Girl, There's Something Wrong With You - Chapter 9

Cheng Jinyang opened his eyes and found himself back in Wujiang Town. Everywhere, there were people shouting and flames rising into the sky.

“How did I end up back here?”

And where were the young ladies? He scanned his surroundings warily but did not see any familiar faces.

Despite returning to Wujiang Town after a long separation and finding himself alone in battle once again, Cheng Jinyang felt no fear.

As a peak Sixth-grade and a half-step Fifth-grade ability user, fearing the minor anomalies of the past would be laughable.

After wandering for a while, Cheng Jinyang grew impatient and decided to use his ability to soar into the sky. But suddenly, he saw a young girl lying in a pool of blood ahead.

Ah, this…

It seems to be Lu Qingyun?

To be precise, it was a much younger Lu Qingyun, appearing to be around the same age as Yang Wangshu. Her neck was a gruesome mess, as if a chunk of flesh had been violently torn away.

The sight was horrifying.

“Qingyun?” Cheng Jinyang called softly, trying to see if she could hear him.

In his past dreams, he had experienced three forms:

1. Possessing someone’s body.

2. A free ghostly form.

3. Having his own body.

The third form had only appeared in Ah Zhi’s dreams.

At this moment, Cheng Jinyang confirmed that he had his own body and was not in any random body. He could also use his gravity ability smoothly.

He tried to communicate with Lu Qingyun, but despite raising his voice, she did not respond, as if she could not hear him.

“Don’t bother calling,” a voice said nearby, “She can’t hear you.”

Cheng Jinyang turned and saw another Lu Qingyun standing nearby. This one appeared to be over twenty, with long cascading hair, a slender waist, long legs, and flawless features…

…almost like a demon.

“You are…” Cheng Jinyang cautiously backed away, “A demon?”

“I am a demon imagined by Yunyun, residing within her,” the older Lu Qingyun replied.

“Imagined?” Cheng Jinyang pondered, “A split personality?”

“No,” Lu Qingyun shook her head, “But if things continue, it might soon be.”

“I don’t understand,” Cheng Jinyang said.

“Ah,” Lu Qingyun knelt by the younger Qingyun’s side, gently touching the gory wound on her neck, “Four years ago in Wujiang Town, Yunyun was taken there by her mother to visit an old friend. They happened to encounter a demon attack on Wujiang Town.”

“They were separated in the chaos, and Yunyun fled aimlessly through the town. In the end, she was bitten… I don’t know by what, as she couldn’t see clearly before losing consciousness, but it wasn’t a high-level demon. It was likely something like a puppet.”

Lu Qingyun spoke in a melancholic tone, her voice somewhat hoarse amidst the flames.

“But you survived,” Cheng Jinyang analyzed, “And weren’t devoured by the demon or died from blood loss here… So, the Lu family must have found you in time.”

“Mm.” Lu Qingyun smiled slightly, her teeth seemingly a bit sharp, “However, that was just the beginning of another nightmare.”

The scene abruptly changed to an emergency room in a hospital.

The young Lu Qingyun lay on a hospital bed, wearing an oxygen mask and restraints, with blood transfusion tubes extending from her arm to a large dialysis machine nearby.

“Cheng Jinyang,” Lu Qingyun spoke in a drifting tone, “Do you know that females who are bitten or scratched by demons will undergo a slow transformation, even if they are not devoured on the spot?”

“I know,” Cheng Jinyang recalled his first encounter with Qingqing. Her cousin’s sister, who had been bitten by a puppet, was still in the ICU, similar to how Lu Qingyun appeared in this dream. Qingqing still regularly sent money to the hospital.

“However, if blood dialysis is performed in a timely manner shortly after being infected by a demon, there is actually a chance of saving the person,” Lu Qingyun continued.

“I see.” Cheng Jinyang understood, “So you were saved?”

Lu Qingyun hesitated in silence.

“I don’t know,” she eventually shook her head.

“Don’t know… what does that mean?”

“It’s a matter of probability,” Lu Qingyun explained. “To this day, we only know that timely dialysis has a chance of being effective, but we don’t know why, because the so-called ‘pathogenic molecules’ can’t be filtered out from the patient’s blood.”

“So even if you appeared to be normal after being discharged, no one could be sure whether you were truly cured or if there was still a small amount of demon contamination in your body. If it’s the latter, the demon contamination might flare up again after a month, six months, or even a year.”

