After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 50

Chapter 50: “I’ll Grant Your Wish” (End of Volume 1)

The Ultimate Erasure

The communication was cut, but Chu Lanying’s words, like shards of ice, remained lodged in Jiang Dexin’s mind.

Her phone slid to the floor. Jiang Dexin slowly surveyed the room, her gaze resting first on the gruesome corpse, then sweeping over the unbelievable textual records. If exposed, this information—the display specimens, the culture samples, the stored data—would instantly invalidate decades of scientific understanding, shake the entire academic world, and render international conventions meaningless.

She wanted to warn Cheng Ming to be wary of the Foundation, the Institute’s upper echelons, and especially Chu Lanying. She knew 40 wasn’t just a lab number; it stood for the year 2140, when the first Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory was built.

But looking at her phone, she suspected anything she sent would be monitored or tampered with.

A moment later, Jiang Dexin struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on the wall. She was moving with a single, painful purpose: the Control Room. She knew nothing of the lab’s layout, but she knew Cheng Ran.

She had never directly participated in those projects, yet her guilt felt complete.

Chu Lanying’s unspoken words were a mocking confirmation of her cowardice. In rushing to mentor Cheng Ming, she was simultaneously making compensation and performing a selfish, subtle calculation: pass the burden, the search for Cheng Ran, and the pain onto Cheng Ming, and I can be absolved.

Teacher Jiang… The faint call echoed in her mind, blending the energetic youth of the present with the passionate young woman of the past. You and your daughter are so alike…

Pu-Chen Ran—Dust-dyed. Her name seemed to have foreshadowed her fate: to be stained by the world she tried to escape.

She found a weak point in the floor of the control room, fell to the ground, and located a fire hammer. With a few deliberate taps, the tile cracked, revealing a shallow cavity containing a single, vivid red button.

She knew this was the termination device Cheng Ran had set up—a button that would destroy all biological information in the lab. Cheng Ran had sent her a delayed email about it six years ago, anticipating her own end.

Exhausted, she pressed the button.

Tap.

A brief sound, followed by infinite stillness. A ten-minute countdown began. Jiang Dexin lay back, watching the cold, gray ceiling.

She lifted her arm and looked at the silver bracelet—the double helix DNA model, the symbol of life’s stable beginning and its ultimate end. She remembered Cheng Ran giving it to her, shrugging off her grand poetic interpretation: “I just thought it looked nice and suited you.”

Yes, it was beautiful.

She watched the beautiful silver shine until her vision was overwhelmed by a blinding white.

RUMBLE—

The sound was so violent it was silent.

In the mute roar, a wave of fire swept through the lab, shattering glass, overturning equipment, and spreading to other areas. All data, paper or electronic, was instantly pulverized. Shards and dust flew like snow and smoke.

Jiang Dexin kept her eyes open. She felt no pain as her body was torn apart, turned to ash. Her final vision was of pure, intense colors, like a glorious oil painting, which then dissolved into a single, overwhelming hue.

Absolute clarity. Absolute clean slate.

…

Fleeing into the Sea

Little Ming’s control, fiercely resisted by Cheng Ming, lasted less than ten minutes. Once outside the building, Cheng Ming regained control.

But she couldn’t go back.

No one stopped her. The area was a confusion of red lights, clamor, and overlapping alarms. Armed personnel were pouring in, securing all exits.

In a daze, she realized she was fleeing after murder. She kept walking in the cold, alternating wind, slowly realizing the sky was glowing, as if twilight had been abruptly thrust upon the night. She looked up, realizing the clouds were lit from below.

What was happening? She didn’t know.

Amidst the screaming sirens, she was a drop of water swallowed by the ocean, pushed forward by lights and crowds. Run. Where to? It didn’t matter.

She dared not look back, nor stop. She was retracing Cheng Ran’s path that night sixteen years ago, turning her back on human society. But this time, it was her choice.

The high security gate stood like a chasm.

“Who’s there!” A sharp shout cut through the wind.

Someone had spotted her and turned their weapon. The soldier, likely fresh from combat, was tense, his gun barrel fixed on her.

BANG—

At the moment the shot rang out, her body moved faster than thought. She lunged, twisting the man’s arm. Simultaneously, Swish!

Something black streaked past her, piercing the man’s ear. The slender fungal threads, invisible in the darkness, were a lightning-fast strike, a death sentence.

“Monster,” the man choked out, his body dissolving like tofu as his brain was instantly destroyed.

Poof!

As bl00d vessels ruptured, an explosive cloud of fungal spores erupted, mixed with bl00d and brain matter—a brief, gruesome firework display. The cold liquid splattered onto Cheng Ming’s exposed skin.

