Chapter 105: The Consecutive Disappearances (Part 1)

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On the outskirts of Yang City, there stood a guard post inhabited by roughly three hundred people.
"Old Hei, we’re really lucky this time—we found a little purple mink not far from the guard post. This haul should fetch a good price."
A man, looking rather disheveled, walking with his feet turned outward, hair long enough to almost cover his eyes, spoke excitedly to a companion. The companion was a dark-skinned man with a frightening scar across his nose. In his hands, he held a backpack-sized purple mutant beast, constantly spitting, clearly thrilled.
"Yeah, we got lucky. It didn’t take much effort to capture this little purple mink. This batch should sell well. The wealthy ladies of the main city and Yang City really love these creatures."
The man called Old Hei had a rough voice, sounding like someone from the northeast of Yan Kingdom before the Dark Era, with a matching physique.
Old Hei reached his hand into an iron cage, stroking the mink’s smooth fur. Usually, they tossed their catches into large iron cages, but today they’d specially crafted a small cage just for the purple mink.
"Whoa! This little beast actually bit me," Old Hei said as he pulled his hand out, showing a pair of small bite marks on his fingers. "Changmao, you’ve got connections. Go check where the price for these little purple minks is highest."
Changmao responded with a grunt and headed into the guard post to meet his motley crew of acquaintances, hoping to drive up the price for the mink. Old Hei returned to their shared den, awaiting Changmao’s return.
The little purple mink was actually a mutated creature originating from the ermine species before the Dark Era. Most were grey or black-yellow; the purple variety emerged later, glowing a bright violet under sunlight, making it highly prized by wealthy city ladies.
Back at their cramped den, Old Hei glanced out the window, then back at the mink’s cage.
Suddenly, the wooden door, through which the wind now blew, creaked open. Old Hei’s face brightened as someone entered. "Well?"
He ruffled the fur of the animal hide covering their seats, motioning for Changmao to sit and rest.
"You sit first; I’ll get you some water."
Changmao licked his cracked lips, now lacking much saliva. "Old Hei, it’s thanks to my silver tongue that we got a good price for the little purple mink."
He grabbed the water Old Hei handed him and drank it down. Then, running his hands through his unwashed hair, he styled it as best he could and began describing how he had outwitted the crowd, ultimately coming out on top.
Old Hei didn’t interrupt; he and Changmao had lived like this for five years in this rundown, drafty den. He knew Changmao enjoyed embellishing his stories, loudly proclaiming his successes—even if only Old Hei ever heard them. Still, Changmao was relentless in his enthusiasm.
After several more sips of water, Changmao’s mouth grew wetter, his spit flying as he reached the grand finale of his boastful tale.
Outside, as his final words faded, the sky turned completely dark. The two exchanged a smile and glanced at the mink feigning death in its cage, their eyes shining with dreams of money.
"Haha, sleep well. Tomorrow, we’ll be living in a big house outside. No more cramming into this place."
An old bunk bed, nearly a century old, stood as a testament to their survival—a rarity for such fragile furniture to last so long.

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At midnight, in their small den, Old Hei and Changmao’s snores competed in volume and timing.
Suddenly, the little purple mink, still pretending to be dead in its cage, shuddered. Its furry body glowed from the abdomen, radiating a purple light—or rather, green that seemed purple through its coat, faint and hard to discern.
Meanwhile, not far from where Old Hei and Changmao had caught the mink, another little purple mink appeared—then another, and another. In less than two minutes, more than ten of them stood atop the small haystacks.
Each mink’s abdomen emitted the same faint purple-green light. Their eyes were dull, lifeless, standing motionless as the glow flickered on and off.
Suddenly, from beneath each haystack, a slender green sprout emerged, like a tender shoot in early spring, thin and elongated.
The green sprout pushed through the soil, reaching into the mink’s mouth and then the glowing abdomen. The first sprout entered its mink’s mouth; when it retracted, the mink returned to normal. The second and third minks followed suit, until all had been revived by their respective green sprouts.
The last sprout tried to do the same but, after several attempts, failed to connect with its mink, which was nowhere to be found.
The sprout seemed persistent at first, probing nearby as if searching for its mink elsewhere, but finally gave up. It twitched, then straightened sharply like a spear, slicing through the surrounding area in anger.
The mink, just regaining consciousness, had no time to react before its body was severed in two. Dozens of green seeds spilled from its belly, sinking into the earth and disappearing.
Before dawn, the sky was still dark, visibility limited to mere meters. A few hunters who had come from Yang City arrived early at the guard post, hoping to maximize their hunting time.
"Do you think we’ll get anything valuable today? We’ve only caught worthless little things so far," a man in black growled, angrily breaking the mutant grass on the path with his hand.
He waited for a reply from the tall guide ahead but heard nothing. His anger grew, and he hurried forward to scold the guide.
Before he could reach him, the tall man stopped, trembling as he pointed at the guard post.
"Look… what’s happening? Should we just turn back?"
His uncertain tone sought the black-clad man’s opinion.
The black-clad man, now noticing the abnormality, felt his anger dissipate.
"What’s wrong?"
He didn’t wait for an answer, instead pulling out a smart device. A thin visor-like screen appeared before his eyes.
"How could this be?" he muttered, viewing the clear images of the guard post.

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At the small gate of the guard post were several bloody handprints, but not a drop of fresh blood was on the ground. According to the device’s readings, the station was completely deserted—no signs of life remained.
"What’s going on?" the black-clad man recalled that just a week ago, when he and the tall guide last left, the guard post housed at least two to three hundred people—not counting passing wanderers like themselves.
"In the blink of an eye, everyone disappeared? Dead? Or wiped out by mutant beasts? But if mutant beasts had slaughtered the town, why is the guard post intact? Why is it just empty of people?"
Questions flooded his mind. He and the tall guide came here almost every week, hoping to catch a little purple mink.
They hadn’t even brushed against a mink’s fur for many attempts, and now they encountered this bizarre mystery.
"Go back? No, wasting a day here is a loss. In a few days, we’ll be starving again." His resolve hardened. If he could catch a mink this time, he’d live well for half a year. If not, well, he could try again in eighteen years and still be a hero.
"Tall guide, let’s sneak in quietly and scout the place. If things look wrong, we run. But if the guard post is truly empty, we’ve hit the jackpot."
His excitement grew, as if finding this mystery was more thrilling than catching a dozen minks. For the desperate, wealth is worth risking life and limb. The poor stay poor because they fear risk; the rich thrive because they gamble everything. Though many perish, those who survive grow ever richer.
The tall guide rarely argued with the black-clad man—whatever he said went, unless it involved fighting over the last piece of chicken.
The guide nodded absentmindedly and led the way toward the guard post.
"Be careful, sneak quietly, got it?" The black-clad man patted the guide’s head, lowering his tall frame and creeping along the grass toward the station.
With each step, a heavy pressure weighed on his heart, as if something dreadful was about to happen. The closer they got, the more fearful he became.
"Do you feel that?"
The tall guide, though usually silent, nodded.
Relieved that his nerves weren’t deceiving him, the black-clad man remained alert.
Though they lacked the strength of graduates from the four major academies, their instincts for danger were honed by living on the edge of death daily—like borrowing time from the grim reaper.
The guide led the way, the black-clad man close behind, both vigilant as they approached the guard post. A silent thought crossed their minds: if they didn’t leave soon, they might never get the chance.