Chapter 326: The golden fruit 37.

, and neither of them yet knew that the deeper they went, the more the building itself seemed to be waking around them.

The sixth floor smelled of rain.

That was the first thing Yan Cijin noticed. The second was that there had not been any rain inside the mall for a very long time. The air was cold and damp, and tiny droplets clung to the broken railings overlooking the atrium. Some of the ceiling panels had been torn away, exposing pipes and layers of insulation. Water dripped somewhere in the dark, but the sound was too steady to belong to a natural leak.

Bai Li touched the railing.

"Warm."

Yan Cijin ran her fingers over it and felt the same thing.

"Something is pumping water through the building."

"Or blood."

Yan Cijin looked at her.

"You really know how to ruin a perfectly good observation."

Bai Li laughed softly.

They stepped away from the stairwell.

The roar came again.

It was much closer now.

The floor ahead had once been filled with restaurants and entertainment arcades. There were broken screens, overturned tables and abandoned game machines. A children’s play area occupied one corner, its colorful walls now covered in dark stains. The entire place looked wrong under the dim emergency lights that flickered every few minutes.

Bai Li stopped beside an arcade machine.

The screen suddenly turned on.

A simple game loaded.

INSERT COIN.

Yan Cijin stared at it.

"That is creepy."

Bai Li looked at the screen.

"It still has power."

The words had barely left her mouth when every arcade machine on the floor turned on at once.

Dozens of screens lit up.

Old music started playing from broken speakers.

Then the shutters of the restaurants began to shake.

Yan Cijin sighed.

"I take it back."

"About what?"

"The floor is creepy."

Bai Li smiled.

Something crashed through the kitchen of a noodle shop.

A creature came out carrying half a metal door in its mouth.

It was larger than the mutant hound downstairs, nearly twice the size of a normal human. Four legs supported its body, but the front half could rise upright. Thick black fur covered its shoulders, while bone spikes had grown out along its spine. Its head was almost completely hidden behind a layer of hardened tissue.

It saw them.

It roared.

The other sounds on the floor stopped.

For one strange moment, every zombie in the darkness seemed to look toward them.

The creature charged.

Bai Li stepped forward.

Yan Cijin moved at the same time.

The monster’s first claw came toward Bai Li’s head.

She caught it.

The force of the impact shattered the tile beneath her feet.

The creature pushed.

Bai Li pushed back.

Neither moved.

Yan Cijin circled around the side and struck the creature’s rib area.

The blade cut through the outer armor but stopped before reaching anything vital.

"Thick," Yan Cijin said.

The creature swung its tail.

Bai Li ducked.

Yan Cijin jumped over it.

The tail smashed through three arcade machines.

Bai Li grabbed one of the creature’s horns and pulled its head down.

Yan Cijin drove her weapon through the exposed neck.

The monster screamed.

Bai Li twisted.

The head separated.

The body fell with enough force to shake the floor.

The arcade music kept playing.

Yan Cijin looked at the corpse.

"It was stronger than the things downstairs."

"Yes."

"And we are only on the sixth floor."

"Yes."

Yan Cijin looked toward the dark upper levels.

"This is going to take a while."

"Probably."

They continued.

After the monster died, the zombies that had been hiding came out.

There were more than twenty.

Some crawled from the kitchens. Some pushed through the elevator doors. Others dropped from the ceiling. The weakest ones moved first, making room for stronger ones behind them.

Bai Li noticed the pattern.

"They are testing us."

Yan Cijin nodded.

"They are sending the weak first."

"The stronger ones are waiting."

"Smart."

"Not smart enough."

Bai Li stepped off the escalator rail and into the middle of the group.

For several seconds the entire floor became motion.

Yan Cijin’s weapon flashed repeatedly.

Bai Li moved like a shadow between the bodies.

One zombie tried to bite Bai Li’s shoulder. She caught its jaw, twisted its head sideways and let it fall. Another attacked from behind. Yan Cijin intercepted it without even looking.

"Left," Yan Cijin said.

Bai Li shifted.

A claw passed through empty air.

"Right."

Yan Cijin ducked.

A blade-like arm went over her head.

Bai Li kicked the zombie toward her.

Yan Cijin ended it.

They moved without speaking again.

The fight lasted less than two minutes.

When it ended, dozens of bodies covered the floor.

Bai Li stood in the middle of the mess, breathing normally.

Yan Cijin wiped a trace of black blood from her cheek.

"You have some on your face."

Bai Li looked at her.

"Where?"

Yan Cijin reached over and wiped it away with her sleeve.

The motion was natural.

Both women paused.

Yan Cijin realized what she had done and quickly stepped back.

"There."

Bai Li looked at her for a second.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Neither said anything else.

They kept walking.

The higher they went, the more obvious the strange influence of the golden fruit became.

Plants had grown through the walls.

Not normal plants.

Thin golden veins spread across the concrete like roots, pulsing faintly beneath the surface. The veins disappeared whenever Bai Li touched them, only to reappear a few seconds later several meters away.

Yan Cijin crouched beside one.

"It is spreading through the building."

"It probably started near the top floor."

"Then the building itself is becoming part of the fruit’s influence."

"Maybe."

Yan Cijin looked up.

"You really like saying maybe."

"Because sometimes I do not know."

"That is surprisingly honest."

"I am honest most of the time."

Yan Cijin laughed.

They found the first golden fruit stain on the seventh floor.

It was not the fruit itself, only a small pool of golden liquid beside a broken elevator shaft.

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TO BE CONTINUED.