Hou Ying, male, twenty-five years old.
Going to Jiangcheng to talk about a cooperation failed, got lost on the way back to Yecheng, and then experienced a thrilling danger. When he opened his eyes again—
“!”
Hou Ying didn’t know why he suddenly twitched, like waking up from a nightmare, he looked around in a panic, only then found that he was somehow sleeping on the concrete floor. He stood up, slowly realized that his face and neck were greasy, and with a touch of his hand, he touched smelly sticky water. His sense of smell only worked at this time, the smell reaching his nose, making him retch with nausea. He hurriedly found a faucet and rinsed it several times before the odor lightened.
Jianghai Service Station?
Seeing where he was, Hou Ying couldn’t remember why he was here. He noticed some blanks in his memory—it’s the feeling of waking up with a hangover and your memory is sluggish. He shook his head uncomfortably, Hou Ying vaguely remembered that he had lost his way on the highway, so he went to the service area to take a rest. After that… what happened?
He clearly remembered that he’s driving in the middle of the night, so why is it dawn suddenly? Did he fall asleep? Why is there no impression at all…
He raised his hand to check the time but saw that the mirror of his watch was cracked, and the pointer stopped at twelve o’clock. He doesn’t know where he hit it, and the well-known durable Swiss watch was damaged.
Hou Ying had a headache. He tentatively yelled but didn’t get a response. For a while, he even wondered if he was still on Earth. He shook his hand uncomfortably, trying to get rid of his bad emotions. Fortunately, he saw his car from a distance, which made him feel more at ease.
Before he could enter the car, however, he heard a vague choking sound. This sound seemed to trigger his auditory nerves, reviving the other half of his brain, and for a moment, many sounds that he hadn’t noticed rushed in his ears!
Bearing the brunt of it, it was almost inaudible. A few meters away from him, the dripping sound of the faucet that hadn’t been properly turned off, and then the choking sob. Then, he heard the grunting, he didn’t know it was from a person because it sounds what the animals make, and the clamor of pounding and hitting a car.
He was hesitant, and after thinking about it, he carefully approached where the sound was coming from. From afar, he saw more than twenty people surrounding a valuable car. He was a little doubtful of his ears. How could he hear the sound in the car from so far away? Is he hallucinating? But it doesn’t matter, these people surrounding the car are too arrogant, right?
Before noticing their distorted facial features, Hou Ying first saw that the clothing of these people represented the completely different identities of these violent elements.
There are convenience store employees at service stations, gas station workers, workers wearing orange leather helmets, and some wearing suits and shoes.
Suspicious, he wondered what treacherous things the people in the car did and caused the anger of the people. But soon, he noticed the disfigured features of those snarling people—just like people with facial nerve paralysis. Those people have distorted noses and mouths, looking extremely ugly. What’s even more terrifying is their overflowing saliva and the feral intent flashing in their eyes—it was something Hou Ying had never seen before, and he can only describe it as seeing food when he was too hungry and wanting to eat it.
Hou Ying felt that he shouldn’t be nosy. He has the indifference of a city person, and he is unwilling to act like a hero when he can’t protect himself. Besides, he doesn’t even know what the people in the car have committed.
When he was just about to walk away before any of these people found him, Hou Ying heard the sound of the car window breaking, the whole panel was completely broken after two hits. At that moment, he clearly heard the muffled sobbing voice screaming sharply.
“Ah! Go away!”
“Help! You guys go away! Go away!”
“Dad, dad, help me— ” Hou Ying’s heart hammered, because the owner of the voice was still young, at least, before a boy’s voice changes.
Hearing that the child screamed more miserably, the crowd of aggressive people was still indifferent, getting even more stimulated and violent.
Hou Ying was horrified, almost thinking that he’s witnessing a murder scene; he realized that the people who are besieging the child must be abnormal and have very serious anti-social and violent tendencies. He took a step back in fright, and a voice in his heart kept urging him to run away, but he could not ignore the condemnation of his conscience and rushed forward boldly.
What surprised him though is that these gangsters oppressing the child are completely vulnerable, he pushed them away without much effort.
