Escape

"Bang!"

The muffled thud sounded like two bags of cement being dropped from the third floor.

Darnell's charge was powerful, sending the pouncing monster flying four or five meters, while he himself slammed heavily into the open ground in front of Lin An.

Both man and monster had collided with immense force, yet the moment they hit the ground, they flipped and jumped back up, returning to a standing position.

However, since the monster had been under Lin An's sustained fire for so long, with a broken leg and a shattered shoulder, its movements were hindered, allowing Darnell to regain his footing faster than the beast.

"I'm the best Ni Ge in New York, I'm my mama's best son, I'm..."

Darnell used the nonsensical shouting to vent the fear in his heart, charging forward once again to grapple with the monster in a chaotic, brawling mess.

From behind, Lin An could see that Darnell was giving it his all. It was clear he had never received any combat training; the fight was purely a street brawl, and amidst his frantic yelling, he swung wild, clumsy punches at the monster's wolf-like head.

Lin An loaded the short-barreled assault rifle in his hands, but he had no clear angle to shoot, forced to watch as the man and the monster traded punches and claws.

In the exchange between fists and claws, the fists were undoubtedly at a disadvantage, but fortunately, Lin An had crippled the monster beforehand, allowing Darnell to land five or six blows for every one claw swipe he received in return.

Smash its chin, hit the chin!

Kick it in the crotch!

Ouch, even I feel that pain.

After observing for a moment, Lin An grasped the situation and immediately shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Pin it down! Stop swinging, just pin it down, don't let it move!"

Darnell's first reaction upon hearing the shout wasn't to comply, but to complain.

"Pin it down? Bro, are you kidding me?"

The monster's claw swept in from the left, cutting Darnell's words short. He instinctively leaned back, the tip of the claw grazing past his chin, the wind from the swipe making the fine hairs on his face stand on end.

"This monster has claws, my whole body is in pain, and after this fight, I'm going to need a rabies shot..."

"The police are almost here!"

"You should've said so sooner!!!"

The words were effective. The second after Lin An spoke, Darnell threw himself at the monster regardless of the danger.

It was as if, in this moment, the creature wasn't a furry, foul-smelling monster, but a blonde beauty, unclothed and curvaceous.

The crippled monster had no way to deal with Darnell's desperate, full-body tackle, and in an instant, it was pinned to the ground by the 1.85-meter-tall, muscular "black beast."

The two black figures rolled on the ground, and Lin An seized the opportunity to walk over quickly with his gun. As Darnell flipped on top and gripped the monster's throat with both hands, Lin An pointed the muzzle at the wolf head, flicked his thumb, and set it to three-round burst mode.

Bang, bang, bang!

The monster's head exploded like a watermelon.

Darnell was still gripping its throat, black fluid and gore spraying all over his face, yet he remained motionless, holding his position.

"It's dead."

Lin An said, but Darnell didn't move.

"Darnell, it's dead."

Only then did Darnell fall backward, though his hands remained locked tightly around the monster's headless neck.

"Bro, do me a favor, my hands—my hands are really cramping, I'm not kidding, my fingers are like..."

Lin An now roughly understood the nature of this Ni Ge: talkative and cowardly. Helping him charge the werewolf was likely the extent of his courage, and now that courage had been completely spent.

Additionally, Lin An glanced at Darnell's shoulder, where black flesh was writhing beneath his tattered clothes, and he knew something was wrong with him.

He might be human, but he likely carried the blood of something else.

Are his hands really cramping? Should I help him?

Help him with what? Worry about yourself first, the streamer looks terrible.

Is it low blood sugar? His face is as white as paper.

"Brother, does anyone have glucose? Get me a bottle."

Lin An said.

"I don't think I can hold on much longer."

Wait, I'm going downstairs to buy some right now.

Have a little bread to fill your stomach first.

Big Belly tipped 5 French rolls.

Darnell, who was struggling to pry his hands off the monster's neck, heard Lin An's words. He turned his head and saw a plastic bag and a glass bottle appear out of thin air in the latter's hand.

Darnell's mouth dropped open in shock.

"Oh my god, my eyes are cramping too... No, are you a magician or a wizard!?"

Watching Lin An wolf down a small bread and drink the water from the glass bottle, Darnell felt a pang of hunger himself.

"Bro, give me one, I'm hungry too."

Lin An ignored Ni Ge. Someone who was truly exhausted and starving wouldn't be yapping away like this guy.

After wolfing down the small bread and the bottle of glucose, Lin An finally regained some strength, and a hint of color returned to his pale face.

He was just about to store the trash in the shop's inventory when a notification popped up.

