Translator: bittercoffee

Chapter 63: Alienization 2

“Whatever you want, you’ll get it in the end.” Bai Yingting tapped his finger on the cup of oatmeal. “But first, you’ll have to eat.”

He was leaning in very close to Zhou Qing, who subconsciously avoided his breath.

Because his breath was warm and soft, Zhou Qing was afraid that once he touched him, he would want more.

Meanwhile, Wu Yun felt like he was going crazy. How was he supposed to carry two people back that far away?

Mo Ye, oh Mo ye, you must have done it on purpose! Maybe he was testing whether Wu Yun will throw his brothers down and go back alone!

Wu Yun supported Zhou Yu up and carried him over his shoulder. Then he looked at the other team member. “I’ll take Zhou Yu for 50 meters first, then I’ll come back to carry you!”

Wu Yun walked ahead with Zhou Yu on his back while continuing to look back at the team member, fearing that he would be attacked by dangerous organisms. After going back and forth for nearly an hour, the sound of a helicopter finally came from the sky.

When the helicopter landed, it caused a draft that raised a cloud of dust.

Wu Yun blinked. He felt that he was finally saved. What he currently wanted the most was an ice-cold beer.

Back at the base, Zhou Yu and the unconscious team member were sent to the emergency room for separate treatments.

After examinations, Zhou Yu was found to have fainted due to the overconsumption of his physical strength while the other team member was running a high fever. His situation was not looking optimistic.

Song Zhi stood in front of the emergency room, coldly looking over the entire rescue situation.

“Do you have anything you want to tell me, Wu Yun?”

Wu Yun grimaced and could only recount everything that had happened in that cave, word for word.

He knew that he couldn’t conceal any details because Nibelungen was a special world; one little secret could very well have devastating results.

At this time, the rescued team member entered into a high fever state. His body was constantly twitching, his fingers were stiff, and his body temperature would not come down no matter what. His heart was beating so fast it might jump out of his chest!

“What’s his current body temperature?”

“Forty-four degrees Celsius!”

“Cool him down, now!”

“His temperature is still rising! Drugs are ineffective!”

“What is going on here? What should we do?”

“Run a blood test, immediately! He’s hurt, it might be due to a bacterial infection!”

The rescuers rushed about, and Wu Yun also clenched his fist.

No matter what, they could not let him die!

Then, the instruments showed that the team member’s heart had suddenly stopped beating, and his convulsing body also became stiff. Everything seemed to become still.

The rescuers tried everything—from electric shocks to adrenaline injections, even opening his chest and massaging his heart directly—but they couldn’t get his heart beating again.

His pulse finally stopped. There was the desire to live in his wide-open eyes.

His resuscitation was about to turn into a dissection and sampling. They had to figure out what exactly caused his death.

When the autopsy technicians raised the scalpel, they found that countless red spots had started appearing underneath his skin, peaking outwards. Wu Yun’s eyes went round when he recognized it.

Wu Yun shouted, “He’s also been alienized by the death dahlia!”

Song Zhi brows knitted even more tightly together. “What alienization? This is the first time I’ve heard it!”

Wu Yun answered him. “The death dahlia will transform any organism it swallows into a different form, growing scales and becoming fast-moving monsters! They will obey its commands as well!”

Just as the first cut was about to fully open his chest, he suddenly took a deep breath, his body jerking up in an arch. His chest gave out a hissing sound as if cells were in division—it had miraculously healed. His body was changing rapidly as he sat up. He didn’t stop howling in pain as scales grew out from his flesh and blood. Like an animal, he was on all fours on the bed. His eyes had turned white.

The staff in the emergency room were frightened and dispersed in a hurry.

The team member, like a madman, suddenly scuttled over and bit the neck of a female staff member closest to him. Blood came spurting out like a whirlwind.

“Oh my God! Help!”

Then the other rescuers were attacked.

Wu Yun acted immediately.

He yanked over Song Zhi’s collar and shouted, “Let them out! It will actively attack the organisms closest to it! The emergency room is too small for the rescue workers to escape its attack range!”

Song Zhi coldly pried open Wu Yun’s fingers. “Then do you think the entire base is large enough?”

Wu Yun froze.

They wailed in anguish and pounded hard against the glass wall, pleading for Song Zhi to open the door of the emergency room. But Song Zhi was almost expressionless, as if the cruel scene in front of him was just a frame of a movie.

