After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 54

Chapter 54: “No One Loves You More Than I Do.”

The Spider’s Web

Why had no one come for her in the past six years? Cheng Ming looked at the question and crossed it out. It wasn’t accurate. Someone had come for her, just this past year.

She added a fourth name: —Yan Li.

If not for the serendipitous possession of this body, she would never have connected the Security Group Leader to her problems. The field experiment at Red Stone Bay wasn’t an accident; it was Yan Li’s attempt to target her.

By having Little Ming meticulously retrace the memory chain, she finally found the connection. The people who had contracted Yan Li and given her missions were from a biotech company called Shenzhou Pharmaceuticals.

Shenzhou Pharmaceuticals was founded by the core entities behind the ENS Foundation—a massive industry leader that had pivoted to nuclear-radiation-related diseases after the contamination.

Yan Li had secretly maintained a long-term relationship with this company for six or seven years to acquire medicine for her sister, Yan Rong. This was strictly against regulations.

Rare, highly effective drugs were expensive and scarce. Wealthy and powerful people jumped the queue, often making it impossible for ordinary people to even access the market. Yan Li’s official contribution and rank weren’t enough; the waitlist was a decade long.

Watching her sister waste away, Yan Li finally contacted the private number on the business card she had initially dismissed.

Shenzhou Pharmaceuticals assigned her simple tasks: delivering unknown packages to designated locations. She was careful not to look, willfully ignoring the fact that to receive such massive benefits, the risks—and the nature of the package—must be equally large. She knowingly lived with the moral compromise.

…

“Reading” Yan Li’s information through Little Ming was like living every agonizing choice she made. The fear, the self-doubt, and the despair were all imprinted in the neural impulses.

Yan Li knew she was dealing with the devil. She was a flea in the tiger’s fur, surviving only by clinging to the massive, powerful structure. A speck of dust shaken loose from the finger of the elite was enough to crush an ordinary person.

She thought the monsters were the fierce ones, but in the end, it’s humans eating humans, quietly.

Cheng Ming rubbed her temple. The central question remained: If her status as an experiment was exposed six years ago, why the delay in her “reckoning”? And why wasn’t she outright arrested?

Yan Li’s memory indicated she was released from isolation after the Institute passed on an order to the Security Department to have Cheng Ming return to work. The whole incident vanished. Was the organization afraid of the Institute noticing their actions?

The relationship between the ENS Foundation/Shenzhou Pharmaceuticals and the Defense Center was delicate. Cheng Ming added a to-do item: She must use Yan Li’s identity to continue contacting them.

She looked at her notes, her gaze lingering on Cheng Ran, the prime mover, and her mood grew heavy.

…

A Love Like Self-Love

Why couldn’t the seawater kill her?

She discovered this fact shortly after jumping into the sea. More helpless than failing to survive was failing to die. Driven by a fierce self-destructive urge, she repeatedly scratched her arms until the scales tore, needing to feel pain.

She saw the water filled with the explosive algal fungus. The hyphae danced with the waves, illuminated by the moon, a chilling blue glow framing the deep crimson of her bl00d.

“If you can’t accept the guilt, I’ll bear the sin. I’m the cold-blooded monster who rejects all kin. You can still be Cheng Ran’s pure daughter,” Little Ming had told her then.

The words were outwardly gentle, inwardly corrosive. Little Ming knew what would break her most.

“What, addicted to self-sacrifice?” Cheng Ming laughed hysterically. “Is it fun to treat people like monkeys? Is it noble?” Her accusations were irrational, born from a desire to provoke it. She hated herself, so she hated it.

Little Ming stopped responding, busy feeding in the water. The conflict was unresolved. She couldn’t kill it, and it relentlessly pursued its single goal: her survival.

The cruel truth forced its way through: Did Cheng Ran know she was immune to nuclear radiation?

Perhaps, six years ago, her mother wasn’t trying to kill her. She was trying to save her.

…

Her memories surged. Ink bled into the paper. Cheng Ming’s hands trembled.

