Run Fast

Inside the pavilion, four women dressed in white were huddled over the carcass of a deer, gnawing away with relish. From time to time, strange, distorted laughter emanated from their mouths.

Listen closely, and it wasn't hard to realize that it wasn't laughter at all, but the sound of the insects writhing within their throats.

Xu Tong, draped in a woman's outer garment, stood in the shadows, watching with a curious gaze.

He couldn't help but wonder: were these women human, were they insects, or should they be classified as corpses?

Yet, whether human, insect, or corpse, how long had they existed in a place like this, and how had they managed to survive?

And this place—what exactly was it?

The Ascension Bureau? Certainly not. He could say with certainty that this might be a temple or perhaps the tomb of some long-dead emperor, but it had absolutely nothing to do with any so-called Ascension Bureau.

These questions swirled in his mind, fueling an irrepressible urge to uncover the truth.

"Hiss... hisss-hiss..."

Just as he was lost in thought, a strange sound reached his ears. He turned to see Captain Wang pursing his lips, eyes wide, frantically signaling him with his gaze.

It seemed he was begging for help, hoping they could escape together.

But Xu Tong had no interest in indulging him. Seeing the man's restless, desperate state, he could only sigh helplessly. He crept to the captain's side and, without a word, reached out.

Then, to the captain's utter shock, he took the wrist the man had struggled so hard to free and shoved it back into the loop of the rope, carefully tying it off with a neat, decorative bow.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Captain Wang was completely bewildered. Wasn't he here to save him? Why was he being tied back up?

Furious and desperate, he wanted to scream, but when the words reached his lips, he could only manage a mosquito-like curse.

"Are you sick? Hurry up and help me! Do you want to watch me get eaten by these monsters?"

Though he was seething with rage at Xu Tong, the captain did his best to control his emotions as he hissed at him.

Yet, Xu Tong simply stood to the side, his face as stiff and expressionless as those of the women. He didn't speak, didn't move, and this left the captain truly terrified.

"Kid, are you doing this on purpose? Let me go, damn you!!!"

He roared in anger, hoping to force Xu Tong to release him so they could find a way out.

But even after that outburst, Xu Tong remained unmoved. Instead, the four women in the pavilion, who had been feasting on the deer, finally turned their gazes toward him.

The women slowly set down the venison, their limbs jerking stiffly as they emitted a rhythmic "click-click-click" sound.

The four women who had been carrying Captain Wang stepped into the pavilion, tossed him onto the table, and left him sprawled out in the shape of a "big" character.

The color drained from the captain's face until not a trace of blood remained.

The women twisted their necks and crawled onto him. Even though the air was bone-chillingly cold, as they drew near, the captain could clearly smell the thick, putrid stench of decay radiating from them, making him feel instantly nauseated.

The women tore their own clothes open, their icy fingers stroking his chest. It felt... like being scrubbed with a dried-out loofah.

Captain Wang had never dreamed he would be molested by four female corpses.

"I never thought that after surviving the battlefield and dodging criminals, I'd end up being done in by a brat like you. Well played, kid."

Lying on the wooden table, the captain watched crystal-clear tears roll down his cheeks, yet he couldn't resist throwing one last sarcastic jab at Xu Tong: "The net of heaven is vast, and its meshes are wide, but nothing escapes it. If you don't want people to know, don't do it in the first place..."

By the end, his throat was parched.

Yet, after waiting for a long time, the agony of being torn limb from limb by the corpses never came.

Instead, after fumbling over the captain for a moment, they slowly turned away, one by one, and leaped into the icy pool.

Xu Tong stood in the back, watching silently. He saw the lead woman walk deeper and deeper into the pool, a visible layer of frost beginning to coat her body.

She kept moving forward, but the temperature of the freezing pool seemed to defy human imagination.

After only a few steps, the woman's height suddenly dropped significantly. A closer look revealed that her legs had turned into shards of ice, shattering against the surface of the water.

Xu Tong frowned, unable to fathom what these insect-women were trying to achieve.

Just then, the woman reached into the depths of the pool, fumbling around until she pulled out a jar.