Li Qian, who was in charge of monitoring all of it, asked in a trembling voice, “Are you really not going to save them? Are you really not going to let them out?”

Song Zhi replied, “Do you remember what happened when the night spirit left the laboratory in the last base? Release the anesthetic gas, now!”

Li Qian could only close his eyes and bite down hard on his lips.

He knew that from a rational standpoint, at many times it was necessary to sacrifice the lives of a few in order to save the majority.

But who could really watch those who had once worked and joked alongside themselves die so miserably and turn a blind eye to it?

Song Zhi was an exceedingly rational person.

The anesthetic gas took effect too late.

A few seconds later, some of the rescuers had their arms twisted off, while others even had their guts dragged out. The mutant team member had lost his sanity as a human being.

When all its targets were destroyed, it finally calmed down and quietly squatted there, as if it was waiting for something.

The anesthetic gas finally worked. It dropped down, but it was already late. The entire emergency room resembled Asura’s hell.

It was only then that Song Zhi allowed people in the emergency room.

The lizard was flash frozen and transported out.

Wu Yun could imagine what its fate would be like: it would either be injected with neurotoxins and killed to become material for dissection research or be raised like a lab rat.

At that moment, Wu Yun suddenly thought of something and ran out. “Shit! What about Zhou Yu?”

Song Zhi’s expression turned apprehensive, and he walked out quickly. They came to the emergency room next door and found Zhou Yu quietly lying in bed with his eyes closed.

Song Zhi asked, “How is Zhou Yu’s physical condition? Did you examine him?”

The attending doctor in charge of treating Zhou Yu said, “Please rest assured, Mr. Song, we already collected blood samples and scanned his whole body. Except for suffering shock caused by overexerting his physical strength, Zhou Yu’s other vital signs are normal. There’s no sign of viral infections or parasitism.”

Song Zhi looked at Zhou Yu seriously. He walked in and lifted his wrist to examine his skin. Finding that there were no scales growing on his body, Song Zhi’s furrowed brow slowly relaxed.

Wu Yun, who was standing next to him, also let out a sigh of relief. “Good thing I also remembered that Zhou Yu didn’t touch the death dahlia.”

“Let’s go. Let’s not disturb Zhou Yu’s rest.” Song Zhi recovered his detached indifference.

Wu Yun paused for a moment, but he knew that he wouldn’t be of any help.

Before leaving, Song Zhi lowered his voice and spoke to Zhou Yu’s attending doctor through the radio transceiver. “Collect 200 milliliters of Zhou Yu’s blood and send it to Mo Ye right now.”

“Yes, Mr. Song.”

Zhou Yu’s blood was slid into Mo Ye’s room through a special channel, falling right onto his pillow.

Already in a weakened state, Mo Ye slowly opened his eyes and turned his face sideways to look at the bag of blood.

The corner of his lips pulled up to reveal a mocking smile. “Are you kidding me.. Each drop of Zhou Yu’s blood is incomparably precious. How could you handle it in such an inelegant manner..”

He stood up, slightly shaking from infirmity, and slowly walked over to a shelf in the room. He retrieved a glass from it then opened the blood bag and poured it into the cup. His slender fingers passed over the base of the glass, gently swirling the blood and drawing several beautiful arcs in the cup. Then he lowered his head to give it a light sniff, showing a lonely expression.

“I really miss him a lot.. Why won’t you let him come to me?”

Mo Ye tilted his head back and took a light sip. His face showed an expression of enjoyment. It was the temperature that belonged to Zhou Yu, and the taste that belonged to Zhou Yu. Through the blood, it was as though he could enter into Zhou Yu’s dreams and understand his most primal and unadulterated thoughts.

From sampling each taste to insatiable greed, desire broke free from the shackles of reason. He wanted more and more.

Mo Ye’s every mouthful was quicker than the last, his Adam’s apple bobbing rapidly. Zhou Yu’s blood slid down his esophagus and permeated through every cell in his body.. In two seconds, he’d drunk the entire cup of blood.

He remained gripping the glass cup, tilting his head up as if he was still searching for a trace of Zhou Yu.

“You don’t look satisfied.”

At some point, Song Zhi had come up to the glass wall and was looking at Mo Ye with his arms crossed.

Mo Ye also turned to face the glass, then he slowly walked up to Song Zhi and met his gaze. His expression was indolent and pleased.

“You’re not me, so you will never be able to understand what Zhou Yu means to me.”

