The Senior Student (female) Is Not Human - Chapter 42

Chapter 42: Fire “Are you going to take me home?”

As the two girls approached the “haunted house,” the man upstairs watched them through the window.

—He was the tenant.

Initially, he just wanted to start a big business on a low budget. His peers were competing for commercial street spaces or residential areas in the financially tight city center, running small escape rooms, but he looked down on those tiny spaces.

The land held by the old couple happened to fulfill his dream.

Even better, their previous contract was with a factory. After the workers left, the deserted factory and dormitory buildings became even more dilapidated and overgrown with weeds, making it a natural horror film location.

However, the only flaw here was also fatal.

The transportation was too inconvenient.

Holidays were fine, but on mere weekends, few ordinary people would want to sacrifice their time off to travel laboriously for two hours on public transport from the city center to this godforsaken place just to play a horror escape room.

The money he spent on promotions, building a reputation, and platform traffic far exceeded the meager earnings from his few customers. He was already operating at a loss.

But he had poured all his savings into this venture! He had even taken out loans! What kind of job could a debt-ridden middle-aged man with such a long employment gap find outside?!

【Luckily, providence is on my side, ha ha ha! It’s a good thing those old folks died so soon, leaving only an ignorant college student. I was worrying about rent, reputation, and customers…】

【Once I completely become the boss of this ‘House of Horrors,’ I’m going to heavily publicize the news of the female college student who burned to death here, and then find someone to write a few good scripts for me. Will I still have to worry about people coming to explore?】

【It’s just a shame that she, this short-lived ghost, brought another unlucky person with her—damn it, I don’t care, it serves her right. If her family comes looking for trouble, I have no money to compensate them. I’m a victim too!】

Jiang Xi-yao stepped into the dark building first, and at the same time, she heard that sinister, vulgar inner monologue.

She was accustomed to these kinds of voices, but one thing surprised her.

Jiang Xi-yao’s prey usually required her careful selection and subtle guidance to gradually fall into the abyss of extreme evil. Why was it that Xie Shiwei could so easily run into such a terrible degenerate without her having to do anything?

She thoughtfully turned around.

“Xie Shiwei…”

The girl standing outside the main door looked up blankly.

Xie Shiwei was only coming to collect the rent after half a year because she absolutely had to. She knew the haunted house had a staff entrance, but she found it difficult to overcome her fear of such a place.

If Jiang Xi-yao hadn’t accompanied her, Xie Shiwei would have preferred to press a button to call Chu Chu, while she herself lay peacefully outside in the sun, waiting for the rich man’s ultra-luxurious negotiating team to help her collect the rent.

“What is it, Senior?” Xie Shiwei’s face was pale despite standing in the bright sun. “Are you, are you afraid of haunted houses too?”

A trace of annoyance appeared on the girl’s delicate face.

When she realized that someone might be more afraid of the haunted house than she was, she felt a strange sense of comfort and courage.

Xie Shiwei resolutely stepped forward, and just as she was about to speak, a massive force suddenly hit her back—

“Screech… Bang! Clatter, clatter…”

The factory’s iron door slammed shut, extinguishing the last ray of daylight.

An abrasive sound came as an iron chain scraped over the lock, coil after coil.

Jiang Xi-yao skillfully raised her hand, catching the person who had stumbled towards her with perfect timing.

“Xie Shiwei.” She reminded her with a smile, “What should you do now?”

The girl who fell into her arms looked up in panic.

Xie Shiwei heard splashing sounds outside and smelled a pungent, intense odor seeping in.

She frantically said, “Call the police!”

“Senior, call the police quickly! The owner seems to have gone mad!”

Saying this, Xie Shiwei turned her head without hesitation to pat, push, and use her shoulder to ram the large door: “Is anyone out there? Let us out! Hey! We can still negotiate the rent, but murder is illegal! There’s no turning back!”

The only response was the dust that shook down when she “thumped” the iron door.

Jiang Xi-yao tried to speak several times but couldn’t get a word in. In the end, she could only comply grumpily.

She couldn’t help it. Xie Shiwei was ordering her.

—This little custard bun had seemingly never ordered anyone else, only her.

Thinking of this, Jiang Xi-yao couldn’t help but smile again:

“Hello, police? Someone is committing arson here, please hurry over. The address? What address?”

As soon as Xie Shiwei heard her tone, she knew something was wrong.

Thick smoke was already pouring in from outside the door. The iron door instantly heated up into an iron plate. Xie Shiwei quickly pulled Jiang Xi-yao towards the empty space inside, simultaneously taking the phone to complete the correct reporting procedure and then calling the fire department.

After she finished a flurry of calls, the phone was impatiently snatched away from her.

Jiang Xi-yao’s black eyes, in the current dark environment, were as beautiful as gems.

