Xu Huo and the Little Girl

Xu Huo and the Little Girl

It started raining outside.

The children who had been lingering around the hotel finally began to leave. Only the little girl remained, crouching beneath a utility pole with a plastic bag over her head. Every so often, she smeared a little more dirt on her face. Her eyes were bright as she stared fixedly at a second-floor window of the hotel, as if she would leap up the instant the curtains opened.

Xu Huo pulled the curtains aside, and she immediately stood up.

But Xu Huo did nothing else. He merely glanced outside, then closed the curtains again.

His condition hadn't worsened for the time being. The cut in his palm had bled black, but the mycelium had already begun to work. He just couldn't move yet.

An unofficial wanted notice had started circulating online. The suspect was supposedly the Player who had attacked Jiang Jiang, and they were now searching for him nationwide.

The person in the sketch looked quite different from him. He didn't understand why Jiang Jiang had done this, but she knew he hadn't left District 009... Maybe she was waiting for him to come knocking again.

This was the first time Xu Huo had encountered someone who might have been trained by that Doctor. Like the antisocial child at Seventeenth Hospital, Jiang Jiang was indifferent to life and didn't care whether the people protecting her lived or died. Even her emotions were an act, and her methods of killing were just as brutal.

But there was a difference between them. Violent, cruel people might be more inclined to kill with their own hands, so they could directly experience the pleasure of torture and the superiority of holding power over life. Jiang Jiang, however, was somewhat contradictory in this regard.