After Being Parasitized by a Monster 21p1

Chapter 21: Let me see your memories. p1

The pipes weren’t leaking, the switches weren’t broken, and the water pressure was stable.

Cheng Ming walked around the entire house and found nothing unusual.

The sun had set to the edge where it could no longer shine through the windows. The two-story house, which had not been visited by a living person for a long time, was like a forgotten, desolate tomb island, with invisible ghosts echoing within.

Finally, Cheng Ming stood at the bathroom door again. The dusk light had dimmed. She stared at the floor with its remaining water stains and asked:

“If there are other types of monsters nearby, can you feel their presence?”

The materialistic scientific warrior did not believe in ghosts and gods. If there were evil spirits, it could only be the work of mutated creatures.

“I can’t be sure.” When Xiao Ming opened its mouth, it was the same five words again.

But before Cheng Ming could turn her head, it quickly added, “If I can’t feel them, how would I know they exist?”

Cheng Ming: “…”

Right, survivor bias.

She would stop thinking about things that had no conclusion for now.

She stepped on the already half-dry anti-slip mat, turned off the bathroom exhaust fan, blocked the drain with a stopper, and finally sealed the door with tape.

After doing all this, she returned to the study to continue organizing the materials.

Time was precious, and the workload was heavy.

She put aside the numerous books for now and browsed through all the papers with handwriting. Then, under the cover of the dark night and poor visibility, she went out and brought back the two oversized cardboard boxes for moving from the car in one go—the mycelia were dancing wildly, and it would be bad to scare any passersby.

The boxes contained mostly miscellaneous items from the laboratory or office: gloves, masks, potted plants, decorations, souvenirs… Cheng Ming carefully sorted them out one by one and put them back in her parents’ room.

The notebooks, storage devices, and the like must have been taken away by the research institute long ago. She could only hope that there were still some escaped fish among them.

Even a single word or phrase would be good.

She didn’t have high hopes as she sorted through the last of it, but among the several thick stacks of certificates, there were actually a few pieces of paper with handwritten marks.

It was late at night. Cheng Ming didn’t have time for a proper meal. She took out the instant food she had brought with her and, while chewing the tasteless biscuits, she flipped through the books page by page under the light.

The hard leather had been stored for too long and was a little faded and sticky. As she grabbed it, fine powder fell off, and a faint musty smell filled her nose.

Most of the certificates recorded Cheng Ran’s past scientific achievements. As she flipped through them, her mother’s half-life seemed to materialize, slipping through her fingers and leaving imprints on these thin or thick covers.

Cheng Ran’s original research direction was not related to fungi.

It was during her research on other marine organisms that she had stumbled upon the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus. Once it was published, it changed the landscape of coastal defense stations around the world.

Of course, Cheng Ming now knew that the algaefungus’s most important contribution to the Defense Center was probably that—humanity had since gained the ability to create “monsters.”

But, in the very initial experiments, which animal cells had Cheng Ran used to discover that the algaefungus had these reactions?

“Cheng Ming, there’s something else in this one.”

Xiao Ming was helping out. The mycelia felt something unusual and coiled around a certificate that she had already set aside.

Cheng Ming took it. The title of this one was a certificate of achievement registration, but the content was blank.

She felt it again and found a secret behind the cover. It turned out that a sticky note was stuck there.

It had been too long, and the paper was very brittle.

She carefully pulled it out and saw a short line of handwriting on it—2155.6.23, in memory of the victory of fish and fungus.

2155…

Fish… fungus…

Extracting the keywords, Cheng Ming’s heart pounded wildly.

She looked at the date in disbelief, scanning the numbers one by one, her eyes gradually widening.

Her hand was shaking so much that she couldn’t even hold this thin piece of paper. The note fluttered to the ground, but it was like an avalanche, making her ears buzz.

2155, 18 years ago.

The year she woke up from her vegetative state.

The year her life officially restarted after being in a coma for twelve years due to a high fever.

…

So, what did this mean?

The snowflakes turned into a vast, white haze that blocked her five senses.

The Fish-Fungus monster inside her also seemed to have disappeared, a long silence.

After a long, long time, she struggled to move her cold fingers into her hair, covered her forehead, and called out in a low voice, “Xiao Ming.”

Probably anticipating what she was about to ask, it reiterated after a long silence, “I don’t know any more than you do.”

Cheng Ming’s eyelashes trembled like the wings of a frightened insect. Her chest rose and fell, and she could barely maintain the respiratory movements that supported her body.

It knew that her mind was in turmoil, and those emotions of shock and fear were also affecting it.

“Actually… you can try asking Qu Ying.” It spoke again, uttering this name unexpectedly, without any warning.

“I have an impression of her,” it said. “She must know more than we do.”

Cheng Ming suddenly looked up—

“What do you mean, you have an impression?”

“A long time ago, I saw her.” As it narrated word by word, more unimaginable truths surfaced. “In my earliest memories, she was one of them. She had connected to my nerves and issued a hibernation command. So, I was unconscious for a long time after that.”

