Chapter 467 - 451: Livestream Begins?!
Feng Ju stood in place, the shield in front of him bent and deformed from the rat swarm’s impact, emitting a creaking sound.
He clenched his teeth, the mechanical arm held tight against the metal plate, his ears filled with the frantic squeals of rats and the sound of dense impacts.
After a while, the pressure on the shield suddenly decreased, lessened, and lessened further...
"Hoo hoo—"
Feng Ju let out a laugh from his throat, a mix of relief and exhilaration, yet distorted enough to send chills down one’s spine.
"A bunch of stinky rats, get out of the way!"
He suddenly let out a venting growl, crushing a few rats that slipped through the gaps under his shoe, then forcefully flung the shield aside.
Smack—
Many of the rats clinging to the shield were flung off, those not shaken off slammed into the side wall of the pipe along with the shield, instantly crushed into a paste, juices flowing out.
Feng Ju glanced at the retreating rat swarm; though the ground was still layered with rats, he needed to stay alert to avoid being sneak-attacked and having his ’eggs’ gnawed off, but the remaining numbers weren’t enough to devour him anymore.
After all, his mechanical arm wasn’t made for show.
Feng Ju pushed the shield forward again, crushing another batch of rats, those not crushed scattered with panicked squeals.
Creatures like rats actually share some commonality with humans; both bully the weak and fear the strong.
When they gather in massive numbers, they’re bold enough to put a giant on the menu; but as their numbers dwindle, they’ll tremble and skitter around the giant’s feet, fearing being stomped into meat paste by a descending foot.
Feng Ju shook his shoulders, his neck sore and swollen as if it were about to snap, the high temperature of the mechanical arm burning the skin nearby, layers peeling off his neck to reveal red, swollen meat.
He gasped heavily, and once relaxed, scratched his itchy groin, then slowly scanned the slanted shaft beside him.
The shaft was empty, no sign of Dong Ping anymore.
In the sewage, some black plastic pieces were tightly entwined by moss.
Feng Ju frowned, walking heavily over, squatting down slowly, and reached out to pick up the fragments one by one.
After carefully examining for two seconds, he recognized them as the fragments of a walkie-talkie.
"It must’ve fallen out when I knocked him over just now, shattering the walkie-talkie," Feng Ju mused silently.
He stood up, casually tossing the walkie-talkie fragments back into the sewage, the pieces splashing briefly before disappearing into the muck.
Then, he stared into the depths of the pipe, his gaze resting for two seconds, a ruthless gleam flashing in his eyes, muttering:
"That Dong Ping guy probably can’t outrun that surging rat wave. Maybe by now, he’s been gnawed clean by the rats.
Were it not for saving Yuhuai, I wouldn’t have... sigh, Dong Ping is a father too after all; perhaps once he’s dead, he’ll be able to understand me."
Feng Ju had some feelings for Dong Ping still.
His blood was warm, not truly a cold-blooded monster, he lowered his head to mourn Dong Ping for a full three seconds.
Then, he turned and walked quickly toward another pipe.
Suddenly, a woman’s voice, urgent and filled with fear, hoarse to the point of distress, came from deep within the pipe.
Feng Ju’s heart skipped a beat as if gripped by an invisible hand.
The instinctual bond between father and daughter allowed him to instantly recognize it sounded just like Feng Yuhuai.
"Yuhuai, you’ll be okay, just hold on a little longer, Dad’s coming..."
Feng Ju’s lips trembled as he murmured to himself, comforting himself as if encouraging his daughter ahead.
His pace unconsciously quickened, almost sprinting within the pipe.
However, he could go no faster—the visibility inside the pipe was extremely low, the sewage was slick and hard to navigate, plus the rats scurrying past were an obstacle.
Suddenly, Feng Ju slipped and fell hard to the ground.
Two slower rats were crushed under his chest, their foul blood splattering onto his face with a nauseating stench.
A severe rear-end collision!
"Ptooey!"
Feng Ju spat out dirty blood in irritation and quickly scrambled to his feet, though his supporting right arm stiffened for a moment.
A faint light appeared about forty to fifty meters ahead.
Feng Ju’s pupils contracted; he instinctively craned his neck forward, squinting slightly to see ahead.
Soon, he determined the light didn’t come from Feng Yuhuai but rather from three sneaky figures.
Feng Ju strained to make out details in the dim light, finally identifying the shapes as three humans, not monsters, before climbing to his feet and rushing toward the light.
"Two men, one woman, looks like they’re carrying a camera... Are they journalists from a TV station?"
Feng Ju switched to detective mode and quickly deduced:
"Running into the sewers to film monsters? Have TV journalists become this desperate for ratings these days? Perhaps they caught sight of Yuhuai?"
Ren Xuan and Tang An focused the camera lens on Zuo Bai, capturing the cool swaying of his Bone Snake in the frame, exuding a strong scientific aura.
Meanwhile, Feng Yuhuai was desperately fleeing, like a female rat who had lost her mate, emitting twisted screams.
Anyone could tell that her being caught again was only a matter of time.
Like lab mice, forever unable to escape the grasp of scientists, unable to alter this destiny.
Thus, Ren Xuan and Tang An didn’t give Feng Yuhuai much screen time.
It wasn’t out of stinginess, but in this "stage" of the sewer, Feng Yuhuai’s "star power" had dropped so much, now only slightly higher than "Beautiful Spider," unworthy of central focus on camera.
"Hang on, did you hear something strange? Like rats squeaking?" Ren Xuan suddenly asked.
Tang An replied without thinking, "It’s normal for there to be rats in the sewers."
But Ren Xuan frowned, looking back over his shoulder.
The next second, his neck stiffened as if frozen, his voice starting to tremble:
"But what if it’s not just one or two, but a whole lot of them...?"
By this time, Tang An also heard the noise from behind, which was growing clearer, more chaotic, and closer.
He slowly turned his head, spotting the green network signal light flashing on Deng Jiajia’s camera from the corner of his eye, his heart leaping with joy as he was about to say: "We have a signal, we can reconnect the live..."
Before the words were finished, a rat climbing along the wall leapt into the air and dived straight into his mouth, forcibly choking the remaining sentence back into his throat.
Not metaphorically, but literally physically clogging his throat.
But not only was his voice choked back, Tang An felt as if his heart had been blocked, vision blurring as he nearly blacked out.
He froze for a moment, then frantically grasped the rat’s long tail, yanking hard, producing strange gurgling noises from his throat.
"We have a signal?"
Focusing intently, Deng Jiajia immediately picked up on her companion’s reminder, her face showing intense delight.
Her body reacted faster than her mind could keep up with; almost reflexively, her fingers flew over the device, successfully reconnecting to Light Prism TV Station’s channel signal and switching back to live mode...