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At dawn, beneath the plane trees.
The sunlight is warm, a gentle breeze brushes by, the green leaves sway, and dappled shadows flit across the area.
The short-haired boy in blue-and-white school uniform leans against the tree, devouring a steaming nori rice ball, gazing absentmindedly at the sparkling canal waters before him.
Li Cheng, a junior in high school, an orphan living temporarily with his aunt's family.
Due to certain reasons, the family atmosphere is somewhat bizarre. Li Cheng cycles to school each morning, using the excuse of a liking for the rice balls from a snack stall east of the school to deliberately take a longer route, avoiding walking with his cousins who attend the same high school.
Without realizing it, the nori rice ball was now finished. He crumpled the plastic bag into a ball and tossed it into the trash can, then said to the stall owner, "Uncle Chen, I'm off."
The stall owner nodded, "Mhm, be careful on the road."
Pushing his bike, Li Cheng hesitated, then asked, "Uncle Chen, will you set up your stall tonight?"
The stall owner looked somewhat puzzled, "Of course, I need to support my child's education."
"Then, be careful. The town hasn't been very peaceful lately."
That's all Li Cheng could say before he cycled towards the school campus.
There have been more and more bizarre urban legends circulating on the internet over the past year.
Such as buses that only operate at night, filled with corpses;
The murderous texts that kill after seven days of receipt;
Store mannequins wearing human skin, masquerading as humans;
Li Cheng even saw a short video online—some teenagers playing with skateboards in a park, accidentally knocked over a trash can, and a charred head swarming with maggots fell out.
Li Cheng used to frequent that park as a child and was therefore very familiar with it, and the timestamp on the video was just one week prior.
What's more ridiculous is that there's no trace of this case on the domestic internet. The park remains bustling as usual, with throngs of people.
Out of some kind of worry, Li Cheng specially ordered a Swiss Army Knife from Taobao and placed it in the outer pocket of his backpack—although he knew that if danger truly struck, such a short knife would probably offer little help.
The bike crossed several intersections and turned into a tree-lined boulevard. Beyond the procession of luxury cars, the gilded lettering of Zhuoyue High School was faintly visible.
As an elite private school offering comprehensive education from middle to high school and ranking high in the city, Zhuoyue's student body is either wealthy and powerful, exceptionally talented academically, or ordinary, with families who pay a significant sum for their children to attend.
Mixed among the flashy students, the unremarkable Li Cheng entered the school and, alongside the murmurs of study, walked into the sophomore Class 5 classroom and sat down.
"Li, you're finally here. Lend me your homework to copy. I was up all night playing that VR horror game produced by Prometheus Company, gotta say, it's really addictive."
Han Letian, a childhood friend, deftly pulled out a math workbook from Li Cheng's backpack hanging on the chairback, and began copying against several other homework books, occasionally muttering, "Is the answer to this question B, or 13? Why do you write so illegibly?"
"Time to hand in the homework."
The girl at the desk in front of him, Mu Yulu, turned around and, seeing Li Cheng daydreaming, asked, "What's on your mind, zoning out like that?"
"I was wondering, the third smartest animal on Earth is the dolphin, the second smartest is the chimpanzee,"
Li Cheng turned his head and earnestly asked, "So what's the smartest animal?"
"You're spouting nonsense again. You seem in a good mood."
Mu Yulu rolled her eyes, took the English homework from his desk, and handed it to the student in front."
Mu Yulu, Li Cheng, and Han Letian, the three had known each other since childhood.
Li Cheng was exceptionally energetic and capricious as a child, perfectly fitting the stereotype of a broad-minded lunatic and a gleeful mentally-challenged child.
Things like collecting Shariputra at a crematorium, tossing dead bodies in the morgue;
Nosebleeding and believing himself to be reincarnated from a tomato;
Handing out English listening exercises to hard-of-hearing elderly during school visits to nursing homes for hearing practice;
Cosplaying Dead Poets Society while bidding farewell to a substitute teacher;
And almost getting taken to the police station by terrified police uncle and auntie for passionately inhaling white allergy nose powder at the subway security check, while blissfully exclaiming "so, so, so" contentedly.
It was only with age that he mellowed down quite a bit and became a normal person.
Or at least, appeared to be a normal person.
"Good morning."
Ye Jiaying, a girl in the class, walked into the room, smiled brightly at Li Cheng, and sat in the seat to his left.
"And to you," Li Cheng paused for a moment before responding.
"No, Li," Han Letian said teasingly, nudging him with his elbow, "That answer was too low energy."
Li Cheng glanced at him and whispered, "Then what? Got any better lines?"
Han Letian said gravely, "You should say, 'It's only a good morning when I see you.'"
"Yuck, can you be any slicker? The US military is gonna come after you for that much oil," Li Cheng rolled his eyes, "Just copy your homework, will you."
Campus life was quiet as always.
Classes, lunch, naps, dismissal wrapped up a normal day. Li Cheng left with his bag over his shoulder and cycled to the Zhao's Dessert Shop for a part-time job.