Hou Ying never knew that he had such strength. It took him no more than three seconds to squeeze in the crowd and kick them away, then he opened the door, pulled the child out of the car, carried him on his shoulders, and dashed away.
“Ah!!!”
The boy let out a short scream but then he tightly covered his mouth and calmed down very obediently without burdening the running Hou Ying.
The child is younger than he thought, at most a junior high school student. After being held in his hands, the child’s still developing skeleton told Hou Ying this fact. He secretly scolded those people who were worse than animals, not even sparing such a small child. He turned his head as he ran and was shocked to find that the gangsters were chasing behind him!
“Damn!”
Hou Ying gritted his teeth and ran to his car with all his strength—
He never knew he could run so fast! His chest is painful, as if being set on fire, and he’s breathing hard, but despite this, Hou Ying still desperately runs until finally leaving the chasers behind and reaching the car. Stuffing the child into the car, Hou Ying followed soon after, accidentally banging his head on the way because of panic. He screamed in pain but didn’t dare to slow down. He hurriedly closed the door and twisted the car key.
“Window, window! They are coming!”, the boy cried out in horror.
Hou Ying shuddered, quickly closing all the windows on all sides, and then locking the door. But before the engine could warm up, the people already caught up and surrounded the car! The frenzied grotesque faces were near him, sticking their faces to the car window, and Hou Ying leaned farther away from the window. He stepped on the gas pedal and subconsciously shouted, “Sit down! Seat belt!”
But the child was so scared that he shrank and shivered under the seat of the car. Hou Ying gritted his teeth and quickly drove the car.
The car only drove three meters and a person rushed out, jumped at the car, was hit by Hou Ying and was flung away—
“Get out of the way!”
But it was too late!
Hou Ying broke out in cold sweat. He has been obeying the traffic rules all his life, let alone hitting people to death, even running the red lights can be counted by one hand! He was extremely horrified, he slammed on the brakes, wanting to get out of the car to see if the person was still alive or already dead, but his limbs were soft, his hands could not move because of cold sweat. In such a moment of hesitation, the crazy man who had been thrown away by him had already caught up.
“Go! Go! We… we will die!”, the boy shouted in horror.
Hou Ying’s mind went blank. Someone leaned against the window and frantically smashed it. His car window was hit and within a few seconds, spider-web like cracks appeared on the surface, proving that those people wanted their lives just like what the crazy kid said!
This bunch of people definitely escaped from a mental hospital!
As soon as Hou Ying gritted his teeth, he thought that these people and the person he accidentally killed were in the same group. Seeing that they were cruel to this child, they were surely not reasonable people. They would undoubtedly not wait for him to admit his mistake and apologize. If he really killed someone, he would rather surrender and go to jail later than die here for no reason!
Gritting his teeth again, Hou Ying ignored the cold sweat that slid on his face, and stomped on the car door and galloped away1.
He speeded onto the ramp, quickly leaving the service area and onto the highway, the car hurtling off the road. After a while, the boy tremblingly climbed up and looked behind the car from the passenger seat, then collapsed on the seat, falteringly said, “Gone… they’re gone.”
This made Hou Ying’s tense nerves finally relax. For fear of those gangsters catching up to them, he didn’t stop but gradually slowed down the speed of the car from 200 miles per hour down to the safety line of 100.
Unconsciously surviving a catastrophe, Hou Ying blankly wondered whether to report to the police and surrender. While releasing his stiff hands tightly holding the steering wheel, he spared a hand to wipe the cold sweat, then said to the kid, “Come on, fasten your seat belt.”
The boy is even more lost than him2. He can finally hear what he said. His hands are shaking while grasping the seat belt. It took a few tries before he fastened it. Then he said to Hou Ying, “Hurry up, let’s hurry up. They will catch up!”
Hou Ying was also afraid but looking at the speed limit sign of 90KM/H on the highway, he gritted his teeth and said, “Two legs must not be able to outrun four wheels. They can’t catch up. I broke the rules several times yesterday and I passed a few speed limit zones again today, and if I continue like this, I won’t be able to keep my driver’s license in the future.”
