Chapter 65: The Mysterious Wucheng

Near noon, the pervasive mist gradually dispersed.

This was also the time when crowds were largest; people who had been cooped up all day emerged from their homes, eager for a breath of fresh air—this was the busiest moment in Wucheng.

It had been a week since the city was sealed off; people had grown accustomed to constantly guarding those around them, fearing they might suddenly transform into monsters and “eat” them.

Wucheng News constantly warned everyone to be cautious of the mist, to beware the monsters within it, and to keep away from others—but out of fear of triggering mass panic, they never published the horrifying appearance of the monsters to the public.

Although people had heard of monsters in the mist, most still had no idea what they looked like.

Yang Yi walked down the street wearing a mask, alongside Wei Chang’an and Chen Yushu, observing everything in Wucheng.

Aside from the tense atmosphere and panicked crowds, Yang Yi found nothing unusual, leaving her somewhat disappointed.

She felt a heavy pressure.

The earnest plea from Wucheng’s leadership, Professor Li’s heavy sigh, the hurried pedestrians on the streets, their anxious expressions—all weighed on her like a massive stone.

It was as if an immense burden she had never imagined had suddenly been placed on her shoulders, and she stood there dumbfounded, unprepared, crushed beneath its weight.

In a daze, she had a strange feeling: What am I doing here?

Shouldn’t I be working in Haibei City? What time is it now? Shouldn’t I be sitting at my computer, checking accounts? Verifying every entry for a single misplaced decimal point?

How did I end up here? What am I doing here?

Haven’t I skipped my secret base for several days now? Has the osmanthus there bloomed with overwhelming fragrance? Shouldn’t the purple flowers of the vitex have already withered…

Has my secret base gone untended these past days, now overgrown with weeds? Has my wicker chair sprouted new branches?

Countless bizarre thoughts drifted through her mind as she walked the unfamiliar streets of Wucheng, lost, as if in a dream.

“We’re getting nowhere!” Wei Chang’an sighed.

Yang Yi suddenly snapped back to reality, finally aware of where she was and what she was doing.

She suddenly understood her own thoughts: she had once again recalled her secret base—but it was an escape.

Whenever the pressure became too great, she wanted to flee.

She was accustomed to detaching herself from the present, retreating to a place no one knew, safe and tranquil, to soothe the persistent, weightless unease in her heart, to escape the sense of rootless drifting.

She had never dreamed of becoming the “First Awakened One,” or a “god among humans,” bearing a responsibility she had never dared to accept or even wanted to accept. Her greatest dream had once been to be forgotten, to vanish among the masses, to become a single droplet in the ocean’s waves.

Yet now, she had been lifted by the tide, becoming a bright moon upon the sea’s surface.

Does anyone care whether I even like this? she wondered, dazed.

But another thought rose: If you’ve been given this power, and you refuse to act, who will? This responsibility isn’t given to you—it’s given to the lottery ticket that is you. Unless you can transfer the ticket to someone else…

“Are we just going to search aimlessly like this?” Wei Chang’an grew impatient.

The three reached a park, where vegetation was lush and people scarce, and the mist was thicker than elsewhere.

Suddenly, Yang Yi’s expression shifted; she froze in place: “Watch out! There’s something in the mist!”

Wei Chang’an and Chen Yushu went on high alert.

From the woods came a rustling sound, as if countless insects were scurrying, or countless snakes slithering across sand.

Soon, a long black shadow burst from the mist, lunging at the three.

Even with their preparations, they were startled by the monster’s appearance.

It was a long, centipede-like creature—composed of human bodies; countless arms, hands, legs, and feet formed its many limbs.

Across its elongated body, countless eyes were scattered everywhere, intertwined chaotically with mouths, nostrils, ears, navels, and hair, forming an image more grotesque and unsettling than any postmodern painting.

Merely seeing its form caused a psychological contamination before it even attacked.

A cold, numbing sensation invaded Yang Yi’s body.

