Chapter 76: Mutual Destruction
The forceful words hung in the air, the room falling silent, only the soft sound of snow melting outside, under the pale sunlight.
Xiang Er, having spoken, felt a sense of grim satisfaction. She knew the words would enrage the Evil God, and that was her intention, she wanted it to kill her.
She would live with dignity, or die with dignity, she wouldn’t be a pathetic, deceived plaything!
Her hatred was unconcealed, a burning fire in her eyes. If looks could kill, the creature before her would have been dismembered, its bones crushed, its skin flayed, its body ground to dust!
And yet… under the weight of her hateful gaze…
The creature, its beautiful face contorted, slowly smiled, a look of surprised delight, and then… it burst into tears!
Tears, clear and crystalline, streamed down its face, like a child who had received the sweetest candy, its lips curved upwards, the tears mixing with a strange, complex expression.
Almost… human.
Xiang Er turned away in disgust, unable to bear the sight of that meticulously crafted, deceptive human facade, preferring the grotesque tentacles and eyeballs, the honest grotesqueness of its true form.
The creature, its voice sweet and loving, spoke:
“You’re looking at me… you’re finally looking at me! You’re talking to me, you’re talking to me, wuwuwu… you’re talking to me!”
It seemed not to care about the content of her words, only that she was looking at it, speaking to it.
Xiang Er regretted even acknowledging its presence.
The creature, Akhe, lifted its delicate, white hands and gently touched Xiang Er’s:
“If you want… you can kill me.”
Xiang Er ignored it, pulling her hand away.
Akhe produced a beautiful, ornate dagger, its blade sharp and gleaming, and offered it to Xiang Er with a gesture of humble devotion.
Xiang Er took the dagger and examined it. It was antique, inlaid with rubies and sapphires, its blade sharp and cold.
She held the dagger.
Akhe lay down on the bed, tilting her head back, exposing the vulnerable artery in her neck, her gaze fixed on Xiang Er’s hand, filled with anticipation.
Her voice, seductive and alluring, whispered:
“Kill me, kill me.”
Xiang Er held the dagger, her hand steady, her mind clear, she knew what she had to do.
She smiled, and with a swift motion, plunged the dagger downwards!
And yet… it wouldn’t penetrate.
The blade rested against her own neck, unable to even touch her skin, a layer of swirling, black slime protecting her.
The dagger, embedded in the slime, was stuck.
Akhe turned her head, her expression a mixture of disappointment and sadness:
“You won’t even kill me… why do you always want to kill yourself? It’s my fault, kill me, kill me… I’m in so much pain, so much pain…”
Her voice trailed off, fading into silence, tears of blood dripping from her eyes, staining the sheets.
She lifted her head, the two trails of blood a stark contrast against her skin, and pleaded, her voice broken:
“Please don’t hurt yourself anymore, okay? Seeing you hurt yourself, it hurts me, my… my true form hurts so much.”
But Xiang Er continued to struggle, trying to pierce the black slime with the dagger. Unable to penetrate, she pulled the dagger back, intending to cut her wrists.
She didn’t speak, didn’t think, just focused on ending her own life, by any means necessary.
The dagger was snatched from her hand. Xiang Er tried to grab it back, but she couldn’t, and she sat still, defeated.
“Little Ears.”
The familiar endearment, the familiar voice, made Xiang Er’s eyes flicker slightly.
She saw the dagger pressed against Shen Yuhe’s… Akhe’s neck, the moment she looked.
Shen Yuhe, tears of blood streaming down her face, a broken smile on her lips, plunged the dagger into her neck.
Dark blood sprayed outwards, covering the bed, splattering Xiang Er’s face and eyes, her vision tinged with red as she stared, unblinking.
Shen Yuhe’s head lolled back, her dark, bright eyes, even in their final moments, still fixed on Xiang Er.
Her gaze locked onto Xiang Er’s, her pupils dilating, their light fading, turning into two black stones.
The room was silent. The tentacles were gone, the black slime still and lifeless, the world so quiet she could hear a pin drop.
As if… she was truly dead.
That beautiful, hateful facade, lying dead in a pool of blood, her deceit and betrayal washed away, a strangely peaceful death under the bright sunlight.
Xiang Er stared at the bloody scene for a long time.
She smiled faintly, her lips curving upwards:
“You’re such a good actress, why aren’t you on stage?”
She sat up, her smile mocking, her eyes filled with contempt and hatred.
She reached out and touched the black slime on her neck, pulling at it.
As expected, the slime, part of the performance, had also solidified, lifeless, and although it was painful to remove, she was able to peel it off.
Xiang Er cleaned the slime from her neck, turned, and took the dagger from the dead woman’s hand.
Decapitating a body wasn’t easy, the small dagger already slightly dulled, but Xiang Er didn’t care.
The Evil God was dead, no trace of it remaining in the room, wasn’t that perfect?
She smiled cruelly, lifted the dagger, and plunged it into her own neck!
A sudden whoosh, and a thick tentacle, appearing out of nowhere, knocked the dagger from her hand!
Xiang Er glanced sideways. The thick tentacle, emerging from Shen Yuhe’s severed neck, was flailing wildly in the air.
She let out a cold laugh. As expected, she knew It wouldn’t die so easily.
As long as she was alive, It wouldn’t die, it was that simple.
She knew, that’s why she had tried to kill herself, she wasn’t trying to commit suicide, she was trying to kill the Evil God.
But… it hadn’t worked.
The cut on Xiang Er’s neck was shallow, and the thick tentacle, with a gentle touch, instantly healed the wound.
But Xiang Er dug her fingers into the wound, the pain a perverse pleasure!
She smiled, and while the tentacle was still flailing, she ripped the wound open again!
