After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: It Firmly Believed It Had Mastered Basic Human Social Etiquette.

It was the middle of the night when Cheng Ming returned to the apartment.

Cough, cough… Cheng Ming leaned over the sink, spitting out bloody foam that dotted the snowy white porcelain surface like spray paint.

With no time to clean up, she gasped for air and quickly injected herself with an inhibitor.

As the bl00d surged, she could distinctly feel new cells pouring into her body, fusing with the “natives” and triggering an acute rejection response from her immune system. Pain began to flare everywhere, and her neuromusculature lost control.

Her fingers cramped, her vision blurred, and a red mark was pressed into her abdomen. A strand of hair, knotted into a tentacle, gently supported her wrist, helping her push the syringe button.

It was a thoughtful action, but it did nothing to alleviate the intense emotions of its host, who was on the verge of exploding.

“What exactly are you doing?” With the drug taking effect, the fusion process slowed, and the dizziness slightly eased. Cheng Ming suppressed her gasping and glared fiercely at her reflection in the mirror, revealing an undisguised fury and hostility for the first time. “Are you conspiring with it to murder me?”

Tonight’s sudden encounter was a complete replay of history.

The roles of prey and predator had reversed, stripping away all technological means for the most primitive and naked gamble of nature. The difference was that this time, the opponent seemed to be in its reproductive phase, with spores scattering everywhere, trying to take root in her flesh and bl00d to occupy this delicious new body.

With her prior experience, though battered, Cheng Ming managed to avoid the hyphal entanglement. Unfortunately, her mask was torn off, and the spore dust choked her respiratory tract. Her throat felt like it was filled with grit. Coughing brought the heavy taste of rust, mixed with a fishy odor, as if she had chewed a mouthful of seabed sand, laden with the decaying remains of countless flora and fauna.

The enemy was tougher, and her own helper was offline. The parasite seemed to have vanished.

In such a critical moment, it played deaf and dumb, remaining motionless until Cheng Ming finally yelled in exasperation: “Xiao Ming!”

She didn’t know if it responded.

Fungal spores expanded their tendrils in her airway. She felt like a fish tossed onto the shore, her internal organs being crushed by air pressure. Breathing became increasingly difficult, her brain was clouded by lack of oxygen, and colorful spots overlapped in her vision.

What happened next—whether the fish-fungus inside her finally intervened or if it was an instinctive survival reaction from her body pushed to its limit, adrenaline surging—was unclear. In any case, she counterattacked and consumed the opponent.

Fortunately, what she encountered this time seemed only to be a few detached hyphal strands, far less powerful than the main body.

The next moment of clear consciousness was when she heavily fell from the vent into the bathroom. There was a thin layer of cold water on the floor. The dual stimulation of cold and pain made her stumble up to frantically search for the medicine.

She wasn’t sure how many enemies she was facing. If the fish-fungus started acting up now, she truly didn’t know what would happen to her.

The most terrifying thing was that she couldn’t figure out its mind. Did this creature even have a “mind”? Or was it simply acting on instinct?

“If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have warned you in the first place.” In response to the interrogation, its voice was calm in its defense, sounding quite logical.

But to the current Cheng Ming, it was utterly unconvincing.

Who knew if it was because it hadn’t figured out the opponent’s origin yet?

She clenched her jaw, her voice quickening. “Then what were you waiting for later? Were you waiting for me to die?”

If current technology couldn’t keep a brainless person alive, she truly wished she could take out her brain, scrub it clean, and flush this annoying, meddlesome, unloving fish-fungus down the toilet!

“Your death brings me no benefit.” Repeatedly questioned, Xiao Ming finally lost its temper. “I just didn’t want it to find me, and even more, I didn’t want to eat it, understood? It smells disgusting. It reeks of male!”

To put it in a common, almost crude human phrase: it treated the opponent as food, but the opponent wanted to hit on it.

All of this sounded too preposterous.

As the last word fell, there was dead silence except for the dripping of the faucet—the suddenly emotional parasite had startled the already emotional Cheng Ming. Consequently, she became strangely calm.

“…” She opened and closed her mouth several times, finally raising her voice in disbelief. “You’re female?”

“You’re female, so of course I’m female!”

No, shouldn’t you be hermaphroditic or have multiple gender patterns… wait, its other half is a fish… Cheng Ming felt her mind reeling.

It was too chaotic.

She needed a moment.

