“Shhh—”
Just then, a faint rustling sound came from the lush bushes beneath the balcony.
Qi Wu finally came to his senses and cast his gaze toward the shadows at his feet.
What had brushed past his ear earlier seemed like the sound of the night wind blowing through the treetops. But to Qi Wu, the suppressed low growls and breaths of monsters hidden in the darkness were as loud as thunder.
Qi Wu lowered his head to look into the darkness.
A gray-white figure was slithering through the thick underbrush, moving swiftly but with a precision, softness, and smoothness reminiscent of a true reptile.
In fact, it now completely resembled a mutated, deformed large reptile. Its entire body was a dull gray-white, and as it crawled, its limbs remained close to the ground, its neck stretched long, while its head had regressed into a small, flat shape—almost as if someone had maliciously pressed two large panes of glass against its head.
Its head was permanently fixed in that ridiculous state.
Its facial features were utterly deformed, flattened and embedded into the disc-like head. Its nose had become two long, narrow slits, and its eyes had rolled back to reveal only the whites.
Meanwhile, its mouth had flipped to the other side of its body.
As it drew nearer, the monster’s body secreted fresh mucus, leaving a shiny, slimy trail across the littered leaves in the bushes… Gradually, the air filled with the peculiar stench of the monster’s body.
Qi Wu’s pupils contracted into fine points.
He stared coldly at the monster on the ground, his previously shifting expression instantly hardening into one of savage, beast-like bloodlust and fury.
The monster’s instincts surged through his body.
Even without considering those savage instincts, the human part of Qi Wu was also in an extremely irritable state.
He had sealed Xie Xishu’s bedroom tightly. Xie Xishu himself was also completely marked with Qi Wu’s scent.
Yet somehow, all night long, lower-tier monsters, who should have been avoiding this place, had been drawn to it like moths to a flame, constantly trying to get closer. Each one clearly exuded, through its mucus, saliva, and scent, its intense desire for Xie Xishu.
This was a direct challenge to Qi Wu’s dominance.
[Xie Xishu…]
[Clearly, he belongs to him.]
Qi Wu grinned, his long tongue flicking out and swaying in the air.
Then, several tentacles slowly extended from his cracked palms, dangling lifelessly over the thick layer of fallen leaves in the garden like dead snakes.
The white reptilian monster at the front suddenly stopped about ten meters from the villa.
It raised its flat head and sniffed the air for a long moment.
The strange cracking noises from its throat became more frequent. Its instincts were warning it of the overwhelming danger in the darkness, but the nearby temptation was too much for it to leave.
Such a sweet smell…
In the monster’s muddled thoughts, only the irresistible sweetness remained.
So pleasant.
It really, really liked that scent.
It wanted to get closer. Wanted to be near it, to…
In the next second, the monster’s thoughts were abruptly cut off by a surge of pain.
Qi Wu’s tentacle shot straight toward the white reptilian monster’s neck, coiling tightly around it. The monster jerked its head up in the night, its dying instincts forcing it to scream, but the sound was caught in its throat.
Because Qi Wu had already controlled his tentacles to directly drill into the monster’s brain.
He swallowed greedily the stinking, scalding brain matter.
Even a monster with strong vitality could not withstand this level of devouring for long; its body convulsed a few times and then slowly became soft and limp.
Thick slime mixed with blood splattered down from Qi Wu’s tentacles in steady drops.
A few minutes later, Qi Wu pulled the white crawling monster, now drained of life, up the balcony steps.
Then he extended his hand, grabbing the monster’s light and delicate body, and scrutinized it carefully under the faint moonlight.
Qi Wu focused his observation on the monster’s deformed and twisted facial features.
After a few seconds, his brows knitted together. Cracks opened up on his body, revealing teeth more suitable for biting and chewing — he did not see any features belonging to his family or friends on the monster, so he opened his “mouth” and carelessly gulped down the creature in just a few bites.
Strangely enough, before this, Qi Wu could maintain a sense of fullness for a long time by hunting other monsters.
But at some point, he found that even after eating to satisfaction, he felt increasingly empty, increasingly thirsty.
He was very clear about what he truly wanted to consume.
Something sweeter, more fragrant, and completely defenseless —
But the little humanity left in him would absolutely not allow him to yield to that beastly desire.
So now, all Qi Wu could do was to keep devouring, continuously incorporating more monsters into his body.
If he thought carefully, even Qi Wu himself didn’t quite understand why he could calmly eat the corpse of a monster that was, not long ago, his kind. Yet, somewhere in his intuition, it was always telling him that this was necessary.