“No wonder, no wonder you’re afraid of her…” Cheng Ming murmured, her eyes blank, not knowing what she was thinking. After a long time, she let out a desolate, ironic laugh. “Isn’t that more than I know?”

It was like a tube of toothpaste, it wouldn’t say anything unless she squeezed it.

“She wanted to kill me, and so did you,” Xiao Ming pointed out this fact calmly.

“…” Cheng Ming lowered her head and was silent for a long time before slowly saying, “Didn’t you say you could let me see your memories?”

She was still wary of it, worried that it had ulterior motives, worried that the so-called neural connection would damage her brain tissue… but she wanted to find out everything too much.

“Let’s try it,” she said.

There was no turning back. She would accept whatever consequences there were.

Xiao Ming had no objection to this. The mycelia slowly retracted and surrounded her. It only asked, “Are you ready?”

To make it easier to flip through the books, she had spread out a dust cover as a mat. At this moment, she was sitting on the floor with her knees hugged, her eyes closed. She didn’t know what to prepare for, so she just grunted a muffled “mm.”

Her vision was gone, but her sense of touch was still there. She could feel the mycelia moving against her scalp, rustling, for some unknown reason.

Just as she was wondering why nothing seemed to have changed, in the blink of an eye, darkness and bright light alternated, and stars exploded in front of her eyes.

Boom!

Her mind seemed to have passed through the end of time, seeing the explosion of the singularity of the universe, the expansion of space-time. Her body floated weightlessly, and matter blurred its form of existence.

Microscopic particles formed a chaotic nebula and a hazy image, as if dream and reality were intertwined.

This was a memory.

Her consciousness was clear yet suspended.

Cheng Ming knew that the images appearing before her were not real and could not be changed, but she still couldn’t help but widen her eyes, trying to see more clearly.

A transparent barrier blocked her vision. She vaguely seemed to be lying flat in some kind of glass container, with a few shadowy figures surrounding her.

The images were sometimes clear and sometimes blurry. Along with the scene, there was also a burning, dizzying sensation imprinted in the main body of the memory.

Unable to get rid of the suffocating pain, she could only endure the discomfort and concentrate, following the “camera” to try to identify the hazy, deformed figures.

The first thing that came into view was a teenager who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. There was no one else, she was too clear.

She was wearing a dark denim jacket, and her medium-length hair rested on her shoulders, with the same temperament as she had now.

As expected, there was Qu Ying.

It was strange. Cheng Ming had never seen her so young, but she could recognize her at a glance.

Perhaps influenced by the host’s current memories, the original memories had been re-rendered and covered. Qu Ying’s image was much clearer than the others, and also more in line with her current appearance.

Passing over this overly conspicuous figure, her gaze moved to the side.

In the unreal, ink-wash-like gray background, Cheng Ming saw another familiar, prominent figure that was enough to attract all her attention.

Although it was as blurry as a mosaic, and the only identifiable mark seemed to be the white lab coat, she still recognized the other person.

It was Cheng Ran.

Her mother, whom she had yearned for day and night for countless days and nights.

After five years, to trace her appearance again, it was in such a scene, so close, yet so out of reach.

Cheng Ming wanted to reach out.

She instinctively wanted to touch, to explore more, but it was destined to be impossible. All of this was fake, all of this was just a memory, and she was not even the main body of the memory.

Slap—

A silent sound, it rang directly in her brain.

A delicate, white hand appeared out of thin air in her field of vision. The lines on its palm were intertwined, weaving a fate. It broke through the enveloping white mist and left a network of veins on the transparent barrier, like a withered tree coming back to life.

And so, with a crack, the glass shattered.

Crack, crack.

The memory also shattered.

All the phantoms disappeared.

Rumble—

A huge roar echoed in her brain. Space-time reversed, the universe collapsed, and everything returned to zero.

Like her mother’s hand from many years ago, it silently yet deafeningly pushed her out of the memory.

It all sounded so complicated and long, but a neuron could receive thousands of signals in a second.

In reality, it had only been a few seconds since she had closed her eyes.

The world turned upside down, and with a thud, her hearing and sense of pain returned. The back of her head hit the floor, and the stimulation was transmitted to her central system. Cheng Ming was jolted awake by the pain.

She raised her hand to cover the back of her head, her brow furrowed into a knot. She was dizzy and failed four or five times before she could regain control of her limbs.

“Cheng Ming? Cheng Ming?”

The questioning voice from inside her was like a pulsating variable star, making her feel nauseous.

They were in symbiosis, and they shared consciousness. It was clear that it was not feeling well either.

Cheng Ming could hear its weakness, and her temples throbbed with a sharp pain. She leaned against the bookshelf and panted for a while, slowly recovering. “You’re rejecting me…”

Xiao Ming’s tone was a little listless. “It’s not my subjective intention.”

“…” Cheng Ming rubbed the acupoints on her forehead. “I know.”

It was not a pleasant experience.