He has a headache about how to deal with these things later. Now he is afraid and bewildered. Upon waking up, he turned from an outstanding young man to a hit-and-run murderer.
But the boy didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about, crying and repeating the words that they would be lifeless, would die, the sobbing made Hou Ying annoyed and uncomfortable.
They didn’t know how long they had been driving. When the recorder on the car showed that they had driven 29 kilometers, they encountered a roadblock.
The red sign prohibiting traffic on it is very conspicuous.
Hou Ying stopped in front of the roadblock and decided to drive forward after thinking about it. He has already committed a crime, the so-called lice are not afraid of itching3, and at most damage the traffic facilities… It is better to go to jail for two more years than to be killed by those neurosis if he turned back. He had returned to his usual state from the adrenaline rush, and he really didn’t have the courage to confront those gangsters.
Before getting out of the car, Hou Ying said to the boy, “You stay here and don’t come down.”
When he opened the car door and walked down, he remembered something, and said to the boy, “There is water in the car. Drink a little bit to reduce shock.”
Although he didn’t trust this boy, and suspected that he had done some unreasonable things to anger those gangsters and even wanted to kill him, in his impression now, this pale-faced child is really pitiful. At such a young age, he had experienced something like this4–he had raised his nephew on his own and he’s about the same age as this crazy kid when something happened to their family—it’s hard for him not to feel sympathy for the kid.
The boy saw the mineral water bottle and held tightly, did not unscrew it immediately to drink but kept staring at Hou Ying. When he saw him struggling to remove the heavy stone ladder-shaped roadblock, he came out of the window and shouted, “Can’t move! Don’t move!”
Hou Ying ignored him at first, until he ran over and pulled his hand, weeping as he stopped him, then he stopped crying.
Hou Ying only felt that his patience was exhausted, he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, trying not to make his yell appear hysterical, “What do you want to do?!”
Why did I become unlucky when I encountered you!
Although he didn’t yell this sentence, it was clearly written in his impatient expression. The boy was so frightened that he let go of his hand, picked up the mineral water that had fallen on the ground when he stopped him, but once again mustered up the courage to pull his hand to hide in the car with himself.
Hou Ying refused, and patiently asked the reason twice before getting the answer from the boy, “I live in that city but my father said that we couldn’t go back. Many people died from infectious diseases and an earthquake happened.”
Hou Ying was startled and suddenly remembered. As he heard from his nephew before, the deadly infectious disease and the earthquake were found in Hucheng. He looked around and determined that the road he had traveled was indeed to Hucheng, which was undoubtedly a dead end.
Hou Ying returned to the car just like what the boy wanted. The boy drank a few sips of water then suddenly stopped, and regretfully screwed the lid.
Seeing him nervously tightening the lid of the bottle for fear that a drop would spill, Hou Ying finally asked, “Why did those people want to catch you?” Before the boy could speak, he sternly said, “You better be honest. If you dare tell a lie, I will immediately transfer you to the Public Security Bureau!”
The boy doesn’t think he’s intimidating enough, but this man didn’t hesitate to save him from danger so he opened his mouth to tell the things he had experienced and knew.
“Dad said those people are not people…”
“Those people wanted to eat me, they… they ate my father and turned them into a monster just like them…”
“Dad told me before getting out of the car.”
—He said, the end of the world is here.
Translator’s Notes:
- I’m skeptical of this one because why would he ‘stomp the door’ which I would take as closing it because it’s already closed in the first place but here’s the phrase so you can help me check it out 狂踩车门疾驰而去
- Okay this one stumped me. What’s your take on this? 男孩比他还要六神无主
- I think there’s a better English equivalent of this saying, but I just couldn’t grasp it. Here’s the phrase, guys, 所谓虱子多了不怕痒
- 这么小小的年纪也不至于坏到根上 another one that needed help haha
Happy weekends everyone! I hope you’re having a good time in this site, even if it’s messy right now haha. See you next update!!
Yaoi Wonderland 
Thx for the update,pls whats ur schedule
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