Role-Playing a Dual Personality as a Background Character in a Manga

Chapter 98 : Chapter 98

Chapter 98

Using gravity, Ji Qing safely brought himself and Xie Chang’an down onto the wilderness.

The moment their heels touched the ground, Xie Chang’an raised a hand toward Ji Qing in signal.

So Ji Qing withdrew the gravitational support beneath him.

In the pitch-black night, Ji Qing could not make out Xie Chang’an’s expression, but he could still sense the tension in his nerves. Xie Chang’an’s blurred figure receded deeper and deeper into the darkness. After glancing once in the direction he had left, Ji Qing turned and ran toward the section of the wrecked train he was responsible for.

It was not exactly worry. He had only suddenly felt like remarking that Xie Chang’an had grown up.

Before, he had repeatedly caused him unnecessary trouble, forcing him to deal with the manga readers’ suspicions. But now that he looked at it this way... Ji Qing thought with some helplessness that Xie Chang’an was still somewhat useful.

At the very least, when something truly happened, he really did step forward.

Maybe that was the charm of a hot-blooded manga protagonist. Ji Qing himself definitely could not be as reckless as Xie Chang’an. Every move he made was built on investigation and planning. Alone as he was, he had to be the one to secure his own retreat.

And yet, for some reason, he was still a little envious.

That kind of courage that charged ahead without looking back was something Ji Qing could neither possess nor accept. Because Ji Qing did not dare to gamble with his fate, nor would he ever gamble with it. His fate had to remain in his own hands.

Caw-caw—

Several strange bird cries rang out.

Still running, Ji Qing calmly swept a glance around and discovered that some of the Mutated Vultures had already noticed him. The vultures that had spotted him were chasing after him from behind, trying to devour him, while the rest remained where they were.

One mere human was not worth making them fight among themselves over.

It seemed he was being underestimated.

For Ji Qing, however, that contempt was exactly what he wanted. He leaped swiftly across the train wreckage, searching for traces of surviving passengers. Again and again, he came within inches of being caught, only to slip away again, as though he were a cat toying with mice.

The teased vultures cried out angrily, and at last the flock sensed that something was wrong.

A human. A tiny human—

And he dared toy with their kin in the vultures’ own territory!

KRAA—

With that piercing shriek, the previously silent flock of Mutated Birds instantly erupted into motion.

At the call of the flock’s leader, the birds converged on Ji Qing from all sides. Ji Qing swiftly broke out of their encirclement. Thanks to his gravity ability, his movements were extraordinarily agile, and he could control his direction even in midair.

And because of that shriek, Ji Qing successfully locked onto the position of the flock’s leader.

The Vulture Leader was clearly far larger than the other vultures. It stood atop an overturned carriage, its gaze sweeping over its subjects like that of an emperor. The instant it met Ji Qing’s eyes, vicious fire flared in its gaze.

Li Xuehua’s guess had been correct.

There really was a leader within the southward-migrating flock of Mutated Birds, and that leader possessed intelligence.

Ji Qing calmly swept his gaze over the carriage where the Vulture Leader stood and thought, If nothing unexpected happened, that should be the train head and the first carriage of the Chengfeng Train.

Unexpectedly crafty.

Compared with the other carriages, the first carriage was sturdier and far better protected. Even with their sharp fangs and claws, the Mutated Vultures would have a hard time damaging its outer shell, and they would also struggle to manipulate Infected into entering it.

The reason the Vulture Leader remained perched above that carriage was to shatter the psychological defenses of the survivors inside the first carriage.

When Ji Qing arrived, he had not seen any survivors, nor had he seen any Infected. Most likely, after the starving flock had done everything it could to damage the train body and manipulated the Infected into opening the carriage from within, it had already swallowed those pitiful Infected whole.

A faint sense of relief suddenly rose in Ji Qing.

Before seeing a flock of Mutated Birds with their own eyes, most people would still cling to a sliver of luck. The survival rate of train passengers at night might be low, but wasn't there still that seventeen percent?

But after witnessing the scene for himself, Ji Qing was certain that after tonight, not a single survivor would remain.

The Vulture Leader would never tolerate its prey escaping. If it realized it could not eat them, it would absolutely crush the iron shell beneath its talons, turning both the survivors and the train body protecting them into one pulpy mass of ruin.

If it could not eat its prey, then no other Aberrant would be allowed to eat it either.

In the instant he dodged another round of attacks, Ji Qing said quietly into the Terminal to Xie Chang’an on the other end, “I’ll draw them away in a moment. Search this place as fast as you can.”

There was no longer any need to wonder where the remaining survivors were.

The Vulture Leader would never have allowed them to remain elsewhere. Right now, Ji Qing could only hope that, before disaster struck, as many passengers as possible had fled into the first carriage. Gu Lingxue’s parents were in the first carriage as well. Hopefully they were safe.

With that thought, Ji Qing abandoned his evasive strategy.

The gravity around him intensified abruptly, and in the next moment, the Mutated Vultures on both sides of him crashed straight to the ground. Two enormous craters were smashed into the wilderness floor, and both vultures let out shrill cries of pain.

Ji Qing, however, had no interest in admiring the misery of the defeated.