She looked at the deadly black hyphae dancing beside her. Oh. I killed someone. I killed someone again.

Cheng Ming tilted her head, staring at the corpse—a body that may or may not have been her “kind.” A cold, empty smile touched her lips.

Monster. Yes, I am the monster.

She wanted to laugh out loud, but her face was rigid. She turned and walked toward the gate. The security wall was under attack, communications were down, and the guards were overwhelmed—her window of opportunity.

BEEP—

Her vision was blurred, her hearing muddled. She didn’t know whose face she was wearing or whose authority she was using this time. Cheng Ran’s? Or Jiang Dexin’s? It didn’t matter.

The passage opened. The headwind violently whipped her clothes. She had completely re-walked Cheng Ran’s final journey.

She moved against the immense, primal will of the sea wind, passing gunfire, smoke, and debris. No one stopped her; no strange creatures attacked. She was the anomaly, running a suicide mission toward the ocean.

She kept running until she reached the massive reef, where the roar of the ocean nearly tore her eardrums.

The sea near the shore was white with foam. In the distance, a massive white line was approaching with devastating speed. As it grew closer, she recognized the tall, luminous wall of water, more colossal than the defense wall behind her.

A tsunami.

It doesn’t concern me.

She stared at the vast ocean, feeling no fear, only a strange sense of returning home.

Her heart beat in rhythm with the tide. She pressed her hand to her chest, desperately wanting to tear out the little monster thumping beneath her ribs, but Little Ming’s scales resisted.

She settled for the next best thing. She grabbed the chain beneath her shirt and yanked. The silver chain snapped.

Cheng Ming looked at the shell pendant, smiled, and whispered, “Mama.”

A soft murmur, blending an indiscernible mix of hatred and love. With a flourish, she tossed the lifelong treasure into the sea. It made a tiny splash, quickly swallowed by the larger waves.

Unable to discard her heart, she discarded her last anchor.

Amidst the surrounding chaos, another sound pierced her mind. Cheng Ming— Cheng Ming—

Little Ming was desperately calling to her, its voice raw and agonizing. But Cheng Ming only found it irritating.

“Shut up,” she replied.

Standing at the edge of the coast, her clothes fluttering, she was a small, fragile bird against the boundless ocean. The desperation of their power dynamic was utterly clear: under her absolute, unwavering suppression, Little Ming could not resist her will.

“Didn’t you want to die with me?” she mocked, light as a feather. “I’ll grant your wish.”

She turned, opened her arms, and, with tears and a smile, fell backward from the reef. She was an albatross choosing to break its wings and plummet into the eternal embrace of the sea.

The fungal threads whipped out, futilely trying to grasp something in the brief moment of space. The sea wind tried to lift her, but she was drawn by gravity, crashing into the waves.

The wave crest shattered, erupting into a high, translucent flower of water, which instantly swallowed the solitary white figure in the night.

WHOOSH—

The colossal tsunami wave, having gathered its strength, arrived. The hurricane-force winds roared like millions of prehistoric beasts, shaking the earth and the human heart.

The towering wave rose like a mountain range, its churning surface an angry forest of water. That day, countless people at the Defense Center looked up and saw the ocean itself rushing toward the land.

The confrontation with the mutated organisms paused. Facing the insurmountable mountain of water, most people simply stared, humbled by nature’s terrifying majesty.

CRASH!

Sea and land collided.

Within several kilometers, all buildings and man-made structures were engulfed, scattering in an explosion of white foam. No defense could withstand this raw, pure force.

The torrential water wall destroyed everything with transformative energy. Before the forces of creation and destruction, all living things were equal.

Except for the distant high-rises, all traces of humanity nearby were erased. The land returned to its most primal state.

Tide rises and falls; all things return to zero.

…

July 8th, 2174.

Thirty-one years after the ocean nuclear contamination.

Following a sudden tsunami, the five major coastal defense centers were simultaneously attacked by marine organisms. External defenses failed, internal labs went haywire, and data was lost. The damage was immeasurable.

The incident was not a simple natural disaster. Analysis showed it was a large-scale, premeditated terrorist attack orchestrated by a high-intelligence entity. The monster organization, marked by the “Red Shell” symbol, made its spectacular, catastrophic debut with the tidal wave—a declaration of war.

After the disaster, the stable front-line had been pushed back. The isolation zone was relocated five kilometers inland. Humanity lost more land.

The ocean was devouring the continent.

[End of Volume 1]

[The Two Sides of the Soul]