Shop owner Uncle Zhao was nice, offering a sufficient hourly wage. When the shop wasn't busy, Li Cheng delivered cakes as a delivery rider. If it got busy, he would help out. After a year of practice, he was almost ready to graduate.
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After hours of work at the dessert shop, I glanced at the time. It was close to 11 p.m.
Li Cheng called out, "Uncle Zhao, I'm off work."
"Oh, alright." The owner's voice came from behind the plastic curtain, "Take the milk tea on the table with you. A customer canceled their order last minute, don't let it go to waste."
"Okay, thank you, uncle."
Li Cheng put on his backpack, grabbed the milk tea, and rode his bike away from the dessert shop.
The night was deep, and the alleys of the old city were narrow and dark. The young man sipped his milk tea, lazily pedaling along.
Boom—
A dull sound came from the distance, unlike thunder.
Li Cheng looked in the direction of the noise and saw the city lights suddenly go out in the distance. From high-rise neon lights to street lamps, all plunged into darkness.
Boom!
Another muffled sound, and another area of the city went dark.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sounds got faster and the whole city seemed to be hit by a major power outage, sinking into pitch black.
Only the street lights in Li Cheng's area were still emitting a faint glow.
The sudden eerie situation made his heart beat uncontrollably. He instinctively took out his phone, and the upper right corner showed no signal.
What's going on...
As he wondered in confusion, a strange force hit Li Cheng's back, hurling him, along with his bike, against a brick wall surrounding a residential complex.
"Cough, cough."
Stars twinkled in Li Cheng's eyes as he coughed and got up, only to see that it was a deformed monster that had knocked him over.
It was like a hybrid of a spider and a killer bee, as tall as a person, with four pairs of compound eyes on its head, and nested within the compound eyes were three blood-red droplets, resembling red amber. It had two pairs of thin membranous wings on its back, its body covered in brownish-yellow fuzz, and the tail ended with a long, narrow stinger.
Pfft, pfft!
The creature spat out dense webs, accurately covering Li Cheng's mouth, nose, and hands, sticking him firmly to the stone wall. He couldn't break free.
It was only then that Li Cheng noticed he wasn't the only victim on this street—there were two others stuck to the wall opposite him.
One was dressed in a suit, seemingly a white-collar worker just off work; the other wore a cycling helmet and a standard blue vest, apparently a designated driver.
All three prey were stuck to the wall while the bee-like monster hovered close leisurely, coming in front of the first victim. Ignoring the latter's struggling and screaming, it pierced his chest with its stinger, and began to suck slowly.
Accompanying the "gurgling" noise, the creature's bloated tail squirmed, pumping out blood and bile like a water pump.
The victim's thorax and abdomen visibly shriveled at a pace visible to the naked eye. Loose skin hung from his bones.
The entire feeding process was neither too fast nor too slow.
The designated driver next to him was terrified and desperately kicked against the wall, trying to break free. But with his hands trapped, it was in vain.
Li Cheng was powerless to assist. His mouth, nose, cheeks, and jaw were smothered by the web, unable to breathe, the suffocation from lack of oxygen rushing to his brain, his vision gradually darkening. He was in a dire situation.
He vaguely saw the bee-like creature having sucked the first victim dry, and then it plunged its stinger into the second person's chest.
The cries for help from the designated driver quickly weakened. Like a snuffed-out candle.
At the brink of life and death, Li Cheng's agonized expression suddenly calmed, as if his brain had been submerged in icy water, his thoughts becoming extremely clear.
The first thing was to escape. His left wrist was glued by the silk and immobile; only the cuff of his right hand was stuck to his clothes, leaving some space for movement.
He twisted his entire body with all his might, retracting his right hand and pulling it out through the neckline of his shirt.
One arm was free, and he tried peeling off the web on his face, only to find that the silk had solidified and was extremely tough, impossible to tear off.
With the suffocation growing more intense, Li Cheng reached back and unzipped the outermost compartment of his backpack where the Swiss Army Knife he used for self-defense was hidden.
He took out the knife and unfolded it, using the sharp blade to desperately cut the webs on his face. Twenty seconds passed, and only the outermost layer was severed.
His lungs were in torment as if they were about to explode. His heart pounded as if about to leap from his chest, his vision growing darker and darker.
The only way to save himself remained clear and cold in his mind.
With painful expression becoming serene, Li Cheng positioned the blade horizontally in front of his throat, right below the Adam's apple about 2.5 centimeters.
Then, he cut fiercely.
His throat slit, blood flowing, Li Cheng arched his chest, clamped the knife with his chin, and with his feet, he reached for the milk tea not far away and kicked it like a ball, bringing it in front of him.
He didn't do this for the tea but for the straw.
Snap!
His right hand precisely and accurately caught the thick straw in mid-air, inserting the tip of the straw at an angle through the incision made by the knife, into his windpipe.
Breath—Inhale—
Oxygen was greedily pumped into the lungs, and the darkness that clouded his vision due to the lack of oxygen quickly faded away. Li Cheng was revived.
For the time being.