After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 49

Chapter 49: “Are You My Mentor, or My Enemy?”

The Center Shakes

“What happened?” The same question was being asked in many locations simultaneously.

Han Xuhua ran with her squad leader, the sound of her own gasping filling her earpiece. They jumped into the vehicle. Before they could settle, the steel beast shot forward with a screech. Bang! Han Xuhua’s head slammed into the cabin wall.

“I don’t know!” Yan Li, who had grabbed the handle immediately, looked down at her data. “Magnetic storm chaos. Marine organisms are swarming the shore. The cause is under investigation.”

Sirens wailed inside and outside the buildings. Electronic wristbands chimed incessantly. Every piece of lab equipment seemed to join a frantic, sustained chorus of alarms. The air was thick with sharp, confusing noise.

Rumble.

Deep inside the Level 4 Experimental Zone, multiple layers of the 40 Laboratory security system were simultaneously unlocked. The silence of the tomb was shattered.

Pzzzt. All the lights went out. The power had been cut.

Dozens of meters away, through the steel-reinforced glass of the corridor, a blurry figure carrying a flashlight walked in. The power outage was likely her doing.

Inside the data storage room, the figure huddled on the floor slowly raised her head, looking out the window.

…

Confrontation

Jiang Dexin was frantic. She had arrived before the first emergency team. When she saw the alert that Cheng Ming had entered Lab 40, she knew she had to intervene.

To prevent further records, she immediately switched the area to emergency status, cutting the power and stopping any signal transmission. She frantically called Cheng Ming on her way, but only heard a busy tone.

She stood in the center of the vast, dark lab space, her flashlight barely illuminating a three-meter radius. Just as she was wondering where to search, Clank, the door to the far compartment opened.

Cheng Ming walked out, stopping beneath the glass display tank.

The thick protective suit was discarded. She wore only a shirt and a lab coat, looking like a spectral figure.

“Teacher Jiang,” she stared at the woman, her voice low. “Do you know who I am?”

The voice, though quiet, startled Jiang Dexin. She saw the mermaid corpse suspended directly behind Cheng Ming. In the dim light, the image was eerie—the dead body seemed to stare with Cheng Ming’s eyes. The line between the living and the dead was blurred.

Jiang Dexin stopped walking and gripped her flashlight.

“Do you know my connection to this place?” Cheng Ming walked toward her. The narrow, dark corridor felt like an umbilical cord being trod underfoot.

“And do you know how my mother died?”

With her final question, she stood directly in front of her.

“You… you found out?” Jiang Dexin’s throat bobbed. The light in her hand shook uncontrollably.

It was a predictable reaction. Cheng Ming looked at her without expression, a cold, empty numbness replacing her earlier turmoil.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I failed you…” Jiang Dexin’s voice was hoarse as she began to confess.

But her words went beyond Cheng Ming’s expectations.

“I failed your mother. I didn’t mean to harm her… I never thought I would bring her an assassin…”

“What?” Cheng Ming’s expression finally shifted, her voice rising in a strange, high-pitched query.

Buzz.

A slight tremor ran beneath their feet—a disturbance that sounded like running feet.

Jiang Dexin immediately snapped back to reality. She grabbed Cheng Ming’s arm and pulled her outward. “No time for this! Get out! Who pointed the way for you? You shouldn’t be here! They will come for you!”

“What are you talking about? Who are they?” Cheng Ming grabbed her back, refusing to move. Her eyes held a fierce, blue flame. “Explain yourself!”

“That Project—the people from the Foundation had sinister intentions. Their organization was shady, and people disappeared a long time ago… When they approached me, my career had just begun. I didn’t dare refuse, so I introduced them to your mother… but I never thought that after all this time…”

Jiang Dexin held her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have thrown the danger onto her. I shouldn’t have encouraged her to abandon you, which led to the attack on the coast… Little Cheng, forgive me, I’m so sorry, so sorry…”

Her words were disjointed, but one thing was clear: Jiang Dexin was the culprit; she was the catalyst. She had a hand in her mother’s death.

