Chapter 58 – Xiaomei’s Mutation

Su Lifeng gave Cheng Xiaomei a long, searching look. After a brief moment of consideration, he nodded. “In that case, let’s go.”

It was the first time he had ever seen such determination on the face of the usually gentle, timid Cheng Xiaomei.

After they got into the car, Su Lifeng asked, “Did you find the Xenospecies that was following you?”

“No, that’s not it.” Cheng Xiaomei lowered her head, as if steeling herself for something. “I thought you might already know too, but you never brought it up…”

“Know what?” Su Lifeng was taken aback. Her words seemed to come out of nowhere. What was he supposed to know? Did it have something to do with Mutants?

“Now it seems like it might only be happening to me. But you’re the only person I can talk to about it.” As Cheng Xiaomei spoke, she suddenly turned toward him and showed him the back of her hand. “Lifeng, look…”

“Look at… what?” Su Lifeng instinctively started to ask, but in the next instant, his pupils contracted. He was too shocked to speak.

Cheng Xiaomei’s fair, delicate hand suddenly began to twist in an eerie way, as though every joint could rotate on its own… But that was not the real change. The true problem was that as her hand mutated, cracks opened across her skin, and large amounts of Black Thread emerged from within, stretching outward desperately as if they had lives of their own.

At the same time, her wrist, arm, and even her shoulder began splitting open one after another, releasing still more Black Thread.

Cheng Xiaomei lifted her head. Through the Black Thread, she looked at Su Lifeng with a lost expression. “Lifeng… help me.”

The Black Thread had nearly obscured half of her body. It writhed beside her pale cheek, framing her slightly reddened eyes, wide and helpless.

Whoosh!

Cheng Xiaomei stopped mutating. Very quickly, all the Black Thread retracted back into her body at once. Only one distinct line of Black Thread remained on the back of her hand.

Only then did Su Lifeng realize that her entire arm was already covered in Black Thread.

“This…”

A situation like this could only mean one thing…

“Judging from the blood tests and other examinations I performed on myself earlier, after a human absorbs a Xenospecies, the Xenospecies rapidly enters the cells like a virus, altering and influencing them. But in the end, what remains are still those mutated cells, not the Xenospecies itself. But if a Xenospecies absorbs a human, the situation is different. All the flesh and blood inside the human body is rapidly devoured by the Xenospecies. Aside from the exterior still retaining a human appearance, the inside has actually been completely replaced by the Xenospecies…”

Now the second scenario was happening to Cheng Xiaomei. That meant she was about to change from a Mutant into a full Xenospecies, and the process might be even more agonizing.

An ordinary person would be absorbed in a very short time, but Cheng Xiaomei’s absorption process would very likely last much longer.

At least judging from her current condition, Su Lifeng felt the process would probably continue for nearly a week.

Once the Black Thread completely occupied her brain, everything would be over.

“But how could something like this happen?” Su Lifeng could not figure it out no matter how hard he thought.

“All right, don’t cry.” Su Lifeng was not good at comforting a girl. After hesitating for a moment, he reached out and wiped the tears from the corner of Cheng Xiaomei’s eyes. Then, following the experience he had from getting along with Su Lian, he pinched her nose lightly. “Don’t worry. I will help you. If something like this happens again, tell me directly. Don’t bottle it up like this anymore.”

“Because…” Cheng Xiaomei did not know why Su Lifeng had suddenly pinched her nose, but after he did, she wanted to cry even more. Grievance and gratitude surged up together. “I didn’t want to cause you more trouble. I wanted to help you too… sob…”

She had said these words to herself countless times in private, but this was the first time she had ever said them to Su Lifeng.

Su Lifeng hadn’t expected his attempt at comforting her to make her cry even harder. For a moment, he was at a complete loss.

“Uh, don’t cry. Who said you haven’t helped me? Haven’t you been helping keep the accounts and cook?”

“Waaah! But I don’t want to be a housekeeper… I’m supposed to be a Mutant…” Cheng Xiaomei cried even harder. Just as Su Lifeng had no idea what else to say, she suddenly wiped away her tears, sniffled, then snuck a glance at him. “What are you going to do tonight?”

“…”

Su Lifeng hadn’t planned on hiding it from her, but in his original plan, he hadn’t intended to bring her along into the fight either. Yet judging by Cheng Xiaomei’s expression, the resolve she had just made clearly wasn’t limited to asking him for help.

“… Fine. But you have to be careful.” Su Lifeng thought it over. There were only two differences between him and Cheng Xiaomei: first, he had absorbed an Wisdom Species; second, after becoming a Mutant, he had absorbed a considerable number of Soldier Types, and even other Mutants. This trip to Jinli Warehouse was a perfect chance to test the second point.

But if it was because of the Wisdom Species… Su Lifeng sighed inwardly and stopped thinking about it.

A little over twenty minutes later, Su Lifeng parked the car in a patch of weeds a hundred meters from the warehouse. He jumped out, then signaled for Cheng Xiaomei to follow behind him as they slowly crept toward Jinli Warehouse.

The sky was at that point between dusk and night, not yet fully dark, leaving everything shrouded in gray. Visibility was actually quite poor.

Jinli Warehouse was a rental warehouse, but because it was located in the suburbs, both the buildings and the surrounding environment looked somewhat desolate.

From a distance, Su Lifeng could only see a dim yellow light, along with many vehicles parked around the warehouse.

Looking around, he saw figures moving above the warehouse and outside the perimeter wall. They were likely the guards.

“Didn’t expect it to be this tight…” Su Lifeng muttered. Just then, he felt his pocket vibrate.

He took out the phone and saw that the accomplice had sent Xie Yu another text: “Why aren’t you here yet? What’s the door number?”

The second sentence had no connection to the first. Su Lifeng thought for a moment and realized it was most likely some kind of code. He immediately put the phone back in his pocket, turned to give Cheng Xiaomei a look, and quickly closed in on the perimeter wall.

“Didn’t expect this guy to react so fast. If it were someone overflowing with confidence like Xie Yu, he’d probably only realize something might have happened to the phone’s original owner a day later, right?” Su Lifeng thought with a cold sneer.

Soon, everyone on guard received a text message.

One man was lowering his head to read the contents: “Someone may come to interfere with the meeting. Increase security. Reply to me once every three minutes…”

“Ghk…” As the man’s eyes suddenly bulged wide, the phone in his hand fell, only to be caught by Su Lifeng.

Su Lifeng immediately pulled the scalpel out from the back of the man’s neck and dragged his already limp body into the grass.

Cheng Xiaomei clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing herself not to scream. Then she quietly took a deep breath. “Killing is unavoidable… If I want to help, I have to overcome my fear… Ugh, that’s terrifying.”

“Three minutes.” Su Lifeng glanced at the phone screen, then raised his head with a grave expression and looked toward Jinli Warehouse, now close at hand.