Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Jiang Lan protected several people as they retreated. When he passed by Ying Qiao’s location, he exchanged glances with him and asked about his situation.
Ying Qiao glanced at the few people following Jiang Lan, then his gaze moved to Bai You, who was held under Jiang Lan’s armpit. He paused, glanced at Jiang Lan, and shook his head silently.
Understanding his intention, Jiang Lan led the others to retreat to the octagonal pavilion, where they saw a large number of ratmen surrounding it. They kept trying to climb up the pavilion but were repeatedly driven down by Jiu Ding and others who occupied the upper position.
In addition to Jiu Ding and his companions, many ordinary people who had rekindled their will to survive were guarding the four sides of the pavilion, some holding bricks and stones, some holding branches, and nervously stood on guard against the ratmen breaking through the defense.
Jiang Lan dragged the colored light cables forward and strung the ratmen together in a row, letting the other men take advantage of the opportunity to go up. Finally, he took Bai You with him.
Bai You’s foot was sprained on Jiangbin Avenue before and it had not healed yet. After running today, the injury was aggravated. The ankle, which had already subsided, became red and swollen again.
Jiang Lan put him down in the open space and let him sit down and rest.
Bai You thanked him again with gratitude. He limped to his feet and wanted to join the defensive crowd to help. “I saw a doctor before, and my injuries are not serious.”
“Brother You, don’t be so stubborn.” The assistant quickly stepped forward to support him and said, “The doctor said you need to rest. You can’t do strenuous exercise or stand for long periods of time.”
Jiang Lan frowned, raised his hand to stop him, and said: “The wounded should have a good rest, you are not needed.”
Bai You looked frail, unable to carry anything, and his foot was injured. If he continued to rush forward, he would simply be offering his head to the ratmen.
But he had good intentions after all, and Jiang Lan didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm, so he changed his words to be more tactful.
“I’ve caused you trouble again.” Bai You lowered his head dejectedly when he heard that. His thick, long eyelashes drooped downwards, and a small shadow of depression spread under his eyes.
He was good-looking. Where others seemed disheveled and covered in dirt, he looked disheveled and helpless.
The other wounded people recuperating in the pavilion marveled at how much better Male God Bai You looked than on TV and couldn’t help but sympathize with him. If the situation wasn’t so dire, they would have even offered words of comfort.
However, Jiang Lan did not hesitate at all. He waved his hand casually and said “No trouble”, then went to help Jiu Ding and the others drive away the rat people.
Bai You looked up at his back, a gleam appearing in his eyes, which quickly disappeared.
Time passed slowly. In the square, Ying Qiao continued to fight the ratmen, looking for a flaw. Meanwhile, at the octagonal pavilion, wave after wave of ratmen came.
As time went on, the rats became more agile and flexible. Fur grew on their limbs, and sharp claws extended from their fingertips. When they jumped, they could almost reach the octagonal pavilion.
The ordinary people on defense took turns several times, but they still couldn’t get any police support, and their expressions gradually became uneasy and anxious.
At this moment, someone suddenly shouted, and everyone turned around to look. They saw a rat man in the octagonal pavilion in the middle pouncing on a young girl, trying to bite off her neck.
The rat man opened his mouth wide, saliva dripping from it.
The others were a step slow to react and frantically tried to pull the rat man away.
However, something strange happened at this moment. Several seriously injured people suddenly jumped up, their faces covered in gray rat hair, their mouths bulged and lengthened, revealing sharp teeth. Squeaking, they pounced on the others…
The octagonal pavilion, which had been temporarily safe, suddenly became chaotic, and the tacitly coordinated defense suddenly relaxed. Some people were knocked to the ground by the attacking ratmen in a panic, and other ratmen took advantage of the opportunity to enter, tearing through the gap and rushing up.
The people who had gathered in the octagonal pavilion fled in panic.
Jiang Lan shouted at them to come back, but the frightened people were only concerned with escaping and ran a long way away in a blink of an eye.
Only a few wounded people who had no way to escape and those who had given up in despair were left in the pavilion.
Jiang Lan had just pulled away a rat-man that was biting the wounded and thrown him away when he heard Bai You’s panicked cry from the other end: “Jiang Lan!”
When he turned around, he saw a rat man biting Bai You’s arm, making a satisfied squeak in his throat.
The assistant following Bai You was so frightened that he had paralyzed himself and was now supporting himself with his arms and backing away continuously.
Jiang Lan quickly stepped forward and pinched the rat man’s long mouth with both hands, then he forced it open, and threw it aside.
Bai You’s arm was bleeding profusely, and the bones were faintly visible. He was gasping for breath in pain but forcing himself not to cry out. Beads of sweat the size of beans streamed down his forehead.
“The wound is too deep.” Jiang Lan bent down to check his wound: “We need to stop the bleeding quickly.”
He was so focused on Bai You’s wound that he didn’t pay any attention to what was behind him.
“Be careful!” Bai You shouted briefly and jumped up recklessly to block the attack from behind.
However, Jiang Lan’s hand held him tightly, and Bai You’s movements were restrained, which pulled on his wound, causing his face to twist in pain.
All this happened in just a second. Bai You could only watch helplessly as the sharp claws of the rat dug into Jiang Lan’s back.
An ominous dark light flashed on the claws of the rat’s claws, and its attack was unstoppable.
A smug smile appeared on the assistant’s harmless face, but it suddenly froze when he touched Jiang Lan’s back.
