Chapter 26 – Caught the Wrong Person

“No, it’s like he was specifically looking for me…” The feeling grew stronger. Su Lifeng had no time to think; he immediately gave chase.

However, due to the car accident, more and more pedestrians were stopping to look. Many even pulled out their phones, jostling one another to get to the front to film the scene. After struggling through the crowd for a distance, Su Lifeng gave up, his mind filled with doubts. Even so, he could still feel that the other person seemed to be hiding within the crowd, watching him.

Just as he stopped, he heard a somewhat breathless voice from behind: “Lifeng, why… why are you running?”

Su Lifeng turned to see Jiang Yushi, her face flushed. He frowned and said, “Didn’t I tell you not to interact with strangers? Why are you still following me into the crowd?”

“But you suddenly ran off…” Jiang Yushi lowered her head, defending herself sheepishly. After the disaster on the island, she had become completely obedient to Su Lifeng. But whenever it involved Su Lifeng himself, for some reason, that awareness would slip to the back of her mind. Jiang Yushi didn’t even know why it happened… she even felt a bit annoyed with herself now. Right, Su Lifeng just told her that; how could she have forgotten?

Su Lifeng didn’t truly mean to blame her. He waved his hand to cut her off, then simply took her hand and led her through the crowd toward the crashed sedan. Since he couldn’t catch that person, he should at least see what happened with the accident.

“Look, another person is crawling out!” Following a startled cry, the crowd grew restless again. Those in front tried to push back, while those behind tried to squeeze forward to see the spectacle. Feeling a surge of irritation, Su Lifeng’s speed and strength suddenly flared. Before many people could react, he forced his way through them to the very front. This scene secretly surprised Jiang Yushi behind him; she hadn’t realized Su Lifeng was so strong.

There were two people still inside the car. The young man in the driver’s seat was covered in blood, his eyes wide open as if he had been terrified. That expression was now permanently frozen on his face in death. The one crawling out was the girl from the passenger seat. She had only crawled a short distance before she quickly fainted.

“Move back, give them some space!” the crowd clamored again.

Su Lifeng felt something was strange. The moment the girl looked up, she had also spotted him instantly. She had even reached out her hand…

But then she passed out, making Su Lifeng wonder if he had seen it wrong.

“Did you see that? Did they hit the guardrail on their own?”

“Maybe the guy was drunk driving?”

“Who knows? Could be drugs.”

“Sigh… and in such a busy downtown area, too.”

Before long, police cars and ambulances arrived one after another, sirens wailing. Su Lifeng instinctively glanced at the hospital name printed on the ambulance: Ningnan Third People’s Hospital.

“Yushi, I should take you back now.” Liang Junyu was very unhappy today because he had been left behind again. By the time Jiang Yushi and Su Lifeng returned, Miss Jiang was actually being pulled along by that ordinary, poor kid.

“Remember what I said,” Su Lifeng instructed again.

Jiang Yushi nodded obediently like a child who had done something wrong, then said, “Then wait for my call, okay?”

Su Lifeng paused for a moment before realizing… she was talking about setting up the laboratory.

Beside them, Liang Junyu finally couldn’t help but ask, “What call?”

Unfortunately, he received no response. Jiang Yushi waved at Su Lifeng and then turned to get into the car.

Liang Junyu had no choice but to turn to Su Lifeng, saying with a smile, “Su, you might not like hearing this, but I still want to say that if you’re really having difficulties, President Jiang would be happy to help you. It would actually be better for everyone…”

“Save it,” Su Lifeng said coldly, giving him only a brief glance.

Seeing Su Lifeng’s face turn cold instantly and him turning to walk away after speaking, Liang Junyu was stunned for a long time.

Did he hear that right?

Even if you want to act all high and mighty, you should at least maintain some surface-level politeness!

“No manners at all!” Liang Junyu muttered indignantly under his breath.

However, his heart was also pounding a bit. That impatient look in Su Lifeng’s eyes just now really didn’t seem like something an ordinary college student should have.

Even the professional bodyguards at Jiang Yushi’s home only had fierce eyes, but they didn’t have that kind of coldness.

It didn’t feel like he was looking at a person, but rather at some insignificant weed…

Su Lifeng didn’t know he had inadvertently developed such a gaze. If he did, he would understand why Liang Junyu felt so unnerved. It was the gaze of a Xenospecies…

He left in a hurry because the only person he wanted to talk to was Jiang Yushi. He had nothing to say to that Liang Junyu, who always hid a dagger behind his smile.

There was another reason: that feeling of being watched followed him like a shadow, making Su Lifeng feel like there were needles in his back.

He wanted Jiang Yushi to leave as soon as possible to keep her far away from trouble.

“It’s the man who ran out of the car… Fine, since you want to follow me, then come along.” A new streak of ruthlessness had emerged in Su Lifeng’s personality. He moved through the crowd without a word and suddenly ducked into a narrow alleyway.

