Chapter 3: Ladder

Familiar ceiling.

The morning alarm rang; Li Cheng opened his eyes and sat up abruptly.

It was a medium-sized bedroom, walls plastered with several game posters, a computer desk at the foot of the bed, and a crumpled backpack lying on the floor.

What happened last night wasn’t a dream.

He was still wearing his school uniform, the clothes and pants reeking of river water. In the mirror, he saw a cut mark on his neck—already scabbed over with a thin crust, invisible unless examined closely.

Why had it healed so fast? Because of the wasp monster’s sting? Or because of that fragment of divine corruption?

No time to think deeply; Li Cheng stripped off his clothes and shoved them into the bottom drawer of the computer desk.

Washing them now was too late, and he couldn’t put them in the washing machine—it would stink the machine up.

Then he rummaged through the bottom of his wardrobe, pulled out several packs of desiccant, and sealed them with his waterlogged phone in a plastic bag to dry it out.

He picked out fresh clothes and quietly opened the door.

The house had four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and two bathrooms—spacious and elegantly decorated. The glass cabinet separating the living room from the dining area was filled with trophies and honor certificates won by his cousins.

Fortunately, his aunt and uncle hadn’t woken up yet. Li Cheng sprinted into the bathroom and quickly washed his whole body, noticing the penetrating wound on his left shoulder blade had healed over two-thirds.

Soft rustling came from the living room—someone had woken up. He turned off the faucet, ready to dry off and dress to leave.

Hss—

A swarm of pale bristles suddenly pierced out from his right forearm. Each was about twenty centimeters long, unnaturally hard, like steel nails.

Caught off guard, Li Cheng clenched his hand instinctively—the thick cotton towel, soaked through, tore apart with a rip, no harder than tearing paper. His strength far exceeded normal.

“Is anyone in there?”

A clear female voice came from outside the bathroom door—his cousin Xue Luomeng.

“It’s me, showering.” Li Cheng kept the shower running, forcing his voice calm, trying to snap off the bristles on his arm—they wouldn’t break.

“Hurry up,” Xue Luomeng’s footsteps retreated from the door; at the same time, the sounds of cooking from the living room grew louder.

Li Cheng absolutely could not leave the house like this. He recalled again the image from last night: the taxi driver growing compound eyes, chelicerae, and membranous wings, then shot dead by the Special Affairs Bureau.

Wait—something was off. The taxi driver’s arms had no such growths. These pale bristles looked more like the ants that had crawled onto his hand beneath the bridge last night?

What was this? Had he absorbed ant genes?

Li Cheng stared blankly at his arm, then had an idea. He stood on the edge of the bathtub and reached up toward the bathroom heater on the ceiling.

The heater’s bright, warm light shone through his arm skin, illuminating the blood vessels and muscles beneath.

The bristles weren’t rootless—they had follicles, and above each follicle was a ring of muscle.

Muscle meant possible control.

Li Cheng focused a fierce willpower on the extra muscle group, commanding the bristles to retract.

Hss—

All the bristles slowly withdrew, sinking back beneath the skin. The surface smoothed out, leaving no trace.

Success.

Li Cheng exhaled, slipped the torn towel into his pocket, opened the door with a calm expression—and found Xue Luomeng just about to knock.

“Why did it take so long?”

Xue Luomeng muttered, hugged her clothes, and stepped into the bathroom.

Li Cheng’s aunt, Li Zhao, worked in HR for a clothing company; his uncle, Xue Jingming, was a sales manager for a shipping machinery equipment firm. The Xue family was an old lineage with a massive family enterprise, holding ancestral rites every year.

Both Xue Jingming and Li Zhao were strikingly good-looking; their son Xue Lingyu and daughter Xue Luomeng were textbook handsome and beautiful, drawing glances wherever they walked.

When she was young, Xue Luomeng clung to Li Cheng, never leaving his side—even closer than to her own brother. But at some point, she grew cold toward him, treating him like a familiar stranger, just like her mother.

Even though they attended the same high school, just one grade apart, they only exchanged cold greetings when they met.

Li Cheng had long grown used to his family’s attitude. He stepped aside, left the bathroom, returned to his room, and hid the torn towel.

The strength increase wasn’t an illusion. Before leaving, he tested it: the heavy computer desk, which used to require both hands, he now lifted effortlessly with just his left hand—barely any pressure.

His right hand was even stronger.

————

A breeze brushed his face. Li Cheng took a detour, stopped on the bridge, and gazed far off at the neighborhood he’d passed through last night.

Several old men in white T-shirts played chess under a tree; young men and women in sportswear jogged with headphones on. Everything seemed perfectly normal—as if no bloodshed had occurred the night before.

Presumably, the Special Affairs Bureau had cleaned everything up—erased the scene, deleted surveillance.

