Chapter 184

Unearned reputation? Weak inside despite strong appearance? All show and no substance?

When Lu Xingchen heard this, his smile suddenly froze; his face grew paler with each word, as if every one had precisely hit his sore spot.

Shasha glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, saw it had worked, and continued stoking the fire: "Can't even protect a little girl, yet you dare claim you'll protect all of humanity? Sigh… If it were me, I'd probably crawl into a crack in the ground. Lucky for you, your fire ability could warm the kang bed—make your butt nice and toasty…"

"Shut up!"

Lu Xingchen shot to his feet, teeth clenched, veins bulging, pointing furiously at the warehouse ahead: "Speak! Which warehouse first? If I don't burn every snake, insect, rat, and mouse inside to ashes, I'll give them credit for their hygiene!"

Shasha smirked, lifted her sunglasses, and waved her small hand forward: "Folkmire!"

…

The motorcycle rolled down a quiet side road; beneath the sunlight, trees around them thrived in lush greenery. Lin Xian sat on the backseat, gazing at the silhouette of the small town ahead, where behind it stood a chemical plant with massive reactors and distillation towers.

"Large chemical plants usually stay far from residential zones. This one doesn't seem far at all," Lin Xian said.

Kiki spoke up: "Maybe some pollutant leaked from the plant—that's why the weird creatures can't get in."

Lin Xian winced: "If weird creatures can't get in but we can, then who's the real monster?"

"Not necessarily~" Kiki stubbornly retorted. "Some things humans can adapt to but monsters can't. Haven't you seen that alien invasion movie? A common cold virus harmless to humans wiped out the entire alien fleet~"

Lin Xian fell silent; the girl's logic had a point.

He sniffed the air, trying to detect any strange chemical odors.

As they neared the town's main street, the motorcycle slowed.

Houses appeared in their view—low buildings and shops lining the street, most doors tightly shut, some half-open, swaying gently in the wind. The road was littered with leaves turned yellow and fallen early due to temperature changes. The convenience store shelves were empty, coated in dust and moldy remnants.

Kiki frowned at the chaos: "This place is weird. Doesn't look like anyone lives here."

Lin Xian scanned the surroundings, then pulled out his Spirit Detection Device and activated it.

Hum~ A faint glow spread and then retracted.

The needle on the device slowly dropped from negative numbers to zero. Lin Xian was puzzled—was this old device malfunctioning, or…

…Did the needle move a bit too slowly?

Squeak~

The motorcycle turned into a crossroads—apparently the town's center, though "center" here meant just a roadside supermarket and bank, with a larger cinema across the street.

They dismounted and looked around. The few streets visible under sunlight radiated decay and desolation: silent, ruined, littered with the dried, rotting corpses of residents, their clothes shriveled and stuck to the ground, flies buzzing overhead.

"Strange—I saw these… and these yesterday," Kiki said, looking up at the upper floors of shops. Windows were empty. In a clothing store's display window, several mannequins stood crookedly, their clothes stripped away, as if staring at Lin Xian and Kiki on the street. Lin Xian also felt uneasy—they'd seen no one since entering, yet last night both he and Kiki had spotted candlelight inside the town, from more than one house.

"Be careful," Lin Xian warned, turning his gaze toward the cinema: "Let's check the mall."

No zombies here, no living people either—it left Lin Xian thoroughly baffled. He wondered if Shu Qin and the building had found anything.

Kiki nodded: "Let's go. Maybe someone's hiding, refusing to show themselves."

Lin Xian stepped into the cinema's entrance, and a musty, damp stench hit him instantly. He frowned, moving cautiously ahead: "Logically, if this place blocks weird creatures, it should be an ideal survival

"Then there's something here more terrifying than the weird bodies?" Kiki replied directly.

Lin Xian kept his thoughts to himself, hoping his guess was wrong.

The cinema lobby was pitch black; Lin Xian quickly conjured a powerful flashlight, and *click*—a blinding white light instantly illuminated more than half the lobby.

The sight was one of chaos: a row of ticket machines and popcorn dispensers lined the wall, and in the corner lay several tattered tents, with several corpses sprawled haphazardly—likely residents of Rain Town who had fled here shortly after the Apocalypse Day.

"This doesn't look like a place with survivors…"

Lin Xian glanced around, about to leave, when Kiki suddenly said: "Lin Xian, there's a sound inside!"

!

He immediately turned his head, shining the flashlight toward where Kiki had spoken, and saw it was the direction of the screening room corridor. Their eyes met, silently agreeing, and they stepped cautiously forward.

*Plink… plink…*

Dripping water echoed intermittently from deep within the corridor; the entire space was unnervingly silent, inducing unease.

Kiki floated up, gliding to a screening room door and stopping, then pointing at it—indicating the sound she'd heard came from inside.

Lin Xian nodded, gathering an electric surge in his palm, and slowly pushed open the screening room door.

*Creeeak…*

A metallic, rusted groan rang out through the corridor, and in an instant, an overwhelming stench of decay burst forth. Kiki's face turned pale; she shot backward, pinching her nose, her expression one of revulsion.

Lin Xian also frowned tightly—this stench nearly made him black out. He'd seen countless piles of corpses on his journey, but never had he smelled such a potent reek of decay!

Forcing down his nausea, he yanked the door fully open, but beyond the stench, the screening room emitted no further sound.

Lin Xian shone the flashlight inside and saw the aisle was completely empty; the screen ahead had rotted into tatters. The two stepped inside, one behind the other, Kiki trailing closely, still pinching her nose and fanning the air: "It's disgusting, it's disgusting."

Shh.

Lin Xian's expression turned grave; he signaled for her to stay silent. They stepped out of the aisle and finally saw the sloping seating area stretching upward behind them. He swept the flashlight upward—and in that instant, their pupils tightened. Kiki gasped in shock and immediately ducked behind Lin Xian.

Under the flashlight's white glow, row upon row of theater seats were filled—completely, orderly—with people.

But these 'people' were neither alive nor zombies—they were flesh-and-bone skeletons, stripped of skin, rotted and moldy.

(End of Chapter)