Chapter Fifteen: Dangerous Numbers

"Brother," the last fat man called out, pressing the knife against the girl's throat, "I'm saying, we've never had any grudges between us, so don't go picking a fight over something so trivial, alright?"

"If you want the girl, you can have her. We'll call it even and go our separate ways. How about it?" The fat man shouted into the mist, unsure where his adversary was lurking. He scanned his surroundings; there was nothing but fog. Even straining to catch the sound of footsteps seemed utterly futile.

"Hey, say something, will you!" Only a muffled echo replied from within the mist. The fat man shouted with desperation, "Is it a deal or not, brother? Give me a straight answer!"

Sweat poured down his face as he anxiously watched every movement around him, alert to the slightest stir of wind or grass.

But nothing changed. The silence persisted, broken only by the groans and screams of his companion on the ground.

This oppressive silence made his corpulent body tremble with fear and agitation.

"Damn you, don't think I'm scared! If you don't show yourself right now, this little girl—" he shouted, pressing the blade closer against her neck.

But a gunshot from directly ahead put an end to it all. The bullet pierced his thick lips, silencing whatever he was about to say, then exited through the back of his skull, halting whatever action he intended next.

The fat man's body collapsed with a heavy thud, and the air was filled only with a muted groan.

Standing four meters away, Liu Chang put away his pistol. Though his marksmanship was mediocre, hitting a man's head from such a close distance was effortless.

Emerging slowly from the mist, he approached the girl and saw the scar running from her brow down to the corner of her mouth.

Upon seeing Liu Chang, the girl unexpectedly stopped crying. Amidst the blood on her face, her bright eyes fixed steadily on the figure towering over her.

"Close your eyes and wait for one minute," Liu Chang said, as if stung by the brightness of her gaze. He turned away and walked toward the figure still writhing on the ground.

That man continued to squirm, his movements grotesquely disjointed due to the damaged spine, wriggling on the ground like a maggot.

"You know, you look even more disgusting than a maggot," Liu Chang said, crouching down and straddling the scar-faced man's chest, his eyes locked onto the other man's.

He stared quietly for a moment, then slowly pushed the scalpel into the man's chest cavity.

Hiss!

The blade pierced the lungs, releasing a sound like air escaping from a punctured ball. Liu Chang watched as the man's chest caved in, then took deep breaths of the death that erupted from within.

It was sickly sweet.

Liu Chang licked his lips and concluded that death tasted "sickly sweet."

After savoring this flavor, he withdrew the scalpel, wiped the blood clean on the man's clothes, and returned to the girl's side.

"Take these pills first; then I'll disinfect the wound on your face," Liu Chang handed her some antibiotics and used alcohol from his backpack to clean her injury.

But after tending to her, Liu Chang felt lost.

Should he take her with him?

The question loomed large in his mind.

In this world, at this moment—who could claim they could protect themselves? It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, and Liu Chang felt he'd skirted death several times already, and that was without anyone weighing him down.

If he added this burden, things would only get worse.

"Don't you want to take me with you?" the girl asked softly after swallowing the pills, her sensitive young heart sensing Liu Chang's thoughts.

"I'm afraid I can't take care of you," Liu Chang answered honestly. "Where are your parents?"

"I'm from the SOS Children's Village, I have no parents or family," the girl replied, forcing a smile that reopened her bleeding wound.

"Take me with you. I won't be a burden—I have superpowers."

"Superpowers?" Liu Chang frowned. If a child had said this to him yesterday, he'd have thought she was joking, but today was different. After experiencing the extraordinary changes in his own body, he dared not dismiss such words.

"What kind of superpowers?" he asked.

"Since yesterday, I can sense all sorts of dangerous auras from far away," the girl explained, using childish gestures and words. "Like those three people just now—their dangerous aura was this big..."

She clenched her tiny fist, indicating the size.

"And your dangerous aura is only this big..." She circled her hands, showing a sphere about the size of an adult's fist.

"Is that so?" Liu Chang looked at her, realizing she wasn't lying. He asked, "Can you sense if there are any dangerous auras in the hospital courtyard over there?"

"There are—very big, bigger than this," the girl said, drawing a large circle in the air.

"Alright, come with me then." Liu Chang took her hand and walked away.

Knowing she possessed a warning ability put his mind at ease.

He had been hesitant to take her with him, fearing he'd be unable to care for her and unwilling to let her drag him down. He wasn't a great man—just an ordinary college entrance examinee, and a failed one at that.

He had no lofty ideals or humanitarian sentiments. He'd played the hero twice already, but even heroes often turn their backs after drawing their swords, never minding what comes after. Carrying a girl with him was something he truly couldn't do—unless she really had superpowers.

The ability to sense danger was perfect for survival. No matter how powerful you were, this world always had something stronger and more dangerous to defeat or kill you. But if you could sense peril from afar and avoid it, your chances of living would be much greater.

"If you can sense danger, how did those three men manage to catch you?" he asked.

"They were ordinary people—I couldn't sense any dangerous aura from them," the girl answered.

"Oh." Liu Chang nodded, realizing that her "dangerous aura" wasn't true danger, but a sense of life force intensity. She probably mistook the oppressive feeling from powerful beings as "danger." In other words, she couldn't sense malice.

"Alright, from now on, measure ordinary men's danger like those three as '1,' and anything several times stronger, use multiples to express it. Understand?"

The girl nodded.

"Good. What's my danger number?"

"Between two and three," she said seriously, counting on her fingers.