When Lu Jianchuan received the call, he was happily humming a tune, stirring the bubbling eight-treasure porridge with his tentacles, glancing at the clock to calculate how much longer it would take for his beloved to come home.
At this warm, peaceful moment of the morning, his phone suddenly buzzed violently, shattering the illusion of tranquility.
Lu Jianchuan stared at the caller ID. Even before answering, his heart began to race wildly. His monstrous instincts screamed, and an inexplicable, intense pain surged in his neck, as if an invisible force had bitten through his artery.
The fetus in his belly also stirred uneasily, thrashing violently and secreting a flood of negative emotions that reflected in the mother’s brain.
Lu Jianchuan’s fingers trembled slightly as he picked up the phone.
He pressed the answer button, focusing intently on the sounds from the other end, speaking in Xiao Wang’s voice: “Hello, senior, what…”
His words were cut short.
Through the phone, Lu Jianchuan heard Qin Hongbo’s sobs, the urgent shouts of medical staff, and the faint rustling of blood flowing from ruptured vessels…
The sun, which had just risen, quickly lost its color. The ceramic spoon he had been using to stir the porridge fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.
All expression vanished from Lu Jianchuan’s face, leaving him a dangerous statue in the kitchen, his chest heaving violently.
For a long, agonizing ten seconds, he listened to Qin Hongbo’s call, then silently put the phone down. He sucked in deep breaths, his features beginning to melt away as countless crimson eyes emerged from his skin, all fixed in the direction of the hospital.
The magnetic field around Xiangxing Street fluctuated violently. At five in the morning, a dazzling aurora appeared in the sky.
Centered around Fang Xingzhou’s house, space twisted eerily. A creature that was neither human nor monster crawled through the fissures between dimensions, instantly traversing the distance from Xiangxing Street to the hospital over ten kilometers away.
The moment space was torn open, Lu Jianchuan clearly caught the familiar scent of blood—so thick it was like a shattered perfume bottle, overwhelming every olfactory cell and driving him to the brink of madness.
His crimson eyes widened to their limits, his human-shaped skull distorting and swelling grotesquely from the back of his head. The monster let out a furious roar, tearing open the sky above the hospital and landing in the lobby.
In an instant, the area within a dozen miles of the hospital plunged into darkness.
The light of dawn vanished, thick clouds obscured the moon, and even artificial light sources flickered and dimmed.
A bitter rain began to fall from the clouds, drenching the ground and causing all vegetation to wither rapidly.
Those who were awake were struck by an overwhelming wave of sorrow. No matter what they were doing, they stopped in their tracks and began to weep uncontrollably. Those still asleep were dragged into endless nightmares, unable to wake.
The world had changed in just thirty seconds.
And the unfortunate souls still in the hospital lobby witnessed the demon that had crawled out of hell.
They didn’t even have time to see what the “demon” looked like. Catching only a glimpse of a terrifying alien form, their eyes immediately began to bleed, and they collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
The temperature in the hospital plummeted from a comfortable twenty degrees to below zero in an instant. The monster paid no attention to the humans, flashing past the lobby and rushing toward the sixth floor, where the surgical department was located.
Sixth floor, operating room.
Of the three operating rooms, only one was lit. The on-duty directors were all gathered here, too tense to notice the anomalies in the hospital, only feeling an inexplicable sadness.
Nurses ran back and forth in the hallway, some fetching blood bags, others pushing medicine carts laden with blood-soaked gauze, the air thick with the cloying sweetness of blood.
—Until the terrifying tentacles crawled into the hallway. The lights flickered, and the anxious family members waiting outside caught a glimpse of a shadow from hell. They immediately let out piercing screams, their eyes rupturing, blood streaming from their seven orifices.
As the screams echoed, the lighting fixtures went out, plunging the entire floor into darkness. The temperature dropped so low that condensation from the air conditioning froze into ice.
The medical staff barely had time to voice their confusion before they lost consciousness one after another. In an unfortunate stroke of luck, none of them witnessed the monster appearing outside the operating room.
Silence fell. The sound of suction cups squirming against the floor filled the air, a sinister rustling.
The closer the monster got to the operating room, the thicker the scent of blood in the air became. Its movements grew lighter, as if even such a creature could feel fear, hesitating to face what lay inside the operating room.
It stepped over the unconscious humans, pausing briefly outside the door. Its gaze pierced through the transparent glass window, landing on the figure lying on the operating table.
Then, its entire brain twisted, and a piercing shriek shattered the glass of the street. From the brain, crimson eyes without pupils began to pour out mucus.
The last traces of human features vanished, transforming into its complete monstrous form. It effortlessly smashed through the operating room door, its eighteen tentacles surging toward the unconscious Fang Xingzhou, wrapping him into a cocoon in an instant.
From the mouths of the tentacles, a flood of healing fluid secreted, immersing Fang Xingzhou completely, leaving only his nose and mouth exposed.
