After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 47
Chapter 47: “Cheng Ming, Don’t Go.”
The Abandoned Lab
It was noon, July 7th, on the 211th floor.
The highly polished floor reflected the cold light as Zhou Jia, fully suited, pushed a cart containing containers of an unknown liquid down the corridor.
“Teacher Zhou—”
Someone called her name. She turned abruptly and recognized the familiar face—it was Cheng Ming.
“Cheng Ming?” Zhou Jia’s eyes widened. “How did you get up here alone? Does Chief Jiang know?”
Access to the Level 4 Experimental Zone was strictly controlled, even for areas outside the P4 lab. Zhou Jia looked ready to press the alarm, but Cheng Ming quickly showed her temporary pass and logbook.
“I’m here to register a bacterial strain. Not an illegal intrusion.”
Cheng Ming had figured out that the 211th floor was the only one that connected to other research centers, which explained its complex and confusing layout.
Zhou Jia, hidden behind her mask, looked skeptical, but Cheng Ming didn’t give her a chance to ask more.
“Didn’t you take a wrong turn?” Cheng Ming pointed to the pitch-black passage behind Zhou Jia. “Haven’t the labs here been abandoned?”
“They were abandoned,” Zhou Jia replied instinctively. “But it was a waste of space, so they patched it up and put it back into use.”
…
In an office high above:
“Madam Chu, I apologize for asking directly, but why give her Level 4 lab access?”
Jiang Dexin stood by her window. The harsh summer light made the view dazzlingly white. “She just became an Associate Researcher…”
“Aren’t you hoping she’ll grow quickly and take over for you?” a female voice on the phone asked with a faint smile.
Jiang Dexin rested her hand on the windowsill; her bracelet slid out of her sleeve and clinked against the metal frame. She looked down, tightening her grip on the cold smart device.
“She asked me about the 40 Laboratory… The child is too clever and too stubborn. I’m very worried—” She remembered Cheng Ming pointing out the specific forgotten corner on the 211th floor, an act of such acute observation that it chilled her every time she recalled it.
“What are you worried about?” Chu Lanying interrupted abruptly. “Worried she’ll hate you because of her mother?”
…
Chasing the Past
Thud. Cheng Ming fell backward onto her bed. The soft quilt created a body-shaped indent. It was 10:00 PM; she blocked her eyes with her forearm, desperately wanting to sleep.
A minute later, she sat up. Despite her exhaustion, she had to stay focused. She turned on the lamp and picked up her paper and pen.
“What have you been doing these past few days?” Little Ming’s dissatisfaction was clear.
“Increasing the chances of success,” Cheng Ming wrote rapidly.
“No, you’re placing bigger bets on your own adventure.” Little Ming felt she was risking too much.
Instead of cautiously observing, Cheng Ming was using a predetermined hypothesis to find problems and then seeking loopholes to confirm her expectations. She had been asking different people at different times and staking out the 211th floor. At night, she transformed into a sewer-crawler, spending seven days exploring every navigable pipe.
Little Ming was nearing its limit.
“Don’t you think someone is deliberately luring you?”
“I know,” Cheng Ming’s voice was calm.
But the bait was Cheng Ran. Even if it meant being pierced and hooked, she had to take the risk.
“I always thought you were rational.” Yet, when it came to her mother, she was reckless and impulsive.
“Make bold assumptions, seek cautious evidence,” Cheng Ming said. Exploration required a certain “rashness.”
Her direction wasn’t wrong. By integrating all the fragmented information she gathered with her own guesses, she pieced together the truth about the supposedly abandoned 40 Laboratory:
When the Defense Center was completed, the P4 lab was moved to the 211th floor for high-security research. As a top-tier researcher, Cheng Ran naturally had a place there, and Lab 40 was likely her main post.
However, in 2155, an accident—a fire—occurred, destroying massive amounts of research material. The lab was officially sealed shortly after. Crucially, there were no official reports of the catastrophic lab accident, suggesting a massive cover-up.
Cheng Ming latched onto the year: 2155.
This was the same year Cheng Ran won an award and wrote the note “Commemorating the victory of Fish and Fungus”; it was the same year Cheng Ming woke up from her vegetative state, almost certainly with Little Ming already present; and it was the same year the 40 Lab was “accidentally” retired.
A shocking theory emerged naturally: Did Cheng Ran steal the Fish-Fungus monster from Lab 40 and transplant it into her?
The speculation was insane but logically sound. Cheng Ming paused, holding her head, breathing slowly. She felt like a small, weak prey in a dark jungle, terrified of alerting the unseen predator.
