Chapter 42

Xie Xishu stood at the doorway, his expression dazed.

The tentacles detached from Qi Wu were cradled in his arms, lying as motionless as if they were asleep.

Qi Wu shuddered.

The sensation was bizarre. With the deepening of his mutation and the repeated transformations he had undergone, it had become difficult for him to feel weak emotions like fear. Yet, at this moment, he could not help but feel a chilling dread.

He had not sensed Xie Xishu’s arrival. Not in the slightest.

A sliver of chill, like a multi-legged insect, crawled slowly down his spine. Subconsciously, he covered the screen of his phone with his palm.

The next second, he heard Xie Xishu continue in a puzzled voice: "...You’ve been staring at that broken phone for so long; have you made some new discovery?"

"?"

Qi Wu felt a sense of wrongness.

He looked at Xie Xishu in the doorway with astonishment. The youth’s exceptionally pale face in the darkness was like an epiphyllum blooming slowly; his smooth skin seemed to emit a faint, inner glow.

Xie Xishu appeared entirely unaware of the corpses on the bed, nor did he seem to see the image on Qi Wu’s phone. He simply gazed at Qi Wu with a hint of concern. Perhaps due to Qi Wu’s silence, he began to explain.

"That phone was broken a long time ago. Even if it weren't, there probably wouldn't be any useful information on it. My mother stopped using it ages ago," he explained patiently.

Following this, Xie Xishu cast a suspicious glance around the entire bedroom.

"Did you find anything else?"

Qi Wu couldn't help but follow his gaze back to the bed. To his horror, he saw only a neatly made, clean bed.

If not for the sharp edge of the phone digging into his palm, even Qi Wu might have believed that the two corpses he had just seen—overflowing with necrotic fluid and rotted to the bone—were merely a hallucination.

However, when Qi Wu looked closely at the bed again, he noticed faint, dark patterns in the fabric that seemed to writhe like living things.

When he looked down at his phone again, he realized the screen had gone completely dark. The metal edge of the device was slightly warped; it seemed that in his unconscious grip, he had completely crushed the already fragile phone.

"Qi Wu?"

Xie Xishu slowly walked toward him.

"Are... are you alright?"

He leaned in slightly, asking in a soft voice. His lips appeared moist and supple, his small, shell-like teeth snow-white. His breath was as sweet and alluring as ever.

"Your tentacles have suddenly become so listless..."

Xie Xishu furrowed his brows slightly; his concern and worry appeared so genuine.

"I... I'm fine."

Qi Wu gazed blankly at the youth. After a long silence, he heard his own hoarse voice.

"Why did you wake up so soon? Didn't I tell you to get some rest?" he asked.

Upon hearing this, Xie Xishu gave a very faint, bitter smile.

"I couldn't sleep. I felt so uneasy." He paused, his voice turning excited. "Then, I suddenly remembered that when my father was young, he worked in geology. Because he was often bored in the wilderness, he used to tinker with radios and such."

"Ah..."

In Qi Wu’s mind, the man’s scream he had just heard flashed suddenly. He realized that the father Xie Xishu spoke of was actually in this room... right near them.

But was that real? Or was it an illusion born in his own mind?

Qi Wu was suddenly unsure. He found he could no longer clearly recall everything he had just seen. His breathing began to accelerate involuntarily. Then, his lungs were filled once more with the fragrance of Xie Xishu.

The moment he smelled that familiar, intoxicating scent, Qi Wu couldn't help but tremble slightly. He realized that no matter what, he could not convince himself that Xie Xishu was the source of all tragedy—that he was a monster more pure and terrifying than himself.

How could that be possible?

In fact, the mere thought made Qi Wu want to shudder. He could feel his body and even his soul resisting this suspicion toward Xie Xishu. His love for Xie Xishu was supposed to be pure, fervent, and flawless—after all, Xie Xishu had sincerely accepted his affection even when faced with him as a monster.

And he should return that passion and purity in kind.

"Qi Wu, you really look strange right now. Are you about to mutate again? Or are you feeling unwell..." There was more anxiety in Xie Xishu’s voice.

He hesitated for a moment, then added, "If you need to... I mean, if you want to 'eat' something, I am well-rested now..."

Qi Wu’s heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by something.

After mutating into a monster, almost everyone experiences some degree of mental shift. Simply put, their thought patterns gradually deviate from normal human logic, becoming grotesque, paranoid, and insane. Judging by the video, Xie Xishu’s mother might have mutated long before anyone else in City A.

