After Being Parasitized by a Monster 6

Chapter 6: You really are afraid of Qu Ying.

The bathroom light shone with a pale, gray pallor.

In the darkness, the hands of the living room clock slowly ticked towards midnight. The night was dead silent.

Knock, knock, knock—

Suddenly, a series of knocks rang out, sounding particularly jarring in the dead of night. Cheng Ming almost instantly broke out in goosebumps.

Their staring contest was interrupted. She quickly turned her head towards the entryway, grabbed a black trash bag, and swept her arm across the countertop, clearing away any suspicious items.

She didn’t respond immediately, but tiptoed out of the bathroom. A moment later, the knocking sounded a second time.

“Xiao Ming, you’re not asleep yet, are you?”

Through a door and two walls, the woman’s voice was like a faint white mist on a winter’s night, seeping in through the cracks of the door, cool and ethereal.

A familiar voice… but who would call her Xiao Ming?

Cheng Ming realized she was indeed a bit muddled. It must be because the mycelia were occupying her brain.

She cautiously walked over and gripped the doorknob, asking uncertainly, “Who is it?”

Looking through the peephole, the hallway light outlined a hazy figure, tall and slender, with striking features.

“It’s me.”

Qu Ying was standing outside the door.

Compared to the daytime, she had changed her jacket. One hand was tucked into her pocket, while the other held a bulging shopping bag. As if sensing she was being watched, she raised a hand and waved at the peephole, smiling in greeting.

“Sister Yingying… why are you here so late?” Cheng Ming’s heart pounded in her chest. Leaning against the door, she could feel a thin layer of sweat forming on her palm.

“I bought some things and thought I’d drop by to see you. Is it convenient for me to come in?”

It’s not convenient…

Cheng Ming looked down. In the dim light, she saw her own disheveled state. The ends of her hair were still wet, and her hands and feet were covered in tiny cuts and countless freshly healed scars.

She took a deep breath. “Sister Yingying, I just finished showering. Can you wait a moment? I’ll just tidy up in the bathroom.”

Qu Ying replied with a smile, “Alright, I’ll make myself at home then.”

The lights came on.

Ten minutes later, Cheng Ming walked out, wrapped tightly in a long, coral fleece bathrobe.

Qu Ying was sitting in the living room, having picked out the snacks she had brought for Cheng Ming and piled them into a small mountain on the coffee table.

As soon as she saw her, she handed Cheng Ming an ice cream bar, a smile playing on her lips. “Can you eat cold things?”

Sister, who else would treat me like a child… Cheng Ming took it and saw that it was her favorite red date flavor. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Where did you go tonight? I came by at ten, but you weren’t here,” Qu Ying asked casually, her elbow resting on the edge of the sofa.

She came by tonight? Cheng Ming’s heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t let it show on her face.

“Teacher Jiang treated us to dinner. I went out with them,” she explained.

Qu Ying nodded and didn’t press further.

“How did you end up with a fungal infection? Is your experiment that dangerous? Did the institute compensate you?”

She raised her hand, naturally about to touch the top of her fluffy hair.

Cheng Ming subconsciously tilted her head, and the other’s fingertips brushed past the ends of her hair, not making solid contact. After a pause, she met Qu Ying’s dark eyes, and both of them froze.

Qu Ying had indeed come to see her. It had been over two months since they last met. There had been one brief phone call during that time, on the day of Cheng Ming’s surgery.

“Uh…” Cheng Ming coughed, touched her own forehead, and shook her head helplessly. “Probably improper operation. It’s unavoidable in this line of work.”

“What about you, Sister Yingying? Why did you come to the institute today?” she asked, changing the subject to Qu Ying.

“It’s those higher-ups, they’re just inhuman…” At the mention of this, Qu Ying’s expression became hard to describe. She lowered her hand, wanting to reach for a cigarette, but noticing the girl’s straight gaze, she silently retracted her hand and sighed heavily. “Didn’t you have a colleague go missing? I had just gotten some free time and was immediately drafted to help out…”

The two of them chatted for a bit about their recent situations.

Cheng Ming could tell that she was intentionally or unintentionally trying to steer the conversation towards the events of the night before last, but she feigned ignorance and subtly changed the subject.

This conversation was nerve-wracking for Cheng Ming.

It felt like she was back in the interrogation this morning. Every word the other person said seemed to have a hidden meaning, every sentence a silent confrontation… a swirling vortex beneath a calm surface.

Moreover, facing Qu Ying, an acquaintance who most likely held no ill will and was simply concerned for her, and having to use misleading expressions and even lie… the psychological pressure was immense.

Fortunately, it was getting late.

Qu Ying finally stood up, picked up her bag, and showed signs of leaving.

