Chapter 164: Chaos

The gunmen who had been waiting outside and had received the order to "prepare to fire" reacted almost instinctively when they caught sight of that rapidly moving blur, pulling the triggers in their hands.

Rat-tat-tat!

The crisp reports of semi-automatic rifles rang out, but the figure had already flashed past. In two or three strides, it rushed out of the warehouse's encirclement and vanished beyond the crowd's line of sight.

Clamping the captain under his arm, Liu Chang ran all the way out of the office building without encountering any further obstruction. After all, he had previously been able to enter and leave the Zhengzhou military research facility three times at will; dealing with a common city gang was like using a butcher's cleaver on a chicken. Right now, however, he had no mood to butcher chickens—he only had the urge to eat chicken.

Dragging the man who looked like someone in charge all the way to an abandoned residential house, Liu Chang tossed him directly onto the ground.

Liu Chang's state of mind was extremely complicated. Physically, his body was undergoing constant changes; wrinkled skin and scales were breaking out all over him, and he could feel deeper alterations taking place within his muscle fibers. His muscles, internal organs, and bones were all shifting and churning, and the genetic code at the very depths of his body had been rewritten, causing these elements to transform accordingly.

Perhaps driven by the body's exorbitant demand for energy due to evolution, he felt overwhelmingly hungry. This blinding hunger was a deeply unpleasant sensation, yet it did not drive him to commit greater slaughter, because his mind remained relatively clear. Therefore, after tossing the captain aside, Liu Chang closed his eyes for three seconds before opening a mouth full of sharp teeth and fangs to pose his first question.

"Gang leader?" His voice was thick and raspy; the alteration of his physical traits had already stripped his speech of its normal tone.

"Yeah." Having been seized by a monster and now facing interrogation, the man on the ground felt a complex mix of emotions dominated by terror.

"What's your name?" Liu Chang's second question.

"Zhou Kai."

"Are you in charge?"

"Huh?"

"I'm asking you, does your word carry weight in the gang?"

"Oh, pretty much. Aside from the boss, it's just me." Zhou Kai answered truthfully, attempting to use his words to prove his own value for survival. "The gang doesn't have a massive armed force, and there aren't usually many conflicts. If a real armed conflict breaks out, the military helps smooth things over anyway. I'm the gang's head of security; aside from the boss, my word carries the most weight."

"Do you want to live?" Liu Chang asked.

"I do," Zhou Kai answered honestly.

"All right. First, take me back to the warehouse. That warehouse full of food—I want it."

"Fine, no problem." Zhou Kai looked at Liu Chang. "Just... your face..."

"It's fine, I'll wrap it up." As he spoke, Liu Chang found a piece of burlap in the dilapidated house and wrapped it around his face and neck. "Let's go. Hurry up."

"Oh."

Hungry urgings pressed Liu Chang onward. Walking right beside Zhou Kai, he had no fear that the man would fail to cooperate. It was evident that the fellow was a smart man who knew whether or not he should resist, and knew how to weigh his choices between life and death.

Just like that, the two of them had barely left the office building before turning right back around. In less than ten minutes, while some gunmen and workers were still searching and cleaning up the scene, the missing Zhou Kai returned—except this time, he had a fully wrapped, bizarre-looking person by his side.

"Boss, why are you...? You're still alive? That's great!" The moment Zhou Kai entered the office building, a sharp-eyed gunman spotted him. "Just now, I couldn't find you anywhere in the warehouse. When you told me to open fire earlier, I shot, but I missed and that guy got away. Man, that guy ran so fast—like a puff of smoke. All I heard was a *whoosh* sound, and *poof*—he was gone. Weird, right?

"Even though I didn't see clearly, Xiao Qiang said in a daze that he saw you being tucked under that guy's arm and carried away..."

"Cut the damn crap." Hearing the gunman's questions, Zhou Kai glanced furtively at Liu Chang, then frowned at the talkative gunman and snapped, "Stop rambling, it was just a misunderstanding earlier. This is a leader from the city government who doesn't want to see strangers. We were just messing around with you guys, now get lost."

"Oh." Hearing Zhou Kai's reprimand, though the gunman was filled with a bellyful of doubt, he still possessed enough situational awareness to realize the captain didn't want to talk about what had just happened, so he obediently turned and prepared to walk away.

"Uh, pass the word along: the area around the warehouse doesn't need to be cleared, and there's no need to report today's matter to superiors. I'll handle it." Having dismissed the gunman, Zhou Kai made a welcoming gesture toward Liu Chang, performing his role quite adequately, as if Liu Chang truly were a high-ranking military official. "Come this way, please."

Thus "escorted" all the way inside the food warehouse by Zhou Kai, after clearing the surrounding people away, Zhou Kai consciously bolted the door shut and stood guard by the entrance, carving out a private space for Liu Chang.

"You handled that well!" Seeing that no one was disturbing them, Liu Chang removed the gauze from his head and wasted no more words, plunging headfirst back into the pile of food. Soon after, the sound of chewing—as if ten people were dining at once—echoed from within.

As for Zhou Kai, he stood by the door, watching the entire scene in astonishment.

This meal lasted continuously for over three full hours. A massive quantity of biscuits and grain entered Liu Chang's stomach, where they were instantly digested by violently secreted gastric juices. Over the course of more than three hours, Liu Chang consumed an amount of food equivalent to two and a half times his own body weight. Only after devouring half the provisions in the warehouse did he finally stop.

The sensation of hunger no longer raged like an avalanche, and his mood calmed down somewhat.

"Thanks for your help today. I'll come look for you again in a couple of days." Having finished the food, Liu Chang grimaced at the scales tightening on his face, wrapped himself back up in the gauze, and opened the warehouse door to leave.

Walking all the way out of the office building, although he drew quite a few curious gazes, no one stepped forward to block his path. Proceeding smoothly outward, Liu Chang finally reached the street.

Not daring to return to Li Feng's stronghold, he randomly picked an empty, abandoned house and walked inside. In this apocalyptic era, nothing was more abundant than such uninhabited, vacant dwellings lining the streets.

Upon entering the house, Liu Chang walked over to a dilapidated dressing table, picked up a shattered piece of glass from the floor, wiped it clean, and looked at his own reflection.

"Sigh, how did I end up looking like this?" Scales and folds covering his entire face, paired with pitch-black pupils—this appearance was even more terrifying than when his face had been smashed in the past. After inspecting his face, Liu Chang looked down at his arms, then stripped off his clothes and lowered his gaze to his body.

He looked like a lizardman.

Bright red scales, rough wrinkled skin, bulging muscles...

"Truly ugly," Liu Chang muttered, looking down at his body with sincere conviction.

"What on earth is going on here? Why did such a drastic transformation happen so suddenly? If this is reverse evolution, shouldn't it happen step by step?" (To be continued)