Infected

Hearing Sun Hang's unmasked footsteps, the young woman simply broke into a run. Sun Hang, meanwhile, took the stairs in huge strides, clearing three or four steps at a time. He was even faster than her running up one step at a time.

Very soon, the young woman entered Sun Hang's field of view. She glanced back at him, then shoved the clutter piled in the stairwell.

A battered wardrobe and a discarded mattress toppled over, instantly blocking the entire stairwell solid.

The stairwell in the apartment block was extremely narrow. Whether Sun Hang tried to squeeze through the gaps or clear away the clutter, it would take quite some time. The woman glanced back, and a smug smile showed in the eyes above her mask.

What she had not expected was that Sun Hang did not crawl through the gaps. Instead, the hand holding his gun reached straight through—

Bang!

The gunshot rang through the corridor. The woman screamed and collapsed onto the floor.

Sun Hang had not aimed for anything vital. He had shot her in the lower leg.

The bullet pierced through her skinny jeans, and dark red blood slowly seeped from the bullet hole, staining the navy fabric purplish red.

The smugness in the woman's eyes instantly turned into resentment and fear. Using both hands and feet, she struggled to get up. After shooting Sun Hang a glance, she limped and crawled toward the higher floors.

Sun Hang did not fire a second shot. He pulled aside the clutter blocking the stairwell, then kicked over the mattress standing before him like a wall and calmly continued upward.

His steps were steady. He held his gun slightly outward, letting the metal slide on the weapon repeatedly strike the metal stair railing with a series of "ding, ding, ding" sounds... To the person being pursued, those crisp knocks were like the tolling of a death knell.

With one injured leg, it was only a matter of time before the young woman was caught by Sun Hang.

Sun Hang was not in the least bit hurried, nor was he worried about an ambush from the woman's accomplices in the building—apart from the young woman, he could not smell any other "scent," and his subconscious had not detected any dangerous factors.

Even if there was an ambush, it would pose no threat to him.

Finally, the woman stopped on the ninth floor. She leaned against the doorframe of Apartment 901, gasping heavily.

Apartment 901 had been completely emptied out. A thick layer of dust covered the entryway, with no footprints on it at all... Clearly, this was not where the woman lived.

"Y-you... who are you?" The woman stared at Sun Hang in terror. "You have a gun... Are you a Peacekeeper? Or someone from the Anomaly Investigation Bureau?!"

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

"Y-you..." A look of despair suddenly appeared in the woman's eyes. "Could you be... a hunter?"

"Since you know about hunters, you should know why I came for you, right?" Sun Hang pulled back the pistol slide to check the ammunition, then looked her up and down. "Take off your mask and hat."

She hesitated for a moment, but eventually did as he said.

She was a young girl who looked only eighteen or nineteen. Her face was sallow and gaunt, and she appeared severely malnourished. Her meager chest beneath her hoodie was practically indistinguishable from a man's, while her limbs were as thin as sticks.

Sun Hang raised his gun and aimed directly between the girl's brows.

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

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

"D-don't kill me! I'll show you what you want to see!" The girl hurriedly raised her right arm and used her other hand to tear off the sleeve.

A sizable patch of ulceration covered her skin-and-bones forearm. But on closer inspection, it was not merely rotting skin. Beneath the pus-filled dermal tissue were countless tiny granulations, gently writhing like the tentacles of some creature.

Just looking at it for a few seconds was enough to make one's scalp crawl.

Sun Hang could now confirm that the scent he had smelled was coming from there.

"Look! Look, I'm infected!" the girl said urgently. "I know your rules! I'm infected, but I still have a clear mind! According to your rules, you shouldn't kill me. You should take me back... and conduct, conduct your tests..."

"You know quite a lot... Who told you?" Sun Hang did not lower his gun.

"I... I looked it up online..." the girl muttered softly. "After I was infected... I kept wanting to find you, but I was scared..."

"How were you infected?" Sun Hang asked again.

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

"Where's 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, surviving on odd jobs..."

"Here's some advice: when making up a story, pay attention to logic. Don't let it contradict reality," Sun Hang said flatly.

"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 at the bag on the floor. The steamed buns and fried dough sticks inside were enough to fill ten or so people.

"Th-these... are, are all for me..." The girl pointed to the ulcerated patch on her forearm. "Ever since I was infected... I've been hungry all the time. No matter how much I eat, I can't fill my stomach..."

"Combined with your malnourished appearance, that explanation is indeed somewhat convincing. After all, nobody knows the exact traits of these strange entities. The one that infected you might consume vast amounts of the host's nutrients, but..." Sun Hang took the Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake the old man had given him from his pocket, stuffed half of it into his mouth, and chewed as he spoke, "surely you don't need to buy more than a dozen bags of soy milk too?"

"I... I... like drinking it..."

"You said earlier that you survive on odd jobs, and the clothes you're wearing really are cheap street-stall goods... Assuming your appetite truly is as terrifying as you claim, your living expenses must be tight." Sun Hang slowed his speech slightly and patiently laid out his reasoning. "Fried dough sticks cost one yuan each, vegetable buns cost eighty cents, and meat buns are a little more expensive at one-fifty each... Compared to that, isn't soy milk at six yuan a bag a little too extravagant? Wouldn't plain boiled water be more cost-effective?"

"What exactly are you trying to ask?!" The girl's face alternated between pale and flushed, and her breathing grew more and more rapid.

"You have accomplices, don't you? I mean... other infected people." Sun Hang said, "Take me to them."

He had not eaten for many days...

He was hungry.

One bowl of one-and-a-half taels of wontons could not fill his stomach.