TFOF Ch17

“Qi Wu?!”

Xie Xishu turned his head, half surprised, half delighted, looking at Qi Wu—the boy’s condition, in truth, was still far from good.

He could only be described as barely recovering some semblance of human form, with cracks still covering the surface of his body, each small, bright red opening rhythmically moving according to some mysterious pattern, revealing the faintly wriggling tips of tongues inside.

The previously visible markings had faded quite a bit, but even now, they still pulsed under Qi Wu’s skin, as if alive, following that same pattern.

Even though Qi Wu had confidently assured Xie Xishu earlier that he was fine, judging by his current state, his words lacked any real credibility. The boy was surrounded by an ominous, oppressive aura that was hard to ignore. And those markings—never before had they appeared on Qi Wu’s human form, but now their overly active shapes and colors made Xie Xishu feel deeply uneasy.

He had to be on full alert in dealing with Qi Wu.

“No… of course not,” Xie Xishu immediately denied, “But just now you suddenly went quiet, I—I was really worried about you. I was only trying to ask him for help.”

He explained with utmost sincerity.

Qi Wu let out a cold snort.

“It better be just that,” the boy responded in a low voice. “…You should be glad that guy didn’t let you in.”

Hearing the implication in Qi Wu’s words, Xie Xishu was taken aback.

“The stench of corpses in that guy’s car nearly knocked me out.”

Qi Wu added coldly.

“What?”

Xie Xishu widened his eyes in disbelief. “But…”

But that guy seemed completely normal, and he had even used a drone to distract the woman with the severed head—not to mention he had his own little daughter in the car!

Xie Xishu was so shocked he was almost questioning reality.

However, Qi Wu clearly had no intention of explaining further. At this moment, he seemed particularly irritated—and reality didn’t allow them to linger over this trivial matter any longer.

“But that guy did say one truthful thing.” As he spoke, part of Qi Wu’s body started to break down again. Countless cracks opened, clusters of “tongues” surged forward from the deep red fissures, wrapping around Xie Xishu.

From the surrounding darkness, faint, almost inaudible mutterings could be heard.

“At night, all the monsters become even more frenzied… we have to get out of here fast.”

As Qi Wu’s words fell, Xie Xishu suddenly felt his body lighten. In an instant, he was swept up into a cocoon of flesh, woven together by mucus and fleshy tentacles.

Xie Xishu’s senses were immediately overwhelmed by the moist, slick softness of the flesh.

For a moment, he almost screamed, but he quickly realized that this tight binding, along with the coating of mucus, was, just like before, Qi Wu’s way of masking his scent from other monsters searching for him.

Qi Wu’s actions were rough, with no regard for Xie Xishu’s consent.

Yet Xie Xishu did not resist. On the contrary, despite how uncomfortable he felt, he gritted his teeth, forcing himself to relax so that Qi Wu could carry him more easily.

In the pitch darkness, he had no idea where this already mutated and unstable “companion” intended to take him. He could only sense that Qi Wu was moving quickly, the occasional feeling of weightlessness likely indicating that Qi Wu was leaping to higher ground with him.

But soon, even those guesses became vague and difficult to form.

After all, unless one had a particular taste for it or had undergone special training, it was really hard for an ordinary person to adapt to this near-complete state of engulfment. Soon, Xie Xishu found it hard to breathe, and every instinctive attempt to draw air only caused more foul-smelling mucus to flood into his nose and mouth.

[“Cough—cough cough—”]

The mucus secreted by Qi Wu squeezed into Xie Xishu’s mouth through his slightly parted lips. He coughed violently several times, only to inhale more mucus.

For a moment, he felt as though his entire body, inside and out, was completely filled with Qi Wu’s presence.

The sensation was akin to drowning.

Finally, just as Xie Xishu reached his limit and began to struggle, the fleshy tentacles binding him suddenly loosened.

Xie Xishu collapsed onto the ground, coughing so hard he nearly passed out.

After quite some time, he finally regained enough strength to control his limbs.

When he came to his senses, Xie Xishu propped himself up on the ground and slowly sat up. He wiped away the excess mucus clinging to his face and struggled to open his eyes.

