After Being Parasitized by a Monster 89

Chapter 89: Mom, don’t ignore me.

In an instant, a sharp pain rushed into her brain.

It was as if a sharp piece of glass had cut something that was connected to her flesh and blood. Swish. A silent, small spark, and the sticky, fine threads at the end were pulled apart. The cold, inorganic substance was firmly blocked there, and a long, empty mist spread over.

From her other half.

Even she could feel it so clearly, she couldn’t imagine what Xiao Ming was going through.

Cheng Ming called out in a daze, “Xiao Ming?”

But there was no more response.

A thick fear swept over her whole body.

“So weak,” Chu Lanying turned around, and the large light was cut by the mycelia in the tank, causing the light and shadow behind her to be menacing, like a ghost that had been skinned and had pretended to be friendly, and had finally shown its sinister side, and she commented from a high position, “The human part in you is meaningless.”

The mycelia were like seaweed that had left the water, withered and lost their vitality. Without any obstruction, Cheng Ran grabbed her again, and without much effort, the needle was aimed at the artery and was stabbed down.

A very small, but sharp pain.

Cheng Ming’s body trembled, and she called out to her with a sob, “Mom…”

Knowing that the other was hurting her, her subconscious reaction was still to lower her head and send herself into her embrace, like a tired, dying cub, who, even in death, wanted to die in its mother’s warm embrace.

She had given her life, so now, if she wanted to take it away, it was only natural, right?

But this embrace was not warm.

She heard a faint heartbeat, and blood was circulating below, and it was still supplying oxygen and energy for the brain to operate, but she only felt an endless coldness.

And so she had a little bit of clarity—it seemed that this was not her mother.

As if it were an illusion, after she had leaned over, this body that was clinging to her had also paused.

Cheng Ran’s breath was close to her, and perhaps after a while, perhaps after an instant, a very light voice came from above her head:

“Baby.”

A word that was too familiar, and too strange.

Was she calling her?

Cheng Ming looked up and, with a look of horror and hope, she looked at this unrecognizable mother.

She had already calmed down, but now, her whole person was like a piece of porcelain that had fallen from a high place, and it had fallen apart with these two words.

Was she her mother?

Cheng Ming stared at her, and with her silent, grieving eyes, she asked her, are you my mother?

Mom, do you remember Teacher Jiang? Do you remember Professor Jin Xia? Do you remember Cheng Jin? Do you… still remember me?

She wanted to raise her hand to touch her, but those eyes looked down at her, like a pool of frozen water, and some faint doubts cracked. There was no gentleness, and the action of hurting her did not stop. The hand that held her life and death was on her neck, and click, it was pressed down.

Cheng Ming was crying, and she looked at her in a panic, as if she couldn’t feel anything.

Perhaps, it was just that a container had been filled with something that the container itself could not understand, and it had then been faithfully recited.

Can a person be resurrected after death?

She also really wanted to deceive herself, but she couldn’t forget Cheng Ran’s words.

“Mom, what is death?”

Many years ago, hearing her daughter’s question, Cheng Ran, as a researcher, had thought for a moment and had answered as concisely but rigorously as possible, “Death is the irreversible termination of the body’s functions, all physiological functions disappear, and you can’t see, hear, or feel.”

“Then if I call Mom, will Mom not answer anymore?”

A child had no clear understanding of death, and so they did not have the taboos that adults often talked about. They would subconsciously use themselves and the people they were familiar with as examples, without any malice or curse, but with the most primitive and simple curiosity and desire for knowledge.

So Cheng Ran would not be angry, but just said with a smile, “That’s right, no matter how you call Mom, she won’t hear you.”

The little her had a little bit of a real feeling of death. She pouted and sadly hugged Cheng Ran, and buried her head in her waist, “Mom, don’t ignore me.”

However, Cheng Ran was also an artist with a romantic atmosphere, so she had pinched her nose and had said, “Don’t be afraid, baby. Think of it from another angle. It’s just that Mom will be with you forever in a place where you can’t see or hear her.”

Her mother was the first person to teach her about life.

But she had not said how to look at the current situation.

Is this death? Her heart was still beating, her physiological functions still existed, and even her brain still reacted to external stimuli… what was it that made her have these phenomena, and what was it that was deceiving her, and faking the illusion that her mother was alive?

At this moment, confusion, sadness, and a faint anger were mixed together, making her extremely eager for the truth. She really wanted to see what was controlling Cheng Ran’s performance.

As this thought seeped out, smack, there was a sound of something bursting, and a liquid splashed on her face, a very small amount. Cheng Ming was in a daze. Not only did she see her own image in those pupils, but she also saw her own mycelia.

The mycelia were writhing, with a very small amount of mucus, blood, and plasma, or something else. They were going backwards from the main vein of the heart, along the meridians and pipes that were all over the human body, breaking through the blood-brain barrier, piercing through Cheng Ran’s head, and fumbling to find the source of everything.

Yes, her own mycelia.

Xiao Ming had lost contact, and now, she was controlling the various fatal defense systems of this body. At a critical moment, the authority she had divided and transferred had been taken back.

Regardless of whether it was her subjective will or not, that night seven years ago was re-enacted.

In a corner that was invisible to the naked eye, the mycelia had turned into a scalpel and were dissecting the brain that she was familiar with and not familiar with, the white matter, the gray matter, and unlike the parasitized brain she had explored before, this brain domain was exceptionally complete, as if it had never been damaged by parasitism. In a mess of flesh and blood, a spherical object was rolling. Gurgle. A fish egg rolled out.

