“Host, what are you doing?”

Ever since Nana Toki stowed Luo Shanshan in the storage locker, the System watched her circle the kitchenware shop like a cat around a fish stall.

She peered here and glanced there, a sparrow hopping the counter, hunting for something unseen.

“I’m picking weapons.”

Her fingers skimmed the line of chef’s knives like water over river stones, her voice cool as night mist. “You see I’m a defenseless girl right now. Surviving like this is hard. If I don’t find something to protect myself, I’m handing them my throat.”

“...”

“Then why not hide in a locker like Luo Shanshan?” the System murmured, its tone soft as moth wings. “It looks safe, like a turtle in its shell.”

“Are you brain-dead?”

Nana Toki’s words cracked like dry bamboo, a bite of you sure you’re not messing with me. “The first time we met those Corpse Devourers, you erased it like chalk. With noses and ears like wolves and bats—you think a locker saves you?”

Staying still felt like laying a rabbit on the butcher’s board.

“Then why did you shove her into a locker?” the System blurted, a spark in damp hay. “Are you a devil?”

The System was stunned, its hopes collapsing like a paper lantern in rain. It thought the host had grown a conscience. Turns out she was still a scumbag, selling teammates with temple-grade finesse.

“Maybe,” Nana Toki said, her tone light as drifting ash, “we just ran into a few with sharper senses.”

She kept working, steel whispering under her fingertips like reeds in wind. She chose a slender boning knife, tossed it to feel the balance, then moved to another counter for a second blade.

“Putting Luo Shanshan in the locker was a test,” she added, a smile thin as a knife’s edge. “I wanted to see how keen they really are.”

“Besides, I gave her security measures,” she said, voice steady as a stone bridge. “If she does what I said, the risk is almost nil.”

“Security measures? What security measures?” The System’s memory stood clear as winter stars. Nana Toki had handed Luo Shanshan a kitchen knife—if that was protection, Luo Shanshan was a goat penned for slaughter.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nana Toki said, letting the question drift like smoke. “You’ll see.”

She bowed her head and kept picking through blades, eyes calm as a pond before dawn.

After careful choosing, Nana Toki kept the slender boning knife and added a wide serrated blade, the teeth like a saw’s grin.

Across the street, she found a box of signal flares in a shop front, red sticks sleeping like coals.

Treasure, she thought, in a world where power was a dead sun. Light is life in fog thick as milk.

A flare can be a weapon too, a burning brand in a hunter’s hand.

Strange though—these don’t usually circulate in markets. Why are they here like shells on a mountain road?

Forget it. No one’s here. If I don’t take them, they’ll rot like pears in snow.

Right now, living comes first, a willow bending before storm.

She tucked several signal flares at her waist, red as cinnabar beads on a belt.

By then, the building’s fog had gone rich and heavy, a broth that swallowed edges.

With no light inside, the dark pooled like ink, and Nana Toki could barely read the world’s breath.

She trusted her gut, feeling her way through the mist like a blind swimmer reaching for the bank.

“Are there any living people in here?” Fear pricked first, sharp as frost. She crouched like a cat and moved forward, asking the System in a whisper thin as silk.

Ten minutes ago, old folks and kids were here like leaves in a courtyard. Now, not even a crumb of sound remained.

The change felt wrong, a cold hand on the spine.

“...”

The System opened detection quietly, a net cast into night waters.

“There are life-sign readings,” it said, weighty as thunderheads. “Not sure how many.”

“Be careful, Host.” The fog scraped its instruments like grit on glass. “This fog is interfering with my scan.”

“Feels like the Heaven of this plane is tilting the chessboard,” it said, tone dry as old cedar. “It doesn’t want you leaning on me.”

“Then it misplayed,” Nana Toki said, a laugh like a knife flick. “I never planned to lean on you.”

“...”

“That’s cruel,” the System sighed, a wilted petal in drizzle.

“Anyway,” she said, grip firm on the boning knife, “life signs mean survivors, right?”

She slid along the wall, careful as a gecko on stone, her breath a small flame in a jar.

“In theory, yes,” the System answered, voice cautious as an owl. “Or other life.”

“Electromagnetic interference muddles my read. Could be people. Could be something else.”

“So act carefully, Host.”

“That’s as useful as wind on empty sails.”

“...”

“Thump... thump... thump... thump...”

Boot soles hammered the floor, heavy as mallets on a drum. Whoever it was stood near, a shadow crossing the well of mist.

The instant the sound rose like a reed flute, Nana Toki froze, the world a still pond.

She felt it, a hawk’s prickle under the skin. One more sound and danger would bloom like fire.

“Thump... thump... thump...”

Each step landed like a wooden hammer on her chest, breath cinched like a rope.

“Careful, Host!” The System’s voice tightened, a string drawn to breaking. “A faint life-sign is rushing around you!”

