Chapter 550

Feng Mu indeed had a soft spot, and this soft spot was not hidden deeply.

As long as one investigated with care, one would naturally discover that he had eaten the reunion dinner at home, and knew his greatest soft spot was his family that he could never sever.

At this moment, his most beloved younger sister Feng Yuhuai was caught in crisis.

The desolate area at the edge of the Nine Districts lay like the carcass of a giant beast hollowed out of its innards, spanning the boundary between the city outskirts and the Scavenger District.

Feng Yuhuai's boot sole crushed a severely weathered road sign, metal fragments emitting a clear, mournful cry in the silence.

She looked up, the dangerous buildings on both sides like ribs gnawed by a giant beast, exposed steel bars rusted into dark red.

"Watch the steps."

She softly reminded the more than ten family members behind her, her voice gentle.

The steps beneath her feet had long lost their surface, exposing cracked cement, like rotten teeth in an old woman's mouth.

A wind carrying sand and dust swept past, rolling up plastic bags on the ground, slapping against the crooked signpost; the three faded characters "Paradise Street" flickered faintly among the rust.

This was the scenery left from before the Great Cataclysm; now the Lower City had no road leading to heaven.

A damaged plastic mannequin leaned against it, half its face corroded by time, revealing the honeycomb-like metal skeleton within.

Its hollow eye sockets faced the black-hole-like windows across the street.

Calling them windows, they were actually just black-hole-like square openings, inside which blurred human figures swayed.

Some were nailed with wooden boards, some hung with rags so dirty their color could not be discerned.

Feng Yuhuai could feel the greedy, vigilant, nakedly malicious peering coming from behind the windows.

Some were nailed with rotten wooden boards, some hung with stiff, dirty cloth curtains.

Feng Yuhuai could clearly feel the gazes projected from every crack—greedy, vigilant, nakedly malicious lines of sight, like countless invisible hands roaming over her body, as if in the next second they would tear her thin red dress apart.

Strangely, this feeling of being peered at not only did not make her uncomfortable, but instead caused the corners of her lips to curl slightly upward.

"Compared to the 【false masks】 worn by city people," she whispered to herself,

"the people here are not at all concealing their enthusiasm for strangers."

Feng Yuhuai turned to look at Ge Qingming, red rings flickering in her eyes:

"Dad, I'm about to have more brothers and sisters; our family will become livelier and livelier."

Ge Qingming and the family members simultaneously revealed similar smiles.

They turned in unison toward the dark alley entrance, where a foul stench of rotting flesh and blood was drifting.

But Feng Yuhuai took a deep breath, her expression intoxicated as if smelling a freshly picked rose.

From deep in the alley came muffled sounds of fighting, mixed with the whimpers of wild dogs.

Soon, the whimpers turned into hair-raising chewing sounds, the crisp cracking of soft cartilage between sharp teeth clearly audible.

Several ragged scavengers staggered out of the alley, followed by two mutant hyenas, the beasts' eyes glowing scarlet, half a human arm hanging between their fangs.

"Hey, little beauty, what are you looking at? Want to come in and make friends?"

The leading scavenger licked his yellow-black teeth, his gaze crawling lecherously over Feng Yuhuai's curves.

Feng Yuhuai acted as if she hadn't heard; she raised her head, the Upper City's huge steel butt still pressing against the sky, but the once dazzling neon was now dim like dying charcoal.

Once, she had longed day and night for that city of light that never slept, even in her dreams it was the cold light reflected by metal and glass.

But now, she took a deep breath, letting the breath of decay and freedom fill her lungs.

The depression accumulated in her heart, those twisted resentments and burning sorrows, were all exhaled at this moment.

"The Upper City's lights cannot illuminate this place, just as if the Upper City's butt has disdainfully raised itself a tiny bit."

She withdrew her gaze, offering the scavengers her sweetest smile:

"Alright, but not to make friends—rather, to become family, wouldn't that be good?"

As the scavengers jeered and surrounded them, the shadows deep in the alley swallowed their figures.

Three minutes later, Feng Yuhuai stepped out lightly, followed by several docile new family members, the two mutant hyenas affectionately rubbing against her skirt hem.

She stood again before the mottled signpost, her fingertips lightly caressing the three rusted characters "Paradise Street."

"I know how to get to the road to heaven now..."

She turned to announce to her family, her hand following the signpost to point toward the end of the street,

"The farther from the Upper City, the closer to heaven."

Feng Yuhuai's red dress fluttered in the wind; she no longer waited.

"It's time to set out."

She whispered softly, her gaze cast toward the forgotten ruins at the end of the Scavenger District—the Old Ruins spoken of by the people of the New Era.

That place was too desolate, too lonely; it needed enough family members to warm that cold land.

She suddenly spread her arms, her hair dancing wildly in the wind:

"Go, dear family members—"

Her voice suddenly rose in pitch, carrying a manic delight,

"Bring us more family! We will go together."

In an instant, all the puppet family members' pupils lit up with red rings; they wore twisted smiles and marched in neat steps toward those black-hole-like windows.

Some gently knocked on doors, others directly tore down the dangling wooden boards, every movement exuding a sickly eagerness.

"Family members, do not refuse, do not be afraid..."

They whispered in unison, their voices echoing along the ruined street,

"Come with us to heaven..."

In the shadows, the beast unconsciously opened its mouth wide; this man, usually coarse and thick-skinned, was now shaken by the scene before him.

"Has Feng Yuhuai gone completely mad?"

He lowered his voice, his Adam's apple bobbing,

"Is she trying to turn the entire Transfer Town into her 'family'?"

Enough to make the madmen of the Destiny Organization feel it's madness—the weight of this madness is clear.

The master of ceremonies rolled his pale eyeballs, likewise sucking in a breath of cold air.

He recalled some thesis materials related to the Evil Sacrifice that he had once browsed in the organization's archives room, his voice trembling slightly with excitement:

"The Evil Sacrifice itself is an indescribable chaos and madness; hosts parasitized and transformed by It will slide toward the abyss of madness unknowingly, like falling into a whirlpool."

This was the master of ceremonies' first time observing the Evil Festival Parasite up close, and having the chance to observe and verify the knowledge in the book left him inexplicably excited and agitated:

"When the madness of the Evil Sacrifice begins to erode the mind, the host's subconscious will clutch at some obsession like a drowning man grabbing driftwood, holding it tight as an anchor to maintain their own sanity and humanity."

This is an instinctive act of self-preservation by the body, just like sometimes you want to eat something—not necessarily because you want it, but because the body craves the nutrients in that thing."

He licked his moist lips and added:

"Family is Feng Yuhuai's humanity anchor; her morbid craving for 'family' is precisely her crumbling sanity making a final act of self-preservation!"

End of Chapter