But he didn’t immediately grab the iron rod. Instead, he silently stared at the middle-aged man’s corpse leaning against the wardrobe door.
The head of this middle-aged man’s corpse wasn’t shattered, completely different from the previous corpse-beasts whose heads had been crushed to death. Ordinary corpse-beasts wouldn’t even know how to use weapons; they were all low-intelligence, mindless walking dead.
Su Li activated the “Peep Rune,” and sure enough, the information it revealed indicated that the corpse before him wasn’t a spirit-source beast, so no information could be gleaned.
“Not a corpse-beast, so he must be a survivor, a spirit-source user like me. Those corpse-beasts outside were all killed by him.”
“Too bad he got killed.” Su Li looked at the massive wound on the chest of the middle-aged man’s corpse—no doubt that was the cause of death.
But who left that wound?
“Those low-level corpse-beasts shouldn’t have been able to kill him.” Su Li had seen many corpse-beast bodies along the way. If this survivor had killed them all, he would have already evolved into a first-level spirit-source user, maybe even second-level. For a first- or second-level spirit-source user, those low-level corpse-beasts couldn’t possibly have been a threat.
Su Li thought of the claw marks on the wall and then of the one-eyed frog.
“It must have been something beyond those corpse-beasts—a terrifying spirit-source beast like the one-eyed frog, not a low-level corpse-beast. And this spirit-source beast had extremely sharp claws. The wound on this middle-aged man’s chest was made by those claws, ripping him open, gutting him, and that’s how he died. What a shame…”
Su Li analyzed the scene in his mind, filled with regret. If he had arrived a day earlier, maybe he and this middle-aged man could have teamed up and both survived. And he would have had a companion, instead of being alone like he was now.
Being alone was too lonely. He needed a partner, and the longing for one grew stronger with each passing moment.
Silently lamenting, Su Li bent down and picked up the iron rod from the ground, only to find that the other end was tightly gripped in the middle-aged man’s hand. When he lifted the rod, it raised the man’s right arm along with it.
The middle-aged man’s corpse had been leaning against the wardrobe, but with Su Li’s pull, it tilted and toppled over.
This wardrobe had sliding doors. The corpse fell against the white sliding door, nudging it open just a crack.
Just then, a faint sound came from inside the wardrobe.
Though the noise was tiny, barely audible, to Su Li, who was constantly alert to his surroundings, it was like a thunderclap.
His hair stood on end. He immediately yanked the iron rod, pulling it free from the corpse’s grip and taking full possession of it, while simultaneously leaping backward, every muscle in his body tensed.
The surroundings remained dead silent, broken only by Su Li’s breathing. In his left hand, he held the cleaver; in his right, the meter-long thick iron rod. The hammer he’d been carrying was discarded to the side.
The iron rod was heavy—several times heavier than the hammer he’d used before—and at a full meter in length, it was perfect for him now.
He fixed his gaze on the wardrobe, staring at the narrow gap in the door. He could only vaguely make out some hanging clothes inside, nothing else. But what was that sound he’d just heard?
“I couldn’t have misheard it. There’s really something hiding in there. But the sound was so faint—it doesn’t seem like a corpse-beast or any other spirit-source beast. If it were a spirit-source beast, it would have lunged out by now, not stayed hidden. Could it be a rat or a cockroach or something?”
Su Li took a deep breath, not moving closer, but slowly extended the iron rod in his right hand into the gap of the sliding door. With a sudden shove, he pushed the door aside.
The wardrobe door slid fully open. Su Li, who had been braced with every muscle and nerve taut, was momentarily taken aback.
The wardrobe was filled with clothes, but beneath them, curled up, was a small, thin figure.
It was a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl. She wore a white dress, huddled in the wardrobe, her arms tightly wrapped around her bent knees. Her face was deathly pale, drained of all color, and her wide eyes showed neither fear nor joy—only a vacant stare.
Her entire expression and gaze were frozen in a dazed, rigid stupor.
Su Li stared at her, gripping the iron rod and cleaver tightly, muscles tense. He noticed that even when he spotted her, she made no movement or reaction, didn’t even look at him. She just stayed curled up, staring blankly ahead.
An eerie, deathly silence hung between them. If he hadn’t sensed a faint trace of life in her—her breathing—Su Li might have thought she was a corpse.
He noticed the tear tracks on her face, then looked at the middle-aged man’s body on the ground. Remembering how the man had held the wardrobe door shut even in death, Su Li began to understand something.
He cleared his throat softly, trying to ease the atmosphere.
“Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.” Su Li lowered the iron rod and cleaver he’d raised, relaxing his tense muscles and softening his expression to appear gentler.
“Is this… your father?” Seeing that the little girl curled in the wardrobe still didn’t respond, Su Li realized she was in a state of extreme shock. Everything that had happened here had shattered her mentally, leaving her in a dazed, frozen stupor.
If the sliding door hadn’t shifted, startling the hidden girl into a slight tremor, he probably wouldn’t have noticed that behind the wardrobe door, a living person was hiding.
Noticing some resemblance between the girl and the middle-aged man, and how the man had held the wardrobe door shut even as he died, Su Li guessed they were father and daughter.
The middle-aged man had spotted the corpse-beasts, made his daughter hide in the wardrobe, and fought to the death. He’d killed many corpse-beasts but then encountered a far more terrifying monster. Even in death, he’d held the wardrobe door shut, trying to protect his daughter inside.
But why the monster that killed the middle-aged man had left without eating his corpse or finding the girl in the wardrobe was something Su Li couldn’t figure out.
Logically, the monster that killed him would have devoured his body.
And the fact that the little girl had stayed hidden in the wardrobe without making a sound, avoiding the monster’s attention, also surprised Su Li.