The torn artery quickly healed under the repair fluid. The blood that the medical staff had struggled to stop for five minutes finally ceased, but Fang Xingzhou, having lost too much blood, remained unconscious, pale and unresponsive in the embrace of the tentacles.
Lu Jianchuan, who had diligently cared for his beloved for years, had never let Fang Xingzhou suffer such a severe injury.
Holding his lover, dozens of eyes shed liquid simultaneously, raining down on Fang Xingzhou’s face.
The surface of the gestational sac hanging beneath the brain also sprouted numerous smaller eyes, staring fixedly at the injured father, crying even more fiercely than the ‘mother’, like a faucet left running, gushing endlessly.
Within seconds, Fang Xingzhou’s wound healed, but his hair and face were soaked with the mucus flowing from the eyes of the large and small monsters…
…
Unconventional Research Institute.
The magnetic field fluctuations were so severe that they triggered a Level A alert, sounding alarms throughout the institute. The areas around Xiangxing Street and the hospital were automatically locked down.
Li Xuan had just splashed cold water on his face when the blaring alarms startled him. Before he could check the alert, Yan Xin, over two meters tall, picked him up and slung him over his shoulder.
“Something’s happened to Dr. Fang!” Yan Xin exclaimed, sweating profusely as he ran toward the car with Li Xuan in tow.
Li Xuan: “What?! Fang Xingzhou just sent a message five minutes ago!… Put me down first!”
Yan Xin: “Your legs are too short! You’re too slow! The area around the hospital has been sucked into the jellyfish’s spatial rift. I can’t think of any other explanation!”
Li Xuan’s eyes widened.
“Holy…”
Dozens of armored vehicles gathered at the entrance of the institute. Yan Xin jumped into the car, shoved Li Xuan into the passenger seat, and quickly checked the protective suits and medical kits. “We’ll take turns wearing the suits. Buckle up!”
Before Li Xuan could respond, Yan Xin floored the accelerator, speeding like a bullet through the tunnel leading to the surface. Li Xuan, accustomed to this, put on a radiation suit and tried calling Fang Xingzhou and Lu Jianchuan, but the calls wouldn’t connect.
He then called a colleague on duty at the coast to confirm the magnetic field changes in the ocean over the past 24 hours, receiving a firm response.
The colleague said, “We’ve been monitoring the ‘big shell.’ It’s been lethargic since yesterday, staying quietly at the bottom of the shallow sea, not moving at all. The magnetic field hasn’t changed.”
Li Xuan: “What about the hospital?”
The answer was equally certain: “The hospital showed no anomalies last night. Brother Xuan, both places are under close surveillance. Any unusual activity would be reported to you immediately.”
Li Xuan thanked them and hung up, taking a deep breath.
“The big shell is still at the bottom of the sea, and the hospital didn’t detect any mysterious creatures,” he said. “It might just be an accident. What danger could there be at a hospital?”
Yan Xin frowned, thinking for a moment. “A medical dispute?”
Li Xuan, now taking the wheel, felt a throbbing in his temples. “I should have insisted on recruiting Fang Xingzhou to the institute!… This doesn’t feel right. Call the on-duty colleague again and have them send a drone to confirm the big shell’s status. If necessary, initiate a hunt.”
Yan Xin pulled out his phone. “Got it.”
The two sped into the locked-down zone.
Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten, but within the locked-down area, there was not a trace of light. The streets were deserted, eerily silent, like a post-apocalyptic ghost town, devoid of life.
The closer they got to the hospital, the thicker the darkness became. A heavy rain began to fall, pounding against the windshield, further reducing visibility to almost zero.
It was only September, but the temperature had dropped to freezing.
Li Xuan exhaled a puff of white air, his expression grim as he looked at the outline of the hospital in the distance. “I should probably update my will.”
Yan Xin, equally tense, pursed his lips and whispered, “You’re single with no dependents. What will do you need? If something really happens to Dr. Fang and the jellyfish goes into premature labor from the shock, forget your will—the entire city of C might be doomed…”
The two fell silent, the heavy atmosphere pressing down on them as they parked at the hospital entrance.
Li Xuan took a deep breath, got out of the car, and looked up at the hospital with trepidation.
Two seconds later, he slowly exhaled, leaning against the car door and making a clumsy sign of the cross. “Thank heavens. Dr. Fang must still be alive.”
The hospital’s condition was better than expected.
Only the roof had vanished, all the windows were shattered, and cracks ran through the walls, making it seem on the verge of collapse—but it hadn’t collapsed yet.
If something had truly happened to Fang Xingzhou, there was no doubt this place would have been reduced to a barren wasteland.
Yan Xin’s heart was pounding. He clasped his hands in a superstitious gesture, then put on protective goggles and grabbed an enormous medical kit. “We can’t wait for backup. Let’s go up and see.”
Li Xuan nodded, donning two pairs of infrared goggles, and followed Yan Xin into the building.
