The surroundings were still shrouded in darkness.
But for some reason, Gan Tang could see with unparalleled clarity.
He could see everything—
For instance, the way Father Yu’s face twitched uncontrollably from sheer excitement, the spasming muscles distorting his already deranged expression into something truly grotesque.
He also saw Father Yu’s hands—
The man must have ripped that tricycle’s mudguard off with brute force and hammered it into a crude blade. His hands were now a mess of blood—palms crisscrossed with gashes so deep that Gan Tang could nearly see the tendons and bones beneath.
Yet, like a drowning man clutching his last straw, Father Yu clung desperately to that thin shard of metal.
—
Then, without warning—
His arm lashed out, stabbing the blade toward Gan Tang once more.
It was as if this act—this murder—was the most important thing in the world to him.
—
A wave of killing intent swept over Gan Tang, making his face go pale.
He had no idea why this was happening—
But his instinct for survival took over.
He ducked, hunched over, and bolted to the side, barely dodging another strike.
Yet, it was clear—Father Yu wasn’t going to let him go.
—
“Wait—wait a second! Uncle Yu! We escaped! We’re not in the village anymore! There are no insect monsters here! Calm down!”
Gan Tang shouted, raising his voice.
His cries immediately roused Yu Huai, who had been resting nearby.
“Mm… So noisy… Are we leaving?”
Then, still groggy, he blinked himself awake—
And saw.
“…Dad? Dad, what are you doing?!”
—
Yu Huai’s face instantly drained of all color.
The horrors of their escape had already left his mind and spirit deeply shaken.
Now, as he fought off the haze of sleep, his unfocused eyes swam with confusion.
Gan Tang realized, belatedly, that Yu Huai couldn’t see anything.
All he could hear was Father Yu’s hoarse, frenzied shrieks—and Gan Tang’s desperate cries for help.
—
“Everyone must die!”
“All of them… All of them must die!”
“That thing is about to spread from the mountains—we must trap it here!”
“Die! Everyone must die! That’s the only way to stop it!”
—
“Dad—Dad?! Calm down!”
“Shit—Dad, stop!”
Yu Huai jerked upright, struggling to his feet.
Then—
Relying only on sound—he threw himself at Father Yu without hesitation.
—
For a moment—
Gan Tang relaxed.
He thought—
That, just like before, Yu Huai would easily subdue Father Yu’s sudden outburst.
After all—
Even at his most insane, Father Yu had always been more obedient when facing his own son.
—
But then—
A sharp, metallic scent filled the air.
—
At the exact moment Yu Huai closed in—
Father Yu suddenly whipped around, let out a hissing screech, and plunged the blade toward his son’s throat.
—
“Die!”
The man roared.
“Watch out!!”
Gan Tang screamed.
—
Thankfully—
The darkness protected Yu Huai.
Just as Yu Huai couldn’t see Father Yu’s movements—Father Yu, too, had misjudged Yu Huai’s position.
The blade missed his throat—
But slashed across his face.
—
A sharp cry of pain tore from Yu Huai’s lips.
His body jerked, hunching over as blood spilled through his fingers.
“Dad?!”
Yu Huai’s voice trembled.
The next second—he collapsed onto the ground.
—
Father Yu didn’t even look at him.
It was as if he had been possessed.
His gaunt, skeletal figure was now driven entirely by bloodlust.
And—
Despite his crazed state—his attacks weren’t wild.
His movements were sharp, practiced, ruthless—the kind of aggression that came from training.
It was terrifyingly precise.
Gan Tang’s situation had just gone from bad to worse.
—
As Yu Huai fell—Father Yu spun and lunged for Gan Tang again.
Gan Tang staggered backward, his mind going blank.
“Uncle Yu! Please, calm down!”
“You’re all bugs.”
“Wait—we’re not! Don’t do this—”
“Chen Qiao said it. She said we have to kill the rest.”
Father Yu kept muttering, his voice eerily detached.
“If we let it spread to the city, everyone will be infected.”
“So we have to watch closely—”
“And if there are any signs of infection—kill them all. Every single one.”
—
Maybe it was just his imagination—
But for a fleeting moment—
Gan Tang thought he saw two murky streams of tears trailing down Father Yu’s face.
—
Blood dripped from the madman’s fingers.
Gan Tang had no choice but to keep retreating.
But—
They had chosen this spot because of the large boulder blocking the wind.
If he could make it past the other side, he might have an escape route.
—
But he didn’t make it.
Father Yu had already cornered him—trapping him against the rock with nowhere to run.
Gan Tang’s back pressed against the cold, rough stone.
The madman loomed over him, murmuring under his breath.
—
“…You’re already infected.”
—
“Your stomach is full of eggs.”
—
“If you live, you’ll doom us all.”
—
Then—
In an eerily calm, almost mechanical voice—
Father Yu spoke again.
“So we all have to die here.”
Was Father Yu speaking nonsense? Or… did he know something?
The moment Gan Tang heard the word “eggs,” he instinctively reached out and pressed his hand against his stomach.
