Epoch of Twilight

Huang Jiahui and the others had been too distracted by the motion of the giant lizard to notice that there was a bunch of people running towards them.

A slight of worry could be seen on Huang Jiahui’s face as she prayed silently.

At first, it had only been her and Wang Shishi waiting outside. However, the others had noticed the expression on their faces. Both Huang Jiahui and Wang Shishi held a higher position in the house. It was their roof they were staying under after all. Even the blind would have noticed that Luo Yuan and his women had been behaving strange all day. After Luo Yuan had left, the two of them had remained anxious the whole morning. They did not seem able to sit down. Some of them sensed that there was something going on, so everyone had come out.

As the motion got stronger, they could see the figure of the giant lizard from afar.

Huang Jiahui looked carefully, stunned. She grabbed Wang Shishi’s arm tight and mumbled, “Shishi, I’m not sure my eyes are working. You take a look and see if Luo Yuan is up there.”

The giant lizard was five meters tall. Luo Yuan was lying on its back, his body blocked by the giant lizard’s head. They could not see anything.

“I... I don’t know.” As Wang Shishi watched, she started getting nervous as well.

Cao Lin was there too, the astonishment in her heart ever the same. She peeped at the others, but they did not look any better than her.

Luo Yuan was their protector. Even if doomsday came around, he would still maintain the peace of this small place. She did not dare imagine what their future would look like without him. Her whole world turned dark. There was not even the slightest spark of life.

Suddenly, she noticed a bunch of people running towards them in panic.

Staying in a comfortable safe zone for so long had made her vigilance decrease. She had forgotten about the warning. She only realized that something was wrong when the other side aimed their rifles in their direction.

“Cooperate if you don’t want to die! Hurry up and take us somewhere safe!” Hei Ge shouted. He guessed that there had to be some secret hideout for these people to have survived around a mutated beast for so long. That was why he had run towards them without hesitation.

Huo Dong and the other men froze in the face of this unexpected situation. They did not answer the question.

Hei Ge was very nervous. He almost collapsed as he watched the giant lizard get closer. He raised his pistol. “Damn, does nobody talk around here?”

“What do you want? This is not some place you can act in such an uncivilized manner.” Lin Xiaoji had gotten mad. He had to hold his emotions back all the time, but he was not going to anymore. Not when a stranger was being so rude to him.

“How dare you talk back to me? Do you think I won’t fire?” Anxiety, fear, anger, irritation- all kinds of negative emotions surged in his heart, driving him out of his mind. Even his face looked twisted.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He raised his pistol, and started pulling the trigger until he ran out of bullets. Then he still kept shooting on with the empty gun.

Lin Xiaoji lowered his head to his chest. He saw fresh blood on his shirt before he fell to the ground.

Wang Shishi screamed in shock.

The gunshots had awakened Huang Jiahui, who had been passed out. She tried to grab the pistol on her waist, but she felt a cold, sharp object poke her in the back while a voice said, “Just don’t move. If you do, I will use my knife. Take us somewhere safe! Fast!”

Luo Yuan’s absence had made Huang Jiahui so desperate, she thought maybe death would not be such a bad idea.

Huang Yuying, who was also there, noticed that Huang Jiahui did not seem to care at all, and quickly shouted, “No, Sister Huang!”

“It’s you?” Huang Jiahui heard her familiar voice and turned around with a frown. There was fire in her eyes now. “You brought these men here? I took pity on you last time, but I never thought you’d be such an ungrateful person!”

“I... I’m not!” Huang Yuying was panicked. She wanted to explain, but she didn’t have the time to. All these men had come there because of her. She was also the one who had taken people to raid the supplies of the old house. No matter what she said, it would be hard to make them trust her.

Hei Ge was so angry, he felt like his head was about to explode. Why was nobody listening to him? Did he look too kind? Didn’t they see that he had guns and knives? Weren’t they scared of dying?

Alright, he would grant their wish. Just as he was about to reload his gun, somebody stopped him.

“Hei Ge, don’t waste time on these people. Who cares if they don’t want to leave? We can get to the villa first!” said the man in the suit.

