novelhk Chapter 11 Repelling the Night-Walking Monster
Chapter 11 Repelling the Night-Walking Monster
The woman's face was pressed against his neck.
Tears, one, two, three, fell on his collarbone and trickled down his skin.
"Thank you."
[Affection from survivor Lin Qiao +4. Current affection level: 10, intimacy level: 11.]
[Does not conform to the system's aesthetic standards]
The system notification flashed in the field of vision.
Jiang Che didn't have time to look, because more Nightwalkers were already surging towards him.
They sensed fresh life.
Three.
They attacked simultaneously from different directions.
Jiang Che held Lin Qiao in one arm and gripped the steel bar with the other.
He had no time to switch hands, no time to adjust his posture; he only had one chance to swing.
The steel bars are swept horizontally from left to right.
He used all his strength in that attack.
The power of a peak D-rank combined with the inertia of the steel bars slammed into the shape of the Nightwalker in the middle. The enormous impact sent it flying like a ball, also swerving the trajectory of the one on the left.
The one on the right was unaffected; its shape had already attached itself to Jiang Che's right arm.
A thin, black film, like ice water, flowed onto his skin.
He could feel his vitality and physical strength draining away.
His peak D-level physical condition gave him some resistance, but it couldn't last long.
"Let go!" Su Qingyuan's voice boomed from behind him.
Before Jiang Che could react, several strands of spiritual energy swept past his ear and precisely cut into the Nightwalker-like creature attached to his right arm, leaving a deep cut at its core.
The Nightwalker let out a sharp screech, its form exploded, and it dissipated into a cloud of black mist.
Su Qingyuan stood less than a meter behind him.
Her breathing was rapid, and the stray hairs on her forehead were soaked with sweat, sticking to her smooth skin.
Her spiritual threads danced in the air like countless invisible whips, lashing at any night-walking monster that dared to approach.
Her right leg was trembling slightly—the infection hadn't healed yet, and forcibly using her powers had taken a toll on her body.
"Are you crazy?" she yelled at Jiang Che. Her voice held anger, fear, and something Jiang Che had never seen in her before—a near-out-of-control rage. "Rushing outside alone? You think you're invincible just because you've awakened to D-rank?"
"She's dying," Jiang Che said.
"That doesn't mean you need to go and die!"
After Su Qingyuan finished speaking, her lips tightened sharply.
She was afraid he would die.
It's not that I'm afraid of losing a teammate, it's that I'm afraid he'll die.
Her eyes reddened.
Keeping your eyes open for too long in the dark causes dryness, coupled with capillary congestion due to intense emotional fluctuations.
But in the torchlight, the two red marks made her look like she had been crying.
Jiang Che didn't say anything.
He put Lin Qiao down from his shoulder and placed her in a relatively safe spot by the roadside.
Lin Qiao's right leg was completely useless, but she was still conscious. She clung to Jiang Che's clothes and refused to let go, her fingers turning white from the force.
"What's your name?" she asked, her voice trembling violently.
Jiang Che.
"Jiang Che." She repeated it, as if savoring the taste of the name, "I will remember it."
[Affection from survivor Lin Qiao +1. Current affection level: 11.]
The battle continues.
Zhao Lie's defensive line of superhumans finally stabilized, with five superhumans lined up and using their individual abilities to suppress the Nightwalker's frontal assault.
The rearguard armed men flanked the night raiders from both sides, using firepower to block their retreat.
It was a Pyrrhic victory—two armed men were seriously wounded, three civilians went missing, and Lin Qiao lost her right leg.
But after this battle, Jiang Che's name was remembered by at least a dozen people.
It wasn't because he was particularly outstanding in the battle—in fact, aside from those two attacks, he spent most of his time protecting Lin Qiao from being attacked a second time.
But the ordinary people he shielded behind, the survivors who saw him carrying someone out of the darkness, and those who heard Lin Qiao cry out the name "Jiang Che" all remembered it.
[Collective favorability from survivors: +9, Current favorability: 20.]
The system's notification sounds rang out in Jiang Che's mind like raindrops.
He didn't look at them one by one, but he could feel the energy—coming from all directions, like fireflies, gradually gathering on him.
The Nightwalker was finally defeated.
It wasn't a complete annihilation, but rather a repulsion.
They left behind a trail of black remains in the darkness, like charred paper ash, which would scatter with a gust of wind.
The survivors collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Some were crying, some were laughing, and some did nothing but stare wide-eyed into the darkness.
Zhao Lie's voice rang out again amidst the chaos.
"We can't stop! The Nightwalkers are calling for help—their cries just now will attract more of their kind! We must set off within ten minutes, travel through the night, and reach the White Rock outpost before dawn!"
No one complained.
Everyone knows he's right.
Jiang Che leaned against the roadside guardrail, with steel bars across his knees.
His right arm was still a little cold—a bluish-black bruise remained on the skin where the Nightwalker had sucked his blood.
The body's peak D-level recovery ability was slowly eliminating the bruise, but the process was slow.
Su Qingyuan walked over and stood in front of him. Her spirit silk had been retracted, and her hands hung at her sides.
She stared at the bruise on his right arm for two seconds, then reached out and pressed it with her fingertip.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
"It doesn't hurt."
"You're lying." After saying that, he tightened his grip a little.
Jiang Che did not dodge.
It was rough, but the pressure she applied to the bruises was just right; she was helping him to reduce the swelling.
Her technique was very skilled, as if she had done it many times before.
During the three years of the apocalypse, she treated her wounds like this countless times.
Jiang Che looked at her lowered eyelashes.
Her eyelashes were very long, casting a small fan-shaped shadow under her eyes.
Her lips were chapped again from the fight, and there was a small crack in the middle of her lower lip from which a little dark blood was seeping out.
She probably didn't even notice it herself.
"Su Qingyuan," Jiang Che said.
"Um."
"Your lips are sore."
Su Qingyuan raised her hand and wiped her lips. Seeing the bead of blood on the back of her finger, she frowned, then wiped it off on her pants.
Throughout the entire process, her other hand never left Jiang Che's right arm and was still rubbing it.
Jiang Che suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.
Her wrists were very thin—thinner than he had expected.
His fingers and thumb form a circle, which he can easily encircle.
Her pulse was beating in his palm, much faster than normal, thump thump thump thump.
"Your heart is beating so fast," Jiang Che said.
"You're holding me, how can I not hurry?" Su Qingyuan's voice had changed from calm to tense, and every word seemed to be squeezed out from between her teeth.
She tried to pull her wrist away, but Jiang Che was too strong, and she couldn't budge it.
"Let go," she said.
"Not loose."
"Jiang Che!"
"Su Qingyuan".
She glared at him.
He stared for about three seconds.
Then her eyes reddened again.
"Do you know that when you rushed out just now, I thought you were going to die?" Her voice changed, becoming very low, so low that only Jiang Che could hear it. "I fucking thought you were going to die."
She swore.
Su Qingyuan swore.
Su Qingyuan, who even makes people turn away when she eats and who hides for half a day if her ears turn red, swore.