But before she left, she looked at Cheng Ming and said with a smile, “Alright, little one, is there anything else you want to tell your big sister, or anything you need my help with?”

Cheng Ming looked up.

She was sitting on the sofa, bundled up into a small ball in her fluffy pajamas. Qu Ying leaned over slightly. Because of her willow-leaf-shaped eyes, when she looked down, the sharp lines at the corners of her eyes carried a sense of pressure—

—even though she had a friendly smile on her lips.

She seemed to be hinting at something… Meeting those eyes, Cheng Ming’s heart gave a soft thump. It was like a wave crashing, the gentle ocean revealing a dangerous, chilling corner.

“Hmm…” She tilted her head, thought carefully, and then suddenly smiled, her eyebrows curving. “Yes! Could you please help me take out the trash on your way out, Sister Yingying? I want to be lazy~”

Getting vehicles and supplies in and out of the Defense Center wasn’t easy, so daily life inevitably had more restrictions than the outside world. For example, the garbage room was only open for twelve hours on specific days, from eight in the evening to eight the next morning. If you didn’t manage to throw it out that night, you had to get up early the next day.

Qu Ying: “…”

And so, this distinguished guest, on her rare visit, came with a full bag of food and left with a deflated shopping bag containing only a few miscellaneous daily necessities—plus three large bags of trash.

After leaving the apartment, she threw the tied-up trash bags into the bin and stood there for a while, lighting a cigarette.

The ember at her fingertips glowed and faded. The streetlights cast a lonely light on the road. A slight wind picked up, shaking the tree branches and rustling the corners of her clothes.

After a moment, she lowered her eyes, pressed her instant communicator, and connected the signal—

“North Apartment cleared. No issues.”

…

“I can see now, you really are afraid of Qu Ying.”

Lying in bed, Cheng Ming endured a strong wave of dizziness and fatigue, but couldn’t resist mocking a certain Fish-Fungus monster.

It had been cooperative enough. To avoid giving them away, it had done its best to mobilize its remaining strength to heal her exposed wounds. The result was that the overuse of its abilities had brought on a fierce wave of side effects.

Although it sounded a bit nauseating, they were now truly sharing weal and woe… She was sharing its weakness, and it was balancing her pain.

It retorted calmly, “So are you.”

Cheng Ming: “…”

People’s emotions are a bit affected when they’re sick. Cheng Ming’s punch had landed on cotton. Already feeling stifled, she now felt so suffocated she wanted to jump out of bed and beat it up.

Unfortunately, her body was currently as soft as a ball of cotton. Moreover, facing a shameless parasite, unless she resorted to self-harm, she couldn’t hurt it in the slightest.

She could only force herself to close her eyes.

She commanded a certain Fish-Fungus rather unkindly, “Turn off the light!”

No matter what, she had to regain some strength first to deal with what was to come—whether it was arguing or negotiating, whether they would continue their pretense of harmony while being at odds, or… end it.

Right now, both their consciousnesses were equally exhausted. Cheng Ming wasn’t too worried that it would take advantage of her weakness to usurp her body.

The light dimmed.

It seemed that monsters didn’t have concepts like self-esteem. It was used to its host’s bossiness and followed her commands. In any case, it wasn’t a bad thing for it if Cheng Ming was well-rested.

It was strangely laughable. Because of the overly intimate relationship of parasitism, no matter how much they wanted to kill each other, they had no choice but to call a truce after exhaustion and fall asleep, huddled together.

However, just as Cheng Ming’s eyelids closed, they snapped open as if pricked by a needle. She turned her head to look outside.

In that short second, she had broken out in a cold sweat.

In that second, she had felt an intense gaze.

Have you ever seen a Cthulhu-style horror movie? On the floor, on the walls, on the windows, on the ceiling, every flat surface, every protrusion, every crack opens with countless eyes, watching you like a shadow, watching you at all times, watching you everywhere…

This was the terrifying sensation Cheng Ming felt at that moment.

She propped herself up. A strand of hair slithered over her hand, tickling her—her parasitic partner had also sensed the abnormality.

It wasn’t its doing.

Her breathing quickened as she rapidly scanned the room. Her gaze froze as it passed over the line where gray and deep darkness met.

The window was half open.

In the darkness, a small red light flickered in the corner.

She smelled the scent of tobacco, bitter, mixed with a faint hint of mint.

The visitor raised her eyes. Click. A heel ground against the tiled floor. She took a step forward, and the light and shadows on the wall shifted.

The dark brown wallpaper, blended with the lines of the sheer curtain, looked like a giant, blood-dried eye that suddenly blinked—

“Little one, you’ve learned to lie.”