He had to force himself into a state of fullness; only then could he endure.
Endure…
Suddenly, Qi Wu’s actions stopped.
He caught a whiff of a familiar, heartwarming scent.
Xie Xishu’s fragrance was wafting from the tightly closed bedroom behind him, spreading through the night.
Qi Wu abruptly turned his head, and through the floor-to-ceiling window of the bedroom, he could clearly see the boy in the room.
Just like before, Xie Xishu was lying in the center of the two-meter bed, his thin body covered by a thin blanket (which still bore Qi Wu’s slime). The boy’s eyes were tightly closed, still in a deep slumber. However, at that moment, he was furrowing his brows in distress, his eyeballs rapidly rolling under his eyelids, and his cheeks were flushed, with fine beads of sweat trickling down his neck and forehead.
“Don’t… please don’t…”
In weak murmurs, he turned restlessly on the bed, as if trapped in a nightmare.
Amidst the sudden rich aroma, Qi Wu accurately sensed the intense anxiety and panic radiating from Xie Xishu.
But the problem was that even under such negative emotions, the scent produced was still irresistibly enticing to the monster, akin to a drug, making it impossible to resist, stirring restless impulses within…
Qi Wu’s gaze suddenly became exceptionally sharp.
He jumped off the balcony railing and dashed into the room.
As he opened the door, the cracks on his body suddenly widened. He shivered, his breathing instinctively becoming heavy and rapid: compared to the outside, the sweet scent in the room was so rich it seemed to solidify into a fragrant gel…
“Wuu… wuu…”
And on the bed, Xie Xishu let out a painful whimper.
“Xie Xishu?” Qi Wu paused for a moment to steady himself, then gritted his teeth and approached the bed. Even from a small distance away, he could feel the boy’s body heat radiating intensely, and the overwhelmingly strong scent was evidently triggered by this high fever.
“Wake up, you need to take some antipyretics.”
On a corner of the bedside table lay the fever-reducing medicine he had prepared earlier. Xie Xishu had already swallowed two pills without changing color before showering, but it seemed those pills had not taken effect.
[Damn, I shouldn’t have let him take a shower.]
[He was already so fragile; taking a shower not only wiped away the scent I had painstakingly covered him with but also caused him to run a high fever…]
Qi Wu could hear that inner voice constantly murmuring in his mind.
Then he reached out towards the boy, brushing against the warm and damp skin of his cheek — the fine sweat immediately seeped into Qi Wu’s palm.
He tasted an unprecedented sweetness.
Qi Wu’s body suddenly became hot, and his mind went blank under the overwhelming impact.
So fragrant.
So sweet.
…
Something mad surged within him, crushing his weak and helpless human will into a thin layer. It was as if he had reached both heaven and hell at once; the entire world became extraordinarily radiant, dazzling, and beautiful at that moment.
Qi Wu trembled; he couldn’t help but lean down, and in an instant, the tall and handsome boy disintegrated into a writhing mass of monsters before the moist youth.
Countless thin, long, and bright red tongues burst forth from the cracks in his body, replacing the clumsy limbs of his humanity, greedily licking Xie Xishu’s skin. With each lick, he tasted more sweetness, making him tremble uncontrollably and involuntarily produce more saliva. The thick liquid soaked Xie Xishu’s hair and clothes, while the disintegrating monster created an immense sense of pressure around him.
Even in the haze brought on by the high fever, Xie Xishu seemed to sense that lurking danger, beginning to struggle beneath Qi Wu’s form. Such weak resistance once again ignited the uncontrollable ferocity in Qi Wu’s monster nature.
More appendages tangled around Xie Xishu’s body, and mouthparts covered in fine teeth rushed to attach themselves to the boy, trying to obtain some fresh, sweet flesh and blood.
Amidst the sharp stings, Xie Xishu finally awakened.
Upon seeing Qi Wu’s current appearance, Xie Xishu’s reality and nightmare completely overlapped.
A monster.
The monster was devouring him.
His entire body seemed to sink into a heavy, stinking sea of flesh, layered upon layers. The monster’s head was a mass of constantly writhing, undulating flesh tendrils. Xie Xishu felt detached from his body, as if the part below his neck had already been unknowingly digested.
A thick, moist tongue wrapped around him, slowly swallowing him into the monster’s interior.
Xie Xishu’s lips moved slightly; he wanted to scream, but just as he opened his mouth, something squeezed inside.
