Xie Xishu originally thought that after going through so many changes, his tolerance for anomalies had improved significantly.
At the very least, he would no longer be scared stiff by the ugly appearance and terrifying actions of a monster…
However, when that monster smiled at him and shouted his name, he still lost all composure and was frozen in fear, feeling cold all over.
“Xie Xishu—”
Why…
Why did a monster behave as if it was so familiar with him?
Why did it seem to still possess some human awareness, yet the feeling it gave Xie Xishu was so disgusting and detestable?
“You, who are you?”
Xie Xishu uttered a terrified question.
As he spoke, he uncontrollably took a step back, wishing he could just merge into the back of the old car.
“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Have you really forgotten me?”
Just as the boy finished speaking, the monster tilted its head, seemingly displeased, and raised its hand to smash forcefully against the car’s windshield.
“Too despicable, so heartbreaking, boohoohoo…” The monster even let out a long wail, “Aren’t we friends?”
Then, its neck tilted at a very strange angle, its countless tiny eyes fixated on Xie Xishu as it murmured. A large amount of sticky saliva continuously leaked from its split lips, and that corrosive liquid quickly left fine marks on the car’s windshield.
“…I really regret it, Xie Xishu, you smell so good… But you were so close to me, so fragrant, so delicious, yet I completely didn’t notice it. That’s why I let you escape. I regret it so much, I regret it.”
As the monster spoke, it lavishly licked the glass. It seemed to have caught the scent of Xie Xishu from the cracked glass, and its body began to tremble slowly, a terrifyingly intoxicated expression appearing on its deformed face.
“Every time I think of you, I can’t help but drool. I should have eaten you back then. How despicable, truly despicable, in the end, you were taken away, taken away, ah ah ah—”
Xie Xishu fearfully surveyed the deformed monster, and after hearing that series of incoherent ramblings, he was horrified and suddenly thought of someone.
“Cheng An?”
Xie Xishu’s eyes widened in shock.
“You, you are Cheng An! How did you become like this?”
It felt as if an invisible hand was tightening around his stomach.
Even breathing became difficult.
As soon as he spoke, Xie Xishu knew his question was completely unnecessary— in that narrow, dark alley, the one who had first followed and attacked him was not Qi Wu, but Cheng An.
Qi Wu had indeed been acting strange for several months, staring at him fixedly, but what about earlier? Earlier, Cheng An had already caught the flu.
Perhaps even back then, his deskmate had quietly begun to mutate.
“Cheng An…”
Xie Xishu covered his mouth with his hand.
It was hard to say how much of Cheng An’s soul remained in that monster, which was now frantically exposed behind the glass.
But looking at its current appearance, Xie Xishu felt so sad that he could hardly breathe.
“…The reason I became like this is because of you. I liked you too much, you smelled too good, too good, my darling… Why didn’t you let me lick you? Why didn’t you even give me the choice? You just picked the thing next to you… Monster, aren’t we the same? We are both monsters, why didn’t you choose me? Xie Xishu, tell me, why? Why!”
Seeing Xie Xishu’s eyes filled with a mix of terror, worry, and sadness, the deformed monster on the hood suddenly became even more excited.
Countless filthy and murky eyes instantly focused on the pale-faced boy in the car, as if they could envelop Xie Xishu’s body little by little with that sticky gaze.
The scales on Cheng An’s body stood on end, and faintly, one could see some bright and colorful spots moving continuously on its surface.
“Whatever Qi Wu can do, I can do too. We are clearly friends; I will do better than Qi Wu…”
“As long as you let me have a taste, Xie Xishu, just let me taste your flavor.”
“I’ll be very capable, Xie Xishu.”
“I only need a little, just a tiny bit…”
As Cheng An spoke, he greedily drooled murky saliva toward Xie Xishu.
“Tut—”
At that moment, Qi Wu, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, suddenly curled his lips and let out a cold laugh.
Unlike Xie Xishu, he immediately recognized the monster’s true form upon smelling the familiar stench coming from Cheng An—he could have easily crushed this garbage trying to reach for Xie Xishu, but in that moment of mental turmoil, he suddenly recalled the bitter fragrance radiating from Xie Xishu when he witnessed the monster.
Of course, Xie Xishu, trembling in fear and resistance, still smelled very good; fear had added a unique dry scent to the boy’s breath.
But not long ago, Qi Wu had just savored another kind of flavor from Xie Xishu.
That fragrance, mixed with worry, trust, and a kind of self-sacrificing abandon, was so sweet and moving that Qi Wu inexplicably began to resist the overwhelming scent of fear coming from Xie Xishu.
Even if he was too scared to move, the one scaring Xie Xishu should be him.
That fleeting thought effectively suppressed the killing instinct within Qi Wu’s body.
However, just by looking at the monster outside the car window, who was so smug and unaware of its own limitations, Qi Wu realized that his inexplicable mercy was meaningless.
The accelerator beneath Qi Wu’s foot was almost pressed to the floor, and even the car’s engine began to emit a burdensome hum.
