Chapter 17

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“Qi Wu?!”

Xie Xishu turned around, startled and delighted in equal measure, and looked toward Qi Wu. The young man was still far from well.

He could only be said to have barely regained something resembling human form. His body was still covered in cracks, and each tiny crimson slit repeatedly opened and closed according to some mysterious rhythm, revealing the faintly writhing tips of tongues within.

The mottled markings had faded considerably, but even now they pulsed beneath Qi Wu’s skin, moving in rhythm like living things.

Although Qi Wu had once assured Xie Xishu with absolute confidence that he was fine, his condition made the claim utterly unconvincing. An oppressive gloom clung to him, impossible to ignore. And then there were those markings. They had never appeared on Qi Wu’s human form before, yet their excessive liveliness, their strange shapes and colors, made Xie Xishu feel profoundly uneasy.

He had no choice but to remain on full alert around Qi Wu.

“No… of course not,” Xie Xishu immediately denied. “But you suddenly went silent just now. I—I was worried about you. I only wanted to ask him for help.”

He explained himself with utmost sincerity.

Qi Wu gave a cold snort.

“Then you’d better mean it,” the young man replied darkly. “…You should be grateful that bastard didn’t let you in.”

Hearing the implication in his words, Xie Xishu was taken aback.

“The stench of corpses in that bastard’s car nearly knocked me unconscious.”

Qi Wu added this in a flat voice.

“What?”

Xie Xishu’s eyes widened in disbelief. “But…”

But the man had clearly looked like an ordinary person. He had even deliberately used a drone to lure away the Headless Woman, not to mention that his own little daughter was in the car!

Xie Xishu was so shocked that he nearly began to question reality itself.

Qi Wu, however, clearly had no intention of explaining further. At that moment, he seemed exceptionally agitated—and circumstances did not allow them to continue dwelling on such an insignificant interlude.

“Still, he did tell us one thing that was true.”

As Qi Wu spoke, part of his body began to collapse once more. Countless slits burst open, and clumps of “tongues” fought to squeeze out from the dark-red gaps in his flesh, wrapping themselves around Xie Xishu.

From the darkness where they had come, a few nearly inaudible murmurs drifted faintly through the air.

“At night, all the monsters become more frenzied… We have to leave this place as quickly as possible.”

The moment Qi Wu finished speaking, Xie Xishu felt his body grow weightless. He was instantly swept up and drawn into a cocoon of flesh woven from mucus and strips of meat.

His five senses were immediately overwhelmed by the slick, damp softness surrounding him.

For one brief moment, he nearly screamed. But he quickly realized that the tight restraint, combined with the thick coating of mucus, was the same measure Qi Wu had used before to erase his scent and hide him from the search of other monsters.

Qi Wu’s actions were brutally rough, and showed no regard whatsoever for Xie Xishu’s wishes.

Yet Xie Xishu did not resist. On the contrary, despite his immense discomfort, he clenched his teeth and forced himself to relax, making it easier for Qi Wu to carry him.

In the darkness, he had no idea where this long-since-mutated and unusually unstable “companion” intended to take him. He could only tell that Qi Wu was running very fast. The intermittent sensation of weightlessness suggested that Qi Wu was carrying him upward.

Before long, even that conjecture became vague and difficult to maintain.

After all, unless one possessed some unusual proclivity or had undergone special training, an ordinary person would find it extremely difficult to endure a state so close to being completely swallowed. Xie Xishu’s breathing soon grew labored, and every instinctive attempt to draw breath only forced more foul-smelling mucus into his nose and mouth.

“Cough—cough, cough—”

The mucus secreted by Qi Wu squeezed through the gap between Xie Xishu’s lips, which had opened inadvertently, and flooded into his mouth. He choked several times, only to inhale even more of it.

For a moment, he felt as though his entire body, inside and out, had been completely filled with Qi Wu’s presence.

It was almost like drowning.

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At last—right at the limit of what Xie Xishu could endure, when he finally began to struggle—the fleshy tendrils wrapped around him suddenly loosened.

Xie Xishu slid to the floor, coughing so violently that he nearly lost consciousness.

Only after a long while did he finally recover enough strength to control his limbs.

Once he had cleared his head, Xie Xishu braced himself against the floor and slowly sat up. He wiped away the excess mucus smeared across his face and struggled to open his eyes.

After looking around, he realized that he was inside what might have been a hotel room.

The furnishings were old and cheap. The wallpaper was an almost garishly vulgar pink. Yet in the very center of the room stood a large, round bed, an uncommon sight in everyday life. A mirror had been embedded directly above it. On the bedside table sat a large acrylic box containing numerous rod-shaped objects of various colors, some smooth and others ridged. A QR code had been printed in a conspicuous place on the outside, with the words “Purchase at Your Own Expense” printed beneath it.