“Rushing?” The word tasted metallic, a coin on the tongue. In the dark, Nana Toki clenched her slender blade, every direction a field where grass bent wrong.

“So it might be those Corpse Devourers we met?”

“Very likely!”

“Tch.” The sound clicked like a pebble on glass. She lowered her back like a stalking cat, reversed her grip on the blade.

If even a strand of grass stirred, she’d drive steel into a skull, a lightning strike with no second chance.

“Drip... drip... drip...”

Liquid fell to the floor, clean as snowmelt, musical and unnerving, a lullaby with teeth.

A chill coil slithered through her chest, a snake around the heart, leaving her skin pebble-cold.

“Hiss—”

“Thud!”

As the sound brushed her ear like a moth’s wing, Nana Toki’s blade thrust backward, iron finding flesh like a needle finding thread.

She whipped around, the wide chopping blade sliding from behind her back like a moon rising, and cut without gifting air for breath.

“Crack-crack... splurt... splurt...”

Bone shattered, blood sprayed, a rain of red in a silent hall.

In the dead hush of the tower, the sounds rang bright as bells, cruel and clear.

Her nerves snapped taut like bowstrings, then sang as she chopped again and again, a storm of strokes.

She stopped only when the thing below her went still, life draining like a tipped cup.

“Trash system, verify the area,” she whispered, anger cooling like iron in water. “Any other life?”

[System scanning...]

[Scan complete.]

[Excluding the markers for Luo Shanshan and Host, no other life-signs in the vicinity.]

Crack.

No hesitation, Nana Toki pulled a signal flare, yanked the safety pin like plucking a thorn.

“Sssss—”

A spear of red lit up the fog like dawn cutting a sea of clouds, washing the walls with blood-light.

Then, almost at the same breath, the System’s voice flared like alarm bells.

Warning! Warning! Warning! Numerous life-signs detected. Host, be careful!

Repeat.

Warning! Warning! Warning! Numerous life-signs detected. Host, be careful!

...

She stood in a corner of the floor, flare in one hand like a burning lotus, chopping blade in the other like a crescent moon. Sweat beaded her brow, fine as dew.

Her lips moved, a bitter smile ghosting. “You really screwed me, trash System—like pushing a boat into a whirlpool.”

Within the tower, wherever the flare painted red, the fog peeled back to a scene from the first haze: the same small, ugly breed.

Short bodies, ruined faces, clothes hanging in tatters like dead leaves.

Walls and pillars crawled with Corpse Devourers, a garden of thorns that breathed.

Their mouths opened just a sliver, and their eyes burned green, cold lanterns fixed on Nana Toki in the corner.

“Scritch... scritch...”

Teeth ground like stones in a mill, a rasping chorus that filled the tower, promising that in a breath they’d swarm and tear her to ribbons.

...

Nearly twenty minutes had slipped by, sand through fingers. Jiang Xinli hid in a shop, thighs numb as clay.

Since the earlier upheaval, she hadn’t crossed the threshold, fear a chain around her ankle.

She hadn’t expected the Corpse Devourers to be spun from the dead, reborn like mushrooms after rain.

And the way they emerged—no one should have to see that—skin and mouths turned to doors, horror blooming like night flowers.

If not for a sliver of resistance to fear, she’d have vomited ten minutes ago, gut flipping like river rapids.

Even so, she felt sick, a sour tide rising in her mouth, bitter as wormwood, fighting the urge to retch.

She didn’t dare make a sound. She held it all down, a lid on boiling soup.

Bang!

Bang-bang-bang!

Splurt!

Splurt-splurt-splurt!

She caught faint noises, as if from behind gauze, sounds pricking her ears like needles.

Bang-bang-bang!

Bang-bang-bang!

Splurt—!

One after another, like fruit hurled at a wall, bursting into wet stars.

Is someone over there?

Jiang Xinli forced herself up, fear first like cold rain, curiosity following like a stray cat. She crept to the window.

Outside, across the street, the entrance to a commercial tower glowed with a point of red, a coal in fog.

In this sea of haze, could there really be another living soul?

As she thought, her gaze snagged on a face through the glass, a flash like a mirror catching sun. She froze.

Then her pale little face filled with disbelief, a frost cracking in spring.

That’s... Yu Xi?

Even through fog thick as wool, she would never mistake that face. That proud, no-one-in-her-eyes look—she’d know it even if it turned to ash on the wind.

Why is Yu Xi there?

Jiang Xinli couldn’t understand, thoughts tangling like vines. In this terrible fog, how could she move so brazenly, like a red flag in storm?

Isn’t she afraid those Corpse Devourers will see her?

Curiosity, confusion, and worry budded in her mind like a knot of bamboo shoots, pushing up all at once.

By the time she came back to herself, her feet had already carried her outside, a moth drawn to flame, heading toward the commercial tower.