C92 – [4.5 – The Shelter]
by UntamedSBonus Chap
Thanks for the ko-fi ✨ ✨ ✨ Hweianime / LittleBlueLake / HweiChan ✨✨✨
It was okay, No. 301 shouldn’t know it was him.
It wasn’t his order.
At least this heart wasn’t.
So, No. 301 shouldn’t hate him.
Xi Han looked at the surveillance image on the tablet and repeated this in his mind as if he were a little nervous.
The fingers on the tablet also tensed up; his fingertips were white.
But contrary to his wishes, things didn’t develop in the direction he expected.
On the screen, No. 301 looked down at the heart on the plate for a long time.
His thin white fingers reached out and touched the bloo*dy heart.
The blo*od stained his fingertips red.
The thick black hair covered its face, and Xi Han could only see its slightly pursed lips.
Soft and bright red.
Only after a long time did No. 301 raise his head.
As if it knew that someone was observing, it looked in the direction of the surveillance camera.
Exquisite eyebrows and eyes were still so beautiful that Xi Han was a little lost in thought.
Even if he resisted the influence of No.301 on him, Xi Han couldn’t deny the beauty of No.301.
But unlike the previous gentleness, there wasn’t much expression on this beautiful face now, and its eyes looked cold.
It was as if it hated the human who was spying on them at the moment.
Hated Xi Han.
“……”
Xi Han fell silent.
His eyes were still looking at the flat panel, but his fingers unknowingly exerted force so violently that he almost pressed the screen to crack.
Soon, No. 301 withdrew its gaze.
It discarded the dinner plate to one side and threw it into the trash bin together with the heart.
Then it sat back down in the corner of the room and curled up, as if to rest.
Although it didn’t look up again, Xi Han could feel the cold and hateful gaze playing back in front of him time and time again.
Every replay brought a sense of panic and bitterness that spread from the depths of his heart.
Making Xi Han feel the pain of a torn heart for the first time.
Click-
Under the uncontrolled force of his fingers, the screen completely shattered.
The monitor screen also flickered a few times before falling into a black screen.
Lowering his head, Xi Han looked at the increasingly bloo*dy wound in the palm of his hand with some bewilderment, unsure of how to describe his current emotions.
And how to make up for it.
“Doctor, everything has been dealt with. Do we need to arrange the surgery for you in advance this afternoon?”
Just as Xi Han stood in the corridor with his head hanging down and his eyes dazed, the fawning voice of his assistant came from behind him.
He had already taken care of all of Xi Han’s orders, including the matter of sending a heart to No. 301 just now.
Now he could finally feel more at ease.
Seeing as he was so capable, Dr. Xi Han should be able to forgive him for those presumptuous suggestions he made earlier.
However, when the assistant haughtily expressed to Xi Han that all he had done was insignificant and it was fine as long as Dr. Xi Han was satisfied, Xi Han’s expression didn’t look as good as the assistant had imagined.
Nor did he show a slightly milder expression of appreciation as usual.
“You said that you delivered the heart just now?”
Xi Han’s voice was so soft that if it weren’t for the assistant’s better hearing, it would almost be inaudible.
“Ah, yes.” The assistant nodded uncertainly.
“It’s No. 330; you just dissected; all the internal organs were disposed of as per usual, including the heart.”
The assistant vaguely sensed that something was wrong and had to answer more carefully.
“Is there something wrong?”
The assistant looked at the silent doctor in front of him, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Xi Han’s tall figure seemed extremely oppressive to the assistant at this moment, and he didn’t even dare to breathe a single breath.
In the next moment, he saw Xi Han slightly tilt his face, revealing a side face with a handsome silhouette.
The amber-colored iris looked cold in the narrow, phoenix-shaped eyes.
It was as if a deep storm was suppressed in his eyes.
It made the assistant instantly shiver.
It even felt colder than the gaze that Xi Han usually had when facing the shelters.
The assistant was really close to crying.