“Mm.” Cheng Jinyang pondered, “But there should be a medical standard for this.”

“Fourteen days,” Lu Qingyun said indifferently. For some reason, her voice seemed to carry a hint of coldness. “If there are no signs of mutation within fourteen days, the medical field considers the contamination to be cleared.”

“But people don’t accept this standard, you understand? Even a one-in-a-million chance of incomplete clearance could lead to catastrophic outcomes once it flares up.”

“Trust in people, at such times, is as fragile as glass.”

Cheng Jinyang: …

He began to understand her meaning and guessed at what she had experienced next.

The scene around him changed again, this time back to the Lu family estate.

He saw Lu Qingyun quietly staying in a room, a house bought by her father, located in a remote area at the edge of the clan estate.

This was to prevent any sudden demonic transformation from causing a malignant incident that the clan could not control.

Her mother’s former maid, who used to bring her meals every day and was once a kind older sister, now avoided her as if she were a plague, quickly leaving the food at the door and hurrying away.

Her father visited roughly once a week with attendants and doctors to check on her, then left. He didn’t have much time to care for his daughter, or perhaps he was afraid to care too much, fearing that she might one day truly turn into a demon and he would be powerless to help.

Although her brothers were strictly forbidden by their father from visiting her, they still came secretly from time to time, slipping snacks or books through the sealed window, offering what little comfort they could during her confinement.

Aside from that, she could only remain in the house, spending her days reading, playing on her phone, or staring blankly.

As for her mother, she had disappeared completely after the Wujiang Town incident.

From the family forum online, she learned that the clan suspected her mother might have been devoured by a demon or turned into a new demon…

“How long have you been here?” Cheng Jinyang asked slowly, looking at the small Lu Qingyun sitting on the bed, staring blankly.

“I don’t remember,” the older Lu Qingyun said softly, “At least more than half a year.”

“Do you know what loneliness feels like? At first, Yunyun would frequently contact people in her phonebook, talking for hours… Eventually, when everyone grew tired of her, she gradually stopped calling. Sometimes, after her father left, she would completely seal the windows and curtains and stay in the room all day, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, unable to distinguish between day and night…”

Cheng Jinyang remained silent for a moment, thinking that if Yang Wangshu were here with an internet-capable phone, she might stay indoors indefinitely.

Some people, however, are simply not suited to being confined; for example, Qingqing would surely go mad if forced to stay home for six months.

“After about two or three months, she began to fantasize that her mother hadn’t died and would come to take her out of this sunless house,” the older Lu Qingyun said, sitting by the younger Lu Qingyun and hugging her shoulders. “To take her out of this place.”

“Months later, when the forum no longer mentioned these things, I finally realized that my mother was dead,” the younger Lu Qingyun spoke, her eyes vacant and dazed. “I was here, forgotten by everyone.”

“I know my father had his reasons. I also understand that if I were to leave, it would cause anxiety and panic among the clan. The only thing that could rebuild trust is time… but I’m suffering, trapped in a mire of loneliness, about to be consumed by it.”

The older Lu Qingyun lovingly embraced the younger Lu Qingyun and gently stroked her hair, continuing, “If I’m not a demon, then why should people doubt her and confine her in this isolated corner? Every time she think about it, Yunyun can’t help but think, rather than being so unjustly suspected, she would rather have a real demon inside her…”

The two Lu Qingyuns, one large and one small, suddenly looked up simultaneously, staring intently at Cheng Jinyang. The younger Lu Qingyun’s eyes were hollow, while the older Lu Qingyun had a strange smile.

“I remember now! It was her who bit me that day in Wujiang Town and then parasitized in my body!” The younger Lu Qingyun suddenly began to struggle fiercely, trying to break free from the older Lu Qingyun’s embrace, her expression one of terror. “She’s the one who harmed me! Jinyang, save me! She wants to torment me and turn me into her kind…”

“Now the question is,” the older Lu Qingyun tightly held her, her ghostly gaze fixed on Cheng Jinyang, her deep eyes revealing a dangerous glint, “Cheng Jinyang, do you lean toward believing me, that I am the creation of her loneliness…”

“Or do you choose to believe her, that I am actually a demon parasitizing her?”

Cheng Jinyang: …

“Do you know the Emperor Ziwei?” he asked, frowning.

“What?” The older Lu Qingyun was slightly taken aback.

“Okay, Shut up! You fake demon!”