At three in the night, the sudden downpour had just ceased.
Yu Ning, still shaken, had only just fallen asleep. She lay on her side, curled into a small ball, her long, thick lashes still beaded with tears.
Pei Chongqing studied her for a long time beside her—so long that his eyes grew dry and red, yet he couldn't bear to blink. He leaned against the edge of the bed, drawing extremely close, his breath continuously scalding and dampening Yu Ning's face, causing her to lightly furrow her delicate brows and turn over to the other side.
At an angle Yu Ning couldn't see, Pei Chongqing raised his hand, dug his fingertips into his eye socket, and plucked out his left eyeball. As usual, he placed it beside her for monitoring.
The eyeball had self-awareness. After landing on the mattress, it rolled toward Yu Ning on its own. Pei Chongqing saw its intent and immediately snatched it up, set it on the table, and trapped it under an overturned glass.
Suddenly faced with an extra transparent barrier, the round eyeball pressed flat against the table, glaring at the man with resentment.
Pei Chongqing paid it no heed. Every organ on his body had a strong emotional bias toward Yu Ning—once granted a soul-spirit, being drawn to her was only natural.
This eyeball could monitor Yu Ning's every move at home on his behalf, and it could also conceal its presence, hiding within the strands of Yu Ning's hair, between her breasts, or even in the more audacious crevice between her thighs to feel her warmth for him.
When he wasn't home, Pei Chongqing was willing to indulge its behavior. But since he was home, this eyeball could only serve a monitoring function.
Only he could enjoy Yu Ning fully and without restriction.
Leaving the bedroom, Pei Chongqing leaped from the windowsill and stepped nimbly into the neighboring building.
Following the long corridor, he walked to the end and arrived before a door. The door was tightly shut, yet a faint, fishy stench seeped through the narrow cracks. Pei Chongqing held his breath expressionlessly, refusing to let the odor enter his lungs.
In the past, he had eaten raw meat and drunk blood, favoring the smell of gore. Now, having been civilized by Yu Ning, he rejected it with equal fervor. The most crucial point was that he didn't want to carry the pheromones of others on his body—in their philosophy, pheromones were territorial markers, and he had to overwrite or seize them.
Pei Chongqing raised his hand, his fingertip tapping lightly. The spherical doorknob lock immediately shattered into pieces and fell to the ground.
With the lock destroyed, the door swung open on its own. The man inside lay sprawled on the floor in a grotesque posture, his skin a sickly pale blue-purple, flies already circling overhead.
An insect landed on his nose, rubbing its slender segmented legs, then spread its wings and flew toward the hollow, pitch-black eye socket. Dried bloody tears spread there like a spider's web, trailing across his face and seeping into his slightly parted lips, where wisps of black mist faintly swirled.
Ordinary humans could hardly coexist with Them. Even without sharing a roof, even without direct harm, as long as one's mental fortitude had suffered trauma, death was merely a matter of time.
To have survived this long was already a miracle.
Pei Chongqing lowered his gaze. Before the man's soul-spirit could undergo Alienation, he raised his hand and squeezed, crushing it first.
With a bang, the oppressive black mist over the corpse scattered instantly. The foreign thing that had been about to burst through his abdomen also lost its vitality and stopped writhing.
Pei Chongqing stared at the corpse with indifference. He had already developed a human aesthetic system and knew this body had no skin worth replacing his own. But when his gaze paused at the neck, he thought of his own damaged vocal cords.
Yu Ning liked talking to this man.
More than she liked talking to him.
Pei Chongqing's eyes darkened as he reached for his own throat. Without a second thought, he grew long black spikes from his fingers and drove them deep into his flesh, gouging out the useless cartilage and tissue.
Blood gushed from his Adam's apple in thick spurts—the pain was real, tangible. Pei Chongqing casually tossed aside the chunk of flesh in his hand, then reached into the dead man's neck, extracting the vocal cords in the same manner.
He tilted his chin up and shoved the harvested replacement deep into the hollow in his throat, pressing it in with brutal force.
The body's rejection reaction was more severe than he'd anticipated. Pei Chongqing couldn't stand; he dropped to his knees, one palm braced against the ground as he hunched over. He pressed his hand hard against his neck, refusing to let the replacement be expelled, forcing himself to adapt to the foreign sensation. Beneath the surface of his flesh, blood surged rapidly, writhing like black worms.
This stitched-together body endured this ordeal every time it accepted a new organ.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before Pei Chongqing finally felt the dense, tight sensation of fusion at his throat.
He slowly released his blood-soaked hand and rose to his feet, studying himself in the mirror. The split line at his neck was fusing at incredible speed until not a trace remained.
Pei Chongqing stepped toward the mirror, scrutinizing himself with the new vocal cords without blinking.
He didn't speak, didn't test the sound that his breath would push through his throat. He simply examined his appearance without pause.