“Xie Shiwei. I’ve finished everything you told me to say, what about what I told you to say? Call my name quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly!”

Xie Shiwei was desperately searching for every exit. However, only increasingly terrifying dense smoke awaited her. The entire factory building was turning into a giant human steamer. She was dripping with sweat, and water was constantly being extracted from her body…

It was so hot.

She was going to die from the heat.

Yet, her only companion only cared about trivial things!

Xie Shiwei was anxious and angry, and these emotions were ultimately enveloped by the fear of death.

“Senior, Senior, Jiang Xi-yao… What should we do? Are we going to die here? It’s all my fault, all my fault for insisting on asking you to go out. You’ve already suffered so much, woo-woo-woo—”

The girl’s distressed, regretful crying was suddenly cut short by a tremendous crash overhead!

“Screeech!”

Inside the heated steel cage, the aging beam, curved and detached by the heat, crashed straight down!

The snapped, exposed steel rebar was heading directly for Xie Shiwei’s head!

“Ssssh…”

Xie Shiwei heard the sound of steel rebar piercing human flesh and bone.

She slowly blinked her eyes.

At the same time, she felt a closely pressed temperature—cool and delicate, completely out of place in the fire, like ice.

It was Jiang Xi-yao.

Jiang Xi-yao was holding her, taking the damage for her!

Xie Shiwei was stunned for a moment, then opened her mouth in panic: “Senior Jiang… Cough, cough, cough!”

She started to cough violently. The terrifying smoke occupied the air, rushing into her nasal cavity and lungs. In just a few seconds, Xie Shiwei began to feel shortness of breath and panic, unable to even clearly see the person holding her!

【Senior Jiang, Jiang Xi-yao—】

The inner voice weakened to the point of vanishing.

At the same moment, the bandages on the pale woman tightly embracing her peeled off bit by bit. Her delicate skin rapidly melted in the high temperature. The white, like candle wax, surged like a tide towards the human in her embrace!

It stretched, stretched, infinitely stretched.

As the soft, sticky human skin completely wrapped Xie Shiwei from head to toe into a giant, breathing cocoon, Jiang Xi-yao let out a sigh of pleasure:

“Ah…”

So comfortable, so wonderful.

The feeling of swallowing Xie Shiwei whole was even more exquisite than Jiang Xi-yao had imagined!

In the smoke-filled inferno, a graceful, slender figure, with steel rebar embedded in her back and half a broken wall section attached, slowly stood up.

The moment she stood straight, more conspicuous than the wall behind her was the semi-circle bulging in front of her. Below her neck, her skin was completely swollen and deformed, making her look like a monstrous pregnant woman carrying a fully-grown fetus.

Jiang Xi-yao initially walked out slowly until she constantly felt the breath and heartbeat beneath her skin gradually weakening.

“…Huh?”

She tilted her head.

Was it too hot?

So she controlled her skin to isolate the fiercely rising high temperature of the fire, lest the human flesh inside her body carbonize.

But it was still not enough!

Xie Shiwei’s vitality was still constantly diminishing! She was going to die!

Images of human death flashed frantically through Jiang Xi-yao’s mind.

Hunger, cold, burning, suffocation… Suffocation?

When Jiang Xi-yao fell into a sea of fire, she only ever focused on the injuries: the transparent blisters popping up on her skin from the heat, the curled and deformed hair, the sloughed-off white, pink, and deep red flesh, mixed with yellow fat, and congealed tissue…

But now she realized that the human body was still more fragile than she had imagined!

Xie Shiwei would fear the scorching flames, the black smoke, the falling steel rebar, and also the lack of oxygen.

“Crack, crack—”

The haunted house owner, who had been waiting in the distance, clutched his phone, staring intently at the flames leaping up from the factory building.

Just as he was internally shouting, “Burn bigger, burn fiercer,” he suddenly heard a strange noise.

Two slender, bright red things drilled straight out of the wall.

“Is that… a snake?” he muttered in confusion, never expecting a snake could survive in this temperature. Soon his eyes lit up, and he picked up a snakeskin bag, slowly approaching.

As the wall crumbled, revealing a huge hole, the slender, straight red things suddenly retracted!

The man suddenly met a pair of black eyes that seemed to be smiling yet not smiling.

He stared blankly for a moment. Following those demonic black eyes downward, he realized that the “snake” he was trying to catch… wasn’t a snake at all! They were clearly this woman’s monstrously long red fingernails!

But more terrifying than the long fingernails was the huge belly bulging beneath her smooth, delicate neck. The skin was stretched into a semi-transparency, vaguely revealing the human shape wrapped inside, an exaggeration like an adult—

And she, completely unconcerned, with this heavy, misshapen body, moved with light, graceful steps towards the outside.

