Clap, clap, clap.
The crisp sound of applause drew Yu Suheng’s gaze.
Li Xin remained leaning against the bed, unmoving, speaking with a smile: “Clean and decisive. Truly worthy of a ‘big shot’.”
Ignoring the ambiguous, mocking remark, Yu Suheng didn’t pull back his dagger but threw it straight at him.
The sharp blade whistled through the air, grazing the side of the man’s motionless face, slicing off a few strands of hair and bringing all of Li Xin’s movements to a halt.
Subconsciously catching the falling hair, Li Xin looked up and met Yu Suheng’s gaze.
“You’d best not try anything else.” Yu Suheng’s tone wasn’t particularly harsh; it sounded more like a casual request than a warning, and he didn’t really expect Li Xin to listen.
The reaction was far too calm for someone who had just thrown a knife. Li Xin sighed, released the remote control in his hand, and spread his hands toward him, complaining with a mix of truth and pretense: “You really are here to be my nemesis.”
Yu Suheng tsked, throwing the exact words right back at him.
For a moment, neither could persuade the other. Li Xin surrendered first, finally deigning to step down from behind his “human shield.” His tone returned to normal, as if nothing had happened: “Fine. What’s the situation on your side?”
“Chen Dan is unconscious,” Yu Suheng replied. “His memories are a mess right now. Whether he can recover them later depends on himself.”
Li Xin wasn’t surprised by this result: “You were sent by the cleaning lady, right? Since she turned back into a shadow, she has completely abandoned her human identity?”
“Yeah.”
Li Xin understood: “Now that the Dean is dead, logically there’s no need for the mission to continue, but your expression isn’t great… Is it because the contamination hasn’t been removed?”
Yu Suheng looked at him but didn’t answer.
Li Xin looked back candidly; he had already received his answer from the silence. The dangling earrings reflected subtle shimmers of light.
“I’ve looked into the relevant data. Both the shadows and the contamination originate from the Dean. If that’s the case, the Dean’s death should have taken all negative effects away from you.” He paused slightly, observing Yu Suheng’s pale face, and chuckled: “But it hasn’t.”
It really hadn’t. The contamination was clamoring and assaulting his nerves; although his shadow hadn’t fully awakened yet, he could already feel that invisible tugging.
His patience finally exhausted, Yu Suheng took an impatient step back. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying…” Li Xin stepped forward with a smile. As he passed by, he patted the man’s shoulder: “I can help you.”
Yu Suheng sneered: “You?”
“Yes, me.” Li Xin ignored the other man’s mockery, walked all the way to the Dean’s body, and looked back at him: “How about a trade? I can help you find a way to lift the contamination.”
As he spoke, he pointed to “Feng Hao,” who was hiding in a corner somewhere, and added: “But the condition is that you help me complete this so-called ‘Perfect Case’.”
Removing his gaze from the hospital bed, Yu Suheng didn’t answer immediately, instead asking: “Is this your mission?”
“Yes.” Li Xin admitted it straightforwardly: “The creation of a ‘Perfect Case’ proves my educational achievements. That is the content of my mission.”
His expression was far too sincere. When those deep, night-like eyes restrained all their malice and instead became imbued with a smile while calmly watching someone, it was hard for anyone to refuse him.
At least, Yu Suheng couldn’t.
A person who always liked to control the big picture stood there quietly waiting for an answer, his body language telling the other party that he wouldn’t act rashly until granted permission.
Was it feigning weakness or a trap? Yu Suheng felt his head spinning even more and suddenly regretted not just tying the man up and gagging him.
However, he quickly forced himself to pull away from the whirlpool. When his thoughts returned, he found he still couldn’t find a reason to refuse.
It was indeed a win-win trade. The person on the bed was already thoroughly contaminated, the mission was destined to fail, so there was no need for him to waste effort saving him.
And regarding the contamination, he truly didn’t have any new leads for the time being. Agreeing to Li Xin was indeed the most appropriate choice.
