Chapter 35 – They’re All Monsters!

Regardless of what was growing out of him, the process was agonizing. If he hadn’t obtained the Xenospecies’ self-healing ability, Su Lifeng doubted his body could have withstood this evolution. His muscles and bones would have collapsed, and his internal organs would have failed long before the evolution reached its conclusion. This proved that Xenospecies weren’t something that could be absorbed haphazardly. If Jiang Yushi had tried to absorb an F-class Xenospecies like this, she would likely be dead by now.

“Ah!”

Su Lifeng gritted his teeth, trying his best to remain silent, but a low growl escaped through the gaps in his teeth nonetheless. His body slumped uncontrollably onto the floor. With great effort, he turned his head toward the nearby glass door. His reflection was clear on the surface, allowing him to see his face, neck, and the state of his back.

His face had turned deathly pale. Veins bulged beneath his skin, pulsing as if something were racing through his circulatory system. The muscles on his back were churning incessantly, swelling higher and higher. His thin T-shirt began to groan under the strain of the stretching fabric until, with a sharp “rip”, Su Lifeng threw his head back and let out a howl of pain.

A pair of transparent membranes sprouted from his shoulder blades. It felt as though two bones were being forcibly wrenched out of his body. But as the curved membranes snapped fully open-one end striking the glass door with a sharp “thud”-Su Lifeng felt a sudden, exhilarating surge of power. He could feel these two appendages; they felt as natural to him as his own hands, possessed of an innate familiarity.

They looked like membranes, but they were crisscrossed with a network of skeletal veins. At a glance, it was clear that this was no Carapace. However, being only about a hand’s width, they clearly weren’t capable of flight yet.

“I’ll call them Bone Wings. Whether they’re actually wings or not…”

Su Lifeng stared at the glass door. His reflection looked back with a pale face and cold eyes. The Bone Wings on his back spanned nearly two meters when fully extended, their blood-red veins giving them a chilling aura of death. With a thought, Su Lifeng retracted the wing that had struck the door. Left behind in the glass was a sharp, diagonal gash.

“Such incredible cutting power…” Su Lifeng thought, amazed. Then, a faint smile touched his lips. With this, he wouldn’t be caught in a situation like today’s again. If a Xenospecies could manifest its true form, he now had his Bone Wings to use.

However, having just been “born” and already having pierced through a thick glass door, Su Lifeng felt his Bone Wings grow weak and limp. In this state, it would be difficult to pierce glass a second time.

Su Lifeng closed his eyes and slightly shifted his shoulders, visualizing how to retract the Bone Wings. It was like trying to wiggle one’s ears; you knew they could move instinctively, but active control was difficult. Fortunately, Su Lifeng already had experience from training to control his Exoskeleton. After a few minutes, the two Bone Wings slowly folded and retracted inch by inch into his body.

When Su Lifeng opened his eyes, the Bone Wings were gone, leaving only a ruined shirt on his back. He quickly reached back to feel around. Fortunately, there were no open gashes. But he wasn’t entirely unchanged. Su Lifeng turned his back to the glass door and craned his neck to look. On either side of his shoulder blades, there were now two blood-red marks that looked like scars. Touching them revealed a ridged texture, like feeling scales.

“I didn’t grow a Carapace, but it seems the scales didn’t let me off the hook after all…” Su Lifeng thought self-deprecatingly. Despite the thought, he was still thrilled. Compared to the massive boost in strength the Bone Wings provided, these “scars” were nothing. He just had to be careful not to let anyone see them.

Now that he finally had a means of self-preservation, Su Lifeng felt much more confident about dealing with those Xenospecies. His Bone Wings were clearly in their infancy, and those Xenospecies were exactly the nourishment he desperately needed.

“The Third People’s Hospital… has it become a Xenospecies Nest by now?” Su Lifeng stripped off his clothes, wiped away his sweat, and walked out of the lab. There was no time to lose; he planned to head over and investigate tonight.

Ningnan Third People’s Hospital.

This hospital was located in a relatively quiet neighborhood. Its grounds were moderately sized, and it was famous for its advanced orthopedic department. On normal days, patients would flock there from all over, and various Medical Brokers would gather at the entrance to help people secure appointments.

But over the last two or three days, the place had clearly become much more deserted. It wasn’t just a decrease in the number of people, but a shift in the very atmosphere.

