woman stopped on the ninth floor. She leaned against the doorframe of room 901, gasping for breath.

Room 901 had been completely emptied. A thick layer of dust had accumulated in the entryway, and there were no footprints on it... Clearly, this was not the woman's residence.

"You... Who are you?" The woman stared at Sun Hang with terrified eyes. "You have a gun... Are you a Peacekeeper? Or from the Anomaly Investigation Bureau?!"

"Neither." Sun Hang shook his head. "But you're close."

"You... You..." Despair suddenly welled up in the woman's eyes. "Are you... a Hunter?"

"Since you know about Hunters, you should know why I'm looking for you, right?" Sun Hang pushed back the slide of his pistol to check the bullets and then looked her up and down. "Take off your mask and hat."

The other party hesitated for a moment, then complied.

It was a young girl, who looked no older than eighteen or nineteen. Her face was sallow and thin, appearing to be severely malnourished. Her chest beneath the hoodie was as flat as a man's, and her limbs were as thin as sticks.

Sun Hang raised the muzzle of his gun, pointing it directly at the girl's forehead.

"W-wait! Aren't you going to ask anything?" The girl clearly panicked at the sight of the dark muzzle.

"There's no need." Sun Hang said softly, his finger on the trigger beginning to tighten.

"Don't... Don't kill me! I'll show you what you want!" The girl quickly raised her right arm and pulled off her sleeve with her other hand.

On her bony forearm was a rather large ulcerated area. But upon closer inspection, it wasn't a simple skin ulceration. Beneath the suppurating dermal tissue, there were many tiny granulations, wriggling slightly like the tentacles of some creature.

Looking at it for too long was enough to make one's scalp tingle.

Sun Hang was now certain that the smell he had detected was emanating from here.

"Look! See, I'm Infected!" the girl said urgently. "I know your rules! I'm Infected, and I still have my clear consciousness! According to your rules, you shouldn't kill me, but should take me back... to do, do your tests..."

"You know quite a lot... Who told you?" Sun Hang didn't lower his gun.

"I... I looked it up online..." the girl mumbled in a low voice. "After I got infected... I always wanted to find you, but I was scared..."

"How did you get infected?" Sun Hang asked again.

"I... I don't know..."

"Your family?"

"I don't have any family... I'm an orphan." The girl lowered her head. "My parents died of illness when I was very young. I've always lived alone, working odd jobs..."

"Here's a piece of advice: when you're making up a story, pay attention to logic and don't contradict reality." Sun Hang said indifferently.

"I'm not lying! Everything I said is true!" the girl argued.

"You live alone, do you need to buy this much food?" Sun Hang gestured towards the bags on the ground. The steamed buns and fried dough sticks inside were enough to feed more than ten people.

"Th-this... all, all of this... I ate it myself..." The girl pointed to the ulcerated area on her forearm. "Ever since I got infected... I've always felt hungry, no matter how much I eat, I can't fill my stomach..."

"Your story, combined with your malnourished appearance, is indeed somewhat convincing. After all, no one knows the specific characteristics of Anomalies. Perhaps the Anomaly you're infected with consumes a lot of nutrients from the host's body, but..." Sun Hang took out a piece of brown sugar mochi given to him by the old man, put half of it in his mouth, and said while chewing, "You wouldn't go so far as to buy over ten bags of soy milk, would you?"

"I... I... like to drink it..."

"You said earlier that you make a living doing odd jobs, and the clothes you're wearing are indeed cheap stall goods... Assuming your appetite is as terrifying as you say, then your living expenses must be very tight." Sun Hang slowed down his speech slightly, patiently analyzing for her. "Fried dough sticks are one yuan each, vegetable buns are eighty cents, meat buns are a bit more expensive, one yuan fifty each... Compared to that, isn't a six-yuan bag of soy milk a bit too extravagant? I think drinking plain water would be more cost-effective, wouldn't it?"

"What exactly do you want to ask?!" The girl's face flushed and paled, her breathing becoming increasingly rapid.

"You have accomplices, right? I mean... other Infected." Sun Hang said. "Take me to them."

He hadn't eaten for many days...

He was very hungry.

A bowl of "Chao Shou" weighing one hundred and fifty grams wouldn't fill his stomach.