Chapter 27 – I Was Attacked

Inside a car parked along the street, a pair of eyes was fixed on the mouth of the alley. The hand that had been reaching for the door handle stopped the instant Cheng Xiaomei appeared.

Several minutes later, when Su Lifeng burst out of the alley and looked left and right, the owner of those eyes slowly sank back behind the seat.

Su Lifeng’s gaze swept over the car-and slid past it without catching anything, moving on to the other side.

“Found… you…” Li Yi said, word by word. Then he turned and glanced at the body sprawled beside him. The car owner had seen a crash up ahead and was about to open the door to go take a look when Li Yi sprang into the vehicle and dragged him straight into the back seat…

Once Su Lifeng had left, Li Yi yanked the corpse upright and sank his teeth into the still-warm nape of its neck.

Li Yi’s eyes dulled for a moment. Thin Black Threads spilled from the corners of his mouth, then drilled into the wound.

As the corpse rapidly withered into a shriveled husk, the Black Threads flowed back into Li Yi’s body.

After tossing the dried-up remains aside, Li Yi looked down and tugged his coat open.

If there’d been a second witness, they would’ve thrown up on the spot. Li Yi’s chest and abdomen were completely rotten; through the gaping cavity, bone and even internal organs could be seen. But as the returning Black Threads rapidly threaded into those places, the wounds quickly sprouted a sickening mesh of new flesh, knitting themselves back together.

“Human bodies… fragile…” Li Yi thought of the first three humans he had absorbed. If he hadn’t drawn energy from them, he might not have been able to keep even a basic, intact form all the way to this point. Replacing the “vessel” outright was another option, but he glanced at the badge hanging on his chest: Shencheng TV Station Press Card. Below it was this vessel’s photo and name-Li Yi. That woman had invited him into the car precisely because she saw the badge.

So for now, he had no intention of changing vessels-especially after accidentally finding a way to patch this one up. Still, to avoid drawing attention, he wanted some “cover.” Li Yi stripped the suit off the corpse and changed out of his own filthy clothes. Before getting out, he practiced the smile he’d learned from that woman one more time, then opened the door.

The target looked extremely wary. After thinking it over, Li Yi kept that mechanical smile on his face and shifted his gaze from the alley to another direction-the way Jiang Yushi had left…

“Su, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” Cheng Xiaomei was still waiting where she was. When she saw Su Lifeng return with a frown, she immediately asked, tense.

“Nothing. Maybe I’m just being too sensitive.” Su Lifeng glanced at her fingers and found they’d completely returned to normal-long and fine, without the slightest trace of anything unusual.

“My joints can move freely, and my muscles can stretch and contract, but I still can’t control them however I want… If I don’t use them, they’ll change back on their own after a while,” Cheng Xiaomei said, a little embarrassed.

Su Lifeng nodded in understanding. He’d been through that stage too. “It’s fine. Just practice. Once you can control it freely, your day-to-day life will be a lot more convenient. Besides… having fingers as flexible as yours can be pretty useful.”

For some reason, Cheng Xiaomei went blank for a beat. Then her face went scarlet, the blush spreading all the way to the tips of her ears.

“Su… w-what are you talking about…” she muttered.

Su Lifeng scratched his head, completely at a loss.

As if unwilling to stay on the topic, Cheng Xiaomei hurriedly changed the subject. “Su, actually… I-I have something I need your help with. But… but I don’t know if I should come to you. It might cause you trouble, and I really don’t know what else to do, I…” Halfway through, a flash of terror flickered in her eyes. Su Lifeng’s unease spiked at once, and his earlier confusion was shoved straight to the back of his mind.

“What happened? Tell me.” Su Lifeng reached out and held her shoulder.

The gesture seemed to give Cheng Xiaomei a little more courage. She bit her lip and said, “I was attacked.”

Then she lifted her eyes to his.

“By a Xenospecies.”

Su Lifeng felt a chill run down his spine. “The Xenospecies have already entered the human world?”

