“…”
With the order, Xie Xishu’s body immediately went rigid.
He couldn’t help but press his lips together tightly, the already pale color of his lips now completely drained of blood. Even though Qi Wu had just saved him from the monsters surrounding him moments ago, what vividly lingered in Xie Xishu’s mind wasn’t only Qi Wu’s heroic rescue but also the boy’s… abnormal greed displayed in the alley earlier.
Yet after a brief hesitation, Xie Xishu lowered his eyes, silently reaching for his bloodstained, tattered school uniform.
After all, this time, Qi Wu was holding bandages and ointments meant for treating wounds. Regardless of whether he really “just” intended to dress Xie Xishu’s wounds, now wasn’t the time for him to be fussy.
However, what was usually an ordinary and routine act proved rather difficult for Xie Xishu at this moment.
When he had escaped from the classroom earlier, his body had sustained significant cuts, and now the blood had long since dried and stuck his wounds to the fabric of his uniform.
As he took off his clothes, it was as if he were ripping the scabs right off his wounds.
“Hiss—”
In the dim, silent pharmacy, a barely suppressed hiss of pain could be heard.
It hurt too much.
The pain was so intense that Xie Xishu, frozen in the position of taking off his clothes, had tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. His tattered school uniform hung awkwardly from his shoulders, and he could only maintain this uncomfortable posture, gasping for air, too afraid to move.
Qi Wu looked at him, and a subtle twitch flickered at the edge of his dark brows.
As Qi Wu’s gaze shifted, goosebumps rose along Xie Xishu’s exposed shoulder and side. He instinctively bit down on his lip, his pale teeth almost sinking into the flesh.
Then, he heard Qi Wu’s voice, harsh and stiff:
“…Such a crybaby.”
What?
Before Xie Xishu could process what Qi Wu meant, the boy’s actions explained it further.
Wet, hot, and sticky sensations suddenly pressed against Xie Xishu’s skin.
Something… those “tongues,” silently slithered up along his side, sliding under his school uniform.
“Ugh.”
Xie Xishu shuddered instinctively. Those tongues meticulously cleaned the remaining blood from his skin.
Finally, they all stopped at the worst of Xie Xishu’s wounds, prodding, pressing, and with the secretion of copious amounts of saliva, a fishy stench arose, like invisible cobwebs, wrapping Xie Xishu in fine strands.
The scabs on his wounds were being softened.
Xie Xishu felt a wave of dizziness — the sharp pain that had been gnawing at his nerves like a small saw began to fade, replaced by a strange numbness.
Clearly, the “tongues” that Qi Wu had grown after his mutation weren’t just for killing, and the viscous fluid they secreted wasn’t merely saliva. That fishy liquid had an incredibly strong anesthetic effect.
…But no matter how you looked at it, this special anesthetic ability couldn’t put Xie Xishu at ease.
After all, aside from humans using topical anesthetics for surgery, when animals in nature secreted saliva with potent anesthetic properties, it was usually to subdue their prey, making it easier for predators to proceed with digestion.
Moreover, from Xie Xishu’s current angle, he could clearly see Qi Wu’s Adam’s apple moving continuously — unlike the overly enthusiastic tongues wrapped around Xie Xishu, Qi Wu seemed to be enduring some kind of torment, his temples bulging like wriggling worms, and his breathing was heavy and labored.
Qi Wu’s expression at this moment once again awakened memories that Xie Xishu desperately wanted to forget: back in the alley when Qi Wu pounced on him, licking and drinking his blood, he had the exact same look.
A cold shiver ran through Xie Xishu’s entire body.
This was an instinctual fear, deeply rooted in his genes.
Qi Wu’s satisfaction and frenzy after licking up the blood always reminded Xie Xishu of madmen, wild beasts, and other unspeakable, blurry harbingers of doom.
Just then, as if he sensed Xie Xishu’s terrified gaze, Qi Wu suddenly lifted his head, locking eyes with Xie Xishu.
The candle flame flickered.
In the dim light, Qi Wu’s pupils shrank into pinpoints, but his irises were disproportionately large, almost filling his entire eye socket.
No matter how much he looked like a “normal person” on the outside, there was no doubt: what Xie Xishu was staring at now was the gaze of a monster.
Xie Xishu’s breath hitched, and he instinctively tried to back away. Qi Wu, however, swiftly reached out, bringing his hand up to Xie Xishu’s cheek.
There was a deep crack in Qi Wu’s palm.
Unlike the other cracks, this one looked like a fully formed human mouth, indistinguishable from the lips on Qi Wu’s face. Sharp lines traced the lip contours, deep red at the inner corners, revealing rows of dense white teeth. The only difference was the slender, bright red tongue inside — a tongue that extended from the lip’s center, dripping with translucent saliva from tiny pores at the tip.
And so, when that thing pressed against Xie Xishu’s eyelid, he could no longer suppress a stifled cry of terror.
“Don’t touch me—”
Reflexively, Xie Xishu raised the dull little knife in his hand toward Qi Wu.
