Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 88: Fatal Mutation

The feeling of insomnia was miserable. It was like drinking too much coffee: the body felt heavy, the mind scattered, but the brain refused to quiet down.

Fang Xiu let out a long sigh and tugged at Bai Shuangying. “Come on, let’s eat.”

Winter’s cold made it perfect for doing things that warmed the body, like kissing his ghost. Since he couldn’t sleep, he might as well become more awake.

With habit of their “feeding” came fluency; their kisses had grown steadily more practiced.

Bai Shuangying was very good at teasing a living soul. His skill soon outpaced Fang Xiu’s. Fang Xiu suspected his ghost had developed a liking for “mouth-to-mouth” intimacy. Bai Shuangying had once commented that Fang Xiu’s soul had a delicious flavor. The kiss resembled slow savoring, enjoying the texture.

Food and sex are both primal drives, Fang Xiu thought breathlessly. There’s a kind of overlap.

The invading ghost tongue could shift shape. Amid pleasure and shivers, Fang Xiu would sometimes hallucinate that he was truly being devoured. Lately, his ghost had even begun adding touches. Cool fingers occasionally brushed over his nape and back.

Bai Shuangying was a bit taller. He leaned slightly when they kissed, his silk-black hair swaying near their cheeks and blocking out the ambient light.

Fang Xiu sometimes peeked with one eye to admire him. He didn’t find it frightening, only safe. That darkness felt like a dreamless night.

Tonight, hidden in a quiet corner, Bai Shuangying’s kiss was particularly long.

Where their skin touched, something cool seeped into Fang Xiu’s body. He opened his eyes in confusion, meeting Bai Shuangying’s unblinking pale gaze.

“I just examined your soul.” After the long kiss ended, Bai Shuangying whispered, “There’s some mutation on the surface of your soul. It might be caused by a taboo.”

“Mutation?” Fang Xiu forced himself to focus.

Bai Shuangying nodded. “Your physical body looks fin with no visible abnormalities. The distorted text you’ve been seeing is one sign of soul mutation.”

Fang Xiu, still groggy, tried to make sense of it. Everything had seemed normal before. Why had Bai Shuangying suddenly thought to check his soul?

He thought slowly. “Do you recognize those monsters from earlier?”

It was the only lead that came to mind.

Bai Shuangying pondered. “They weren’t remnant souls. They were husks.”

In his long life, Bai Shuangying had seen this twice. Once, when a Taoist’s soul was attacked after leaving the body. The second, when a curse failed and the person’s soul shattered.

Without a soul to anchor it, a living human’s body could be warped at will by spells, like soft flesh without a skeleton.

“When living beings die, the spirit (po)¹ should disperse first, followed by the soul (hun)¹ departing. If the soul is destroyed first, the body is prone to mutation,” Bai Shuangying explained. “Those creatures were human shells after such mutations.”

¹Clarity: He’s referring to hun and po. Together, [hunpo] makes up the soul.

So those creepy crawling things were running on spinal reflex alone.

Fang Xiu rubbed his temples. “Is this kind of method common?”

Bai Shuangying shook his head. “Preserving the body just to attack the soul is like keeping the eggshell and removing the yolk. It’s pointless.”

That was a more elegant way to put it. Less mildly, it was like taking off one’s pants just to fart.

To evil spirits, the human body was just packaging. As for humans who would do this to others, Bai Shuangying had never seen any. Only high-ranking Underworld officers might have that ability. Even ordinary enforcers couldn’t manage it.

He strongly suspected he was the only one who recognized those monsters among everyone present.

This kind of ritual really did need a Disaster Resolver. Regular sacrifices would be walking to their deaths.

Thinking of how even Zhuang Pengdao hadn’t figured it out, Bai Shuangying shot a smug glance at his human.

Fang Xiu reached out to stroke his hair, though his gaze was slightly unfocused. The effect of breaking a taboo… When had they violated one? How had they triggered it? Not a single sign had been noticeable. Compared to the clear-cut taboo responses before, this slow, silent mutation was far more terrifying.

Mental corruption, insomnia, and then body distortion leading to death. They had clearly triggered one or two taboos yet still knew nothing about them.

A whole city had been moved under their noses, encompassing all aspects of human life, and they couldn’t even guess the “theme” of the ritual.

This was exactly what made Immortal E a Disaster Resolver’s job. Five-star difficulty.

Fang Xiu took a deep breath and buried his face into Bai Shuangying’s neck, enjoying the ghost’s perfectly cool temperature.

“What are you doing here all alone?” Yan Yan had followed his nose and arrived, his fox-like eyes full of curiosity.

“Meditating,” Fang Xiu replied, lifting his head. “Why, need something?”

“Thought we could move somewhere else before it gets too late.”

Yan Yan let out a huge yawn. “This place is no good, neither of us can sleep. Zhuang Ge got us enough money for hotel rooms.”

‘It seems I’m not the only one suffering from insomnia,’ Fang Xiu thought.

……

Exhausted, the group returned to the city center. Zhuang Pengdao found a high-end hotel and booked three large suites. He even conjured up an ID on the spot using some suspiciously well-practiced spell.

Jiao Jiao, Cheng Songyun, and Mei Lan shared one room. Zhuang Pengdao and his two disciples, plus Yan Yan filled another.

That left Fang Xiu and Guan He. The twin monks split the last room, making sure everyone had a hot shower and a bed to sleep in.

At last, the noise of the KFC was gone. The beds were soft and comfortable. In the dead of winter, after a hot bath and a cup of warm water, slipping into cozy blankets felt like full-body anesthesia.

As expected, though, no one could fall asleep.

The Luo twins lay in bed for half an hour before sitting up and silently started chanting scriptures.