…

When they arrived back at his apartment, Su Lifeng happened to run into one of his neighbors, a young woman from next door.

She stared at Su Lifeng and Cheng Xiaomei behind him with great surprise, her eyes darting between them several times before she offered Su Lifeng a knowing, conspiratorial smile.

Su Lifeng remained indifferent to the look, but Cheng Xiaomei looked as though she wanted to bury her head in her chest. Her mind couldn’t help but drift back to the incident with the finger. Then, she quickly shook her head vigorously… “My life is on the line, what am I doing thinking about such nonsense!”

Despite the mental reprimand, as she watched Su Lifeng unlock the door, Cheng Xiaomei couldn’t help but wonder what Su’s home would look like. Since he was a top student, he probably had bookshelves everywhere, right?

However, once the door opened, Cheng Xiaomei was shocked to see a massive lab bench along with various petri dishes and experimental enclosures. When he flipped the switch, the room was flooded with the dazzlingly bright glare of incandescent lights. There were plenty of books, but they were all piled on the sofa, which sat atop a rug. It seemed this was where Su Lifeng usually spent his time.

“You can sleep in my sister’s room. She rarely comes back,” Su Lifeng said, turning toward the dumbfounded Cheng Xiaomei.

Cheng Xiaomei opened her mouth and managed a quiet “thank you,” while thinking to herself, “With you turning the house into something like this, it’s no wonder she doesn’t come back often…”

“Alright, you can tell me in detail now. How exactly were you attacked? If I remember correctly, didn’t you say you were going away to clear your head?” Su Lifeng asked.

Cheng Xiaomei looked around awkwardly. She moved two books aside and sat on the sofa. “Yeah. I looked up some travel guides and went to Xining Province.”

Xining Province? Wasn’t that a border province? Su Lifeng began to understand; it seemed his greatest fear had already come to pass.

“I wanted to get as far away from people as possible because, well, you know… I was terrified of being discovered like this. So, I went hiking in a river valley…” Cheng Xiaomei continued.

Su Lifeng frowned, but ultimately decided not to blame her. While it was a terrible idea to go hiking in a border region prone to natural disasters and poor public security, the psychological pressure on a normal girl who suddenly realized she had become a monster was simply too great.

“At first, I thought it was just an attack by a small animal, but getting back wasn’t that easy. Later, I met a foreign tourist. I thought he was in trouble, but I never expected him to attack me…” Cheng Xiaomei recalled.

Thinking back to her mention of “bringing trouble,” Su Lifeng suddenly interrupted her. “You didn’t kill him?”

“No… no. And he didn’t follow me for very long before he disappeared. But after that, I realized someone was always following me. The people around me started acting very strange. Some would be perfectly normal during the day, but the next day, they would suddenly become like mannequins. Stiff smiles, repeating the same words over and over… I was scared to death, so I caught a bus here. But I don’t know if they’re still following me…”

By the time Cheng Xiaomei reached this point, Su Lifeng was essentially certain that they would follow her. As for when they would arrive, that was beyond his ability to guess.

To the Xenospecies, Mutants were likely a very special existence. This was evident from the fact that they hadn’t attacked her en masse, but had instead been circling her.

At the same time, Cheng Xiaomei’s words revealed another terrifying piece of information… those Xenospecies had already begun to spread rapidly.

The fact that this news hadn’t broken out in media reports was not a good sign. It suggested the situation might be even worse than what Cheng Xiaomei had seen, leading to a total information blackout.

“It’s fine. You stay here at my place. We’ll wait for them to come.” Despite the tension, Su Lifeng actually felt a faint sense of anticipation.

The sensation after absorbing a Xenospecies was like experiencing one’s own evolution firsthand. Once you had tasted it, it was very difficult to let go.

More importantly, Su Lifeng felt a stronger urge than ever to become more powerful. Cheng Xiaomei had zero combat experience and was as timid as a mouse, yet she had still nearly managed to injure him. This proved that his current strength was far from sufficient.

He had to get stronger, because the Xenospecies were constantly growing as well.