Xenoparasitism - Chapter 3

Darkness.

This was Wei Chen’s first thought upon regaining consciousness. He reached out to feel his surroundings, his hands touching something cold and metallic. As he groped upward, he sensed movement above him. With a forceful push, sunlight streamed in from outside.

A dazzling brilliance.

Wei Chen crawled out of a dumpster, his body reeking of rot, but alive. The word “death” made him pause. He touched his neck—it was intact. He looked at his right hand, which he remembered being torn off by that man, yet it was now perfectly whole. The missing sleeve, however, confirmed that the ordeal had been real.

His arm should have been ripped off, his neck bitten through. Normally, he should be dead beyond any doubt. But he was alive, which was utterly abnormal. Wei Chen slapped his cheeks. “Does this mean I’ve become a monster too? Surviving such fatal wounds… have I gained immortality?”

The memory of the agony when his arm was torn off and the terror when his neck was bitten through turned Wei Chen’s face pale. Even with immortality, the pain of torn muscles and broken bones would still be unbearable. Such experiences were best avoided.

He looked around. He was in a residential neighborhood, surrounded by towering apartment buildings. The air hung with an unnatural stillness. He was definitely no longer on the street where he’d lost consciousness. Judging by the midday sun, two or three hours had passed since he’d blacked out. Something must have happened during that time, or he wouldn’t have woken up in a residential area.

Wei Chen pondered for a moment, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He decided to put the question aside for now. He walked to the ground floor of an apartment building. The front door stood wide open. “Hello?” he called out, but there was no response. He stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind him. It was a three-bedroom apartment with a living room and dining area. Wei Chen searched every room but found no one. He took a shower in the bathroom, then found a set of clothes in the master bedroom that fit him reasonably well. He turned on the TV, but the screen displayed a “communication failure” message. Switching channels yielded the same result, so he turned it off.

He found a bottle of milk and some bread in the refrigerator. After hastily filling his stomach, he sat down.

“Alright, what’s next?” he asked himself, answering immediately, “In a city thrown into chaos like this, the national military will usually intervene. But before they arrive, the city will become extremely dangerous. Heh, all those zombie movies I watched weren’t a waste after all! This is where being a shut-in pays off!”

He patted his cheeks. “Now’s not the time to get cocky. Let’s think… if the city’s dangerous, the best thing to do is escape to a place with fewer people. A place with fewer people…”

“Got it!” Wei Chen jumped up and snapped his fingers. “Spring God Mountain! I went there once with Big Head and the others. There’s a campsite up there—we could hide out there. I wonder how Big Head and the others are doing.”

Big Head was his classmate and best friend. Yesterday’s daring attempt to ask Lu Yinglan out was largely due to the encouragement of his loyal buddies. Wei Chen ran to the master bedroom, found a cell phone, but there was no signal. He tried the landline in the living room, but it didn’t work either, leaving him unable to contact his friends.

Wei Chen sat back down and began writing on a piece of paper as he spoke aloud. “There’s no food on Spring God Mountain, and we don’t know how long we’ll have to stay. In other words, we need to bring enough food. Water shouldn’t be a problem—I remember a stream near the campsite. Next, we need weapons. The gun’s gone, and those things aren’t easy to come by. So, knives it is. For head injuries… even with a knife, we’ll probably only be able to get something like a kitchen knife, right?”

He made a list and began scavenging. Wei Chen searched the refrigerator, kitchen, and storage room, but found very little. The refrigerator was nearly empty, and the kitchen yielded only a kitchen knife. The storage room did reveal a travel backpack, but these items were far from his goal.

“Looks like I’ll have to go to the supermarket after all,” Wei Chen muttered, eyeing the knife and backpack on the table.

By the time he left the house, it was already one in the afternoon. At the entrance of the residential complex, Wei Chen spotted a map. A supermarket was located nearby, so he used his old phone to photograph the map and quickly found his way there. The Nantong Supermarket’s doors were wide open, and the lights were still on, but the place was deserted. As he stepped inside, he immediately saw a corpse—a man sprawled beside the checkout counter, his upper body a bloody mess, his torso nearly hollowed out. The sight nearly made Wei Chen vomit the milk and bread he’d eaten for lunch. Suppressing his nausea, he hurried down the aisles of shelves, finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Several rows of shelves had collapsed in the supermarket, and bloodstains were visible everywhere. A woman lay sprawled face-down on top of a freezer, a chunk bitten out of her waist. Wei Chen gripped his kitchen knife for courage, carefully navigating around the gruesome scenes as he quickly gathered what he needed. He took mostly canned luncheon meat, which had a shelf life of over a month—enough to address the immediate crisis. He reasoned that if the military couldn’t resolve the situation within a month, the country was doomed anyway, and survival would become a matter of living day by day, with no room for long-term planning.

