Monster - Chapter 73
Chapter 73: Surprise Attack
As the words "Guess who I am" sounded by her ear, Lin Sandie also caught a familiar scent. The bottles of emotions—relief after fear, joy, anger—seemed to be shattered all at once. A complex mix of feelings made her eyes turn red, and she swung a backhand at the owner of that detestable voice behind her.
Lou caught Lin Sandie's incoming hand, a soft, low laugh escaping her nose. Her other hand had already seized the one Lin Sandie was using to reach for her gun, twisting it behind her back. The two came face to face, nose to nose. Lin Sandie, whose eyes had slightly adjusted to the darkness, saw a smiling face identical to her own.
"Alright, sorry for scaring you~" Lou apologized softly, but her tone and expression showed she wasn't truly sorry at all. "But this outfit looks so cool on you, Lin Sandie."
The surging emotions were violently swallowed by the 'Scorpion' dormant in her spine. Lin Sandie's initial agitation slowly calmed down. Lou also sensed that she was no longer tense and trying to hit her, and released her hands.
"How did you get here?" Lin Sandie asked.
"It's all because Yan Ting's phone kept nagging me to return to your side." Lou started walking out. "The monsters you encountered are a husband and wife who both mutated. The man is Mo Wenjie, the woman is Chen Xiao. The beads they're wearing are a pair. If a couple wears them and stays within ten meters of each other, they can be immune to all thermal weapons for thirty minutes. If they exceed that distance, the immunity time drops to three minutes. At that point, they can only be subdued with cold weapons."
Walking behind Lou, Lin Sandie suddenly drew the pistol from her shoulder holster and fired a shot at Lou's back.
"Get down!!!" Miu the crow, who had been maintaining its Island, shrieked in Lou's mind. Lou had already instinctively dived forward and rolled to the side, and Lin Sandie's muzzle followed her form, firing several more shots.
"Lou!!" Miu the crow hadn't expected Lin Sandie to suddenly open fire on Lou, and it cried out again, its voice cracking.
Fortunately, Lin Sandie had only been formally practicing shooting for a week. Even with the element of surprise, she failed to hit the experienced Lou. Even so, Lou broke out in a cold sweat. This Lin Sandie, who would point a gun at her, was not the Lin Sandie she remembered.
Dodging Lin Sandie's continuous shots, Lou pushed off the ground and swept her leg at Lin Sandie's shins. Lin Sandie's gun drifted upward, and she fired two more shots. Lou raised her hand and pushed, palm up, against the side of the falling Lin Sandie's face. This leveraged strike made Lin Sandie's ears ring, and she fell to the ground, dizzy and disoriented. Before Lin Sandie could react, Lou had already pounced on her, twisting her arms behind her back and pressing a knee into her spine. This pinned Lin Sandie flat on the ground, unable to move.
"Lin Sandie?" Lou asked.
"I'll kill you." Lin Sandie's voice was icy, devoid of any emotion.
Hearing this, Lou's usually relaxed brows furrowed for a rare moment. She grabbed both of Lin Sandie's wrists with one hand and pulled them back. Lin Sandie's shoulders were forced uncontrollably upward.
"I'll kill you!" Lin Sandie was even more furious. Her once clean and dignified face was covered in dust, mixed with blood flowing from above her brow bone, making her look exceptionally wretched.
Lou remained unmoved. Her strong hand continued to hold Lin Sandie's wrists. She freed her other hand, reached around, and pulled open Lin Sandie's black tie. She undid the top two buttons, then grabbed the back collar of Lin Sandie's suit and yanked it down, revealing a 'Scorpion' embedded in the back of Lin Sandie's beautiful neck.
"Tsk… Lin Sandie's been fitted with one of these damn things too." When Miu the crow saw the silvery-white alloy 'Scorpion,' it was actually relieved to have found a traceable cause.
For people like them, the most frightening thing was motiveless killing.