Hei Ge held back his temper and nodded. He looked at the crowd and quickly headed into the villa. Huang Yuying hesitated for a while. Everybody was too nervous to care about her.

“There must be a safe place somewhere in here. Everyone scatter and search. Hurry up!” said Hei Ge after rushing into the villa.

The house was not very big, and there were a lot of people searching through it. It did not take them long to discover the entrance to the basement. Everyone entered it quickly, astonished by the amount of supplies inside it.

“There’s so much food! It must be more than one hundred packs. It’s enough to sustain us for half a year,” said Ma Lian in surprise. “Dried pork slices? Mineral water? Damn, they even have an electric generator! What are they doing, generating electricity?”

“Shit, they really are generating electricity. It’s connected to a cable,” the young man with the scars shouted.

“Damn, can you see all this? We’ll have plenty of time to observe it in the future. Now, don’t speak, everyone. Stay silent. If the mutated beast finds us, then everything will be over,” Hei Ge said angrily.

Everyone felt scared as the basement suddenly became quiet. That was when they realized that there were no sounds coming from outside. They looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

The giant lizard stopped at a grass field a few hundreds meters away from the villa, just like it always used to. It looked at the crowd indifferently before it closed its eyes and started snoring.

“Brother Luo, it’s Brother Luo! He’s on the back of the lizard!” screamed Wang Shishi.

Huang Jiashi stared at the back of the giant lizard and saw Luo Yuan lying there motionless. Her happiness turned fast into worry. “He’s injured! I don’t know if it’s serious or not. Wait here, I need to go and find out!”

Cao Lin was scared, but she still held Huang Jiahui back. “Don’t go, you will startle the lizard.”

“Don’t stop me!” Huang Jiahui said as she turned around. “Do it again, and we won’t be friends anymore.”

Cao Lin loosened her arms unconsciously. When she got her senses back, Huang Jiahui was already running towards the lizard.

“Wang Xiaojie, hurry up and stop her. Only you can do it!” said Cao Lin. If anything happened to Huang Jiahui and Luo Yuan awakened, they would all be screwed.

Wang Shishi shook her head, her eyes full of tears. “I want to go and see as well!”

She wiped off her tears as she cried and ran towards the giant lizard.

Everyone stared at each other in astonishment. They was nothing they could do. They couldn’t offend Luo Yuan or his women.

Traditional Chinese culture relied on hierarchy. It was important to learn how to be a better person before you could do anything. Pleasing others was something every adult going into society had to know. Displeasing someone that your fate depended on was definitely something to avoid.

“How? Should we go, too?” Huo Dong hesitated.

“Brother Luo saved all our lives. I have no way to repay him, even my life is not enough. I want to go too!” Ning Xiaoran said with red eyes.

“Let’s go together!” concluded Chen Xianfeng.

No once could say no under the circumstances, regardless of how unwilling they were to go.

“I... I need to take care of Lin Xiaoji,” Sun Xiaowu said in terror. His face turned red as everyone looked at him oddly.

Huo Dong smirked. Sun Xiaowu and Lin Xiaoji had never had a close relationship. They never even talked to each other, yet now Sun Xiaowu was saying that he wanted to take care of him. The man had gotten so many shots, even an evolved person would have died. There was nothing to be done to help him.

Lin Xiaoji had been with them for a really short period of time. He had showed zero emotion and he had been very arrogant. Other than the evolved people, he had treated everybody else like they were invisible. He had been lying over there for so long, yet nobody had actually gone to check whether he was really dead or not.

Huo Dong did not want to offend anyone, but Cao Lin was not afraid to do it. She sarcastically said, “He is already dead, how would you take care of him? Couldn’t you come up with a better excuse to flee? Aren’t you talented at bragging! You always talk about how you used to fight in high school. Where are your guts now?”

All this while, Sun Xiaowu had been admiring this intellectual beauty. He had always made an extra effort to please her whenever he could. Now, the woman he liked was insulting him in such a sarcastic, merciless way. His face turned red as his blood boiled. Young men don’t like to lose face. Once he got her out of his mind, he didn’t care about anything at all. Disrespectful words that he would not have dared say normally, now flew freely out of his mouth.

