Chapter Forty-Seven: The Cub

The Fat Man looked back at the red-eyed rats, the muscles in his arms slowly tensing.

I did not know if he was truly going to drag a person down or simply tear that length of intestine apart. In that moment, I realized that using someone else's flesh to feed those rats was hardly any better than what Wei Lin had done.

Yet, the consequence of hesitation now would surely be death. Even if those things appeared motionless, I estimated that if they truly swarmed, I would be reduced to a skeleton in ten seconds.

Just as the Fat Man was about to pull downwards, the intestine suddenly went limp and began to drop toward the ground.

I wondered what was happening, but immediately, a dark, amorphous mass fell from above.

Fortunately, the Fat Man and I had stepped back a distance. The object—whatever it was—crashed into the ground, splattering blood and flesh. Some sticky, minced-meat-like substance flew onto my face.

I thought it was human flesh and, in a panic, wiped at it with my hand, but after a few swipes, it only smeared further across my face.

"Stop it, that's not human," the Fat Man hissed in a low voice.

I stopped and turned to look at the fallen object.

At first glance, I saw that our gear bags were covered in blood and gore. Next to the bags lay a pitch-black mass, revealing white viscera within.

It had been smashed beyond recognition; it looked neither human nor like any animal I recognized. After staring at it for several moments, it struck me that it looked like a ball of flesh with dark skin.

The intestines had fallen from this very thing.

After such a loud commotion, the red-eyed rats still showed no reaction. I looked around uneasily, and suddenly, amidst the putrid, nauseating stench, I caught the scent of agarwood.

I looked at the Fat Man, who was staring at the object on the ground with a grim expression.

"What's going on? Where is this fragrance coming from?"

After I asked, the Fat Man pointed at the pile of remains.

I sniffed and realized the scent was indeed drifting from there. I asked again, "Why would there be the smell of agarwood on that?"

The Fat Man said in a low voice, "For no reason other than that it is likely a 'flesh sarcophagus'."

I was stunned. "A what?"

The Fat Man glanced nervously at the red-eyed rats before turning back to me. "Have you ever heard of a 'corpse-soul fetus'?"

I shook my head immediately. The term sounded familiar, but upon closer thought, I knew nothing about it.

"I don't have time to explain it all to you now. In short, these flesh coffins and flesh sarcophagi are similar to corpse-soul fetuses. They are made from the flesh and viscera of the dead—human or animal—molded into the shape of a coffin. Do you see that white mass in the middle of that pile?"

The Fat Man pointed ahead. I saw a bulging, translucent, white object about half a meter high amidst the scattered, bloody remains.

The Fat Man continued in my ear, "The flesh and viscera we see are the sarcophagus, and that white object is the coffin. There is almost certainly a complete corpse inside."

"How could anyone do something so disgusting?" I gasped.

"They wanted to craft a coffin in the image of a womb and placenta. To put it bluntly, it’s a formalistic attempt to mimic a corpse-fetus, fantasizing that the dead person inside might one day come back to life." The Fat Man shook his head. "It's bloody foolish. If wrapping a corpse like this could make them live again, then..."

Before the Fat Man could finish his sentence, the white, translucent object in front of us suddenly shuddered. The color drained from both our faces.

"Fatty, is that stuff you're talking about even reliable? Don't tell me it's actually coming back to life!" I demanded, my eyes wide.

The muscles in the Fat Man's face twitched. "That's impossible. If flesh coffins and sarcophagi could bring people back to life, there wouldn't be any dead people left in the world."

"Could it be a reanimated corpse?" As I spoke, the object bulged again.

"That's not possible either," the Fat Man said.

However, just as we were utterly bewildered, the red-eyed rats surrounding us began to slowly surge toward the center.

With tens of thousands of large rats crawling forward, the sound was deafening. The Fat Man and I were surrounded, with no room left to struggle.

We feared the rats far more than the flesh coffin, but strangely, after they swarmed around it, they stopped.

The Fat Man and I were baffled by their bizarre behavior. Then, we saw three or four red-eyed rats dart onto the flesh coffin behind us in the blink of an eye.

Looking over, I saw those three rats biting into the white coffin.

"Hey," the Fat Man said, sounding somewhat relieved. "Look, it seems these rats really do prefer rotting meat."

However, looking closer, I felt things were not as simple as the Fat Man claimed. Although the three rats had bitten into the coffin, they only tore it open; they did not eat the flesh.

They quickly bit three gashes into the coffin, and immediately, it split into three pieces like a peeled orange. A mass of flesh-colored, slime-covered things slid out onto the ground.

When I saw clearly what it was, I couldn't help but gasp.

The things sliding out were dozens of newborn, infant-like, fleshy little rats.

They were stuck together by slime, slowly rolling onto the ground and scattering. Those flesh-colored creatures, their eyes not even open yet, began to tear into the surrounding rotting meat and viscera. Some of the smaller rats trapped in the middle even began biting their own kin.

I couldn't see the teeth in those little things' mouths, but they were by no means slow. In the blink of an eye, a third of the massive pile of flesh and viscera had been devoured.

"Why is the coffin full of little rats?" the Fat Man asked in disbelief.

I had no answer for him, but I began to understand why those red-eyed rats hadn't treated us the way they had treated Yang Lang.

It wasn't because anyone was particularly handsome, nor because the Fat Man in his boxers was particularly attractive; it was because they wanted to use us to feed their young.

Turning around, we saw that the adult red-eyed rats had blocked our retreat. We had no choice but to back away toward the direction of the hatchlings.

Suddenly, all the red-eyed rats began to shriek in excitement, as if roaring at us. The sound they made was extremely shrill. Though not particularly loud, the Fat Man and I quickly covered our ears in pain. I also felt my vision blurring, and a sense of vertigo began to set in.

"Get the alcohol out," the Fat Man shouted through gritted teeth.

I knew what he intended to do. "There are so many rats; that little bit of alcohol won't burn more than a few of them."

The Fat Man turned to me, and I saw that his eyes were bloodshot. He wore an expression of absolute resolve. "Pour the alcohol on me. Dammit, I'd rather burn to death than be fed to them."

The Fat Man's intensity made me tremble. Gritting my teeth, my own blood began to boil with rage. *If this is the end, so be it.*

I quickly fished the bottle of alcohol from my bag. The Fat Man and I locked eyes, and I prepared to douse us both.

Just at that moment, the red-eyed rats on the ground suddenly tilted their heads high, as if they had seen something in the darkness above our heads.