His legs were shaking like a sieve, and he was really afraid that Xi Han would pull out a scalpel to finish him off the next moment.
The good thing was that Xi Han ultimately had a lot of tolerance for humans. He didn’t show any extreme behavior and only looked coldly at his assistant for a long time.
It wasn’t until the assistant’s face paled that he spoke, “Give me the tablet.”
The assistant presented his tablet hands and then, like a survivor, saw Xi Han turn around and leave, ignoring him.
For the first time, he felt that Xi Han, who used to be like a smiling tiger, wasn’t so amiable.
In the past, there were often employees who privately complained that Xi Han was always smiling, but it always seemed to give people a sinister feeling.
At that time, the assistant also complained that he always felt that Xi Han’s smile didn’t reach his eyes and that his typical smile was superficial.
Now, he found that it was better when he was smiling; after all, Xi Han’s unsmiling appearance was too scary.
Scary to the extent that he suspected that he would have nightmares tonight.
Xi Han, who had walked away at this time, didn’t pay attention to the various thoughts of his assistant.
He looked at the tablet in his hand with downcast eyes, and after logging into his account, he looked at the monitoring button on No. 301.
He was hesitant to open it.
The amber-colored pupils carried an involuntary trembling, representing the emotional fluctuations that hadn’t yet dissipated within his heart at this time.
He was afraid to see No. 301 reveal that look again.
As an experienced researcher, this kind of fear of his was simply comical; he was actually afraid of his own test subject.
But that was just the way it was.
Xi Han paused for a long time, but in the end, he couldn’t open the surveillance screen.
In the end, he could only put away the tablet with an expressionless face and return to his room.
He had been very busy lately and would rarely return to his room to rest during the day, but the chaotic emotions at this moment did make his mind feel incredibly tired.
The throbbing pain in his temples was also intensifying.
But none of this was as bad as the constant pain of his heart ripping through his chest.
“……”
Putting down the tablet in his hand, Xi Han’s brows furrowed; the original pleasant mood after the autopsy dissipated, and at this moment, there was only that look that kept replaying in front of his eyes.
Full of disgust.
People’s memories could deceive themselves; the more they didn’t want to see, the more it would deepen in their memories.
So in the memory image of Xi Han, the eyes of No. 301 became more and more hateful, until they were finally filled with deep resentment.
Completely gone was the gentle smile that faced No. 275 during the reaction experiment.
In No. 301’s eyes, he was indeed no match for No. 275.
But this was meaningless to him.
He was just a researcher, so why should he care about how a shelter viewed him?
Xi Han thought to himself.
But even though he was deceiving himself, he couldn’t alleviate the helplessness and remorse he felt at this moment.
If only he hadn’t sent the heart there, then he wouldn’t have been disgusted.
Perhaps if he went to apologize now, he could still be forgiven.
“……”
Inside the dimly lit room, Xi Han lowered his head, his long black hair cascading down, making his pale face look almost deathly white as his eyes widened and his fingertips tore at the flesh of his palms.
It was unbelievable that he could even entertain such thoughts.
Cowardly and pathetic, it would be begging for the mercy of a shelter.
But if he could really be forgiven…
“……”
Taking a deep breath, Xi Han reigned in his ridiculous thoughts.
He felt that he should probably rest.
After resting, he wouldn’t be so mentally deranged.
Lying on the bed, Xi Han forced himself to close his eyes, trying to suppress these thoughts in his brain.
As a researcher, even if it was just his professional ethics, he shouldn’t have any thoughts of surrendering.
What was more, he was still fighting for the interests of humanity; how could he submit to a shelter?
Inside the shelter room, Jiu Shu rested his cheeks in boredom and leaned against the wall to check the original film.
Another heart had just been delivered.
It was almost like a prank.
Jiu Shu didn’t know how to describe the object of discipline in this world anymore.
So far, they hadn’t spent any time together in person, but Jiu Shu could sense that he had been peering through the surveillance.
He could only speculate on his mood at this time through the original films.
He was probably constantly struggling.