The tearing of flesh echoed through the room, through Xiang Er’s ears, and through Akhe’s true form!
Blood dripped down, Xiang Er gasping for breath, her fingers still digging into the wound!
Akhe let out a high-pitched wail, the tentacle thrashing wildly, as if it were its flesh being torn, not Xiang Er’s!
Dozens of tentacles shot out, restraining Xiang Er, gently wrapping around her finger, pulling it away from the wound, other tentacles rushing to heal her.
Xiang Er smiled, a triumphant smile, watching the tentacles’ frantic, desperate attempts, and she said:
“Aren’t you dead?”
The tentacles, busy tending to her wound, didn’t answer.
She continued:
“You’re such a coward, afraid even of death.”
The tentacles continued applying slime to her wound, another tentacle appearing, holding a syringe and a vial of medicine.
Xiang Er thrashed her arm and shouted:
“Don’t you dare inject me! You might as well just kill me!”
The tentacles hesitated, the syringe hovering uncertainly.
Shen Yuhe’s corpse, its head still lolling, suddenly spoke:
“Then promise me you won’t hurt yourself anymore, and I won’t inject you, okay?”
Xiang Er raised an eyebrow and shouted:
“No! If you have the guts, kill me! If you kill me, I won’t hurt myself anymore! Stop playing these games! Coward! Trash! Monster! Get out of here!!!”
She continued to rant and rave, her breath coming in ragged gasps, the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, spitting at the tentacles, at Shen Yuhe’s corpse, her hands clawing at the tentacles, throwing them against the walls, her legs kicking, her hair flying as she banged her head against the wall…
She was like a trapped bird, beating its wings against the cage, its feathers scattering, the world a dizzying blur, she would break free, or die trying!
Her frenzy made the tentacles hesitate, they couldn’t hold her too tightly, nor could they let go, the slightest release, and she would hurt herself again, but holding her too tightly might injure her fragile body… it was a difficult situation.
Finally, the tentacles restrained her limbs, one tentacle holding the syringe, finding a suitable injection site on her thrashing body, and quickly, expertly, injecting her.
Xiang Er’s struggles and shouts weakened, her movements less forceful. The tranquilizer, developed by the Special Investigations Bureau, was highly effective, and Xiang Er, who had been screaming and thrashing only moments ago, now lay limp and still.
But… even in her unconsciousness, she continued to mutter:
“You monster… coward… idiot… you should die… let me die…”
The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was Shen Yuhe’s face, contorted in pain and worry.
Heh… still clinging to that deceptive face… coward…
She laughed coldly, her consciousness fading into darkness.
Beside her, Akhe, its tears flowing, reattached its severed head, its sobs echoing through the room.
It didn’t know what to do, It still didn’t understand humans, It didn’t understand why Xiang Er had done this, why… did she hate it so much?
It had been honest, they had shared so many sweet memories, why… why wasn’t it enough?
Akhe’s sobs continued for a long time, until sunset, the floor covered in its tears, its blood, its slime.
It even felt like… it had grown a human heart. At least, it felt the pain of heartbreak.
Early that morning, after breakfast and a lengthy lecture on An Yue’s Rules of Romance, An Yue had been unceremoniously swept out the door by a tentacle.
Now, it was evening, and An Yue, leading a team of elite investigators, had arrived at the old residential compound.
Her colleagues evacuated the remaining residents, secured the perimeter, and erected a powerful containment barrier, absorbing the pollution that was still emanating from the building.
The citywide wave of madness that had gripped the nation for the past twenty-four hours finally began to subside, the containment of the pollution slowing the rate of new mutations.
But something was still wrong. Even without the pollution from the building, monsters and other anomalies were still appearing, as if… this wasn’t the only source, just the most urgent one.
Leaving her colleagues to maintain the barrier, An Yue, after much deliberation, requested permission to enter the building.
She had reported the situation inside, and her superiors were evaluating various strategies, and hearing her request, her superior looked at her intently:
“What do you think, how should we, as humans, deal with that Evil God?”
An Yue’s voice was firm and resolute:
“The only thing we can do is… help It, help her, have a proper relationship.”
Xiang Er slowly awoke from a deep, painful dream, her consciousness rising from the depths of the ocean, her mind gradually clearing, but she didn’t want to open her eyes.
But she could already hear sounds, small, faint sounds, an occasional rustling.
She opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was that the cracks in the ceiling had been repaired, the walls as well, everything back to normal.
Then, her gaze shifted, and she saw… countless thin tentacles, like spiderwebs, covering the room.
These tentacles were different from the monster’s thick tentacles, thinner, smoother, all black, without the disgusting suckers.
The small tentacles, wriggling and coiling, held brooms, rags, buckets, mops… they were cleaning.
The rustling sounds were the tools moving against the surfaces.
Xiang Er followed the tentacles to their source.
In the center of the tentacle web was a fist-sized, round eyeball, its countless tentacles extending in all directions, its eye unblinking as it diligently directed the cleaning, meticulous and thorough.
The room was spotless, and Xiang Er noticed that her bedsheets and duvet cover had been changed, a green floral pattern, her favorite.
A memory surfaced, she remembered threatening the small eyeball:
“If you don’t even know how to clean, I’ll throw you away!”
How ironic… Xiang Er chuckled coldly, back then, she had been such a fool, so clueless, yet so full of herself, thinking she had control…
The small eyeball, noticing that Xiang Er was awake, immediately opened its eye wide, a slit appearing beneath it.
Then, it carefully turned its “mouth” away, only its eye visible, as if knowing Xiang Er didn’t like it, not wanting her to see it.
A soft, childish voice, like a toddler’s, echoed through the quiet room, a tearful plea, strangely unsettling:
“I… I can… clean… please… don’t throw me away… okay?”
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