Listening to the gradually fading sound of the motorcycle, Qi Wu’s body began to disintegrate.
One by one, thick and grotesque tentacles writhed like venomous snakes, unable to wait for cracks wide enough to form on Qi Wu’s skin to accommodate their girth. Impatient, they pierced through the thin, useless human flesh and burst out directly.
These tentacles, once soft and tender like a human tongue, were now knotted with corded muscles. As they squirmed, the muscles beneath the translucent skin pulsed and bulged.
“Ssssss…”
The sound of flesh and fascia being torn apart echoed from Qi Wu’s body. In an instant, he completely disintegrated into a massive, crimson mass of terrifying tentacles. Every single tentacle was now covered with deformed, repulsive mouths. Like the suckers on an octopus’s tentacles, these mouths were densely packed but arranged chaotically. They had no lips, and beneath the flesh-colored slits were rows upon rows of sharp teeth.
“He is mine.”
Qi Wu let out a piercing shriek and lunged toward the headless woman writhing before him like a giant insect.
He swiftly coiled around the woman’s boneless arms, and the teeth within his mouths suddenly extended out, gnawing at her flesh. Blood immediately spurted from the monster’s body—but along with it came the seemingly lifeless heads.
When the headless woman released her grip, the heads tumbled to the ground with a thud, like bouncing balls. Yet almost at the same moment, fresh, red flesh buds began to sprout from their decaying eye sockets, ear canals, and the severed stumps of their necks. Like cockroach nymphs scattering from a crushed egg case, the flesh buds quickly grew into small, nimble, deformed limbs. Carrying the heads, they scurried and climbed among Qi Wu’s tentacles, using teeth and claws to counterattack him.
Flesh and blood splattered everywhere, and severed limbs littered the ground.
The battle between Qi Wu and the headless woman quickly turned this small area into a real-life hell.
“Ahhhhhh—damn it—damn it—”
The headless woman, having lost nearly half her body, let out a hoarse scream in her fury.
She stretched out her arms, clinging to each writhing, deformed tentacle, her nails relentlessly clawing at the eyes and lips that continuously grew from Qi Wu’s tentacles. Blood mixed with slime gushed out, corroding her fingertips into slightly charred blackened bones.
The girl on the woman’s chest immediately began to cry.
“It hurts! It hurts! Waaaah!”
At the same time, the man’s head on the other side of the girl also showed an expression of pain and struggle.
“Don’t do this, child… don’t hurt us…”
The man’s lips moved, and thick black blood trickled from his clouded eyes.
“We just like him, that’s all.”
He stared at the now unrecognizable Qi Wu, muttering quietly.
“We just want to be with him, be with him, we like him so much, he smells so good…”
“You understand, don’t you? You’re just like us.”
“So fragrant, hissss, he smells so good, so hungry, I just want to eat that child, want to merge with him, want to make him a part of us forever.”
As he spoke, the man let out strange, labored breaths.
Qi Wu paused briefly, then responded to the man’s words with even fiercer attacks.
“He is mine.”
Countless mouths on Qi Wu’s body roared in unison.
“Get lost—”
Enraged, Qi Wu lunged forward and bit off half of the man’s face. The bones, wrapped in the loose, decayed flesh of the corpse, were ground to pieces by Qi Wu’s maw. The man’s once-gentle and refined facade instantly shattered. Some grotesque, deformed things poured out of the black, foul-smelling hollow at the back of his head.
These were the true essence of the headless woman—flesh buds, eyeballs, insect-like body segments, and constantly writhing, twisting tentacles, along with dangerously sharp spines. All of them surged toward Qi Wu, squeezing and breaking him down. As Qi Wu devoured the headless woman, her venomous body also corroded Qi Wu’s own.
As time passed, the size difference between the two became more apparent—compared to the headless woman, Qi Wu had eaten far too little in his effort to maintain his appearance.
Far too little.
At a certain moment, several of Qi Wu’s main tentacles were bitten by the “heads” dispersed by the headless woman. His skin instantly became loose, sticky, and emitted a putrid stench as it began peeling off from the underlying muscle.
To prevent the bio-toxin from spreading, Qi Wu had no choice but to bite the base of those tentacles and forcefully tear them from his own body.
The scent of blood in the air became overwhelmingly strong, and the intense pain blurred Qi Wu’s consciousness. The primal fury of the beast was slowly taking over. If this continued, it would be difficult for him to return to a human state…
There was no solid evidence, but Qi Wu could sense an ominous premonition deep within.
At that moment… he suddenly heard a distant rumbling sound.
It was a sound that should never have been heard here, not now, not in this place.
It was the roar of a motorcycle.
*
Xie Xishu had returned.
