Eye Pupils (6)

The tall man froze. He turned to look, and then his whole body went rigid.

In his line of sight stood a filthy Mange Dog, bones already protruding through parts of its body. It was right behind him, glaring at him with a ferocious look. Its lips curled back, revealing rows of white, gleaming fangs, and a low growl rumbled in its throat—the growl of an animal about to attack.

It looked ferocious because its left eye was extremely strange. A blood-red eyeball filled the entire socket, making it completely asymmetrical with the eye on the right.

It seemed that this was no dog's eye at all, but a human eye!

The moment the tall man saw this, a chill instantly crept through him.

The next second, the Mange Dog's head was pulled forward as if by invisible strings. It lunged at him and sank its teeth into his leg.

The sight of that bloodshot eye had stunned the man, and his hands and feet were already injured, leaving him no time to react. The dog's sharp teeth sank into the muscles of his thigh.

The man winced in pain but held back his scream. He gave up on killing Shen Xing, turned around, and tried to bring his cleaver down on the Mange Dog's head.

The man and the dog fought.

Seizing the chance, Shen Xing immediately pushed off the floor with both feet, braced himself with his hands, and scrambled backward.

The wound in his shoulder was excruciating, but he had no time to deal with it. He crawled desperately to the bedroom doorway, pulled the door shut, then got to his feet and headed toward the foot of the bed.

From the living room doorway came the sounds of biting and cries of pain. The tall man swung his cleaver wildly at the Mange Dog's neck.

But with every strike, his alarm grew. By all rights, a wound from a blade like that should have killed the dog already. Yet not only was it still alive, it had torn several chunks of flesh from his thigh and waist. It was ferocious beyond belief!

Clang!

The Mange Dog clamped its jaws around the man's knife hand, and the cleaver fell to the floor.

The tall man's injured hands and feet made it impossible for him to stand. After finally breaking free, he tried to grab the Mange Dog by the fur and fling it away. But when he pulled, the patch of skin came right off, and the dog, unfazed, lunged for his neck.

Shen Xing pulled a pair of pajama pants off the bed and wrapped them around his shoulder, trying to bind the wound and stop the bleeding. But with only one hand working and his left shoulder unable to exert any force, he couldn't bandage it properly.

He hastily wrapped the cloth around his shoulder a couple of times. Then a muffled groan came from outside, and the sounds of biting and struggling stopped.

Shen Xing looked toward the bedroom door. It had been damaged during his fight with Lin Wanru's corpse and could no longer close properly. A dark gap remained, through which he could see nothing.

But a terrible feeling welled up inside him. He held his breath as best he could. His shoulder hurt fiercely, his left side was numb, his chest throbbed after the man had driven a knee into it, and his head was ringing. It felt as if he could pass out at any moment.

He clenched his right hand into a fist and crept a few steps toward the doorway, hoping to get a chair and wedge it against the bedroom door.

But the moment he took a step, an eerie growl rang out from just outside the bedroom.

Shen Xing stopped. He didn't dare go any closer. From the sound of it, whatever was out there had reached the doorway.

He stared hard into the darkness. A red eyeball slowly approached the gap in the door, its cold gaze fixed on the room.

Under the gaze of that red eye, Shen Xing's entire body went numb.

He knew perfectly well that the eyeball was in the Mange Dog's socket. In truth, it wasn't a dog's eye at all, but a human one—an eye that had belonged to Lin Wanru.

So Shen Xing's earlier guess had been completely wrong. That night, the Mange Dog hadn't eaten the eyeball at all. Instead, the eyeball had taken over its socket, becoming part of the dog's body.

Judging by its current state, the dog seemed to exist in some strange state between life and death. It was supposedly dead, yet Shen Xing could clearly hear it growling and panting. But if it wasn't dead, the wounds from the knife and the bones exposed through its skin seemed to say that it couldn't possibly be alive.

With that bloodshot eye staring at him, Shen Xing didn't dare move for the moment.

After seeing this, he was certain that the tall man outside in the living room must have met a gruesome end.

By now, Shen Xing had more or less guessed who the man was. Otherwise, he couldn't think of anyone who would want to kill him the moment they met.

Although the tall man was dead, Shen Xing was still in grave danger. If anything, things were even worse now.

A few seconds later, he felt his rigid body slowly begin to loosen. He could move again, and the Mange Dog's growl was drawing closer. Its head, with the bloodshot eyeball embedded in its socket, edged farther into the bedroom.

Blood was still running from the knife wound in Shen Xing's shoulder, and his clothes were soaked red over his left arm. But with danger so close, he couldn't worry about stopping the bleeding.

He glanced toward the workbench. Light from a streetlamp outside shone through the window, illuminating the area. Various sizes of Arc Blades and Flat Chisels lay in a row on the workbench beneath the window.

But the bed still stood between him and the workbench.

Just then, the Mange Dog's bald head had already pushed halfway into the bedroom.

Shen Xing had no time to think. He planted a foot on the bed and dashed toward the workbench.

At the same time, the Mange Dog pushed the bedroom door aside. Its low growl turned into a warning snarl, the kind it made just before biting. It rounded the foot of the bed and lunged at Shen Xing.

Shen Xing grabbed the wooden chair in front of the workbench. It was light but sturdy enough to lift with one hand. He swung it behind him and, at the last possible moment, used it to fend off the Mange Dog as it came snapping at him.

The four legs of the chair were linked by solid wooden crossbars, and those were what temporarily blocked the Mange Dog's head as it charged wildly at him.

But the dog chewed the wood into flying splinters, and the force of its attack was tremendous.

Perhaps because of the blood loss, Shen Xing felt he couldn't hold out much longer. He immediately braced the chair with his right hand. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he reached over with his left hand and grabbed an Arc Blade with a 1.4-centimeter edge from the workbench.

This blade was relatively wide. With his injured shoulder preventing him from making a fist, it was the only weapon he could use.

As soon as he gripped the wooden handle of the Arc Blade, the stench of blood hit him. At least two of the chair's crossbars had been bitten through. The Mange Dog's head pushed between the chair legs and surged toward Shen Xing.

Shen Xing had no time to react. He thrust his left hand, still holding the Arc Blade, straight at the Mange Dog's red eyeball.

There was a wet, squelching sound.

His left shoulder was badly injured, so he couldn't drive the blade in very far. Shen Xing clenched his teeth and shouted. He switched over to brace the chair with his injured left shoulder, throwing all caution to the wind, and freed his right hand. He thrust it forward, seized the Arc Blade still lodged in the Mange Dog's eye socket, drove it in with all his strength, then slashed sideways before yanking it back.

Without thinking, he had used the same techniques and movements he used when carving.

Plop!

The bloodshot eyeball was gouged out and fell to the floor.

The Mange Dog immediately collapsed and lay still.

The eyeball rolled a short distance across the floor. Its momentum had run out, and it should have stopped. But suddenly, an eerie force set it rolling again. It curved around and came rolling toward Shen Xing, who was sitting on the floor.

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