Chapter 183: The Movie Theater

All talk and no action? Strong on the outside but weak on the inside? All for show?

Hearing this, the smile on Lu Xingchen’s face suddenly froze. His face grew paler and paler. Each word seemed to have precisely hit his sore spot.

Shasha glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and, seeing that it was working, continued to fan the flames. “Can’t even protect a little girl, yet you dream of protecting all of humanity. Sigh… If it were me, I’d probably find a hole to crawl into. Coincidentally, your fire-based Esper ability can be used to heat a kang, making people’s butts warm when they sit on it…”

“Shut up!”

Lu Xingchen shot up to his feet, his jaw clenched and veins popping on his forehead. He pointed fiercely at the warehouse in front of them. “Tell me, which warehouse first? If this venerable one doesn’t burn all the snakes, insects, rats, and ants inside to a crisp, then I’ll consider their sanitation to be good!”

Shasha smiled triumphantly, lifted her sunglasses, and waved her small hand forward. “Follow me!”

…

The motorcycle traveled on a quiet little road. Under the sunlight, the surrounding trees were lush and green. Lin Xian sat on the back seat, looking at the outline of the small town street ahead. Not far from the small town, a chemical plant with large reaction kettles and distillation towers stood behind the town.

“Generally speaking, large chemical plants are far away from residential areas. This one doesn’t seem to be that far away,” Lin Xian said.

KIKI said, “Maybe it’s really a leak of some pollutant from the chemical plant, so those monsters can’t get in.”

Lin Xian had a headache upon hearing this. “The monsters can’t get in, but we can. So who are the monsters?”

“That’s not necessarily true~” KIKI said stubbornly. “Some things might be adaptable for humans but not for monsters. Haven’t you seen that alien invasion movie? A cold virus that isn’t fatal to humans can wipe out the entire alien army~”

Lin Xian was speechless. This little girl seemed to have a point.

So he sniffed the air, trying to see if he could smell any strange chemical odors.

As they approached the small town street, the motorcycle began to slow down.

Rows of houses appeared in their sight. The small town street was lined with low-rise buildings and shops. Many of them had their doors tightly shut, while others were half-open, swaying gently in the wind. The street was covered with leaves that had turned yellow and fallen prematurely due to the temperature. The shelves of the convenience store were empty, covered in dust and moldy items.

KIKI looked at the mess on the street and couldn’t help but frown. “This place is so strange. It doesn’t look like anyone lives here.”

Lin Xian’s eyes constantly observed the surroundings. He took out the Spirit Fluctuation Value detector and directly started the detection.

Voom~ A faint light spread out and then converged.

The pointer on the detector slowly fell from a negative number to 0, which surprised Lin Xian. He didn’t know if this old detector was malfunctioning or what, but he felt that the rotation of the pointer…

Seemed a bit slow.

Screech~

The motorcycle drove into a crossroads. This seemed to be the center of the town. To say it was the center, it was actually just a street-facing supermarket and a bank. On the corner of the street was a movie theater that looked quite large.

The two of them got off the motorcycle and looked around. The several streets in sight all presented a desolate and dilapidated atmosphere under the sunlight. It was quiet and run-down. There were also the rotten and dried corpses of residents on the roadside. Their clothes were shriveled and stuck to the ground, and flies were buzzing around.

“Strange, I clearly saw these… and these yesterday.” KIKI looked up at the upper floors of the shops. The windows were empty. In the glass window of a clothing store, there were still a few mannequins. Their clothes had long been stripped clean, and they stood crookedly behind the window, as if staring at Lin Xian and KIKI on the street.

Lin Xian also felt it was very strange at this moment. He hadn’t seen anyone on the way in, but last night, he and KIKI had both seen candlelight in the small town, and in more than one house.

“Be careful,” Lin Xian reminded, his gaze turning to the direction of the movie theater. “Let’s go into the mall and have a look.”

There were no zombies in the town, but he hadn’t seen any living people either, which really puzzled Lin Xian. He didn’t know if Shu Qin and Da Lou had found anything.

KIKI nodded. “Let’s go. Maybe someone is hiding and deliberately not coming out.”

Lin Xian stepped into the entrance of the movie theater. A musty and damp smell immediately hit him. He frowned and walked cautiously in front, saying, “Logically speaking, this place should be an excellent place to survive since it can block the entry of Aberrations. Building a shelter here would definitely be better than fleeing everywhere. But if there are no living people…”

“Then that means there’s something even more terrifying than Aberrations here?” KIKI replied directly.

Lin Xian didn’t comment, only hoping that his guess was wrong.

The movie theater lobby was pitch black. Lin Xian quickly created a powerful flashlight in his hand. Click~ The dazzling white light instantly illuminated more than half of the lobby.

The first thing he saw was a mess. A row of ticket machines and popcorn machines were placed against the wall. In the corner, there were a few tattered tents. Several corpses lay scattered there. It looked like they were residents of Rain Town who had fled and hidden here not long after the apocalypse.

“This doesn’t look like there are any survivors…”

Lin Xian glanced over and was about to leave when KIKI suddenly said, “Lin Xian, there’s a sound inside!”

He immediately turned his head and shone the flashlight in the direction KIKI was talking about. He found that it was the direction of the corridor to the movie theaters. Their eyes met, and they reached a consensus. They walked cautiously inside.

Drip, drip~

The sound of dripping water came intermittently from the depths of the corridor. Other than that, the entire space was extremely quiet, which was somewhat unsettling.

KIKI floated up directly and stopped at the entrance of a movie theater. Then she pointed at it to Lin Xian, meaning that the sound she had just heard came from inside.

Lin Xian nodded. A power surge gathered in his palm. At the same time, he reached out and slowly pushed open the door of the movie theater.

Creak~

A rusty metallic groan immediately sounded in the corridor. In an instant, an extremely strong rotten smell burst out. KIKI’s face immediately changed, and she flew backward, pinching her nose, looking like she was about to vomit.

Lin Xian also frowned tightly. This smell almost made him black out. He had seen many mountains of corpses and seas of blood along the way, but this was the first time he had smelled such a strong rotten smell!

Forcing down his nausea, he pulled the door open directly. But besides the rotten smell, there was no movement from inside the movie theater.

Lin Xian shone the flashlight inside and found that the aisle was empty. The screen in front was torn to shreds. So the two of them walked into the aisle one after the other. KIKI followed behind, constantly pinching her nose and fanning the air. “It stinks, it stinks.”

Shh.

Lin Xian’s expression was grave. He motioned for her not to make a sound. The two of them walked out of the aisle. At this moment, they saw the sloping viewing seats extending upwards on the side and back. He immediately swept the flashlight upwards. But as soon as the flashlight’s light shone over, both of their pupils instantly tightened. KIKI was so scared that she let out a cold hiss and immediately hid behind Lin Xian.

Under the white light of the flashlight, the rows of movie theater seats were now neatly filled with people.

But the ‘people’ in front of them were neither living people nor zombies, but skeletons of flesh and bone that had been skinned, rotten, and moldy