Chapter 21: Let me see your memories. p2
It was indeed easy to get emotional at night.
The next morning, Cheng Ming felt much better.
She sat up and rubbed her numb shoulder. The sheet and mycelia slid off her. Seeing the golden sunlight on the bed, her heart suddenly felt like a mirror that had been brushed by a gentle breeze.
She was one step closer to the truth, which was something to celebrate.
Except for the still-aching back of her head…
She touched the swollen lump and hissed, “Why hasn’t it healed?”
Xiao Ming was also a little surprised. “Theoretically, it should have healed in three or four hours at most… You were in a bad mood last night, which affected your immune system.”
That is to say, her body’s self-healing ability was too busy healing her neurons, so this insignificant little bruise was naturally delayed.
Really… Cheng Ming had no choice but to get out of bed with the lump.
Remembering her to-do list, she first went to the master bedroom’s bathroom.
The door was properly closed. After removing the sealing tape, she was still thinking as she pulled the door open. If the bathtub was still full, did it mean that the thing had been in the bathroom all along and had never left, or did it mean that the other party was more terrifying, ignoring physical barriers…
Fortunately, these worries did not become a reality. The glass door opened, and the floor tiles were clean, with nothing unusual.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Cheng Ming closed the door and returned to her room to pack.
Her bedroom and bathroom were separated by a cloakroom and a short corridor. Just as she subconsciously walked in, her footsteps suddenly stopped.
She turned around, and the half-open glass door reflected her shadow.
There was nothing unusual in the master bedroom, because this time, the problem was with her own bathroom—
A few meters away, half a bathtub of water was quietly sitting in an unmanned corner.
But because she hadn’t used the bathroom last night, she wasn’t even sure when it had been filled.
Cheng Ming stood there for a while.
Finally, she walked in as if nothing had happened, turned off the dripping faucet, drained the water from the bathtub, and then turned around and grabbed the tape, first going to reseal the master bedroom’s bathroom.
Returning again, she brought her toiletries and cleaned herself up.
During this process, she propped up her phone on the corner of the closed storage cabinet in the sink, connected the data cable to avoid running out of power halfway, and turned on the recording mode.
Then she continued to work in the study.
It took another whole day.
She didn’t find much useful information in the remaining things.
At most, she found that there was actually nothing in the box that seemed to be radioactive.
At the quarantine line, the staff had said that something was in a Class C contaminated state… was the real situation because “it” was in her car?
Moreover, before she left yesterday, the bathtub in the apartment building had also been filled with water. From this, it could be seen that the other party had probably followed her from the Defense Center to here.
Belatedly, Cheng Ming got goosebumps all over her back.
She was definitely being haunted by something.
Had it slipped ashore from the sea during the last monster riot? But why was it only following her, and why now?
A coincidence, or was it related to the purpose of her trip?
She was in no mood to do anything else. Cheng Ming packed up her documents and quietly walked towards the bedroom bathroom to check the results.
She was not disappointed. As soon as she got close, the sound of rushing water came out, and the bathroom was being filled with water again.
The door opened and then closed. Cheng Ming carefully observed the environment. There was nothing else. She walked over and turned off the switch.
When she picked up her phone, she was even a little reluctant to press play, feeling a little nervous like before watching a horror movie.
She set the speed to the maximum. The electronic equipment specially provided by the Defense Center had very clear picture quality.
The camera was facing the glass shower room. At first, everything was calm.
When the progress bar reached the second half, the scene changed.
She was standing by the sink, and she saw the faucet being turned on, she saw the clear water flowing out, she saw the water splashing in the bathtub, and the ripples spreading… but she never saw what caused all this.
It really was a horror movie.
Watching it made her hands and feet turn cold.
So, where was “it” now?
Cheng Ming glanced at the flat-opening glass door.
It probably hadn’t gone out in such a short time, so was it watching her from some corner? Or perhaps, was it right next to her, right behind her?
…
“Xiao Ming, how large an area can your mycelia cover now?” Cheng Ming turned sideways to look at the mirror and asked in a low voice.
It immediately understood what she meant.
“Let’s find out.”
And so, the hair that she had tied up to work broke the rubber band. The image of the neat young woman in the flat mirror suddenly turned into a long-haired female ghost, her dark hair flying.
Countless mycelia gushed out, like a black sea pouring onto the land with her as the center, passing over her ankles, submerging every floor tile, and outlining the contours of all the obstacles in its path.
Table legs, cabinet doors, bottles and jars, walls, mirrors, metal shelves…
Under the cover of the mycelia, all solid objects had nowhere to hide.
Like a black curtain being pulled across the top, bottom, left, and right, it finally slowly stopped after encountering the white ceiling light above her head. Without Xiao Ming having to say anything, Cheng Ming understood that something was wrong with that area.
There really was something!
The mycelial curtain was airtight, and it bulged, wrapping around something, shaking slightly.
“It’s transparent, and very light.”
