After Being Parasitized by a Monster 88

Chapter 88: She simply couldn’t resist her mother.

Things were completely out of control.

Fear choked her throat, and Cheng Ming tried to open her mouth, but she could barely make a sound.

Unable to seek answers from the outside, she could only shout and question in her mind, out of a bewildered panic, out of the anger of being betrayed, or out of a sense of grievance and sadness—

What did you promise her? What did you hide from me?

Are you deceiving me again?

Xiao Ming did not respond.

It did not respond to Chu Lanying, nor did it respond to Cheng Ming.

It was unclear if it was out of guilt, or if it was hesitating.

This scene was too absurd, and also too crazy. She actually didn’t believe that Xiao Ming would subjectively want to harm her, but the last time a similar situation had occurred, it had concealed the truth of that night in ’68, in the name of protecting her… a protective shield could also become a murderer that caused suffocation.

This time, what was she going to face?

Xiao Ming was silent.

And so Chu Lanying seemed a little regretful, and also smiled as if she had expected it. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

She didn’t know on what basis she had made the judgment, but Cheng Ming could clearly see her take out a syringe from her pocket.

In the transparent packaging, the light blue medicinal liquid was faintly dyed with a psychedelic color. The ingredients were unknown, but it was definitely not something harmless. A sense of danger exploded in her mind, and in an instant, it had permeated her entire cerebral cortex.

The second she had approached, Cheng Ming had immediately turned her head to dodge, and with a flip, thump! she had fallen from a platform that was at least a meter high. The pain had spread from her nerve endings, and her body had involuntarily curled up. There should have been a more gentle way, but she was still exhausted, and she was used to relying on Xiao Ming in a crisis. She had not adjusted in time, and had fallen on the cold, metal floor, and had gasped in pain.

Not accepting her monster side, and not completely controlling her own power, was equivalent to offering her neck to be slaughtered. One day, she would have to face this situation of being at the mercy of others.

It was a pity that the mycelia were not under her control, otherwise she would have really wanted to try if the conidia could parasitize this so-called “mother.”

Straightening her body, Cheng Ming stared at the woman in front of her, her breathing rapid, her gaze wary, a posture of vigilance and full of aggression.

However, she was too weak. Almost all her energy had been spent on giving birth. Not to mention attacking, even defending was not easy.

How had the other chosen this time, and how had she managed to take advantage of her weakness so precisely? And the thing she had given birth to, had it also been taken away by this person in front of her?

Cheng Ming’s thoughts were in a mess. The more she thought, the tighter she bit her lips. Besides fear, the sound of her chest was rising and falling, and the surging blood was like a waterfall hitting a rock, making her head swell and her ears ring, but her consciousness was clearer than ever.

Perhaps she was approaching the final truth.

Her birth, was it under the instigation of this person? When Cheng Ran had stolen her back then, was at least one of the purposes to let her stay away from this person?

Cheng Ran wanted her human side, while Chu Lanying wanted “it,” a monster that didn’t need to have any humanity at all. This silent confrontation that spanned time and space was a great drama. Everyone was playing a symphony in their own position, and it was impossible to tell the true from the false, the good from the evil.

Only Cheng Ming, who was forced to participate, really wanted to report them.

Such a forefront that controlled the future of mankind was so infiltrated by monsters that she suddenly felt that the Defense Center was not like a defense line built to resist ocean pollution, but more like a breeding farm specially left for monsters. She was also in it, and she didn’t know if she was the breeder, the feed, or the monster that was being fed.

Chu Lanying approached, and the pearl earrings in her hair brushed past a pale white arc of light. The four silver mirrors, a faint bit of light could make this place as bright as day.

Cheng Ming couldn’t see her expression clearly. She only took a step back, and her back hit something cold and hard. She turned her head and saw herself in the mirror.

Her “hair” was completely scattered, and the length that had assisted in the production had not been retracted in time. When she was sitting curled up, it had just been spread on the ground, and had accumulated into a deep black pool, which made her, who had changed into a white cotton pajama at some point, look even paler, like a layer of foam that had been lapped and stacked in a pool.

It turned out that this room was not as big as it looked, it was just an illusion brought by the mirror.

The depth was stretched, as if there were an infinite space, but in reality, it was just a small cage, and she was a bird that could not spread its wings in the cage.

“It seems you don’t want me to do it?” The target was right in front of her, and there was no way to retreat. It was a very convenient angle to strike, but Chu Lanying had stopped.

Looking at her, she said to her in a gentle tone like a hospice care worker, “Then let’s have someone else do it.”

Cheng Ming didn’t understand what she was saying. She only saw her lightly tap a button on the platform by her hand.

A line of light burst out from the nearest side. Cheng Ming followed the trace in a daze and saw that the texture of the “mirror” on her side had changed from smooth to rough, like a large screen made of PCB circuit boards. The wall had changed.