Did Cheng Ran love her? Yes, there had to be love. But how much of that love was rooted in the daughter who had died?

She was a thief, a parasite, a germ feeding on the hair of a beloved animal. She knew it was absurd—she was fighting a dead person for the love of another dead person. But she couldn’t control it. Everything she had received was both fake and real. She couldn’t accept it, but she couldn’t let it go. Both forward and backward lay only pain.

The pen tip unconsciously scribbled the same word repeatedly: Mama, Mama, Mama…

Cheng Ming.

She paused. The two distinct words appeared on the paper—the other consciousness had interfered with her writing. Little Ming was forcing her to write her own name.

“Don’t think about her anymore, Cheng Ming,” Little Ming stated, its voice so familiar she couldn’t tell if the thought was hers or its own. “If you’re only craving the feeling of being loved, then I love you.”

No one loves you more than I do. Because I love you as I love myself. And I love myself as I love you.

…

It declared its devotion again and again.

Cheng Ming moved her lips, then coldly pushed the hyphae away. “I don’t love you.”

“Liar,” the hyphae persisted, clinging to her. “Your heart rate sped up.”

“You are so annoying,” she snapped, shaking her hand, but failing to dislodge it.

She wrestled control back to her pen and resumed writing. Analyzing the events at the Institute, many lingering questions found answers.

The parasitic Wang Qi was likely part of the monster organization, recognizing Little Ming as a fellow rogue organism. The intelligent creature catalyzed by the dark green fungus called her a friend, believing Little Ming to be a runaway experiment. The fish-egg monster that infiltrated the incubation room showed extreme attachment due to her half-mermaid nature.

…

My identity is truly spectacular.

Staring at the tangled mess of lines, Cheng Ming massaged her forehead. She felt like a rice dumpling that, if stripped bare and exposed, would be drooled over by numerous factions.

As she pondered, she felt a peculiar sensation in her chest. The hyphae, having previously only wrapped around her hand, were now aggressively trying to burrow under her collar.

It’s treating me like a rice dumpling, trying to get to the delicious, soft filling.

“What are you doing… Ah! Urgh,” the cry was immediately muffled into a gasp. The fungal appendages targeted sensitive areas. Her pen clattered away. Her legs, tensing instantly, pressed wrinkles into the new bedsheets.

“Work-life balance is essential. You’re too stressed. You should relax,” Little Ming preached.

Who taught you this way to relax! Cheng Ming wanted to yell, but reason forced her to choke the sound, pressing one hand against the wriggling hyphae beneath her shirt. She panted, hunched over the desk corner. “Stop messing around, get out…”

It seized the chance. “Do you love me?”

“No!”

“Oh.”

“Mmmh,” Cheng Ming’s eyes instantly watered. She shrank back. “Stop it, Yan Rong is next door—”

“She can’t hear you.”

“How do you know she—”

“Be quiet, and she certainly won’t hear you.”

“You shameless—”

“Shhh, it’ll be quick.”

“Ngh…”

…

The Hidden Sister

On the other side of the wall.

“Alright, that’s all for today,” Yan Rong said, closing her book and smiling at the camera.

“Goodbye, Sister!” The eight-year-old girl on the screen—a privileged, well-behaved doll—waved goodbye. Yan Rong merely read poems and told stories. The job was easy and well-paid, with the added benefit of privacy for the parents.

The connection closed, and the screen went dark. Yan Rong did not close her laptop.

She tucked her hair behind her ears, typed in code, and accessed a deep black interface, then entered a security key.

After a minute’s wait, the camera light flickered on. The background remained the girl’s cozy room, but the image was now a smaller, circular screen: an AI companion robot, which also served as a surveillance and communication tool for the girl’s parents.

The robot’s cheerful expression was replaced by a blank screen emitting a blue light, displaying a line of text:

“Your sister just got out of the hospital. Do you have any new leads?”

“No. She has brain damage. Security has ruled her out of returning to duty for now.”

“Then why are you contacting us?”

Yan Rong spoke slowly: “I suspect she has been parasitized by a monster.”