[Help——]
Xie Xishu could only emit a desperate wail deep within his mind.
[Who will come… who will come… save me… save me…]
[Save me——]
A stream of tears slowly slid down the corner of Xie Xishu’s eye.
“Bang——”
The next second, the entire glass window of the bedroom shattered.
Several completely bare monsters, covered in slime, charged into the room from outside, each one looking as if they had a severe skin disease. Their outer skin had almost no pigment, appearing a pale, translucent yellow like egg white, and one could clearly see every muscle and internal organ through the skin. There were also “foods” that had been swallowed by them but not yet digested.
Several faces, already corroded to a mushy state by stomach acid, slightly swayed inside their stomach sacs with movement, looking as though they still possessed life. Their faces still vaguely retained human features, but their eyes, noses, and mouths had severely deformed. In their deeply set eye sockets, resembling two small holes, two blood-red eyeballs burst forth with an extreme, frantic hunger.
When they crashed into the glass window, several monsters had their backs and shoulders cut open by the shattered glass, palm-sized pieces of skin nearly falling off them, yet they seemed completely oblivious.
“Fragrant… hsss… fragrant… delicious…”
“Delicious… hsss…”
……
The monsters hissed and muttered, emitting completely meaningless whimpers.
They reached out their bony, emaciated hands towards Xie Xishu.
This complete disregard for Qi Wu’s reaction was evidently a provocation toward the latter. Qi Wu suddenly rose and spread his own flesh tendrils toward those creatures. The originally deep red appendages turned into a muscular purplish-red in his rage, extending threateningly in the air like poisonous snakes, with mouthparts filled with sharp teeth directly aimed at those monsters.
He spat out lethal venom at them.
Just a drop or two, and the monster’s body that came into contact with the venom immediately showed deep red corrosive patches. A foul stench wafted forth as the monsters’ slime-covered skin rapidly liquefied before the naked eye, rotting away and ultimately revealing the muscles and white bones beneath.
“Hsss—”
The monsters let out a pained howl.
Qi Wu was declaring his ownership over Xie Xishu in the way of a monster.
Logically, those few monsters should have followed their biological instincts to flee when faced with a creature clearly superior to them. But on this night… on this night, overwhelmed and driven mad by the sweet fragrance, the lower-level monsters seemed to go completely berserk at once.
They raised their heads and shrieked at Qi Wu, then pounced fiercely on Qi Wu, who was currently occupying the boy’s body. Without hesitation, they grabbed his flailing appendages with their claws and began to bite down hard.
Qi Wu let out a low growl.
He waved his tendrils, and as before, the mouthparts adorned at the tips of the appendages easily tore open the monsters’ chests and abdomens. They drilled one after another fist-sized blood holes there, and a mix of bloody, foul-smelling fluid and grayish-yellow slime continuously gushed from those fresh wounds. The monsters let out cries of agony from the intense pain, yet their claws did not let go of Qi Wu.
On the contrary, they even became more frenzied in their biting.
Qi Wu’s appendages thoroughly penetrated their bodies with a sizzling sound, and amidst a sudden explosion of blood mist, he ripped them all into juicy chunks.
“Fragrant…”
“Delicious…”
……
In the dark room, the monsters’ discordant low moans echoed.
A few relatively intact chunks of corpse on the ground groaned as if they were cut-up earthworms, convulsing continuously before stubbornly crawling toward Xie Xishu.
Bright red blood trails were left on the floor.
“Slap——”
The next second, that chunk of corpse was crushed underfoot.
Qi Wu stood panting in place, staring at the now motionless monsters beneath his feet for a long while, before finally suppressing the murderous intent that continued to surge within him.
He still felt exhilarated, still bloodthirsty, and still craved Xie Xishu, who lay on the bed.
He couldn’t fully revert to his human form… but without a doubt, the sudden attack from the other monsters had indeed interrupted that ominous “transformation.”
In the pain brought by the gnawing, Qi Wu struggled to retrieve his rationality as a human.
However, the lingering aroma from Xie Xishu in the air still made his heart pound uncontrollably, and his mouth dry.
After a long while, he finally managed to restrain his swollen, soft body. He turned his head to look at the boy curled up in the corner of the bed, who seemed to have been thoroughly terrified into a stupor.
Xie Xishu’s face was pale, his gaze hollow, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed intently on the tall shadow in the room.
“Are you okay?”