Her neck stiffened; each movement of her head felt like that of a rusted puppet; her blood seemed to have frozen.

Even her thoughts grew rigid.

Hurry! If it gets close, you’ll be fused into its body!

Yang Yi screamed inwardly; her mental form twisted violently, and the cold numbness vanished instantly.

A flash of psychokinesis severed the human centipede into two pieces, which fell to the ground.

With its mental attack broken, Chen Yushu and Wei Chang’an recovered; countless blades and wind slashes danced wildly through the air, reducing the human centipede to a pile of Lanrou in an instant.

“This thing… was made of people once…” Wei Chang’an said heavily.

The shredded flesh on the ground continued to writhe; countless fleshy buds swayed like spring grasses, growing and reconnecting, beginning to reassemble.

This astonishing vitality struck all three with a jolt.

“Old Chen! Your arm!” Wei Chang’an cried out, voice cracking.

Yang Yi looked closely: a tiny finger had crawled onto Chen Yushu’s elbow, now frantically burrowing into his flesh.

“Shhh!” A flash of cold light; half his arm fell to the ground. Chen Yushu cried out in pain.

Chen Yushu had used his metal ability to sever his own arm.

Such decisiveness startled Yang Yi.

“Quick! Yang Yi, take him to the hospital! I’ll clean up the mess!” Wei Chang’an shouted.

With urgency, Yang Yi wrapped Chen Yushu and the severed limb in her psychokinesis and sped toward the hospital.

It was her first time in Wucheng; she didn’t know the geography. She frantically checked her phone for the nearest hospital address while watching the severed arm gradually corrode and deform.

She realized Chen Yushu would likely be permanently disabled.

Though she knew the casualty rate among frontline Awakened Ones was high, seeing it happen to someone beside her—her own teammate—she couldn’t accept it.

If only I had been more careful…

“You know,” Chen Yushu, gazing at the scenery below, whispered through gritted teeth: “I envy you so much.”

Yang Yi stared at him in shock. This man, usually silent and in her eyes overly proud, was telling her now that he envied her.

“I envy your talent! I envy that you don’t have to work hard—you were born with such immense power! What we must fight for with our lives, you accomplish with a single thought.” Chen Yushu looked at her, his eyes filled with suppressed emotion.

“When I Awakened, I was C-rank—I was ecstatic, convinced I had transcended ordinary people, become a unique exception. In my twenty-five years of mediocrity, I finally wasn’t just another average person—I was a superhuman!”

“Then I was recruited into the Jueguan Bureau. There, I met many other outstanding Awakened Ones. I learned I was rated C-rank—but I was confident. I knew that with effort, with relentless struggle, with repeated breakthroughs, I would rise to B-rank, even possibly become the rare A-rank, the very top among Awakened Ones.”

His severed arm was tightly held by Yang Yi’s psychokinesis, preventing excessive blood loss, but his face was pale, beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead.

“Don’t talk. Rest when you’re better,” Yang Yi whispered. She had found the hospital’s address and now headed straight there at full speed.

But Chen Yushu ignored her, continuing as if venting: “Then you appeared. You probably don’t even realize how much your punch that sent the sea monster back into the ocean shook the Awakened Ones… Especially after the Fire Demon incident—you shattered many Awakened Ones’ hopes for the future. Your talent mocks those who strive. Your existence mocks every other Awakened One!”

Yang Yi remained speechless, unsure what to say.

She had never considered the issue from this angle.

Seeing her innocent, almost helpless expression, Chen Yushu suddenly grew agitated:

“Yes! I hate most of all how you look—like all this is nothing to you! You want to say, ‘I didn’t choose this,’ right? Why be so dramatic? With such power, you should act superior! You should be proud, arrogant, even disdainful of everyone else! The more ordinary you seem, the more it highlights how powerless, mediocre, and stupid we who struggle to climb even one rank truly are…”

After handing Chen Yushu over to the doctors, Yang Yi nearly fled in panic.

