Chapter 44: Corpse-Eating Ghost

  "He's a Ghoul! He's a Ghoul! .... Don't come over!!!!"

  "He eats people! He eats people!!!!!!"

  "He doesn't even spare corpses...... He's not human! He's a Ghoul!"

  Innumerable voices in my mind are screaming and wailing, torturing my nerves!

  "Die!!!!!!"

  Suddenly a pair of blood-red eyes burst out of the darkness and approached me, accompanied by an extremely fierce voice that pounced on me head-on.

  "Ah!" I suddenly woke up from my dream, opened my eyes wide: "Huff! Huff! Huff!" I kept panting. Struggling to sit up, but found myself tied to a stretcher with bandages, swaying back and forth as it moved through the jungle!

  "Are you awake!" The butcher laughed on the side: "How does it feel? Ghoul!"

  "What?" I calmed down and thought back to everything that happened before I fainted, but didn't quite catch what the butcher said!

  "How do you feel? GHOUL!"

  "I'm like a burst balloon! How do you think I feel?"

  "Sounds perfect!!" Butcher laughed haha.

  "What did you just call me? GHOUL? What does it mean?" I suddenly remembered the word he said earlier that had been screaming in my dreams countless times. This word is rarely used, and I really don't know what it means!

  "Hmph! Don't you know what GHOUL means? But we've already decided to use it as your nickname." The butcher said with a sinister tone.

  Looking at his pleading face, I rolled my eyes and turned to look around, only to find the priest not far away, wiping sweat for the injured person.

  "Father! Father!!" I cried out loud: "Come here, I need your help!"

  "What's wrong? My child!" The priest came over after taking the patient's temperature and comforted him with a couple of words.

  I'm dizzy! In just two days, I've become his child! I cursed in my heart but didn't say it out loud. Watching him approach, I opened my mouth and asked: "Dear Father, isn't it true that clergy can't lie? Then may I ask you what GHOUL means?"

  The priest looked at the guy on the edge of the wolf pack, and said with a knowing face: "Clergymen don't lie, but we have the right to remain silent!" Then he gave me a weird smile and shrugged his shoulders. I was so angry that I almost sat up from the stretcher, but my body had no strength at all and didn't listen to commands. Moreover, as soon as I moved my shoulder, I felt a sharp pain and only broke out in cold sweat!

  "Never mind, never mind, getting angry is bad for your health! Xing Tian, don't get angry anymore! GHOUL means ghoul!" The doctor couldn't bear to watch any longer and stood up.

  "Corpse-eating demon? How can you call me that?! I didn't eat his corpse!!! I bit him because I had no choice, he pierced my shoulder and I would have died if I hadn't bitten him. And besides, when I bit him, he was still alive!" I shouted loudly. This is a matter of reputation, I must defend myself to the extreme!

  "Haha, we didn't know that, all we knew was that he died and you kept gnawing on him, biting his neck until only the spine was left, and then you swallowed the flesh and bones! You actually ate him!! I was so scared when I saw you hugging that guy without a neck!" The devil chimed in from the side.

  As soon as he said that, I remembered the chunks of meat and bone fragments I threw up last night. My stomach churned and I felt like vomiting, but I was strapped to the stretcher and couldn't move at all.

  "For Pete's sake! Devil! Stop it! I'm going to puke!" I retched, clutching my stomach.

  "Next time, just bite the blood vessels, that's enough. Don't bite too deep or your teeth will sink into the flesh and when they struggle free, they'll take your teeth with them. Most importantly, don't swallow the flesh and blood, that's unsanitary! Who knows if those guys have diseases or not? If they have AIDS, you're done for!" The butcher said with a sly lick of his teeth.

  "You've bitten people to death too, why don't they call you that? It's not fair!" I ignored the part of his words that made me nauseous, I finally got evidence.

  "Because when I bite, no one sees it!! But you... everyone saw us!! You scared those nuns and refugees like they saw a ghost! Haha!" The butcher pointed at my mouth and said: "GHOUL... Ghoul! Doesn't this name sound good, powerful, bloody? You're still being picky. I think it's fine, so that's what we'll call you!"

  "I agree!!"

  Long live!!

  "GHOUL!!GHOUL!!GHOUL!!....." The group of people raised their guns and shouted together. After shouting, they fired into the sky to celebrate!!! They scared the people around them, and the priest shook his head and walked away slowly, as if he had already foreseen my tragic fate.

  I watched a group of people in high spirits, and I was puzzled to death! Having earned this nickname, I'm not happy, what are they happy about? Are they still firing guns? Aren't they afraid of being heard by the pursuing soldiers?

  "Who the hell fired?! Shut up!!" The captain ran over and cursed.

  "SIR! Let's give Xing Tian a celebration for getting his nickname!" The cowboy on the side was smiling, he was also injured, with his arm wrapped in bandages hanging from his chest. "Captain, every time we have new recruits get nicknames, we always celebrate, back then you..."

