After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: “Do You Want to Try It with Me?”

“Who told you?” Jiang Dexin counter-asked.

She stopped first, and Cheng Ming halted shortly after.

Perhaps because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, making people appear blurred, her eyes, as she looked at Cheng Ming, were slightly narrowed. Coupled with the backlight, they seemed even more profound and inscrutable.

“Professor Jin Xia,” Cheng Ming replied.

A short distance separated them. Their shadows under the lamp were stretched and distinct.

The Associate Researcher clearance might have been enough, but Jin Xia, who had given her a promise, had vanished.

The abnormal meeting, the mysterious words, the cryptic note… The paper was burned, but the string of numbers was like a deep, branded scar left by a poisonous snake coiled around her heart.

The professor hadn’t given her contact information. The office was completely cleared out, leaving nothing behind.

She found Jin Xia’s students at the institute and asked to see their mentor. The final response was that the professor was on vacation, didn’t want to be disturbed, and they couldn’t reach her either.

It was too strange.

Moreover, the professor filed for retirement just a few days after they parted ways in the mysterious Room 10143.

At the time, Jin Xia had confidently told her she could find her. That assured tone meant she had absolutely no intention of leaving the institute anytime soon… What exactly happened?

Cheng Ming couldn’t figure it out. She felt a huge mystery lay ahead, like a vortex in the darkness, rolling and writhing, ready to swallow her.

She had to start with Jiang Dexin.

“Teacher Jiang, how much more do you know about my mother?”

According to Jin Xia’s description, her mentor’s connection with her mother was much deeper than she had initially realized.

The streetlamp gave off no warmth, but her gaze was illuminated as brightly as fire, seemingly capable of igniting and burning through the night. She would not stop until she got her answer.

Meeting that intensity, Jiang Dexin was silent for a long time, then sighed, “I know what you want to figure out… Cheng Ming.”

She called her by her full name.

Before answering her question, she began with this prelude:

“Although there was never clear documentation for what happened five years ago, the conclusion was reached very early on. The higher-ups believe it was a premeditated act of retaliation by highly intelligent mutated organisms against distinguished scientists. The chance of your mother and the others surviving is minimal… Do you understand?”

It was effective.

Cheng Ming felt as if she had been drenched in a basin of ice-cold water in the dead of winter. She bit her lip, and from muscle to bone, she was trembling slightly in the night wind.

Of course, she understood. Legally, a person missing for four years could be presumed dead.

She just refused to face it.

For a smart child, a hint was enough.

Jiang Dexin looked away, unconsciously stroking the silver bracelet on her wrist, and slowly recalled her memories:

“Your mother and I met in university—my undergraduate, her graduate studies. We were in the same biology major and assigned to the same dorm. Like you, she skipped grades. I was older than her, but she was a higher year…”

Cheng Ran’s family wasn’t well off, and she wasn’t familiar with the big city. In Jiang Dexin’s eyes, she was always a solitary genius.

Only when their relationship deepened did she realize that Cheng Ran wasn’t solitary or arrogant; she was simply too focused on her studies.

“She wanted to change her name back then, but the city center was too winding, and she was afraid she couldn’t find her way back, so she dragged me along…” Jiang Dexin said, a smile escaping her as if reliving the scene.

Cheng Ming: “Change her name?”

“Yes, her original name was, Cheng Buran (‘Buran’ meaning unsullied/untainted).”

Jiang Dexin gazed at the residual lights of the night extending into the distance, her eyes faraway. “I still remember her speech at the opening ceremony. At the end, she talked about her motto, saying, ‘Bias into this world, stain this body.'”

“Truly a former literature student; her words were beautiful.”

She smiled faintly, her voice low and slow, like a dusty old record playing not music, but nostalgia.

Dust Unsullied.

Dust Stained.

As Cheng Ming listened, her attention drifted, traveling through more than thirty years of time with Jiang Dexin’s narration, seeing the spirited young genius.

These were all things she didn’t know—parts of her mother’s life.