Recently, Lou had often encountered inexplicable assassination attempts, even from people she'd never met who would draw their knives or guns the moment they saw her.
At first, Miu the crow had wondered if Lou's ability to provoke people had reached such a sublime level. After investigating, it discovered that some factions in Disorder Land, in order to suppress the monsterization of people, would have their members fitted with a device called a 'Scorpion' that devoured emotions. And for their own benefit, these factions would link the 'Scorpions' to a hunting list.
They didn't just issue the hunting list on light screens; they also transmitted the data directly, causing members with 'Scorpions' to instinctively hunt down every target they encountered.
"…Lin Sandie, you have to control yourself." Lou looked down at the pinned Lin Sandie, her expression somewhat complicated.
The veins on Lin Sandie's temples throbbed. She wanted to struggle, but couldn't break free no matter what, only succeeding in getting more dust on her face.
"Da, da…" Footsteps sounded from outside.
Lou and Lin Sandie simultaneously looked outside. The monster that had previously blocked Lin Sandie's path appeared at the entrance of the ruined temple. Its long hair hung over its chest, revealing only a small, luminously white chin.
Lou glanced at the monster, produced two nylon zip ties from somewhere, and swiftly bound Lin Sandie's wrists and ankles.
"Lin Sandie, calm down for a moment."
"I'm going to kill you!"
"Hmm…" Lou looked at Lin Sandie, pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked seriously, "Do you like bracelets made of beads? Lin Sandie, if I give you one, will you calm down?"
Lin Sandie's face turned red with anger as she glared hatefully at Lou.
"I'm hungry…" The monster named Chen Xiao stepped over the threshold and said slowly, looking at Lin Sandie.
The intense emotions radiating from Lin Sandie made her seem more delicious than the other person.
"Even if you're hungry, you can't have her. Lin Sandie is mine." Lou drew the small knife strapped to her outer thigh and, without the slightest hesitation, lunged toward the monster.
A silver arc flashed from the sharp knife. The monster seemed startled by the sudden, fierce attack. It recoiled, its expression turning grave, and all the long, spider-leg-like arms on its back stabbed toward Lou.
But Lou's movements didn't stop. She didn't dodge those disgusting long arms. As if pre-programmed, she acted without much thought, instinctively sliding down to evade the spider arms' attack. The knife in her hand was already slashing at the monster's knee. The monster cried out in pain, its body sinking, on the verge of kneeling.
Lou was like a nimble black fish. She planted one foot directly above the monster's bent knee, leaped into the air, and flipped over. Her own knee bent and pressed down on the monster's shoulder. The sudden weight was clearly more than the monster could bear, and it dropped completely to its knees.
Just as the monster tried to retract its spider arms to stab the human who dared to get so close, Lou, pressing down on its shoulder, moved faster. She grabbed its long hair. As the monster's head tilted back slightly, the knife in Lou's hand had already slit its throat. There wasn't a single wasted motion, no flashy moves. Lou killed it as simply as slaughtering a chicken.
Seeing such a one-sided, crushing slaughter for the first time made Lin Sandie's breath catch in her throat.
This was that Lou?
The monster slumped forward limply. Lou jumped off its shoulder, but she seemed to feel it wasn't enough. She took out her pistol and aimed it at the monster, which was making gurgling sounds on the ground.
"The immunity to thermal weapons should be over by now." Giving the monster no chance to retaliate, Lou flawlessly fired a shot into the back of its head and another into its chest.
"All done."
Holstering her gun, Lou trotted back to Lin Sandie's side, carrying the small, blood-dripping knife.
"See that? Lin Sandie, that's how you kill. The way you were just now, you wouldn't be able to kill me in a hundred years." Lou crouched in front of Lin Sandie, propping her chin on one hand with a grin, while her other hand raised the small knife to the tip of Lin Sandie's nose.
Lin Sandie pressed her lips together, staring at Lou without a word.
"Hmm… but the way you were just now was fine. If you really fought like me, I wouldn't be able to go easy on you."
