Chapter 22: Humanoid Evil |
At 1:45 in the afternoon, Qi Si stood alone in the center of the sprawling rose garden, holding the Fate Pocket Watch he had borrowed from Chang Xu.
A gray-white mist suffused the air. Along the path, obscured by twisted branches and tangled vines, massive roses drooped their damp heads. Their deep red hue was as rich and viscous as fresh blood, exuding a sinister chill.
Qi Si’s fingers traced the petals of one rose after another, finally settling on the most vibrant bloom. He gripped its thorny stem and, with a twist of his wrist, snapped it off, flower and leaves intact.
From the break in the stem, fine, tender green threads dangled, spitting a pale green sap that resembled the capillaries of a poisoned victim.
"You picked a rose," a voice said, as cold as a striking viper.
"You picked a rose," countless voices echoed, merging into a single chorus, reciting the same words.
A single drop of rain fell from the sky, landing squarely on Qi Si's brow.
He lifted his gaze and looked around. Within the dense fog, clusters of dusty gray shadows now stood among the rose bushes, like scarecrows that had just materialized to stand guard.
They were corpses—men and women, old and young. Some had decayed to bare bone, while others still bore a faint resemblance to their living selves.
The dead from countless cycles, all who had perished here, had gathered in this very moment. An infinite number of three-day timelines had just overlapped.
"And why can't I pick a rose?" Qi Si asked with a slight tilt of his head, a faint smile playing on his lips.
A bolt of lightning tore across the gray-purple sky, instantly illuminating the monstrous, dusty old manor.
Light and shadow flickered between black and white, followed closely by the deep rumble of thunder.
A downpour descended from the heavens.
The bloodstained white shirt was soaked through by the rain. The long-dried bloodstains miraculously began to bleed again, the deep crimson-brown diluting into a dreamlike pale pink. The rain made Qi Si himself seem to flicker and sway like a phantom.
He asked once more, "Why can't I pick a rose?"
Just as he had asked "Miss Anna" in the garden at nine that morning.
"The roses belong to me, and only to me," the black-clad woman, her face demonic yet retaining a sliver of human life, had declared.
Qi Si had then asked, "Is beauty the same?"
Miss Anna had replied, "Yes, beauty belongs to me..."
"Then, do you love beauty itself, or the person, place, or thing that possesses it?"
At his question, Miss Anna had smiled, her lips blooming like blood-red petals. She had turned and walked away down the flower-lined path, the hem of her long black dress trailing and swaying behind her.
Now, in this moment, Qi Si asked the question again, knowing the answer. His gaze traveled past the ranks of corpses, piercing the steaming mist to meet the elegant, ink-black figure in the distance.
The hour hand of the pocket watch pointed to the top.
It was two o'clock.
...
Room 2.
Lin Chen sat silently on the edge of the bed, watching Chang Xu at the desk. The other man was poring over the notes filled with clues, meticulously transcribing key points onto a blank sheet of papyrus.
The sudden turn of events and the flood of complex information had left Lin Chen's mind a complete blank. He could only remember the few details Qi Si had entrusted to him before leaving, replaying them over and over in his mind, ensuring he wouldn't make a single mistake.
Qi Si had extended an olive branch when he was at his most helpless, had guided him safely to this point, and had even ventured to the dangerous third floor to make up for his oversight.
Now, he absolutely could not fail. If he messed up, it wouldn't just be his own death, but Qi Si's as well...
The weight of the responsibility was immense. Lin Chen's palms began to sweat again, making the small blade in his hand slick and difficult to grip.
He instinctively set the blade down and wiped his hands on the bedsheet.
With his back still to him, Chang Xu’s ear twitched. "What's wrong?" he asked without turning around.
...*Do you have eyes in the back of your head?*
Lin Chen’s heart leaped, but he quickly composed himself and forced a laugh. "I... I'm just a little nervous. What kind of plan do you think Brother Qi came up with to clear this?" As he spoke, he carefully picked up the blade again.
Chang Xu, unsuspecting, answered truthfully, "I don't know."
"Dong... dong."
From outside, the solemn toll of a clock rang out twice.
Lin Chen shot to his feet, blade raised high, and lunged for Chang Xu's neck, the edge of the weapon just inches from his skin!
But the other man reacted as if he'd been forewarned, whipping his head to the side to dodge before spinning around and pinning Lin Chen to the bed.
The blade was torn from his grasp. Lin Chen gritted his teeth and kicked out wildly.
About an hour ago, Qi Si had entered the room ahead of the others, pressed the blade into his hand, and told him, word by word, "Chang Xu killed Brother Shen. There's something wrong with him. If I'm not back by two o'clock, you must kill him immediately. Otherwise, we will all die."
At the time, staring into the young man's serious expression, he had forgotten to ask why. He had only stammered, "I... I can't do it..."
"You have to." Qi Si's eyes were as still as a stagnant pool, his smile bleak. "This is the only way. You're the only one I can trust. This blade is the only weapon I carry. Let's just say I'm playing the part of a gambler, making one last, desperate bet."
Before he could say more, Qi Si had turned, opened the door, and welcomed the somber-faced Chang Xu inside...
