Chapter 58: Who Am I?

Carrying a sense of confusion, heaviness, and helplessness back to the surface, Yang Yi casually tossed the corpses of several brain-eating worms and half-dead cocoons onto the ground—these were for the Alien Biology Research Institute to study.

The corpse of the queen worm in the nest had been reduced to unrecognizable ruins, permanently sealed deep beneath four thousand meters of earth.

Originally, her plan had been to preserve the brain-eating worm nest so the Xia Nation’s research institute could study it; even though she was not a scientist, she knew how vital the ecological environment of such an alien species was to alien biology research.

But after the queen worm screamed those words before dying, everything changed. An invisible fear, like a net, tightly wrapped around her heart; she struggled to break free, yet felt the net tightening more and more…

The fire demon, the soul-parasite demon, the queen worm—all screamed before death, yet she somehow understood their alien language; the life-force, intended as an offering to an alien deity, had automatically surged toward her; she could not consume human food, only by devouring sentient life could she suppress her hunger…

Who am I? Who really am I?

She gazed at the moon overhead, standing alone in a dark alley, her heart filled with overwhelming confusion.

No! No! I am Yang Yi! I was born in a small town on the North China Plain; my father died when I was three, my mother abandoned me, I was raised by my grandparents and uncles and aunts who despised me, I even fought dogs for food…

The dark memories she usually avoided now became her only anchor to prove she existed; like clutching a lifeline, she recalled again and again every painful, bitter episode she had long tried to forget:

She sat on a cold cement platform, watching her mother’s weary back disappear…

In a doghouse built of broken bricks and covered with gray asbestos tiles, she curled up in a bundle of rags, desperately pressing close to an impatient yellow dog to steal its warmth. The iron chain around her neck was colder than ice, heavier than the great mountain behind town, crushing her so she could not lift her head…

…

Her cousin shoved her hard into a mud pit, then she and her cousin brother hurled clumps of mud at her, laughing as they competed: “Look! I hit her head—best throw!” “Watch mine—I’m aiming for her eyes, I’ll blind her!”

…

“Brother, how did this little thing suddenly get so smart? She scored higher than you!” “I’ll break her hands—how dare she score higher than me? I’ll get scolded again when I go home…”

…

“Grandma, that’s my glass marble… I only have one, but Yang Ze has a whole box…” “Pah! A thing with no parents, lucky to get a bite to eat, now you’re playing with glass marbles?”

…

In the silent night, a door softly opened, a hand reached toward her thigh…

…

“I say, we should marry her off soon. They heard she’s a high school student, does well in school—quite interested. Yang Ze doesn’t study, we should buy him an apartment in the city and get him married—this is exactly the money we need. The eldest son of the Li family in town is an idiot, but his family offers a high bride price…”

…

Yang Yi didn’t know how long she had stood there; her legs had grown numb.

She left the worm corpses and cocoons where they lay, walking aimlessly, directionless, purposeless, never stopping, not knowing where she was going.

Suddenly, she stopped, a cold sneer forming on her lips.

This damned world—what does it matter who I am? What if I am Yang Yi? What if I’m not Yang Yi?

Let it all be destroyed! The entire world, the entire universe, every person, all life, all meaning—annihilated! Vanished!

Let everyone drown in despair, let the world collapse before their eyes, let them feel fear, let dread cling to them always, let gloom, heaviness, sluggishness, and coldness fill their hearts, let them constantly teeter on the edge of an endless abyss…

…just like me…

Standing under the moonlight, she gradually felt her body grow weak, as if all strength had been drained—yet an inexplicable stubbornness kept her upright, as if defying someone.

How she wished a terrifying beast would appear now, and fight her.

She would abandon all reason, all hesitation, charge forward, leap, crawl, use her teeth, her fingers, her elbows, her feet, her shattered bones, her torn muscles, the last warmth of her blood, the final beat of her heart—to fight it, to battle and slaughter it with every ounce of her strength, every spark of passion, every shred of hatred and rage.

Let it be immensely powerful, let it have the sharpest teeth in the world, capable of tearing apart her flesh and blood; let it have the strongest limbs, capable of crushing every bone in her body; let it possess the perfect digestive system, capable of swallowing her whole, erasing her utterly from this world, leaving not even a speck of ash…

She stood frozen for a while, utterly exhausted, not a single ounce of strength left, her legs like noodles, her hands trembling uncontrollably—yet why they trembled, she did not know.

Where am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going?

A string of questions rose like smoke in the dark, then slowly faded; for a moment, she felt none of it mattered.

What mattered? She didn’t know.

She gazed blankly at the street ahead—an empty, vast road, streetlights shining in orderly rows, yet not a single soul in sight, as if this were a bizarre, lifeless world.

What am I doing here?

She was too tired; her mind was a sludge, a boiling porridge, a bowl of tofu pudding, a stone, a log, a rusted machine.

She plopped down on the edge of a roadside flowerbed, slumping backward—there was nothing behind her to lean on, and she toppled fully into the flowerbed.

The streetlamp above cast a cold light, like silent observation.

“What’s the point of you still being alive? You might as well die.” It spoke calmly, its tone devoid of its usual malice—just a simple statement, even tinged with a faint, almost imperceptible pity.

Yang Yi said nothing. She stared blankly at the light above, at the moon in the sky, her mind empty, thinking of nothing.

“You eat without taste, sleep without sweetness, even your pathetic love affair drags on with no end. You have nothing you care about, no goal to achieve, no purpose to live for, no meaning to find—so why keep clinging on? Clinging to what?” It spoke again, calm and quiet, for the first time addressing her like an old friend, in the tone of casual chatter.

“You mean… give you my body?” Yang Yi’s thoughts stirred slightly, but weakly, listlessly.

“I am you. I only want to make your life easier.” It replied with pity.

Yang Yi said nothing. She cast one final glance at the night sky—in that instant, her mind held nothing at all.

Slowly, she closed her eyes.

In an instant, her eyelids fluttered, slowly opening, as if seeing the world for the first time, revealing a wild, unrestrained smile.