This man's Adam's apple wasn't as full as his original one.
Pei Chongqing had compared them before—the only advantage was that this one could produce sound.
He tried to voice something, instinctively wanting to call Yu Ning's name.
The syllables reached the tip of his tongue, but he found himself unwilling to speak them.
He couldn't understand why, but something in him rejected it. Still, he knew that for the time being, Yu Ning must not hear this voice—just like the tattoo that would give him away.
With the vocal cords replaced, the corpse on the ground had outlived its usefulness.
Pei Chongqing left it to rot, never considering covering it with a white cloth or burying it. It wasn't until Yu Ning came the next day that he learned of this procedure.
The tape and newspaper over the windows and doors had been torn away, and daylight poured through the broken gaps, illuminating the bedroom in full.
After draping the white cloth over Jiang Xian's body, Yu Ning could no longer see his deathly visage, but the memory still burned in her mind, impossible to shake.
She stood at the sink, scrubbing her hands in a frenzy, even though she would be burying him in a moment. Water ran through her fingers as her stomach convulsed, forcing her to bend over and vomit up the bile she hadn't managed to purge the night before.
Yu Ning couldn't eat. Even as her stomach ached from retching, she had no appetite whatsoever.
With her self-defense mechanisms stripped away, her mind could no longer deceive her, no longer soothe her into believing Jiang Xian was still alive. The events of last night kept replaying in her head, every second crystal clear.
She wondered—if she had let Jiang Xian keep wearing the Protection Stone all night, and if she hadn't opened the window, would things have turned out differently…
Guilt flooded over her like an unreasonable tide. Yu Ning's strength gave out, and she collapsed against the sink, sobbing uncontrollably.
Pei Chongqing had finished digging the grave and was moving the body into it when he looked up and saw Yu Ning, her eyes swollen to the size of walnuts from crying.
She cut a bouquet of roses from the backyard garden and laid them in the grave alongside the fake jade he'd found and other trinkets, offering them all to Jiang Xian before the burial. As she covered the grave, her small frame trembled, and faint sobs could still be heard.
Yu Ning had been grieving since last night, and she hadn't stopped.
She was an emotionally rich woman—when the chickens she raised died in the past, she would grieve for days.
Pei Chongqing disliked her spending so much energy on such things, especially on humans.
Jiang Xian died well, but not perfectly. If he had left on his own and died somewhere outside, perhaps Yu Ning wouldn't be so upset.
Back at home, Pei Chongqing held Yu Ning in his arms, lowering his head to gently kiss her reddened eyes, wiping away the salty tears. He urgently needed her to pull herself out of this sorrow for others, but he couldn't speak tender, affectionate words. He had no eloquence in him, and his vocal cords weren't suited for it either—so he could only express himself through this intimate gesture.
Yu Ning's body softened in his embrace, their soft lips and tongues intertwining, but it didn't reach the point of abandon—merely lingering at the surface of a kiss.
She refused his attempts at deeper intimacy, her slender brows remaining slightly furrowed, tinged with sorrowful distress.
That night, she cried bitterly again, asking him if she had done something wrong.
Pei Chongqing found it difficult to offer her any answers or comfort. He felt nothing but indifference toward that man's death, only the thought that "he died poorly, at the wrong time"—but such a thought would be cruel to a human, so he merely curved his lips into what he believed was a flawless smile.
Yu Ning loved the way Pei Chongqing smiled, but at this moment, seeing him unchanged, maintaining that same smile, she felt a desolate emptiness in her heart.
She thought, perhaps Pei Chongqing simply had no feelings for Jiang Xian, didn't understand the meaning of death. He understood nothing—she had to teach him everything—but she could hardly teach him why one should grieve for another person. So she was lenient toward his strange attitude.
That night, however, Pei Chongqing's hands grew restless. He embraced her from behind, his hand going straight to her leg.
Yu Ning kicked her leg in discomfort, frowning and speaking in a muffled voice: "I don't want to. Don't do this."
Her eyes welled up with tears again, like fine strands of pearls, her cheeks flushed with hot sweat, strands of hair clinging damply to her skin.
Pei Chongqing withdrew his hand, silently watching her, not touching her again.
Yu Ning lay back down, moving away from him, turning her back to him—clearly showing she didn't want to be close.
She said she wanted some quiet. At first, Pei Chongqing didn't know what "quiet" was, and felt displeased at the existence of this "quiet."
When he learned that "quiet" simply meant letting her be alone to calm down, a strange resistance welled up in Pei Chongqing's heart.
Jiang Xian's death was like a boundary lying between them. He could no longer freely mate with Yu Ning, enjoy the pleasures of intimacy, or see Yu Ning's smile again.
This man—the way he died and the timing of it were both wrong.
On the third night after the burial, Pei Chongqing dug up the corpse from the earth and threw it into the dense forest ten li away, leaving it to be devoured by low-level Heterogeneous Monsters.