Finally, Wei Chen found a cleaver in the fresh meat section, far more formidable than his kitchen knife. Just as he was about to leave, a shadow fell across the doorway from outside. Wei Chen tensed immediately but remained composed. He crouched behind several shopping carts near the entrance, tightened his grip on the cleaver, and mentally reviewed the monsters’ vital points.

The shadow gradually widened until a woman’s sneaker stepped inside. Wei Chen held his breath, watching a girl enter. She looked about sixteen or seventeen, with dark hair framing her shoulders. Her cheeks were rosy, and she wore a loose T-shirt and cropped jeans, carrying a Hello Kitty backpack that made her look unexpectedly adorable. For a moment, Wei Chen froze. Then the girl glanced up, their eyes meeting. Wei Chen immediately jumped up, brandishing his knife and shouting, “Are you human or a monster?!”

The girl stared at him, then said, “What about me looks like a monster? You’re the one looking like a villain, waving that knife around. You don’t look like a good person at all.”

Wei Chen scrutinized her, unwilling to miss a single detail. But from head to toe, the girl showed no signs of monstrous features—no strange limbs, no horrifying appendages protruding from her mouth. She appeared perfectly normal. At that moment, the girl remarked, “Staring at a girl’s chest like that the moment you meet her? You really are a pervert, aren’t you?”

“You’ve got a sharp tongue, miss,” Wei Chen retorted, gesturing with two fingers near his eyes. “I’ll be watching you closely for any abnormalities. See this? It’s not just for show.”

He brandished the knife in his hand.

The girl pressed a hand to her chest, her face expressionless. “I’m so scared,” she said.

Then she added, “If there’s nothing else, I’m going inside. I haven’t eaten all day, and if I don’t find something soon, I’ll starve to death.”

Wei Chen pointed toward the food area. “There’s food over there.”

The girl nodded and walked in the direction he indicated. After a moment’s thought, Wei Chen followed, knife in hand. He watched as she tore open a bag of potato chips, grabbed a handful, and shoved them into her mouth. Wei Chen raised his knife, gritted his teeth, and slashed a gash across his forearm. Blood immediately welled up. The girl glanced at him curiously. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Wei Chen shook his arm. “Don’t you want to eat?”

“Why would I eat your arm? You’re such a pervert.” The girl turned away in disgust.

Wei Chen tore off a piece of his sleeve and tied it around his arm to stop the bleeding before hurrying after her. The girl was now holding a can of rainbow candies, popping a few into her mouth to chew before spitting them out with a grimace. “These taste awful,” she complained.

“Want to try this?” Wei Chen rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a can of luncheon meat. He opened it and offered it to her.

The girl hesitated before taking the can. After tasting a slice, she nodded. “The flavor’s decent,” she said, then turned to Wei Chen. “Why are you still here? You’re acting suspicious. Don’t tell me you’re planning something weird?”

Wei Chen waved his hands frantically. “Don’t misunderstand! I’m not a pervert. I was just testing you earlier because those monsters seem to have a taste for humans. By the way, what’s your name?”

The girl picked up a slice of luncheon meat with two fingers. “Isn’t it customary to introduce yourself first before asking someone else’s name?”

“Alright, I’m Wei Chen.”

“Nan Liyue.”

“So, Miss Liyue, would you like to come with me? It’s too dangerous out there for a girl to be alone.”

Nan Liyue immediately eyed Wei Chen with suspicion. Wei Chen, both amused and exasperated, spread his hands. “Look, I’m heading to Spring God Mountain. There’s a campsite there where we can stay for a few days. With the city in chaos, the mountains should be safer. What do you say? Will you join me?”

“Spring God Mountain?” Nan Liyue pondered for a moment. “Sounds plausible. Fine, I’ll go with you. But if you make any strange moves…”

“How could that be?” Wei Chen glanced at the supermarket entrance. “Then let’s leave now. If the sun sets, it’ll be even more dangerous outside.”

The girl nodded in agreement. Wei Chen slung his backpack over his shoulder, drew his sword, and began walking. “If we go on foot, we won’t reach Spring God Mountain until nightfall. We need to find a car—that shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t have a driver’s license, but I doubt the police will care about that now. By the way, Miss Liyue…”

Just as Wei Chen was about to ask where she was from, a sharp pain pierced his chest. He looked down to see a sword blade protruding from his chest. Behind him, Nan Liyue whispered, “As far as impostors go, I must admit you played the human role convincingly. Too bad I smelled your stench the moment I walked in.”

“What impostor? I’m…”

I’m not one!

Before he could shout the denial, darkness engulfed Wei Chen’s vision. Death’s cold embrace tightened around him once more.