The memory replayed in his mind, and an unknown strength surged through Lin Chen. He threw his head back, slamming it into Chang Xu's chin, and lunged for the blade.
Chang Xu grunted in pain, his eyes narrowing. The instant Lin Chen’s fingers were about to touch the blade, an elbow crashed into his neck.
*Did I fail after all?*
Lin Chen smiled bitterly to himself. His most intense emotion wasn't fear of death, but guilt toward Qi Si. He had betrayed his trust. It was all over...
The sound of cracking bone echoed in the room. Lin Chen's pupils slowly dilated, and his body went limp, as if every ounce of strength had been drained from it.
Chang Xu watched this unfold, a look of profound confusion slowly spreading across his face.
What just happened? Why did Lin Chen suddenly try to kill him? What was going on?
And... this feeling of being ambushed from behind, a blade aimed at his neck... why was there such an intense sense of déjà vu, and why couldn't he remember where it came from?
Chang Xu touched the back of his own neck, sinking into a contemplative self-doubt, his thoughts scattering in turmoil.
...
At exactly two o'clock, amidst the sea of roses, Qi Si pressed the stem of the flower against his own heart.
The plant's sap drilled into his flesh as if it had a life of its own, transforming into a sharp thorn that pierced his heart and sent roots deep into every direction.
A crimson flower bloomed across the white fabric. The world before him suddenly collapsed into darkness.
Pain intense enough to shatter reason swept through his brain. Qi Si gasped for air and began to chant:
"My chest decays..."
It felt as if countless insects were writhing and crawling across his heart, weaving intricate webs on the surface of his skin and along the walls of his blood vessels. They spread with the flow of his blood, delving deep into his organs until they had occupied every crevice of his body.
His limbs began to melt, his flesh dissolving from the edges, dripping away...
"My flesh spreads upon the ground..."
Zou Yan's performance had been an excellent demonstration. From it, Qi Si had confirmed that the rose was the key to a human's transformation into a ghost, and the four-line poem was the incantation, the trigger.
As he chanted, the rose plunged into his heart began to grow with wild vigor, its vines bursting forth from his mouth and nose while black-green tendrils sprouted from his fingertips.
"Roses now reside here."
His grip on his own consciousness wavered. His sense of self was being rewritten, reforged, inch by inch.
Human, non-human, ghost, monster, beast, god... Countless streams of thought converged into one, then exploded in a catastrophic blast, scattering into tiny red fragments across the ocean of his mind.
"Please believe you are human."
The text on the system interface seemed to drip blood, flickering so violently that the phantom image of four words appeared between the characters: "You are not human."
"Monster. You're a monster..."
"Just die! Why aren't you dead yet?"
"Qi Si, you're not human!"
A cacophony of shrieks swirled in the depths of his mind, the insults he had endured over the past twenty-odd years all overlapping in a single moment.
The image of Shen Ming's dead face flashed before Qi Si's eyes—the undeniable consequence of complete monstrous transformation and the loss of all human cognition.
It was too ugly. He didn't like it.
Memories surged like a tidal wave. With his eyes half-closed, he let out a low chuckle. "I'm not human, and I'm not a ghost. So what in the world am I?"
"You're not going to tell me... that I'm a god, are you? Hahahaha!"
His laughter grew wilder, escalating into a full-throated roar.
His perception of time distorted. A few short seconds stretched into an eternity, like a single string plucked slowly in the endless night.
"And tomorrow, endure with me..."
The torrential rain suddenly froze in mid-air, suspended like a curtain of beads strung on invisible threads.
Each raindrop refracted a gray-purple halo before, in the next second, slowly beginning to rise back toward the sky.
—The time reversal had been triggered.
The colors before him bled together, a swirl of smeared oil paints.
His scattered, turbulent consciousness began to settle, drifting down like snowflakes to the bottom of his mind.
The massive, spectral image of a card appeared out of thin air, woven from threads of red and black. One half depicted a smiling human face; the other writhed with black tentacles and scarlet eyes.
[You don a gentle mask only to better shatter the hopes of others. Beneath your harmless guise lies an evil that will one day bring calamity to the world.]
[You are destined to walk alone, a companion to destruction. Screams, wails, death, and fear—you will watch with cold detachment, finding pleasure in pain.]
[You are a demon clawed from the depths of hell, a monster hiding among the masses. In this game devoid of morality, you will attain the freedom you have always craved—the freedom to act without restraint.]
[Congratulations, you have unlocked the "Humanoid Evil" Identity Card.]
The intricately carved card above Qi Si's head dissolved into points of crimson light, all of which flowed into his body.
He maintained his posture, hands pressing the rose into his heart, and looked toward the manor. His laughter gradually subsided, replaced by a soft, dismissive scoff.
Whether Lin Chen had killed Chang Xu or Chang Xu had killed Lin Chen, the outcome would have been the same.
One person kills their own kind, and another transforms into an evil spirit. Once the raindrops returned to the earth from the heavens, the sin would have been committed, and the evil spirit would revert to its human form.
Prejudice drives the unconventional into the ranks of beasts. Dissenters and pioneers are decried as demons in human skin, forced into exile or condemned to death. The victor becomes a god; the vanquished, a demon.
And all Qi Si had wanted was this single time reversal, right at two o'clock.
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