“Later, she got married and had you. Her career was on track, and she finally had free time. You arrived exactly as planned in her life. But then… then you know what happened.”

From this point, Jiang Dexin’s tone gradually shifted from light to heavy.

“Your health was very poor. She needed money and access to better medical conditions. At the time, that project had many wealthy investors, and since I was too busy, I recommended her…”

Cheng Ming immediately asked, “What project?”

“What would wealthy people be interested in? Researching methods to prolong life,” Jiang Dexin smiled faintly. “I don’t know the specifics. After all, by the time I considered joining, the project had been halted and canceled.”

Because shortly after, in 2143, the marine nuclear pollution broke out.

This location became one of the first places in the world to establish a Defense Center. The heavily invested Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory was commandeered, and the Institute of Biological Research and the Logistics Support Department were built one after another.

The researchers involved in the original project were immediately called up and employed on-site.

When the goal was named after the entirety of humanity, the individual became insignificant.

“She became even busier after being transferred to the institute. It was about the safety of thousands of people, the fate of humanity. She was overwhelmed by countless experimental tasks every day. At that time, protective equipment was imperfect, and fearing radiation, she couldn’t go home frequently, which meant she neglected you even more. That’s why later, you had that accident—”

That is, due to persistent high fever, her nervous system was damaged, she became a vegetable, and doctors nearly pronounced her brain dead and scheduled a funeral.

“She always felt deeply guilty for not taking good care of you.”

Jiang Dexin looked at her, saying, “I don’t know if you ever resented her, but you should understand that she loved you very much.”

Even though small love and great love often seemed to contradict each other.

“I don’t have children, but based on my understanding of her, I can imagine that her greatest hope for you was a stable life, a secure existence. It would be even better if you could inherit her ideals and complete her unfinished work, but either way, she wouldn’t want to see you like this now…”

As she spoke, she turned her head, intending to gauge Cheng Ming’s expression to determine how to proceed with her advice.

But before more words could leave her mouth, she stopped.

Cheng Ming stood rooted to the spot, flecks of moisture reflected in her eyes and on her cheeks in the light.

She was in tears.

“But, Teacher Jiang,” she murmured, “she didn’t give up on me for twelve years. This is only the sixth year. How can I give up on her…?”

…

Intrusive Thoughts

“What are you thinking?”

“Thinking about how much of the truth she told.”

“You don’t trust her?”

“No…”

Late at night, in the stillness, Cheng Ming pulled herself out of her thoughts and sat up.

In the darkness, the fungal threads slid from her waist onto the bed surface. “I just feel like she definitely concealed something.”

It was already midnight.

The bedroom light was off; only an extremely faint glow filtered through the sheer curtains from outside. The pendant hung on her chest, the red shell seemingly self-illuminated, swaying with her movement like a gently beating external heart.

Jiang Dexin didn’t want her to face danger and wouldn’t tell her everything.

They had talked a lot tonight. Cheng Ming was happy to know more about her mother’s story, but there wasn’t much useful information.

Her last question was—

“Teacher Jiang, do you know about merfolk?”

The answer was irrelevant.

Just like her answer when she was trying to deceive Jin Xia, Jiang Dexin replied without hesitation, “I’ve heard of it, a legendary half-human, half-fish creature?”

Flawless.

She regretted again that she hadn’t studied psychology and that the poor light at night made it impossible to see if the other person’s expression had changed for a split second.

If this parasite was her mother’s work, where did she get it, when did she introduce it, and for what purpose and with what mindset…

Cheng Ming gripped the small “heart” on her chest, and her own heart felt constricted, sore, and tight.

She recalled Jiang Dexin advising her not to dwell too much on the past.

The words were still ringing in her ears.

She thought everything she did was to return to her mother’s side, but could time truly be reversed? She feared that in the end, she would discover that growth was merely a continuous farewell to the past and the people in it.

Physiological indicators were always direct. Suppressed emotions triggered hormonal changes. Cortisol and adrenaline stimulated increased bl00d pressure and accelerated breathing… Little Ming clearly sensed her sadness.

