A bare back, so thin that the bones were clearly visible beneath the skin. Two butterfly blades, their curves nearly perfect, were so beautiful they seemed ready to sprout wings. The waist was slender, the legs long and graceful.
Egg white clung to his delicate, snow-white skin, making it look moist and smooth. The translucent liquid dripped thickly from his body, falling to the ground in sticky strands.
He raised a finger to his lips, as if giving it a lick.
Thin and eerie, he looked so frail that a gust of wind might knock him over—yet there was a twisted, almost morbid beauty to him.
It lured Yan Huang, refusing to let him look away even a fraction.
Yan Huang desperately wanted to see what the face beneath that back looked like.
Perhaps it was a killer from behind, for all he knew.
Slowly, the person before him turned around.
That face was finally revealed.
The moment Yan Huang saw it clearly, his complexion turned pale—even his scalp went numb!
The person before him had a cold, pale, handsome face. The facial muscles naturally squeezed out a smile fixed at a certain angle, stiff and unchanging.
No one smiled like that. It was unnervingly strange, sending a strong sense of danger.
And this person—no one else—was none other than Xie Fumu, whom Yan Huang had seen just that afternoon!!
His eyes were fixed on Yan Huang’s door, on the peephole, on… Yan Huang.
Yan Huang was momentarily baffled.
What was going on with Xie Fumu? He was perfectly fine this afternoon, and now he’d turned into an egg?
In Yan Huang’s mind.
Two words that had been appearing frequently lately suddenly surfaced.
—Hatching.
After hatching, was a person still a person?
After hatching, was Xie Fumu still Xie Fumu?
Xie Fumu looked much better than before, but his behavior had also grown far more bizarre.
Through the wooden door, he locked eyes with Yan Huang.
Yan Huang had a strong feeling that Xie Fumu definitely knew he was inside.
And even knew that Yan Huang was watching him.
Cold sweat kept beading on his back, soaking through his clothes, sticking clammy to his skin.
What did Xie Fumu want to do?
Just as that curiosity struck him.
Xie Fumu finally made his move.
In the dim, silent corridor, he stepped through the egg liquid pooled on the floor. With each step, one could hear the sound of thick liquid sloshing, the sticky drag of it slipping under his feet, and the heavy, dull thud of the wooden floorboards.
Step by step, he drew closer and closer.
His figure grew larger and larger in the limited field of vision.
Soon, his face was no longer visible.
Only his collarbone could be seen.
What was he going to do?
Was it a coincidence… or was he about to barge in?
Yan Huang instinctively tightened his grip on the knife in his hand.
Suddenly, the peephole went dark—blocked by Xie Fumu’s hand.
So Xie Fumu really did know he was peeking!
Now his vision was completely obscured, with no way to observe the other’s movements. The sense of danger skyrocketed, leaving only one thought in Yan Huang’s mind—
Better him than me. If he dares to come in, I’ll kill him!
The peephole showed an image again.
Yan Huang pressed his eye back to it.
The view was empty.
Where was he?
In that instant.
A shadow flashed past, and the peephole’s view was rapidly filled by a single eye.
With the aid of Night Vision, Yan Huang could see it all with perfect clarity.
The white of the eye, the black of the pupil, the eyelashes, and… that sick, frenzied mockery!
Xie Fumu was like a madman, trying to shove his own eye through the peephole, staring down the voyeur with ever-shrinking distance. He was smiling, the corners of his mouth stretched nearly to his deltoids.
Yan Huang’s entire body broke out in goosebumps!
He didn’t even dare to take another breath.
Even so, he couldn’t break eye contact at this moment.
The other’s gaze was like a grappling hook, snagging him and robbing him of his ability to think, his mind going completely blank.
What the hell was this thing!
“Ha! Hahahaha—!”
Xie Fumu suddenly stepped back, clutching his stomach as he shrieked with laughter, as if toying with Yan Huang’s emotions was something that brought him immense delight.
He laughed until he was out of breath.
Yan Huang was both furious and terrified. The current Xie Fumu was far too bizarre, and in this Instance, anything could happen.
With insufficient information, he didn’t dare take reckless risks.
He could only stand quietly and watch this Xie Fumu laugh.
As the laughter went on, Xie Fumu seemed to grow bored again. His lips slowly flattened, and he stared at the peephole for a long time before his fingers began circling it over and over.
The circling grew faster and faster, pressing down until his knuckles were about to snap.
Not good!
Yan Huang’s mind reacted instinctively.
He quickly ducked down to dodge.
Bang—!
The peephole couldn’t withstand the pressure and burst open.
Glass shards shot out like buckshot from a shotgun.
Particles landed on Yan Huang’s back.
A deafening roar rang in his ears.
This was no time to let his guard down.
He immediately looked up.
And the moment he did.
In the peephole, where the lens had been lost, there was now only a pair of lips.
The lips slowly moved up and down.
Though there was no sound.
Yan Huang could read what they were saying.
—【Hatching…】
—【Who’s next?】
With that, it expressed nothing more.
The lips closed, but the corners curled upward.
Then.
A hoarse voice emerged—dry, mocking, like someone stranded in a desert of despair still laughing at their fellow traveler.
“It’s you.”
Yan Huang’s pupils contracted sharply.
Damn it!
He gritted his teeth, one hand gripping the doorknob, the other clenching his knife, ready to charge out and fight to the death.
But just then.
The other let out a “giggle giggle giggle” laugh.
Its limbs flailed rapidly. It turned and fled the floor in an instant.
It ran away.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
That speed… wasn’t something a normal person could achieve.
What exactly was Hatching?
What kind of monster… was this thing?
Surviving by the skin of his teeth.
Yan Huang felt every cell in his body screaming warnings at him.
He went limp and collapsed to the ground.
How was anyone supposed to sleep after that?
The bullet comments, silent for so long, exploded all at once.
【Holy shit holy shit… that was terrifying, what the hell was that segment… I’ve never seen this before! Peephole eye contact… damn, I didn’t even dare breathe!】
【Is this a hidden storyline? Caught me completely off guard, holy shit… damn, the streamer’s mental fortitude is insane too, still daring to keep staring at the peephole, fuck!】
【Wuwuwuwu, scared me to death, the City of Incubation stream feels a bit different somehow, I need to tip the streamer quick, or if he dies too early we won’t get to see what happens next!】
He checked the live viewer count.
It had already reached a terrifying “5,733” people.
Then he checked his achievements—he’d completed two more.
【Congratulations to the streamer for completing the achievement “5,000 Concurrent Viewers,” reward: 500 points.】
【Congratulations to the streamer for completing the achievement “Witness of Hatching,” reward: 0.1 to each Three-Dimensional Attribute.】
【Player: Deceiver—Yan Huang】
【Strength: 1.1】
【Agility: 1.1】
【Intelligence: 1.8】
【Total: 4.0】
[Evaluation: After a day of trials, your Status Panel is finally somewhat presentable. However… for the Instance, you are still a small fry. Please continue striving to be higher, stronger, and more enduring!]
Yan Huang looked at his Attribute Panel, which had improved nearly twofold compared to when he first entered, especially in terms of physical fitness.
He could now keep up with normal people.
He looked at the messy room.
Sleeping was out of the question.
But idling around wasn’t an option either.
Then… he might as well go all out.
Just then, an unexpected message popped up.