Lu Ren didn't comfort the only child in the room. Instead, they followed Yu Jin as he kept backing away, supporting his arm with one hand and shielding the back of his head with the other to keep him from hitting the wall. “Yu Jin, what's wrong?” they asked with concern.
Yu Jin wasn't sure what was wrong with him either. He was even wondering if his own mind was playing tricks on him.
He steadied himself and took a deep breath, wanting to thank Lu Ren, but the words died in his throat.
For he saw that Lu Ren's face, right in front of his eyes, was cracking apart into countless fragments just like Mrs. Xia's had. Tentacles wriggling beneath the fissures in the flesh swayed back and forth, as if waving to him.
Normally, these bizarre hallucinations would only last a fleeting second, but now, those bloody tentacles were reaching closer and closer, with no sign of stopping.
“Fuck!”
Both startled and terrified, Yu Jin threw his head back to retreat, only to find that the other party's posture had already locked him in place, making it impossible to break free.
It turned out that the so-called concern was never concern at all; it was restraint.
Yu Jin's eyes narrowed as a streak of crimson swept over his head once more.
“Tch, what a pain.”
His expression shifted to one of sheer annoyance. He swatted away Lu Ren's grip with one hand to break the hold, then threw a punch straight at the sickening face covered in tentacles.
This was no ordinary punch. Before his fist could even graze the skin, the bone blade shooting from his wrist had already pierced through the other party's head.
Yu Jin no longer had to worry about his reach being too short to hit his enemies.
But a new problem arose.
Because Lu Ren's head showed Yu Jin what it truly meant to be “pierced.”
Their skull abruptly split into countless fragments, the squirming tentacles quickly rearranging the head into a ring of flesh and blood. Yu Jin's bone blade passed clean through the center of the ring. It had indeed gone through the head, but it had done absolutely no damage to Lu Ren.
Furthermore, the moment Yu Jin tried to retract the blade, the countless tentacles constricted at once, tightly clamping the bone blade right in the middle of the head.
Locked in another contest of strength, Yu Jin narrowed his eyes.
This monstrous entity was clearly not Lu Ren of Special Response Squad 6. As for who it actually was, there was no need to guess; the answer was already right in front of him.
Yu Jin stared at the familiar face as it pieced itself back together, spitting in annoyance.
“Ugly people always love to make scenes. Madam, do you know that cosplaying as a Bureau agent is illegal?”
Indeed, Lu Ren was not Lu Ren—it was Mrs. Xia!
All it took was a rearrangement of the endless tentacles beneath Mrs. Xia's skin to grant her a new appearance, transforming her into anyone she pleased.
Now, Mrs. Xia glared at Yu Jin with a sinister gaze, her voice dripping with hatred. “Why did you have to come in?”
Given Yu Jin's current situation, he really couldn't refute those words. Forcing his way in had indeed been asking for trouble. Who would have thought that a child who looked completely innocent would turn the only normal-looking bedroom into a trap?
But when facing a monster, he had no need to explain himself.
Especially since the current Yu Jin was the red-haired Yu Jin.
“What does ‘having’ to come in have to do with me? What the hell are you muttering about?”
He yanked his blade back hard, intending to slash again. But Mrs. Xia's tentacles gripped the bone blade so tightly that the immense pulling force instead dragged Mrs. Xia right toward his chest.
Thus, a bizarre scene unfolded.
The two locked eyes, their hands clasped together, veins bulging as they wrestled in a struggle of brute strength.
A tug-of-war ensued between the bone blade on Yu Jin's wrist and Mrs. Xia's tentacle-filled head. The battle hit a stalemate, and the atmosphere grew incredibly tense.
Just then, the face on Mrs. Xia that was clamping down on the bone blade suddenly shifted again, turning into the face of Tang Yaoting.
Seeing his own bone blade “piercing” Tang Yaoting's head, Yu Jin suffered a sudden, fleeting lapse of focus.
In a duel between experts, a split second makes all the difference.
