After Backstabbing The Villain, The System Allowed Me To Enter The Book Again - Chapter 37

After saying goodbye to Xiong Chentao, Fang Xiao Zheng transferred to a bus. The traffic was heavy, and as they passed the site of a chain-reaction car accident, passengers craned their necks to look. Above, the sky was filled with thick, dark clouds, covering the entire heavens and giving a crushing sense of oppression, as if the city itself were about to be destroyed.

Suddenly, Fang Xiao Zheng noticed the pedestrians twisting into strange, grotesque postures. She rubbed her eyes hard and opened them again.

Uh… maybe she still wasn’t opening them the right way.

When she closed her eyes again to do eye exercises, she heard piercing screams all around, almost shattering her eardrums. Her heart pounded wildly, goosebumps rose, as if some invisible evil spirit were watching her, sending chills through her body.

She opened her eyes and saw a mouth.

A mouth so large that her eyes couldn’t see its nose or eyes, with a small piece of leek stuck between its teeth, emitting a foul, fishy stench, rushing straight at her. The smell almost made her faint.

So close—there was no way to dodge it.

Fang Xiao Zheng froze in fear, her legs trembling like sieves, desperately closing her eyes to await death.

But it didn’t come. Instead, she smelled a faint burning odor. Trembling, she opened her eyes to see the tongue of the mouth scorched, then swelling into a huge dark yellow blister, hissing in agony.

At the same time, the object pressed against her chest grew warm. She reached for it and found it was a talisman—given to her by Shen Huaixin during an autumn outing, supposedly blessed by the abbot.

However, the golden thread embroidered on it had faded to a dull gray.

The mouth, finding Fang Xiao Zheng too tough a target, turned its head to bite a piece of nearby fat instead.

The man bitten screamed, bl00d spraying in all directions. The bus doors opened, and passengers scrambled in terror, but outside had turned into a living hell as well.

Pedestrians who had been fleeing moments ago suddenly twisted and mutated, the street beneath them flipping toward the sky like a magical roller coaster, as they fell like raindrops, splashing brilliant, vivid bl00d everywhere.

Fang Xiao Zheng jumped off the bus immediately, roughly estimating the distance home. If she ran with all her might, she could make it in just a few minutes. Hugging her backpack as a shield, she sprinted desperately in the direction of her home.

She didn’t know if her mother had made it home yet; she could only pray that nothing had happened.

Along the way, she encountered the owner of the hardware store near her home. His skin had turned metallic, a crack splitting his chest, inside which a glowing furnace devoured the store’s metal objects, as if attempting to melt them.

Fang Xiao Zheng stepped back in fright, tripping on a stone and making a noise.

The owner looked up, eyes cold, licking the corner of his mouth.

Fang Xiao Zheng felt a chill in her heart, realizing the danger. Without hesitation, she turned and ran. Behind her came the sound of bicycle wheels. She couldn’t help but glance back.

The owner’s legs had mutated into wheels, propelling him forward at terrifying speed.

Unable to outrun him, Fang Xiao Zheng grabbed her backpack and swung it at his head. Luck was on her side; a “duang” sound rang out as the backpack hit, knocking his head slightly askew with a metallic thud that reverberated.

This bought her a few precious seconds. Her dilapidated old house was now in sight, a glimmer of hope.

Just 30… no, 20 meters left…

The owner recovered, swinging his chest toward her, a crack forming, and a stainless steel chain shot out, wrapping around Fang Xiao Zheng’s ankle.

She fell hard, struggling desperately. The chain moved from her calf to her ankle. More chains wrapped around her, finally immobilizing her completely as she was dragged toward the grinning owner.

In despair, she looked toward her home.

So close… if only a little further, she could reach the door and lock it… she hadn’t even seen her mother…

Fang Xiao Zheng’s heart filled with helplessness and fear, but the chains tightened relentlessly, pressing against her bones, bringing her close to breaking, the shadow of death looming.

“Mom… it hurts…”

A hallucination appeared in front of her; from her blurred vision, she saw a familiar hand. She recognized it—the spots on the back and right side of the hand, the rough palm, the pain of being spanked, and the comfort of being soothed to sleep.

That hand passed by her, gripping the owner’s neck. Veins bulged as the owner’s face turned red. Fang Xiao Zheng’s chains loosened, and she fell to the ground, raising her head to see two humanoid monsters fighting.