  "Ah! So that's how it is, this time counts as nothing! Damn it! Whoever fires again, I'll make them clean the toilets for a month!" The captain threatened viciously: "Alright! Continue advancing! Take good care of your wounds! GHOUL!" The captain patted my cheek, making me grit my teeth in pain, then turned and walked away.

  I stared blankly at the captain's back, how could this be? The captain also called me that, it's unreasonable!!

  "Haha!!! Look! Even the captain is calling you that, just accept it already, Ghoul." Everyone burst out laughing together.

  I fell back onto the stretcher, it's all over! It seems that this immoral nickname will represent me for the rest of my life!

  Looking at the blue sky, I didn't say a word, because I knew that even if I said something, it would be superfluous. In the army, nicknames aren't given by oneself, but are named by comrades based on one's characteristics. Tufu was named for his brutal killing methods, Mei Du was named after he contracted syphilis from visiting prostitutes, and Cowboy is a German name. Cike got his name because he was an assassin by trade, Dihuo because he loved using his own self-loaded ammunition, and Evil Spirit because his eyes would change color when he killed people...

  I've always been careful with my words and actions, afraid of getting a bad nickname. How great it would be to get a noble-sounding one like "Knight"! So just and righteous! But unexpectedly, I ended up with the nickname "Corpse-eating Ghost", a name that sounds evil and cruel.

  "What's wrong, Xing Tian? Aren't you happy? No way!" The cowboy looked at me and said: "You have to understand that when we're in action, we can't always call your name. That's for the safety of your family and friends! Besides, this nickname has a lot of deterrent power, comparable to Butcher!!"

  "I know!" I continued to gaze at the sky. Although I didn't care what others called me, this name Li Ming had already found out and would eventually reach my brother's ears, then my mom would also find out... I was actually worried about this. If my family members heard this name, they would immediately know what kind of situation I'm in now, and my mom's temper would either scare me to death or infuriate me to death. I had to think of a way to prevent Li Ming from telling my family about this, but what method could I use? And as for Wan Er... it was even more troublesome. It seemed that the two of us were destined to have no fate together...

  "Alright! Alright! I won't tease you anymore. At most, we'll call your name normally, and only use your nickname when it's time for action!" The butcher said with a smile, seeing that I seemed to be taking this matter seriously.

  "Really? Thanks." I suddenly came to my senses: "Right, how was the situation yesterday? The slow machine? I heard on the wireless that he was injured. Is everyone else okay?" It wasn't until now that I thought to ask about yesterday's battle.

  "Haha, yesterday's battle was intense! You were the most injured one. The others didn't stay in their original positions because of the tear gas, so they weren't affected by the shock and flash. Those who were deafened also recovered their hearing thanks to your reminder, so when they rushed in, we caught them off guard. This time, you and Slow Machine made the greatest contribution. You reminded us, while Slow Machine covered us for over 20 minutes under the tear gas, taking out three enemies. As a result, he was injured by shrapnel from the grenade and suffered burns from the gas, causing an allergic reaction that required treatment. How did you think of using earphones on our ears? None of us thought of it! Haha, at the time, I couldn't hear anything, and your sudden shout scared me!" The Butcher is describing last night's battle to me.

  "I was deaf and blind at the time, the sewing machine hummed in the wireless like a lifesaver, of course I noticed! You were with me, how didn't you notice?" I curiously asked Butcher.

  "I didn't bring night vision goggles, I just took a glance and it was fine!! When I heard your voice coming to find you, you were already gone, you ran pretty fast!" The butcher laughed: "You little guy is deaf and blind, but still managed to take down that guy, not easy! No wonder I picked you out!!! Haha!!!"

  "Shameless!!! I couldn't help but say with a mixture of laughter and frustration as I watched him from the side: "I don't know who I should thank. Otherwise, I would have written on my scars 'Almost died at the hands of XX on September 28th, 1999, at 4 am!' Haha! Mmm... Hahaha... Mmm..." As I spoke, I couldn't hold back my loud laughter, and by the end, I felt like my voice was trembling with tears."

  Everyone looked at me without saying a word, just holding my hand tightly, because they all knew that for a new recruit who had only been in the army for half a year, these days of fighting were not something an ordinary soldier would dare to imagine. They knew there was no need to say anything, because everyone had gone through this before, and what I needed most now was not comfort but support.

  I laughed for half a day, and it wasn't until I slowly calmed down that the laughter turned into wails. Slowly, I grasped everyone's hands, and their firm yet warm grip gave me infinite strength and courage, making my body, which had been cold due to lack of blood, boil like fire... Finally, unable to hold back the surging blood in my veins, I raised my right fist and shouted loudly: "Wolf pack!!!"

  "HOO!--AH!---" The entire wolf pack let out a thunderous howl!!!!!