The boy gripped Xiao Tianming’s shoulder, who was driving in front, his back slightly arched as he stood up directly on the rear seat.
Huge packages hung from his waist and legs, bulging, their contents unknown.
*
The moment Qi Wu saw the figures on the motorcycle, his body instinctively swelled.
It was almost a reflex.
He wanted to use his body to block the nauseating, sticky gaze of the headless woman. But, of course, this attempt was utterly futile.
As Qi Wu realized Xie Xishu had returned, the headless woman erupted into manic laughter.
“Back, back, back again—”
She arched her back, saliva dripping as she almost completely ignored Qi Wu, rushing straight toward Xie Xishu.
Qi Wu roared, launching countless tentacles to wrap around most of the woman’s body, binding her in a violent grip.
“Xiao Tianming—”
At the same time, a few tentacles extended shakily toward the motorcycle, eyes bulging from their inner mouths, glaring venomously at Xiao Tianming, who was driving.
The creature’s overwhelming fury almost seemed to solidify into sharp blades, threatening to slice Xiao Tianming apart piece by piece.
*
“This has nothing to do with me, ahhhhh—”
As Xiao Tianming glimpsed Qi Wu’s now grotesque and distorted face, he screamed in despair.
“I was forced into this!”
He was almost in tears.
“Focus.”
Before he could finish speaking, he felt the familiar cold touch of a blade at his lower back.
It was Xie Xishu’s blade.
Despite his delicate, gentle appearance—the kind of model student who’d be invited to give speeches by the principal every week—the air of ruthless determination now radiating from Xie Xishu’s lowered brows was eerily similar to Qi Wu’s.
“Get closer.”
Xie Xishu cast a quick glance at the battle raging ahead, his expression darkening.
Upon hearing his command, tears welled up in Xiao Tianming’s eyes for real.
Qi Wu and the headless woman were not far away. But with the fight escalating to its peak, both had revealed their most terrifying forms yet. If this were a movie, the scene would probably be too gory to be shown in theaters domestically.
And yet, Xie Xishu was asking him… asking him to get closer?
Xiao Tianming’s face twitched. “Closer? If I get any closer, I’ll drive us straight into that monster’s mouth. We’ll both be dead, ahhh! You madman!”
But no sooner had he finished cursing than Xiao Tianming felt the blade dig into his back again.
“Drive to that monster… to its side.”
Xie Xishu ordered, his voice unnervingly calm.
“…Damn!”
Cursing, Xiao Tianming twisted the throttle and charged straight into the gaze of the headless woman’s many eyes.
“So fragrant…”
The headless woman had been growing increasingly agitated ever since Xie Xishu’s appearance.
Even while fighting Qi Wu, her attention had noticeably drifted. Seeing Xie Xishu approach, she ignored Qi Wu’s bites, even letting most of her body be twisted into pulp by his tentacles as she recklessly lunged toward Xie Xishu.
As the mass of rotting heads drew closer, Xiao Tianming’s screams grew louder and louder.
At that moment, Xie Xishu raised his hand and tossed a glass bottle at the headless woman.
“Smash—”
Dozens of pale, soft arms reached out and snatched the bottle, only for it to be crushed to pieces in the struggle.
A dark brown liquid spilled out, coating the monster’s body. But for such a powerful creature, the liquid seemed to have almost no effect.
For a brief moment, the headless woman looked somewhat confused. In contrast, Xie Xishu didn’t seem surprised at all. Without waiting for her reaction, he pulled more bottles from his pack and hurled them one after another at the creature.
Apart from the stench of corpses and the thick smell of blood in the air, there gradually came a strong odor of gasoline.
During this time, the two of them were, of course, constantly being pursued by its writhing and slithering form. Perhaps because the survival crisis was imminent, it completely triggered Xiao Tianming’s survival instinct. His dodging skills on the motorcycle had reached the point where he could be a stuntman.
Of course, until the very end, Xie Xishu was never truly caught by the headless woman. The real reason was still Qi Wu.
Qi Wu seemed to sense Xie Xishu’s thoughts. Without hesitation, all of his tendrils pinned themselves firmly onto the headless woman, and blood gushed out endlessly. In that moment, it felt like a man-made blood rain was pouring down at the scene.
“I can’t do this anymore—I really can’t—”
Finally, as Xie Xishu’s supplies were depleted, Xiao Tianming looked completely collapsed as well.
“The ground is so slippery that if we get close and make one more turn, we’ll both tumble off with the bike.”
After dodging once more, Xiao Tianming pulled the bike a little further away and, panting, cried out to Xie Xishu.
Xie Xishu turned his head and silently looked at the headless woman: that monster was already covered in patches of gasoline, and during the continuous chase and friction, the liquid beneath it had formed a streak of dark filth.