He restored the grave site to its original state, leaving no trace for Yu Ning to notice. But Yu Ning didn't often visit the neighboring grave to pay respects—or rather, she never went again.
She was grieved, yes, but she had no heart to revisit the place, avoiding it entirely. She only wore black and white clothing properly for the mourning period.
A week passed, and Yu Ning's mood improved somewhat, mainly through watching trashy TV dramas and self-consolation.
She thought, if she hadn't picked Jiang Xian up and brought him home that day, he might have died long ago.
Although she hadn't been able to completely save him and keep him alive forever, at least she had extended his life a little—that counted as… as a life-extending benefactor, right?
Yu Ning bit her lip, raised a hand to gently cup her flushed face, and tried very hard to convince herself.
After the seventh day of mourning rites, Yu Ning no longer refused Pei Chongqing's advances. She willingly opened herself and let him bury his head between her legs.
A dull ache spread through her lower abdomen, and she felt a warm surge about to flow out. Sensing something wrong, Yu Ning clamped her legs together and lifted Pei Chongqing's head. Catching sight of the bright red blood on his lips, she let out a startled "Ah!" and, half-embarrassed and half-annoyed, pounded his shoulder: "Don't lick that!"
Turning on the bathroom faucet, Pei Chongqing rinsed his mouth while Yu Ning washed away the bloodstains.
After cleaning up, Yu Ning inserted a tampon. In the mirror, her eyes met the man's, and her face flushed red then paled. She scolded him indignantly: "Are you a dog? I'm on my period and you still licked it."
Pei Chongqing lowered his gaze, a faint smile curving at the corners of his lips. He asked out of nowhere: "Yu Ning. Like dogs. Do you?"
Dogs?
Fluffy and soft—who wouldn't like them?
Yu Ning gave a very soft "Mm," and said casually: "I used to have one."
Pei Chongqing narrowed his eyes. "Like me. Is it?"
"No, dogs and people are different. Dogs are little animals," Yu Ning explained. "They can guard the house, they can play with us—just like little kids."
Pei Chongqing was surprisingly eager to learn, wanting to know more, but Yu Ning couldn't quite articulate it. It was really hard for someone with only a high school education.
With her period, her lower back ached so much she couldn't sleep. She decided to go to the study to look for books, wondering if there were any illustrated guides on cats and dogs—and she actually found one. It seemed Pei Chongqing had just brought it back last time.
This kind of illustrated book was perfect for teaching him. All she had to do was read the text aloud. Of course, Pei Chongqing's literacy level was already sufficient for him to read independently, so she just read a couple of lines to be polite before handing it over to him and finding something else that interested her.
Yu Ning had actually enjoyed reading quite a bit before, and had even thought about taking the self-study college entrance exam to change her fate.
Although the place she lived now was well-suited for her to study, there was no university here for her to attend.
Thinking of this, Yu Ning remembered Jiang Xian's words. He had asked her if she was truly willing to waste her whole life here.
Yu Ning hadn't thought much of it before, even though her range of activity was only this tiny patch of land, and her only daily interactions were with Pei Chongqing.
But now…
Yu Ning's nose tingled with sadness, and she bit her lip with lingering fear.
She suddenly wanted to go home so badly.
After reading, Yu Ning still wasn't very sleepy. She lay in bed with a heavy heart, letting Pei Chongqing hold her and massage her lower abdomen.
The next day, she slept until noon before groggily getting up to wash up and cook.
Perhaps because she missed home so much, she had dreamed last night of her old school days—so nostalgic, so yearned for.
Yu Ning didn't know how to return to the right world. She didn't have a system on her, and Jiang Xian hadn't taught her either, only telling her that there might be a way.
After all, if a person could travel here, they could always travel back—as long as you were still alive.
This world couldn't possibly have only her and Pei Chongqing as living people, right? There had to be someone who had studied this godforsaken place and risked themselves to find a way to break through.
Yu Ning thought optimistically, and made up her mind to have Pei Chongqing go out.
She smoothed his sleeve and instructed: "Chongqing, if you see anyone out there, you must find a way to bring them back."
She pressed another item into his hand, her tone earnest. "Even if you can't bring it back, at least give this note to them."
This wasn't the first time Yu Ning had made such a request, but the last time had been long ago.
Pei Chongqing's expression gradually turned cold. He concluded that she was lonely, in need of a second man's company.
A second Jiang Xian.
He neither agreed nor refused. After leaving, he swallowed the note, letting it dissolve into his body.
In the newly formed Death Domain, Pei Chongqing had indeed encountered other humans. He hadn't attacked them, but the faces of those people already showed the deathly signs of blood seeping from their seven orifices. Blood flowed like a river, and among the scattered corpses, a furry black creature lay prostrate on the ground, barely breathing.
Pei Chongqing lowered his gaze to observe, making a judgment about the creature.
It was a dog.