Chapter 75: Cat and Mouse
Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe brought Xiao Hei with them and followed a young soldier to the base’s grain warehouse. It was an enormous building. On the floor lay a small pile of burlap sacks and some cardboard boxes, all of which had been gnawed open by the mutated rats, leaving nothing but scattered food scraps across the ground.
“We really couldn’t deal with these rats anymore, so the commander had us move the remaining grain to the storage facility in the back,” the young soldier said bitterly, pointing to several very obvious rat holes in the corner. “But even then, we still couldn’t guard against them.”
All that grain had been enough to feed the entire base for two or three months—yet it had all been ruined by those rats.
They followed the soldier to the new storage facility. The entire warehouse had been reinforced with sheet metal and steel plates—not just the floor and walls, but even the ceiling. Even so, the mutated rats had still managed to dig holes through the ground. Their teeth and claws were simply too sharp; they could even pierce steel plates. If this went on, the base might well be destroyed by these rats.
All they could do was post guards around the clock in every corner of the warehouse. The moment a rat hole was discovered, they would pour sulfuric acid into it and then pack it full with all kinds of filling materials.
“Meow~!”
As they were talking, Xiao Hei’s ears twitched, and it suddenly turned its head toward the right-hand corner.
A moment later, a grating scritch-scratch sound rang out. The section of the corner that had been repeatedly reinforced with sheet metal was slowly being dug open, forming a large hole. The claws and teeth of these mutated rats were clearly enhanced.
“Xiao Hei, could you help catch some rats?” Su Ruizhe asked in a coaxing tone, gently squeezing Xiao Hei’s soft little paw.
Xiao Hei lazily yawned, lay in Su Ruizhe’s arms, and flicked its tail, clearly uninterested in the suggestion that its human servant was making.
“Two cans of tuna?”
Xiao Hei lifted its head, blinked its large yellow eyes, and stuck out its tongue to lick the tip of its nose. It didn’t respond, but it seemed somewhat interested—though not entirely satisfied.
Seeing that there was hope, Su Ruizhe quickly pressed on, lowering his voice enticingly. “And I’ll cook you some fish soup tonight?”
“Meow!” Xiao Hei let out a long cry and rubbed its head against Su Ruizhe’s palm, as if to say—Deal.
Su Ruizhe couldn’t help smiling, reaching out to tap its little nose. “You little rascal—don’t you dare become a spirit after the founding of the nation.”
Xiao Hei didn’t understand Su Ruizhe’s words. It shook its ears, crouched, and leaped from Su Ruizhe’s arms onto the ground. Padding silently on cat paws, it approached the rat hole that was about to be breached. Its upper body pressed low to the floor, hindquarters slightly raised, tail gently swaying from side to side as it assumed an attacking posture.
The young soldier watching from the side hesitated, wanting to say something. It was true that cats were natural enemies of rats—but these were mutated rats that could bite chunks of flesh off people. How could a kitten that looked only two or three months old possibly catch a rat? He wanted to persuade them to pick the cat up and bring it back, but seeing how confident the two of them were, he swallowed his words.
The next moment, a gray rat shot out of the hole. It was nearly the size of an adult rabbit, fat and enormous, clearly having eaten very well lately.
Perhaps because it had tangled with humans so many times and always escaped unscathed, the rat had grown much bolder. The moment it emerged from the hole, it dashed straight toward the food, without so much as a glance to the side. It never noticed the small black cat with round golden eyes, head lowered and back arched, lying in wait.
Suddenly, Xiao Hei lunged forward, its little paw slamming heavily onto the rat’s back. The tiny black cat was only the size of two palms, yet in one strike it flattened a rat several times its own size to the ground.
The rat was stunned, sprawled on the floor, kicking frantically as it tried to get back up. Xiao Hei, however, had no intention of giving it that chance. It raised its paw, revealed its sharp claws, and slashed viciously at the rat’s neck, effortlessly ending the mutated rat’s life.
“Screee!” The rat let out a shrill shriek as it died.
The young soldier stared in astonishment. He never would have imagined that this little kitten had actually caught a rat.
“Meow~!” Having successfully completed its mission, Xiao Hei sat beside the rat’s corpse and proudly lifted its small head.
It wanted to lick its paw, but seeing the rat’s blood smeared on it, it disgustedly set the paw back on the floor.
“Well done!” Zhan Yun said with a broad grin. Just as he was about to walk over with Su Ruizhe to pick the kitten up, he felt a violent tremor run through the ground.
“What’s going on?”
“Could it be an earthquake?”
“But earthquakes are rare in the south, aren’t they?”
