"Hungry."
"Hungry."
Bai Yun stood at the edge of the disaster zone, repeating those two syllables over and over.
---
Bai Yun's first encounter with a bug came on the second day after entering the disaster zone. Beside him walked a rookie instructor, wearing a leather suit, with a thick beard.
"Little Yun, today's the day you hunt black bugs alone."
"Come on, I believe you can do it."
The bug was the size of a palm, its pitch-black carapace gleaming with a faint blue sheen. Its six legs made a faint "click, click, click" sound as it crawled. It stopped by his foot, antennae gently swaying, as if sizing up this uninvited guest.
Bai Yun stared at the black bug, his face full of terror.
"Hah—ahhh!"
"Why the hell did I even come here to kill bugs?!"
Bai Yun gripped his sword. The tip trembled.
The bug ran right up to him.
His mind went blank. He couldn't remember anything. He just stared as the black bug slowly crawled up from his foot.
"Ahhh!"
He flinched and kept backing away.
As he backed up, a round, black, ball-shaped object tripped him.
"Grrrk—krrrk—graaah—"
He looked down and realized it was another black bug, curled into a ball.
The first one had already reached his left foot.
"Yun, calm down." The uncle's voice came from beside him.
"Calm down my ass!"
He watched the black bug fly up, wobbling unsteadily in the air.
Get away, just get away! He swung his sword wildly, slashing at the bug's body but missing every time. When it landed, its claws gripped tight onto the boy's pant leg.
He watched it crawl slowly toward his face.
When the black bug reached his chest—
"You still okay?"
The uncle walked over, kicked the bug away, and asked.
The boy said, dazed,
"Thanks."
"Want me to do it this time? I'll show you how."
The boy remembered the electronic bill he'd received at the start of the month. Entry fees, mortgage, his parents' medical expenses… those numbers were like red-hot branding irons, burning until his eyes stung.
"No—don't come over."
"Let me do it. I have to stand up."
He picked up the long sword from the ground and looked at the black bug off to the side, now fiddling with a small pebble.
He closed his eyes. He pushed all the hesitation, the guilt, and that worthless bit of kindness—pushed it all into the blade. And then—
He thrust.
The moment the sword tip touched the carapace, his hand wavered. He stabbed the body instead. Pfft. Like poking a toothpick through an overripe berry. Black liquid ran down the blade. The bug's six legs still twitched.
Bai Yun stood there, gasping for air.
"It's not dead yet. Finish it." The uncle said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
The boy looked at the bug—bleeding out on the ground, struggling feebly—and felt only pity.
"I'm sorry."
He stabbed again. This time he used too much force. The carapace burst open. Black fluid splattered onto his face.
"Ahh!" The sound that came out of him was high-pitched, like a girl seeing a bug—utterly ridiculous.
"Hahahahaha!" The middle-aged man beside him doubled over laughing, couldn't stand straight.
"Hilarious! Training newbies is always fun!"
Afterward, he took out a gray cloth and wiped the boy's face, all while keeping an eye on the bug's corpse, watching for any sign of movement.
The emptiness after killing washed over the boy—thick and sticky, like the bug's fluids, plastered over his heart.
It started to rain.
He walked over to the bug's corpse, crouched down, and pressed his palms together in a deep bow. Rainwater washed over the backs of his hands. The black blood slowly seeped into the soil.
Seeing him like that, the middle-aged man pressed his palms together too, and bowed once.
"You're really something—actually feeling something for a bug."
"What do you know? This is called respecting life."
"Life, huh… interesting."
"Y'know, you remind me a bit of my old master. He used to say—we're all part of nature. Once I started including other species in that thought… I realized there's not much difference between us."
Bai Yun half-understood. He just looked at the bug corpse being washed clean by the rain, and thought—the master's words made him feel a little better… and also a little worse.
"Uncle, who was your teacher?"
"Him? A legend in the disaster zone. One of the Ten Great Hunters—Aiken."
The boy thought for a moment.
"Never heard of him."
"You little—"
---
One year later.
Spring flowers bloomed across the mountains and fields. No trace remained of the black blood that had once soaked this ground.
Bai Yun stood in the same spot again. He pressed his palms together deeply once more. The motion was identical to a year ago—only this time, there was less guilt, and more practiced ease.
He took out a small speaker and played a pre-recorded disaster-zone sound. The distorted sound waves spread across the empty wilderness like an invitation.
Black bugs swarmed in from every direction.
Bai Yun poured a large amount of gasoline over the area.
He watched the dense mass of black bugs in the depression—they greedily sucked at the gasoline, their carapaces rubbing together with a sound that made your skin crawl. Low-tier black bugs' craving for energy overpowered any sense of danger. Even knowing it was a trap, they surged forward in endless waves.
