Chapter Sixty-Four: Vanished
When Shengyao tackled the creature, he didn’t realize that his leap had carried him more than ten meters. His mind was wholly focused, replaying the monster’s chosen escape route—avoiding crowds, steering clear of surveillance. It possessed reason—even if only enough to pick a “safe” path. If so, perhaps things might unfold as they had with Liu Yu; even if Tong Bin’s body mutated, there could still be a chance for recovery.
Beneath him, the creature’s rigid body felt as its exterior suggested, reminiscent of an insect’s carapace. Shengyao collided with its chest, yet sensed no heartbeat, no breath—almost as if it lacked both heart and lungs. Even in the impact, he felt no contraction of muscle beneath its shell. What lay beneath that armor was difficult to fathom.
A strange hiss sounded, and a tumultuous wind swept around him.
He released his grip, rolled twice across the ground, and immediately a thunderous crash echoed behind him.
Twisting his head, Shengyao saw the monster’s five heads had split apart. Five necks hung like torn ribbons, fluttering in the air. At the end of each fleshy strand was a small lump, bearing either an eye or an ear. The scattered heads now resembled a peacock’s fanned tail, and before this spread plume, five mouth-only tumors gaped wide, revealing vivid red cavities. There were no tongues, no throats—these open mouths seemed to lead to another world, mere ornamentation, not meant for swallowing or feeding.
Shengyao glanced at the pit in the ground; the cement had been gnawed into a hole. The monster’s throat might be decorative, but its teeth were not. Whether or not it could devour a person, it could certainly kill with ease.
A heaviness settled in his heart.
If not for his instinctive quick reflexes, he would have been bitten clean through. He wondered if the remnants of the doctor’s medicine within his body could revive him after death, as it had with Bai Xiao...
Taking a steady breath and banishing stray thoughts, Shengyao’s gaze on the monster grew more complex—tinged with regret, edged with tension.
Words, it seemed, were useless now...
Whoosh—
The monster’s five mouths lashed out, wind whistling through their attack. Its many eyes and ears swung forward, slow but resolute, encircling Shengyao. The hybrid insect-human body scrambled toward him, limbs flailing.
He retreated several steps, twisting aside to evade the lunging jaws.
Backed against the villa wall, he braced himself, seized the protruding balcony on the second floor, and vaulted over in a graceful arc, landing behind the creature.
His own breath and heartbeat faded from notice; whether the monster had breath or heartbeat no longer mattered.
With unwavering focus, he charged forward and struck the monster’s back with a powerful punch, slamming its oversized body to the ground.
The five mouths hissed in unison, exhaling hoarsely. They lacked any vocal organs—only trembled and gasped, then turned, charging at him anew.
Shengyao’s heart jolted.
He dodged, gritting his teeth, not retreating but pressing in close, landing another blow.
The back shell visibly dented under his fist. The creature’s limbs thrashed, battering the ground in agony, but its mouths, eyes, and ears remained unaffected.
An eye coiled around Shengyao’s arm; a mouth lunged for his thigh.
His arm muscles swelled, and his foot gouged an imprint in the concrete beneath him. Leaning, he gripped the eye, kicked the creature’s body, and hurled it toward the attacking mouth.
Boom!
Dust billowed from the ground.
Shengyao twisted off the neck—or perhaps a fleshy ribbon—coiled about his arm, panting as he stepped back.
Eyes, ears, and mouths floated up again. The body lay motionless, yet the organs hovered, predatory and watchful.
This couldn’t continue...
Sweat beaded at his temple.
He had no time to inspect his swelling muscles, nor notice the bulging veins beneath his skin.
Tendons quivered, blood vessels surfaced, as if power could be seen through his skin.
Clenching his fists, Shengyao scanned his surroundings.
This half of the villa district was finished—lacking only landscaping and lamplight. No suitable tools here. In the distance, he could see a crane, perhaps piled with materials and tools, but possibly housing construction workers.
Yet, the latter seemed unlikely. If workers lived nearby, the crash just now would surely have startled them. But now, Shengyao heard nothing. Even in the other direction, in Kong Yajie’s residential area, all was silent.
Still, the distance was too “far.” The monster was intent on escape; had he not caught it, it would have vanished already. He couldn’t lure it hundreds of meters away for a prolonged battle.
His gaze lifted, landing on the balcony he’d just grabbed.
It was decorated in European style, with ornamental iron railings.
Could he manage it? It was iron, anchored into cement...
Drawing a deep breath, he felt his heartbeat once more. He was distracted, and glimpsed his altered physique.