The picture was intertwined with light and dark, and a gap appeared. The wall had become a double-leaf door, and the gap had widened until it was completely opened.

A person walked in, and the halo was hazy, from blurry to clear.

Chu Lanying handed the unknown medicine in her hand to her.

Yes, her. That was a woman.

She was wearing a snow-white lab coat, a mask, and her hair was coiled at the back of her head.

A figure that she could never have imagined.

Cheng Ming was stunned.

As if she were afraid that the impact was not enough, the other took the thing and walked towards her. As she walked, she raised her hand and pinched the ear loop on one side, and unhurriedly, she took off the mask.

The waterproof non-woven fabric was peeled off, and in the dim light, her skin was so white that it was cold. A face that was so familiar that it made her terrified was revealed. It was—

Cheng Ran.

The scene that she had been thinking of for many years had come so abruptly, like an unreasonable and bizarre dream.

She was in a daze and couldn’t come back to her senses until the other had brought a desolate and cold air to her and had lowered her head.

She was so close, so close to her, so close that she didn’t dare to breathe, for fear of blowing her away.

“Mom…” Cheng Ming’s eyes were wide open, and she called out to her in a trembling, low voice. The whole world seemed to be about to collapse with this trembling voice.

They had met again, separated by two lives and deaths, and seven years of time.

But compared to Cheng Ming’s fierce physiological reaction, Cheng Ran’s expression was very light. A cold silver light flashed between her fingers, and she was holding a syringe.

Chu Lanying was standing not far from the two of them, with a faint and even leisurely smile, watching this scene of mother and daughter killing each other.

She wanted to keep Xiao Ming, so she had tried every means to annihilate her consciousness. But why was Cheng Ran on her side?

Cheng Ming didn’t understand.

She couldn’t think anymore. Her eyes were more dazed than pained. Perhaps before the too-intense pain had come, her body’s self-preservation mechanism had been awakened, and the part of her brain that felt pain had gone numb and had lost consciousness first.

Was it because I killed you once, and you hate me?

Creating me, was it just for your project?

Am I… your daughter?

Cheng Ran did not respond to her questions or calls. A hand fell on her shoulder, and the tip of the needle was steadily pressed against her carotid artery.

Cheng Ming was trembling, not because of the sharp needle, but because of this person’s hand.

Sixteen years of kindness and nurturing had collapsed in one night.

The image of this person in front of her was too different from the past. She even began to doubt if her memories were false.

Did she really have a mother?

Her mother was fake, and her lover was an enemy.

She had nothing.

She should have struggled, she should have resisted, but the moment Cheng Ran had pressed on her, she was like she had regressed to her infancy. That slender hand was like a mountain pressing on her.

A child’s perception was too narrow and too pure. She only had her in her eyes, and her whole world was only her.

She simply couldn’t resist her mother.

However, before the sharp needle could pierce her skin, a wisp of black that was close at hand suddenly rose up and wrapped around the dangerous weapon.

Cheng Ran’s gray-brown pupils turned slightly and looked over.

What was blocking her was the mycelia.

Cheng Ming felt a lingering, tingling itch and was stunned.

Xiao Ming was going to save her.

At a critical moment, her other side, the consciousness that belonged to the Fish-Fungus monster, had appeared.

She had nothing, and in the end, the only thing she could have was herself.

“Cheng Ming… Cheng Ming, she’s not Cheng Ran,” Xiao Ming seemed to have just woken up, and the neural pulse it transmitted to her was very weak, but very firm. “She’s not.”

First it was a trickle, and then, like a bursting flood, a terrifying message that was like the sky and the earth cracking.

It said, “She’s been parasitized. You’ve seen it, the corpse that was parasitized by a fish egg.”

—A corpse.

This word slid through her mind in a daze.

Her facial muscles were stiff, and she opened her mouth slightly, unable to speak.

She had clearly sensed something a long time ago, but at this moment, when it had said it out loud, it was still so painful that her liver and heart were as if they had been split. Her heart was hitting her chest, thump, thump, tearing at her muscles, and scraping at her bones, making her liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys all be mashed into a juice, so bitter.

Her internal organs were all broken. So this was the taste.

While Xiao Ming was still saying something, perhaps it was a comfort, perhaps it was an apology, Cheng Ming’s whole body could not stop trembling. At first, she was panting very hard, as if a lung cancer patient had been deprived of oxygen, and was breathing with all her might.

But a few seconds later, everything disappeared again.

She had thought that she had accepted the reality and had returned to calm, but it was actually the calm of a devastated landscape after a hurricane had plowed through it. The string that had been stretched to its limit had broken.

Looking at Cheng Ran again, her pupils were swaying and reflecting the face that she had been dreaming of, but her visual nerves had failed, and she could not receive any images. And so, Cheng Ming could even clearly begin to think about the reason—

There was a sense between the same kind of mermaids, whether it was with the egg that had parasitized Cheng Ran, or with the equally parasitized Chu Lanying.