“Is that so? If Zhou Yu were right in front of you, what would you want to do to him? Bite his neck and suck out all of his blood? ” Song Zhi showed a frosty smile.

“Of course, I won’t suck his blood dry, because he has to live for a long time.. Only then can I see the world he sees and experience the moments he experiences. Before I take my last breath, Zhou Yu must be looking at me. That’s what I want. Of course, if he were to stand in front of me right now, I would kiss him, hug him, tighten his bones, and make him feel pain because of me. I want him to feel my existence deeply and profoundly. His heart will beat because of me, his mind will lose control because of me, and he will completely belong to me. You know very well what this feeling is like.. Song Zhi.”

Mo Ye smiled; it was a smile so perfect it could be God’s masterpiece. Even though it was frosty like Song Zhi’s, there seemed to be something in the depths of his heart that was about to break free of its bonds and move up into Mo Ye’s eyes.

Song Zhi knew very clearly that the glass wall and even all the devices that blocked mental pulses could not really trap Mo Ye. He was beloved by the world, and he stood above them.

“So it seems that Zhou Yu has become your prey. In order to protect Zhou Yu, I think I’d better not let the two of you meet again.”

“Song Zhi, some reunions are a kind of desire that you are powerless to prevent. If we cannot meet, then there will be no meaning in living. Just like the walking corpse you are right now. Do you still remember that S rank organism? He who was nurtured by you, trusted you, and regarded you as the center of his world.”

Song Zhi’s icy gaze seemed to burn at that moment. “Have you seen him? Or are you all connected because you are the same species? Do you know where he is? If you do, you better tell me right now. If you tell me, I will..”

“You will do what? Let me take Zhou Yu out of here?”

Mo Ye showed a sidelong smile, one that was very special and beautiful, as if he was constantly stirring up the depths of one’s mind in a most subtle way.

“You want to find him. Not to kill him, but to protect him.”

“Protect him? Are you kidding? I’ve never heard of an S rank organism that needed human protection.” Song Zhi’s lips were quirked up in a sardonic smile, but his eyes were freezing.

“He used to stand in a similar position to me, looking at you just as I look at Zhou Yu. You are more familiar than anyone about human pursuits of their own interests; you’ve seen through it all, so you taught him this over and over. Just like how Juli Corp tells everyone how terrible S rank organisms are, you also kept telling him how greedy human beings are. Even if you show him the ugliest side of things, you will always be the most special to him.” Mo Ye shook the empty cup in his hand at Song Zhi as if he could see through Song Zhi’s long emptied heart.

“Is he still safe?” Song Zhi asked.

But Mo Ye didn’t answer his question. “Actually, you’ve always cherished his trust in you and you’ve always missed his embrace. I understand that feeling all too well, that once you are treated with the tenderness of the whole world, you will become addicted. You hurt him to wean him off of his addiction to you. But you never wanted to extract yourself from sinking into it, because you’ve already resolved to cut off all paths of retreat.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Song Zhi’s expression grew even colder.

Mo Ye smiled indifferently and twiddled with the soft hairs that fell over his forehead. Those eyes had a somewhat amorous tone to them.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter how awkward you are, as long as my Zhou Yu can see his true feelings clearly.”

Song Zhi also smiled, but with a trace of cynicism. “Do you really think Zhou Yu will accept your existence?”

Mo Ye turned and went back to his bed, taking with him a copy of Zhu Shenghao’s collected works and flipping over several pages. “I’m sure.”

His voice wasn’t loud, but there was an inexplicable strength to it.

When Song Zhi turned to leave, Mo Ye spoke again. “If I were you, I would send someone to bring back those death dahlia samples. Don’t you want to know what caused those team members to mutate? The mutation works on humans, showing that it can harmonize with human genes. Take Dr. Turing, for example, I can bet that he belongs to Nibelungen now, and his genes must be very different from yours.”

“Thanks for the reminder, I will send someone. And this mutation is just as dangerous for you Nibelungen beings. Those death dahlias and their offspring could not last, and this can also happen to other creatures, including you S rank organisms. According to Professor Zhou and Professor Bai’s research, it is likely to be a virus. Moreover, after this virus enters different organisms, it will show adaptability and achieve different alienization effects. To some extent, this is also a kind of evolution.”

“You want to say that organisms that can resist this virus will survive, while those who are infected by the virus and cannot reproduce will die. Survival of the fittest, is this the law of natural selection in Nibelungen?”