Jiu Shu narrowed his brows and looked towards the second part.
After all, even after turning into a monster, Xi Han had only become more and more monster-hating and hadn’t become tolerant because of his identity change.
When he was born, his memories were blank, and with the mind of a newborn baby, Xi Han had witnessed monsters tearing apart human bodies on the battlefield, laughing and devouring human limbs.
The monsters’ brutal demeanor was a disaster even for an adult human, let alone an eleven- or twelve-year-old child.
He was already filled with hatred towards monsters due to 001’s influence, and even his personality became distorted after witnessing the images of humans screaming miserably as they died at the hands of monsters.
His entire life was filled with loathing for monsters, and if it were erased, his entire personality would become incomplete.
This was also the reason why he gradually went crazy in the second film.
In the second film, the truth of the cataclysm was gradually revealed.
It was all human greed that created the catastrophe.
001 had been sleeping and never woke up, but sometime in the last century, mankind discovered His existence and attempted to study the god for more profit.
A mistake during the experiment caused 001’s aura to leak out, triggering the cataclysm and producing monsters that stretched on for more than twenty years afterwards.
Those affected humans, including Xi Han, were also born as a result, as if 001 was making up for the losses caused by the aura leak.
But human greed caused the disaster to spread.
All of the affected humans eventually died in the experiments at the upper levels, and the only successful test subject, Xi Han, became a crazy monster.
He hated all monsters, including himself, and used the power he gained in the experiment to manipulate all monsters to their doom.
Luckily, the main character, Duan An, stopped him in the end, and Xi Han’s death in the second film was even more tragic and insane.
It was no longer as pleasant as it was in the first film.
His death came to an end with a million cheers for Duan An. The evil villain died at the hands of the hero; it couldn’t have been a more perfect ending.
Jiu Shu flipped to a clip of Xi Han’s death in the second film.
[Xi Han was using his powers to manipulate monsters throughout the city, and he was taking them to the hollow located right in the center of the city.
The location where 001 was located.
Only then could the monsters return to their original nothingness.
Because they shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
“You’re simply insane!”
Duan An looked at Xi Han’s amber eyes with a look of hatred.
Xi Han had no idea what he had done that was so sinful.
“This city was built specifically for people and monsters to get along better together, and even if you became a monster, now, you can still enjoy peace here like you never have before.”
“But look at what you’re really doing! You’re ruining all of this, destroying the hope for peace!”
Duan An recalled the international public criticism of monsters in the past year, hoping to use the success of this city to persuade those who were blindly xeno-phobic.
But now, it was all ruined by Xi Han.
Duan An could only hate his own naivety.
He had naively thought that after turning into a monster, Xi Han had understood, so Xi Han, who was rescued from the laboratory, lived in this city without restraint, which resulted in the current situation.
“……”
Xi Han had half of his face covered by scales, looked wanly at Duan An, and suddenly laughed. “Do you think you did everything right?”
“You don’t really think those brainy upper echelons can create a lot of monsters made from human modifications, do you?”
“How pathetic! Now you think the monsters are innocent, but what if they are simply deceiving you?”
“There was never any transformation; it was just the monsters evolving themselves.”
“Do you think they ate all that human flesh for nothing? They’re becoming more and more like humans, yet they have more perfect bodies and intellects than humans.”
“And the same greed for human flesh.”
Xi Han’s laughter was sinister.
The hideous face full of pitch-black scales still vaguely showed the once handsome silhouette, but his voice had been ruined to the point of hoarseness.
Duan An held back his anger and rebuked Xi Han’s slander: “They no longer eat human flesh; every monster with humanity is trying to become better, yet you are still stuck in the same old rut and can’t extricate yourself from the hatred of the past!”
Duan An wouldn’t easily believe Xi Han’s nonsense; he trusted his eyes more.
The kind-hearted monsters he had seen over the past year were not fake.
Xi Han gave him an indifferent look, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly as if sarcastically mocking his stupidity, and he lowered his eyes to look at the monsters underneath the building that were walking neatly towards the city center.