A car slowly approached the area, carrying a young woman in her twenties and a teenage boy.

The boy wore headphones, a look of impatience on his face as he stared out the window. The woman, meanwhile, was nagging incessantly. “How many times have I told you? Stop getting into fights with people. If it’s something small, just endure it and move on. You think Big Sister doesn’t know you’re the one looking for trouble? Now look at you, you’ve even injured your leg…”

“You’re so annoying!” the boy finally shouted, unable to take it anymore, cutting off her lecturing.

The woman was stunned for a moment before she continued, “I’m doing this for your own good. Now that Mom is gone, I’m the only one left to look after you. You didn’t even want to come here. What if this leaves you with some permanent disability…”

By now, she had slowed the car down. She rolled down her window and looked toward the security guard. “Hello, please give me a parking card.”

The guard slowly turned his head. A pair of emotionless eyes swept over her before he picked up a card from the desk and handed it over.

The woman felt the guard was a bit strange, but her mind was still on her brother, so she didn’t think much of it and took the card. However, as soon as she brought the parking card close, she couldn’t help but frown. Why was it so slimy? And there was a strange smell…

“The smell of hospitals is always unpleasant. Just bear with it. If everything’s fine, we’ll head home soon.” The woman turned her head, only to find that the boy had already opened the car door and stepped out. “Hey, what are you… wait for me!”

Limping slightly with his hands in his pockets, the boy walked straight toward the outpatient building. He looked at the nurses by the entrance with interest. As he approached, the nurses turned their gaze toward him as well.

“Tch, nothing but old hags,” the boy grunted in annoyance. The way those nurses looked at him made him feel uncomfortable. The moment he stepped through the main doors, a young nurse moved directly into his path, blocking him.

“Watch where you’re going!” The boy nearly collided with her and snapped immediately.

The young nurse wore a mechanical smile, acting as if she hadn’t heard him. “Are you here to see a doctor?” she asked.

“See a doctor for what? I’m not sick, it’s just a minor injury,” the boy replied with a scowl.

The nurse asked again, “Is there anyone accompanying you?”

The boy turned around to look at the woman who had just finished parking and was jogging toward them in her high heels. “Yeah, my sister-ah!”

Before he could finish his sentence, he felt his neck being bitten. A spray of warm blood erupted, splashing across his own face.

“Sis… save me.” This was the last shred of the boy’s consciousness.

The woman froze instantly. She watched in horror as her brother was suddenly bitten in the neck by that nurse.

Only a few seconds later, the nurse let go. The look of terror on her brother’s face had vanished.

He stared at her with a gaze that was utterly alien-a hundred times more foreign than his usual impatience or disgust. The woman shuddered violently. Amidst her chaotic thoughts, a crystal-clear realization struck her: this was not her brother.

Almost instinctively, the woman turned and bolted toward the hospital entrance. The distance of less than a hundred meters felt like an eternity. In the courtyard, at the outpatient building’s entrance, in the windows upstairs, on both sides of the gate, and even the security guard-they all poked their heads out from wherever they were, staring at her in silence. As she dashed past the guardhouse, the woman saw the guard’s body. Half of it was already rotting; that was where the slime on the parking card had come from…

“AAAAHHH!!! Monsters! They’re all monsters!”

The woman rushed all the way out onto the main street. There weren’t many cars on this wide road, and pedestrians were even rarer. She sprinted forward and collided with a policewoman not far from the upcoming intersection.

“Officer, the Third People’s Hospital, my brother…” the woman stammered incoherently.

The officer’s smile looked kind. She reached out a hand and said to the woman, “It’s alright, I’ll help you. Let’s get you up first.”

Dazed, the woman reached out her hand. However, the moment she grasped the officer’s hand, her eyes widened, and the look she gave the officer instantly turned to one of pure terror.

The officer’s palm was covered in slime…

The moment her expression shifted, the officer-who was still smiling-suddenly began to deform. Her mouth split wide open, and a long tongue flicked out, its tip forked like a snake’s.

The tongue lashed out and coiled around the woman’s neck. In the next heartbeat, the policewoman’s mouth completely engulfed her head. At the moment she was swallowed, the woman’s eyes were filled with nothing but bewilderment and despair.