But before he could even lift his hand, a sudden numbness shot through his wrist. Those long, damp tendrils had tightly coiled around his hand, effortlessly knocking the knife from his grip.
The sound of the knife falling snapped Xie Xishu back to reality.
“That thing’s dull… and it wouldn’t work on me anyway. Stop pointing it at me all the time.”
Qi Wu’s cold voice reached his ears.
As he spoke, he had already withdrawn his hand. The slender tongue retracted in a flash, disappearing back into the crack in his palm.
But a sticky residue remained on Xie Xishu’s eyelid.
As the familiar numbness spread across that small patch of skin, Xie Xishu realized that there was indeed a very fine wound on his eyelid.
It was probably from when he jumped out of the window, scratched by shards of broken glass. And Qi Wu had just…
“I have to treat all your wounds thoroughly and cover them with my scent.”
Qi Wu cast a dark glance at the knife on the ground, then added, “Otherwise, you’ll attract more monsters. Your blood…”
Was far too sweet.
Sweet enough to drive monsters that had fallen into another world utterly mad.
*
An unusual silence fell again, and Qi Wu’s subsequent actions became much more ordinary.
The “tongues” concealed within his body no longer appeared. Every wound on Xie Xishu’s body was meticulously dressed, Qi Wu’s movements precise and efficient, revealing a remarkable familiarity with the task.
There was no denying it—when he wasn’t revealing his body’s abnormalities, this gloomy and cold boy actually seemed quite composed.
Xie Xishu watched Qi Wu warily and quickly realized that although there were occasional signs of slight loss of control, the person standing before him now seemed to be in a completely different state compared to before.
In fact, even during his most uncontrolled moments, Qi Wu behaved much more rationally than the other monsters Xie Xishu had encountered (like “Teacher Li”)…
Even as a monster, Qi Wu seemed to be an exception.
And Qi Wu’s response to this was even colder than before: “…Don’t compare me to those things that haven’t fully developed.”
“Fully developed?”
Xie Xishu was startled.
“After turning into this freakish form, there’s a period of development. During that time, people become really unstable.”
Recalling the experiences he went through during that period, Qi Wu curled the corner of his mouth slightly and mumbled vaguely.
“It’s kind of like being drunk. Your reason becomes thin, and it’s really hard to control yourself.”
In fact, Qi Wu was downplaying it.
During that so-called “development phase,” intense, animalistic desires surged from deep within like a tsunami. As his body underwent non-human changes, the self-control he had cultivated through years of social conditioning as a regular human being disintegrated under the unbearable, irresistible cravings. His overloaded senses dragged his fragile will into a bottomless hell, while his body was constantly burned and whipped by an insatiable hunger.
…
As he talked about how he felt during the early stages of his mutation, Qi Wu’s brow furrowed slightly. Even now, he was deeply resistant to that nearly out-of-control state.
At the height of his madness, he had even struggled with the desire to devour the one sweet, fragrant existence in this world, bite by bite, to quell the insatiable hunger.
Fortunately, at the last moment, he managed to hold back.
By relying on the scent left on Xie Xishu’s personal belongings, Qi Wu had barely managed to maintain his fragile sanity. After enduring much painful self-restraint and struggle, he barely made it through the first round of “development.”
Individuals capable of achieving this were incredibly rare, and Qi Wu could feel it—those other monsters they had encountered earlier had been driven away by his presence due to this natural hierarchy.
All of those monsters were “undeveloped.”
“What happens after they fully develop? Do they become like Teacher Li…?”
Xie Xishu fell silent as he looked at Qi Wu, his face suddenly turning pale. The psychological shadow left by Teacher Li was too deep, so much so that he could even suppress his fear of Qi Wu, grabbing the boy’s sleeve and asking anxiously.
Everything happening in this city was far too terrifying and bizarre. At this point, Xie Xishu was almost desperate, seeking any answer he could get.
“And how do you know all this? Why can you tell if the monsters are fully developed or not? Did someone tell you? What’s really going on, why is everyone turning into monsters, what exactly are you, why are you all so terrifying? Will you… will you want to eat me like the other monsters?”
With a sudden “bang,” Xie Xishu’s voice was abruptly cut off as his vision spun wildly.
“Cough… cough…”
The boy let out a series of weak, painful coughs.
Qi Wu’s fingers were tightly gripping Xie Xishu’s neck, pinning him firmly against the glass counter in the pharmacy with just one hand.
“No one told me anything. As for whether or not a monster is fully developed, once you become the ‘monster’ you’re talking about, you’ll just know. And as for what happens when you’re fully developed—haven’t you already seen it? You’ll end up like me. Any monster that gets close enough to smell my scent will flee, and if I want to, I can easily turn them into a pile of meat and eat them clean.”
A crack appeared on Qi Wu’s cheek, and a tongue slithered out, as flexible as a finger, tapping lightly against his temple.
But at this moment, his expression was more menacing and terrifying than ever before.
“I should be asking you—who exactly are you?”
Qi Wu lowered his head toward Xie Xishu.
His breath brushed against Xie Xishu’s neck.
And his voice came directly next to Xie Xishu’s ear.
