Zhou Tai

"Fantastic!" Yu Xian's spirits lifted. The sound of artillery fire was music to his ears. Support meant he had no worries about the aftermath, no need to consider follow-up complications. All he needed to do now was go on a slaughtering spree and wipe out every single aberrant worm in the school! Just as he prepared to head downstairs, however, a pained groan caught his ear, and he froze in his tracks. Another classmate was alive? He turned and stepped into a classroom, finding a survivor with faint breath in a corner littered with mangled remains. *** Silver City, Cangshan Psychiatric Hospital. A swarm of aberrant worms was ravenously tearing into the medical staff. Hospital Director Chen Qingsong was hiding inside a cabinet in his office, not daring to take a breath. He had never imagined so many patients in the hospital had been parasitized by aberrant worms. Compared to worms parasitizing normal people, those hosted in psychiatric patients were visibly more rabid, felt even less pain, and displayed even greater mobility than ordinary aberrant worms. The hospital's armed security guards had managed only a single shot before being slaughtered in seconds. Now, he could only pray for the authorities to hurry and send help. Suddenly, the office door was violently shoved open, and a gaunt man in hospital scrubs strode in with light, casual steps. "Director? Director? Where are you? It's Zhou Tai." Lowering his voice, the man called out in various directions around the office. Finally, he came before the cabinet, tapped on its door, and muttered to himself, "In? Not in? In? Not in?" After a moment, he seemed a little disappointed and mumbled, "Looks like the director really isn't here. And I wanted to tell him a huge secret." With that, he turned to leave. Chen Qingsong's eyes widened, and he exhaled a soft breath. Zhou Tai! He was the most dangerous patient in their hospital. Zhou Tai suffered from dissociative identity disorder, but the horrifying part was that apart from his primary persona, every other persona was terrifying—monstrous personalities like serial killers, flaying artists, finger collectors, and ghoulish cannibals. Confined to the hospital, he spent practically twenty-four hours a day strapped down in restraint harnesses. Chen Qingsong could not fathom how Zhou Tai had broken free of the restraints, let alone avoided being attacked by the aberrant worms. Whether Zhou Tai was human or worm, Chen Qingsong had zero desire to cross paths with him. Fate, however, had other plans. Just when he thought Zhou Tai had left, the cabinet doors were violently yanked wide. Zhou Tai beamed at Chen Qingsong, grinning. "Found you, my dear director!" He hauled Chen Qingsong out by the collar and slammed him into the office chair, taking a seat across from him. "What do you want? You... you better not do anything crazy, or... or else..." Chen Qingsong stammered in panic. Zhou Tai cut him off with a laugh. "Or else what? Lock me up again? Hahahahaha! Starting now, no one can lock me away!" Suddenly, his expression shifted, transforming from manic frenzy into timidity. "Director, am I sick? Check me over, take my pulse!" As he spoke, he laid his hand on the desk and looked at Chen Qingsong expectantly. Chen Qingsong didn't dare make a reckless move. Zhou Tai didn't seem to mind either, muttering to himself, "Director, isn't this world fascinating? A parasite tried to take me over. I was so scared, so very scared. But who knew it would pick our most useless big brother? After it took over the primary, we turned around and parasitized it! This feeling... this feeling is magnificent! Its body is so strong!" "Are you saying... the real Zhou Tai's consciousness was replaced by the aberrant worm, but the rest of your personalities ended up parasitizing the worm's consciousness instead and suppressed it?" Chen Qingsong's eyes bulged as he asked in astonishment. Zhou Tai nodded repeatedly. "Exactly! As expected of the director, wrapping your head around it in a single sentence." "Then do you consider yourself human, or an aberrant worm?" Cold sweat poured down Chen Qingsong's forehead as he couldn't help asking. A smile slowly spread across Zhou Tai's face. Tentacles sprouted one after another from his facial features, and aided by the writhing appendages, his two eyeballs thrust forward until they were practically inches from Chen Qingsong's face. One of the tentacles split open and spoke: "I'm human, of course!" Staring at the horrific spectacle before him, Chen Qingsong's pupils quivered violently. His terror was so absolute that his heart gave out—he was literally scared to death on the spot. "How boring." Zhou Tai slowly retracted the tentacles and curled his lip at the dead director. Then something amusing struck him, and he chuckled. "Still got some time. Might as well go play with that young man!" As he spoke, his expression flickered constantly. Finally, he looked upon Chen Qingsong's corpse with greed—evidently, another personality had taken the wheel. If Chen Qingsong were still alive to witness this, he would surely have realized that the aberrant worms possessed something akin to a hive-mind network, and Zhou Tai's personas were like a virus that had infected all the aberrant worms through it! At any moment, these personalities could commandeer the body of an aberrant worm, or lurk within the network to issue commands to the entire swarm. *** Silver City No. 3 High School. Yu Xian returned to the rooftop carrying a student with a broken leg on his back. He set the injured student down carefully and said, "Old Zhang, guys, come give a hand. I've cleared out the aberrant worms on the sixth floor, and there are plenty of injured classmates who need our help." "Got it!" Zhang Shou nodded. Several other boys gritted their teeth and resolved to head down to help as well. Chen Ling spoke up, "I'm coming too. Two people are enough to stay here and watch over the injured." "I'll go as well." Nora felt she ought to do something. Yu Xian didn't refuse. There were quite a few injured students, and an extra pair of hands was always welcome. However, once everyone reached the sixth floor and stepped into the classroom of Class 6, Senior Year 3, they immediately turned and ran into the hallway to vomit. The scene inside was far too gruesome. Some students had been eaten until only half a torso remained; others were left with only half a face. It was a literal living hell. As innocent, sheltered high schoolers, when had Zhang Shou and the others ever witnessed such a gruesome sight? "Are they going to be all right?" Nora asked with concern, watching Chen Ling and the others. Yu Xian looked at Nora with mild surprise and smiled. "I expected them to react like this. But you—you didn't throw up at all." "I'm a vampire. I don't even have the ability to vomit," Nora said, rolling her eyes at him. Only then did Yu Xian realize: no wonder that despite finding the scene inside horrific and grotesque, he hadn't experienced the slightest physiological discomfort. It was because he was a vampire. Right then, an aberrant worm bolted up the staircase from the fifth floor. Yu Xian flicked his fingers, and a silver thread instantly cleaved the rushing worm in two. If he dared to bring Zhang Shou and the others down to rescue people, he naturally had the confidence to protect them. *Silver Blood!* Seeing Yu Xian's silver thread attack, Nora's eyes widened as she stared at the worm's severed corpse on the ground, reeling in shock. This was the major talent her father had awakened when he was a hundred and fifty years old! Why would Yu Xian possess it? She looked at him in disbelief, her mind in complete turmoil. In truth, she knew very little about Silver Blood. Her father had never consumed silver in front of her; she only knew that Silver Blood was an ability capable of generating fine silver threads. Otherwise, when she had seen Yu Xian devouring silver earlier, she would have made the connection right away. After a brief rest, Zhang Shou and the others finally regained their composure. Yu Xian led the way back into the classroom. Zhang Shou gritted his teeth and followed immediately, with the others trailing close behind. "Over here. She still has a heartbeat." Yu Xian quickly found the first survivor. A girl missing limbs, with a bite torn out of her face. Everyone present fell into grim silence the moment their eyes fell upon her. In the past, the "Rongcheng Tragedy" had been merely four words; many could not truly grasp why the word "tragedy" was used. Now, seeing the horrific plight of their own schoolmates with their own eyes, those present felt that even the word "tragedy" fell far short of describing the terror of this calamity.