“Of course, we are currently conducting further research to see how many organisms in this world are infected with the virus, so good luck to you!”

“You actually want to wish him luck. Maybe before you find him, he’ll already be gone from this world due to the virus, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life—why not let him stay where it is closest to you? Maybe freedom is not as important to him as you are.”

Song Zhi turned around and waved his hand. “Leave those words to Zhou Yu.”

When Zhou Yu woke up, it was midnight in that world. He slowly sat up and pulled out the IV tube from his arm.

He found Zhou Qing sitting, leaning against the edge of his hospital bed. He’d been watching over him for who knows how long.

It was the first time Zhou Qing had guarded him like this. Zhou Qing’s expression looked peaceful and serene. Zhou Yu didn’t want to disturb Zhou Qing, so he slowly got up and looked around.

He had no recollection of what happened after Mo Ye had entered his mind and taken control of his body, but just as Mo Ye promised, he had successfully brought him back here.

How was Wu Yun doing right now?

When Zhou Yu came back to his senses, he froze because Mo Ye was actually lying on his bed!

How did Mo Ye get in? It was impossible! The room had been sealed shut the entire time.

In the next second, Zhou Yu understood that this was all an illusion that Mo Ye had left in his head, control that Mo Ye had over his mind.

Mo Ye was still just as fair and his soft hair fell lightly over his forehead, elegant and casual. His eyes were as beautiful as colored glass, and even the curvature of the bridge of his nose was just right, all of which inexplicably drew in Zhou Yu’s attention.

Zhou Yu sat up, but he was unable to speak for a long time. But of course, he had nothing to say to an illusion.

He didn’t expect Mo Ye to unexpectedly turn to the side with one hand supporting his chin, looking up at Zhou Yu and nonchalantly saying, “What do you feel now that you’ve seen me?”

His voice was as mellow as the night, carrying an air of mystery that enticed Zhou Yu to lift up the veil of mist in front of him and see clearly for himself the most realistic world beneath the young man’s smile.

Zhou Yu replied expressionlessly. “I don’t feel anything.”

Mo Ye smiled. He straightened up his back and slowly leaned in towards Zhou Yu.

The closer he got, the tenser Zhou Yu’s breathing seemed to become.

It was the first time that Zhou Yu had felt this way. His beautifully shaped eyes were getting closer and closer, and Zhou Yu subconsciously wanted to retreat, but he found that he could not control his back as he was leaning towards Mo Ye inch by inch.

“Your heart has been moved by me, hasn’t it?” Mo Ye said. “In truth, you’re not afraid of anything.. You’re used to protecting others and bearing responsibility, but you’re unable to relax and give yourself to another person.”

His breath seemed to flit across Zhou Yu’s lips. Zhou Yu had the illusion that he was caressed by him, with a touch that was ever so light and soft. Carefully, as if he didn’t want to be resented by Zhou Yu.

Zhou Yu replied, “If you can already read my thoughts, then don’t use words to tease me.”

Mo Ye’s smile grew even more pronounced, carrying a trace of innocence.

“How can this be regarded as teasing? But it’s also interesting to hear the word “teasing” from you in such a serious tone. It’s just that you should understand.. as far as your human brains are concerned, if you think that something is beautiful, it’s not necessarily because that thing is truly beautiful, but because your heart has accepted it, it conforms to your aesthetics and your heart’s desire.”

Zhou Yu looked at Mo Ye. Even if Mo Ye spoke of a Zhou Yu that other people did not see, Zhou Yu had no intention of avoiding it. There was nothing in his life he needed to escape from, including the S rank organism in front of him.

Mo Ye stretched out his neck, a hint of inexplicable anticipation between his slightly downcast eyes. He turned to face the side, and at that angle, Zhou Yu subconsciously traced after the contours of his features.

His lips leaned in slowly towards Zhou Yu. The feeling was wonderful. Everything in the world was no longer important and even his own breath and heartbeat were taken away.

His lips were soft, reminding Zhou Yu of when Mo Ye would often touch his lips to him when he was still a night spirit. At the time, Zhou Yu had thought that he’d learned it from the movie, but now he was very sure that from that point on, Mo Ye’s every touch carried a different meaning.

He took Zhou Yu’s lower lip in his mouth, and the tip of his tongue slowly slipped in, searching for something and twisting around. All of a sudden, Zhou Yu responded, firmly pushing the tip of his tongue out.