Qi Wu’s Adam’s apple rolled as he hesitated for a moment before returning to the bedside.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what was going on just now…”
He explained softly.
Then, instinctively, he raised his hand towards Xie Xishu, wanting to wipe away the few drops of blood that had splattered on the other’s face at some point.
Xie Xishu’s fragrance had already faded significantly compared to before. At that moment, the aura surrounding his body was more of a monster’s characteristic musky smell.
But even so, Qi Wu still found the smell of other monsters clinging to him very unpleasant.
Just as Qi Wu reached out, Xie Xishu seemed to finally awaken abruptly from his nightmare.
The boy let out a hoarse whimper and recoiled heavily, the back of his head hitting the bedpost with a muffled sound.
Xie Xishu trembled in pain, his eyes shimmering with tears, but the gaze he directed at Qi Wu was filled with fear.
“Don’t touch me—”
The low, hoarse scream escaped involuntarily.
Qi Wu’s hand froze in mid-air.
“I… I didn’t mean to…”
He looked at Xie Xishu in a panic, feeling as if he had stepped into an empty space and was falling rapidly.
“Just now, I don’t know what happened; you suddenly became very fragrant. I was going to call you, but I didn’t expect…”
“Get out! Get out!”
Before he could finish speaking, Xie Xishu had already covered his head with his hands, shrinking back even further. Qi Wu was momentarily stunned and, following Xie Xishu’s gaze, looked at the pile of bedding on the bed, only to realize that a part of his body still hadn’t returned to a human form—those bulging, veiny appendages, covered in slime, were still stubbornly and forcefully entwined around Xie Xishu’s legs, while the saliva he secreted had completely paralyzed Xie Xishu’s legs, to the point that when the monsters had attacked earlier, Xie Xishu didn’t even have the strength to jump off the bed and hide in the corner.
On the exposed skin of Xie Xishu were overlapping purple bite marks.
Many of them had already broken through the skin, oozing blood.
Qi Wu’s mind became chaotic, and he hadn’t even realized that he had unconsciously done such a thing.
“Damn, I really… I’m sorry!”
Qi Wu quickly withdrew that part of his limbs.
He stammered, wanting to say something, but now it felt like every word was a defense.
After all, not long ago, he had already lost control once.
“I really just lost my mind; damn, I didn’t mean to do that to you… Ah, wait, I’ll go get you a first-aid kit to bandage it…”
“Let me have some peace.”
Xie Xishu interrupted Qi Wu, trembling.
“Please… let me be alone for a while, okay? Boo…”
“But, it’s actually not safe right now; other monsters could come here at any moment. You’d better stay with me; I swear I won’t lose control like before—”
“Please, Qi Wu, just for a little while, just a little while.”
Xie Xishu lowered his head and murmured.
His voice was very soft, very weak, yet filled with despair.
All of Qi Wu’s words of defense stuck in his throat.
He stood there dejectedly for a while.
Xie Xishu looked so pale now, as if he were a dark, frail shadow that could completely vanish into the night with just a breeze.
Qi Wu didn’t understand why seeing him like this made his chest feel like it was suddenly sinking.
But he indeed didn’t say anything more; he simply bent down, dragged away the bodies of those monsters, and slowly stepped outside.
“I’ll be right outside.”
Qi Wu took a deep breath and instructed the frail figure in the corner of the bed.
“You can be alone for a while… and, um, don’t cry…”
Xie Xishu ignored Qi Wu’s murmurs. Upon hearing the door close, he buried his head in his knees.
After a moment, his shoulders began to tremble.
The air still lingered with the strong, foul smell of blood from the monsters, not dispersing for a long time.
Xie Xishu couldn’t help but meticulously recall the movements of those monsters after they burst into the room, only to find that his memory had long become hazy due to fear. He couldn’t confirm whether those monsters had come following the scent of living beings due to their bloodthirsty instincts or…
Or if they had been called by him?
That latter guess seemed so absurd and laughable, but the fear in Xie Xishu’s heart weighed down on his chest like a heavy stone.
Xie Xishu could no longer control himself; he covered his face with his hands in an attempt to calm down, but the moment he bowed his head, scalding tears involuntarily overflowed from his eyes, soaking his palms.
He felt just like a few years old child, feeling extremely embarrassed as he cried out in the darkness.
He was so scared.
Not only was he afraid that Qi Wu would ultimately lose his sanity and eat him.
But also that dream.
And everything in that dream.
And he had…
Had almost collapsed.
Thank you so much for this chapter 🥰 hope you have a nice day