After Being Parasiticized By A Monster - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: You Are Indeed Very Afraid of Qu Ying.

The bathroom light shone with a stark, pale intensity.

In the living room, the hands of the wall clock slowly crept toward midnight in the darkness. The night was dead silent.

Bang, bang, bang—

Suddenly, a knock on the door echoed, particularly jarring in the still night. Cheng Ming felt an instant rush of goosebumps.

Their silent confrontation was interrupted. She quickly turned toward the entrance, grabbed a black trash bag, and swept her arm across the counter, clearing all suspicious items.

She didn’t answer immediately, tiptoeing out of the bathroom. A moment later, the knocking sounded a second time.

“Xiao Ming, you’re not asleep yet, are you?”

Separated by a door and two walls, the female voice was like a faint white mist in the winter night, seeping through the door cracks—cool and ethereal.

A familiar voice… but who would call her Xiao Ming?

Cheng Ming realized she was truly confused; it must be the fungus occupying her brain.

She cautiously walked to the door and grasped the handle, asking with uncertainty, “Who is it?”

Looking out through the peephole, the hallway light outlined a blurry silhouette—tall figure, striking features.

“It’s me.”

Qu Ying stood outside the door.

Compared to the daytime, she had changed her coat. One hand was casually tucked into her pocket, the other held a bulging shopping bag. As if sensing Cheng Ming looking, she raised her hand and shook it toward the peephole, giving a slight, smiling gesture.

“Sister Ying Ying… why are you here so late?” Cheng Ming’s heart hammered in her chest. Leaning against the door, she felt a thin layer of sweat forming on her palm.

“I bought a few things, and since I was nearby, I thought I’d stop by. Can I come in?”

Inconvenient…

Cheng Ming looked down, seeing her dishevelled state in the weak light. Her hair was still wet, her hands and feet covered in tiny cuts and countless freshly healed scars.

She took a deep breath. “Sister Ying Ying, I just got out of the shower. Give me a moment, and I’ll clean up the bathroom.”

Qu Ying replied with a soft smile: “Okay, I’ll let myself in then.”

The light switched on.

Ten minutes later, Cheng Ming emerged, tightly wrapped in a coral fleece bathrobe.

Qu Ying was seated in the living room, having sorted out the snacks she brought for Cheng Ming, stacking them into a small mountain on the coffee table.

Upon sight, she handed Cheng Ming an ice cream bar, her eyebrow arching in a smile. “Can you handle something cold?”

Sister, who else treats me like a child besides you… Cheng Ming took the treat and saw it was her favorite red date flavor, which instantly made her smile despite herself.

“Where did you go tonight? I came by at ten o’clock, and you weren’t here,” Qu Ying asked casually, her elbow resting on the sofa armrest.

She came by tonight? Cheng Ming’s heart skipped a beat, but her expression remained neutral.

“Dr. Jiang treated us to dinner. I went out with them,” she explained.

Qu Ying nodded, not pressing further.

“How did you end up with a fungal infection? Is your experiment that dangerous? Did the institute compensate you?”

She raised her hand, naturally intending to stroke Cheng Ming’s fluffy hair.

Cheng Ming instinctively flinched and turned her head slightly. Qu Ying’s fingertip grazed the end of her hair, missing its target. The movement paused, and Cheng Ming met Qu Ying’s dark eyes. Both stopped.

Qu Ying genuinely seemed to have come to check on her. It had been over two months since their last meeting, with one brief phone call on the day Cheng Ming was hospitalized for surgery.

“Uh…” Cheng Ming coughed, touched her forehead, and shook her head helplessly. “Probably just improper handling. It happens in this line of work.”

“And Sister Ying Ying, why are you at the institute today?” she shifted the focus to Qu Ying.

“It’s just the higher-ups being heartless…” Mentioning this, Qu Ying’s expression became hard to read. She lowered her hand, instinctively reaching for a cigarette, but noticing the girl’s steady gaze across from her, she quietly withdrew her hand and let out a heavy sigh. “You had a colleague go missing, right? I just finished one assignment and got pulled in to assist…”

The two exchanged a few pleasantries about their recent situations.

Cheng Ming noticed Qu Ying was subtly trying to steer the conversation toward the events of the previous night. She pretended to be completely oblivious, smoothly skipping over the topic.

The entire conversation left Cheng Ming deeply unsettled.

It was like returning to the interrogation that morning. Every word from the other party seemed to hold a double meaning, every sentence an unspoken clash… Beneath the calm surface, a whirlpool churned.

Moreover, having to engage in misleading statements and outright lies with Qu Ying—an acquaintance who was most likely completely harmless and genuinely concerned—caused her immense psychological strain.

Fortunately, it was getting late.

