So Who Was Afraid?

Large parts of Gu City had fallen into darkness.

Lights went out block by block, followed by screams rising from the dark.

Something emerged from the darkness.

Yang Gan hunched over like a shrimp, pedaling his bicycle through the dark streets with a long fishing rod strapped to his back.

The abnormal Mental Radiation Detector hanging from his bicycle suddenly began to beep.

Not far ahead, a man wielding a knife was chasing after a young man.

"Little brother, we were always meant to be one. Brothers shouldn't be divided. Our hearts belong together!"

Yang Gan immediately pedaled hard toward the source of the abnormal radiation and whipped the fishing rod from his back.

A tiny hook flew out with its line, arced through the air, and caught the man by his left ear, tearing off a blood-red lump.

Twisted blood vessels and nerves dangled beneath it, writhing like a little snake.

But the moment it left the body, it went completely still.

The knife-wielding man who had been about to attack shuddered violently and collapsed to the ground, dropping the knife from his hand.

"W-what... what happened to me?"

The young man who had just been pursued immediately turned around, kicked the knife aside, then grabbed the attacker and shouted:

"Brother! Brother, are you okay!? You went crazy just now. You tried to kill me! Did you have a stroke!?"

As he spoke, he pinched the man hard between the nose and upper lip, drawing blood and nearly knocking him unconscious.

Yang Gan called out:

"Call the police and turn yourself in. Go stay at the station for now. It's not safe outside."

Then he turned his bike around, smoothly reeled in his line, and flicked the twisted blood vessels and nerves into a box at his waist. He accelerated and continued searching for his next target.

A few minutes after he left, a police car pulled up in front of the two young men and took them away.

Before long, Yang Gan reached a cinema. The poster for Legend of the Dian King stood out at the entrance. In the darkness, a man with a crazed expression was frantically tearing at a young woman's clothes, shouting:

"We should be together! We're one! We have to become one!"

Nearby lay several injured police officers who had rushed over to stop the attack.

The crazed man was simply too strong to restrain. He was even immune to stun guns.

Yang Gan swung his fishing rod. Its sharp tip cut through the darkness and hooked the man right on the tip of his nose, tearing off a lump of flesh.

Inside it was another twisted, snake-like thing.

"Ah!"

Blood poured from the man's nose. He immediately raised a hand to cover it, and the madness quickly faded from his eyes. But when he looked at the scene around him and the helpless young woman in front of him, he didn't stop. Instead, he lunged at her again.

Several police officers nearby had gotten back to their feet. Seeing this, they rushed over and pinned the crazed man down. This time, it was much easier, and he was handcuffed in no time.

When they turned to thank the person on the bicycle, they found he had already ridden away.

As Yang Gan pedaled at full speed, he looked up at a tower in the distance.

A spider-like man had just climbed up with a rifle on his back and was beginning to shoot into the darkness.

The gun had been modified, and every bullet was a slender needle.

Not far ahead of Yang Gan, two people with bloodshot eyes were strangling each other, trying to kill one another.

As the gunfire cracked like popping beans, two needles pierced their necks, shooting out two twisted strips of flesh and pinning them to the ground.

The two people seemed to lose all strength at once and slumped to the ground.

Yang Gan sped past on his bike and scooped the two strips of flesh into the little box at his waist.

He waved his rod at the man on the tower. "I've already got the bait in the water! Liuba Reservoir after work!"

Then he pedaled off toward the next target.

Similar scenes were unfolding across many neighborhoods in Gu City.

The emergency phone lines were jammed with calls.

After the sudden power outage that night, many residents of Gu City suddenly went mad.

Some attacked each other, some chased people around, saying they had to become one, and some hurt themselves.

At first there were only a few dozen, but their numbers kept growing. It was as if this madness was contagious.

In the end, at least several hundred, maybe even a thousand people, had gone mad. The city was in chaos.

Even many police officers and medical workers who had answered calls and gone out to deal with the afflicted were infected!

At first, Yang Gan had been riding at a normal pace. Later, sparks started flying from his pedals!

What kind of ridiculous task had Captain Hong assigned him?

Where was everyone else from the bureau!?

"Bang!" Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster slammed into each other, then sprang apart like lightning.

Several broken snake heads and scraps of Li Fan's clothes fell to the ground.

With a faint crack of bone, Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster both turned their heads a hundred and eighty degrees, staring at each other from grotesque angles.

Only now did Li Fan realize that the Spider-Legged Monster in front of him was actually human.

A vertical split gaped in its chest. Its ribs and breastbone had opened like a flower, sharp bone tips jutting out like teeth.

Its spider legs were its original legs, split down the middle like a blooming flower into seven or eight parts. Each was connected by muscle and sinew, with sharp bone shards braced against the ground.

The densely packed snake-like tentacles on its upper body were actually abnormal mental entities that had emerged from its flesh.

Its body had become a nest of snakes!

And every one of those snakes was a Human-Faced Snake.

Maybe it shouldn't be called the Spider-Legged Monster. It should be called the Snake Nest.

Li Fan couldn't help shivering. His fear of tightly packed things was about to act up again.

If all these Human-Faced Snakes got out, how many people would they infect?

Couldn't they come up with something a little less horrifying?

As he thought this, his body twisted into a pretzel on its own. His legs bent backward, and he sprang away in a sudden burst.

After the Tiger Pillar God had fully possessed him and taken control of this power, the first thing Li Fan had discovered was that his body had become incredibly flexible. He could twist it into all sorts of shapes.

His bones crackled like he was doing yoga, stretching his entire body loose.

The Spider-Legged Monster had indeed been drawn to Li Fan. With a strange smile, it chased after him.

In the blink of an eye, the chase had carried them through two dark neighborhoods and into a park.

A group of old men and women had been waiting for the power to come back so they could resume their square dancing. When they saw Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster crawling across the ground, they let out shrill screams and fled the park faster than people rushing for bus and subway seats or free eggs at the supermarket.

Li Fan scrambled up the roof of a pavilion on all fours. When the Spider-Legged Monster started climbing after him, he hurriedly let out a tiger's roar:

"Don't come any closer, roar!"

The Spider-Legged Monster wasn't affected at all. Its densely packed Human-Faced Snakes flicked their tongues and rapidly took turns biting into the pavilion's pillars. In moments, it had climbed up.

To an ordinary person who couldn't see mental entities, it would have looked like a man with his legs split apart was somehow floating into the air and reaching the top of the pavilion.

The Spider-Legged Monster moved incredibly fast. It appeared right in front of Li Fan, and the densely packed Human-Faced Snakes opened their mouths and lunged at him.

Quite a few stretched several meters, then curled around and reached back, surrounding Li Fan.

At the same time, the huge mouth in its chest opened and snapped at him, ready to stuff him straight into its body!

The sight of all those snake heads fixed on him made Li Fan's scalp crawl. He felt the blood drain cold from his entire body, but at the same time, his mind had never been more focused. Two giant python mental entities emerged from his hands.

He shouted:

"Come on! Come on! You've got a whole bunch of snakes, but I've got two pythons!"

Only then did he realize how unbelievably strong his arms were, and how unnaturally nimble his muscles had become. His arms whipped around like rubber hoses, leaving a blur of afterimages.

"Bang!" With a dull thud, the Spider-Legged Monster flew backward, and fragments of shattered Human-Faced Snake mental entities scattered through the air.

Feeling his hands burning hot, Li Fan looked at the two fearsome giant pythons and couldn't help staring in surprise.

The Tiger Pillar God seemed to...

No, maybe he was... pretty strong?

Was this a draw?

Why was he still so scared?

No, this wasn't him being scared...

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