After All Species Mutated, I Activated Cheats [Apocalyptic] - Chapter 19

Lu Mian stood frozen, the hair on his arms standing up instantly. That sudden sensation of being abandoned was enough to trigger a person’s deepest, most primal fears.

Unsure of the situation, he didn’t dare make too much noise. He lowered his voice to a strained whisper, “Brother Wang! Brother Lin! Brother Chen! Where are you guys?”

His low voice seemed magnified several times in the unnaturally silent environment. Sweat trickled down his forehead and along his cheek, he wiped it away quickly, not daring to let a single drop hit the ground.

A second later, a hand appeared out of nowhere and clamped firmly over his mouth!

Lu Mian: “!!!”

His limbs were pinned as an irresistible force dragged him deep into the mutated thicket. He watched helplessly as clusters of leaves brushed past his face until the light suddenly dimmed, and the sea of green was replaced by grimy gray concrete walls.

He had been dragged into the underground parking garage.

If it hadn’t been for the familiar scent of tobacco hitting his nose, he certainly wouldn’t have let himself be hauled around like a dead fish.

He was dropped behind a heavy, reinforced civil defense door. Then, several figures moved quickly to bolt the airtight seal, and only then did hushed voices finally rise.

Xiao Sun whispered urgently, “Quick! Don’t let them find us!”

Old Wang was grunting as he cranked the manual valve behind the door, the veins on his hands bulging. “What the hell is it that has you guys this scared?”

With a heavy thud, the two defense doors were locked, plunging the basement into pitch darkness.

Xiao Sun let out a breath of relief and pulled out his flashlight. After a few flickers, the beam stabilized. “You guys finally made it back!”

Brother Chen used his shirt to wipe the sweat from his head. “What happened? What were those white things out there? And the things hanging from the trees…”

Xiao Sun lowered his head and sniffled. When he looked up again, his eyes were bloodshot. “We don’t know exactly what they are. They showed up yesterday afternoon, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. No one knows what they are. When I saw things going south, I rushed everyone into the civil defense shelter.”

The parking garage in this complex was a designated civil defense project, designed to withstand artillery strikes during wartime. In the current situation, it was undoubtedly the safest place.

After a pause, Xiao Sun spoke again, “As for the things hanging from the trees…”

He trailed off, but Lu Mian had already guessed. Those hanging, human-shaped objects were actual people, or at least they had been once.

The group fell silent as a heavy atmosphere settled over them. After a moment, Xiao Sun moved, leading them further inside. Their footsteps echoed through the cavernous basement. “Anyone who saw them is either dead or hanging from the trees outside. Only the resident from Building 2, Room 1304 escaped, but she’s currently… you’ll see when I take you there.”

They walked to the deepest part of the basement, where the rest of the neighborhood’s residents were gathered. To save resources, they hadn’t even turned on their flashlights.

When Lu Mian and the others returned, the residents seemed to find their pillar of strength, and a stir went through the crowd.

“Little Lu! It’s Little Lu and the others! They’re back!”

“Thank god! It’s so good to see you’re all okay!”

“You were out so long, did something happen? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“It’s just good to have you back!”

The sudden influx of voices chased away the chill in Lu Mian’s heart. He looked around. “Where is everyone else?”

Only about a third of the complex’s residents were present. Nearly two-thirds were missing.

As soon as he asked, the noisy crowd went silent. The atmosphere became stifling. After a moment, a few weak sobs broke the silence, making the hearts of Lu Mian and his group sink even further.

Xiao Sun whispered, “This is all that’s left.”

Lu Mian’s breath hitched. “What did you… say?”

Although this complex wasn’t huge, it was in a prime school district with a high occupancy rate. Since it was summer, a large group had already left for vacations or to visit family, but even so, nearly two hundred people had remained.

Two-thirds of two hundred was over 130 people.

He had expected casualties, but he never imagined the toll would be this high.

Refusing to believe it, Lu Mian asked again, “This is really all that’s left?”

Xiao Sun nodded, his voice thick with sorrow. “It’s been so hot, many people had their windows open, so…”

Hearing this, Lu Mian felt a tightness in his chest. He opened his mouth to say something, but found his throat constricted.

The basement fell into a long silence, a heavy pressure weighing down on everyone until they could hardly breathe. It was a long time before Old Wang finally spat out a curse.

Old Wang: “Son of a bitch!”

Brother Chen added, “We shouldn’t have left!”

Xiao Sun sniffled and said with a thick nasal tone, “We still don’t know what those things are. Even if you’d been here, you might not have found a solution in time. At least by being away, you kept your lives.”

