# Chapter 12: Monster
"Keep your voice down, what if you alert those monsters again!" the middle-aged woman said anxiously.
"Those things don't seem to react to sound," Yan Jiayu said. "Every carriage had movement last night, and they didn't react. It was only after the third-class seats turned on the lights..."
So that's what the rule about turning off the lights meant. The second-class seats were only hit by residual light and it attracted several monsters. The third-class seats must have been completely wiped out.
"Isn't this a trap?" the middle-aged woman complained. "What kind of broken train is this? If they're going to set rules, they should explain them clearly. They're just sending us to our deaths. Who would dare go to the bathroom in the dark at night without turning on a light..."
"Are those monsters really transformed players?" the heavily made-up woman asked, ignoring her. "How can a normal person suddenly turn into a monster?"
The horrifying swallowing sounds from outside the carriage hadn't stopped yet. Becoming a player, boarding the train to fight cannibal players, nearly becoming food for monsters—and now even the possibility of turning into one of those mindless, grotesque creatures themselves? No one could accept that!
The carriage fell into dead silence. After a moment, Xu Huo spoke: "Liu Jia, my arm is injured. Come help me."
Liu Jia quickly went over. Just as she touched the table, her hand was grabbed.
Xu Huo traced characters on her palm as he said, "Most of those things outside are mutated players, but that doesn't mean every player will turn into one."
Actually, even without Liu Jia's confirmation, based on what he'd seen, he could guess the true identity of those "monsters." Their appearance was similar to humans, but their hands and feet were abnormally long, as if they'd undergone secondary development. Though their bodies were withered, their speed and strength were astonishing. In essence, they resembled evolved humans.
"I suspect it's the cannibal players who didn't eat after boarding that mutate."
All of them had eaten the train's food, so that wasn't the issue. The key must be related to the special nature of cannibal players.
After the oval-faced woman died, three people had fed. If the old man wasn't among them, the key to the mutation lay there.
"The old man is a cannibal player? How do you know?"
"How do you know he didn't eat?"
Yan Jiayu and the heavily made-up woman asked one after another.
"The bite mark on his shoulder—if someone had attacked him from the front, it would have left a different wound." Not just the wound—smell, clothing fabric, even hair length could provide clues. But the old man only mentioned being bitten once and didn't elaborate, so the tooth mark was most likely self-inflicted to suppress his urge to feed.
"Maybe he was one of the ones who bit off a piece of that woman last night. The bite wound was just another reason," the heavily made-up woman said, clearly unconvinced.
"If eating also causes mutation, there should be more than just him in our carriage tonight," Xu Huo said coldly.
"Despite being mutated, he still saved my life. I believe in that senior's character," Professor Han said.
The heavily made-up woman sneered. "He's a cannibal player."
"He saved someone," Wang Xiaohui spoke up this time.
"Whatever the case, he's dead now. Arguing about it is pointless." Now that she knew the monsters were originally human and she wasn't at risk of mutation, the middle-aged woman's courage returned. She even clicked her tongue in regret: "It's a shame about that young girl He Yang. So young and pretty, gone just like that."
Li Fei was killed by Yan Jiayu. The old man turned into a monster. Only He Yang disappeared without a trace, not even a mark left behind. No one knew if she was killed by monsters or finished off by a cannibal player in the chaos.
"Compared to the dead, the monsters outside are the real concern," the heavily made-up woman said. "Who knows if they'll come back in?"
"All those densely packed ones..." She suddenly turned the topic to Liu Jia. "Have the monsters decreased?"
"I don't know..." Liu Jia started to answer instinctively, then caught herself and changed her answer: "No, they're all still lying there motionless."
The heavily made-up woman waited two seconds before speaking with a hint of amusement: "That's quite an impressive ability you have—being able to see in the dark."
Liu Jia's heart leaped into her throat.
Yesterday, she'd been terrified by the things outside the window and only saw Chen Yi attacking Xu Huo. By the time she came to her senses, the oval-faced woman was already dead. She'd only caught a glimpse of the heavily made-up woman stepping back from her, wiping something at the corner of her mouth as the blood disappeared without a trace.
She didn't dare say anything recklessly and only told Professor Han about it. Now that the heavily made-up woman knew she had night vision and was testing her, she must have guessed that Liu Jia's ability had limited duration. To protect herself, she would definitely try to silence her!
Liu Jia was terrified. Forcing herself to stay calm, she gestured to Xu Huo about the heavily made-up woman's actions and also mentioned that Wang Xiaohui seemed to have a protective layer around her that could block attacks—a monster had actually bumped into her earlier but was repelled.
This surprised Xu Huo. Whether it was a trait or an item, this was far stronger than ordinary physical enhancement. However, given Wang Xiaohui's physical condition, simply having strength would make it hard for her to survive. This was tailored to her needs.
The train rules prohibited freely entering other carriages. Wang Xiaohui had violated this rule—who knew what consequences there would be.
But she could still protect herself, which meant the punishment wasn't life-threatening.
"How many cannibal players are there in one carriage?" Liu Jia couldn't help asking. She no longer dared to trust anyone easily and even regretted being soft-hearted enough to let Wang Xiaohui in.
"About half and half," Xu Huo said. "Six cannibal players, six ordinary players."
"So how many cannibal players are left here?" the middle-aged woman chimed in.
"There should be two more," Yan Jiayu said. "The two who died last night, plus Li Fei and the old man—they were all cannibal players."
"The woman who was killed could also have been a cannibal player," the heavily made-up woman said.
That was hard to say, since she was the one who was killed.
"Liu Jia, did you see anything yesterday?" the heavily made-up woman threw out the question.
Liu Jia tensed up, but after receiving a signal from Xu Huo, she said, "I didn't see anything. I was too scared at the time, and with Mr. Xu and Chen Yi right in front of me, I was focused on them."
The heavily made-up woman fell silent. Xu Huo immediately followed up: "I'm inclined to think that woman was also a cannibal player. She had a very strong smell of blood when she boarded."
"But there's one extra person in our carriage," the middle-aged woman said.
"I'm not a cannibal player," Wang Xiaohui explained. "I can't stand or walk—how could I eat people?"
A faint rustling of fabric sounded in the darkness. After a few seconds, Professor Han said, "There's only one cannibal player left. No need to worry too much. There are six of us."
Though he said this, Professor Han was still worried. The reason he hadn't let Liu Jia reveal the monster situation was his fear that some players might act blindly under extreme circumstances. The third-class seats' self-destruction was a case in point.
Knowing full well that the heavily made-up woman was a cannibal player, and that the corpses in the carriage had been taken away by the monsters, he didn't know if she had fed earlier. Right now, his greatest concern was Liu Jia.