——The sharp claws just touched Jiang Lan’s clothes and could not move forward any further.
He realized that he had fallen into a trap and tried to withdraw immediately but was blocked by Jiu Ding, Jiao Tu and Jiang Chi who surrounded him.
Jiang Lan finally let go of Bai You’s arm, walked over, grabbed the assistant by the neck, and lifted him up to examine him. “Did you release the rat miasma?”
When he exchanged glances with Ying Qiao when they passed by the square before, he understood what the other party meant.
——Ying Qiao suspected that the controller of the rat miasma was mixed in the crowd.
The assimilated ratmen were not intelligent, their only remaining instinct was the greedy hunting instinct. However, during the time he spent with them, Ying Qiao discovered that they had gradually become more organized, having gone from being disorganized at the beginning.
He guessed that the person controlling the rat miasma must be in the square and was most likely hiding among ordinary people so as to adjust the actions of the rat people at any time.
Jiang Lan understood what he meant, pretending to be unaware and unguarded while secretly observing the crowd.
Then, not surprisingly, the assistant’s unusual behavior was discovered.
Once the rat miasma entered the body, it gradually assimilated humans. However, its assimilation was not unlimited. Although the rat miasma appeared to be a vast fog when it condensed, it was actually composed of tiny gray droplets. These droplets could silently invade the human body and were the source of human assimilation. The number of these droplets depended on the amount of rat miasma assimilated, and there was a fixed number.
The person behind the scenes limited the scope to the square, and there were still a small number of people who had not been assimilated, which meant that the rat miasma was not enough to assimilate everyone.
But just now, ordinary people in the Octagonal Pavilion were suddenly assimilated and mutated. The only possibility was that the controller was hiding among them, deliberately creating panic to disrupt their formation.
Although the assistant had always acted honest and harmless and was very cautious when releasing the rat miasma, Jiang Lan still caught his abnormality at that moment.
He pretended not to know and even deliberately created opportunities for the other party, just to reveal his own true colors.
The assistant’s face flushed red, and he chuckled strangely twice: “So what if it’s me?”
Jiang Lan narrowed his eyes and turned his gaze to Bai You: “He is your assistant? How long has he been with you?”
“Yes.” Bai You’s expression suddenly became panicked. He stammered to defend himself, “He’s a new recruit, less than a month old, still on probation…” He felt helpless and guilty, not even caring about his bleeding arm. His voice then became lower and lower: “I didn’t know he was a monster. I’m sorry…”
Jiang Lan’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, then he turned to look at his assistant with a cold look: “I’ll give you one last chance to take away the rat miasma.”
The assistant’s eyes darted around, a cunning look appearing in his eyes. “If you let me go first, I’ll take the rat miasma.” He blatantly threatened, “Otherwise, in an hour, all these people will become nutrients, strengthening the rat miasma. By then, the miasma will spread, and even more people will be assimilated…”
Seeing Jiang Lan’s eyes growing colder, he added, “If you kill me, the rat miasma will get out of control, and none of those people will be able to escape.”
After he said that, he stared at Jiang Lan, expecting him to show an angry expression.
However, Jiang Lan’s expression didn’t even change.
He gave the assistant an ambiguous smile, then looked at Ying Qiao who was approaching. Then he grabbed the assistant’s neck and lifted him up, saying in a distressed tone, “I wonder if there’s enough for everyone to share if we boil him into soup.”
The tone was as if he had caught a chicken and was worried that there wouldn’t be enough chicken soup to go around.
Assistant: ???
He was slightly flustered, but managed to maintain his composure and said, “If you kill me, none of these people will survive!”
“Oh?” Jiang Lan turned his head and looked at him, with a half-smile: “Why did I hear that eating ear rat meat can cure all kinds of poisons?”
“!!!”
The assistant’s eyes widened in horror, his mouth opening but unable to speak.
He didn’t understand how Jiang Lan saw through his true identity, as he had clearly said that no one could see through his true identity.
Ying Qiao looked at his rat ears popping up and said coldly, “Don’t waste time. Just draw his blood. I have a way.”
The rat, who had been pretending to be calm, finally panicked. He swung his long tail and attacked Jiang Lan. His skin was quickly covered with extremely defensive gray fur. At the same time, his sharp claws attacked Jiang Lan’s face.
However, Jiang Lan easily deflected his attack, grabbed his tail and lifted him upside down.
At this time, the assistant had completely turned into a rat, hanging upside down in the air, struggling and twisting, making sharp squeaking sounds, trying to get the rat man to rescue him.
But Jiang Lan was quicker than the Rat Man. He formed his five fingers into a knife and slashed the Rat’s neck, instantly ripping it apart. Dark grey blood gushed out. Ying Qiao soaked up the blood with one hand and raised the other to the sky. Suddenly, a thunderclap boomed in his ears, dark clouds gathered, and heavy rain arrived in an instant.
The blood of the rat evaporated like water vapor, quickly dissolving into the rain. The miasma surrounding the square gradually dissipated, and the assimilated ratmen stood dazed in the rain, the gray fur on their faces and limbs beginning to fade.
The rat’s head fell to the ground, but it was not completely dead yet.
He watched with bloodshot eyes as his body dried up and turned into a handful of ashes. Suddenly, he screamed and used his last bit of strength to bite Bai You, who was closest to him.
Bai You screamed and tried to kick him with his legs, but the rat held on tightly and refused to let go. However the light gradually faded from its dark red eyes.
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