Li Cheng shivered inexplicably. No human organization could instantly master such skills—they must have practiced, adapted.

How many times had the Special Affairs Bureau performed cover-ups, body disposal, and information suppression to become this proficient?

Or rather, how long had such anomalies been happening? A year? Three years? Five?

Li Cheng pulled his scarf up to cover his nose and mouth, silently pedaled off the bridge, driven by intense hunger and itching beneath his arm, and bought ten meat buns and two cups of soy milk at a breakfast shop.

He wolfed them down, still unsatisfied, switched shops, bought two steamer baskets of dumplings and a bowl of vegetable-and-pork-noodle soup.

He packed them up, found a narrow alley without surveillance cameras, devoured everything in minutes—the hunger and the itching beneath his skin finally subsided.

Li Cheng had a feeling: if he didn’t eat enough, the bristles would erupt again, just like in the bathroom.

He couldn’t go to the hospital—doctors would almost certainly report it. If the Special Affairs Bureau learned of a survivor, they’d likely shoot him dead.

His immediate priority was understanding the situation.

After careful thought, Li Cheng thought of one person.

————

In the evening, at Zhuoyue Middle School’s cafeteria, a petite girl with short hair sat alone in the corner, eating while scrolling on her phone.

She wore a white T-shirt and a gray plaid shirt, thin-framed glasses, and carried a sharp, icy aura in her eyes.

Logically, a girl this beautiful—even without friends—wouldn’t eat alone.

The reason was simple: Yuan Zhixia, from the neighboring class, was a weirdo.

On the first day of school, while everyone nervously introduced themselves, she walked up to the stage and declared loudly: “I’m a genius. I’m not interested in ordinary humans. If any of you are aliens, time travelers, interdimensional beings, or superhumans, come find me. That’s all.”

After uttering this cosplay line from Haruhi Suzumiya, she walked off calmly and began her eccentric life.

She sat in the back row, never paid attention in class, wore earbuds and played on her phone, yet always ranked in the city’s top ten academically. Whether in math olympiads, robotics competitions, or programming contests, she always won first prize.

“Genius” and “top scorer” were merely other people’s limits—not hers.

Many teenagers admired her and wanted to be friends, but she sincerely lived by her “not interested in ordinary humans” creed, remaining utterly solitary.

Li Cheng was one of the few who could speak to her, likely because they were both members of the school newspaper and astronomy club.

He set down his tray beside her and said awkwardly, “Eating?”

“Just say it,” Yuan Zhixia glanced at him, then kept tapping her phone, adding the latest wireless device, metal 3D printer, desktop collaborative robotic arm, and desktop workstation to her Amazon cart.

“Do you have a way to access the foreign internet without being detected?”

Li Cheng asked: “Complete IP masking, traffic filtering and sniffing prevention—no one can trace or identify you in any way.”

“Oh?”

This finally caught Yuan Zhixia’s interest. She put down her phone, raised an eyebrow. “What do you need it for?”

“Looking up some information,” Li Cheng mumbled.

Yuan Zhixia didn’t press further. She reached into her pocket, rummaged through a pile of USB drives, pulled one out, and placed it on the table.

“You know Tor, right? It’s a browser package designed to hide your identity and erase traces on the dark web.”

Yuan Zhixia said: “This USB contains my own enhanced program. Beyond the original anonymity, it completely patches browser vulnerabilities, blocks traffic analysis, circuit fingerprinting, and prevents any tracking or identification.”

“Thank you,” Li Cheng exhaled. “How much?”

“I don’t want money,” the girl shook her head. “I want you.”

“Huh?” Li Cheng’s eyes widened in shock.

“What are you thinking? I want you to pretend to be sick in a few days.”

Yuan Zhixia leaned back, squinting. “Then hand over the school newspaper’s photography duties that day to me.”

“What?” Li Cheng’s head seemed to sprout question marks.

He joined the school newspaper not only because he knew photography, but because Ye Jiaying was also in it.

“Wait,” Li Cheng suddenly realized—the interview subject for the school newspaper in a few days was his cousin Xue Luomeng.

“You’re not trying to get close to Luomeng, are you?” He scratched his head. “If you want to be friends, just ask her directly. Why sneak around?”

For some reason, Yuan Zhixia was unusually fixated on Xue Luomeng, who was a grade below her. At the start of this semester, she’d even casually asked Li Cheng if he had any childhood photos of his cousin. Very suspicious.

But Li Cheng’s sixth sense was certain: Yuan Zhixia wasn’t a lesbian. Her interest in Xue Luomeng felt more like pure, platonic admiration?

“Like you’re some love expert,” Yuan Zhixia tossed him the USB, picked up her tray, and walked off.

(End of chapter)