A figure appeared at the mouth of the alley a moment later. After a brief hesitation, the person stealthily followed him in.

“Don’t move!” Just as the figure rounded the corner, Su Lifeng, who had been pressed against the wall, lunged forward. A flash of cold light pressed against the figure’s throat.

It was a scalpel Su Lifeng carried with him, swiped from the lab; it was exceptionally thin and razor-sharp. Lacking a sense of security, he didn’t feel comfortable walking the streets empty-handed, even though he possessed both the regenerative abilities of a Xenospecies and an exoskeleton.

“Ah!” To his surprise, the figure let out a sharp scream-a sound that felt somewhat familiar.

Before he could react, the person instinctively raised a hand, five fingers clawing toward his hand at a bizarre angle.

Even more bizarre were the speed and length of those five fingers; they were shocking to behold. The joints even bent in ways impossible for a normal human, yet these fingers moved with ease.

Su Lifeng’s exoskeleton manifested instinctively, blocking the fingers. Simultaneously, a burst of strength erupted from his wrist as he grabbed the person’s hand. He let go of the knife, catching it with his other hand. “Calm down! It’s me. Cheng Xiaomei, what are you doing here?”

The figure was indeed Cheng Xiaomei. She had followed him in, never expecting a sudden attack, and had fought back out of fear. If it had been an ordinary person, her counterattack would have surely succeeded, but she hadn’t even seen how Su Lifeng moved before her hand was pinned.

Upon hearing Su Lifeng’s voice, she froze. Then, her face turned deathly pale as her gaze slowly shifted from Su Lifeng’s face to her own captured hand.

Su Lifeng realized the situation immediately. He looked down and saw that Cheng Xiaomei’s fingers were completely inverted, twisting at angles unimaginable for a human, and their length was more than double that of a normal person’s. Combined with the force she had exerted against his exoskeleton… Su Lifeng had no doubt that if she had actually caught him, she would have torn a chunk of flesh right off.

But he didn’t blame Cheng Xiaomei; that had been a purely instinctive reaction. Seeing her terrified, bloodless expression, Su Lifeng couldn’t bring himself to say anything reproachful.

“Su Lifeng, I…” Seeing Cheng Xiaomei trembling all over, Su Lifeng felt a pang of heavy emotion. Without a second thought, he opened his arms and pulled her into a hug.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Hearing Su Lifeng’s constant low whispers in her ear, Cheng Xiaomei could no longer control herself. Tears came streaming down her face.

After crying for a good while, she finally managed to steady herself. She took a step back and looked at Su Lifeng, asking with a face full of anxiety and hesitation, “You… you aren’t afraid of me? Do you already know? Do you know that I’m… a monster?”

As she uttered the word, she bit her lip, looking as if she were about to burst into tears again.

Su Lifeng nodded. He had known for a long time that Cheng Xiaomei had absorbed a Xenospecies, but he had never seen her have a reaction, nor did he know her hand had mutated like this. He had originally assumed that Cheng Xiaomei might not have even noticed the internal changes in her body-that perhaps, like him, it was just some changes in physical fitness.

“You aren’t a monster. Think about it-are you the same as those people who were absorbed by the Xenospecies? Are you the same as the Xenospecies themselves?” Su Lifeng asked.

Cheng Xiaomei shook her head, then added, “But compared to normal people…”

“Then just consider yourself not normal. As long as you’re still human, what does it matter if you’re normal or not?” Su Lifeng asked seriously.

Cheng Xiaomei was stunned. “Right, then I’ll just be not normal.” If nothing else, at least Su Lifeng didn’t find her disgusting or terrifying, did he?

For a moment, Cheng Xiaomei even forgot to ask how Su Lifeng knew. Or perhaps she hadn’t forgotten, but she remembered that she shouldn’t ask about things that weren’t her business.

Su Lifeng let out a sigh of relief when he saw Cheng Xiaomei’s furrowed brow slowly relax. Those words were meant for her, but weren’t they also his own inner thoughts?

In reality, only he knew that in the eyes of the Xenospecies, he and Cheng Xiaomei were indeed no longer human. They were Mutants.

“Is this why you’ve been following me secretly, afraid to come out?” Su Lifeng asked, caught between laughter and tears.

However, Cheng Xiaomei shook her head in confusion. “No, I was following you, but the traffic was backed up because of the car accident. I had to get out at the intersection back there. I just ran over here and saw you enter the alley, so I…”

“Wait, you’re saying the person staring at me in the crowd wasn’t you?” Su Lifeng’s eyes widened instantly.

When Cheng Xiaomei shook her head, Su Lifeng’s heart skipped a beat.

It really was that man!

He had caught the wrong person. So, where was the man now?