As soon as they stepped inside, they were hit by an overwhelming wave of sorrow. Tears streamed uncontrollably from their eyes, and their chests ached so badly it felt like their hearts might stop at any moment.
Fortunately, the monster occupying this space was too absorbed in its own world to notice them. The two made their way up to the sixth floor, crying so hard they felt like all the water in their bodies was turning into tears.
Sixth floor.
Yan Xin and Li Xuan were on the verge of crying themselves to suffocation, their protective suits filled with tears and snot. They struggled to the center of the most distorted time vortex, where, through their goggles, they caught a glimpse of a massive, grotesque silhouette of a mysterious creature.
Its enormous brain trembled violently, dozens of crimson eyes pouring out liquid. Tentacles as thick as forest pythons carefully cradled a tiny human, wrapping him in a cocoon of secreted mucus. Fang Xingzhou’s wounds had long since healed, but no amount of repair could replenish the blood he had lost.
So, the monster shrank one of its tentacles and gently inserted it into Fang Xingzhou’s mouth. Seeing this, Yan Xin felt his limbs go cold. Through his tears, he shouted, “Don’t… *sob… don’t feed him that! It’s… contaminated! Let me… *sob… take a look! I’m a doctor! *Sob…”
Li Xuan tried to step into the room to get Lu Jianchuan’s attention, but the moment he moved, dozens of eyes turned toward them.
Just that gaze made them feel as if their bodies were about to explode. Blood began to flow from their seven orifices, mixing with tears and turning their protective suits into a mess.
“It’s me…” Li Xuan struggled to speak. “Mr. Lu, please… calm down…”
But the “jellyfish” was in a state of complete, irrational frenzy.
A tentacle sliced through the air, lightning-fast, aiming to kill any intruders. Li Xuan reacted quickly, dodging to the side, but he was no match for the monster’s speed. The tentacle slammed him into the wall.
Even with the protective suit cushioning the blow, Li Xuan felt as if his internal organs had been rearranged. The wall cracked and caved in, leaving a horrifying human-shaped indentation.
Yan Xin, who spent most of his time at the institute with little combat experience, was frozen in place.
Even though he had interacted with the A+ special entity “jellyfish” many times, even dined with its human form like friends, he had never been so acutely aware—
They were entirely different species.
Like a giant and an ant.
His hands, clutching the medical kit, were drenched in cold sweat. His body stiffened, limbs icy, blood and tears streaming uncontrollably. He stood frozen, watching through his goggles as another tentacle rose, its new target being himself, just meters away…
…
Suddenly, a slender, pale hand weakly grasped Lu Jianchuan’s tentacle.
The moment skin touched the tentacle’s surface, the air froze.
The monster’s eyes instantly shifted away from Yan Xin, widening as they focused on the figure in its embrace.
Fang Xingzhou’s eyes were still closed, his brow furrowed, his grip on the tentacle weak. His eyelids fluttered as he struggled to wake.
The monster was ecstatic. Its brain rapidly shrank, morphing into a grotesquely handsome human head atop the mass of tentacles, a gestational sac still dangling below its neck. It stared unblinkingly at its beloved.
Its exposed vocal cords vibrated in the air, cautiously uttering, “Zhouzhou… are you awake? How do you feel?”
Cold tears fell one after another onto Fang Xingzhou’s eyelids. He forced his eyes open, his blurred vision catching a glimpse of a familiar face.
“Deer…” His head spun, golden spots dancing in his vision from blood loss. His voice was hoarse. “Don’t…”
Lu Jianchuan’s head and the baby’s gestational sac both leaned in, anxiously waiting for his next words.
“What is it? Don’t what? Are you uncomfortable?”
Fang Xingzhou: “…Don’t destroy… the hospital equipment… Let my colleagues… give me a blood transfusion…”
The human head paused.
A trace of human rationality returned. Lu Jianchuan finally realized that the hospital was on the verge of collapse, and all the medical staff were unconscious on the floor.
He turned sharply, his gaze landing on the only other conscious human.
Yan Xin.
Yan Xin trembled, his face covered in a mixture of blood and tears. Staring at the monstrous head, he felt his sanity rapidly slipping away.
“Save him!” Lu Jianchuan’s head urged desperately, using a tentacle to bring Fang Xingzhou to Yan Xin.
Yan Xin shuddered, summoning his courage to open the medical kit. “O-okay, don’t panic. First, put Dr. Fang on the bed.”
Lu Jianchuan carefully laid his beloved down, then hovered beside Yan Xin, dozens of eyes on the gestational sac fixed on his every move.
Yan Xin: “…I-I’ll do it right away…”
He scrambled to the bedside, looking down at the semi-conscious Fang Xingzhou. Taking over for the unconscious doctors, he searched for Fang Xingzhou’s veins while muttering, “Dr. Fang, you have to hold on… How will they survive without you, the orphan and the widow…”
