Lin Mo leaned over, looking at the strange thing crawling on the ground.
He looked up again and saw another one still hanging in mid-air.
“Bang! Bang!”
Two gunshots startled the birds in the trees.
The shots were crisp and short, exploding through the deathly silent buildings and scaring off the few black crows perched on a distant, withered tree.
Lu Dongnuan was startled.
Lin Mo stood in the clearing beneath the fourth-floor window, covered in so many bags that he looked like a mobile supply station.
He had seen this kind of thing before, more than once.
In earlier explorations, in those corners desperately abandoned by survivors, he had seen them mimic a baby’s cry, an old man’s cough, and even the intermittent SOS signals of a radio station.
They could learn, they could adapt, and eventually, they would become identical to humans.
The one before him had clearly learned something new from Lu Dongnuan: extreme terror, the fear of a superior.
The Imitator hanging upside down outside the fourth-floor window, its ankle gripped tightly by a Zombie, suddenly stopped its shrill screaming as if an invisible hand had throttled its throat.
Its entire body began to convulse violently.
The veins beneath its pale skin bulged, turning a bizarre greenish-black.
Its large, violent, and crazed eyes began to roll back, its pupils dilated, and the strength of its struggle rapidly weakened, leaving only neurotic, small-scale twitches.
Then, it was dragged back into the building.
The resonance of the gunshots echoed through the buildings several times before being swallowed by the heavy silence.
Lin Mo stood in his spot, the smell of gunpowder mixing with the air.
He stood up and looked up.
By the fourth-floor window, Lu Dongnuan was leaning halfway out, waving at him.
The air was filled with dust and the scent of decay, which was a bit stifling.
Lu Dongnuan peered down through the broken window, her eyes wide.
“What are you doing! I finally caught a live one!” Her tone was half-complaining and half-surprised.
“Sorry,” he spoke, his voice a bit lower than usual, carrying a rare, almost imperceptible sluggishness, “I was a bit angry just now.”
She propped her elbows on the windowsill, rested half her face on her right hand, and leaned out a bit further.
“Angry about what?” she pressed, her voice sounding exceptionally clear in the empty buildings.
Lin Mo didn’t answer immediately.
He bent down, grabbed the ankle of the Imitator’s corpse on the ground, and dragged it somewhat roughly into the shadows at the base of the wall.
The movement wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t fire any follow-up shots.
Only after doing this did he look up again, his gaze falling heavily on Lu Dongnuan’s face from a distance.
There was something complicated in that gaze that Lu Dongnuan couldn’t quite understand.
Finally, he let out a barely audible sigh, as if giving up on something.
He looked away toward the Villa Area, his tone returning to its usual steadiness, as if the previous fluctuation had been an illusion.
“Don’t forget to tell them to gather at the East Gate.”
Lu Dongnuan blinked and made an ‘OK’ gesture, but she didn’t plan on letting him off the hook.
She persisted, bringing the topic back around, “So, what were you actually angry about?”
Lin Mo glanced at her, a hint of warning in his eyes as he said, “Ask again and I’ll beat you.”
“I’m so cute, would you really have the heart?” Lu Dongnuan replied with a grin, intentionally tilting her head.
Lin Mo turned and began checking the straps on his bags.
Without looking back, his voice flatly tossed out a string of words: “I’d have the heart. Auto-attack, reset with W, outer-circle strike, pull back with E and another auto-attack, Noxian Guillotine.”
Lu Dongnuan’s eyes instantly lit up, and she shook the window frame excitedly.
“Yo! A fellow traveler!” She leaned out further, almost hanging her entire upper body outside, her voice rising several pitches, “Which server? What rank? What’s your main? Tell me, tell me!”
Lin Mo was looking down, adjusting the strap on the last bag.
His movements paused upon hearing this, appearing as if he slightly regretted his big mouth.
He didn’t look up, only responding dully, “Black Rose. It was years ago.”
“What a coincidence!” Lu Dongnuan slapped the windowsill, sending dust fluttering down.
“I also… Wait a minute, you play Darius? With your personality, shouldn’t you play something more shadow… cough, something more calculating? Like Nocturne or Shaco?”
Lin Mo finally stood straight, brushed the dust off his hands, and looked at her.
In the twilight, his face was half-lit and half-shadowed.
“Simple, direct, effective,” he said succinctly, “Crush the lane, mess things up in team fights, harvest the low HP targets. Any problem?”
“No problem, no problem, Dalao style, boss energy leaking everywhere!” Lu Dongnuan gave a thumbs up, but the smile on her face carried a bit of mischief.
“But… a hero like Darius has short legs and is easily kited. I saw how agile you were climbing the wall just now; why do you like such a clunky type in the game? Could it be…”
She dragged out her tone, intentionally pausing.
Lin Mo raised an eyebrow and asked, “Could it be what?”
“Could it be that you have slow hands and can only play something simple and crude like that?” After Lu Dongnuan finished, she immediately pulled her head back in, preparing for a potential “outburst.”
Lin Mo only gave a cold laugh, shook his head, and turned to scout a path back up to the fourth floor.
“Solo me if you’re not convinced.”
Then he lowered his chin, thinking for a moment.
“If you win, I’ll give you a super powerful weapon I brought over from my previous life.”
Lu Dongnuan’s eyes shone even brighter, “Really? Don’t go back on your word if you lose, Big Boss Lin! I…”
Her words came to an abrupt halt.
Because Lin Mo looked up at her.
That look was very calm, one might even say gentle, but it always gave Lu Dongnuan a peculiar sense of world-weariness.
“Really,” he said.
“So, save your strength. Don’t waste too much mana on irrelevant things.” He spoke lightly and quickly.
But Lu Dongnuan heard him clearly.
She watched as he grabbed the pipes and began to climb upward with agility, his figure remaining steady and powerful in the deepening twilight.
She murmured to herself, “But I play Vayne…”