Each monster’s eyes were amber-colored, and their expressions were empty, as if they were soulless.
They could only follow Xi Han’s orders and walk step by step towards the hollow of the city center.
This was the only reason Xi Han thanked the lab for giving him the ability to manipulate the monsters.
It didn’t matter if he turned into a monster; he just wanted to do the last thing he could for humanity.
“Admit it, Xi Han.”
“You’re not really that noble; you just want the false title of destroying monsters and want to get some inner comfort because you’ve now become a monster.” Duan An’s voice gradually calmed down.
“But it’s just wishful thinking; we don’t want that.”
“Humans don’t need you!”
“Compared to the innocent monsters, you’re the one who really scares humans!”
Duan An’s words made Xi Han frown tightly, and he turned his head, just about to mock Duan An’s stupidity, when, in the next moment, he saw the camera exposed behind Duan An.
It was broadcasting footage to the entire New Metropolis.
Obviously, everything that had just happened had been broadcast, including the previous footage of Duan An exposing Xi Han’s plotting and scheming.
“These protesting people are what we really think!”
Huge screens unfolded in the room, and on each side there were disgusted-looking people clustered in the streets, each screaming, “Xi Han! Die!”
“Xi Han! D*amn you!”
Xi Han’s enlarged pupils reflected these former fellow humans.
Their hideous faces mingled so well with the monsters he remembered from the battlefield that they were almost indistinguishable.
Finally, his fingers trembled and covered his ugly face. “No, don’t look at me.”
As Duan An thought, Xi Han’s greatest fear was that humans would find out that he had turned into a monster because he thought he had always been human from the beginning to the end.
His plan worked.
Although Xi Han’s ability was nearly insurmountable, his fragile mind was the biggest breakthrough.
“Release those monsters!”
Duan An’s voice was ice-cold as he looked at the fragile-looking Xi Han after his mind was shocked.
As the words fell, the monsters being manipulated under the building became a little toppled, like Xi Han had exhausted his strength and couldn’t continue to manipulate them.
Taking advantage of the gap between Xi Han’s weakness and his, Duan An raised the g*un in his hand and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang! With the loud sound of glass shattering, Xi Han fell out of the room.
Falling from a ten-story building, he fell heavily.
Blo*od gushed out of his mouth, the pupils of his wide-open eyes slowly dilated, and only the faint, blurred words of his last breath could be heard.
“No. You need me.”
He was never needed.
Amidst the cheers of the people, Xi Han lost his breath.
The shattered bones and entrails allowed the evil scientist to finally feel the pain of the monsters he had once dissected.
This ended the life of Xi Han, and after that, it was time for the humans and the monsters to put their differences behind them.
Both sides realized that all the previous conflicts were just Xi Han’s underhanded efforts.
He had used various means to induce humans to fear monsters and monsters to reject humans.
Now, finally, they could coexist peacefully.
But at the end, it described humans walking through the streets with amber eyes.
The monsters also happily embraced the people in the neighborhood, while saliva dripped from the corners of their mouths inadvertently.
It was a meaningful ending.
Jiu Shu put away the system panel and raised his eyes to the pure white walls of the room.
His eyes swept over the dinner plate he had just thrown away, and he rested his cheeks with a sigh.
It was slightly lonely.
Although he hadn’t been confined by the system much in the past, probably because he had been spoilt in the last few worlds, the loneliness of the last few days made him feel a little uncomfortable.
The pure white room especially reminded him of his hometown and made him a little homesick.
“……”
He might as well find a way to leave; there was still a long time until the plot node arrived anyway.
Jiu Shu wanted to wait until the male lead, Duan An, was messing things up to look around a bit.
He’d just fish out the object of discipline from the explosion.
As long as he didn’t turn into a monster, the subsequent tragedy wouldn’t happen.
As for love or not…
Jiu Shu’s lips pursed as he looked down at the bl*oodstains remaining on his fingertips.