“Oh no—it’s a mutated rat swarm!” The young soldier’s face had already gone pale. When the commander had previously led the entire base in a rat extermination campaign, there had been one outbreak of a mutated rat swarm as well—though nothing as severe as this.
Several of his comrades had been injured during that earlier swarm and were still being treated at the base’s medical center.
“Run!” The young soldier shoved Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe toward the warehouse exit while immediately raising his gun and aiming it at the rat hole.
Sure enough, dense masses of rats began pouring out of the hole one after another, each one fat and powerful.
The young soldier sprayed them with his submachine gun, but quickly realized it was having little effect. He immediately pressed a hand to a grenade at his waist and shouted at Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe, “Go! Lock the door! Go, now!”
If the rats escaped, the damage to the base would be enormous. In his desperation, the only option left to him was to perish together with these damn rats using a grenade.
Even if it couldn’t kill all of them, killing as many as possible was still something. Once Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe escaped, they could warn the commanders to prepare in advance and minimize the base’s losses.
With a click, the sound of the warehouse door slamming shut rang out. Just as the young soldier was about to pull the pin and detonate the grenade, he suddenly heard someone say, “Wait.”
He turned around and saw that Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe hadn’t left at all.
“Why aren’t you leaving?!” The young soldier was so anxious that sweat was practically pouring from his nose. In a situation like this, there was no need for all three of them to stay behind and die.
Neither Su Ruizhe nor Zhan Yun said much. Zhan Yun directly activated his ability, using gravity to temporarily pin down the mutated rats that were surging toward them like a tidal wave.
Meanwhile, Su Ruizhe reached into his pocket and took out a small handful of nuts. Holding them in his left hand, he condensed them into an enlarged nut, then activated his ability and transformed it into a blast-resistant shield as tall as a person.
Riot shields are generally used to deal with low-level conflicts such as crowd disturbances, and can effectively block impacts and charges from bricks, stones, clubs, and glass bottles. The riot shields used by special police units often also have bulletproof, shockwave-resistant, and anti-flash capabilities. They can withstand close-range fire from light weapons and offer a certain degree of protection against shockwaves and shrapnel from nearby explosions.
The blast shield in Su Ruizhe’s hands now was on par with the high-grade shields used by special police.
Holding the shield, Su Ruizhe covered Zhan Yun and the young soldier behind him. Then he took two cherries out of his pocket and transformed them into two bombs.
“Fall back!” Knowing Su Ruizhe was ready, Zhan Yun withdrew his ability. The three of them retreated together, all the way to the far corner. When the rats closed in on them, Su Ruizhe detonated both bombs at the same time.
The violent explosion blasted a huge hole in the wall, yet the three people hiding behind the blast shield emerged completely unscathed.
They had deliberately avoided the supplies in the center of the warehouse, luring the mutated rat swarm into the corner before detonating the bombs. This effectively contained the blast radius and ensured that the stored materials were not affected.
Su Ruizhe’s cherry bombs were extremely powerful, blowing the mutated rats into a bloody mess. Those that weren’t killed outright panicked and tried to flee.
However, Su Ruizhe had no intention of letting any rats escape. At some point, a ring of thorny brambles with sharp spikes had already grown out of the ground. Driven by Su Ruizhe’s ability, they closed in around the remaining mutated rats. One after another, the rats crashed into the thorny spikes, their bodies pierced with multiple bloody holes, blood pooling all over the floor.
The rats shrieked and turned to flee, trying to run back to the rat hole.
But Su Ruizhe pulled two more seeds from his pocket, used his ability to stimulate their growth into two oddly shaped purple flowers, and tossed them near the rat hole.
No one knew how those two flowers managed it, but they forced their roots into the gaps in the steel plates and rapidly grew, until they became two enormous—carnivorous plants.
The two purple man-eating flowers had delicate buds filled with rows of sharp fangs, a sight that sent chills down one’s spine.
Any mutated rat that tried to escape toward the rat hole was snapped up in a single bite by the carnivorous plants, becoming nourishment that allowed them to continue growing.
The young soldier stood completely stunned. He had heard that Su Ruizhe was a very powerful plant-type ability user, but he had assumed that “powerful” simply meant being able to weaponize plants. He never imagined that when Su Ruizhe actually fought using his ability, it would be this terrifying.
That blast shield, the violent explosions, the ground covered in thorny spikes, those horrifying man-eating flowers—rats that the entire base had been unable to deal with were wiped out by him alone. It was truly frightening.
Su Ruizhe turned his head and smiled at the young soldier. “We got quite a few seeds from Wan City Base. They came in handy just in time.”
The young soldier responded with a dry, stunned sound of acknowledgment.
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