Chapter 226: You Are a Monster

Yang Yi escaped back from a world filled with accusations and the fishy stench of eggs.

Winter was too cold, the Lingxu Villa was too vast, and the ten-meter-high dome of the Starry Sky Main Hall was also too high...

Her face was expressionless as she walked slowly down the long corridor; the entire space vibrated at a low frequency within her unconscious energy field, and the expensive artworks displayed on both sides hummed faintly.

She arrived at the living room; Chris was not playing games but watching the news—the screen showed her face, exactly the moment just now when countless reporters had maliciously shoved microphones into her face.

Yang Yi's footsteps stopped; a nausea rising from the depths of her heart made her retch.

Seeing her, Chris immediately turned off the screen.

He stood up from the sofa and walked quickly toward her, his eyes holding the thing she hated most—pity.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I'll be deeply struck? Do you think I'll be hurt by these fools?" Yang Yi smiled, but her voice was icy, stretched to the limit.

"Yang Yi." Chris called her name; he was not repelled by her coldness but instead quickened his steps. He stopped before her, looked down at her, and his gaze swept inch by inch from her hair to the corners of her eyes.

Her expression remained indifferent, like a wooden mask firmly clamped to her face—she had worn this mask for longer and longer, almost grown together with herself, flesh and skin fused, as if the mask could never be peeled away again.

"What? Are you sympathizing with me? Pitying me? Or... judging me? Afraid of me?" Yang Yi reached out and pinched his chin, "Let me see your eyes... these charming sapphire eyes, filled with such deep affection... just like that, you act so well."

Her hand clamped tightly on his jaw, cold as ice, causing goosebumps to rise densely all over his body.

"Just pretend I'm acting then," Chris said gently, taking her hand down and pressing it to his face, "I want to hug you, is that okay?"

"What? Aren't you afraid of me?" Yang Yi smiled strangely and said softly, "Do you know why I didn't release the genetic test results? Because... what they said is all true, I... am a monster..."

Chris did not respond; he only cupped her face and kissed her without hesitation.

Yang Yi was stunned for a moment, then suddenly pushed him away with her telekinetic power.

"... Truly an acting performance that makes one see you in a new light..." Yang Yi narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing his expression.

"Yang Yi, you really are a monster!" Chris suddenly said.

Yang Yi's eyelids twitched.

"How long have you been wearing that mask on your face? How much longer do you plan to wear it? Until you wear it into the grave?" Chris sneered, "Using this magnificent villa, using this cold grave? Using those public opinions and attacks to bury the last bit of humanity in yourself?"

"Why refuse to admit you can also be hurt? Why refuse to admit you can also suffer? Why, when attacked, shrink yourself up like a hedgehog? Letting those who want to get close to you get pricked full of quills?"

"Suffering?" Yang Yi's eyes suddenly went blank for an instant, as if the word had pierced some secret she herself had never noticed, "What do you know about suffering..."

Before her words finished.

A hollowness from the depths of her marrow and the cracks of her soul suddenly seized her; a primal, all-devouring hunger surged, striking her down forcefully; she stumbled.

Deep within her consciousness, an existence from ancient times seemed to chuckle softly; that laughter could only be heard by her, yet it made her brain emit a sharp, alarm-like scream.

At the same time, it was as if ten thousand red-hot iron skewers were simultaneously stirring her nerves and internal organs.

"Ugh—!"

All the forced indifference and coldness instantly shattered; her knees went soft; she fell to the ground without warning, her hands digging desperately into the smooth, cold floor, her fingernails cracking and leaving glaring streaks of bright red.

"Yang Yi?!" Chris's anger turned to shock; he instinctively wanted to step forward.

"Don't come over!" she rasped, her voice distorted and off-key by intense pain; the bones beneath her skin made a teeth-grating writhing sound, as if countless living creatures were struggling beneath her skin to burst out.

Her back arched unnaturally; the skin over her shoulder blades was stretched transparent, revealing the outline of non-human bones. Capillaries burst in large patches beneath her pale skin, seeping fine beads of blood that quickly dyed her white clothes red.

She was twisting, deforming, melting, disintegrating.

From the god who stood high above saving the world, she collapsed into a huddled, wretched, ugly, and deformed monster due to extreme "hunger."

Chris froze in place, his pupils contracting.

He had seen her power, seen her coldness, but never imagined this scene.

So, what the news said was all true; what she said was also true...

Under the wrapping of human skin, there really was a monster...

He remembered her occasionally empty gaze, remembered the instinctive fear he sometimes felt facing her as if facing a primordial giant beast, remembered the occasional trace of cold, non-human aura on her.

So the answer to all this was so ferocious.

Yang Yi curled up, trying to use her last strength to suppress the deformation, forcing all painful whimpers back into her throat.

Blood flowed from her bitten lips, mixing with fluids seeping from her joints due to bone distortion.

Her deepest fear had become reality—not being defeated, but being exposed in her ugliest, most shameful form before the one person she still wanted... perhaps still cared about.

He saw it... he saw this scene...

... Should I kill him...

Just then, footsteps approached.

Not fleeing, but approaching.

Chris knelt down without the slightest hesitation, opened his arms, and tightly embraced that trembling, bleeding body radiating danger and non-human aura.

His clothes were instantly soaked with her blood; she could feel the violent and warm beating of his heart beneath his chest.

"... Let go of me... you will... die..." she tried to warn, her voice fragmented.

"Shut up." Chris's voice was trembling, but not from fear.

His arms tightened even more, as if trying to use his own flesh and blood body to press her back together from that terrifying disintegration.

"This is what you've always hidden... this is the 'cost', right?"

His tears fell onto her twisted neck, scalding and shocking.

"I hate you..." he choked, his words incoherent, yet each word crashed into her consciousness on the verge of dissipation, "But damn it... seeing this... I'd rather you always sneered at me coldly, always remained so indifferent... than see you... turn into this..."

He lowered his head, pressed his lips to her ear stuck shut with bloodstains, and with all his strength spoke the words that had never appeared in the "script" but were incredibly real at this moment:

"No matter what you are... monster, god, or something pieced together from fragments... I am here. If it hurts, just hold on to me."

The string stretched to the absolute limit, the one maintaining her form, snapped with a "pop" at these words.

It was not a breakdown, but a complete surrender of resistance.

Was it acting? Had his acting reached the point where he could suppress the instinctive fear?

... If it is, then so be it... too tired... too tired...

She ceased her futile suppression, pressing her deformed, blood-weeping face into the warmth of his neck, her nails digging deep into his back like a drowning person clutching driftwood.

Inhuman trembling merged with human warmth; at this moment, extreme ugliness and extreme tenderness coexisted in a paradox.

Before her consciousness sank into the abyss of darkness and hunger, her last blurred perception was: so an embrace is more powerful than any power she had ever mastered...

... and also... more terrifying...