In a blink of an eye, she was right in front of him.

“Ghost… Gh-gh-ghost! Ahhhhhhh!”

A terrified scream echoed through the nearby barren fields and woods.

He screamed, scrambling and falling to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Then he saw a distorted anger on the face of this monster, who was beautiful beyond human standards, as if carrying a “ghost infant.”

Just as the anger was about to erupt, she suddenly looked down at her translucent belly.

A moment later, she forcefully swallowed her curses, only threateningly raising an index finger and pressing it against her red lips:

“Shhh.”

Don’t wake up her person.

Then, the monster turned around without hesitation and walked into the desolate woods.

She did not spare another glance for the male prey, even though his entire body exuded the ripe flavor of malice.

…

Xie Shiwei woke up to the sound of police cars and fire engines.

She opened her eyes in confusion, staring at the swaying leaves of the bamboo grove overhead for a while, then suddenly remembering something, she scrambled up and ran out:

“Senior Jiang! Jiang Xi-yao!”

Had she been rescued? Then where was Jiang Xi-yao? Where did Senior Jiang go?

She sprinted towards the factory building, grabbing a person standing by a fire truck:

“Hello, hello, did you rescue me? Have you seen the girl who was with me?”

“Her face was wrapped in bandages, she had knife wounds, she’s a little taller than me, and her walking is very distinctive and graceful. Have you seen her? Where is she? Was she seriously injured and sent to the hospital? Which hospital?”

The barrage of questions completely stunned the firefighter.

“What, what do you mean? You were just in this factory? There was still someone inside???”

The firefighter looked like he wanted to pass out more than she did.

He grabbed his walkie-talkie and frantically asked, “Is there anyone inside? Any other civilians found? Save the person first!”

Xie Shiwei watched as the high-pressure water guns pushed against the flames, forcing the fierce fire to retreat, revealing the charred factory building. Her heart seemed to be turning into charcoal bit by bit.

She borrowed a megaphone and couldn’t help but call Jiang Xi-yao’s name several times into the building.

It wasn’t until the fire was extinguished and the police came to take her statement that they asked if she wanted a ride back to the city.

Xie Shiwei simply shook her head.

“All right, but you need to be careful, young lady. Hey, don’t come to places like this alone again; it’s very dangerous. It’s getting dark, don’t stay here, and don’t go back inside. The building only looks intact, but the walls are warped.”

“Maybe your friend left after saving you because she had something else to do, or maybe she was injured and went to the hospital first. You can call the nearest hospital emergency room and ask.”

Hearing the last sentence, Xie Shiwei felt a sense of grounding and nodded frantically.

She instinctively reached for her phone to call the nearest hospital emergency room but found nothing.

Her phone had long fallen into the fire, having been burned into some kind of black sludge.

The sky slowly darkened, and the surrounding desolate hills looked eerie. For the first time, Xie Shiwei felt no fear, but instead, her heart was burning, and she cried out in anxiety:

“Jiang Xi-yao, Jiang Xi-yao, woo-woo-woo…”

As she walked toward the city, she couldn’t help but sob hysterically in the quiet environment:

“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, please…”

“It’s all my fault, it’s all me. I’m the one who harmed you. You must be safe and alive, please…”

“As long as you’re alive, I’ll agree to anything you ask. I’ll save money for you, I’ll treat your injuries, I’ll take care of you in your old age. Don’t die, please don’t die, woo-woo-woo—”

Xie Shiwei cried more and more sadly.

Until she was overwhelmed with grief and cried so hard she started hiccuping, forcing her to squat by the roadside to recover, when she suddenly heard a very faint sigh nearby:

“Who are you cursing over there? Xie Shiwei. I’m perfectly fine. Why are you cursing me to die one minute and to be old the next? Hmm?”

The familiar teasing voice still sounded as pleasant as jade.

Xie Shiwei was overjoyed and turned her head abruptly: “Senior Jiang?”

However, within her sight, there was no one.

“I’m here.”

A piece of high-quality light gauze fluttered from behind a large tree on the hill.

The gauze waved, as if waving to Xie Shiwei on her behalf.

Xie Shiwei looked up at the cliff wall, seeing only a smooth, sheer drop, with no path up. She couldn’t help but panic:

“What are you doing up there? How am I supposed to find you? I can’t climb up, Senior Jiang, please come down quickly. It’s almost dark, and it’s not safe on the mountain. Can we go home, okay?”

To her surprise, two words drifted from behind the tree: “Not okay.”

Xie Shiwei asked blankly, “Why?”

Jiang Xi-yao said, “Because I’m too ugly right now. You are not allowed to see me, Xie Shiwei.”

Previously, after Jiang Xi-yao had carried the person to a safe place and put her down, she planned to return to feed on the prey’s malice, but the police arrived first and took control of the arsonist.