Glancing around, he realized he was in what seemed to be a hotel room.

The room’s decor was somewhat old and cheap, with garish pink wallpaper. In the center of the room stood a large round bed, something rarely seen in everyday life, with a mirror embedded in the ceiling above it. On the nightstand sat a large acrylic box, filled with various colored, smooth, or ridged stick-like objects. A QR code was prominently displayed on the box, with four large characters underneath: “Self-pay purchase.”

The window in the room was open, and on the windowsill was a shimmering trail of mucus, indicating that Qi Wu had brought him into the room through that entrance.

Just as Xie Xishu glanced at the window, a slender tentacle swiftly reached out, quietly closing the window and quickly drawing the heavy curtains.

The room was instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness.

“So dark—where is this?”

Xie Xishu blinked in confusion in the darkness, mumbling to himself.

After letting go of him, Qi Wu once again disappeared into the shadows of the room. Xie Xishu couldn’t find him earlier, and now, with the room this dark, it was even harder to see where the boy was.

“Don’t worry about it,” Qi Wu’s raspy voice sounded. “In any case, this place is safe for now… this place was sealed off and ordered to close down several years ago. There shouldn’t be any mutated creatures lingering around here.”

A wet, squishy sound of soft flesh rubbing against itself came from the corner where Qi Wu was.

“And the soundproofing… is very good… huff huff… and I’ve also… huff… eliminated the scent.”

The boy’s voice gradually became strange, as if processed through a voice-altering software, sounding particularly unsettling.

Although Xie Xishu couldn’t see anything, he instinctively widened his eyes, staring intently in the direction where Qi Wu was.

He tried hard to stop himself from overthinking.

But Qi Wu’s reactions were all a little off, giving Xie Xishu a very bad feeling.

“Qi Wu, are you sure you’re okay?”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but take a few steps in that direction.

The next second, he tripped over something. But as he fell, he didn’t land on the hotel’s long-uncleaned, dusty carpet. Instead, he fell straight into a pile of soft, mushy, rotten flesh.

“Ugh?!”

Xie Xishu let out a low exclamation. “Wait, you—”

“Huff…”

“Huff huff…”

Qi Wu’s voice was clearly right next to him, practically brushing against Xie Xishu’s ear. But Xie Xishu couldn’t find him.

Yes, he couldn’t find him.

The strange, irregular breathing sounds came from all directions at once, but in the pile of rotting flesh beneath him, Xie Xishu couldn’t feel Qi Wu’s body at all.

He couldn’t even make out the faintest trace of a human shape.

And in the darkness, some nauseating, unpleasant-feeling things were quietly crawling out of the pile of rotting flesh, clinging tightly to Xie Xishu’s body.

“Qi Wu?!”

Cold sweat broke out all over Xie Xishu.

Logic told him that Qi Wu probably wouldn’t do anything excessive to him. After all, the boy himself had said earlier that licking him could help him regain his sanity. Yet panic flooded Xie Xishu’s mind like a volcanic eruption, uncontrollable.

Xie Xishu couldn’t control himself. He wanted to scream, to struggle, but he couldn’t.

“Qi Wu” had completely subdued him.

*

Suddenly, the words that the man had warned Xie Xishu about before parting abruptly echoed in his mind.

[After night falls, these monsters become especially, especially manic, crazier than ever, far more dangerous than during the day.]

*

Ah, that’s right.

How could he have forgotten?

He thought.

Qi Wu…

Qi Wu is a monster too.

*

Xie Xishu’s body stiffened. He couldn’t figure out when exactly Qi Wu had completely lost control.

He thought Qi Wu had transformed and wrapped him up to flee together for safety.

But what if there was another possibility? What if Qi Wu could no longer control the monstrous part of himself and had completely succumbed to his bloodthirsty instincts?

In the natural world, when a predator successfully hunts its prey, and encounters an outsider strong enough to challenge it for the kill, its first instinct is to eat as much of its prey as possible, as quickly as possible, to avoid losing it completely.

Unfortunately, on this new food chain, the role Xie Xishu now played was precisely that of the “prey.”

The things wrapped around Xie Xishu were tightening more and more. Through his skin, Xie Xishu could feel their teeth beginning to form.

