Chapter 157: Deception

That blow had been far too fast; Gu Wei had no time to react at all, and everyone else stood there in a daze as a human head rolled across the ground.

However, a far more horrifying scene unfolded.

From the severed neck of the head, dense little tentacles sprouted and began crawling back toward the original body.

"Not dead?"

The people's eyes widened in shock as they quickly snapped back to reality.

"Stop her, quickly!"

Everyone swarmed forward, raising their weapons and hacking wildly. Soon, blood splattered everywhere and flesh was minced into a pulp. Yet, the monster was so bizarrely terrifying that none of them dared to stop.

"Hack her to death, everyone!"

"Looks like she's already dead, doesn't she?"

"Then hack her dead all over again!!"

"......"

They hacked away for a long time, until Gu Wei was as dead as she could possibly be, before finally halting their movements.

The room was in utter chaos, reeking of a heavy, pungent stench.

People stared at the scene, their expressions deeply complicated.

"What a pity... Sister Wei was such a good person, yet she got parasitized by a monster!"

Just as they turned their heads, however, they noticed Chen Ming lying flat on the floor, his face ashen, eyes tightly closed, completely motionless.

"Uncle Chen! How are you? Wake up, please!"

"Hey! Don't scare me like this!"

"Oh no! It looks like he's stopped breathing..."

".......S"

Everyone hurriedly stepped forward to check on him, but no matter how they shouted, he would not wake up. Perhaps the monster had been too ferocious earlier, stripping away his life.

Normally, these people always joked and bantered with each other, but having frequently gone into battle side by side, facing life and death together, they shared a deep bond forged in peril. At this moment, they were all deeply moved.

Among them, Sun Yuhang had red-rimmed eyes and was the most anxious of all.

"Uncle Chen! You must not die! Open your eyes and look at me! If worst comes to worst... I'll introduce my online-dating girlfriend to you, okay?!"

"Puff! Cough! Cough, cough, cough!"

As if rising from the dead, Chen Ming suddenly gasped for air, coughing violently and breathing in large, heavy gulps, regaining the breath of life...

.......

The first lurking monster had been discovered inside the official shelter.

Yet, what was most alarming was that Gu Wei was merely responsible for registration work and had never once stepped outside the shelter to operate in the suburbs.

This meant one thing... there was definitely more than one monster.

Naturally, given Gu Wei's job, she had frequently interacted with Awakened ones who went outside. The upper echelons of the shelter decided to use this as a breakthrough point, investigating her social connections to weed out any other monsters.

They didn't check until they had to, and once they did, the result was utterly shocking!

This Gu Wei had actually been entangled with more than a dozen male Awakened ones, maintaining extremely intimate relationships with all of them.

Upon learning this news, Chen Ming experienced a swirling vortex of mixed emotions, feeling as though his head was crowned with a vibrant shade of green...

Beside him, Sun Yuhang remarked,

"Uncle, you were just about to make your move, but it turns out everyone else had already climbed all over the top."

"Shut your mouth!"

Chen Ming had only sustained superficial injuries earlier and was not seriously hurt. Grasping his long saber tightly, he gnashed his teeth.

"Those are all monsters! Blades in hand, follow me! Let's go kill them!"

Following this, the shelter became utterly lively. After several rounds of searching, the Awakened ones truly uncovered quite a few more monsters, promptly hacking them to death.

Seething with anger, Chen Ming marched up to the room of an Awakened one named Wang Hu, who investigation showed had also previously been intimate with Gu Wei.

He kicked the door open with a single blow and swept his furious gaze across the room, only to find it completely empty. Wang Hu was already gone.

"He fled?"

.......

While the shelter was busy weeding out monsters, several figures had indeed quietly slipped away, escaping into a stretch of mountain forest.

Among them was Wang Hu, who led the group. But the present 'Wang Hu' was no longer the real Wang Hu; he had indeed been parasitized by a monster.

"These humans are quite vigilant. Looks like they were prepared in advance," Wang Hu said with a sinister expression.

If they continued to stay in the shelter, they would be exposed sooner or later. Once the environment turned harsh and unsuitable for survival, they would cease reproduction—it was a biological instinct.

Now, they had no choice but to search for new hosts or a new breeding ground.

"There must still be humans in this mountain forest," another monster behind him deduced.

Their current location was precisely the mountains at the edge of Lin Dong's territory. Before the apocalypse, many humans had fled here to eke out a living, and scattered forces did indeed exist here.

"Hmph, even if we don't find humans, hunting down some zombie brain cores or crystal nuclei would be fantastic," Wang Hu mused.

The skin-disguised monsters trailing behind him expressed their agreement.

With their exceptionally sharp sense of smell, they searched their surroundings as they pushed deeper into the forest.

However, it wasn't long before—

On the trees all around them, 'red fleshy tumors' began to appear, twitching from time to time as if endowed with life.

Clearly, they had stepped into the fungal zone.

Not far away in the forest, Little Mushroom was strolling around with a group of her mimetic human subordinates.

Because the Boss had given instructions: if they encountered humans again, they were to capture a few alive and inject them with the G-virus. They still had four doses left unspent....

And so, Little Mushroom had set out to search. In the forest region under her guard, humans were the easiest creature to run into.

"Eh? Sounds like there's movement."

The instant Wang Hu and his group stepped into the fungal zone, Little Mushroom perceived it. The red fleshy tumors she had scattered everywhere could all function as scouting eyes.

The mimetic humans behind her also turned serious, because Lin Dong had specifically instructed that they needed live captures, which meant deception should be the primary approach....

Little Mushroom had long since mimitated a human, maintaining the appearance of a stunning beauty. Looking vivid and lifelike, she walked forward alongside her underlings.

Moments later, several figures appeared ahead—it was Wang Hu and his group who had escaped from the shelter.

"There really are humans?"

Little Mushroom swept her gaze over them, pondering silently in her heart.

Across from her, Wang Hu's reaction was much the same.

"Humans found, and there's quite a number of them too...."

Both factions harbored hidden agendas. Wang Hu intended to parasitize the group and absorb them into his ranks, which would expand his force considerably.

He stepped forward first and flashed a smile.

"Hello, beauty. We are rescue personnel from the official shelter."

"Oh, hello. We're survivors hiding in the mountains," Little Mushroom played along.

Hearing this, Wang Hu chuckled inwardly, thinking how coincidentally things had worked out.

"That's perfect, then. We're searching for survivors. You should come with us."

"Oh? I really didn't expect to run into a rescue team out here in the mountains."

Little Mushroom feigned delight while secretly appraising them. There were six people in total, which meant she could exceed the Boss's target.

The mimetic human underlings behind her also exchanged nods, faking expressions of joy.

"Are we saved?"

"Mm-hmm, we can go to the shelter now."

"There should be plenty of food there, right?"

"........"

Seeing that the timing was right, Little Mushroom reached into her pocket and pulled out a white mushroom. At the exact same time, Wang Hu made a matching movement, reaching into his pocket to pull out a wild fruit.

"I foraged some mushrooms; I can share some with you."

"I just picked some wild fruit; eat this."

Both of them uttered these words at almost the exact same moment, and the gesture of offering the food was completely synchronized as well.

"Uh...."

Everyone present froze, looking at one another as an inexplicably subtle atmosphere settled over the clearing...