Lu Mian and the others remained silent, not mentioning that they had barely escaped with their lives out there as well.

Lin Feng exhaled a long breath. “You said the woman from 1304 saw those things. Can we go talk to her?”

Xiao Sun let out a sharp “Ah,” then whispered, “I’m afraid… she can’t answer anymore.”

He led them further in and stopped in front of a small utility closet.

Xiao Sun explained, “This was the cleaning crew’s storage room. For certain reasons, we had to put her here. We’ve cleared out all the junk, of course.”

He pushed the door open and handed an extra flashlight to Lu Mian. “Little Lu, take this. If… if you’re scared, you can stand back.”

Lu Mian clicked the light on. “Thanks, Brother Sun. It’s okay, I’m not scared.”

Xiao Sun hesitated for a second before stepping aside to let Lu Mian see.

Lu Mian shone the beam into the room. A second later, his pupils dilated sharply, and the flashlight hit the rough concrete floor with a loud clack.

Everyone stood frozen. The flashlight rolled into a corner, but no one moved to pick it up.

Brother Chen sucked in a sharp breath, his voice trembling violently, “Holy… holy crap!”

Old Wang grabbed Brother Chen’s arm, his grip painfully tight.

Lu Mian blinked, unsure of what he was seeing. He leaned down, picked up the flashlight, and took several deep breaths to steady himself. Finding his courage, he shone the light back into the center of the room.

In the middle of the empty utility closet sat a transparent glass tank, looking like a discarded aquarium. It was filled with an unknown red liquid, mixed with stringy, blood-red clumps.

And soaking in that red liquid was… a human skin!

Yes! Just a skin!

The skin floated weightlessly in the red liquid. All the hair had fallen off, and many parts were missing. The eyes were hollow pits, the nose had completely collapsed, and the cheeks were so thin they looked like transparent paper. The hands and feet were clearly visible, and the skin was even still wearing clothes!

The contents, the muscle, bone, and internal organs, were all gone! It was hollow, nothing more than a tattered human skin!

Lu Mian closed his eyes and turned the light away. His heart was drumming in his ears, and he felt his fingers shaking.

Lin Feng pulled out a cigarette and lit it. After taking several deep drags, he finally asked, “Who did this? Or rather, who skinned her?”

Xiao Sun secretly wiped the moisture from his eyes, his voice cracking. “No one skinned her. None of us would be that cruel. When we rescued her, she was only conscious for a few seconds before passing out. Over the next few hours, her body just kept getting softer and softer. Around four in the morning, we realized her bones had disappeared, and the muscle beneath the skin had completely liquefied. As for the organs… her death must have been agonizing. It’s a mercy she never woke up. Even as her body underwent such a bizarre transformation, she stayed unconscious. Eventually, her skin began to melt, so we had to put her in this glass tank…”

By the time he finished, Xiao Sun’s voice was strained, and the listeners felt a level of distress they had never experienced before.

They left the utility closet in silence, everyone’s face pale.

Lin Feng pulled out a second cigarette and handed one to Old Wang. The two heavy smokers moved away from the other three, squatting in a corner to process the gloom.

Lin Feng asked, “You said she was conscious when you first saved her. Even if it was short, did she leave any clues?”

Xiao Sun shook his head. “She only had time to say ‘help’…”

Lin Feng let out a frustrated sigh, smoking even harder.

Lu Mian placed his flashlight face-down on the ground so the circular beam reflected off the ceiling, brightening the area slightly.

He stared at the ceiling, the image from the utility room refusing to leave his mind. Before this, he couldn’t have imagined a human could die like that. He didn’t know what kind of pain the person in the tank had endured, perhaps staying unconscious really was an act of mercy.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Lu Mian spotted a flickering light.

In this pitch-black parking garage, even a tiny shimmer was glaringly obvious, especially since this light was constantly moving.

Lu Mian frowned and looked closer. The more he stared, the more it looked like something was moving within that light, something long and thin intertwining at a slow pace.

Holding his flashlight, he walked toward a security door and stared thoughtfully at the closed iron slab.

The basement stairwell had been renovated, so the original security door sat quite high off the ground. Lu Mian looked at the faint light seeping through the gap at the bottom, steeled his nerves, and pressed himself flat against the floor.

He peered through the gap. On the other side, there was nothing but empty space. His brow twitched, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Just as he was about to stand up, several dark shadows suddenly lunged through the gap with a gust of wind, flying straight at his face!

Lu Mian: “!!!”

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