There was no prey nearby. She was also worried that Xie Shiwei, this fragile unlucky person, might run into other trouble, so she could only guard her from the shadows, with absolutely no time to restore the condition of her skin.

Behind the tree, Jiang Xi-yao looked down.

Aside from the section of clothing she had materialized, the rest of her had reverted to thin, flat paper-skin to conserve energy.

Jiang Xi-yao found that saving people was much more strenuous than getting herself killed.

When others killed her, she only needed to briefly expend energy to maintain a lifelike appearance of death until concentrated malice surged into her body, which she then used to restore her perfect state with that powerful energy.

But saving this idiot not only provided no malice replenishment, she also had to consume the energy used to maintain her beauty to break through the confinement and even had to move quickly while bearing the weight of a person—

So annoying, so annoying, so annoying!

She became ugly, became ugly, became ugly!

Jiang Xi-yao was extremely unhappy, but when she thought that Xie Shiwei was still alive and well, the surging irritability would inexplicably subside slightly.

At this moment, the rescued idiot was down the hill, kicking up a fuss again:

“Not ugly, you won’t be ugly. Can you please let me see you? If your injuries are too severe, I need to take you to the hospital immediately, Senior. We can’t avoid seeing a doctor. Don’t worry, I, I’ve been to the burn ward. I’m mentally prepared!”

Xie Shiwei hadn’t been completely unprepared during the summer she lost her grandparents.

The first episode she watched, before Zhong Chu-yao stopped her from watching those autopsy documentaries, was a popular science segment on various burn conditions: first-degree, second-degree, third-degree, and how to treat each condition.

At the time, Xie Shiwei felt nauseous and dizzy. She cried into the toilet bowl at the Zhong family’s house while vomiting, and after she finished crying, she smiled at Zhong Chu-yao:

“Hee-hee! I didn’t faint! I didn’t faint!”

Fearing she would ruin her health, Zhong Chu-yao later confiscated her documentaries and stated with conviction that she would live longer than Xie Shiwei.

Down the mountain now.

Xie Shiwei was frantically steeling herself mentally.

She had already seen the state of Jiang Xi-yao’s knife wounds—disinfected, bandaged—and now she just needed to overlay those burn conditions on top—

【Senior was injured because she saved me. No one else matters. Xie Shiwei, if you dare to be heartless, how will you face Grandpa and Grandma in the afterlife? Will you be worthy of their teachings?】

【No matter what Senior looks like today, you have to be responsible for her whole life from now on! That is the attitude you should have towards your savior!】

【You must start working harder to earn money starting today! You need to find the best, absolute best hospital for Senior!】

The girl’s inner monologue of self-encouragement entered Jiang Xi-yao’s mind.

She had heard far too many voices that were ungrateful or incapable of repaying kindness. Without exception, those people, upon realizing that the debt of gratitude was difficult to repay, either ran away or suddenly changed their demeanor, viciously cursing their benefactor to die.

Only Xie Shiwei’s spoken words and inner thoughts were exactly the same.

Jiang Xi-yao felt like she must have lost her mind. She knew Xie Shiwei was timid as a mouse and would absolutely be unable to accept her current appearance, yet she still uncontrollably asked the question:

“Really?”

Xie Shiwei was quiet for a moment, then raised her hand to wipe away her tears, confirming that her heartbeat was normal and this was a calm decision.

Then, she nodded solemnly at the large tree: “Really.”

There was silence behind the tree.

Only the rustling sound of the wind blowing through the leaves.

The open country was now dark, the sun had set, and the sky had turned an ominous, dusky blue. The mountain also grew dim.

Xie Shiwei couldn’t help but grow anxious: “Senior, hurry, hurry and come out. I promise I absolutely won’t dislike you—”

“Please, hurry, hurry. It’s getting dark. Come home with me, okay?”

She even put her hands together in a pleading gesture toward the tree.

Finally, there was a rustling movement from behind the tree.

The fluttering piece of cloth was retracted.

In its place were four pale fingers resting on the tree trunk.

Xie Shiwei stared at the fingers for a moment. Although they were strikingly white, she felt that something was wrong.

Just then.

A thin, flat head peeked out halfway from behind the tree.

The paper-white face had curved eyebrows, eyes that were clearly black and white, bright red lips, and a mole.

However, all of this was squeezed onto a flat surface—

It was like the features of a paper effigy used in memorial rites, or the leather puppets used in shadow play in ancient times.

And on that thin paper, the jet-black ink-blots of eyes, drawn with two fluid lines, rotated and fixed on her.

Jiang Xi-yao’s voice, thin and reedy, came from the crack of those rouge-red lips:

“Really?”

“Are you going to take me home?”