Her last remaining task was to enter Lab 40 on the 211th floor to confirm this theory. Self-deception was easy; she had to rip away the false veneer to find the truth, no matter how cruel.
She took the paper she had been working on, tore it up, and dissolved it in a glass of water until all the ink and white paper became a cloudy, dark slurry.
“Why do you have to chase Cheng Ran’s traces?” Little Ming pleaded. “She is your past, but you have a future.”
“You said it yourself; she’s the past,” Cheng Ming looked at the opaque liquid, symbolizing her chaotic past and uncertain future. “Even if I have to break free, I need to say goodbye to the past with my own hands.”
“Cheng Ming, don’t go,” Little Ming sounded distressed. It had been acting strangely for days, repeatedly trying to dissuade her. “Don’t go. Cheng Ming…” Its voice was a low, desperate plea. “I feel danger there.”
Cheng Ming froze. The tone was unlike any she had heard from it before—a genuine, almost pleading fear.
“What danger?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Little Ming whispered. “That place makes me very uncomfortable… There’s something in that lab. Don’t go.”
The intense anxiety was seeping through their shared connection, making her heart heavy. What could make it so uncomfortable?
She recalled Zhou Jia, the lab manager, who seemed to be tending to something on the 211th floor. Could there be a technique or entity specifically designed to target mutated organisms?
Cheng Ming emptied the slurry into the sink, deep in thought. This hypothesis made sense.
She then returned to the bedroom, pulled out a supply of inhibitor from the drawer, and lifted her shirt.
“Cheng Ming!”
She heard a voice that was frantic, nearly out of control, and so vividly human—the most distressed she’d ever heard Little Ming. As the needle pierced her abdomen, her arm twitched, and the syringe was flung away.
Little Ming was fighting for control, trying to stop her. The syringe was empty; the drug was taking effect.
Cheng Ming stabilized her breathing and stood up. “Little Ming, be good.”
She stroked the roots of her “hair.” The hyphae were still rooted, but their activity was decreasing. She calmly tied them up, buttoned her shirt, and grabbed her jacket.
With her suspicions almost confirmed, she had to act fast. If she delayed, her abnormal behaviors would be discovered.
She had to move now. If she were caught, she could not expose Little Ming. She was a valuable researcher; the most they could charge her with was espionage. But if her parasitism was revealed, she would instantly become a research subject.
…
Defense Center on High Alert
23:23 on July 7th.
In an employee apartment, Yan Li was woken by her wristband alarm. She sat up immediately.
She woke her sister, Yan Rong, and leaned over. “Rongrong, I have an urgent mission. I have to go.”
Yan Li quickly got dressed and put on her bone conduction hearing aid, needed due to an injury to her right ear. Yan Rong, who suffered from deep-seated insecurity, always wanted to stay close to her.
“Jiejie…” Yan Rong woke slowly, filled with reluctance, like a young animal facing its mother’s departure for a hunt.
“Be good, Rongrong,” Yan Li stroked her head. “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”
Yan Rong took her hand, examined the faded bite mark on the web of her thumb, and then bit down again—hard.
Yan Li hissed in exaggerated pain. “Feeling better now?”
“Jiejie keeps her promises,” the girl said, immediately reverting to her sweet self. She hugged her sister. “Wait for you to come back.”
The door closed. Yan Li stood in the hallway, flexing her stiff arm before swiftly descending the stairs and messaging her team: “Everyone, gather at South Gate Parking Lot A, Exit 2.”
…
It was 00:00 on July 8th.
Sixty kilometers from Lanjian Port, in Xingsha City, Qu Ying was waiting by the roadside. Her half-year-long offshore mission was over, and she was heading back to the Defense Center headquarters, currently only able to travel by land.
It was tradition for her to bring something back for Cheng Ming. Tonight, she was fiddling with a piece of fluorescent rock—a local phosphorescent mineral.
“Officer Qu, you like these little trinkets?” the driver, shocked, asked as the armored SUVs arrived.
“They’re for my little sister,” Qu Ying said, putting the rock in her pocket, cutting short the conversation.
The drive would take them through the night, arriving in the morning. She wondered if Cheng Ming was asleep, though she suspected she was up late. Qu Ying smiled and tapped her wristband, deciding to send a message to scare her “little sister.”
“Sending failed. Please check your network…” The same alert flashed repeatedly.
The smile vanished. Her gaze turned sharp. The network connection was down.
Others in the car noticed the same failure. They looked out the window.
In the distance, the colossal building of the Defense Center reflected the night sky. From its peak, red lights suddenly scattered and merged, forming a vast, burning glow on the horizon like a fire cloud.
At 00:34 on July 8th, 2174, the Eastern Coastal Defense Center entered Level 1 Defense State.