Then Xie Xishu heard Qi Wu’s indifferent question: “Are you done reminiscing with this guy?”
“Ah?”
“Once you’re done, buckle your seatbelt.”
The moment those words fell, Xie Xishu suddenly felt something was wrong.
He reflexively grabbed the seatbelt.
At the same moment, Qi Wu slammed down on the brakes.
The tires, which were traveling at high speed, erupted with a deafening screech, and the whole car began to shake violently.
A strong smell of rubber surged from the ventilation system.
At that moment, it felt like the entire world was shaking madly.
Xie Xishu bit down hard on a low gasp. His hands clutched the seatbelt in front of him, his knuckles turning white. The seatbelt was tightening so much that it felt like it might snap his ribs. For a moment, Xie Xishu even felt that he would be thrown out of the car by the powerful inertia.
But in the end, he was tightly strapped to the seat, while someone else was thrown out…
That someone was Cheng An.
The immense inertia from the sudden brake made the monster pressed against the windshield fly out like a bullet. It flew at least five to six meters through the air before crashing down, sliding a long distance on the ground before finally coming to a stop, rolling around.
On the rough road, a long trail of blood was left behind.
“Is it… dead?”
Xie Xishu sat in his seat, staring wide-eyed at the bloody, mangled shadow on the ground, his heart racing as if it could leap out of his mouth at any moment.
Qi Wu snorted coldly.
“Cockroaches aren’t that easy to kill.”
As if to echo Qi Wu’s evaluation, just as he finished speaking, Cheng An’s body convulsed.
In the next moment, the monster supported itself on one hand and shakily stood back up from the pool of blood.
“…”
Xie Xishu’s breath caught in his throat.
He could see clearly that nearly half of Cheng An’s flesh had been torn away, revealing the red muscle covered in scales. The most severely injured was its right limb, which hung limply in front of its chest, only connected to its shoulder by a thin layer of translucent skin, linking the “hand” with claws and suckers.
For a normal person, that would be a serious injury, likely to result in death or at least a significant loss of life.
But Xie Xishu saw not a trace of weakness in Cheng An.
On the contrary, after being stimulated by intense pain and blood, the monster seemed even more excited than before.
“Cheng An” let out a vague mumble from its throat.
But strangely, Xie Xishu could hear it very clearly.
“So painful… Qi Wu, you son of a bitch… I wanted to settle scores with you before; I swear I will repay this debt. I will make you die a miserable death… I will tear apart your weak, soft body bit by bit and slowly gnaw on your flesh, hehe. But don’t worry, I will leave your eyeballs intact; I will make you watch, watch as I savor Xie Xishu…”
“He is mine… So sweet and so delicious, he is clearly mine…”
It shook its head and then ripped off its already severed right limb, stuffing it into its gaping bloody mouth.
“Crunch.”
“Crunch.”
…
The sound of chewing filled the air.
Under Xie Xishu’s horrified gaze, “Cheng An” gulped down its own arm.
The gray-green saliva was dyed deep red with blood, dripping continuously from the monster’s split lips. A long tongue kept flicking out from between its lips, licking the countless tiny eyes on its face until they gleamed.
At the spot where its arm was severed, a small section of pink flesh was wriggling, visibly growing at an astonishing speed.
“Delicious, hehe, so fragrant, Xie Xishu, just smelling your scent makes me feel so good. So, let me taste your flavor; I miss you so much, hiss—”
Then, with a piercing howl, “Cheng An” suddenly hunched over and charged toward them.
Compared to the deformities and distortions of its body, its movements appeared exceptionally agile.
It seemed that in just a moment, the monster, which had been knocked far away, came rushing back to the front of the car.
“Qi Wu!”
He couldn’t help but cry out in shock—
“Damn, that’s really disgusting.”
Then, he seemed to hear a curse from Qi Wu.
“Seatbelt.”
Accompanied by a familiar reminder.
With no time to think, survival instincts made Xie Xishu instantly tighten the seatbelt around him again—at the same moment, the car emitted a huge roar once more.
Without hesitation, Qi Wu floored the accelerator, crashing toward Cheng An.
But this time, before the car could hit the monster, it had already leaped up suddenly,
With a “bang,” Cheng An smashed directly into the car’s front windshield, sending shards of glass flying, while its scaly, flexible half-body almost dove straight into the car’s interior—indeed, it nearly achieved this.
At the moment the windshield shattered, Xie Xishu saw with his own eyes that Cheng An’s jaw suddenly opened like that of a reptile. A long tongue, wrapped in thick saliva, pierced through the windshield and swung toward him.
In the blink of an eye, Xie Xishu instinctively unbuckled his seatbelt, then immediately shrank down, sliding into the space beneath the seat.
Cheng An’s tongue barely grazed his scalp as it wrapped around the car seat’s backrest.
“So fragrant, so delicious—”
All the eyeballs on its face trembled incessantly at that moment.
The monster’s speech was unclear, screaming continuously: even though it had only caught the car seat at that moment, the earlier scare had already left a thin layer of cold sweat on Xie Xishu.