“You know, don’t you? Your scent and taste… they’re enough to drive someone insane.”
Something wet and slippery slid along the side of Xie Xishu’s neck.
“Oh, by the way, yes—I do want to eat you. Even now, there’s a voice in my head shouting for me to chew you up piece by piece, swallow you whole, and wring every last drop of juice from your body.”
As Qi Wu spoke, Xie Xishu’s breathing grew noticeably more rapid than before.
The two were pressed tightly together now.
With his senses far more acute than a normal person’s, Qi Wu could clearly feel the thudding heartbeat beneath Xie Xishu’s thin chest muscles.
It was like a little bird, trapped in a net.
He couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to swallow that heart down his throat. His “hunting” technique had become quite skilled by now.
Tearing open the chest of the fragile human beneath him, curling his tongue around that heart, and swallowing it while it was still beating… just thinking about it made his mouth water uncontrollably.
“From the very beginning, I’ve thought that your scent is different from everyone else’s, like you’re deliberately luring monsters like me. And every time I’m on the brink of losing my mind, just the taste of you is enough to satisfy me.”
As the gloomy words echoed, Qi Wu’s originally human form began to dissolve bit by bit.
“So, Xie, can you tell me? What is really going on?”
The familiar hunger spread once again from deep within Qi Wu’s body, and for a moment, it nearly overwhelmed what little remained of his human will… until a drop of moisture fell onto his fingertip.
Perhaps due to the lack of oxygen, or maybe because of fear, Xie Xishu’s eyelashes were already damp with tears. His moist eyes stared at Qi Wu, and his bloodless lips moved several times, squeezing out a few broken syllables.
“Ugh… I feel awful…”
Another tear slipped down.
The mutated body was completely incapable of resisting this sweet temptation. Thin tendrils suddenly emerged from under his nails, greedily licking that one drop of Xie Xishu’s tear clean.
That slight, fleeting satisfaction spread through Qi Wu’s entire body like an electric current, making him shudder heavily, and he suddenly snapped back to consciousness.
He quickly let go of his hand.
Xie Xishu let out a series of coughs, taking quite some time to catch his breath.
After a while, the boy propped himself up against the cold glass counter, struggling to sit up.
Qi Wu’s gaze flickered, the cracks on his face gradually fading, and those tongues, which had been restlessly wriggling and reaching out toward Xie Xishu, were retracted.
“I—”
He instinctively opened his mouth, but after speaking, he realized he had no idea what to say.
He hated losing control. After he had fully “developed,” there was a time when he thought he had conquered the part of himself that belonged to the monster.
Hmm.
However, upon smelling the “disgust” radiating from Xie Xishu, he inevitably became agitated again.
*
Qi Wu thought that Xie Xishu would become even more afraid of him, even more disgusted with him because of what he had just done… just like so many times before.
But to his surprise, after Xie Xishu calmed down from the coughing caused by being choked, he didn’t even mention what had just happened. Even the scent radiating from the boy’s warm skin carried only a faint bitterness, the lingering remnants of fear.
Then, Qi Wu suddenly heard Xie Xishu speak.
“I’ve seen those things before.”
The statement came out of nowhere, leaving Qi Wu momentarily stunned.
“What?”
“Earlier, at that intersection, the things they were using as barricades…” Xie Xishu rubbed his neck, then slowly turned his gaze toward Qi Wu. “You must have noticed too, right? In those zombie movies, it always starts with seemingly ordinary violent incidents, then suddenly there’s an outbreak. Then the authorities try to set up barricades, to contain the crisis within a small area, but in the end, they always fail. It’s ridiculous—I used to think those movies were nonsense, but now, what we’re going through is exactly like those movies. The only difference is, the infected didn’t turn into zombies; they turned into monsters. Oh, wait, actually, the monsters in Sweet Home already kind of look like this.”
At this point, a sudden realization struck Xie Xishu, and he became aware that he had unconsciously referred to Qi Wu as a “monster” several times.
His throat tightened instantly, and he couldn’t help but glance at Qi Wu. Seeing that Qi Wu hadn’t suddenly turned aggressive like before, Xie Xishu quietly let out a breath of relief.
“Anyway, let’s assume that this virus, which causes people to mutate, functions similarly to a zombie virus: the infected naturally develop a craving for the living, meaning the uninfected.”
Hearing this, Qi Wu’s pupils contracted slightly.
“…But I’ve only ever had that craving for you.”
The boy frowned and coldly corrected him.
“Because, very likely, I’m the only uninfected person.” Xie Xishu’s breathing finally steadied at this point, but when he reached this part of his explanation, he paused, then took a deep breath.
“Maybe it’s because of that flu. Do you remember? The whole city of A had a massive flu outbreak.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you catch it?”
Qi Wu fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
Xie Xishu gave a bitter smile and pointed at himself.
“I didn’t.”
He said.
“My immune system is very weak, and I get fevers easily, so I was extra cautious. I didn’t want to catch the flu and fall behind in my studies during such an important time like senior year.” Xie Xishu explained.
“And as far as I know, I seem to be the only one around me who never caught that flu.”
