Chapter 69: Symbiosis

At night, just after ten.

By this hour, Hogen City had already fallen into deep slumber.

Aside from a few drunks and certain specialists who only moved at night, most people had long since fallen into heavy sleep indoors and would not wander outside.

The night was utterly silent, broken only by occasional bird calls, insect chirps, or the noise of drunken men.

Gao De slipped quietly out of the herb garden’s back yard, moving with extreme lightness and speed toward the city center.

He crossed the filthy, chaotic slum district, occasionally spotting a few shadowy figures.

There were plenty of restless souls in the slums at night.

Soon, Gao De reached the civilian residential area, far safer and cleaner by comparison.

He had wandered through Hogen City after every sale of his herbs.

Thus, compared to when he first arrived in this world, Gao De now knew Hogen City quite well.

So he quickly found his target.

A sewer entrance located in the civilian district.

Gao De scanned the surroundings and soon found a suitable position.

Directly opposite the sewer entrance stood a large, leafy street tree.

He swiftly approached the tree, pulled out childhood climbing skills, and scrambled up in a few quick motions, hiding his figure within its shadows.

Only after confirming that the tree’s branches completely concealed him—no trace, not even a shadow, leaked out—did Gao De carefully part the leaves and fix his gaze on the sewer entrance.

His purpose was obvious: to finally verify his suspicion and attempt to uncover the true identity behind the city’s strange occurrences.

The city had no shortage of sewer entrances, but neither were they numerous.

Thus, waiting by the stump was still partly a matter of luck.

But Gao De could think of no better plan.

He crouched on the tree for over an hour.

The moon hung above the willow branches.

Just as Gao De began to feel drowsy, a faint rustling sound reached his ears.

It jolted him awake; all drowsiness vanished instantly.

He widened his eyes, staring toward the source—the sewer entrance.

In Gao De’s horrified gaze, a flood of black rats poured out from the dark, narrow opening barely wide enough for one person.

These rats were of normal size—not the horrifying, monstrous wolf-rats that had attacked the herb garden—and looked no different from the most common rats.

Yet their mass appearance at night was itself an eerie phenomenon.

After leaving the sewer entrance, the rats surged forward in a tide toward a single direction.

In moments, the entire swarm vanished from Gao De’s sight, swallowed by the night.

Gao De silently waited, having witnessed this horrifying scene firsthand.

Another half-hour passed.

Under the moonlight, countless dark dots reappeared, surging back toward this sewer entrance.

As the dark dots grew larger in Gao De’s vision until he could clearly make out the rats’ forms—

“Hss!” Gao De involuntarily drew in a sharp breath.

Moonlight pierced thin clouds, illuminating the grotesque sight before him.

The rats moved in a single file, perfectly synchronized, collectively carrying three humans who appeared unconscious or deeply asleep.

“One, two, three.” Gao De counted the humans carried by the strange rat swarm.

Despite the violent motion, the three showed no sign of waking.

The rat swarm, with clear purpose, carried the three to the sewer entrance.

“And then?” Gao De could not imagine what the rats would do next.

Drag the three into the sewer? What purpose could that serve? The next moment, his question was answered.

A sharp hiss.

A streak of crimson light shot out from the dark sewer entrance.

By moonlight, Gao De saw the true nature of that crimson light.

It was a blood-red vine.

The blood-red vine extended from the sewer, coiling around one of the three humans carried by the rats.

Covered in sharp thorns, the vine now bit into the human’s skin like teeth, and blood gushed from the man like a stream, rapidly absorbed by the vine.

Correspondingly, the man’s body withered visibly before Gao De’s eyes.

A chill surged from Gao De’s soles, flooding his entire body.

His breathing grew heavy.

In mere minutes, a living man turned into a pale, shriveled corpse right before Gao De’s eyes.

The vine, having drunk its fill, stretched its leaves and tendrils.

It was merely a vine, yet Gao De felt as if it was radiating a sense of pleasure and contentment.

Simultaneously, a faint red mist rose from the vine’s foliage, spreading and flowing into the rats’ bodies.

The next instant, a familiar and horrifying scene unfolded before Gao De.

Under the red mist’s nourishment, the rats’ eyes turned a strange deep red, glowing like burning rubies, flickering with ominous light in the darkness.

Exactly the same deep red he had glimpsed once before when leaving the sewer.

In the night, so many deep red eyes glittering densely sent a shiver down his spine.

“Symbiosis.” Gao De whispered to himself.

Clearly, the rat swarm and this strange plant shared a classic symbiotic relationship.

The strange plant, possessing typical plant traits, could not move and relied on the rats to hunt for it.

The rats, in turn, needed the strange red mist released by the plant after it fed.

Though its exact function was unknown, it was undoubtedly beneficial to them.

Seeing the vine temporarily “satiated” and the red-eyed rats having consumed the mist, a small group of rats bit into the corpse’s clothing and dragged it toward the sewer.

Soon, the corpse slid straight into the sewer entrance and vanished.

The killer, the method of murder, the fate of the bodies—all details of the missing persons mystery—Gao De now knew the truth.

He even corrected his earlier assumptions.

Why had the city’s elite failed so long to solve the missing persons case?

It wasn’t necessarily that they’d never considered the sewers.

Unless one had witnessed the rats’ red-eyed form firsthand,

how could normal city guards, even if they inspected the sewers and saw these rats, possibly link such harmless, ordinary-looking rodents to the killer? Rats in sewers were perfectly normal.

The disguise was too natural.

And on the scene, the “feeding” was not yet over.

After a brief pause, the vine, as if digested its meal, began moving again.

Its target, without doubt, was one of the two remaining humans.

Shh! At the instant the vine moved—

A streak of blazing light erupted in the night, slicing through the heavy air and striking the cluster of rats gathered near the vine.

It was an arrow-shaped flame.

The flame arrow exploded upon impact, releasing a burst of blinding light; fire rapidly spread, engulfing a small group of red-eyed rats at the center.

The red-eyed rat swarm scattered in panic under the sudden inferno.

Screams intertwined with the crackling of flames.

The air filled with the acrid stench of burning fur.

“What was that sound!”

“It came from over there—go check!”

Tap-tap-tap! Rapid, chaotic but forceful footsteps approached.

The sudden explosion and brilliant light, echoing through the silent night, had drawn the attention of a patrol squad stationed just one street away.

Hearing the city guards’ commotion, the red-eyed rats abandoned everything else, squealing frantically as they darted back into the sewer entrance and vanished.

The charred corpses of the dead rats were snatched up by the living red-eyed rats and dragged into the sewer.

The strange vine moved even faster—swoosh!—slipping back into the sewer entrance.

Simultaneously, a shadow leapt down from the tree opposite the entrance and vanished swiftly into the night.

Scatter like birds and beasts.

(End of Chapter)