Chapter 166: Birds of a Feather

The morning light could hardly be called pleasant, but a person's mood in the early morning ought to be somewhat cheerful.

Yet at this moment, Zhou Kai's mood was far from cheerful—to be precise, he was terrified. The monster from yesterday had said it would come looking for him again today, and this filled him with dread.

Having clawed his way up through the criminal underworld during the apocalypse for so many years, he had not developed a fearless attitude toward death. In fact, he felt that anyone who claimed not to fear death was either mentally deranged or full of nonsense—with the latter holding an absolute majority.

The instinct to survive was deeply engraved in the deepest recesses of human genes, the most fundamental desire of mankind. Everyone wanted to live—even if it was merely for the sake of living.

Zhou Kai was no exception.

He wanted to stay alive, and he would sell out many things for the sake of survival. Although he was a gangster and inevitably had to risk his life on a regular basis, risking one's life was ultimately a gamble—and a gamble calculated after weighing the gains and losses. Zhou Kai had been quite lucky; ever since the apocalypse began, he had kept gambling and kept winning. After four years of relentless struggle, he had finally climbed to his current position as the syndicate's second-in-command.

Sitting in this position was not easy—and sitting here meant a comfortable life and a guarantee of future survival.

Before the end of the world, rich people feared death the most—similarly, after the end of the world, those who no longer had to risk their lives feared death even more.

After three years of gambling with his life, he had finally traded it for a position where he no longer had to risk his neck. Before his seat was even warm, he was now faced with a problem that made him feel as though he didn't even have a life left to gamble with—the monster from yesterday.

A very powerful monster—a creature that dared to block bullets with its face, something he had never witnessed before.

And it was also a very smart monster, one that could speak human language and reason like a human. In fact, since last night, Zhou Kai had been wondering whether this being was actually a mutated human.

But whether it was human or not was not Zhou Kai's primary concern. What he cared about most was whether that monster would take his life, or conversely, whether he could take the monster's life.

Another high-stakes gamble—the monster had said it would come for him today and told him to wait. He hadn't slept a wink all night, pondering what mindset he should adopt to face this powerful creature: should he attack it, or should he try to appease it?

This was a difficult choice.

If he chose to attack, the strike had to be as swift and devastating as thunder—if bullets didn't work, he'd use bombs; if bombs didn't work, he'd use rocket-propelled grenades. In any case, he had to eliminate it in the shortest time possible. Otherwise, when the monster came back for him, things would not go well.

Therefore, choosing to attack meant a fight to the death—given the monster's strength, if he couldn't kill it, he would be killed by it.

And if he chose to greet it with a smile—that would be equally difficult for him. Because he had no idea what the monster wanted him to do, nor whether he would be silenced afterward to keep the secret.

Thus, he had considered running away. But if he ran today, everything he had strived for over the years would soon be usurped by someone else. In the apocalypse, changes happened far too fast, and he didn't believe he could retain the extraordinary luck he had enjoyed for the past four years.

Consequently, none of these three choices seemed very appealing to him; every single one of them reeked of death. Hence, he hadn't slept all night, dwelling incessantly on this dilemma.

Until dawn, until he closed his eyes in agony, until he heard those heavy footsteps outside the door...

"You're a smart man..." The monster walked in, speaking in its unique vocal timbre. "You've made the right choice."

"Let's hope it is the right one." Opening his eyes, Zhou Kai's gaze was still met by a face wrapped in gauze. "What is it you want me to do for you?"

"Find people," Liu Chang said. "Find two groups of people. If you get any news about them, let me know."

Hearing that the other party wasn't making exorbitant demands or asking him to accomplish impossible tasks, and that it was merely a matter of finding people, half of Zhou Kai's heart settled down. "What kind of people?"

"Here, these are the two groups. I roughly drew them on the road." Liu Chang pulled several sheets of notebook paper from his chest. "One group consists of two women, a teenager, and three children leading them. The kids look roughly like this, about three years old."

"Oh." Zhou Kai looked at the crude handwriting on the paper, carefully studying the physical characteristics of these individuals. "They look quite ordinary. But the more ordinary they are, the harder they are to find."

"Mm," Liu Chang nodded. "That's why I need to enlist your power. Many hands make light work, after all."

"Alright, I'll do my utmost to send people out to help you find them," Zhou Kai nodded as well. "What about the other group?"

"The number of people in the other group is uncertain. At most there might be a dozen or so, and at least three. One is a teenage girl like this, with dyed blonde hair. There's also a child who looks almost identical to the three kids just now, but even younger. And another one looks like this." Liu Chang pointed to his own drawing and explained, "White skin, with a tail, over two meters tall. Looks very pretty, very strong. Uh, this kind of white monster might also be five meters tall, and the five-meter-one might be carrying an infant."

"This is..." Zhou Kai looked at the amphibious beings drawn by Liu Chang. "What kind of species are they?"

"An intelligent species. If you find them, send someone to notify me inside; absolutely do not approach them, they are very dangerous." Seeing Zhou Kai's serious expression, Liu Chang added uneasily, "Much more dangerous than me, especially when combined with those children, if a dozen or so gather together. That is..."

At this point, Liu Chang suddenly couldn't find the right adjective.

"What?" Hearing the tone in Liu Chang's voice, Zhou Kai also raised his head from the drawings.

"That is a force capable of subverting the world..." After pondering for a long time, he finally found an adjective that wasn't quite an adjective: "subverting the world." He added, "Especially the largest and the smallest ones. If your people hear any news about them from the residents, notify me immediately..."

"Understood," Zhou Kai nodded. He looked at the monsters in the drawings, then raised his eyes to look at Liu Chang's scale-covered face, and suddenly thought of the phrase "birds of a feather flock together."

"In that case, I'll be staying by your side for the time being..." Liu Chang said, looking into Zhou Kai's face. "This job isn't too hard for you, just a bit troublesome. But for safety's sake, I'll still be supervising. I'll be here with you during the day and leave at night. I won't pressure you too much. How does that sound?"

"Well, that sounds alright." Seeing that the monster was quite reasonable to talk to, Zhou Kai hesitated over and over again before finally asking, "So, if I help you find these people, or if I can't find them, what will you do?"

"If you find them, I'll leave immediately. If you can't..." Liu Chang paused here, recalling what Li Qingshui had told him in the past, and then continued, "If you can't find them, you die."