The window was open. A glistening trail of mucus marked the windowsill, making it clear that Qi Wu had carried him into the room through there.

The instant Xie Xishu glanced toward the window, a slender tentacle shot out, silently closed it, and then abruptly drew the heavy curtains shut.

The room was plunged into absolute darkness.

“It’s so dark—where are we?”

Xie Xishu blinked helplessly in the darkness and murmured the question.

After releasing him, Qi Wu had once again disappeared into the shadows of the room. Xie Xishu had been unable to locate him before, and now that everything around them was so dark, he could not even make out where the young man was.

“Don’t worry about that,” Qi Wu’s hoarse voice rang out. “This place is safe for the time being… It was sealed off and ordered to close several years ago. There shouldn’t be any mutated things staying here.”

From the corner where Qi Wu was located came the wet sound of soft flesh rubbing against itself.

“And the soundproofing… is very good… huff… I’ve also… wheeze… erased our scent.”

The young man’s voice gradually became stranger, as though it had been processed through a voice-changing program. It sounded exceptionally distorted.

Although he could see nothing, Xie Xishu instinctively widened his eyes and stared fixedly toward the direction of Qi Wu’s voice.

He tried desperately not to let his imagination run wild.

But Qi Wu’s various reactions were simply too abnormal, giving him a deeply ominous feeling.

“Qi Wu, are you sure you’re all right?”

As he asked, he could not help taking two steps toward him.

The next second, something caught his foot and sent him sprawling. Yet when he fell, he did not land on the dusty carpet of the long-neglected hotel room. Instead, he plunged directly into a heap of soft, decomposing flesh.

“Mm?!”

Xie Xishu let out a low cry. “Wait—you…”

“Huff…”

“Hrrgh…”

Qi Wu’s voice was clearly right beside him, almost brushing against the rim of Xie Xishu’s ear. Yet Xie Xishu could not find him.

He truly could not.

Strange, tuneless panting rose and fell, seeming to come simultaneously from every direction. But even as Xie Xishu groped through the rotting flesh beneath him, he could not touch any part of Qi Wu’s body.

He could not even find the slightest outline resembling a human form.

And then several things with horrifying, nauseating textures began silently crawling out from the heap of carrion in the darkness, pressing themselves tightly against Xie Xishu’s body.

“Qi Wu?!”

Cold sweat broke out across Xie Xishu’s forehead.

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Reason told him that Qi Wu should not do anything excessive to him. After all, the young man himself had said earlier that licking him a little would be enough to restore his sanity.

But panic erupted uncontrollably in Xie Xishu’s mind, raging like a volcano.

Xie Xishu could not control himself. He wanted to scream and struggle, but he could do neither.

“Qi Wu” had completely subdued him.

*

Suddenly, the warning that the man had given Xie Xishu before they parted echoed through his mind.

“Once night falls, these monsters become especially excited—completely insane. They’re far more dangerous than during the day.”

*

Ah. Yes.

How could he have forgotten?

Qi Wu…

Qi Wu was a monster too.

*

Xie Xishu’s body went rigid. He could not determine when, exactly, Qi Wu had lost control completely.

He had thought that Qi Wu had transformed into that form and wrapped himself around him while fleeing in order to keep them safe.

But what if there were another possibility?

What if Qi Wu had already become utterly incapable of controlling the monstrous instincts within him, and had completely succumbed to his bloodthirsty hunger?

In nature, when a predator has successfully caught its prey and encounters an outsider powerful enough to compete for it, the first thing it does is devour as much of its own prey as possible, lest the outsider take all of it away.

Unfortunately, in this brand-new food chain, Xie Xishu’s role was that of the “prey.”

The things wrapped around him were tightening with increasing force. Through his flesh, Xie Xishu could feel their teeth gradually taking shape.

He was about to be torn apart and devoured—

At the moment that thought began to solidify into certainty, Xie Xishu suddenly realized that something had violently hurled him away.

This time, he hit the floor hard.

He spun several times, finally coming to a stop only after crashing into the side of the bed. Beneath him, he felt the thick, sticky texture of the hotel carpet. There was no doubt that he had been thrown clear of the mass of “carrion.”

“Get… get away…”

Then Xie Xishu heard Qi Wu’s stiff reprimand once again.

“Hide… go… far away… stay away from me…”

The young man sounded more furious than ever before.

The wet, squelching sound of soft flesh rubbing together grew increasingly distinct in the darkened room.

At that moment, the curtains shifted, revealing a narrow slit.

With a single glance, Xie Xishu saw a huge mass of tangled “something,” covered in irregular spots, slowly writhing toward the window.

Clearly, “it” wanted to leave through the window.

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