Xiao Tianming stared at the scene before him in utter shock.
Just glancing at the writhing, separated appendages with the corner of his eye was enough to send shivers over his entire body, and it took all his willpower just to maintain a semblance of calm on the surface.
But Xie Xishu…
He looked at the delicate, slender young man, seemingly fragile, gently stroking the slime-covered, squirming appendages of the creature with an expression of pure tranquility.
In his clear eyes, there was even a hint of affectionate tenderness, as if the thing in his arms weren’t part of a monster, but some kind of soft, fluffy kitten or puppy.
Xie Xishu was simply too calm, too at ease.
For a moment, Xiao Tianming even wondered if there was something wrong with him instead.
“Hiss—”
As if sensing the man’s terrified gaze, one of the appendages suddenly extended toward Xiao Tianming, opening its mouth wide, letting out a hostile hiss.
No, there’s definitely nothing wrong with me, he thought.
This thing… who could stand this? Just not running away after seeing it makes me practically a king of bravery, doesn’t it?!
Xiao Tianming gulped audibly.
When he looked at Xie Xishu again, for some reason, he felt that the seemingly approachable young man, who had never once shown him any hostility, was somehow even more terrifying than Qi Wu, the already-mutated monster.
“Um, aren’t… aren’t you afraid?”
At last, he couldn’t help but whisper a question to Xie Xishu.
Xie Xishu lowered his gaze, letting the slender, flexible tongue of the appendage in his arms gently entwine and slide between his fingers. A moment later, he lifted his head and looked at Xiao Tianming’s terrified face.
“Afraid? Why would I be?”
Xie Xishu asked with a puzzled expression.
“Didn’t you see Qi Wu detach them? They might look a bit… unseemly,” Xie Xishu chose his words carefully, “but they’re actually rather cute, aren’t they?”
The young man’s voice was gentle and bright, without a trace of darkness.
“They’re not like other monsters; there’s no need to fear them at all.”
“…”
Xiao Tianming was silent for a moment.
After hearing Xie Xishu describe those appendages as “cute,” his expression took on a subtle, conflicted twist.
“But… but they’re still monsters, aren’t they?” he muttered very quietly, his voice so low it was almost to himself. “And things like monsters… they’re just not the same as normal people…”
“But that’s Qi Wu.”
Xie Xishu interrupted Xiao Tianming, frowning slightly.
“Qi Wu is different from other monsters; he’s had his rationality from the start.”
The youth’s gaze gradually filled with a hint of reproach.
“I know Qi Wu’s temper isn’t great, and maybe he’s made you feel like he’s giving you a hard time, but hasn’t he always saved you at the last moment? I don’t want you to keep thinking the worst of him like this. Otherwise… I might get a little upset.”
As he spoke, Xie Xishu’s voice took on a hint of coldness.
Xiao Tianming stood there, speechless, his face turning from blue to red and then white, as if he couldn’t keep his composure under Xie Xishu’s retort.
However, just as Xie Xishu was thinking this, Xiao Tianming suddenly spoke again.
Usually, the man was a bit glib, making him seem unserious about everything. But this time… his voice sounded unusually grave.
“I actually lied to you guys.”
Xiao Tianming blurted out abruptly.
He brushed his hair back, looking bleak, and continued before Xie Xishu could respond:
“My partner, Xiao Qian—after she turned into a monster, didn’t I say I found a chance to hide? Back then, she just stayed outside my door, talking to me, coaxing me to open it…”
Perhaps it was because of the strange atmosphere, or maybe it was just watching a young boy being so defenseless with a monster, but somehow, Xiao Tianming felt his conscience stir.
Without realizing it, he began revealing the secret he’d always intended to keep buried.
“Let me tell you, back then, as I curled up by the basement door, I honestly believed the person outside was still my girlfriend, Xiao Qian.”
“She would cry, feel wronged, and even remember all the little things between us. She said from outside the door that her heart ached for me, that she was afraid I’d suffocate, or that if I died, she’d have to continue living, lonely, as a monster… If the door frame hadn’t been warped so I couldn’t get out, I would’ve really opened that door.”
As he mentioned Xiao Qian, his former girlfriend, Xiao Tianming’s voice began to tremble slightly.
“But then, just when I thought Xiao Qian had only undergone a physical change and that her soul was still that same lively, kind girl, one day she knocked on my door all cheerfully.”
“She told me happily that she’d taken care of those two ‘old things’ I hated most.”
As his story continued, Xiao Tianming’s face grew increasingly ashen.
He turned his head, his gaze drifting, and his eyes reddened slightly.
“Yes, I lied to you guys… I told you the two people who died in my house were just the housekeeper and the driver, but I knew they weren’t. They were my real parents. I just didn’t want to admit it.” Xiao Tianming sniffled, as if trying to muster a smile, but on his tear-streaked face, it looked especially absurd. “I didn’t have a good relationship with them, never did. They were always calling me a wastrel, a leech, a failure. I… I always hated them. When I was dating Xiao Qian, I didn’t hold back when I complained about them, calling them ‘old things,’ cursing them to die soon so I could take their inheritance and live happily. But that was just talk, Xiao Qian should’ve understood that…”
But to lure the prey hiding in the basement, the mutated monster had slaughtered the couple who had rushed home to rescue their wayward son in the most brutal way possible.