But it was also good news. At least it proved that even if she actively cooperated and gave up her authority, it would not be easy for this parasite to devour her brain and occupy her body.

While the impression was still fresh, Cheng Ming forced herself to get up and stumbled out of the study.

Besides the people, she had also glimpsed some numbers on the transparent cover in front of her.

Although she couldn’t see them clearly, she guessed that they were vital signs and dates.

Xiao Ming had no relevant experience, but these scenes were by no means unfamiliar to her—she had been lying in a medical pod.

Her earlier memories had been lost because she was too young, but she remembered that due to the after-effects of her vegetative state, she had been in poor health as a child, getting sick intermittently. When she was in her teens, she had a high fever and was even admitted to the intensive care unit.

She had a particularly deep impression of that time. Her mother had cried in front of her, perhaps worried that they would be separated forever, and had even left a video… when was that?

Turning on the light, Cheng Ming walked into her bedroom, pulled off the dust cover, opened the storage cabinet, and, enduring the dizziness, rummaged through the items.

She didn’t know where the external hard drive with the video was, but she found the photo album.

Because there were only pictures of her in it, not her family, she was even less in the mood to look back on her growth after her parents disappeared, so all these things were sealed away.

Holding the thick stack of commemorative albums, she sat on the edge of the bed and, with a still-weak and trembling hand, flipped through them one by one.

After sneezing for the third time from the dust, she finally found the photo from that time.

She pulled out the laminated photo. The overall environment in the background was very oppressive, black and white. Black instruments, white walls. The childish her was lying in a medical pod, with a respiratory device on her face. Because of the high fever, her cheeks and the skin on her hands and feet were an abnormal red.

There was a date in the lower left corner, 2163.7.16.

Ten years ago.

On the back, there was a small line of scrawled handwriting.

It was Cheng Ran’s handwriting, just four words—”My baby,” with a comma at the end. The last word and the punctuation were a little blurry, as if they had been wet by a drop of water and then quickly wiped away.

She had originally wanted to write something, Cheng Ming didn’t know what. She also didn’t know if she would ever have the chance to know.

The hazy impression and the clear photo merged.

The memories that had been forgotten in the corner slowly revived.

Her being parasitized was indeed related to her mother?

Was it to save her?

Then, why did she give her the red seashell?

Or, could it be that it was for Xiao Ming… was she hinting that Xiao Ming was related to the monster organization?

Countless questions, still like duckweed stirred up by the waves, completely covered the lake, making it impossible to see the bottom.

Her hand holding the photo dropped. She leaned against the headboard, staring blankly into the void, her body trembling slightly, her vision also shaking.

Her eyes seemed to have degenerated into a rough, old lens. Countless psychedelic double images overlapped, and the ceiling was so heavy that it seemed to be about to crash down on her. The whole world was rolling towards her.

Cheng Ming felt more and more suffocated.

For a second, a strong hatred for this parasite welled up in her heart. The disaster of that night five years ago was most likely related to it.

But then she immediately understood that if all this was true, if it had not lied and had no more secrets, it could not be blamed.

It was probably more related to herself.

Even, if the facts were really like this, this monster was actually a relic left to her by her mother… no, it couldn’t be a relic, it wouldn’t be a relic. Cheng Ming tried to breathe deeply, trying to suppress her emotions.

She just, she still didn’t know where to go to see her…

Her retina seemed to be imprinted with the remaining image of her mother. She was swallowed by a huge sadness.

She had given her life once, and a second life, but she couldn’t keep her, and couldn’t find her back.

“Xiao Ming…” she murmured with her eyes open, “do you think Mom and Dad are in danger? Do they need my help? But what should I do?”

Was what she was doing now really meaningful? She was desperately chasing the truth, wanting Cheng Ran to come back. But why was it that the closer she got, the more she found that everything was out of control? If, if the moment she uncovered all the truth, there was no result she wanted, what should she do…

“Sleep,” Xiao Ming said.

The voice entered her ear, and Cheng Ming was slow to react.

“Sleep,” it repeated. Its voice was very light, but it carried an unquestionable determination. “You are very tired, I can feel it.”

Cheng Ming was stunned. She raised her arm to cover her eyes and suddenly felt a strong urge to cry.

She suppressed her trembling breath, and the word “okay” was stuck in her throat. After a moment of silence, she said, “Good night.”

It was the first time she had said good night to it.

The bed was not made, but she didn’t have the energy to be picky. She turned over and lay on her side, curling up like she was back in her mother’s womb. As soon as she closed her eyes, her breathing gradually became steady, and she fell into a deep sleep.

She had even forgotten to take off her clothes. But it was cold after all. The mycelia wandered around, trying to find a blanket to cover her.

It did find one, but pulling it out was another problem. The cabinet door was locked. After several failed attempts, the black, thread-like “nematodes” had to settle for the next best thing. They pulled out a thin sheet from the gap, half rolling up the head and half rolling up the tail, and working together, they gently placed it on her.

…