Therefore, how much truth there was in her words was highly debatable.

The voice in the depths of his heart analyzed coldly.

Considering this, whenever Qi Wu thought of the hesitation and panic he had felt toward Xie Xishu earlier, he felt his blood vessels contract with disgust and shame.

Thank goodness the lighting in the room was truly dim at that moment—dim enough that Xie Xishu could not see his expression. Moreover, Xie Xishu seemed to have no interest in dwelling on Qi Wu’s distraction. He took Qi Wu by the hand, led him out of the bedroom, and ducked into the home’s storage room.

Relying on the few remaining candles and Qi Wu’s superior night vision as a monster, it took little effort for Xie Xishu to find a radio among the clutter. Judging by its appearance and weight, this radio was far more professional and of higher quality than the one they had found in the supermarket lounge.

Qi Wu stared intently at Xie Xishu’s profile, watching the youth seriously and carefully tune the radio that had been gathering dust for years. The youth’s profile was as delicate and fair as ever; whether it was his warm skin or his nimble, slender fingers, it was the most perfect version of a human that Qi Wu could imagine.

How could such a Xie Xishu not be human?

How could he be the monster revealed in the woman’s video, capable of twisting human hearts?

...

"Great, it still works! I'm tuning the frequency. If we're lucky, we might even hear broadcasts from other regions. I wonder if other areas have been affected... Are you listening? Qi Wu... Qi Wu!"

Xie Xishu waved his slender white hand in front of Qi Wu.

Qi Wu snapped back to reality, meeting Xie Xishu’s clear, dark eyes.

Xie Xishu was holding the radio, staring straight at him, his eyes filled with visible confusion.

"What on earth happened? This is the first time I've seen you so distracted."

By the end of the sentence, the youth even seemed somewhat anxious.

"Did you find something else?" he whispered, holding his breath.

Qi Wu smelled the unease gradually emanating from Xie Xishu.

"Ah, no, no... I was just... a little..."

Qi Wu’s lips parted and closed, letting out a few disjointed responses. He shouldn't have been like this. Just seconds ago, Qi Wu felt he should honestly tell Xie Xishu everything, including the corpses on the bed and the video left by the woman. Yet, the moment he met Xie Xishu’s eyes, he found he couldn't even compose a coherent sentence.

He had no idea how to begin.

And then, that impulse to confess everything vanished as abruptly as a spark falling into ice water.

Yet, anyone could feel that Qi Wu’s abnormality had made the atmosphere in the room stagnant and strange. The look Xie Xishu cast at Qi Wu grew increasingly puzzled.

The air felt like thick, viscous glue, becoming exceptionally heavy.

"I..."

Qi Wu finally couldn't help but murmur.

Just then, the previously silent radio suddenly emitted a buzzing white noise. The sudden sound startled both of them.

Following that, having inadvertently landed on a specific frequency, the white noise began to stabilize, piecing itself together into a sound heavy with static but barely discernable.

"...This is the National Emergency Broadcast... We have just received a shocking global emergency report... At 17:13 tonight, Country A detonated the nuclear power plant located in... *static*... in Country B... *static*... This measure was taken to contain... *static*... the spread of the mutation caused by... *static*... *static*..."

"...*static*... Since the outbreak of the crisis, Country B has been the hardest-hit area... *static*... The number of mutated individuals has increased sharply. Traditional isolation and control measures have been unable to effectively contain the spread of the epidemic... *static*..."

"...A government spokesperson for Country A stated that this was a difficult but necessary decision... *static*..."

...

The voice on the broadcast had a distinct accent; clearly, this message was not a local transmission.

However, both Qi Wu and Xie Xishu could clearly grasp the message being broadcast.

Xie Xishu’s complexion turned deathly pale in an instant.

"Nuclear explosion..."

The latest news made Qi Wu’s earlier strange behavior seem insignificant.

Xie Xishu gasped for air, yet still felt a suffocating sense of pressure.

"They nuked Country B... My father... mother... they were both there..."

"They were both there."

The youth muttered incoherently, his tone drifting.

"Weren't they saying that foreign countries would be safer?"

"Why... why were they no longer in City A... why were they still..."

"This is a lie, right? Maybe someone is deliberately using the radio to spread fake news? What do you think? Qi Wu... that's it, right?"

...

Xie Xishu’s pain was so genuine.

Qi Wu gazed unblinkingly at the crumbling youth, almost able to touch the immense terror and extreme grief spreading from the depths of the other's being.