Xiao Tianming could hear his parents’ cries and screams.
Mingled with Xiao Qian’s familiar, cheerful laughter.
Her voice was sweet, almost as if proudly presenting a prize as she dragged the bodies around outside the basement door.
“Hey, Tianming, look, they’re dead.”
“Didn’t you always wish they’d die soon? Look, now they’re dead. They’ll never scold you or make you sad again!”
“Tianming? Tianming, why aren’t you opening the door?”
“Are you crying? Why are you crying?”
…
Xiao Tianming had forced himself to forget it all.
He wanted to believe his parents had never come back to the villa.
He wanted to believe that couple, as they always said, had long ago stopped caring about their son, dismissing him as useless.
He imagined them relaxing safely abroad in a luxury retreat, living in comfort.
The two bodies hanging in the living room—they should only have been the housekeeper and the driver.
Yes, that’s it.
Just the housekeeper… just the driver…
They weren’t his parents.
They absolutely weren’t.
Xie Xishu’s fingers, which had been resting on the appendages, gradually stilled.
Though he’d long suspected Xiao Tianming was hiding something… he hadn’t expected him to reveal everything like this.
Nor could he have imagined that the tragedy in the villa had come about in such a way.
After their mutations, many monsters devolved into lowly beasts with only basic survival instincts; however, for others, their obsessions or their deepest desires would magnify infinitely, leading them to commit bizarre, terrifying acts.
To Xiao Tianming, Xiao Qian’s behavior had been a trick to lure him out of the basement. But to Xie Xishu, it seemed more like the monster had acted out of an instinctive desire to win Xiao Tianming’s favor.
Only, after mutating into a monster, what it did was no longer bound by logic or morality.
Xie Xishu felt a slight pang in his heart.
“… I’m sorry.”
He murmured to Xiao Tianming.
“My condolences.”
…
The young man’s voice sounded a bit stiff.
Xiao Tianming could feel that Xie Xishu had never really understood his true meaning. Once a creature mutated, even if some retained seemingly normal thought processes, their monstrous nature drove them to act with utter insanity.
After their transformation, monsters, in essence, had completely broken away from humanity.
One should never, could never, have any hope or trust in them because you’d never know what they’d do to satisfy their horrific desires…
“But I still stand by what I said before. Qi Wu is different.”
At that moment, Xie Xishu’s voice echoed in Xiao Tianming’s ear again.
The young man held the appendages in his hand, his expression unusually resolute and serious.
“You don’t understand what he and I have been through. Even in his most broken, maddened moments, he could still hold himself back. Qi Wu has only undergone a physical mutation, but his soul… his soul is human. I’m certain of it.”
“But…”
“You don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t matter. He probably only needs me to believe in him, anyway.” Xie Xishu shrugged. “The civilian shelter point is coming up soon; we might never meet again after this. But… given that he and I both helped you, I hope you won’t go blabbing to the military or certain other people.”
Seeing Xie Xishu like this, Xiao Tianming felt a bit disappointed…
But just then, he felt a sudden twinge in his heart.
Certain words, long forgotten, rose in his mind like ghosts returning to life.
He recalled that day at the police station.
The strange man who’d told him humanity’s apocalypse was coming screamed horribly as he was dragged away, bleeding after biting off his own finger.
“If you want to survive, kill the source…”
“Hee hee hee, just kill it and everything’s fine. As long as it’s dead, you common folk will have more time…”
“It’s easy to find; it’s the most unique one… it’s human, yet it’s also a monster, a monster but also human…”
“Those idiots didn’t know anything and let it go free…”
“I don’t want this, I really don’t. Everyone’s going to die; what’s the point of living on like this in a cursed form?”
“Let go of me! Let go, I need to find the source! You have no idea what’s happening! I must…”
…
The strange man’s screams were incoherent, sounding like a crazed rant from watching too many superhero movies.
In comparison, the oddities he had shown in front of Xiao Tianming were more noticeable, so Xiao Tianming hadn’t bothered listening closely to the screams back then.
But now, he couldn’t help but dwell on the phrase, “human, yet also a monster, a monster but also human.”
Slowly, gradually, his heart began to race uncontrollably.
Meanwhile, the appendages, which had been trembling lightly under Xie Xishu’s touch, with their many eyes gently squinting, suddenly sensed something. In an instant, they changed from their previous laziness and coyness, rising and aiming their mandibles directly at Xiao Tianming.
“Qi Wu? … Xiao Tianming?”
Xie Xishu was initially surprised at the appendages’ sudden change but quickly shifted his focus to Xiao Tianming—after all, the appendages wouldn’t display such intense hostility and killing intent for no reason.
“What’s wrong?”
Quickly, he raised his arm to block the appendages, which were itching to sink their teeth into something, and directed his gaze at Xiao Tianming, whose face looked strangely tense.
Xiao Tianming was staring at the appendages, but his expression was different from before… at least, Xie Xishu didn’t like it at all.
“Xie, Classmate Xie, do you really think Qi Wu is different from all the other monsters?” Xiao Tianming murmured.
But isn’t that the most suspicious thing of all?!
Just as Xiao Tianming was about to voice his doubts, an eerie male voice spoke from behind him.
“Oh? How am I different?”
Xiao Tianming’s body shuddered. He turned around to see, as expected, the tall young man standing there, face dark and eyes filled with malice, staring directly at him.