This fish egg was also different. It was very small, and very transparent. It was hard to imagine that it had been in a human brain for seven years. It was not at all like a parasite that purely absorbed the host’s nutrients to grow. The moment it had wrapped around and had come into contact with those nerve endings, she had understood the principle.

In 2168, not long after the accident, the monsters in the ocean had found the remains of the two, had salvaged them ashore, and had then been discovered by the Security Department and had been sent to the animal group of the research institute.

Chu Lanying had initiated a call to several other people in charge, had explained the situation, and had proposed a solution that was beyond imagination—to seize the very short gap when Cheng Ran’s brain had died of lack of oxygen but her body functions had not completely faded, and to use a mutated fish egg to graft, and to preserve the central nervous system that stored memories.

“What about Cheng Jin?”

“He can’t be saved. And the fish egg we got is female. Only Cheng Ran can try.”

“Everyone, as soon as possible,” Chu Lanying reminded. “If you hesitate for a second longer, a part of her brain cells will die. Even if it’s successful, we might lose the key information forever.”

That was actually a call that could have changed the course of history, but at that time, it was just a sudden incident. The leaders of the five major headquarters had received an emergency text message to hold a meeting, and they had to make a decision in less than three minutes on whether to allow this precedent.

Everyone knew the importance of talent. Cheng Ran had a large amount of key knowledge and key technology. They needed her knowledge, experience, and wisdom, regardless of whether it was related to algaefungus or fusion projects. The loss of such a genius was huge.

Too short a time was not conducive to thinking and discussing a better solution, so the Defense Center had finally approved it.

And so, there was a unique “surgery” that had “resurrected” the dead.

This was all that this life form still existed. As she had analyzed Yan Li’s memory, the fish egg was controlling Cheng Ran’s nerves and was simulating her living physiological reactions.

It sounded like a very extreme and evil practice, but it was just the opposite of the intelligent machinery technology school. The former might choose to upload the integrated circuit to the cloud to preserve the consciousness, while biotechnology had chosen to reasonably use the characteristics of mutated creatures to store important information.

The most significant achievement of the Defense Center was biotechnology, although this was contrary to the ethical concepts of most people.

Now it seemed that it was unclear whether it was using the mutated creatures, or being used by the mutated creatures.

If only memories existed, was it really considered to be alive?

This question would be debated, but it was actually just a question of the living. It was the living who were unwilling to accept the departure of the deceased, and even if it was self-deception, they wanted to hold on to that glimmer of hope. But for the dead, even their consciousness had disappeared, and there was no concept of “self.” How could they be considered to be alive? At most, they were just a computer, a simulator, a machine that had been created by humans to achieve a certain purpose.

Was she her mother?

Of course she was.

But, not anymore.

This was just an empty cavity that was being controlled by a parasite, an empty shell without a soul.

What is consciousness? When the overall integration of the brain was destroyed, and the individual consciousness was eliminated on a physical level, but then some nerve cells were reactivated to preserve the memory, could this “person,” who did not even have self-awareness, still be considered a living person?

Cheng Ming seemed to have died too. She was in a daze, and had lost her consciousness, her ability to speak, and her hearing. She didn’t know how everything had happened. She dazedly hugged the suddenly fallen body, like a moth to a flame, embracing a faith that would burn and destroy her.

She seemed to have returned to her childhood. All the knowledge she had learned had disappeared, and her cognition of the world was hazy, and she knew nothing about death.

“Mom…”

Mom, don’t ignore me.

Click. The sound of the injection device falling to the ground, a faint and terrifying roar. Cheng Ran’s hands brushed past her shoulders, and her head fell to her neck. Her messy long hair was scattered and gently brushed past her side cheek. Her body was clinging to her, like an active hug. There was no softness of her mother’s embrace in her memory, only a faint, fishy smell.

And so Cheng Ming finally understood a cruel fact—she had once again killed her mother for self-preservation.

All her conditioned reflexes had disappeared, and her already weak breathing had stopped. Her heart was silent, and the false life that had been forcibly extended for seven years had pressed the final button.

Cheng Ran had died in a biological sense.

She should have cried out loud, but when she opened her mouth, there was a heart-wrenching pain, as if a fish bone were stuck in her throat, and she couldn’t make a sound. She hugged her back, but it was just a cold corpse. She also wanted to turn her head to look at her, perhaps for the last time, but she could only look up in fear, and one after another, hot drops of liquid rolled down her cheekbones and down her chin.

She dared not look, she dared not face it, she dared not cry, and she dared not turn back.

Her arms had instinctively tightened. She held her tightly, tightly, and her hands were wrapped around her neck, which reminded her of how she had hung on her neck as a child, and had slept peacefully in her warm and sweet embrace.

But she had no mother anymore.

She had said goodbye time and time again, but this time it was a final farewell.

Sixteen years of nurturing, how could she let go, how could she forget.

The two ultimate topics of life, life and death. Now, her mother had probably taught her the last lesson of her life, which was how to face death.

After she had lost her, all she had done was to want to go back to her childhood, to her relatives. But how could life go backwards?

She was walking towards tomorrow, step by step, and away from yesterday.

She had a startling dream on a cold night. She had walked a long, long way and had thought of turning back. Her mother was at the end of that old, long road, smiling and waving at her, and saying goodbye to her.