For as long as he could remember, every time Xie Xishu had a high fever, he would inevitably have nightmares.
This time was no exception.
In a haze, he once again dreamt of his childhood.
The environment in the dream was dim and dull. As he opened his eyes and looked around, he vaguely recalled that this was the single hospital room he frequently stayed in as a child.
Ah, that’s right. Although his memories of his childhood were already quite blurry, he had heard his parents mention before that he had been frail back then, constantly in and out of hospitals. Eventually, he even had a permanent bed in that hospital.
Xie Xishu turned his head and saw the light yellow-painted bedside table, with a few worn-out cartoon stickers still clinging to it.
The stickers depicted anthropomorphic sea creatures, and now, they were staring at him with their pitch-black eyes.
Xie Xishu couldn’t quite remember which cartoon these characters came from, but while trapped in the dream, he vaguely recalled how he used to be terrified every night. Only after sticking those stickers on, pretending that these brave and clever cartoon heroes were really by his side to protect him, could he barely fall asleep.
Ah, right, the night…
It seemed like it was at night…
What happened that night again…?
Xie Xishu turned his head toward the other side, and outside the window by the bed was complete darkness.
The smooth glass reflected the image of Xie Xishu lying in the bed.
But oddly enough, Xie Xishu realized the reflection showed a child who was completely unfamiliar to him: a young boy who looked no more than four or five years old. Normally, children that age still had baby fat, but the boy in the reflection had sunken cheeks, with eyes deep and hollow, and through his thin, waxy yellow skin, the outline of his skull was almost visible.
At this moment, his body was covered in all sorts of tubes, making him look so small and fragile, like a little mummy.
A mass of complicated, heavy machines with glowing indicators clustered tightly around his bed, as if they could devour him at any moment.
Wait, was I really that sick as a child?
A hint of confusion flashed through Xie Xishu’s mind…
Just then, footsteps approached, and suddenly, someone pushed open the door to his hospital room.
A man walked in.
The man was very tall, with handsome features. It was clear he had once been strikingly good-looking, but that handsomeness was now veiled by a visible layer of exhaustion.
“Xiao Shu.”
The man affectionately called Xie Xishu’s name, taking steps closer until he finally sat down by Xie Xishu’s bedside.
He reached out his hand towards Xie Xishu, as if to touch him, but at the last moment, he pulled his hand back sharply, as though hesitating for some reason.
“How are you feeling today?”
But his expression remained warm and loving.
His deliberately soft voice was filled with concern for Xie Xishu.
“I… I’m fine.”
The childish voice echoed in the quiet hospital room.
Xie Xishu looked dazedly at the man by his bedside.
That was his father… his father when he was young.
Despite the many years that had passed, his father’s facial features and figure hadn’t changed much.
However, Xie Xishu found this version of his father in the dream so unfamiliar it made him nervous.
In his memory, his father had never looked at him with such compassion and love. In fact, as far back as he could remember, every time his parents looked at him, their eyes were filled with a thick, inescapable disappointment and disgust. Every time he met his parents’ gaze, Xie Xishu felt like a huge, unerasable stain. He was a mistake, stubbornly lingering in the family, and his parents, powerless to do anything about it, could only silently endure his existence.
*
But in this dream, the way his father looked at him was filled with boundless affection.
“The nurse drew my blood today, and I was really brave, I didn’t cry…”
The “Xie Xishu” in the dream was clearly very close to his father, eagerly raising his head, trying to talk to him as much as possible.
However, his voice sounded so weak.
So weak that after just a few sentences, he was gasping for breath, his voice growing softer, barely more than a whisper in the lonely hospital room.
Xie Xishu’s heart sank slightly, but the man in the dream showed no reaction. He seemed to have long grown accustomed to his child’s frailty.
“Such a good boy, our Xiao Shu is so brave.”
As those words fell, the hospital room fell into a brief silence.
The man just sat there, staring at Xie Xishu for quite a while. Something seemed to flicker faintly in his eyes, and Xie Xishu could feel that the man was thinking about something at that moment.
And it was certainly a very difficult decision. Otherwise, his expression wouldn’t have been so complex and troubled.
But after a short hesitation, the man resolutely opened the briefcase he had been holding under his arm and took out a glass vial.
“Xiao Shu, look what Daddy brought for you.”
The man extended his hand in front of the small child version of Xie Xishu and slowly opened his palm. Inside was a vial with a semi-liquid, gold-red substance, flickering with an uncertain glow.
Xie Xishu’s attention was immediately drawn to the strange object.
“What is this?”
He murmured, his heartbeat uncontrollably accelerating.
“Xiao Shu, do you still remember what Daddy does for work?”
“Of course! Daddy is a geologist!” The child responded excitedly, then quickly added, “…and Mommy is a biologist! You’re both scientists!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The man lowered his gaze as he replied.
“Xiao Shu is so clever… Look, this is something your Daddy and Mommy created together. Isn’t it beautiful?”
The sickly young child in the dream was, of course, unaware of how strange the man’s tone and expression were at that moment.