Qu Ying finally stood up, picked up her bag, indicating her intention to leave.

But before saying goodbye, she looked at Cheng Ming and smiled sweetly: “Alright, little one, is there anything else you need to tell your sister, or anything you need help with?”

Cheng Ming looked up.

She was curled up small on the sofa in her fluffy bathrobe. Qu Ying leaned down slightly. Because of her willow-leaf shaped eyes, when she looked down, the ends of her gaze were sharp, naturally projecting an air of pressure—

Even with that cordial smile playing on her lips.

She seemed to be hinting at something… Meeting those eyes, Cheng Ming’s heart gave a soft thump. It was like a wave receding, briefly revealing the dangerous, stark edge of a gentle ocean.

“Hmm…” She tilted her head, thought carefully, and then suddenly curved her brows and smiled. “Yes! Could Sister Ying Ying please take my trash out on your way? I’m trying to be lazy tonight.”

It wasn’t easy for vehicles and supplies to enter and exit the Defense Center, so daily life had more restrictions than the outside world. For example, the trash room was only open for twelve hours on specific days, from 8 PM to 8 AM the next morning. If she didn’t manage to throw it out that night, she’d have to get up early the next day.

Qu Ying: “…”

And so, this rare, honored guest, who arrived carrying a bag full of food, left carrying a deflated shopping bag containing only a few scattered personal items—plus three large bags of garbage sealed tightly at the top.

Stepping out of the apartment, Qu Ying tossed the tied-up trash bags into the bin. She stood there for a while, lighting a cigarette.

The spark on her fingertip flickered. The streetlights lay lonely on the road. A slight wind picked up, rustling the tree branches and the coats of passersby.

After a moment, she lowered her eyes, pressed her immediate communicator, and connected the signal—

“North Apartment cleared. No issues.”

…

“I can tell, you are indeed very afraid of Qu Ying.”

Collapsing onto the bed, Cheng Ming endured intense dizziness and weakness. She couldn’t resist mocking the Fish-Fungus monster.

It had cooperated reasonably well, mobilizing its dwindling power to heal her externally visible wounds to avoid exposure. The result was that the side effects of over-exertion hit hard.

Though it sounded sickening, they were truly sharing suffering now… She was absorbing its weakness, and it was balancing her pain.

It responded with calm indifference: “You are, too.”

Cheng Ming: “…”

Being sick, her emotions were naturally a bit affected. Cheng Ming felt like she’d punched cotton. Already weak and out of sorts, she was so stifled she wanted to jump out of bed and beat it.

Alas, her body was truly as soft as cotton right now. Moreover, against a shameless parasite, she couldn’t hurt it in the slightest unless she resorted to self-harm.

She had no choice but to urge herself to close her eyes.

And bossily ordered the Fish-Fungus: “Turn off the light!”

Regardless, she needed to recover some strength to deal with what came next—whether it was arguing or negotiating, whether it was continuing this pretense of cooperation, or finally ending things.

Since both of their consciousnesses were equally exhausted, Cheng Ming wasn’t too worried about it taking advantage of her weakness to completely usurp her.

The light dimmed.

Presumably, monsters have no concept of self-respect. It was unfazed by the host’s bossiness and complied. After all, it wasn’t bad for it if Cheng Ming rested well.

It was ironically ridiculous. Because of the extreme intimacy of their parasitic relationship, no matter how much they hated each other and wanted to eliminate the other, they were forced to surrender their animosity after exhaustion and snuggle up to sleep.

But just as Cheng Ming’s eyelids closed, they sprang open as if pricked by a needle. She quickly turned her head to look outwards.

In that single second, she broke out in a cold sweat.

She felt an intense sensation of being watched.

Have you ever seen a Cthulhu-style horror movie? The floor, the walls, the windows, the ceiling—every flat surface, every protrusion, every crack opening countless eyes, staring at you, monitoring you relentlessly, watching you everywhere…

That was the terrifying sensation Cheng Ming felt in that moment.

She propped herself up. Strands of her hair flipped over her hand and snaked outward, tingling with a familiar itch—her parasitic partner had also detected the anomaly.

It wasn’t playing tricks.

She quickly scanned the room, breathing rapidly, and her gaze fixed on the boundary between grey blur and deep shadow.

The window was half-open.

In the darkness, a small red glow flickered in the corner.

She smelled the scent of tobacco—bitter, mixed with a faint hint of mint.

The visitor looked up. Click. Her heel ground against the tiled floor. She took a step forward, and the light and shadow on the wall shifted dramatically.

The dark brown wallpaper merged with the blurred lines of the window screen, like a giant, dried bloodstained eye, that suddenly blinked—

“Little one, you’ve learned to lie.”