Returning to the site of the monster’s appearance, Wei Chang’an had already burned it to ash.

“How’s Old Chen?” Wei Chang’an asked; it was clear he deeply cared for this quiet colleague.

Yang Yi thought of the twisted, deformed arm. “He’ll probably be disabled…” she said, downcast.

Wei Chang’an’s mood grew heavy; he said nothing more.

The two continued walking along the direction of thickening mist; Yang Yi carefully observed her surroundings while thinking of Chen Yushu.

Finally, she couldn’t hold back: “Chen Yushu said he envied me—envied my talent, because I can gain everything effortlessly, while others must fight just to rise one rank…”

Wei Chang’an glanced at her in surprise, then smiled openly, spreading his hands: “Isn’t it obvious? Who doesn’t envy you?”

“You too?”

“Of course.” Wei Chang’an deliberately exclaimed in awe: “S-rank! Awakened directly as S-rank—how could anyone not envy that?”

He shrugged, lightening the mood with humor: “You’ve never even tasted the flavor of effort… Do you know what it’s like to be stuck at a bottleneck, desperately absorbing dark matter, yet your body leaks energy like a sieve? Do you know what it’s like to strain to purify your energy, trying to reduce impurities and make your techniques sharper, only to achieve half the results?”

Yang Yi had never considered these things—she hadn’t even realized they were problems.

She absorbed and purified dark matter energy as naturally as eating and drinking; she never thought it was difficult. Who thinks eating and drinking are hard?

“I once asked Professor Wu from the Awakened Assessment Bureau: what’s the chance an ordinary Awakened One can reach S-rank? I remember he patted my shoulder and said, sometimes talent matters more than effort.”

“I wasn’t satisfied. I asked him again: what exactly is S-rank like? He said, you’ve never asked me anything about absorbing, converting, or using dark matter—so perhaps it’s instinctive. That might be what S-rank is.”

“See? Everyone dreams of Rome—but some people are Rome itself. How could anyone not envy that?”

Yang Yi fell silent. She had never realized she was perceived this way by other Awakened Ones.

$$

As she patrolled the hilltop with Wei Chang’an, she faintly sensed the mist had grown viscous—not physically, but perceptually.

This sensation persisted until nightfall.

At night, the city became a “ghost city”; only the faint lights from windows in residential compounds proved anyone still lived here.

Empty roads, deserted streets, streetlamps cast lonely cold glows through swirling mist; distant barks of dogs occasionally broke the silence.

Yang Yi stood suspended in the dense, Ningjiedewuqi , overlooking the city.

If the root cause lay in the mist, then immersing herself in its thickest core was the only solution she could think of.

Her psychokinesis flowed like water, extending soft tendrils into the mist.

More of her psychokinesis followed the mist’s flow, gradually covering the entire district.

Even if she couldn’t yet find the cause of the monsters, eliminating the ones already formed would give the city more safety.

She thought this, and her psychokinesis spread faster.

But where she didn’t notice, a formless slime seeped from the mist, wriggling like a living thing toward her suspended body.

The slime silently passed through her psychokinetic barrier, gradually seeping into her skin.

Yang Yi had been fully focused on extending her psychokinesis across the city, searching for the monsters, when suddenly her expression froze; her mind went hazy.

She seemed to see the mist suddenly thicken, coiling into countless bizarre forms.

Sometimes it was a deformed monster formed from various human tissues, sometimes the desperate curses of the Fire Demon as he died, sometimes countless dried corpses beneath the altar crawling toward her, sometimes even taking the form of a little boy in a red T-shirt…

Oh, it was the little boy beneath the Mist Village altar—she vaguely remembered who he was.

In an instant, the little boy’s body began to writhe again; a hand emerged from him, then a head, as if a parasitic twin, growing a full adult figure from within the child.

Yang Yi’s heart jolted with a bad premonition.

She stared fixedly at the newly formed figure, watching as it slowly turned toward her, offering her a sincere and shy smile.

It was Chris.