[Donated items cannot be sold]

Huh!?

There was such a rule?

Lin An glanced at the items in his hand. Should he just leave them here?

No, that wouldn't work. This trash contained his biological information. Judging by those armed personnel and monsters, the mastermind behind the scenes had the ability to extract biological information from trash. As for what they could do once they obtained it, Lin An wasn't sure.

Regardless, it definitely wouldn't be anything good.

Thinking of this, Lin An stuffed the trash into his clothes, preparing to take it with him when he left.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait."

Darnell circled Lin An like a gorilla begging for a banana.

"You just... ate the bread, now... you... you can't leave, hey, are you listening to me!"

Lin An had things to do and ignored the anxious monkey.

He scoured the ground, collecting as many dropped weapons as possible: the AR-15 and handgun Darnell had discarded, as well as the magazines he had dropped himself.

As for the shell casings, he let them be. Lin An had fired too many shots; finding them all would be too much of a hassle.

Watching Lin An work, Darnell slowly realized the other man wouldn't react, so he stopped and found a spot to check his own body.

After Lin An finished packing up, he followed the guidance of the bullet comments and set off in a direction. Seeing this, Darnell hurriedly followed.

[Left, go left, don't take that corridor, there's someone hiding there]

[There's a corner ahead, turn it]

[Stop]

Lin An stopped. Darnell almost bumped into his back.

"You..."

"Shh."

Darnell shut his mouth. At the same time, his body sank slightly, knees bent, shoulders hunched, shrinking his six-foot frame down to about five-foot-seven.

The innate sense of crisis of a Black man made him realize the danger.

Lin An tilted his head to look at the corridor entrance on the left.

A flashlight beam swept across the wall, drawing a shaky circle of light before vanishing. Then, several sets of footsteps approached from the same direction.

[It's the police, judging by the uniforms, they're New York police]

[They know where the streamer is now]

[Go quickly, go right, there's a room ahead]

Lin An slid out from the shadows at the base of the wall like a fish swimming out of a rock crevice.

He hunched his back, taking long strides, but every step landed softly—toes first, then the ball of the foot, then the heel... a set of stealth movements he had written about countless times in his novels but had never practiced.

Darnell followed behind.

His movements surprised Lin An a bit. The man in his thirties moved through the darkness with a strange, fluid grace.

His strides were longer than Lin An's, but his footsteps were no heavier. He turned his shoulders sideways in the narrow corridor, hugging the wall as he moved, his entire body like a stretched-out shadow gliding silently along the base of the wall.

It seemed that before Lin An woke up, this man had been using these exact tactics to maneuver around the armed personnel in the abandoned factory.

They crossed a corridor, passed a pile of scrap, and moved through a room with a missing door.

This process repeated a dozen times, and then Darnell was astonished to find that he and the "bro" whose name he didn't know were standing under the perimeter wall of the abandoned factory, with a gap conveniently waiting for them to exit.

Lin An stood still in front of the gap for a few seconds.

[Safe, no issues detected]

[Wait, there's a vehicle parked on the road]

[It's a refrigerated semi-trailer, the engine is running, headlights are on]

[Don't go that way, go around it]

Lin An frowned.

"There's a vehicle outside, a refrigerated semi-trailer, engine's still running."

Darnell's expression changed.

"Middle of the night, outside an abandoned factory, a refrigerated truck with the engine running."

He counted on his fingers, his voice dropping to a low whisper.

"This isn't right, this is so wrong, do you get what I mean?"

"Go around it."

"How?"

Lin An glanced at the live chat.

[Go right, walk along the tracks, cut through those weeds, and circle behind the factory]

[There's a small path that leads to the residential area]

After confirming the route, Lin An crawled out of the hole, his movements quick, like a cat emerging from a den.

His sneakers crunched against the gravel beside the tracks, making a faint sound, and he immediately froze, melting into the shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach.

Darnell followed him out, moving even faster than Lin An, sliding out like a snake shedding its skin, with a fluidity that didn't seem possible for a man who was six-foot-one and two hundred pounds.

He stood beside Lin An, the two of them pressing their backs against the factory's outer wall, facing the direction of the tracks.

The refrigerated semi-trailer was parked on the road about a hundred meters away.

Lin An saw its silhouette... the white cargo box gleaming coldly under the moonlight, the headlights on the cab illuminated.

The doors of the cargo box were shut, and from the outside, there was nothing unusual. It was just an ordinary refrigerated semi-trailer parked on the side of the road.

But this was clearly not right.

[Stop looking, go now]

[There's something inside that truck]

Lin An tugged at Darnell, and he followed Lin An as they moved right along the factory wall, the two of them sneaking along while staying in the shadows as much as possible.

