After Being Parasitized by a Monster 45

Chapter 45: I accept you.

299th floor of the Biological Research Institute.

This was already the highest place in the Defense Center.

As the height gradually increased, the instability of the building structure would greatly increase. With the current technology, on the premise of safety, a person could only go up to this floor at most.

The 43 floors above were basically for decoration, and at most for storing instruments.

Looking south from the north, the ocean was in front, and the land was behind.

When the weather was clear enough, you could see the very, very distant sea cliff, a hazy and blurry gray and white borderline. As far as the eye could see, there was not a single obstruction.

Not long ago, Cheng Ming had stood on the 250th floor and looked at the sea.

Now, on the 299th floor, a hundred meters higher, a different position, a different time and space.

In the spacious and bright office, in front of a huge glass window, another strange lady was sitting on a swivel chair, with one long leg crossed, her posture elegant and calm, also facing the same direction and looking at the ocean.

There was a small red gadget on her hand, which seemed to be a decoration from somewhere, and she was flipping it over and over.

The view here was good, and the communication conditions were not bad either.

More than a hundred nautical miles away, the ships that had been sent out on a “fishing” mission were returning from East Island, heading for the Lan River Port. This was the shortest straight-line distance between them, and they could finally receive a signal.

It was just a pity that the earth was an ellipsoid, and even at a height of a thousand meters, one could not see the other side of the arc.

The view was empty, with only the vast sea level wrinkling and flattening lonely.

“Why did you walk into the trap? What are you planning to do?” she asked. “Did you leave your daughter behind?”

This question, according to their biological habits, was actually asking, are you prepared to sacrifice yourself?

…

“Then why don’t you do me a favor? I’ll choose a time for you,” she leaned back leisurely and continued, “When it comes to understanding the Defense Center, you can’t compare to me.”

…

“Not this month, she’s not ready yet.”

…

“Don’t get excited,” the other side said something, and pop, a sudden noise exploded in her ear. She let out a low laugh and advised.

To avoid further damage to her ears, she moved the communication device a little further away.

The sound of the waves overlapped, and there was no human voice in the receiver, but an indescribable sound came out—

Like a whale in the deep sea exhaling bubbles, accompanied by a long and distant whale song, sometimes slow and sometimes fast. At first, it was impassioned, like an urgent question, and even mixed with anger, but in the end, it all turned into a sad aria.

A very complex sound that could not be understood by the human language system.

If it had to be translated into human language, to put it simply, it was probably—

“Are you paving the way for her? Do you treat her as your daughter?”

“We are your people.”

“Leader.”

Click.

Chu Lanying lowered her head, and the small gadget rolled out from her fingertips and fell to the ground, spinning—

A round seashell the size of a fingernail.

…

187th floor of the North Building.

After a day’s work, the other members had already gotten off work. Cheng Ming stayed in her independent office, silently looking at the comparison results.

She leaned back against the chair, her fingers lightly tapping on her chest, unconsciously touching the slightly protruding hard object under her clothes.

The important basis for bioinformatics analysis was the complete gene data that she had secretly copied from the electronic database, using the convenience of her current position. Sequencing, sequence comparison, and constructing a phylogenetic tree… after a series of procedures, she could intuitively see the similarity between her own genetic information and that of existing organisms.

The result was a tripartite division.

There was her normal human genome, and there were fragments that were highly consistent with the Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus.

As for the DNA of the third species that was matched, it was not named in the research institute’s own gene bank, but only had a simple abbreviation—MM.

She was not puzzled for long. Thinking of the fact that the Security Department and the research institute actually shared resources and information, she soon guessed that this was the creature that had been codenamed “Jiao” by the Security Department.

That is, the abbreviation of mermaid.

The first time she had gotten such a result, Cheng Ming had thought that the extraction was not pure enough and that her own cells had been mixed in.

So for the next two weeks, she had changed her strategy whenever she had the chance. She had not followed the parasite’s advice, but had collected cells from multiple places such as hair follicles, blood, and oral mucosa. She also hadn’t used conventional technical means, but had explored single-cell sequencing on her own, doing her best to eliminate interference. She had re-pretreated, changed the algorithm, and adjusted the parameters…

The result still did not change.

This was the fact.

They could not be separated.

Every part was it.

She was also it.

What kind of fusion monster was she, to be able to achieve this level of genetic recombination?

The reality was so absurd that it was beyond human understanding. Cheng Ming felt a little like laughing.

And a little like vomiting.

No wonder the fish monster that had parasitized the mutated planula larva had only swallowed a single spore of Xiao Ming, but had replicated her appearance. The idea of genetic fusion had only been a fleeting thought, but who would have thought that it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The muscles in her stomach were churning and spasming, and an indescribable feeling of nausea spread to her internal organs. Every cell began to burn.

She was really gestating a monster.

Her whole body was a huge incubator.

Xiao Ming had been quiet for a long time. From the beginning of her abnormality, it had been watching her small emotional fluctuations, and now it was becoming more and more broken, so much so that it had an uncomfortable physiological reaction.

“Can’t you accept it?”

Compared to her, the parasite was much calmer about this result, and its voice was also much colder than usual. “I thought you were already used to me.”