He was about to be devoured completely—

Just as this thought solidified in his mind, Xie Xishu suddenly felt himself being forcefully thrown aside.

This time, Xie Xishu hit the ground hard.

He rolled several times, only stopping when he crashed into the bed. Beneath him, he felt the sticky, thick texture of the hotel carpet. Without a doubt, he had been freed from the “pile of rotten flesh.”

“Get… get away from me…”

Then, Xie Xishu heard Qi Wu’s stiff reprimand.

“Hide… stay away… stay far away from me…”

The boy’s voice sounded more irritable than ever before.

The squelching, sticky sound of flesh rubbing together grew louder in the dark room.

The curtains fluttered at that moment, revealing a narrow gap.

With a glance, Xie Xishu saw a large, tangled mass of irregular, spotted “things” slowly writhing towards the window. It was clear that “it” was trying to leave through the window.

However, if that thing really was Qi Wu, there was no need for any further confirmation—Xie Xishu could already tell that Qi Wu’s condition was incredibly bad.

Extremely, extremely bad.

Because not long ago, the spots covering Qi Wu’s body had become abnormally chaotic. If those spots had previously followed some strange pattern, now their flashing betrayed a sense of madness and complete loss of control.

Each of “Qi Wu’s” movements caused full-body spasms and convulsions, and the mucus seeping from the gaps between the tentacles had turned an ominous brownish-green.

*

Xie Xishu stood where he was, trembling as he watched the monster that was about to lose all control and collapse.

Maybe it was his intuition, or maybe just his delusion, but he had a strong feeling that if he let Qi Wu leave now… he might never see him again.

Or rather, he might never see the “Qi Wu” that was still human again.

He bit his lip hard, his breathing becoming unusually rapid.

Then, he walked straight toward Qi Wu.

Just as Qi Wu’s tentacles touched the window frame, the boy’s pale hand pressed down on the soft, red, wet, trembling flesh in the moonlight.

“Qi Wu, stop.”

He murmured to Qi Wu.

[You’re crazy—]

That voice in his head began screaming hysterically again.

But Xie Xishu chose to ignore it.

[You’ll be eaten, you think you’ll be eaten, you’ll become food in this monster’s belly, you barely escaped, even Qi Wu himself told you to stay away, what kind of madness is this—]

Even Qi Wu, this consciousness-fading monster, managed to squeeze out the last bit of strength, desperately cursing Xie Xishu.

“I told you… to get lost… damn it… are you seeking death…”

As soon as Xie Xishu touched Qi Wu, countless “tongues” spewed out from the formless mass of flesh, wrapping around the boy.

In that small patch of moonlight behind the curtain, Xie Xishu’s face was deathly pale, like a corpse that had already passed away.

Yet when those tentacles bound him, faint red marks still appeared on his skin.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? As long as you take in enough of my scent, you’ll be satisfied, and then you’ll regain your sanity.”

Xie Xishu suspected that his mind might have already collapsed, because at this moment, he actually smiled at the monster in front of him.

Though his voice was trembling the whole time.

“I don’t know what happened to you, but you must need me right now, right?”

“Qi Wu… I really don’t want you to become a true monster.”

…

Never in his wildest dreams did Xie Xishu imagine that one day he would open his arms and embrace a shapeless mass, covered with tiny teeth, tongues, and unidentifiable appendages.

Something was taking form.

In Xie Xishu’s vision, spots on the tentacles continuously spun, transforming into stripes, and those stripes now glimmered faintly on the crimson mucous membrane.

They were spinning and shining, faster and faster…

Countless tiny, fishhook-like sharp teeth emerged from Qi Wu’s body. They pierced deeply into Xie Xishu’s skin, drawing blood, but thanks to the numbing effect of the saliva, Xie Xishu didn’t feel any pain.

He also didn’t smell even the faintest scent of blood.

Because before the blood could seep from his skin, “Qi Wu” had already greedily sucked the sweet, delicious, crimson liquid dry.

Xie Xishu began to tremble uncontrollably.

“Don’t hurt me…”

He whispered to Qi Wu, then tightly closed his eyes.

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