“One last time.”
Xie Xishu’s gaze sharpened as he spoke to Xiao Tianming.
“…Why don’t you just kill me instead?”
The man looked at the crazily wriggling monster not far away and didn’t move.
Xie Xishu took a deep breath.
“I can also have Qi Wu tear you apart.”
Xiao Tianming: “…”
The man’s gaze shifted from the headless woman to the mass of writhing, indistinguishable tendrils.
“You said it, the last time.”
He murmured.
Then he twisted the throttle again.
This time, Xie Xishu threw the last glass bottle in his hand at the headless woman.
But before he threw it, he took out a lighter and lit the rag hanging from the bottle’s neck.
“Crack—”
Another sharp sound rang out.
As the glass bottle shattered, the headless woman instantly caught fire.
The golden-red flames spread rapidly along the stains that covered the headless woman, and as the fire grew stronger, her body shook slightly, and she tilted her head back uncontrollably, howling in agony. The arms on her body began slapping frantically at the burning flesh, causing a shower of sparks to fall.
The fire also spread to the stains beneath her, then continued to spread, eventually reaching the small mountain of crushed cars under the overpass.
“Qi Wu—”
Xie Xishu shouted toward Qi Wu.
The monster’s blood-red, hideous tendrils waved toward his little boyfriend.
No words were needed. At this moment, they both felt an extraordinarily strong, almost identical sense of connection.
Suddenly, Qi Wu wrapped up the headless woman, who was struggling to escape the sea of fire, and forcefully hurled her toward the burning heap of wrecked cars.
“Boom—”
It was as if the timing had been calculated.
As soon as the headless woman crashed into it, a loud explosion rang out.
Xie Xishu only felt his body lighten, and in the next second, he was blown backward by the scorching shockwave.
The blinding light made his vision blur, and the rapidly moving air brushed against his cheeks and wrists, bringing a burning sting.
Xie Xishu fell to the ground.
He nearly collided with the iron railing on the roadside, but a fat, soft tendril suddenly shot out, narrowly wrapping around him just in time.
At the same moment, the huge shockwave from the vehicle explosion caused the already unstable overpass to collapse completely.
The heavy metal framework fell with a screech, instantly pinning the headless woman, who was still struggling, underneath it.
For the next ten minutes or so, the sound of explosions continued to ring out.
“Eat you, eat you—ahhh—so much pain—so much pain—ahhh, mom—mom, save me—”
The monster’s shrieks started as the sharp voice of a woman, then became a man’s.
In the end, it turned into the heart-wrenching screams of a child.
The monster’s incredible vitality caused the horrifying screams to continue, but they gradually grew weaker.
…
The air filled with a thick stench.
The monster’s body slowly curled up in the flames, charred and blackened.
Then there was no more movement.
Xie Xishu had been staring at the spot the whole time. It wasn’t until this moment that he let out a long breath.
Then his knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
“Huff… huff…”
He couldn’t control his rapid breathing.
The fear and tension he had been desperately suppressing suddenly burst out, causing his body to tremble uncontrollably.
It was only after a long while that Xie Xishu realized the boy beside him had become strangely quiet.
He couldn’t help but turn his head.
Qi Wu’s body was still in that maddening monster state, every tentacle twitching in excitement. They looked like they were convulsing, with a large amount of mucus flowing uncontrollably. The colorful patterns on his body kept flickering. It all looked… very wrong.
At this moment, Xiao Tianming didn’t even dare approach Qi Wu. He was trembling as he tried to crawl away.
It was clear that the man was desperately trying to lower his presence. In reality, his behavior was somewhat unnecessary. Neither Xie Xishu nor Qi Wu had the time to pay any attention to him.
“Qi Wu? Are you alright?”
Xie Xishu asked, his expression serious as he looked at Qi Wu.
“In… I… hiss… I’m… fine…”
Qi Wu’s tentacles showed some disordered facial features.
But no matter how hard he tried, in the end, the boy still could not restore his form back to a human appearance.
“I need some time… I just… want to be… quiet… for a while…”
After a moment, Qi Wu mumbled, and then his whole body squirmed and slowly crept towards the bushes by the roadside.
Seeing him like this, Xie Xishu had a bad feeling.
“Wait for me!”
As he spoke, Xie Xishu reached out to grab Qi Wu.
But in the next second, a sharp pain struck. Xie Xishu’s pupils constricted as he saw that a tentacle had tightly coiled around his fingertip, greedily sucking the wound he had just bitten open himself.
“I’m so hungry… so hungry…”
Then, Xie Xishu heard Qi Wu’s hoarse and agonized groaning.
__
Author’s Note:
Qi Wu: Yay, eating my wife!