He let gravity lift him once more until he was face-to-face with the Vulture Leader at the same height. A mocking curve tugged at the corner of his lips, as though he were taunting it without words. But before Ji Qing could provoke it any further, the overbearing and arrogant Vulture Leader was already beside itself with rage.

It roared at the night sky, ordering its attendants to strike at Ji Qing.

At the sight, Ji Qing blinked in mild puzzlement.

Was the Vulture Leader’s reaction not a little too intense?

But on second thought, Ji Qing immediately understood. His current identity was human. A human provoking an Aberrant was no different from a negligible morsel of food leaping onto a predator’s dining table and raising a middle finger right in its face.

It had every reason to be angry, though Ji Qing felt that he had even more reason to be.

Countless Mutated Vultures spread their enormous wings and took to the sky. Working together, they formed a hunting formation in the night, trapping their tiny prey at its center.

But their prey was plainly not so easy to catch.

Relying on his nimble footwork, Ji Qing dodged one clawed strike after another.

While calmly searching for flaws in the formation, he also did his best to knock the vultures down. If the first attack failed, then there would be a second, a third, a fourth...

Time slipped by second by second.

At last, Ji Qing finally heard the beat of wings from the Vulture Leader.

So it finally moved.

But it still was not over—

The Vulture Leader was highly intelligent. Ji Qing could not let it realize that he was deliberately trying to lure it away, and dragging the fight out any longer was not a solution either. That left only two options before him now: either kill the Vulture Leader, or pray that Xie Chang’an succeeded in the rescue soon.

“Damn that Xie Chang’an.”

The little bit of goodwill Ji Qing had just begun to feel toward Xie Chang’an vanished in an instant in the face of a life-and-death crisis. Ji Qing inwardly spat viciously: if Xie Chang’an dared fail him at a time like this, he was absolutely going to beat him until even his grandma would not recognize him.

***

On the elevated tracks, near the wreckage of the Chengfeng Train.

The surface of the wrecked train had long since been coated in a thin layer of frost, while the corpses of two Mutated Vultures lay one before and one behind on the elevated tracks.

Gu Lingxue stood beside the bodies, breathing heavily. Her physique had never been good to begin with, and before enrolling, she had almost never received any kind of physical training, which meant her body tired far more easily than her mind. But at that moment, she knew perfectly well that the danger was not over yet—

She had been the one who insisted on coming. The other two had only come because of her.

If the person at the center of all this hid here, then how could she ever face her classmates afterward?

At once, Gu Lingxue created a rod of ice and used leverage to shove one of the vulture corpses off the elevated tracks. She intended to use the corpse as a buffer for the height, jump down from where she was, and rejoin her companions.

Boom—

The instant the corpse struck the ground, it made a violent crashing sound.

And it was only then that Gu Lingxue finally noticed the unusual sight in the far-off sky.

Countless Mutated Vultures wheeled overhead like dark clouds blotting out the heavens. Now they dove, now they circled, their sharp claws seeming to claw at a faint star drifting through the night sky. No, not a star—

Ji Qing.

Gu Lingxue’s eyes flew wide open.

She froze for a single heartbeat, clearly stunned by the unexpected sight before her. But in the very next instant, she tore her gaze away and leaped decisively toward the vulture corpse she had just pushed down.

Countless Ice Spikes condensed beneath her feet, fastening themselves to the support pillars of the elevated tracks.

Using her ice ability, she forcibly slowed her own fall. The Ice Spikes snapped one after another beneath her feet, and pain twisted across Gu Lingxue’s face. With the shattering of the final pillar of ice, Gu Lingxue tumbled onto the corpse of the vulture.

Blood and mud splashed all over her.

The rich young lady who once loved cleanliness did not dare pause for even a moment. Scrambling away from the Aberrant corpse that had served as a “cushion,” she sprinted toward the head of the Chengfeng Train.

Her parents were waiting for her there.

Her companions were waiting for her there too.

With Gu Lingxue’s understanding of her parents, they were definitely in the first carriage.

Thump... thump...

In the silent wilderness, Gu Lingxue could hear the pounding of her own heart.

Anticipation, dread, fear, anxiety, every emotion was tangled together. Guarding against sneak attacks from Aberrants around her, she ran toward her final destination. Her stamina was gradually being exhausted, yet her resolve only continued to surge higher and higher.

After dealing with another Aberrant that attacked her, Gu Lingxue looked with difficulty toward the hill ahead.

Night had arrived, and countless nocturnal Aberrants were stirring.

Gu Lingxue heard the cries of unknown Aberrants she had never heard before. The unknown flooded her with a tide of fear, yet it could not stop her steps. Over and over in her heart, Gu Lingxue repeated: Cross it... cross it...

She did not want to remain a child protected by others. She wanted to become someone who protected others, someone worthy of trust, someone free... just like the Valedictorian she admired.

“Mom...”

Standing at the very top of the hill, Gu Lingxue suddenly stopped.

A muddy tear, streaked with grime, slid down and fell onto the hillside. Once she crossed the hill that had blocked her line of sight, Gu Lingxue finally saw her parents and Xie Chang’an.

The instant Xie Chang’an saw her, he shouted, “Lingxue, hurry over and help!”

This time, fate had favored Gu Lingxue.

This time, she could still fight with her parents over the road ahead, just as she always had.

But from this moment on, she would no longer be lost.