Chapter 227 - 226: The Next Move

Chapter 227: Chapter 226: The Next Move

Feng Ling got a few grenades from Huangfu Miaomiao, holding one in her hand and tucking the rest into her hip pack.

She went into the hallway alone.

The Mouse Monsters sensed her approach and grew even more frantic, clawing violently from behind the barricade of tables and chairs. One had even squeezed its head through a gap, foul-smelling drool dripping down from its massive maw.

Feng Ling studied the angle of each gap, picked a spot, pulled the grenade’s pin, and tossed it through. She immediately ducked back into the room for cover.

The explosion was deafening, but Feng Ling was already used to the sound.

She walked back out, her expression unchanged.

The furniture in the hallway had been blown apart, and the Mouse Monsters were in pieces. A few that had been farther away weren’t quite dead, twitching in pools of blood. Feng Ling walked over and finished them off with her blade.

She turned and shouted upstairs, "Little Skeleton, find the tallest building nearby! Everyone else, follow me downstairs!"

A pool of Ghost Shadow slid out of the room, quickly disappearing down the stairs.

Xu Yiming and Li Qing came out of the room, with Ye Zheng following behind them.

Ye Zheng was awake now. She was always weak for a while after using her White Flame ability. Although she could walk on her own, her limbs were heavy, and she wouldn’t be able to fight for at least ten minutes or so.

The Cat Spider scuttled out from a corner, whimpering as it showed Feng Ling its injury. Only seven of its eight legs remained; one had been bitten off by a Mouse Monster.

Feng Ling’s mood soured.

They had only just begun exploring the Maze, and the team was already in such a state. The Cat Spider was injured, Ye Zheng was completely drained, the safe house was nowhere in sight, and they had no leads on the Divine Statue.

’How are we supposed to move forward now?’

Perhaps sensing the frustration and discouragement in Feng Ling’s expression, Li Qing suggested, "What if we head back to the Maze entrance? There are monsters there, but not as many. We could get some time to rest."

The look on Feng Ling’s face darkened. "We’ll talk about it downstairs."

’If we go back to the entrance now, this whole trip will have been for nothing.’ Feng Ling couldn’t accept that.

The group hurried downstairs.

They had been in such a rush earlier that they hadn’t paid attention to the building’s interior. As they made their way down, they realized it was a mahjong parlor.

The fourth floor was the owner’s residence. The floors below it held mahjong rooms and a tea lounge. On the first floor, an altar stood against the back wall, holding a statue of Guan Gong.

Feng Ling hurried past the altar. The moment she stepped outside, she ran into a few more Mouse Monsters, but she dispatched them quickly and efficiently.

But her mood didn’t lighten in the slightest.

In the street, the truck was listing to one side, half its tires flat. She had previously deemed the cargo bed unsafe, but now they had no other choice. She helped Li Qing and Ye Zheng in, tossed the Cat Spider in after them, and then stood guard outside with Xu Yiming.

Feng Ling asked Xu Yiming, "Can we still drive the truck?"

Xu Yiming answered frankly, "We could force it, but there’s a risk it’ll flip."

’Flip? Then we’re better off not driving it at all. She hated it when things went wrong.’

Feng Ling glared unhappily at the buildings lining the street. ’I know those buildings are still full of monsters, probably countless of them! Those filthy, ugly things... they damaged the truck, hurt my little guy, and left me trapped here, with no way forward or back!’

’The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I wish I could just blow up the entire street!’

’But the Maze is more than just this one street. What happens when I run out of grenades? Go back to the real world for more? How many trips would it take to blow the entire Maze flat?’

’Stop dreaming and figure out what to do next.’

Feng Ling furrowed her brow, deep in thought.

Xu Yiming studied Feng Ling’s expression and asked cautiously, "Do you need me to drive the truck back to the entrance?"

"By forcing it?" Feng Ling shot him a look, her tone self-deprecating. "No need. From this distance, it wouldn’t even take us three minutes to walk back."

Just then, rustling sounds came from the nearby buildings again.

"You’ve got to be kidding me. More of them?" Xu Yiming said, stunned. He raised his weapon and assumed a defensive stance.

A few seconds later, several humanoid rats scurried out from the buildings on either side.

But the Mouse Monsters didn’t attack Xu Yiming and Feng Ling. Instead, they scrambled over one another to get into the building that had just exploded. They dragged out bloody, mangled limbs and then scurried away just as quickly.

Xu Yiming couldn’t help but remark, "They seem to be constantly collecting the bodies. I wonder where they’re taking them."

Feng Ling thought, ’I could use my marking ability to see. But I have to stay here and wait for Ye Zheng to recover. I can’t spare the focus to check where that Mouse Monster I marked last night ended up.’

’If only we could find a safe house.’

’In a safe house, everyone could relax. We could control the pace of the fighting.’

’Run if you can’t win—that was my core strategy for survival. But right now, there was nowhere to run.’

A gray shadow swept across the ground. Feng Ling focused her gaze and realized it was Huangfu Miaomiao.

After absorbing the Chameleon, Huangfu Miaomiao’s Ghost Shadow could change colors, and right now, it was almost indistinguishable from the concrete ground.

She poked her head out of the Ghost Shadow, her voice filled with excitement. "I found something! I found something! There’s a street up ahead that’s completely safe! Every building is empty!"

But Feng Ling just frowned. "Is there a safe house there?"

Huangfu Miaomiao shook her head. "B-but it’s really safe over there! And some of the buildings are a story or two taller than the ones here..."

She looked at Feng Ling with hopeful eyes, worried that her scouting report wouldn’t be good enough.

"Let’s go take a look," Li Qing called out from the truck’s cargo bed. "If there isn’t a single Mouse Monster on that street, there must be something special about it."

Feng Ling glanced toward Ye Zheng in the cargo bed.

Because of the sedative, Ye Zheng’s responses were sluggish; she was in no condition to offer advice.

"Grab what we need. We’ll check out that street first. If we find nothing, we’ll head back to the Maze entrance," Feng Ling decided.

The group quickly gathered their things. With Huangfu Miaomiao leading, they set off for the safe street she had described.

The pedestrian street led to... another pedestrian street. The scene was so familiar it felt like they were walking in circles.

Huangfu Miaomiao moved ahead quickly, pointing at the shops on either side. "Here, here, and here—I checked them all. Not a single mouse."

Feng Ling’s eyes landed on a jewelry store with a metal roll-up security door. "How about we hole up in here for a bit?" she asked the others. "The door looks sturdy enough."

Everyone agreed.

Feng Ling took a quick look at the two shops next to the jewelry store; they were just as clean as Huangfu Miaomiao had said.

They entered the jewelry store and pulled down the roll-up door, plunging the room into darkness. Huangfu Miaomiao took out an emergency lantern to provide light.

"There’s a Divine Statue here, too." Feng Ling walked over to the altar in the center of the shop, squinting as she examined it. "The mahjong parlor had a statue of Guan Gong, and this is the God of Wealth. Any idea what that means?"