Beneath his palm, his skin was burning hot, and his thin abdominal muscles were pulsing rhythmically without pause.
Gan Tang’s breath stalled for a moment.
And in that split second of distraction, Father Yu had already reached out, grabbing hold of Gan Tang.
Perhaps afraid that Gan Tang would evade him again, the man’s fingers clamped down tightly on Gan Tang’s shoulder, while his other hand gripped a shard of metal and swung it straight at him.
He was going to die.
That was the only thought in Gan Tang’s mind at that moment.
It was said that in certain critical moments, people would experience an almost fated premonition.
And in that instant, Gan Tang’s premonition was that he would die here.
He would die at the hands of a madman’s bloody slaughter…
The omen of death rushed in, accompanied by an unspeakable, overwhelming terror.
Gan Tang stood frozen in place, unable to move, instinctively shutting his eyes, bracing for the agony about to descend upon him.
But in that fleeting, lightning-fast moment, a frail silhouette suddenly lunged forward.
So small and thin, yet precisely and firmly, the figure wrapped their arms around Father Yu’s waist, dragging him back by a few inches.
The shard of metal scraped past Gan Tang’s skin, missing him by a hair’s breadth…
That figure—it was Grandma.
The old woman had always been smaller than the average person, and after all the hardship of their journey, she had shrunk even more, her body withered and frail.
Beside the madman, Grandma’s shadow looked so small, so delicate.
Gan Tang snapped back to his senses in an instant.
“Grandma, watch out!”
He screamed.
But he had shouted too late.
The moment Father Yu noticed Grandma, he showed no mercy. Without hesitation, he swung the shard of metal viciously at the obstacle blocking his kill.
A thin piece of metal, yet it slashed deeply across the old woman’s side.
…
…
…
Time seemed to freeze completely in that moment.
It slowed to an unbearable crawl, dragging out the despair.
No blood.
There was no blood from Grandma’s wound.
Only a familiar, putrid, sticky secretion—and an enormous mass of long, writhing worms, spilling out from her ruptured skin like a cascading waterfall.
Grandma still had her arms wrapped tightly around the madman’s waist, but inside her torso—there was nothing but a seething nest of worms.
Grandma had already been parasitized.
The realization was bizarre, absurd—like some grotesque horror scene from a cheap novel, something you’d glance at once and never think about again.
Or perhaps, like a nightmare so horrifying that you’d forget it the moment you jolted awake.
It shouldn’t have been real.
And yet, Grandma was right there in front of Gan Tang, and at some point, without his knowledge, she had become a monster—a creature filled with wriggling parasites.
“Look… look… worms… I told you, you’re all worms… everyone is a worm… a monster…”
Father Yu let out a frenzied, hysterical scream.
His palm was nearly split in half by the jagged metal, yet he acted as if he felt no pain at all.
He reached out, trying to pry Grandma off his waist, while his other hand stretched toward Gan Tang once more.
Logically, Gan Tang knew he should run.
But when his gaze fell upon the ground—upon the still-twisting, still-squirming worms that had poured out of Grandma’s body—
It was as if he had been frozen solid.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t run.
Overwhelmed by the sheer horror and despair, Gan Tang completely abandoned resistance, resigning himself to the fate of Father Yu’s descending blade.
But then—
Grandma’s body, now nothing more than an empty husk of skin, suddenly convulsed.
The old woman abruptly lifted her head, and in the darkness, her gaze toward Gan Tang remained as gentle and kind as ever.
[“Tang Tang.”]
She spoke.
[“You must take care, okay? Don’t be afraid, Grandma is here.”]
At the very moment her voice fell, the elderly woman—who had already been completely devoured by the worms—suddenly erupted with an astonishing burst of strength.
She wrapped herself tightly around Father Yu’s body, her feet forcefully kicking off the ground.
Then, carrying the man who flailed his limbs and screamed incessantly, she fell backward—straight off the cliff’s edge.
“Grandma—!”
Gan Tang’s mind went blank.
He let out a wailing cry and threw himself toward the spot where his grandmother had leaped.
Desperately, he stretched his hands out over the cliff’s edge, trying to grab hold of the old woman’s frail body.
But all that slipped through his fingers was the cold mountain wind.
And the faint trickling sound of falling gravel.
He caught nothing.
Several seconds later, from the depths of the darkness below, muffled, bone-chilling thuds echoed up.
The sound of bodies crashing upon the rocks.
“Grandma—ahhh—!”
An uncontrollable, disbelieving howl tore from Gan Tang’s throat.
“Dad—Dad—!”
At the same time, another boy’s hoarse, grief-stricken scream rang out.
Almost as if in mockery of their despair, at the very moment Grandma embraced Father Yu and plummeted off the cliff, the dark sky at the horizon tinged with the faintest, pale glimmer of dawn.
Though the light was impossibly dim, for those who had been trapped in darkness for so long, it was enough—enough for them to see everything that had just transpired.
Yu Huai saw it with his own eyes—saw how Gan Tang’s grandmother took his father and jumped off the cliff.
