Chapter 62: The Gaze

Under the pressure of an emergency, Kraft reluctantly abandoned his setup work, the rapid clatter of footsteps carrying him down to Lu Xiusi.

Ignoring the noise, his movement up the stairs was truly ghostlike; the steep, treacherous staircase that had nearly broken Lu Xiusi’s leg took barely half a minute to descend, as if walking flat ground from attic to first floor.

The uneven, shadowed steps offered no obstacle—he had stumbled repeatedly the first time he entered, yet now he moved through them as if strolling through his own backyard.

“What happened?” Kraft rushed down from the attic, clutching a trap with a radius at least half the length of a shinbone.

Lu Xiusi sighed deeply, setting his cup on the windowsill. “We need to go to Li Si’s right away.”

His mood seemed deeply downcast, yet also relieved, as if he had finally shed a heavy burden and resolved a long-standing inner conflict.

“Did he say what it was about?” Kraft, still halfway through his setup, didn’t want to leave—who knew if these people would misplace a trap without his supervision.

“I don’t know if this is good news or bad, so I’ll just say it.” Some invisible barrier seemed to drop from Lu Xiusi; for the first time in days, he met Kraft’s gaze directly. “You were right. Li Si is at the professor’s house.”

The explosive news left Kraft stunned for several moments—he couldn’t fathom how Li Si had ended up at the professor’s, let alone that he’d actually found something important.

Who in their right mind leaves evidence at the scene after committing a crime?

He had considered storming the suspect’s residence, but first, the night he’d locked onto the target, he’d been dragged into the depths and had no time for this; second, he assumed the professor would choose some hidden location outside the academy, and such a move risked drawing major trouble—risk far outweighed reward.

Then Li Si, acting on scant information and with reckless disregard, kicked down the door—and unexpectedly broke the deadlock.

“Get a carriage. I’ll pack some things.” With dusk approaching, Kraft hefted the trap in his hand. He might need to spend the night outdoors—he couldn’t go unprepared.

…

…

“It’s here.” Lu Xiusi led the way, pointing to a building with its front door wide open against the dim twilight.

Someone was already waiting at the entrance. He stood in the center of the street, deliberately avoiding the doorway, as if he’d been there a long time. He kept a clear distance from the building, his shadow sharply separated from the eaves’ dark cast.

Seeing Lu Xiusi and Kraft, he hurried forward and took the box from Kraft’s hands. “I hope you’ll look at them—only you might be able to explain what they are.”

“What exactly is going on?” Since someone was willing to help, Kraft didn’t refuse—the box was packed with four traps, two jars of fish oil, and assorted small tools, heavy to carry.

Li Si cast a glance inside the doorway, unwilling to lead them in. He waited for Kraft to enter and see for himself. “It’s like the thing you drew… but different. You’ll understand when you see it.”

So you drag someone here just to make them guess a riddle?

Out of gratitude for Li Si helping carry and procure supplies, Kraft suppressed the urge to snap back, reflecting inwardly: had his own strange behavior somehow infected others?

More than fear or dread, the lecturer—who worked late into the night in the dissecting room—showed avoidance. Something beyond reason lurked in that room, causing discomfort no less intense than a human confronting the hollow shell of a fellow being—or even more shocking than death itself.

Kraft understood this emotion easily: it was the shock of encountering something life had rendered inexplicable, where reason and logic collapsed entirely, leaving the civilized person stripped of social constructs and thrust back into endless wilderness—unbearable.

Hmm, but for now, Li Si’s mental state seemed stable, and he held the box firmly.

“There are two fragile jars inside—can you watch them for me?” To keep Li Si occupied and his focus diverted, Kraft said, “Before I go in, tell me what else I need to do.”

“There are some books upstairs—you’ll understand when you see them. No, I don’t even know where they came from…”

“Enough. Stay here and watch this box.” Kraft cut him off sharply, gripping his shoulders and emphasizing the box again.

After securing Li Si in place, Kraft turned toward the house. He blocked Lu Xiusi from following, pointed at Li Si, and signaled him to stay and watch.

From outside, the house at sunset looked no different from its neighbors. Its design was too similar—standard two-story height with an attic, plus a modest courtyard.

A practical, time-tested style from old houses, it ensured ample interior space but offered no room for aesthetic expression. In architectural terms, it was like a half-Western, half-rural cottage from the other world’s countryside—hard to imagine this was a professor’s home.