And that was enough to send Cheng An into a frenzied ecstasy in an instant.
*
However, for Cheng An, this moment of extreme satisfaction was obviously a huge mistake.
Qi Wu’s expression was cold, and the killing intent in his eyes felt like a tangible dagger piercing directly toward Cheng An. At the same time, countless clawing, hissing appendages also reached the monster’s body.
Qi Wu’s human form had already completely disintegrated at this moment.
Thick, numerous tentacles erupted wildly from deep within his body, each one adorned with menacing mouthparts.
At the center of those mouthparts were visible rows of tiny teeth, adept at tearing and gnawing.
In the blink of an eye, Qi Wu’s slender tentacles entirely wrapped around Cheng An.
Beneath his translucent skin, the developed muscles of the tentacles slightly bulged, and Cheng An let out a hissing scream as they suddenly tightened around the monster beneath.
“Splash—”
It sounded like a water balloon filled with liquid being squeezed until it burst.
At the sound, Xie Xishu, who had been huddled in front of the car seat, couldn’t help but close his eyes.
Blood, chunks of flesh, and organs… all mixed together to create countless tiny, wet droplets of blood, splattering throughout the car.
A small piece of flesh still attached to an eyeball fell directly in front of Xie Xishu, the bulging black eyeball staring at him, then spasming as it crawled toward him.
But in the next second, that thing was bitten by a tentacle that suddenly shot out, forcefully flung outside the car.
*
If this were a nightmare, Xie Xishu hoped this nightmare would end soon.
However, as always, the gods never cared about his painful prayers.
Even after losing half its body, Cheng An still showed no signs of dying or weakening.
In fact, at that moment, it was writhing even more frantically than before, and on the cross-section of its lower body that Qi Wu had torn apart, clusters of lively, wriggling flesh sprouts had already bulged up.
Those flesh sprouts quickly intertwined, forming a thin membrane to stop the bleeding. Then the surface of the membrane slightly bulged, turning into a small segment of a new torso.
Yet on that small segment of the torso, tiny black dots—Cheng An’s eyes—were still densely covered.
And there was a deep red, repulsive crack.
The hoarse, sharp howls continuously emanated from the depths of that crack.
“It’s so fragrant, Xie Xishu, you’re so fragrant, let me lick you, please let me lick you.”
“I’m willing to do anything. I will satisfy you:”
Even at this moment, Cheng An still hadn’t stopped its mentally polluting cries.
Even the intestines that had originally fallen from its abdomen quickly transformed into long, soft flesh, wriggling with bloodstains as they moved across the hood of the car, trying to reach for Xie Xishu once more.
Until Qi Wu could no longer bear it, parked the car, and reached out to pull those few intestines along with the internal organs out of the monster’s body.
“Fulfilling you, my ass.”
Qi Wu directly got out of the car and approached the hood, forcibly tearing the remaining body of Cheng An off the car.
In just that brief moment, a small, slightly bulging new head had already appeared on the cross-section of Cheng An’s waist.
“Didn’t you say you would nibble my flesh bite by bite?”
Qi Wu revealed a cold smile, then reached out his hand toward Cheng An, palm open, showing a complete mouth, with white, sharp teeth beneath the lips.
At that moment, the deformed head seemed to realize its impending fate.
It suddenly opened its mouth and let out a mournful wail.
“Xie Xishu—help—”
At the moment he heard that voice, Xie Xishu, who had originally been paralyzed with fear, suddenly jolted.
That voice was no longer ambiguous or chaotic.
It sounded like a real normal person, a boy who used to sit next to him, calling for help in despair.
“I—I’ve regained my senses, Xie Xishu! I’m awake! Qi Wu wants to kill me, help me, I’m begging you to save me—”
Xie Xishu staggered out of the car, blankly staring at the deformed and terrifying monster on the hood, which was continuously making familiar sounds with its broken body.
Qi Wu’s brows were tightly knitted together, his expression as dark as the bottom of a pot.
He was even prepared to scold the pleading boy back. But throughout it all, Xie Xishu just stood there in a daze, silently watching the two monsters in front of him.
Seeing Xie Xishu standing still, Cheng An’s originally fearful and desperate expression suddenly tightened.
It glared at the boy with malice, its voice icy and full of resentment.
“You will be eaten, Xie Xishu. It’s not me; it’s Qi Wu, hehehe.”
“You will definitely be eaten by Qi Wu.”
“He’s almost gone mad with desire for you, and he’s the one who craves you the most, you know? You picked the wrong target, darling. You chose the greediest one, hehehe. You can’t satisfy him, and he will definitely eat you—”
In the next second, Cheng An’s voice abruptly stopped amidst a dull sound of broken bones wrapped in flesh.
It had been crushed by Qi Wu.
Immediately after, countless openings on Qi Wu’s body gaped open, and bright red tentacles quickly wrapped around the monster’s remains, dense mouthparts suddenly opened wide, revealing sharp teeth inside.
They sunk into Cheng An’s body, tearing at the still twitching corpse, bite after bite.
Qi Wu devoured Cheng An completely.