It had sensed these a long time ago, and had realized the truth, but it had not told her immediately.

“Why didn’t you say it earlier?” she asked it. “Why this time?”

It was a scene that was almost identical to a year ago. The only difference was that this time, she had no strength to mock it.

She couldn’t raise the corners of her lips, and she let her facial features be placed loosely and casually, and asked it with a blank expression, “Is it still for my own good?”

“…”

A neural message could be exchanged a million times in a second, so, judged by the dimension of brain signal transmission, Xiao Ming had been silent for too long.

“She said she could let me leave the land with you,” it said very lightly, very weakly. “I want to be with you forever. Only me and you.”

Along with this sentence, what was transmitted at the same time was a nebula-like, mottled, and abstractly changing, some of the images it had hidden in the past.

This “her,” not surprisingly, referred to Chu Lanying.

The conidium that they had hidden in the Jiao egg under Redstone Bay, but had never been heard from again, had been obtained by Chu Lanying.

And, it had been cultivated into a mycelium.

A spore mycelium could feel the fluctuations, but it lacked senses, and it was not intuitive. For Cheng Ming, who was used to perceiving the world with her five senses, that information was almost unreadable, so she had missed a lot.

But Xiao Ming could.

What’s more, mermaids could communicate through sound waves that were beyond the perception of the human ear.

From the moment the spore had fallen into the other’s hands, her and its communication and negotiation had also begun.

Sometimes, many of Cheng Ming’s thoughts, who knew if they were issued by her individual consciousness, or if they were influenced by Xiao Ming’s subtle guidance.

The calm and false was as thin as a sheet of glutinous rice paper. As long as a drop of water fell on it, it would gradually, gradually melt from that point, and would melt into a rotten, mixed, and thick mass, and could never be restored.

What had dissolved her calm here was a drop of tear.

“Xiao Ming—” Cheng Ming opened her mouth with difficulty, and her throat was as if it had been ground by sand and was bleeding. She had a mouthful of iron and rust, and she didn’t know if she wanted to cry or to curse.

She should have noticed it earlier.

Although the body was also its, except for the initial, ignorant, and instinctive rejection of the existence of another consciousness, until later, until everything was clear, it had never asked for the body again.

It did not have the need to master the body to establish a connection with the outside world. Like a real parasite, it patiently and comfortably hid in the depths of her body, and was only willing to communicate with her, and only cared about her feelings. It was not so much that it was not good at socializing, as it was that it disdained socializing.

She couldn’t look at it with the eyes of a human.

Its self-awareness was non-human, and it was not of any ethnic group.

She should have been the same, but she had been pulled into the human world by Cheng Ran and had been cultivated into a “human” who craved human recognition, and like all daughters, she had craved her mother’s praise and her mother’s favor. She had personally fostered a root sprout for her and deeply planted it in this land.

So, when her mother had left, she had become a broken-stemmed duckweed.

Where to go and where to end? She didn’t know.

And unlike her, Xiao Ming had never felt lonely. Because it had her, it had always had, and only had her. This was a point that it was extremely sure of and was satisfied with.

What a pure monster nature.

The monster she hated and loved deeply.

“Xiao Ming,” it was clear that Chu Lanying had also discovered that Xiao Ming had woken up. She sighed helplessly and shook her head. “Do you really not want to have a body of your own? You don’t have to be held back by her, and you can go wherever you want…”

Cheng Ming looked up at her, and Xiao Ming briefly used the human vocal system and said concisely, “Liar, get lost!”

Facing her “daughter’s” impolite and rude reprimand, Chu Lanying sighed again, “I didn’t lie to you. I’m doing this for your own good.”

What a classic and abnormal way of speaking.

She was clearly not a pure human, but she understood human habits better than humans.

This scene was so ridiculous that Cheng Ming curled her lips into a strange smile.

She should have felt pain. Her mother had loved her, but her mother was already dead. Her lover loved her, but her lover’s beliefs were at odds with hers.

But now she really had a kind of numbness that was greater than the sadness of death.

“Xiao Ming, you’re still more obedient when you’re asleep,” Chu Lanying’s patience had run out.

The other “mirror” had also disappeared, and the wall was like a curtain that was slowly being pulled open, revealing a transparent glass tank.

In the faint blue solution, a dark, filamentous seaweed was swaying—no, it was a mycelium that had developed from a conidium.

She walked out and lightly tapped on the facility on the wall of the tank. The button switch was under stress, and a faint, brown liquid popped out, like a wisp of smoke, and was injected into the sealed tank.

The spore body and the main body were connected.

Cheng Ming’s gaze followed the other. After a flash of insight, she understood what she wanted to do, but it was already too late to stop her.