Chapter 175: The Blood Skeleton

An Nan poured food for the two little ones, then crawled over to the window to look outside.

Judging by the sound, something had fallen from a great height and crashed to the ground. But it was pitch black outside—she couldn’t see what it was.

The weather had been unbearably hot lately, so hardly anyone went out even at night. The world outside was silent. It was a long while before anyone ventured out to check what had happened.

“Ahhh! A d-dead body!!!”

An Nan frowned. What’s so surprising about a corpse? Hadn’t they all seen enough bodies in the apocalypse?

It sounded like the scream came from her own building. Did someone jump off the building?

Soon, more people gathered below, all talking loudly.

“Oh my god, what’s wrong with this corpse?”

“Ugh! That’s disgusting!”

“Was it mauled by some wild animal? That’s terrifying!”

Mauled by a wild animal?

An Nan couldn’t help but think of the “Eternal Night Beasts” Bai Wenbin had mentioned before. Could those things have appeared early?

She immediately became alert, changed her clothes, and got ready to go downstairs to check it out.

Fugui, seeing An Nan about to leave, immediately abandoned his food and trotted over to the entryway.

An Nan patted his head. “Be good and eat your dinner. I’m just going out to take a look. There’s no danger.”

Fugui tilted his head at her for a moment, then obediently went back to his food.

An Nan carefully took her gun and went downstairs.

The onlookers immediately made way for her when they saw who she was. Two of the more timid ones ran straight back home.

An Nan walked up for a look, and finally understood why the first person had been so frightened.

The thing on the ground was indeed a human corpse, but unlike other bodies that had died normal deaths, this one had been gnawed almost down to the bone.

It wasn’t a clean white skeleton, either. It was a bloody red skeleton, with scraps of flesh still clinging to it.

The limbs and torso had been stripped almost clean, leaving only the face untouched—except the face itself had been smashed to a pulp, ears and nose gone, making it impossible to recognize. Only the hair gave a faint clue that it had been a woman.

After falling from such a height, the blood skeleton had shattered into pieces.

An Nan looked up. Judging by where the body had landed, it must have fallen from her own unit.

There weren’t many households left in this unit, were there?

The corpse was no longer fresh, reeking of rot, with maggots faintly wriggling in the remains.

But judging by the condition, it clearly hadn’t been mauled by any large beast. It looked more like something with blunt teeth had gnawed at it, barely managing to chew it up like this.

After a moment’s inspection, An Nan was sure it wasn’t the work of a wild animal, so she relaxed and turned to go home.

She had just reached the fourteenth floor when she saw a humanoid figure crouched at her apartment door.

An Nan quickly raised her gun. “Who’s there?!”

At the sound, the figure slowly turned around. “Pretty girl?”

An Nan stared for two seconds before recognizing him. “Zhang Xiaobao?”

No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.

At this point, Zhang Xiaobao’s hair was matted in clumps over his forehead, covering half his face, and the lower half was covered in black stubble.

“Pretty girl, why are you carrying a toy gun?” Zhang Xiaobao grinned, revealing a mouthful of bloody froth.

An Nan frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Zhang Xiaobao laughed, blood bubbling at his lips. “I’ve finished all my food! Came upstairs to borrow some from you.”

An Nan tightened her grip on the gun, staring at his blood-smeared mouth.

“That body downstairs—is that Li Guifen?”

Zhang Xiaobao nodded. “That’s my mom.” Then, as if remembering something, he shook his head. “Didn’t taste good.”

An Nan felt a wave of nausea. “You… you ate your own mother raw?”

Zhang Xiaobao nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I finished my dad’s jerky, and my mom… no one could cook her for me, so I had to eat her raw.”

Looking at the filthy, disheveled Zhang Xiaobao, An Nan felt bile rising in her throat.

She’d survived five years of the apocalypse in both her past and present lives. She’d seen cannibalism, even parents eating their children and vice versa, but she’d never seen someone eat their own mother raw.

Suppressing her disgust, she replied, “There’s nothing to eat on the fourteenth floor. Go look somewhere else.”

Zhang Xiaobao’s dull eyes finally showed a flicker of emotion. “I don’t care! You killed my mom, so you have to take care of me!”

An Nan frowned. “When did I kill your mom?”

“You hung her outside. That’s why she died of heatstroke.”

An Nan stared at him for a while, then glanced at the door behind him.

“…Fine. I’ll give you something to eat. Come downstairs with me to get it.”

Zhang Xiaobao looked puzzled. “Why downstairs? Shouldn’t we go inside?”

“I have a storage room outside. All my stuff is there,” An Nan replied.

Zhang Xiaobao immediately grinned. “Okay, thank you, pretty girl!”

An Nan eyed him up and down, thinking, Is this guy brain-damaged?

She kept her gun trained on him. “You go first.”

No way was she turning her back on him.

Zhang Xiaobao obediently headed downstairs, with An Nan following behind. As they walked, she asked, “Why did you throw your mom off the building?”

Zhang Xiaobao smacked his lips. “No more meat left. What’s the point of keeping her?”

An Nan couldn’t fathom his logic. She figured he’d just snapped after losing both parents, and slowly directed him outside the gates of the complex.

“Pretty girl, how much farther is your storage room?” Zhang Xiaobao asked.

An Nan didn’t answer.

He asked again, “Can you be my wife? My parents are dead, and there’s no one to take care of me.”

Still, An Nan said nothing.

Zhang Xiaobao tried to turn and look at her. But with a bang, his head exploded, and he dropped straight to the ground.

An Nan fired another shot to make sure he was dead, then dumped him like garbage and went home.

On her way back, more people had gathered under Building 6, crowding around the blood skeleton and gossiping.

An Nan casually pointed at two men. “You, and you—move this thing somewhere else and dump it.”

The two men looked up, ready to refuse, but when they recognized An Nan’s face—and the gun in her hand—their expressions changed instantly.

“Y-yes, we’ll do it right away.”

Once the crowd had scattered in a hurry, An Nan went upstairs and headed home.

The two men, meanwhile, carried the bones out of the complex, grumbling as they went.

“This is disgusting, it’s crawling with maggots!”

“Still gotta do it! The demon woman gave the order. If we don’t move it, someone’ll be moving us next.”

“True enough. She’s got a gun, after all!”

“She didn’t need a gun before—no one could beat her anyway! Don’t forget, she’s the chainsaw killer!”

“You think she did this to the body?”

“Who knows…”

The two of them staggered out to the gate, just in time to see Zhang Xiaobao’s corpse, his head blown open.

“See that? That’s what happens when you cross the demon woman!”"