At that moment, tears streamed down her face.

Fighting back her sobs so as not to affect her mother, she watched her mother transform into a monster, battling the store owner. Her mother, once a short middle-aged woman, was now taller than the owner, her arms embedded with coins that spread to her palms. Every strike on the owner’s face left perfect coin-shaped dents accompanied by agonized screams.

“You bullied my daughter! I’ll kill you!”

“No… big sister… we… we are…” The last word “class” stuck in the owner’s throat.

As the fight continued, their mutations intensified, their minds further confused, and the surrounding environment distorted as if two invisible vortices collided, one consuming the other or both disappearing together.

Seeing the owner’s chain sneak toward her, Fang Xiao Zheng shouted urgently, “Mom, watch out!”

Before her voice fell, bl00d gushed from her nose, her head rang, and her body ached—not from being dragged, but from standing near two sources of corruption.

The stench of bl00d triggered attacks from both. Just as the chain neared her neck, her mother extended her arm to block it. The chain pierced her palm, the pain seeming to bring a fleeting clarity. She looked at Fang Xiao Zheng, eyes filled with love and sorrow.

“Xiao Zheng, run! I can’t hold on much longer!”

Fang Xiao Zheng shook her head frantically, crying uncontrollably, “Mom, don’t… I don’t want…”

She knew what her mother meant—she couldn’t hold on much longer didn’t mean losing the fight—it meant her mind was slipping, and she would become another source of corruption, attacking Fang Xiao Zheng with the owner. She would die without a doubt.

“Don’t be foolish. Take care of yourself!”

Her mother wanted to say more, but the owner interrupted, throwing himself back into the fight. Coins and metal clanged harshly, painful to the ears. She restrained the rising cannibalistic urge while protecting Fang Xiao Zheng, but the situation worsened.

“Mom…”

Fang Xiao Zheng knew that staying even a moment longer increased her danger. Yet leaving her mother—her only companion—was agonizing.

“Run!” Her mother shouted without looking back, using all her strength.

The gentle, soft-spoken woman, who had spent her life kowtowing to employers and speaking softly to her daughter, had never shouted with such force, shaking shop windows and streetlights.

The sound waves struck Fang Xiao Zheng, temporarily deafening her. She clenched her teeth, knelt heavily, and kowtowed three times toward her mother. Then she turned and fled, unable to look back.

Hearing her daughter’s footsteps grow distant, her mother relaxed slightly. Her daughter had grown independent and resourceful. She could cook, start fires with straw, filter water with a bottle, and had supportive friends. The food stored at home, once thought wasteful, now seemed prescient.

Even without her aging, weakening mother, her daughter would manage… surely…

Tears streaked her mother’s face, then vanished. She forgot even why she had cried.

Fang Xiao Zheng returned home, locked the door, and collapsed against it. Curling up, tears flowed endlessly, grief-stricken and dazed.

Thoughts of her past impatience and silent resentment toward her mother brought intense remorse, pounding her heart like the hardware store owner’s hammer. If only she had been more filial, more capable, more understanding… would things have been different?

Meanwhile, Shen Huaixin had waited three days for Shen Chumo, observing her initially-formed corruption source. It was a self-contained little world, far simpler than reality, filled with illogical and chaotic rules.

Without her core soul to command it, the corruption source seemed empty. Its level was likely low and easy to breach from the outside.

Compared to the A or S-level fully-systematized corruption sources she had seen later in the book, this one was weak, though still impactful.

Sometimes, she felt inexplicably lost, as if everything had lost meaning. Regaining focus, she found herself connected to the corruption source, as if constructing this little world with herself as the protagonist.

All around was silent black and white, like an old silent film from the early 20th century.

She saw many familiar people and things, repeating day after day in grids, mechanically typing at keyboards, performing tedious, monotonous tasks—including herself.

It was… boring. Even her self-created corruption source was dull, as if work had drained all her passion, far less imaginative than others.

As Shen Huaixin once again sank into the corruption source, repeating familiar work, the system’s electronic voice rang in her mind:

[System: Host, the three-day period has ended. If you do not leave, you will be assimilated by the corruption source, becoming its core—what humans call the “nucleus.”]

Shen Huaixin had no reason to refuse and was about to nod when she suddenly saw a familiar figure entering.

He had kept his promise and returned.