But as an observer of the dream, Xie Xishu felt himself breaking out in uncontrollable goosebumps.
He felt a wave of panic.
“…This is material from the center of the Earth, a very, very special kind of magma. Normally, it’s impossible to obtain it. Only the most violent, cataclysmic volcanic eruptions can bring it from the Earth’s core to the surface.”
The man rambled on greedily, gazing at the vial in his palm, as if he had forgotten that a child lying in a hospital bed at this age could not possibly understand what he was saying.
“Although we call it ‘magma,’ it’s completely different from the surface lava we know. This is a very special substance, one that has extremely high and intense energy. You could even say that the very first life on Earth was born because of its influence…”
“Here, Xiao Shu, hold it properly.”
The man signaled for Xie Xishu to extend his hand.
The moment the young Xie Xishu touched the vial, the scorching heat of the glass instantly made him want to let go.
But he couldn’t, because his father was already gripping his hand, forcing him to form a fist and firmly hold the vial in his palm.
“Wait, it’s okay, Xiao Shu. This substance can accelerate the evolution of all living things around it. Xiao Shu, just hold on. With this, you’ll be able to live a healthy life. You’ll become stronger, more powerful, more advanced than anything your mother and I could ever imagine. You’ll evolve into the most superior being on Earth…”
“Daddy, it’s so hot, it’s burning, it hurts, it hurts so much!”
The young child was now crying out in terror.
“Shh—shh—”
His father quickly covered “Xie Xishu’s” mouth with his hand, anxiously signaling for him to stop crying.
“You can’t let go, Xiao Shu. This is such a great opportunity. You can’t give up, you must evolve…”
“One day, you’ll thank me, Xiao Shu.”
…
The man’s voice grew increasingly faint, and Xie Xishu suddenly felt as if the ground beneath him had vanished.
Xie Xishu gasped sharply.
When he opened his eyes again, the surroundings had drastically changed.
Strange blue lights flickered around him.
He was now being held in his father’s arms, standing in front of the large aquarium in his mother’s office.
Inside the tank, the once vibrant corals and white sands had been covered by a mass of translucent, writhing flesh.
At first glance, it looked like a jellyfish without tentacles, but upon closer inspection, one could see that the translucent surface was adorned with countless fine tendrils, undulating slightly with the movement of the water.
“Look, Xiao Shu, isn’t it beautiful?”
His father grasped Xie Xishu’s hand from behind, pressing his palm against the glass of the aquarium.
The glass, which should have been cold, felt warm to the touch.
Xie Xishu felt as though his hand was submerged in a warm, freshly-extracted organ.
At the moment he sensed someone approaching, the soft-bodied creature, which had been lazily slumped against the aquarium glass, suddenly expanded. Xie Xishu immediately saw the dense rows of sharp teeth in the creature’s mouth underneath its body.
Countless vivid patterns quickly appeared on its translucent, fleshy body—
“Bang—”
In the next moment, the soft-bodied creature slammed heavily against the wall of the tank.
Even the entire aquarium shook from the impact, causing the water to ripple violently. Some of it even splashed out, landing on the back of Xie Xishu’s hand.
But the droplets were red, sticky, exuding a strong, sweet, metallic scent.
“No… no…”
A soft whimper escaped Xie Xishu’s lips.
He didn’t know why this dream had suddenly taken such a bizarre and eerie turn, but he was indeed terrified, more than he had ever been before.
Staring at the creature in front of him, frantically thrashing its tentacles against the aquarium glass, he was so paralyzed with fear that he couldn’t move.
However, behind him, his “father’s” voice remained just as high-pitched and excited, full of joy.
“Don’t be afraid, Xiao Shu.”
The man’s voice gradually became hoarse.
“It cannot possibly hurt you.”
The once small, simple aquarium began to expand in Xie Xishu’s vision, growing larger and larger.
In the end, it transformed into a transparent glass wall as tall as a whole floor.
It was no longer an aquarium but a massive incubation tank that was almost beyond Xie Xishu’s imagination. Inside the tank, lumps of unidentifiable, ever-changing forms squirmed, constantly shifting and reshaping themselves.
Sometimes, they appeared like a pile of rotting flesh forcibly compressed together, and other times, they seemed human—except not normal humans, but deformed, grotesque ones.
Their misshapen, nauseating faces pressed against the other side of the glass wall, staring greedily at Xie Xishu.
“No, no no no—let go of me, let me go!”
Facing their frantic, nearly crazed eyes filled with desperate longing, Xie Xishu couldn’t control himself and began struggling violently.
However, the human arms that had been restraining him turned soft and rubbery, yet still strong. They tightened around Xie Xishu’s limbs like an anaconda ensnaring its prey, slowly constricting.
“Let go of me—”
The voice beside Xie Xishu’s ear was becoming stranger and stranger.
“See, how much they like you…”
Was that really his father?
“From the very beginning, their genetic code has been imprinted with the command. They will love you, Xiao Shu. They will love you like no one ever has.”
Xie Xishu mustered all his strength to turn his head, but he could no longer see the person’s face clearly. In his vision, there was only a messy, shapeless mass of soft flesh.