She rested her head on her knees, curling up like a fetus in its mother’s womb.

A deathly silence hung like a curtain, isolating all sound.

Staring at a solidified point in the dark corner for a long time, Cheng Ming belatedly realized it was too quiet.

Usually, even if the room was silent, there was noise in her mind. But now the fish-fungus was quiet, likely plotting something.

She caught a glimpse of the phone screen lighting up in the corner. Tap, tap, tap. A line of text appeared in the input field.

The fungal threads had secretly opened the browser—

[How to comfort a partner who is in a bad mood?]

The first answer that popped up: Companionship.

Cheng Ming: “…”

The parasite behaved like a pseudo-human freshly invading Earth, diligently searching for a human learning manual, so focused that it hadn’t realized its host’s attention was also fixed on the screen.

Little Ming finished skimming the results and said to her, “I understand you…”

“Understand what? You don’t have a mother.”

Cheng Ming was unapologetic.

Little Ming: “…”

Fails on the first attempt.

Little Ming: “Mother.”

“…”

Cheng Ming was immediately choked up.

A massive question mark appeared on her forehead. The bedroom was quieter than death.

She pressed her forehead hard, trying to hold back, but after a long while, she finally couldn’t help it and burst out laughing.

She scolded it, half-angry, half-amused, “You’re so shameless!”

“You’re laughing.”

It was unashamed.

The fungal threads instantly became active, sweeping across the sheets, wriggling through her fingers like a cluster of living nematodes, burrowing into her palm. As soon as her hand slightly moved, they entangled tighter, vigorously asserting their presence.

It was meticulously practicing the concept of companionship.

“Speaking of which,” before Cheng Ming could shake it off, it quickly moved to the second stage—distraction. “Don’t humans rely on the combination of two sexes to reproduce? Why have you never mentioned your paternal parent?”

Round two. Cheng Ming felt the world fill with question marks again—

Wait, don’t you only call the two parents ‘maternal parent’ and ‘paternal parent’ when doing plant hybridization?

Was its acquired knowledge a bit too scattered?

She rubbed her forehead in despair, ignoring its unparalleled creativity. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

Cheng Jin might have been a decent researcher—though Cheng Ming often suspected he merely basked in Cheng Ran’s glory—but as a father, he was utterly unremarkable.

Compared to Cheng Ran, Cheng Jin paid far less attention to her.

He was the quintessential father: a lifetime of silence and indifference. His greatest influence on her life was that single sperm; his significance was less than one-ten-thousandth of her mother’s.

It sounded somewhat unfilial to describe him that way.

However, she felt that for family members, being polite and maintaining a peaceful relationship was already quite rare.

In her earlier memories, Cheng Jin wasn’t just cold to her; he was openly averse. Perhaps he resented the trouble she brought to the family.

Given how books often romanticized fatherly love, she naively convinced herself as a child that Cheng Jin wasn’t her biological father. She even innocently asked Cheng Ran:

“Mommy, Mommy, how come you can have me all by yourself? You’re so amazing!”

Cheng Ran’s complex, indescribable expression at that moment was something she still remembered.

She didn’t understand what happened at the time, but later vaguely recalled that Cheng Jin came home and the two had a huge argument that very day.

His attitude toward her only improved somewhat after that.

Later, as she grew up and interacted more with the outside world, Cheng Ming suddenly realized, Oh, the books were wrong. As long as he didn’t hit, curse, or constantly lecture and demonstrate his “masculine” dominance, he had already surpassed over 95% of human fathers… She accepted it after that.

However, these concepts were too abstract for a parasite with low social integration.

“That’s so strange,” Little Ming mused. “Animals have single-parent and dual-parent modes of raising offspring. Humans claim to practice dual-parent rearing, yet most people implicitly assume the primary responsibility lies with the mother… If that’s the case, why still advocate for a dual-parent system?”

Even though the reality in many “normal families” was often like being married to a ghost, societal views still cast a strange eye on single-parent families.

“…”

Cheng Ming opened her mouth but said nothing.