“What if I don’t want to go? You can’t drag me there to die with you, Luo Yuan might be strong, but it’s only because he was lucky enough to evolve. So what? He’s still injured now. You want to go lick his ass again?”

“Shut up!” Cao Lin did not look good.

“I’m not going to!” Sun Xiaowu knew there was no return. “He’s just an evolved person. Why do you need to try and please him all the time? I think you just can’t wait to have sex with him. One day, I will also evolve. You guys just wait!”

Cao Lin’s face kept switching between red and white. Her lips started bleeding from her biting them non-stop.

Suddenly, Chen Xianfeng ran towards him and kicked him to the ground. Sun Xiaowu scowled as he tried to get up. Before he could though, he got his chest kicked a few more times. He started crying as he covered his head.

“Damn it, just beat me to death if you dare,” Sun Xiaowu shouted, standing up unsteadily.

Cao Lin walked up to him and slapped him. “If you don’t want to die. just get out!”

The slap seemed to bring Sun Xiaowu back to his senses. He looked around, and saw everyone looking back at him distantly. Even Ning Xiaoran, who no one dared offend, had a poker face on. She looked at him like he was a stranger.

Her emotionless expression made him feel cold and dizzy.

What had he said? How could he have said something like that? He managed a stiff smile, trying to diffuse the situation. “I... I don’t know what...”

“Why don’t you just leave?” Bullying someone who was at disadvantage was poor form. Huo Dong sneered, “Do you want us to break your legs, too?”

Sun Xiaowu could not control his emotions. He knew that he could no longer stay there. He looked at Luo Yuan in the distance. Nobody knew whether he was alive or not. He thought of that bunch of fierce people, and he smiled as he said, “Fine, I will leave. I will leave! I hope you don’t regret this.”

He grinned and pointed at the crowd. He slowly backed off and dashed towards the villa. Soon, he’d gone through the doorway.

Everyone’s expression changed at the same time.

Sun Xiaowu knew everything about the area. Nobody knew whether Luo Yuan was dead or alive. Once Sun Xiaowu leaked information, the consequences would be unimaginable. Judging by the way he had acted just now, that kind of scenario seemed unavoidable.

“Damn it, we should not have just let him go like that!” Huo Dong said angrily.

They were just stepping out of their comfort zone. They were still not used to murdering people, but they had never expected their soft hearts to bring such consequences.

“With the giant lizard here, those people won’t dare do anything,” Cao Lin tried to comfort them and herself. “Let’s go and see how Brother Luo is. If he makes it, he will control the lizard and everything will be alright. Let’s go and find out.”

By this time, Huang Jiahui was already in front of the giant lizard. The closer she got to it, the bigger the lizard looked. Although it was lying on the ground, it was still three meters high and about seven meters long. It looked like a thick wall.

Normally, Huang Jiahui would not have dared go near it. She felt so stressed, it got harder to breath as she got closer to the beast. She only cared about Luo Yuan’s safety. She did not care about anyone else.

The giant lizard felt the creatures nearby and raised its transparent eyelids, exposing its huge cold eyes. It saw two small creatures approaching from the side and closed its eyes once again.

These creatures used to be its main food source. Its poor brain couldn’t remember how much of them it had eaten in its life. If it hadn’t been lucky enough to meet that creature and obey him, it would probably still be eating these kind of creatures.

For the giant lizard, this type of food was nothing. Their flesh was too soft and loose, almost tasteless. It didn’t feel full no matter how many of them it ate. It would only eat them when it had no other choice. It had no interest in this kind of food anymore.

No matter how hungry it was, it dared not eat them. After suffering several punishments, its poor brain finally knew this much– do not mess with these creatures, no matter how weak they look.

The two of them were shocked when the giant lizard opened its eyes. They sweated non-stop and almost slid down to the ground.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing! The giant lizard recognizes us!” Huang Jiahui said as she patted her own chest.

