“Ow, why does my jaw hurt so much… hiss.” Scarface’s voice echoed through the wrecked pharmacy, tinged with the confusion of just waking up and the sharp pain of a fractured jaw.
He struggled to sit up, but the coarse ropes binding him were tight and solid, leaving him to wriggle helplessly like a fish out of water.
“Boss, you’re awake!” whimpered one of his tied-up subordinates nearby, his voice cracking with tears, “We’re done for! That guy… that guy’s not human!”
Scarface ignored his lackey’s nonsense, squinting his swollen eyes and straining to adjust to the dim light as he looked around.
The pharmacy was in chaos—shattered shelves, scattered medicines, and not far away, the corpse of a Mutant: ashen gray, deformed arms, and well and truly dead.
His memories came back in fragments.
That man with the scarf, his terrifying speed and strength… and that woman, who had almost been torn apart by the monster but somehow made it stop…
“Where are they?” Scarface’s voice was hoarse and fierce, but mostly bluster hiding his fear.
“Right here.” A calm voice came from deeper inside the pharmacy.
Lin Mo stepped out from the shadows of the storeroom, holding a half-full canvas bag, apparently with a decent haul.
Behind him followed Lu Dongnuan, head lowered, barely able to stand.
Lin Mo walked up to Scarface, towering over him as he casually set the canvas bag aside.
He crouched down to meet Scarface at eye level, his eyes above the scarf giving nothing away.
“Does your jaw still hurt?” Lin Mo asked, his tone as flat as if he were commenting on the weather.
Scarface’s gaze flickered.
He gritted his teeth, though the motion made his face twist in pain.
He didn’t answer, instead forcing out a tough-sounding reply: “You’re good, kid. But do you know who we work for? Tang Jie won’t let you off!”
“Tang Jie…” Lin Mo repeated the name thoughtfully, “You’ve mentioned her quite a few times now.”
A mix of fear and reverence crossed Scarface’s face.
“Tang Jie… she’s the law around here. With her, you get food, medicine, a place to stay, and you don’t have to worry about those monsters. But you have to follow her rules.”
“Sounds like a local tyrant.” Lin Mo nodded, then glanced at Lu Dongnuan, who was panting hard, cheeks flushed.
“Looks like someone beat us to the punch.”
Scarface didn’t catch Lin Mo’s last comment and thought he was just scared.
Despite his swollen face, he managed a twisted sneer: “Scared? Let me go now and leave the goods, and I might even put in a good word for you with Tang Jie!”
Lin Mo seemed not to hear the threat.
He just stood up, his eyes falling on Lu Dongnuan, who looked on the verge of collapse.
She clung to a crooked shelf, gasping, her cheeks an unhealthy flush, sweat beading on her forehead despite the chilly air.
She had forced herself to influence the Mutant, then concentrated again to “command” it to attack Lin Mo.
Clearly, she had overdrawn her newly awakened and very unstable ability, likely triggering a violent reaction from the virus in her body.
“Can you still walk?” he asked.
Lu Dongnuan bit her lip and nodded, but her wobbling legs and blurred vision betrayed her.
It felt like she was burning from the inside, yet stabbed with ice at the same time.
Her mind was hollow, her ears buzzing, and even Scarface’s shouting faded in and out.
“By the way, I just remembered something.” Lu Dongnuan forced herself to speak.
“What is it?”
Ignoring Lin Mo, she turned to Scarface and asked, “You guys… did you come from the north?”
“Yeah, so what.”
“Oh… There’s a High School to the north. I saw a girl in the Dead Mall, walking through a horde of Zombies. Scared me half to death.”
“Probably a half-Infected,” Lin Mo said, then kicked the dead monster on the ground and pointed at Lu Dongnuan.
Lu Dongnuan shot him a look of annoyance, then closed her eyes and raised her hands.
The supposedly dead Crab Monster actually started to rise, its severed giant claw regrowing swiftly, bulkier and covered in armored plating.
“You can control it now?” Lin Mo asked.
Lu Dongnuan nodded.
“Good.” Lin Mo turned to face the three captives and he asked, “Can your Tang Jie do this, too?”
Scarface stiffened, while his two men looked at him in terror.
“I’m sorry, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Please, just let us go.”
“Good, you’ve got some sense.” Lin Mo’s voice remained calm and unreadable.
“Then tell me about Tang Jie—exactly how strong is she? What’s the defensive setup at your base, your supply stores, the guard rotations.”
He paused, then added, “And don’t even think about lying or hiding anything. You saw for yourself—this lady isn’t in the best shape, but she can still have this giant crab brush against you, or get answers out of you some other way.”
Lu Dongnuan cooperatively had the Crab Monster’s newly regrown, armored claw flex slightly, its scraping against the ground sending a chill through the air.
Scarface shuddered violently.
Lu Dongnuan, seeing Lin Mo’s back, immediately tried to convey a message to the three captives through gestures.
“You three—kill him, we’ll work together. I’ll turn you into monsters, then we’ll surround him and finish him off.”
She ended with a throat-slitting gesture.
The three men were scared out of their wits by Lu Dongnuan’s incomprehensible gestures and especially the final motion.
They completely misunderstood her intentions.
In their eyes, this woman who could control terrifying monsters was making bizarre hand signs at them, her feverish face twisted with a nearly deranged expression.
That throat-slitting gesture looked, to them, like a blatant threat of death.
“She wants to kill us all! She wants to kill us all!”
“She’s going to torture us! She’s going to torture us!”
“She wants to train us, she wants to train us, hehe…”
Scarface’s voice broke down entirely, on the verge of tears, “Big Sis! Ancestor! Spare us! We promise we’ll never say a word! Please don’t kill us!”
The other two lackeys were also sobbing and snotting, desperately trying to scoot away, even though they were bound tight and couldn’t move.
Lu Dongnuan: “……”
She nearly ran out of breath, her already dizzy head spinning even more.
These idiots!
Lin Mo, still with his back to them, gave a barely perceptible twitch of the shoulders, as if suppressing some emotion.
The corners of his mouth seemed to curve up for a moment, only to flatten again immediately.
Then he continued with the interrupted questioning.
“Keep going. Details on Tang Jie’s abilities, weak points in the base’s defenses, and where she goes most often besides the base. Any fixed locations?”
Scarface, now as skittish as a frightened bird, didn’t dare hide a thing.
He spilled everything he knew, along with every rumor he’d ever heard, leaving nothing behind.