Lin Sandie still said nothing, just stared intently at the Lou before her.
"The thing on your back makes you instinctively want to kill people on the hunting list. I've seen a lot of it recently. Forcibly removing it can cause severe nerve damage. Some people have been paralyzed because of it."
"Are you angry at the people who installed the 'Scorpion'? I can see your emotions." Lou saw the anger welling up in Lin Sandie's eyes, saw her revert to the Lin Sandie who could get flustered and exasperated. Lou smiled, put away her knife, and reached out to wipe the dirt from Lin Sandie's face where it had been pressed against the ground.
"I understand. I'll control myself." The emotions churning in her chest came and went, but whenever she saw Lou, Lin Sandie seemed to have an endless supply of strange feelings. This made the 'Scorpion' feed and feed, yet it could never consume them all.
"Hurry up and say 'thank you, Lou Lou.' I saved you again today." Lou smiled, moving closer to Lin Sandie.
"I won't." For a rare change, Lin Sandie acted petulant. She turned her face away, refusing to look at Lou.
"So stubborn and petty…" Lou muttered, lifting Lin Sandie's chin. She saw that the cut above the corner of her eye had stopped bleeding. Only a few streaks of blood had run from the corner of her eye to below it, then down her cheek to her chin.
"It's a pretty deep cut. I wonder if it'll leave a scar?" Lou sounded a little regretful. She herself had a scar above her eye from childhood. If Lin Sandie also had a scar above her eye, even if it wasn't on the same side, it would be like an echo of some opposing fate. Did the Lous of different worlds all have to suffer such a wound?
"Let me go." Lin Sandie, still tied up, said with a frown. "I'll control myself. I won't make any more useless attacks."
"Then give me a kiss." Lin Sandie was being petulant, but Lou was even more so, making an even more shameless demand.
She was no longer subtly seducing her; this was a blatant enticement.
Lin Sandie was flustered and exasperated, not understanding why the 'Scorpion' hadn't made her feel indifferent. She lifted her chin and bit Lou hard on the cheek.
"Are you two annoying or what? There's still a monster outside!" Miu the crow, completely fed up with the display, finally couldn't take it anymore and spoke in a voice Lin Sandie could also hear.
"…"
"…" Lou clutched her reddened cheek, looking innocently at Lin Sandie. Both of them fell silent.
"Alright." Lou took out her knife again and cut the zip ties on the blushing Lin Sandie's wrists and ankles.
Freed from her bonds, Lin Sandie immediately stood up and brushed the dust from her clothes. Lou, meanwhile, turned to remove the beaded bracelet from the dead monster's wrist.
This time, Lin Sandie's blush took a long time to fade, as if the 'Scorpion' on her neck was too full to eat anymore. So when Lou returned with the beads, Lin Sandie still didn't speak, merely bending down to retrieve the pistol from the floor and return it to its holster.
"Are you planning to go back now? The dark-skinned man with you should be able to handle the other monster, but he'll get hurt pretty badly." As Lou spoke, she glanced at Lin Sandie, then opened her light screen and used her points to buy an antibiotic to prevent tetanus.
"Let's go back and check first." Lin Sandie had finally regained some composure, only to have Lou grab her wrist again. "What are you doing?"
"Preventing tetanus. The cut near your eye is pretty bad." Holding the syringe lightly between her teeth, Lou lowered her head, pulled Lin Sandie's hand in front of her, unbuttoned her shirt cuff, and pushed the sleeve straight up before injecting the antibiotic.
Lin Sandie could only let her administer the shot obediently. She looked up at Lou's lowered eyelashes, gritted her back teeth several times, and finally waited until the 'Scorpion' had devoured her bashfulness before speaking in a flat voice:
"Thank you, Lou Lou."
Lou's eyes curved into a smile as she looked at Lin Sandie, the pad of her thumb gently rubbing the other woman's cool arm. "It's like I just ate a piece of candy~"
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