Clearing up the current situation, Yu Suheng took a step back, which counted as tacit consent.
Realizing this, Li Xin curled his lips. He squatted down, pulled an ID card from the Dean’s pocket, and tossed it toward Yu Suheng, his tone rising: “Authority access. To be honest, I didn’t think you had the habit of frisking bodies.”
Yu Suheng: “…”
With a deadpan face, he caught the thin card. In fact, even if Yu Suheng hadn’t originally had the habit of frisking, after being targeted by the game’s rules for so long, he had developed it.
He hadn’t searched the body this time simply to guard against Li Xin’s little tricks.
At times like this, he always had an uncanny sense of trust in Li Xin—as long as this man had a breath left, he could never be content with just sitting still.
The access card was inserted into the computer, and Li Xin skillfully entered commands. The sound of electricity echoed in the room for a long time before a voice finally came from the other end.
“…Who are you?” The voice, mixed with static, was very strained and hoarse.
Yu Suheng’s eyelids twitched; he recognized the school doctor’s voice.
“Good evening, Doctor,” Li Xin said casually. Regardless of the shocked coughing on the other end, he continued: “Come to the Dean’s laboratory. You know where it is.”
After that, without waiting for the doctor’s reply, he hung up the communication.
The doctor was fast. Coupled with the green light Li Xin had cleared for him, he burst in after only five minutes. He stared at the two faces, pointing at the mud-like pile of the Dean on the ground and trembling for a long time.
Li Xin glanced at him: “If you have Parkinson’s, please take your medication.”
The doctor: “…”
Why didn’t you die here with the Dean?
His burst of excitement was ruthlessly extinguished. The doctor bypassed the Dean and walked to Li Xin’s side with a complicated expression. “You really ‘slew the dragon’? How did you do it?”
“The dragon-slaying hero is behind you. If you have questions, wait for the post-game interview.” Li Xin ruthlessly pushed the doctor in front of the computer, wearing the face of an ancient slave driver: “Work first.”
The doctor was in a good mood and didn’t mind Li Xin’s terrible attitude, just asked in confusion: “Work? What work is there now? You have the access card. Why don’t you just notify someone to open the doors and let everyone go home?”
“Because the Dean is dead, but the contamination hasn’t disappeared.” Li Xin’s smile faded slightly, and he looked pensive: “I previously thought that the shadows and contamination were the Dean’s abilities. But now the core has been split in two, yet the contamination shows no signs of weakening.”
Li Xin lowered his eyes. In fact, not only had the contamination not disappeared, but the markings on his neck were spreading. The pain was actually subsiding, but this wasn’t a good thing; it might have already affected his nervous system.
Hearing this statement, the doctor finally realized something was wrong. This time he didn’t make small talk, his fingers flying across the interface.
Densely packed data filled the entire screen. The room was silent for a while, with only the sound of keyboard clacking.
After the last piece of data was exported, the doctor wiped his face and leaned back against his chair.
“We missed one point.” The doctor’s voice sounded a bit weary. Li Xin said “Hm,” sounding no different than usual. “Just tell me.”
The doctor’s voice was dry. He looked up at the light screen, his voice incredibly hoarse: “We always thought it was the Dean who brought the shadows’ mutation and the contamination, but it’s actually the opposite.”
“It was the contamination and the mutation that gave birth to the Dean.”
The doctor gripped the back of his chair tightly, the words practically squeezed out through his teeth in despair: “These things are essentially alive. Without a host, they will only become more insane!”
Yu Suheng frowned, his gaze falling on Feng Hao on the hospital bed.
He had long noticed that this person’s condition was unstable; black contamination covered his body, constantly repairing and stitching up wounds that burst open from the swelling.
But now, having lost the Dean’s intellectual leadership, these things seemed to be left only with the instincts for contamination and repair. The corrupted contamination was eroding this already riddled body while repairing it.
If this continued, a human body alone probably wouldn’t last long enough to digest that pile of alien knowledge.
Yu Suheng looked at Li Xin not far away and frowned slightly.
