A drop of rain splashed from the window onto the corner of Ning Su's eye.
Ning Su reached up and wiped away the raindrop, seeing a streak of red on his fingertip.
When he had first arrived at the apartment building, a drop of red liquid had also fallen onto the corner of his eye. Back then, he had glanced at the red clouds on the horizon and determined it wasn't rain.
Now, it was.
He said, "That child is dead."
It had been difficult enough for a premature baby to survive being forcibly cut out. And given Fang Guosheng's wife's sinister skill and her words, even if the child could have lived, she would have made sure it died right in front of Xue Fei.
Uncle Li: "The child wasn't even seven months along. Xue Fei saw that scene before she passed out from the pain."
What kind of scene it was, Uncle Li didn't say.
There were also two children here.
Gui Sheng and Manman had finished washing the dishes and came over.
They each leaned against Ning Su on either side, listening quietly.
Ning Su patted Gui Sheng's head.
Xue Fei's child hadn't fully developed—hadn't had time to properly disguise itself for this world before being forcibly cut out, dying tragically in the world.
Gui Sheng hadn't finished growing in his mother's womb before she died.
For those left behind in this world, life was incredibly hard.
By the biological and medical standards of their world, Xue Fei should have been unlikely to survive either. It was unclear whether she had died back then and become a Desire Monster, or whether the people in this world had tougher bodies and she was rescued.
Uncle Li: "She lay in bed for three months. After that, she went mad—desperately wanting a child, no matter the cost."
"The men in this apartment building... you've seen them."
Uncle Li sighed. "But no matter what she did, she could never have a child."
Ning Su nodded.
Her womb had been damaged; she could no longer bear children.
"The more she couldn't have a child, the more unhinged she became. Slowly, she turned into what you see now."
Uncle Li said hoarsely, "She really was the other woman—there's no denying that. But this punishment is just too severe, heavier than she could bear. She's suffered far too much, been through far too much."
"She's a pitiful soul too," Uncle Li added, his voice trembling, laced with short, unsteady breaths.
Outside the window, rain poured down in thick sheets, stirring up a vast red mist.
Uncle Li stood up and said, "When madness turns into obsession, it becomes dangerous. She's… already dead, isn't she?"
With those words, he moved to close the window, but from the tenement building came another piercing shriek.
***
At the door of Room 612, Fei Xueying snapped out of her shock and asked, "What do we do?"
This was different from what they'd imagined—much harder to handle.
Nie Yuwei pulled out a machete. "We don't have time to hesitate or back out now. Go!"
Tang Chi left a fiery red bow materializing in his hand. "Aim for her belly!"
The moment he spoke, Nie Yuwei had already leaped into the room with his machete raised.
Countless tiny limbs and heads—children's—crawled along her hair toward Nie Yuwei.
He cut them down, one slash at a time.
At the same time, a water-blue whip shot straight toward the gash on the monster's belly, and a flaming arrow flew in as well.
The whip was caught by the small hands at the wound, and so was the arrow.
There were too many limbs. Soon they swarmed over Nie Yuwei, and each clawed strike left gashes deep enough to expose bone.
All three were pinned down the moment they made their move, and fear gripped each of them.
Gritting her teeth, Fei Xueying yanked her whip free and called to Tang Chi, "Burn her hair! We can't attack all together."
Ice and fire canceled each other out.
Tang Chi shifted his aim to the hair on the walls. The strands near Nie Yuwei were set ablaze by his fiery arrows.
The cramped room was instantly filled with the stench of burning protein.
The limbs clinging to the scorched hair dropped off one after another.
Nie Yuwei managed to catch his breath. His muscles bulged as he broke free from the limbs wrapped around him like a strongman, swinging his blade to clear a wide swath.
Fei Xueying, meanwhile, focused solely on the wound in the monster's belly, her blue whip moving so fast it became a blur.
With Nie Yuwei and Tang Chi providing support, the whip finally pierced through the gash.
"Ah!—Aaaah!—"
The mouth on her belly screamed in piercing agony, jolting everyone in the tenement awake.
By the time Ning Su arrived, the players from the building had already crowded in ahead of him.
A large group had gathered outside Room 612. They huddled there, too afraid to step closer—lurching forward two steps, then retreating two more, amid terrified screams and furious curses.
"A monster! A monster!"
"There's a monster in our building too! Is it—is it Xue Fei?!"
"Her sex drive was so strong, who else would the monster go after! I said we should have thrown her out!"
"Serves her right! Die! Kill her! Kill her now!"
"Ahhh! Look at that face—and the one on that head!"
"Th-That's not yours?!"
"There's a kid's head with your husband's face on it!"
"That's your son's face!"
The screams and curses twisted into a grotesque, horrifying farce.
Ning Su squeezed through the crowd. Outside, people were packed tight, but near the door the residents had thinned out—only players stood there. He made his way to Ling Xiao's side and looked into the room at the battle raging inside.
The cramped space was filled with smoke and roaring flames. Bloody limbs were scattered everywhere, and ice and fire danced together in chaos. Amid the rocket fire and whipping shadows, Ning Su fixed his gaze on the enormous gash across the monster Xue Fei's belly, and pressed his lips together.
"How did it go? Find anything out?" Ling Xiao grabbed his wrist and asked.
Ning Su nodded. "Xue Fei really was the other woman. She got pregnant, and before she was seven months along, the legal wife cut the baby out of her. She's been desperate for another child ever since, but she's never been able to conceive."
Several players nearby froze at that.
Even Fei Xueying, standing ahead of them, paused for a few seconds, her Frost Corpse Whip held motionless in her hand.
They all turned to look at the monster ahead, their eyes lingering on the gaping wound across her abdomen.
Then their gazes shifted to the heads that bore the faces of so many different men—and each player's thoughts ran in a different direction.
As a human, she could no longer bear children.
But what about after she became a desire-monster?
Her desire was to have a child.
Yet she still couldn't bring a whole child into the world. Even as a monster, she could only produce fragments.
Again and again she tried with different men. Again and again, she only got a tiny arm, a tiny leg, or a tiny head.
Every limb scattered across that room might represent one of her moments of despair.
And the faces on those heads—they all looked remarkably like the men she'd slept with. Was that a natural manifestation of her desire-monster power, or had her own longing shaped them that way?
The room was now filled with flaming arrows, dozens of which had pierced the massive monster's body, fire licking across her form.
Long cleavers slashed down onto her.
The tiny hands on her belly grew fewer and fewer, and the wound split wider with every scream she let out from her gaping mouth.
The taut Frost Corpse Whip shot straight through the gash, shattered the window, and pierced out into the rain beyond.
At that moment, a shrill, piercing shriek tore through everyone's eardrums.
The residents huddled in the cluster of tenement buildings all clamped their hands over their ears.
Ning Su stared transfixed at her eyes.
After her transformation, her eyes had grown grotesquely large along with the rest of her body. The red tears that dripped from them were huge and round too—and when they hit the ground, the sound they made was even louder than the thud of her hollow skull falling.
The gash had sealed shut, cracked with ice just like the body.
The words Uncle Li had said while sitting by the window echoed again in Ning Su's ear: "When I look at her, I can feel a hint of her madness. The crack on her body isn't just the one on her belly—there's another in her heart, growing wider and wider. She's frantic, trying desperately to fill that crack, but no matter what she does, it won't close. And the more it won't close, the more frantically she tries..."
"Perhaps that's another meaning of 'insatiable desire.'"