The moment the jar broke the surface, a layer of visible frost coated it, freezing the woman's hands firmly to the vessel. By the time she took a few more steps, her body was completely immobilized.

The second woman jumped into the water, acting like a relay runner; she stepped forward, took the jar from the first woman's hands, and began to walk back.

But she didn't get far before her body was completely encased in solid ice.

Then came the third. Because the first two had already carried the jar out of the coldest zone, she managed to hold on for ten seconds, barely stumbling to a spot a few meters from the pavilion before she, too, came to a halt.

Seeing this, the fourth woman finally entered the water. She took the jar with trembling hands and carefully made her way back.

No one knew what was inside the jar, but judging by her delicate, cautious expression, it seemed to contain something of immense importance.

However, just as she brought the jar to the front of the pavilion, a pair of large, steady hands gently took the icy vessel from her grasp.

The woman froze, her gray-white eyes staring in confusion at the stranger's face, as if trying to process what had happened.

Her mouth slowly opened, revealing a withered insect inside. Its feelers thrashed frantically in the air, emitting a "chi-chi-chi" sound.

It was then that Xu Tong finally saw the full picture of these insects; parts of their bodies were completely fused with the female corpses.

He even noticed that there was no flesh left in the women's mouths; he could see the rotted white bone through their gaping maws.

It seemed that the only reason these women still maintained a human form was because the insects had sprouted hair-thin threads of flesh, acting as a scaffold to hold up the empty husks of their skin.

Seeing this, he couldn't help but recall a young man in the hospital who always claimed that he was the only true human, and that most of the world's population had actually been parasitized.

The reason humans suffer from aging, sickness, and death is that these terrifying parasites are constantly devouring human life, causing people to grow old.

Only by killing these parasites could one's lifespan be greatly extended, just like Zhang Sanfeng or Peng Zu.

Of course, what he said was unbelievable.

But now it seemed that these bugs had reconstructed a new circulatory system within the corpse, allowing the female corpse to be preserved until now, looking just like a living person at first glance.

"No wonder!"

He nodded thoughtfully, his mind suddenly clearing. No wonder these bugs were so sensitive to temperature; it seemed that not only were they sensitive to it, but it was only in such an extremely cold environment that the corpses they parasitized would not rapidly decay.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak~~~"

Just as his mind was wandering, the bug in the mouth of the female corpse before him seemed to finally realize that something was wrong, letting out a sharp, angry screech.

Xu Tong suddenly snatched the jar from her hands and kicked the female corpse's head straight into the cold pool.

With a "splash," the woman's body continued to struggle, but the temperature in the cold pool clearly exceeded their critical threshold, and after a short struggle, she went completely still.

"Quick, quick, help me untie the rope!!!"

Seeing this, Captain Wang hurriedly shouted for Xu Tong to untie him. Xu Tong gently hooked his finger at the bowknot, and the rope end that Captain Wang couldn't struggle free from was easily undone.

"You brat, using me as bait without giving me a heads-up? What if they had torn me to pieces??"

Once free, Captain Wang immediately scrambled up in a rage, looking as if he wanted to give Xu Tong a piece of his mind.

Xu Tong, however, was indifferent to this. With his eyes fixed on the ice-sealed jar in his hands, he asked Captain Wang curiously, "Guess what's inside?"

Although Captain Wang was full of resentment, he was naturally filled with curiosity upon seeing the jar in his hands.

However, the jar seemed to be frozen shut and didn't look like it would be easy to open.

"That's simple!"

Xu Tong picked up the jar and smashed it hard against the ground.

"Bang!"

With a loud shattering sound, the jar was instantly smashed to pieces, revealing an egg the size of an adult's fist inside.

What was even more unexpected was that the moment the jar shattered, a series of sharp, strange cries erupted all around them.

Soon, the sound of footsteps approached, as if something was rushing toward them frantically.

"I think we might have caused some trouble??" Hearing the approaching footsteps, Captain Wang felt his scalp tingle. He looked toward Xu Tong, only to see him pick up the egg.

Then, he grinned at him.

┏(;￣▽￣)┛: "Run!"

┏(゜ロ゜;)┛: "F*ck! Wait for me!"