They walked for about five minutes.

The lights of the refrigerated truck grew more and more distant, finally disappearing behind the corner of the factory.

The live chat began to quiet down, shifting from "Run!" to "You're safe," and from "Be careful" to "There's a fork in the road ahead."

Darnell stopped beside a dead tree.

"Are we... safe?"

"Temporarily."

Darnell turned to look at Lin An; the latter's face was covered in sweat, and even with the bloodstains masking it, he could tell that Lin An was in bad shape.

"Bro."

He hesitated for a moment.

"Should we take a break?"

"No, keep moving."

Lin An looked around his surroundings.

Behind the dead tree was an asphalt road, and on both sides of the road were rows of townhouses. Some of the houses had their lights on, clearly indicating the owners hadn't gone to sleep yet... he had to be careful.

In the distance, a dog barked, and a car drove past an intersection far away, its headlights sweeping an arc across the walls of the buildings before vanishing.

This was a residential area.

An ordinary residential area, but Lin An didn't know where it was.

He turned around to face Darnell.

"Where are we?"

He asked.

Darnell was stunned for a moment.

"Brooklyn District, right?"

"New York?"

"That's right."

He straightened his posture, hands on his hips, chin lifted, his entire demeanor reverting to that of "the coolest kid in New York."

"Brooklyn, New York, United States of America, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way..."

"Enough, where is your home?"

This question made Darnell's words falter. He hesitated for a second, looked seriously at Lin An's face for a moment, and chose to trust him.

"Queens, my home is in Queens."

He glanced at Lin An, then looked at the row of lit-up houses in the distance, before looking down at his own tattered clothes, which were stained with blood and monster fluids.

"Walking there would take about..."

He thought about it.

"Two hours? Three hours? If we took the subway... the subway should be closed now, we should hail a taxi... but I don't have any money on me."

He looked at Lin An.

"I have money, but we can't take a taxi; the driver will sell us out."

"Then what do we do, walk back?"

The two of them stared at each other under the moonlight for about three seconds, then Darnell turned around and began walking forward along the asphalt road, deliberately slowing his pace.

"Let's go."

He said, without looking back.

"We'll talk once we get to my place. And that... that thing of yours, next time you conjure up food, give me a portion too. I want to eat as well."

"There is none left."

"Really? What about the bread?"

"I finished it."

"You..."

Darnell looked back at him, his expression caught somewhere between grievance and anger.

"You ate five loaves of bread by yourself? You didn't even leave one for me?"

"The bread was small, and you weren't hungry."

"How was I not hungry!? I just fought a monster, I choked its neck, its blood sprayed all over my face, my fingers cramped up, I..."

"You talk too much, you aren't hungry."

Darnell shut his mouth, turned back around, and continued walking.

After about twenty steps, he spoke again.

"Bro."

"Hm."

"Next time, if there is a next time, can you leave me a loaf of bread?"

"Depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Depends on whether you're actually hungry."

"I just..."

"You were screaming."

"I wasn't screaming, that was... that was a battle cry. Have you seen Braveheart? Wallace, when he charged, he also yelled..."

"He yelled freedom."

"I was yelling freedom too!"

"You yelled that you are the best Ni Ge in New York."

"...That's a form of freedom, too."

Lin An smiled slightly.

The two walked along the asphalt road for about ten minutes. There was no one on the road; New York late at night was not safe. Even if there were people, they would hide as soon as they saw a tall black man walking down the street.

Others felt the same; they knew the danger of a tall, strong Ni Ge better than Ni Ge himself did... especially when this Ni Ge was wearing tattered clothes, which made it even more lethal.

Parked in the spaces along the road were several dust-covered cars, their tires either flat or missing entirely.

Darnell's pace slowed once more. He wasn't just accommodating Lin An's stamina; he had noticed something.

The rolling shutter of the convenience store on the street corner was pulled halfway down, and a symbol 'X' had been spray-painted on it. The red paint was still dripping, looking like a dried bloodstain.

[Wow, there's zero-dollar shopping here too.]

[Streamer, streamer, stop for a second, look at the newspaper on the ground.]

Lin An stopped and, following the guidance of the bullet comments, picked up the crumpled newspaper.

[Holy crap, Obama is taking office, your timeline is March 2009.]

[Ping Sheng Bu Yin Jiu tipped a Phoenix Brand bicycle.]

[Streamer, let Ni Ge ride you there, keep walking and I'm afraid you'll die on the road, your face is too pale.]

[Exactly, hurry up and let Aodebiao ride the bike.]