He struck a match and dropped it.
Whoosh— The entire oil-soaked area ignited. Blue flames danced like mad spirits, reaching out with fiery hands to seize the bugs. They thrashed frantically in the blaze, shells bursting with sharp crack-crack sounds, eventually reduced to piles of ash, leaving behind only thumb-sized crystals.
The radar beeped: +100 Black Bug Crystals.
"Five days, ten thousand earned." He calculated quickly in his head. "Need sixty thousand this month for entry fees and loan interest. Twenty-three days left—gotta push harder."
For Bai Yun, getting expelled from the city wasn't the end of the world—but his parents couldn't survive it. They had been ill for years and depended on the city's medical equipment and special drugs to stay alive. Once they lost their household registration, becoming wanderers outside the walls meant certain death.
So the boy survived. In this wasteland, day after day, hunting these weak yet endlessly spawning black bugs.
Black bugs really were weak. Even an untrained ordinary person, if they mustered enough courage and picked up an iron sword, could easily kill a lone one.
Their only terrifying trait was their near-limitless reproductive ability. Once they gathered excessively in one place, they would attract higher-tier predators and trigger disasters beyond imagination.
"If only I could find the corpse of a disaster-grade bug…" Bai Yun fantasized. "Even after the 20% tax, the rest would clear months of overdue payments."
Too bad luck like that didn't come so easily.
He lowered his head and continued processing the spoils.
He poked a swollen-bellied bug with his sword—pfft. Half-digested semi-liquid contents mixed with black blood and green intestinal fluid sprayed out, splattering his pant leg.
"Ugh, disgusting!"
He shook the sword hard, trying to fling off the sticky mess. But he swung too forcefully—the glob arced perfectly and landed right inside his open backpack, directly onto his clean spare clothes.
"Ah—am I an idiot?"
He picked up the clothes and sniffed them. Stank.
"Great. Both the ones I'm wearing and the spares are ruined." He grimaced. "Guess tomorrow I'll just come bug-hunting in my pajamas."
He looked up at the sky after the rain had cleared. The blue was so pure it seemed capable of washing away all filth. Sunlight poured through gaps in the clouds—warm, yet distant.
Whatever. Time to finish the clean-up and collect crystals. Clothes are cheap anyway.
He comforted himself like this, as if trying to convince the part of him that still hesitated, still felt soft.
His hands kept moving, but his mind drifted elsewhere.
"Should I find a teammate?" He thought of the hunter association squads—clear division of labor, high efficiency.
But then again—no. News reports every few days about "support staff running off with donations" or "squads fighting over loot distribution." Besides, he was socially awkward and didn't know how to deal with people. With his current income, he couldn't afford a dedicated support member anyway.
He opened the radar scan. Bug life-signs had dropped sharply—only a few scattered dots remained. The surrounding area was probably clear.
No signals nearby. He reached into the very bottom of his backpack and carefully pulled something out—a crumpled plastic bag containing half a cold, leftover sesame flatbread.
He had bought it yesterday morning at the town entrance. One yuan each, sesame seeds sparsely scattered, almost no visible meat filling. But he couldn't bear to finish it in one go, so he broke it in half and saved the rest.
He sat on his motorcycle, facing the setting sun, nibbling tiny bites. The flatbread was a bit hard, but the fragrance of sesame was still there, the sweetness of the wheat still there.
He closed his eyes. Chewed slowly.
When he was little, his dad used to bring him to rivers like this to fish. Back then Dad wasn't sick yet; he could still laugh, and when they caught nothing he would make up stories: "The fish are all having a meeting down there. When the meeting's over, they'll bite."
He didn't believe it, but he pretended to, because the way Dad told silly lies was funny.
He stood up and shook the crumbs off his hands.
This was the happiest moment of his day.
After finishing, he carefully folded the plastic bag and tucked it back into the pack. He straddled the motorcycle and started the engine.
The off-road bike roared to life, tires kicking up dust as he sped into the distance.
The setting sun dyed the sky deep crimson. Light streamed through the clouds, stretching the shadow of the backpack on the rear seat into a long, dark line. No one noticed—among that pile of stained clothes, something finger-sized and nearly transparent was faintly wriggling.
It crawled down along the backpack strap, along the metal frame, inching closer to Bai Yun's calf.
Finding the right spot, six mouthparts finer than hair gently pierced the skin, instantly releasing a large amount of anesthetic. The sensation was lighter than a mosquito bite, quickly lost in the exhaustion of the day's battle.
Bai Yun remained completely unaware. He only felt his body growing heavier and more tired.