He couldn’t understand what he was thinking. That person didn’t seem to be affected at all, his posture as relaxed as a spectator.
“You think this contamination can’t be removed?” Li Xin asked.
“Yes…” The doctor’s expression was decadent. “These things are uncontrolled and have no consciousness; everything is acted upon by instinct.”
Li Xin listened casually and walked toward the Dean lying on the floor. He pulled out the scalpel from his pocket and gently wiped it with his gloved fingertips: “But the doctor did successfully ‘use’ them, which means they can be controlled.”
“But you saw the state of the Dean—he was a monster!” The doctor directly retorted. “Only a monster can control a monster!”
“You could dissect his body to see. Through scanning data, he didn’t even have a heart; his body was just a hollow shell!” The doctor said, turning his head to look at Yu Suheng. “Right, dragon-slaying hero? Did you feel any flesh or blood when your knife went in?”
Yu Suheng’s voice was icy: “…If you call me by that title again, I can slay you as well.”
The doctor looked away awkwardly: “…You’re vicious.”
Having expressed his dissatisfaction with the idiotic title, Yu Suheng answered the doctor’s question anyway. He looked at Li Xin, who was squatting beside the Dean, and crossed his arms while leaning against the wall: “You can understand his body as just a mimicry.”
“Mimicry?” Li Xin didn’t look up. The sharp scalpel easily sliced through the Dean’s remaining carcass, revealing a void-like blackness.
These black substances still reacted to external force. Fine black silk threads followed the tip of the blade and coiled onto Li Xin’s gloved fingertips.
Watching this scene, Yu Suheng frowned slightly in a rare display of emotion, then turned his head away with a “don’t-want-to-see” expression.
“This kind of mimicry isn’t rare. There are many… lives in the world that are born without physical entities, composed purely of power or elements. The forms they take can all be understood as mimicry.”
The soft black threads couldn’t stop the sharp blade; they were ultimately devastated and felt the threat of a powerful force.
Instinct made them cling to everything they touched, and coincidentally, the body beside them had a scent they were familiar with.
—It was the scent of the Seed.
This pull made them hesitate no longer. Like the tentacles of a creeper vine, they coiled affectionately around that warm hand.
Li Xin lowered his eyes, unmoved, watching those fine black threads churning until they delivered a black sphere—nearly shattered in half and only the size of a thumb—to his eyes.
It was the core that Yu Suheng had pierced with his knife. It should have dissipated directly, but the clinging black threads linked it back together, barely halting the collapse.
The fact that the core hadn’t completely dissipated meant that the Dean should have had the possibility of resurrection. But now, they had abandoned their frail mimicry and made a new choice.
This scene made Li Xin realize something, and he hooked the corners of his lips.
Without encountering further obstruction, the threads carried the core and climbed up his arm all the way to the position of his heart.
They wove and coiled on the surface for a moment. One of the threads even held the core up and shook it at Li Xin, indicating it couldn’t get inside.
Li Xin finally couldn’t help but laugh. He touched the fine, soft threads, clearly knowing that this was an invitation from the edge of death.
And he, indeed, would not refuse.
Without the slightest hesitation, the sharp scalpel pressed against his heart. With his fingertips, he slashed downwards suddenly, without the slightest pause, and blood surged out in an instant.
Yu Suheng turned back at almost the same moment. In the instant their eyes met, Li Xin saw an indescribable shock on that face, which was always calm and indifferent:
“Li Xin!”
For some reason, Li Xin tilted his head at him subconsciously. The corners of his lips, stained with blood, curved into a beautiful arc, like a silent comfort.
The surging threads and the control buttons finally pressed blocked the figure that was trying to step forward.
Li Xin, with a trace of apology that he couldn’t name the source of, lightly closed his eyes, allowing those jubilant little threads to carry the core and entwine his entire chest cavity.
This was a high-stakes gamble. Li Xin didn’t know his own ending, but… it seemed he had been looking forward to this for a long time.