He hadn’t gone to the gym lately; even at nineteen, when playing soccer and in peak health, he’d never had such powerful muscles. After Bai Xiao’s death, friends had dragged him to sign up for a gym membership, but he’d never trained to this degree.
The monster regained vigor, its dented back inflating like a bellows, stiff limbs lifting its armored body.
Five mouths stirred restlessly, and the slender necks contracted, then shot out like bullets.
Now!
Shengyao, momentarily absent-minded, stepped forward, eyes fixed on the monster, memories flickering: the doctor’s deep blue eyes, the emptied syringe, and all that had happened these past months...
His body seemed blessed with some new strength. His muscles responded before his mind, narrowly evading each attack by the five mouths. He leapt, kicking away eyes and ears that coiled toward him, sprang atop the monster’s hard shell, and with another leap, seized the base of the iron railing on the villa’s second floor balcony.
This time, instead of vaulting, he gripped tight, arms straining, and snapped the iron bar from its anchoring, twisting it free.
He tore off a T-shaped iron rod—the crossbar at the top twisted like braided dough, and the broken end below revealed a sharp point, with a maple-leaf motif in the middle.
Landing just as the mouths, eyes, and ears surged behind him, Shengyao swung the rod. It moved as if guided, sweeping aside the fleshy tumors and slender necks that blocked him.
Eyes were pierced, ears battered, even the largest mouth-bearing tumorous mass was dented and cast to the ground, motionless.
He saw no red blood. The wounded organs bled nothing, as if the monster’s body was empty—lacking heart, lungs, muscle, and veins.
Shengyao didn’t pause. He charged the creature’s body, kicked it into the air—sending it soaring two meters up.
The monster’s limbs flailed midair, its eyes, ears, and mouths regrouped, encircling Shengyao.
He ignored them, left hand gripping the rod’s top, right hand pushing forward—not at the base, but pressing against the maple-leaf ornament.
Both hands strained!
---
The rod scraped past his right hip, stabbing backward.
He felt resistance; the outside of his right hand brushed something hard, smooth, and moist. In that instant, he shifted his right hand forward, joining his left in gripping the rod’s top.
Fist against fist, fist against the braided iron.
His arm muscles no longer swelled, but veins and tendons throbbed beneath the skin; the resistance vanished in a blink.
The rod pierced the monster’s mouth like a knife through tofu, impaling it. Even the maple-leaf ornament punched through the entire fleshy ball, leaving a gaping hole.
No blood flowed.
His right hand touched the monster’s teeth—blood smeared his fingers. But it wasn’t the monster’s blood; within, it had none.
In that flash, Shengyao realized something, but his mind didn’t pursue the thought.
He twisted his arms, reversing his grip, and, with the monster’s mouth impaled, stabbed the rod forward.
The mouth gaped, teeth gnashing as if roaring.
At such close range, Shengyao saw clearly the two rows of human teeth streaked with blood.
He stepped forward, the rod impaling another mouth, not pausing as he pressed onward...
The airborne body fell, blocking his path.
He strode across the cement, ignoring eyes and ears coiling around him, tilting his head to evade snapping jaws, and pressed forward.
His gaze locked onto the monster’s body.
Clang!
The rod’s tip struck something hard.
Grinding, crunching—
The rod bent under pressure, its tip flattened, and the monster’s chest caved.
But Shengyao’s stride was unimpeded.
Pushing against the two mouths, the flailing body, and the eyes and ears tangled on its limbs, he pressed onward.
He accelerated, and in a blink, slammed the monster’s body against the villa wall.
Boom!
He was forced to halt.
Hiss—crackle—
The rod scraped against the monster’s shell.
The monster’s “heads” flailed wildly, as did its limbs, pounding wall and cement. No longer attacking, they twitched reflexively.
Shengyao shoved forward, driving the maple-leaf ornament deep into its torso.
Time seemed to freeze.
All the monster’s limbs and organs ceased movement.
They remained frozen in that instant.
Next moment, they tumbled to the ground.
Patter, patter...
The sound was like rain.
Shengyao gradually unclenched his hands, silently gazing at the monster pinned to the wall.
His expression softened, lips parted as if to speak.
The shape for “Tong” formed on his mouth; his eyes suddenly shifted.
The monster vanished, as if erased by computer effects, leaving only the iron rod embedded in the villa wall.
Shengyao closed his mouth, jaw tight, eyes returning to their earlier focus.
He reached up, yanked the rod from the wall, wiped his fingerprints, tossed it aside, and carefully obliterated his own footprints in the dust.
Only then, expressionless, did Shengyao walk out of the villa district.