“Luo... Brother Luo had mentioned to me that the lizard won’t eat humans. We could even sit on it and play,” Wang Shishi muttered. She had almost been shocked to death. For a moment, she had thought she would really die. She still felt scared, and her body shivered non-stop.

“Yeah, Luo Yuan also mentioned that the giant lizard is very gentle,” said Huang Jiahui.

The two of them comforted each other and regained the courage to move forward once again.

After a few minutes, Huang Jiahui touched the giant lizard’s scales. She was trembling like crazy. “It’s too slippery. There is no place for us to place our feet while we climb. It’s impossible.”

“What if I bring him down using telekinesis?” said Wang Shishi.

Wang Jiahui was quiet for a while. There was no other way, she had to make a decision. “Give it a try, but be careful. Don’t let him fall.”

When Wang Shishi started using her power, the giant lizard reacted by lifting its eyelids. Realizing that the power was not a threat to it, it closed its eyes again.

The two of them used all their energy to move Luo Yuan down and set him on the ground carefully. In less than a minute, both of their backs were wet.

Meanwhile, the others had also walked over. Despite the fact that the giant lizard was not attacking them, everyone held their breath. They were too scared that they would alert the beast.

“I used to be a nurse. I know some basic first aid. Let me take a look, Sister Huang,” said Ning Xiaoran softly.

Huang Jiahui nodded and moved to make space for Ning Xiaoran.

Ning Xiaoran blushed as she took off Luo Yuan’s clothes. Everyone gasped in astonishment when they saw that the bulletproof vest was full of holes.

Huang Jiahui covered her mouth and turned her head away. Tears were rolling down on her cheeks.

Ning Xiaoran’s eyes were also red. She had to use all her might to take off the heavy bulletproof vest, revealing Luo Yuan’s strong upper body. His tenuous flesh stretched tight as he inhaled and exhaled like a precise machine, exuding a sense of strength and grace. Even the men could not help but stare.

Ning Xiaoran took a deep breath and softly pressed against his chest with her petite hands. When she turned him over, she saw that he had black and purple bruises all over his back.

She covered her mouth in fear. She carefully touched his back as she said, “Brother Luo must have spit up blood earlier. His back must have been hit by something heavy. It didn’t break, but he must have spiked a fever. His internal organs might have been injured.

“What can we do?” cried Wang Shishi.

“There is no medical equipment or medicine here. His survival depends solely on his luck.”

“No, Luo Yuan has suffered more serious injuries before. He always makes it, this time will be no different.” Huang Jiahui was having a small breakdown. She rushed towards Luo Yuan and held his hand. “Luo Yuan, please wake up. You will be alright.”

Wang Shishi was crying so hard, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

Huo Dong silently picked up a piece of the scale bulletproof vest. He tried to break it, but he could not even make the slightest tear. He had to use all his strength just to bend the piece a little.

His heart trembled. If such hard protective gear had been damaged, he could not imagine what kind of attack Luo Yuan had suffered this time. It was already a miracle that he was not dead.

Just when everyone thought that Luo Yuan would not make it, Huang Jiahui suddenly felt him move his hand slightly. The next moment, she saw Luo Yuan slowly open his eyes and sit up.

He looked right and left, and then looked at everyone and calmly said, “I did not expect to be here when I woke up. I’m fine, you can all go.”

He stood up under everyone’s glassy looks. Huang Jiahui and Wang Shishi felt like idiots. Just now they had been crying like there was no tomorrow, and Luo Yuan had just stood up like nothing had happened.

“Really? You’re fine? What about your back?” Huang Jiahui said suspiciously. She thought that maybe Luo Yuan was just pretending to be fine.

“I’m aware of my injuries. They’re just surface wounds, it’s no big deal,” Luo Yuan said while he picked up his clothes and put them on.

It was the truth. The injury on his back might look serious to others, but the system upgrade had included a recovery function. He had already healed most of the way. The rest would just depend on his self-healing skill. He would most likely have fully recovered in a few days’ time.

He suddenly felt a slight change on his face. He closed his eyes and felt a mysterious feeling flow through his body as he stepped on the ground. He could feel the land below his feet blending with him and the pulse of the ground beating.