Countless tiny black dots—eyes—were flashing continuously on its slick, wet surface.
Besides that, there were also numerous chaotic, scattered openings.
Those strange little “mouths” were opening and closing, each one making the same sound.
“They love you.”
“…We love you.”
“…We will love you forever.”
*
Xie Xishu suddenly realized that the thing attached to him at this moment wasn’t his father at all.
It was something disguised as his “father.”
As if realizing its disguise had been seen through, the thing let out a sweet, sinister laugh.
The soft flesh kept shifting in front of Xie Xishu, and at times, he could vaguely see the terrifying face of Teacher Li. In the next second, with a squelching sound, the flesh morphed into the long-dead Cheng An.
In the end, a familiar face appeared before Xie Xishu.
It was Qi Wu.
But that wasn’t the Qi Wu that Xie Xishu could accept—
Because the Qi Wu in front of him now bore no resemblance to a human being.
What Xie Xishu saw was a mass of trembling, fleshy tendrils, waving aggressively before him. Beneath the semi-transparent skin, crimson muscles writhed and churned.
Bright patterns swirled endlessly in front of his eyes.
Xie Xishu wanted to vomit, wanted to scream, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the swirling patterns.
He struggled painfully to resist the other’s encroachment, but by the time he realized it, those things were already clinging tightly to his body.
Something invaded him, and Xie Xishu’s body convulsed violently.
He realized he was about to drown in this damp, stifling sea of flesh.
*
2 a.m.
On the balcony outside the bedroom, a tall boy sat on the edge of the railing, his legs dangling, lost in thought.
The boy held a cigarette between his long fingers—but given his sensitive sense of smell, it couldn’t be a real cigarette.
The strong scent of real cigarettes would be torture for Qi Wu’s nose.
So, what he was holding was actually a thin strip of paper, carefully cut from a photocopy, and wrapped around a small piece of fabric taken from Xie Xishu’s clothing to create a makeshift “cigarette.”
Of course, its purpose was no different from a real cigarette—it was something to calm him down during times of agitation.
Qi Wu hadn’t told Xie Xishu about this—he knew his behavior was somewhat creepy, but when he “took” Xie Xishu’s clothes, he hadn’t thought much of it.
After all, he’d already turned into a monster. Using some unusual methods to stay calm wasn’t that big of a deal.
People on diets sometimes buy fried chicken just to smell it in front of cucumbers, don’t they? And he hadn’t taken Xie Xishu’s underwear, just a regular T-shirt…
So, it really wasn’t that big of a problem.
At least, that’s what Qi Wu had thought until tonight.
Now, though, even though the “cigarette” was the same as always, and the scent from the paper remained sweet and tempting, it wasn’t calming Qi Wu down like it usually did. Instead, it made him feel even more restless.
*
So, why?
Why, in such a chaotic moment, had he suddenly pressed his lips to another boy’s face?
Qi Wu harshly questioned himself deep down.
He had told Xie Xishu that it was just an accidental “bump,” but he knew very well that, in that moment, his true goal hadn’t been Xie Xishu’s cheek, but…
“Damn—”
Qi Wu cursed and, unable to control himself, raised his hand to cover his mouth.
This was too strange.
He thought.
Even though he had now turned into a mass of writhing tentacles, with all sorts of weird organs growing on him, no mutation virus should be able to make him gay, right?
Tch.
No, it wasn’t right. It shouldn’t be. It was impossible.
Immediately, a voice in his heart decisively denied this possibility.
Even if Qi Wu had mutated into a monster, there was no way he could be attracted to men…
But then again, Xie Xishu was different from the messy, smelly boys he knew.
In fact, even before the mutation, Qi Wu had already noticed that, in the grimy, chaotic school, there was such an unusual presence.
He looked very thin, frail, always sitting with his head buried in those impossible-to-understand test papers.
His back straight.
He was completely out of place with everyone around him, yet he remained calm, as if he lived in another world… Back then, Qi Wu wasn’t particularly interested in Xie Xishu; he just thought he was really quiet.
…
After the mutation, Qi Wu couldn’t help but pay more attention to him when he smelled the scent on Xie Xishu.
The boy’s scent was always clean and fresh, comforting.
Though timid and useless, when he cried, the contrast with his usual cold, distant demeanor made him even more endearing.
And although he usually seemed smart, he was completely defenseless. Qi Wu had almost kissed him just now, and the next moment, the guy fell asleep in front of him without a care.
So careless it made him anxious.
Qi Wu didn’t dare imagine what would happen if Xie Xishu fell into the hands of other mutated monsters.
It would be better if he just…
…
Wait, what the hell was he thinking?!
Qi Wu suddenly snapped out of it, realizing where his wandering thoughts had led him. Several tentacles sprang from his body, all standing straight.
__
Author’s Note:
Qi Wu (who has turned into a soft, tentacle-covered monster): …Things seem like they were always meant to be this way.
Also Qi Wu (after realizing he wants to kiss Xiao Shu): Aaaahhhhhhhh! How could I possibly be gay?!?!?!