---
Inside the TV room, only the faint glow of the projection screen remained. The background showed a lamp-less room, curtains drawn tight, no moonlight penetrating. The screen’s contrast had been adjusted, revealing the silhouette of a figure in the darkness.
He sat at a desk chair, head bowed, chest heaving.
The doctor, wearing AR glasses, reclined on a massage chair, serene and at ease, utterly unlike the figure on the screen.
The doctor’s nails made no sound.
But in the TV room, a faint panting echoed.
The breathing grew louder, until the figure on screen raised a hand to his face.
More precisely, he gripped his own face, fingers digging in, knuckles stark in the darkness.
Within the panting, a voice emerged.
The figure’s lips did not move, but his hoarse voice resounded in the TV room:
“…I was seen…I was seen…I was seen!…”
The voice was tinged with mortal dread, its tone changed from the start.
Shengyao’s face flashed on the screen.
---
Shengyao’s face pressed close, his eyes magnified, their indifferent gaze visible even through the screen. He seemed mechanical, devoid of emotion, intent solely on killing the creature.
Those eyes appeared for a second, then vanished. The screen returned to the original figure.
After a pause, the altered voice spoke again amid the ragged breathing:
“…Didn’t kill him…what now…what should I do next!…”
The figure on screen hunched, body trembling.
Suddenly, a flash of light broke the darkness.
Red neon signage, white lobby.
The monster clinic’s facade replaced the dark room and its occupant.
But the light vanished in a blink.
The screen returned to its former state.
The doctor’s ten nails abruptly sounded together, then, like the clinic’s image, fell silent.
Bang! Crash! Clatter!
The figure on screen leapt up, sweeping everything from the desk.
He braced himself on the table, panting more fiercely.
A few seconds later, the image froze.
The doctor removed his glasses, propping his head with one hand, gazing disinterestedly at the small table beside the massage chair.
A medical file lay open, turned to the last page. Half the page was filled with wild, illegible script—though its casual, hasty strokes conveyed its temperament.
A pen appeared in the doctor’s hand, twirling between his fingers as the nails chattered. Within his deep blue eyes shone a profound, incongruous light.
After a moment, he flicked the pen onto the medical file.
Settling into the massage chair, his back touching the cushion, the projection screen became a small television.
The scene was the monster clinic’s ward.
In one corner, Bai Xiao’s legs could be seen, seated on the bed. Her hands were folded atop her thighs. On her left ring finger, suddenly, dark blue-black markings appeared—like a tattoo, or necrotic muscle, or…a corpse’s livid stain.
The camera dropped, Bai Xiao’s hands moving to the center of the frame. It was as if the camera pressed against her head, and Bai Xiao bowed at that moment.
After a few seconds, Bai Xiao slid her right hand over her left, covering the patch of dark skin.
The doctor’s nails erupted in noisy clamor.
He watched Bai Xiao silently.
Her hands reflected in his deep blue eyes, slowly tightening into fists, veins bulging, knuckles whitening.
The doctor’s mouth split into a grin.
His mouth opened wider and wider, stretching the mask, revealing a grotesquely exaggerated smile.
His ten fingernails grew even louder, filling the dark TV room with their cacophony.
Click.
The TV shut off.
A door appeared in the darkness.
The doctor, with his nails’ laughter and cries, entered the clinic.
He sat behind the desk, drew out the file labeled “Shengyao,” and rapidly filled it with writing.
Wild, energetic script sprawled across the file, like ink paintings, brimming with vitality.
The nails’ clamor rose louder and louder.
No telling how much time passed before the doctor paused, and the nails fell silent.
Bang!
The door burst open.
Not the one the doctor had just entered, but the door leading to the clinic lobby.
Shengyao stood in the doorway, expressionless, his eyes as cold and focused as those that had appeared on the projection screen.
The doctor calmly closed the file, his deep blue eyes turning to Shengyao. “Is there something you need?”
Footsteps echoed from the corridor.
Shengyao stepped inside, closed the door behind him, shutting out the footsteps.
He stared at the doctor, enunciating each word: “That vial of medicine—how do you suppress its side effects?”
The doctor raised his brows.
“If the patient has already become a monster, can they…recover?” Shengyao’s voice lowered. “Like Maomao that day—if someone turns out like that, can they return to normal?”
“When you ask that, who are you thinking of?” The doctor’s deep blue eyes met Shengyao’s.
Pain flickered in Shengyao’s gaze.
He closed his eyes, leaning back against the door.
A single door’s thickness.
On the other side, Bai Xiao stood silently.