Late repentance was an insult to the victim.

“Teacher—” Cheng Ming’s hands slid from Jiang Dexin’s wrist to her shoulder, finally seizing her collar. Her lips trembled, and her hands shook even harder. Hatred threatened to consume her.

Are you my mentor, or my enemy?

“I’ll tell you everything later… Cheng Ming, let’s go!” Jiang Dexin desperately tried to pull her away. “Hurry! It’s chaos outside; no one will notice…”

“Don’t touch me!” Cheng Ming violently shoved her away.

Her emotional state, already at the point of collapse, gave way. Crack! Jiang Dexin slammed against the wall. The flashlight flew from her grasp, the glass shattering on the floor.

She hit a corner of an exhibition panel. She raised her hand to her forehead, and seconds later, bl00d gushed out.

Cheng Ming froze. The broken crystal fragments reflected a dazzling array of light. Jiang Dexin tried to stand but stumbled, failing.

Looking up, her eyes were unfocused, but her gaze was fixed on Cheng Ming—a look that instantly reminded Cheng Ming of Cheng Ran in her final moments.

The same dying gaze, the same sadness.

Jiang Dexin moved her bloody finger, trembling, and pointed toward the exit. Go.

A wave of crushing fear and guilt flooded Cheng Ming, pushing her to the brink of madness.

“Teacher… Teacher Jiang…” she called hoarsely, stiffly leaning down. All the basic medical training she had received vanished. She was helpless.

Her soul was split. One half screamed to save her; the other coldly observed, asking why she should bother. After killing her parents, was she about to sever the bond with the third most important person in her life?

Buzz. A fierce tremor shook the building again. Cheng Ming nearly hit the wall. A loud, dull siren, muffled and compressed by the corridors, roared into the room—the booming heartbeat of a giant beast. She was inside its stomach.

She had to leave immediately, or she would be digested completely.

“Cheng Ming, go!” Little Ming urged. “Calm down!”

Calm down?

Large tears rolled down her face, yet her expression was blank, as if she had lost the ability to feel.

“Get lost,” she replied. What are you? My lover, or my enemy? Or just my own wishful self-deception?

Cheng Ming took a step forward, then swayed as if she lost consciousness. But before she could fall, her knees tucked, and her legs moved with the fluid, light grace of a fish’s tail.

Little Ming had taken control. Its black hyphae flickered, quickly snatching a drop of bl00d from the spreading pool. It surged out of the lab, swift and agile, plunging headfirst into the vast darkness of the facility without looking back.

…

A Final Plea

Five minutes later, lying on the floor of the 40 Laboratory, Jiang Dexin slowly regained consciousness.

She leaned against the wall and spotted her phone on the floor, the screen bright and the signal full.

Picking it up, her trembling hand dialed one last number. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

Leaving the lab, the data, the glaring mistakes, just waiting for Cheng Ming to investigate…

“Chief…” She paused after using the old title, breathing heavily. “Are you still the Chief Chu I knew?”

The phone line crackled with static. The call might not have connected. But she knew the person on the other end was listening.

Chu Lanying, the former head of the mycology team and now the liaison for the Foundation’s projects at the Institute. Jiang Dexin remembered her exact words when they spoke years ago, after Cheng Ran’s accident:

“Are you sure you want to wade into this mess?”

That low voice and enigmatic smile often woke her up in a cold sweat years later.

The Institute of Biological Research was not pure. To climb the ladder meant being swept up in a tide of greater power. She had always believed she was protecting Cheng Ming, yet she had willingly or unwillingly led her friend’s daughter down a path of no return.

“Jiang Dexin,” the voice on the other end finally spoke, not to answer her question. The tone was low and sophisticated despite the static.

“You have already failed Cheng Ran. Are you going to fail her daughter, too?”