Taoist priest goes to America

Ang Lee got into the car, frowned, covered his nose with his sleeve, and bent down to get in.

Blood was everywhere – on the seats, the floor, and the walls of the car. Some of it had already begun to congeal, turning into a sticky, dark red paste.

He rolled up his sleeves, squatted down, and began to search the corpse.

Inside the car was a horse-faced man wearing a horse mask. His neck had been bitten off, his head was only held together by a thin layer of skin, and he had bled to death.

Ang Lee pulled a Glock 19 from behind his waist, the same model as the one he carried, covered in blood. He wiped it with the horse-faced man's clothes and tucked it into his pocket.

Li An pulled out the magazine and checked it; there were still twelve rounds left. He tucked the gun into his left belt and put the magazine into his sleeve pocket.

He kicked the remains of the nearest corpse. The thigh was gnawed down to bone, the calf was intact, but half of the flesh below the knee had been torn away.

The cat-faced man and the sheep-faced man were piled together, pressed down at the very back of the carriage. One of them had its face torn off, revealing its white bones on its head.

The other chest was bitten through, the entire chest cavity was hollowed out, the spine was exposed, and the ribs were turned outward, like an open seashell.

Ang Lee found two Glocks on them, but the most important items were the two short-barreled shotguns beside them.

The seven men pulled out a total of six guns: four Glock cell phones, two short-barreled shotguns, and four cell phones, all disposable flip phones. He also had several hundred dollars in cash, which he didn't count, but piled up and stuffed into his inner pocket.

Li An straightened up, his back pressed against the ceiling of the carriage, standing in a pool of blood, looking down at the several mutilated corpses. Old Bai squatted at his feet, gazing at him expectantly.

"Look at you," Ang Lee said, "you've gone too far."

"We could have transported the corpses," Li An said. He had just scanned the bodies with the system and found only mutilated corpses; he couldn't transport a single one.

Of the seven corpses, you might be lucky enough to find one or two useful ones, since they were "thugs" in some sense. You'd be satisfied if you could get skills like gun proficiency or street fighting.

But these corpses are missing arms or heads; the system requires the corpses to be intact, so they can't be resurrected. Old Bai has chewed these corpses to a pulp.

"What a pity." Li An looked at the pile of rotten flesh in the carriage and shook his head.

If he had told Old Bai beforehand not to damage the bodies, perhaps two or three intact ones could have been preserved.

But he didn't say, and Lao Bai didn't know either.

Without his orders, Old White was just a walking corpse driven by his bloodlust, biting and swallowing any living thing he saw, then moving on to the next one. This wasn't his fault; he had to blame himself.

He squatted down and wiped the bloodstains off with his sleeve.

"Don't bite so hard next time. You can bite above the neck, but don't gouge out the chest cavity. You can bite the limbs, but don't tear them off."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Old Bai. Old Bai tilted his head slightly, as if he understood.

Ang Lee climbed out of the carriage, with Old White following behind him. The scraps of meat inside the carriage were stepped on by its paws, making a "smack" sound.

Ang Lee glanced back at Old Bai. The tent fabric was smeared with blood, some areas of which had hardened into a crust; there wasn't a single clean spot on the entire fabric.

However, the tent fabric itself is waterproof, so the blood didn't seep in; it just stayed on the surface.

Ang Lee tore open the tent fabric from one corner and peeled it off Old White piece by piece. The dried blood tore apart like dried mud and fell to the ground.

The main areas where the blood was applied were the mouth and arms, where it seeped the deepest and smeared a thick layer on Lao Bai's body. His body and legs were almost completely untouched.

Ang Lee stripped the entire tent fabric and the old clothes wrapped around Old Bai off his body, crumpled the tent fabric into a ball, and threw it in the car.

Old White finally broke free from the restrictive clothes, and the incandescent light from the parking lot shone down on it.

Ang Lee walked up to Old Bai and examined its differences.

Old Bai's height had changed; he looked a whole size bigger, and standing in the bridge arch resembled a purplish-black statue.

It was no longer the shriveled corpse it once was. The pungent stench of decay had faded, replaced by a strange, unpleasant odor.

Its body shape has also changed. Before, it was a skeleton that had overdosed on drugs, with its ribs clearly visible and its shoulders as narrow as a clothes hanger.

Now his shoulders are broad and thick, and his arms have more muscle, giving his body a full, lifelike feel, unlike the texture of dried beef he used to have.

His skin turned a deeper bluish-purple, wrinkled like old tree bark, layer upon layer, looking like he was wearing an ill-fitting suit of armor.

The most obvious thing is the fine white hair. Now his whole "person" is covered with a thin layer of white down, which gleams coldly under the light.

Ang Lee stroked his chin. Could someone evolve this quickly just by eating blood? Looks like he'll have to feed Old Bai more from now on.

He shoved all the guns from the group of people with animal masks into Old White's hands, and stuffed several magazines into his arms as well.

"Take it," he said. "Don't lose it."

Old Bai nodded.

When they reached the parking lot exit, there was a public restroom by the roadside, for both men and women, a gray-white cement building with graffiti sprayed on the walls.

The light in the men's restroom was broken, leaving it pitch black and filled with the stench of feces and urine. Countless mosquitoes and flies swarmed around the restroom, and a few cockroaches and rats escaped from inside.

The floor was covered in water; it was unclear whether it was from a leak or urine. The pale yellow liquid had seeped over the tiles and flowed all the way to the doorway.

The sink faucet was broken, leaving only a rusty base. The mirror was full of cracks, distorting the reflection of people.

Ang Lee went inside and shone his flashlight around. All three cubicles were open.

He walked to the front of the cubicle. The first door was crooked, hanging halfway to one side, revealing the toilet inside.

The second compartment was filled with clumps of feces, which had begun to turn black and grow mold.

Ang Lee pushed open the door to the third cubicle. It was slightly cleaner inside than outside, the only problem being that the water tank pipe was dripping, but it wasn't a big deal.

Ang Lee pushed Old Bai into the third cubicle, closed the toilet lid, and let him sit comfortably.

He pulled his iPhone from his sleeve, turned on the screen, and opened Maps. The search history still contained the addresses of the talisman shops he had previously looked up: "Fudetang" and "Sanwa Paper Shop".

He drew his pistol from his waist, inspected the weapon, then picked out four magazines from the pile of spoils Old White was carrying, before patting Old White on the shoulder.

"Wait for me here," Ang Lee said. "I'm going to buy something."

"Don't run around, don't eat anything you shouldn't, and keep an eye on these weapons. Don't drop them on the ground, or you'll be in big trouble."

Old Bai nodded blankly.

He glanced at the time on his phone; it was already 10:20.

Ang Lee put his phone in his pocket, walked out of the men's restroom, turned around and walked north along the path. After walking about twenty steps, he looked back.

It was pitch black at night, and nothing could be seen. Only the thin wire of mental energy was constantly transmitting signals.

Old Bai stood in the toilet stall, his blood-red eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness.

……

Ang Lee stood by the roadside for a while and saw a yellow taxi approaching from a distance with its roof light on.

Ang Lee reached out his hand, and the car stopped in front of him. He opened the back door and got in. The driver, a middle-aged man with Latin American features, glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

Ang Lee paid the fare, told the driver his destination in English, and the driver glanced at him a couple more times but didn't say anything before stepping on the gas and merging into the traffic.

Ang Lee leaned back in his seat, watching the lights outside the window change from orange to white, then from dense to sparse.