It had learned how to comfort its host, but it didn’t know how to reasonably express its own sadness and grievance.

And so when it spoke, it was self-mockery, sarcasm, and even a hint of a twisted and cruel joke.

The inhuman feeling of a lack of empathy, if not careful, could turn into a mutual attack.

“That’s a different matter,” Cheng Ming said.

She stared at the computer screen, and the faint light was quietly reflected in her pupils.

The crisscrossing branches on the white background, the cold, objective, and rational black lines with different meanings, extended the network of life, the length of a species… like a mother seeing her pregnancy test for the first time, facing the impact so directly for the first time.

Accepting a monster, and accepting that she had been transformed into a monster from the inside out, were two different things.

Cheng Ming couldn’t help but think of an extreme fact—

Even if its spiritual existence could be erased by death, as long as she was still alive, or to be more cruel, as long as her physiological functions still existed, as long as her genes were still replicating and transcribing, it could be reborn through her body.

“You’re more terrifying than nuclear radiation, you know that?” she said.

The most direct harm of nuclear radiation was to damage DNA, affecting the process of gene replication and gene expression. The organism could not carry out normal cell replacement, so on the surface, one could see a living individual’s flesh and blood irreversibly rotting and melting after being exposed to radiation. Most would quickly die from infection after the barrier was damaged.

The most long-term harm was that it would cause genetic mutations, which was what was seen now, all kinds of bizarre monster forms.

And it was a parasite, a parasite that was even more unreasonable than a virus.

It not only cut off the host’s DNA, but also inserted its own genes into the host’s genome, and there was no way to separate them. From then on, it would follow the host for life.

If the host continued to reproduce, then every generation would carry a part of it.

Cheng Ming looked at her own blurry silhouette. She looked so much like a human, who would have thought that on a biological level, she could no longer be classified as a human.

She grabbed the seashell pendant on her chest, her forearm muscles tensed, and she closed her eyes, her breathing gradually becoming heavy.

If everything was really directed by Cheng Ran, then, had she anticipated such a result?

Or, was this the result she wanted?

Even if it was to save her, what mother would turn her daughter into such a monster?

Was she really not treated as an experimental subject by Cheng Ran?

“Do you want to kill me?” Xiao Ming asked.

“…No,” she slowly opened her eyes.

“Hate me?”

“…No.”

“Then why is it so hard to accept?”

Cheng Ming was silent for a longer time this time.

One thing she had always avoided and had not thought about carefully was that her current state was actually infinitely close to a “perfect product” like Qu Ying—

She had the abilities of a monster, and also a clear self-awareness, in layman’s terms, she had “humanity.”

The only difference was that Qu Ying’s mind was stable and normal, while in her body, there was another living consciousness, a consciousness that belonged to a monster.

It could even fight with her for control of her body and interfere with her actions.

She should ask Qu Ying how she had become like this. But when her fingers pressed on the input key, she hesitated. She didn’t dare, and the other would probably not be willing to talk about it.

But she could almost guess that it had something to do with Cheng Ran.

She couldn’t suspect her mother…

She had secretly recited this sentence in her heart thousands of times, as if she could build a high wall of defense. But at this moment, facing the increasingly devouring and toothless reality, she was still defeated.

Finally, she said, “I’m scared.”

The computer had been idle for too long and had turned dark. The dark screen reflected her shadow, and they looked at each other, like a tunnel through another world, chaotic and unknowable.

Cheng Ming laughed softly, her tears hidden in the dimness. “Look at you, you can understand me, you want to understand me, but you can never truly understand me.”

These three “understand,” each had a different meaning.

And so, after she had finished speaking, she remembered that it might not even be able to understand this human language very well, and she couldn’t help but laugh with more contempt and mockery.

In the reflection of the dark screen, strands of mycelia climbed on her shoulders, like overgrown thorns piercing under the white lab coat. The monster with an indistinct face showed its fangs and gnawed at her illusory body, inch by inch.

She felt her own intention to retreat.

Teacher Jiang was right.

What was so important about the truth? Cheng Ran was no longer here, and she was still alive and well. She should continue to live with the love of her relatives, regardless of whether that love was pure enough.

But perhaps, this was the nature of a researcher.

When an unsolved mystery was in front of her, and the answer was within reach, she would persuade herself to stay put, but she would also move forward step by step.

Regardless of whether the front was a victorious end or an abyss.

“I didn’t want to,” Xiao Ming said softly. “I couldn’t decide my origin, I couldn’t decide my form of existence, I couldn’t decide whether to use you as a host… and I couldn’t decide to make you not afraid of me.”

This time, it controlled its tone and finally expressed its grievance clearly.

They were both ignorant babies, suddenly pulled into each other’s lives, stumbling and entangling, wary, and tentatively trusting, fumbling for a way to coexist.

Cheng Ming sat quietly for a long time and sighed.

“That’s right, so don’t be sad,” she rested her elbow on the armrest, tilted her head, and gently caressed the outline of her own cheek, as if she were caressing an invisible lover. Her voice was very low, but very clear. “I accept you.”

I accept myself.