Guan He kept tossing and sighing under his covers. His child ghost had come out and was kneeling between him and Fang Xiu, worriedly tugging at Guan He’s arm.

Fang Xiu lay there with a pounding head, his mind spinning non-stop. He stared at the room’s little “Do Not Disturb” sign until his vision blurred with vertigo.

Thankfully, his ghost didn’t need to sleep. Bai Shuangying sat at the edge of the bed, fingers combing through Fang Xiu’s messy hair, casually massaging his scalp. The cool fingertips calmed Fang Xiu’s agitation by more than half.

Time passed silently. After who knew how long, one of the Luo brothers finally spoke. “If none of us can sleep, it’s probably a taboo. We’re going to try something.”

Fang Xiu tiredly sat up. “Be careful. Maybe just lie down and endure it for now.”

Typical troublesome dark monks. They were quite troublesome. These two were nothing like traditional righteous cultivators.

Both monks shook their heads like rattles. “You don’t understand, Patreon. Our magic depends on reciting scripture. If our minds aren’t clear and we mess up during casting, it could cost lives.”

One added, “If we used spells, there’d be risk. We’ll try a more direct method.”

The other: “Have you heard of a ‘a wake-up call¹’?”

Fang Xiu: “…”

Wait a second. Was this what he thought it was?

Before he could ask, one monk rolled up his sleeve to reveal a muscular arm, and punched his brother squarely on the head. The blow landed perfectly, like a textbook knockout.

The other monk collapsed and fell into a “deep sleep”.

Fang Xiu and Guan He stood frozen.

The remaining monk let out a sigh of relief, dragged his unconscious brother to bed, and tidied up. “We’ll take turns keeping watch. As long as we control the strength, it’s safe. Want help?¹”

¹(當頭棒喝) Idiom from A Compendium of the Five Lamps. Metaphorically it means a sudden awakening (like making someone come to their senses aka a wake-up call), but in this case… they are actually acting out the physical action of the source idiom, where a Master Monk would slap his disciples with a stick in the head or shout at them to wake them up. Not only is this more comical, the fact that they are monks, but what they are doing is actually the opposite of what the metaphor refers to.

“Kh.”

Before he could finish asking, the unconscious monk let out a low sound, mouth slightly open.

“Little brother?” The awake monk, Da Luo, called out in shock.

Fang Xiu leapt up and rushed to the bedside. Bai Shuangying followed, staring at the monk curiously.

“Kh… kh…”

Xiao Luo opened his eyes; only the whites were visible. A strange, wet sound escaped his throat, like something inside him was breaking apart.

His body twisted onto its side, curling up. His spine arched at an unnatural angle. His limbs twitched, the monk’s robe clung to his skin, and his neck shrank shorter and shorter.

Right before their eyes, he mutated.

Da Luo gasped and began rapidly chanting an exorcism. Guan He trembled slightly but forced himself to stay at the bedside, watching closely.

Golden light and characters floated up from Da Luo’s chanting, fluttering gently around Xiao Luo. But the mutation didn’t slow at all. His body curled like a shrimp, neck shortening until his chin touched his collarbone.

Splash!

Fang Xiu ran into the bathroom, filled a basin with cold water, and dumped it onto Xiao Luo’s spasming body.

…The icy splash seemed to work. Xiao Luo slowly opened his eyes.

“…Zzmw?” he murmured, confused.

Da Luo took a moment to respond. “…Little brother?”

Xiao Luo: “Nf str kf laoq… blu tmz yjdf!”

He tried to get up, but his misshapen body wouldn’t allow it. His bent spine pulled him forward until he dropped to all fours like a flesh-colored beetle.

Da Luo: “…”

Da Luo frowned and pressed on his brother’s deformed back, but it didn’t budge. Xiao Luo’s chest had expanded, his body stiffened, like someone hunched for years.

And his retracted head made it impossible to turn left or right. He could only face straight ahead.

“Lr zxx… fnl zf ypq???” Xiao Luo babbled unintelligibly, hands pawing at the carpet.

Fang Xiu stood with the dripping basin, now fully awake.

He didn’t understand what had happened, but his instincts honed by four rituals told him one thing: this person was done for. Just a few minutes of unconsciousness had turned him into this.

That posture looked a lot like the “predecessor form” of those monstrous corpses.

“Bai Shuangying,” Fang Xiu murmured. “Do you think we couldn’t sleep because our instincts were trying to protect us?”

“One of the taboos here might be: ‘Do not lose consciousness’.”

Bai Shuangying stepped forward and touched Xiao Luo’s panicked body. After a moment, he withdrew his hand. “His soul has undergone severe mutation, disconnected from his body.”

“It’s the same mutation type that’s starting in you,” he added softly after a pause.

Fang Xiu took a deep breath.

A mild mutation just made him illiterate. A severe one stole language and human form.

Wonderful. Sleep meant rapid transformation into a monster. But without sleep, the body wouldn’t last. This countdown was even more intense than the Mid-Autumn ritual.

That woman who jumped from the building had said, “Don’t die too fast.” In hindsight, that had been full of meaning.

“I get it now.” Fang Xiu’s voice was hoarse. “Looks like we need to wake everyone else up.”

……

In a corner of the city, inside a residential building…

“Sweetheart, talk to Mom, okay?” The woman who had jumped stood by a tightly shut door. “Just five minutes. Please?”

There was dead silence from within.

“I’m begging you. Just five minutes. If you come out and let me see you, I’ll be at ease.”

Though she said “I’m begging you,” her face remained expressionless, numb like she was performing a routine task.

There was a faint sound from behind the door, but still no reply.

“I’m doing this for your own good.”

She pressed a hand to the cold surface and murmured softly, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Her voice sounded full of sorrow, but her face split into a grin, like she was telling a joke.

“…You’ll understand when you’re older.”

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