“Bang—”
Gan Tang remained kneeling at the cliff’s edge, staring blankly into the pitch-black abyss below.
The next moment, he felt himself being yanked up with violent force.
Then—pain exploded across his cheek.
For a few long moments, Gan Tang remained sluggish, unable to process what had happened.
Only belatedly did he realize—he had been thrown to the ground by Yu Huai, who now had him pinned down, landing a punch squarely to his face.
Gan Tang could tell—Yu Huai was hitting him with all his strength.
He could feel the pain.
But strangely, in that moment, all sensation felt distant, as if separated by a thick veil.
Like a dream.
Gan Tang thought absently.
He even thought about simply closing his eyes, slipping into slumber.
Perhaps… if he just went to sleep…
Then when he woke up again, he would find himself lying on his little bed in the countryside, and everything would have been nothing but a nightmare.
Then, his grandmother would push open the door, scolding him for sleeping in late, and tell him there was food left for him in the kitchen, urging him to eat once he was up.
…
By his usual temperament, Gan Tang thought he should be crying his heart out right now—just like Yu Huai was.
Yet his eyes remained dry.
Only the wound slashed across his cheek continued to bleed, crimson seeping outward.
Gan Tang tilted his head, staring blankly at Yu Huai.
The other boy’s face was drenched in blood—seeping from the deep wound Father Yu had carved into him.
The gash was severe. Gan Tang could even see the bone beneath the torn, dangling skin.
“You… your grandma killed my dad… she killed my dad…”
Yu Huai’s voice was rough, hoarse, and he repeated the words over and over, staring into Gan Tang’s empty gaze.
Tears and snot streamed down his face, and his entire body trembled from fury and horror.
A long time passed before Gan Tang finally heard his own voice respond—soft, weak.
“Your dad tried to kill me. He wanted to kill all of us.”
“So what?” Yu Huai sobbed. “Because you’re worms? Maybe all of you are worms. I saw it—your grandma was a monster, too!”
The same hands that had once supported Gan Tang, had helped him move corpses—at some point, they had clamped around Gan Tang’s throat.
Wet tears dripped onto Gan Tang’s face.
“This is all your fault—your fault! Everything was fine before you came. But after you came… everything went wrong… If it weren’t for you… If you hadn’t stuffed that thing into the well…”
Yu Huai had completely, utterly broken.
The hands around Gan Tang’s throat tightened, strangling the breath from him.
The pain, the suffocating pressure spread through his body, creeping toward the brink of death.
Yet Gan Tang remained limp upon the ground, feeling the crushing agony in his throat—and made no attempt to struggle.
Maybe… maybe this was how it should be.
A quiet voice whispered in the depths of his heart.
Maybe… from the start, he should never have dodged.
Maybe he should have just let Father Yu slice open his arteries, let his blood drain away, let himself simply die.
That would have been the best choice.
Instead of… this.
Grandma was dead.
Father Yu was dead.
And he… he was probably about to die too.
Gan Tang had already resigned himself, prepared to welcome death.
But then—
His pupils suddenly contracted.
The next second, he thrashed violently beneath Yu Huai’s grip.
Not—not because of some sudden, burning will to survive.
But because, in his darkening vision, he saw something.
Something crawling up from the edge of the cliff.
A hand.
But… not entirely a hand.
It had long since mutated beyond human form—thick and elongated, as massive as a coiling python, grotesquely stretched, its “head” still bearing remnants of human fingers.
Gan Tang had seen it before.
That hand.
It had never fused with his grandmother.
It had merely clung silently to her back, motionless, unnoticed—following them all this way.
Father Yu…
Father Yu hadn’t been wrong.
On the back of that monstrous hand, sparse and scattered, grew horrifyingly familiar features—eyes, a nose, lips.
If someone were to carve those pieces apart and piece them together…
They would vaguely resemble the face of Cen Zibai.
And now, that “hand” had slowly crept closer, its deformed, trembling eye fixed upon Yu Huai.
Yu Huai was entirely broken, oblivious to the shadow creeping toward him.
Or perhaps, even if he noticed, he wouldn’t care anymore.
But Gan Tang…
The instant he saw that creature—pure, burning hatred surged through him.
Lying there, his bloodshot eyes locked onto the monster’s gaze.
He could already envision what would happen next—
That hand would slither onto Yu Huai’s nape, like a serpent.
Then, it would split open—spilling forth a flood of worms, swarming over Yu Huai’s head, burrowing into his orifices, forcing into his body, devouring every last organ inside him…
Until Yu Huai, too, became like Grandma.
Became one of those grotesque, parasitic monsters.
Became—its next supply of food.
“Stop…”
The first whisper was barely audible, a breathy, fragile plea.
“I said… stop…”
At some point, Yu Huai’s grip slackened.
Air rushed into Gan Tang’s lungs. He choked, gasping, and forced out the second plea.
Then, mustering every ounce of his strength—he tore Yu Huai’s hands away.
And let out a piercing, agonized scream at the creature.
“I told you to stop, Cen Zibai!”
…
The “hand” finally halted.
