Chapter 58: Who Am I

Returning to the surface weighed down by a muddled, heavy, helpless feeling, Yang Yi casually tossed the corpses of a few brain-eating worms and a half-dead worm cocoon onto the ground—this was what she had left behind for the Exotic Biology Research Institute to study.

The worm mother's corpse in the nest had already been smashed beyond recognition by her, and she had sealed it away forever, four thousand meters underground.

Her original plan had been to preserve the brain-eating worms' nest so that the Xia Nation Research Institute could study it. Even though she wasn't a scientist, she knew exactly how significant this exotic creature's ecological environment was for research into exotic biology.

But after the worm mother's dying shout, everything changed. An invisible fear wrapped around her heart like a net, gripping tight. She struggled hard, yet felt that invisible net only winding tighter and tighter…

The Fire Demon, the Soul-Infesting Demon, the brain-eating worm mother—their cries before death, the otherworldly language she could somehow understand; the sacrificial offering meant for the alien evil god—Life Source—had run to her on its own; unable to eat human food, only able to suppress hunger by devouring intelligent life…

Who am I? Who exactly am I?

She gazed at the moon in the sky, standing all alone in a dark, narrow alley, her heart filled with an immense bewilderment.

No! No! I am Yang Yi! I was born in an ordinary little town on the North China Plain. My father died when I was three. I was abandoned by my mother. I was raised by grandparents, uncles, and aunts who found me disgusting and loathsome. I even fought with dogs for food…

The bleak memories she usually went out of her way to avoid had now become her salvation for confirming her own existence. Like clutching at a life-saving straw, she recalled those painful, bitter events one by one, memories she normally tried hard to dodge, replaying them over and over:

She sat on a cold cement platform, watching her mother's weary back as she walked away…

In a dog kennel built of broken bricks and roofed with grey-white asbestos tiles, she curled up in a ball of rags, pressing close to an impatient big yellow dog, trying to draw warmth from it. The iron chain around her neck was colder than ice, heavier than Dashan behind the town, pressing down so hard she couldn't lift her head…

……

Her older female cousin shoved her hard, pushing her into a mud pit. Then the cousin and her older brother hurled clumps of mud at her with all their might, gleefully competing. "Look! I threw the most accurately! I hit her head!" "Watch this, I'm going to hit her eyes, I'll blind her!"

……

"Little bro, how did this little thing suddenly get so smart? She actually scored higher than you!" "Just watch me, I'll cripple her hands. How dare she score higher than me? When we get back, she'll get scolded again…"

……

"Grandma, that's my marble…I only have one, Yang Ze has a whole box…" "Pah! A thing born to no one and raised by no one, having a single mouthful to eat is already a miracle, and now you want to play with marbles…"

……

In the silent dark of night, the door pushed gently open, a hand reaching toward her thigh…

……

"In my opinion, we might as well marry her off early. I heard the other party knows she's a high school student, her grades aren't bad, they're quite satisfied… Yang Ze's grades aren't good either, so if we buy him a house in the city early and get him married, that's the only money we're missing… The Li family's eldest in town is an idiot, sure, but his family offers a high bride price…"

……

Yang Yi had no idea how long she had been standing—long enough that her legs were starting to ache.

She left the worm corpses and cocoon where they were, and walked on aimlessly, with no direction, no goal, walking and walking without stopping, not knowing where she was headed.

Suddenly, she stopped, a cold smirk curling at her lips.

In this godforsaken world, what does it matter who I am? So what if I am Yang Yi? So what if I'm not?

Let's just destroy it all! The whole world, the whole universe, everyone, every life, every meaning—destroy it all! Make it all vanish!

Let everyone despair in the darkness, let the world collapse before their eyes, let them feel fear and dread, let despair cling to them like a shadow, let gloom, heaviness, sluggishness, and coldness fill their hearts, let them feel as if they might plunge into a bottomless abyss at any moment…

……just like me……

She stood beneath the moonlight, gradually feeling her whole body go weak, as if all her strength had been drained away. Yet an inexplicable stubbornness kept her standing, as if she were defying someone.

How she wished a terrifying giant beast would appear right now, so she could fight it.

She would madly cast aside reason and every concern, charge, leap, crawl at it, using her teeth, her fingers, her elbows, her feet, her splintered bones, her torn muscle, the last lingering warmth of her blood, the final beat of her heart, to battle it with every ounce of her strength, every passion, every hatred and fury, to fight and tear at it.

It had better be incomparably powerful. It had better have the sharpest teeth in the world, able to rip the flesh from her entire body. It had better have the strongest limbs, able to crush every bone in her. It had better have the finest digestive system in the world, able to swallow her whole, until she vanished completely from this world, not even a scrap remaining…

After standing dazed for a while, she felt utterly exhausted, with not a shred of strength left in her body. Her legs were as limp as noodles, her hands trembling without her realizing it—and yet why they trembled, she didn't know.

Where is this? What am I doing here? Where am I supposed to go?

A string of questions rose in her heart like smoke in the darkness, then slowly dispersed. For a moment, she felt none of it mattered.

What does matter? She didn't know either.

She gazed blankly at the broad street before her, an empty, expansive road. The streetlamps stood in orderly rows, shining, yet not a single shadow of a person in sight, as if it were a bizarre, hollow world.

What was she doing here?

She was far too tired. Her mind was a mess—like paste, like a pot of congee, like soft tofu, yet also like a stone, like a piece of wood, like a rusted machine.

She dropped onto the curb of the roadside flower bed, her body slumping backward, but there was nothing behind her to lean against, and she tumbled straight into the flower bed.

The streetlamp cast its cold light overhead, like a silent gaze.

"What's the point of you being alive right now? Wouldn't it be better to just die?" it said calmly, with none of its usual venom, simply stating a fact, and even—seemingly—with a trace of imperceptible pity.

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

"After all, your life is joyless and tasteless. Food holds no flavor for you, sleep brings no sweetness, even a pathetic romance of yours fizzled out without beginning or end. You have nothing you care about, no goal you want to achieve, no purpose for living, and you can't find any meaning in your existence. So, why keep on like this? What are you holding on for?" it said again, in an even, quiet tone. This was the first time it had spoken to her like an "old friend," in the casual manner of idle chitchat.

"What, hand the body over to you?" Yang Yi's thoughts stirred slightly, but lazily, weakly.

"I am you. I just want to make your life a little easier," it said with pity.

Yang Yi said nothing. She cast one last look at the night sky. In that instant, her mind was utterly blank.

Slowly, she closed her eyes.

A moment later, her eyelids fluttered, then opened slowly, as if seeing this world for the first time, and a wild, unrestrained smile appeared on her face.