Her previous casual teasing was only because she hadn’t viewed the other party as an independent entity, hadn’t equated it with a human perspective—what was “independence,” what was an “individual” when talking about a parasite?

But now, suddenly knowing its gender, knowing that it could also be called “she,” knowing it had a temper, a personality, seemingly just like her, with no difference… Cheng Ming felt a strange sense of awkwardness.

Even the “hair” draped over her arm felt like a caress with a strange flavor.

Her hand twitched slightly. She moved her fingers, shaking off that strand of hyphae.

Looking up at the mirror again, she paused, and just as she opened her mouth—

“I’m sorry.”

Xiao Ming cut her off.

“It was good nourishment, but the smell was too unpleasant. I didn’t want to go near it.”

Cheng Ming: “…”

Doesn’t that sound like she was going to eat garbage, and it tried to stop her but failed, so it just let her have the extra meal?

She was fine a moment ago, but now she felt slightly nauseous.

Unable to control it, she covered her mouth and coughed twice, the speckled bl00d staining her pale fingertips a faint red.

This seemed to be a BUG in the distribution of mutated cells. Injuries to the skin, which is the external barrier, and the internal organs, which maintain internal balance, were quickly addressed by the organism, prompting rapid new cell division for repair. But the respiratory and digestive tracts, which are physically internal but functionally external, seemed to heal more slowly.

“I’m sorry I let you get hurt.”

Another apology.

The suddenness of it amplified the indescribable strange feeling in Cheng Ming’s heart, like ants gnawing away… Its human-like quality seemed a little too strong, and she couldn’t handle it.

“I can help you treat it.”

Huh?

Cheng Ming asked, “How are you going to—”

She couldn’t finish the question.

Not because she didn’t want to, but because she never expected it to be so unreasonable.

The hyphae she had just shaken off climbed back up her forearm, darting past her neck to her jaw. Before she could react, it slipped into her slightly parted lips through the gap.

A ticklish sensation ground past her teeth and tongue, delving deep into her oral cavity and down her throat.

Cheng Ming had never had an endoscopy, but from others’ descriptions, the level of agony was probably not far from what she was experiencing now.

“Mph…” Her body curled and spasmed uncontrollably. The hyphal tip swelled into an appressorium, secreting mucus to lubricate and assist movement, firmly adhering to and covering the mucosal wounds. The sense of foreign intrusion was violently unsettling, like an internal upheaval.

“Cough, cough, cough!” She arched her back, trying to cough it out, but only managed to make herself more wretched, with involuntary tears streaming down her face, turning the corners of her eyes red.

When the “treatment” was finally complete and the hyphae withdrew, Cheng Ming felt like she had died and come back to life. She clung to the sink for support, leaning over the mirror, painfully exhaling, blowing a misty white fog.

Whoosh, the faucet was turned on. Xiao Ming meticulously washed the mucus from its own tendrils, then thoughtfully wrapped a wet wipe around itself to clean her.

She tried to turn her head away, but the hyphae gently held her face steady—all her beautiful hair was an extension of Xiao Ming’s appendages; where could she possibly evade? Moreover, due to her violent struggling, her lips and tongue were scraped and bleeding. She tasted a distinct, sweet metallic tang and a stinging pain.

It claimed to be treatment, yet this crude “doctor” had inflicted numerous new injuries on her.

Though these minor wounds quickly healed, the psychological trauma they caused could not be erased.

She was wrong. Human-like?

This was just a stupid, selfish, capricious monster!

“Doesn’t it feel much better?” It was even asking for praise.

Indeed, her throat wasn’t as sore when she spoke, but there was still a foreign-body sensation when she swallowed, and her voice was even more hoarse than before. Cheng Ming listened to its earnest concern, the friendly greeting of “What the hell are you thinking?” stuck in her throat.

“Thank you…” she gritted her teeth, raising her trembling left hand and forcefully grasping the tip of the hyphal strand attempting to retreat.

But aside from painfully tugging on her own scalp, it inflicted no substantial harm on the other party.

“You’re welcome,” Xiao Ming replied very politely.

It even tried its best to slightly wiggle the end of the hyphae—though the movement was tiny, it didn’t really shake.

It thought Cheng Ming was trying to shake hands with it.

It firmly believed it had mastered the basic human social etiquette.

“…” Cheng Ming released her grip, closing her eyes in dizziness, muttering weakly, “If only you were human…”

At least then, she could subdue it with physical force.