This line of inquiry was too profound. She studied biology, not human sociology.

“I don’t know…” Her thoughts were unknowingly diverted. She asked, “Then how do you reproduce?”

She immediately felt that was wrong.

Where does the “you all” come from? Where were its peers?

It didn’t even have a place in the five-kingdom classification system.

“I want to know too,” the monster said excitedly, the fungal threads wriggling in her hand. “Do you want to try it with me?”

Cheng Ming: “…”

Cheng Ming pulled the fungal threads away and ruthlessly refused: “Different species. Reproductive isolation.”

…

The New Start

In early June, after a series of reviews, assessments, and council meetings, her application for Associate Researcher was approved.

This occurred less than a year after Cheng Ming became an Assistant Researcher.

She had unsurprisingly set a record for the fastest promotion.

The jump from Assistant to Associate Researcher usually requires more than three years of service, but exceptions can be made for those with a Senior Researcher’s recommendation or significant contributions in a special field. Cheng Ming met both criteria.

The result was expected.

But the moment she received the news, a sudden ripple of emotion surged in her heart, like a stone dropping into a still pool. Dong—

“Comrade Cheng Ming, Employee ID 7086, congratulations on becoming an Associate Researcher for the Fungal Research Team. Please proceed to North 25013 before June 13th to complete the following procedures…”

She read the brief notice three times, finally turning off the screen, lifting her head, and gently exhaling.

She knew this was a new starting point.

Her warm breath misted the elevator wall. Through the blurred glass, she saw the vast, boundless ocean. The elevator was ascending, carrying her toward a brand new field.

North Building, 25th Floor.

At this extraordinary height, she could see a much more distant sea horizon, with virtually no buildings obstructing her view.

The sea surface under the sunlight shimmered with thick, golden waves like asphalt.

She gazed into the distance, thinking that one day, if the seawater could be restored to clarity, perhaps a part of the credit would belong to her.

The tedium of research was undeniable, but when measured against the scale of human history, its romance, purity, and nobility were equally undeniable.

“Is persuading others to sacrifice themselves for the greater good a form of brainwashing?” Little Ming ruined the atmosphere. “Isn’t that highly anti-human nature?”

The biological instinct is to survive, yet their discipline required the individual to yield to the group, even to the point of self-sacrifice.

Cheng Ming wasn’t angry. Facing the ocean, she smiled faintly:

“It can also be understood from a biological perspective, attributed to the selfish gene of the group at play. When faced with a disaster that risks extinction, it naturally requires individuals with this ‘lofty consciousness’ to step forward to ensure the continuation of the species.”

Ding. The elevator arrived at the floor.

She walked out of the lobby toward her destination.

Although the functionality of the various areas differed between floors, the basic structure of the corridors looked the same from the outside.

After passing three security doors, the walls on both sides changed from plain white to a complex structure occasionally inlaid with glass or metal. She suddenly realized that Room 13 was not a conference room, but a laboratory.

After passing through another high-tech biometric corridor, a more normal-looking door appeared before her.

Seeing the room number, she knocked.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and a delicate smiling face peered out first.

The woman, wearing a strange iridescent jumpsuit, saw her badge and immediately grinned. “Cheng Ming? Welcome, come in.”

She followed the person inside. The first thing she saw was the laboratory bench, an organized space where four or five people in similar attire were sitting. Hearing the movement, they all turned their heads and smiled at her:

“Welcome! Welcome!”

Their strange enthusiasm… made her inexplicably nervous, and she felt a fleeting urge to check her phone to confirm her location.

Just as she hesitated about reaching for her pocket, Cheng Ming’s gaze froze.

Opposite them, separated by several huge glass walls that ran from ceiling to floor, she saw the dense “threads” with their coiled branches.

Fine and soft, intensely green, they were as dazzling as jewels and as captivating as a ghost, instantly making her unable to look away.

Buzz. A huge sound rang in her mind, leaving her dizzy and faint—

That was unequivocally the algal-like fungus that tried to kill her and take Little Ming away last November!