This world should take a long time to get tangled up; there was no need to be too eager.
It might be better to stay away.
It wasn’t because he was angry at the pranks, but all things considered, distance did make the heart fonder.
Jiu Shu wiped off his fingertips as he contemplated.
Splat-
A droplet of water leaked down the ventilation duct.
Jiu Shu looked at the transparent water stains on the floor; his movements paused, and he looked up at the ventilation duct.
A clear gel-like mass could be vaguely seen seeping through the cracks in the grill of the ventilation duct.
It was pattering, and the water stains seeped down more and more.
Jiu Shu was silent for a moment, watching the gelatinous mass slowly trickle down from the ceiling until it finally fell to the floor with a snapping sound.
Snap — the clear gel was oozing while writhing in Jiu Shu’s direction, with an identity tag lodged in its body.
Jiu Shu picked up the identity tag with his fingers and saw that it read 175.
Possessed the ability to read minds.
Danger level E
It even had a picture of it on it—a blob of blue gel substance.
It was now a transparent color.
No, he should say transparent amber-colored, not completely transparent.
“……” Jiu Shu watched with a subtle expression as 175 touched his finger with a floppy, wet touch.
From time to time, it also made a whimpering sound.
This identity card seemed to be a must-have before dissection; it seemed to have run out before dissection.
Possessed by spiritual power?
How silly.
Jiu Shu picked up 175 and lost some of his amusement as he watched it leak like a showerhead.
He was reminded of Norman from the second world.
There was some similarity in their appearances.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Boing-”
“Unintelligible.”
Jiu Shu laughed softly, his voice soft.
“Boing” 175 continued to make low noises, really sounding like it was having a conversation with Jiu Shu.
Jiu Shu was a little confused as to whether it was being controlled by Xi Han or not.
Xi Han himself should be an extraordinarily hateful person towards monsters, and even if he did move, he shouldn’t have shown such a clingy stance so quickly.
Snap— Xi Han yanked off No. 175 that was stuck to his collarbone as he thought to himself.
“Did you sneak out? Forget it; stay here for now to avoid being discovered.”
Thinking about it, Jiu Shu attached No. 175 to his wrist and covered it with his sleeve so as not to be discovered by the surveillance.
The vent just now happened to be in the dead center of the surveillance, so No. 175 shouldn’t have been discovered.
It was only the fact that 175 moved upwards from time to time that bothered Jiu Shu slightly.
Wringing his wet sleeves, Jiu Shu helplessly held No. 175 in his arms.
“There, don’t cry.”
Boing-
Boing-
Still unable to understand what it was saying but able to sense its urgency, Jiu Shu nodded and softly said, “Okay.”
“I promise.”
Then, No. 175 was much quieter, softly snuggled in Jiu Shu’s arms, motionless as if asleep.
Jiu Shu was also infected with sleepiness; he patted its wet surface and closed his eyes.
Although there were no beds here and he could only rest on the wall, at least it was quiet.
Jiu Shu quickly fell asleep.
And shortly after Jiu Shu fell asleep, No. 175 slowly regained its original blue color, and its breath became subdued as it crawled away from Jiu Shu’s arms as if it were afraid and it returned to the ventilation ducts.
At the same time, Xi Han, who was resting in the room, opened his eyes.
He sat up in a bit of a trance and frowned.
He had just had a strange dream.
In the dream, he heard that No. 301 was going to leave this place and never come back.
Then he took 301’s hand and even burst into tears, thinking that he had made him angry with what he had done earlier, and he apologized as he cried.
It wasn’t until #301 promised him that he would never leave again that he stopped crying.
“……”
What an illogical dream!
How could No.301 leave?
It would stay here forever.
Stay by his side.
So thought Xi Han, who had just woken up, with a morbid possessiveness in his eyes that he didn’t even know he had.
TN:
I missed by a day, the chapters were so longggg but fun, I had to edit a lot 🥺.
Thank you for the chapters!
Blob Xi Han is so cute 🥰