Xiao Ming pushed it, and the other thing moved. It was like a balloon floating in the air, with no special life reaction.
Most of the mycelia had already retracted, and only a single strand was left, pulling the thing back and forth, having a great time.
“Wait a minute,” Cheng Ming stopped it.
She fumbled on the shelf next to her and found a bottle of bamboo charcoal facial cleanser that she hadn’t finished using a long time ago.
She unscrewed the cap, mixed it with water, and had Xiao Ming pull the thing down. Using the mycelia to locate it, she tilted the bottle and slowly poured it on.
The unknown creature that had been bothering her for two nights finally revealed its true face.
The black particles adhered to its surface, like spray paint, outlining the thing’s contours.
It was less than half a fist in size, with a smooth, teardrop-like oval shape. The fine cilia on its surface trembled slightly. Even under the stimulation of the chemicals in the facial cleanser, it did not struggle violently, but just shook and shed a few drops of water, like a fur ball for a cat to play with.
This, what kind of animal is this?
Cheng Ming was stunned.
…
Fear stems from the unknown.
She took a picture and used image recognition.
No results.
Cheng Ming gave up searching and put her phone back in her pocket.
Watching the little monster, which was no longer being pulled by the mycelia, perform how it turned on the faucet and took a bath, she didn’t feel much fear anymore, just found it absurd.
It would become transparent again after being washed with water. Cheng Ming pressed the switch and had Xiao Ming pull it out.
Looking at it this way, it looked more like a sea urchin, but its “body” was obviously very soft, and it floated in the air as if it were floating in water.
She couldn’t even tell what it was, so she naturally couldn’t count on Xiao Ming.
The mycelia poked at the other’s cilia from time to time, treating it like a toy.
“You don’t want to eat it?” she asked Xiao Ming.
“It doesn’t smell like anything.” In short, it wasn’t tasty. Xiao Ming was picky. “But if you want, I can force myself to eat it.”
It seemed to have no aggression, and it hadn’t hurt her all this time, just silently wasting her water… Cheng Ming thought for a while and asked:
“Can your conidia parasitize it?”
To be on the safe side, it was better not to eat it randomly.
A strand of mycelia with a swollen tip extended out, reached for the “sea urchin,” and wrapped around it. The cilia’s movement accelerated.
Cheng Ming’s heart was in her throat. She was worried that such stimulation might cause some changes, but in the end, everything was calm. Nothing happened.
“Yes,” Xiao Ming concluded. “But it has a gelatinous cavity inside, no internal organs, no cranial nerves.”
Diploblastic? A very primitive life form.
It didn’t even have a brain, yet it could turn on and off the faucet by instinct… Mutated creatures were full of surprises.
Cheng Ming pondered for a moment and cautiously made a decision, “Let’s take it alive. You monitor its movements.”
She wouldn’t try anything blindly without being sure she could kill it. She turned to pack up the house.
The holiday was over, and tomorrow was a workday. She had to go back.
She sent a message to Qu Ying, wanting to meet her to confirm what had happened back then, and also to let her see this uninvited monster.
If necessary, she would just hand it over to the Security Department.
When she came, the trunk was full of old things. When she left, her hands were empty.
The water and electricity were cut off, and the gate was closed. Cheng Ming looked back one last time. The orange glow of the sunset clouds condensed into a tiny dot on the roof, and the wind blew the leaves in the courtyard, as if they were waving at her.
She turned her head and walked down to the garage alone.
“Is it here?” Entering the driver’s seat, she confirmed the new member’s situation with Xiao Ming.
Worried that it would float in the air if she didn’t watch it, she had let it wash itself clean. At least being transparent wouldn’t scare people.
“It’s in the car.”
After confirming its location, she had Xiao Ming cover it with a wet towel and press it down in the cardboard box. Then she started the engine and drove away from the talent community.
The car drove onto the main road.
The sun was setting, and the coastal buildings became fewer and fewer, giving a real sense of the “vast and boundless” primitive landscape. In the farewell of the sunset, it merged into the sparse traffic and drove towards the row of beasts that stood tall and guarded the coast in the distance.
There was still an inspection at the entrance.
But this time, it seemed to be far less strict than before. The speed of passing through was so fast that Cheng Ming was surprised. She had deliberately brought the box with her to deal with the inspection, but they didn’t even check the radiation level on her way back?
The wilderness ended, and the shadow of the Defense Center annihilated the sunset.
The car drove into the research institute’s underground garage and stopped.
She didn’t know if Jiang Dexin was still working overtime at this point. After all, she had used her car, so Cheng Ming first called her to report the situation, saying that she would bring the key to her office tomorrow morning.
After hanging up the phone, she was about to open the trunk when a voice suddenly sounded, “Cheng Ming, it’s gone.”
Click. The lock popped open, and Cheng Ming froze.
The linear light above cast a cold, faint glow. The lid of the cardboard box was ajar, and it was empty inside.
The contents had vanished into thin air.
…