Mrs. Xia seized upon this momentary distraction. With a screech, she broke through Yu Jin's defense, clamped both hands onto the sides of his head, and slammed him violently toward her.
An even more bizarre sight occurred.
To any onlooker, it would look as if Mrs. Xia was passionately kissing Yu Jin. And that was indeed the “reality.” The instant their faces met, the endless tentacles on Mrs. Xia's face turned into sharp needles, piercing through Yu Jin's facial skin all at once, greedily drinking the warm blood from his flesh.
Yu Jin felt his vision plunge into darkness as an excruciating, heart-wrenching pain flared across his face.
“Ahhh!”
He screamed in agony, prompting Xia Jie to spring up from the bed, cheering and dancing with joy.
“Ha! Fun, so much fun! I knew this trick would scare you to death. But you're way too easy to mess with. I only switched places a few times and you got scared like this. And you call yourself a Bureau agent? What a complete useless coward. It's almost embarrassing to tell others I killed you. But it can't be helped. You already started suspecting me, so I had to get rid of you before the Special Response Squad got here. Otherwise, if you tipped them off, how would I wipe them all out? If I don't wipe them all out, how will the Disciples of Eternal Night ever agree to let me join? Hmph. Remember to mention my name when you get down to the underworld, so I can gain some reputation in the Court of Yama. My name is Xia Jie, a Disciples of Eternal Night... Reservist, Xia Jie. Bye-bye, coward.”
Yu Jin couldn't make out what Xia Jie was saying after that. Dragged down by the intense pain, his entire face felt as if it were on fire.
Once pain exceeds a tolerable threshold, it turns into a vacant void. Yu Jin felt himself drifting further and further into the emptiness, his consciousness soon plunging into darkness.
“Brother? Brother! What are you looking for?”
In his dazed state, Yu Jin heard that voice once more.
He jolted awake again and looked around.
“!!!”
He found himself squatting beside the desk, his hand reaching toward the stuffed animals underneath, not yet having picked any of them up.
Xiao Jie was poking his head out from the bed, a curious look on his face, though it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Yu Jin's breath caught in his throat. He snapped his hand back and backed away with his eyes glued to the bed until his back hit the wall. He stared at Xiao Jie, his eyes filled with lingering terror.
Startled, Xiao Jie timidly shrank back.
Yu Jin panted heavily, looking at that harmless little face on the bed. He really couldn't reconcile it with the mocking, vicious face he had just envisioned.
But was that really just his imagination? Yu Jin wasn't sure.
The only thing he could be sure of was that his face felt hot. Not just hot, but also throbbing with a faint, dull ache.
The skin on his face was twitching, contracting, and rippling, as if countless insects were lurking beneath his skin, tearing and gnawing at his flesh and nerves.
Cupping his face with one hand, he turned his head slightly to look at the reflective glass of a cabinet door nearby. In the reflection, he saw himself. No, that wasn't him—it was Tang Yaoting!
Shocked, Yu Jin blinked hard. When he opened his eyes again, Tang Yaoting was gone, replaced by Mrs. Xia.
His face had become Mrs. Xia's.
“Fuck!”
Panicking, Yu Jin scrambled to cover his entire face. After a brief moment, he parted his fingers slightly to peer at the cabinet door again.
This time, it was normal. He was back to himself, though the resolution was a bit low.
Each fragment of his facial skin wobbled like puzzle pieces, fitting together to form a complete Yu Jin.
Every now and then, tentacles beneath his skin would peek out from the gaps in his flesh, giving a friendly wave. Yu Jin stared blankly for a long while before unconsciously waving back.
Xiao Jie was dazed by the sight and asked in a trembling voice, “Brother... what are you doing?”
Snapping out of it, Yu Jin saw his normal self reflected in the cabinet glass. After a moment of thought, he said in all seriousness, “Saying goodbye to my past self.”
Xiao Jie didn't understand. “What do you mean?”
“I might not be human anymore.”
“?”
...
Rate on N.U.