The wide-open front door shattered the inherent security of this classic design, leaving a flaw. The lowering sun cast elongated afterglow into the interior, stretching thin ribbons of light across the old, empty wooden floor like a makeshift welcome mat, slanting into the bare, unadorned parlor—a casual, uninvited summons.

If the professor hadn’t been careless, the open windows and doors in the parlor were Li Si’s doing. The striped sunlight on floor and walls, refracted by the atmosphere, glowed with an eerie reddish hue, illuminating circular symbols painted in dark pigment.

They varied in size—some spanned half a wall, others smaller than a human head—but showed clear consistency. One glance told Kraft: these were the celestial forms he’d brought back from the depths, their cracked patterns and orientations identical.

Li Si’s mention of “difference” likely referred to the horizontal crack running through them—the larger the symbol, the wider the central stripe, until it abandoned the thin-waisted sketch-line form and resembled a spindle.

The scattered furniture left the parlor ample space for display. The largest one lay directly beneath his feet, painted across the entire floor—a colossal shattered celestial body whose jagged edge reached the walls, its expanded central stripe pushing the surrounding cracks apart.

The simple symbolic drawing evoked a profound sense of transformation, triggering a buried memory.

Those who saw it firsthand understood its mystery instantly—once seen, the gaze could not look away. It expanded in the field of vision, filling the entire mind. Beyond the rules of perspective, it drew closer on another level entirely.

The indescribable sensation could not be conveyed by linear perspective—it demanded the maximum possible surface area, using sheer scale to demonstrate its approach.

A… sense of being watched. Not one-sided observation, but an interaction.

Karlman had gazed at it longer—his implication of being watched back was stronger. The expanding horizontal crack acquired a personified meaning.

Kraft racked his brain for a better word to describe it.

【Open】

Ah, that’s it…

A clear, terrifying thought flashed through him—after all, to watch, in human thought, how could watching exist without eyes?

【It is alive】

As if memory replayed, he stood again beneath the dark dome, witnessing the unchanging shattered celestial body—the horizontal crack flickered with static, and the overwhelming sense of being watched surged again.

It resembled a colossal eye slowly opening, the horizontal crack spreading sideways, its dim, lifeless light its gaze. Yet upon closer inspection, no motion had occurred—the great crack remained eternally unchanged; it was all illusion.

For a moment, Kraft could not tell whether it was the objective natural effect of some celestial body—or the sovereign will of a celestial-scale consciousness—that had expelled him back to reality.

Like sudden enlightenment, no words were needed. The crude image triggered non-rational, illogical knowledge that entered his mind through unknown channels, passively implanting unsettling truths.

The experience was dreadful. Kraft averted his gaze from the massive symbol on the floor, yet the entire room was covered in them—nowhere clean to look.

And once he perceived it as an eye, the sense of being watched clung to him—he could no longer remain calm.

Kraft stepped over the giant shattered-celestial-body painting on the floor, quickening his pace toward the second floor, determined to grab what he needed and leave.

As expected, the professor’s bedroom was also covered in the same symbols. On the wall facing the window, a half-closed, colossal eye-like shattered celestial body gazed outward; the original wall hanging had been discarded, its frame shattered into pieces.

The books spread on the desk before the window were surely what Li Si had mentioned. Kraft glanced at them and frowned—not because he didn’t recognize them, but because they were too familiar, disturbingly so.

The black-line drawings automatically colored themselves in his mind; the flat-plane structures came alive in his thoughts—human tissue-constructed software tentacles curled vividly, slapping against him through paper and memories he couldn’t trace.

Kraft instinctively raised his hand to block the blow—but no impact came. Seconds later, he realized it was another illusion tied to memory.

【Wriggling…】

“What ridiculous assembly?” Kraft snapped the book shut, irritated. Since it felt so familiar, it was undoubtedly that hated software creature from his memories. Though he didn’t know why it was linked to human tissue, its impact clearly paled beside that incomprehensible celestial body.

To Li Si, these were heretical and alluring. To Kraft, they were nothing so extraordinary.

The otherworld soul had been lucky enough to be born in an era of explosive surgical advancement—he’d seen and heard countless bizarre treatments: transplanting toes to replace fingers, grafting thigh skin to repair faces—nothing new anymore, let alone growing human organs on animals.

Once the principle was understood, it really did resemble assembling parts from elsewhere.

As for horror caused by twisted, mixed tissues, anyone who’d seen a teratoma was unlikely to be moved by this.

His evaluation of this structure: alien technology—stunning. Things that defy earthly logic are indeed formidable; one cannot help but envy their inherent advantages. But at this level… humanity could surpass it a thousand years from now.