Chapter 37: Spider

Large-scale memory alteration? No, it’s not memory alteration—if it were only memory, it couldn’t fool surveillance cameras.

It’s more like cognitive contamination.

Is that even possible?

Li Cheng unconsciously slowed his steps, cold sweat suddenly breaking out on his forehead.

The more he tried to think, the more the memories related to the spider blurred, until he briefly forgot why he was standing here and why he had been walking forward.

“When someone is eaten by the giant spider, their family and friends forget them entirely, as if they never existed. People invent a plausible explanation.”

The small spider creature, its head covered in white gauze, murmured to itself: “A child’s parents were taken and eaten, so the adults all believe the child has always been an orphan with no mother or father—even the child believes it too.”

“A factory worker was taken and eaten, so the adults all believe the factory has always been struggling to fill its hiring quota.”

“I secretly saved many people in the mall. But after they left, they forgot the giant spider—and forgot me too.”

“.”

Perhaps because the tone was too familiar, Ye Jiaying suddenly stopped, her voice trembling: “Yang Ling?”

The small spider creature froze instantly, its legs shifting as it slowly turned around.

Whir—

A subway train roared past, its wind tearing the white gauze from its head, revealing its face.

The left side was indistinguishable from a normal spider creature: four single eyes, chelicerae, mouthparts.

The right side was half the face of a seven-year-old girl—her eyebrows and contours unmistakably familiar.

Boom!

Li Cheng felt as if a thunderclap had exploded inside his skull.

For the past five classes, a mysterious foul odor had hung in the air.

Classmates and teachers kept tripping over something on the right aisle.

Homeroom teacher Yang Hui had inexplicably changed her personality, becoming irritable.

A flood of fragmented memories surged into his mind. Everything was now explained.

Her name was Yang Ling—daughter of homeroom teacher Yang Hui.

Her father had died heroically when she was young; her mother, to care for her, had arranged for her to sit in the seat on the right side of the podium after elementary school dismissal, in the high school classroom.

Every day after school, Li Cheng and the other students loved to tease her; if she was in a good mood, she’d sweetly say, “Goodbye, big brother and big sister.”

The moment he recalled her, Ye Jiaying’s related memories began vanishing rapidly, like a receding tide.

She could only press her palm to her forehead, repeating the name over and over: “Yang Ling, you’re Yang Ling! I remember you.”

“Big sister Ye,”

Yang Ling’s half-human face smiled sadly: “How is my mother lately?”

“Your mother? Your mother is Yang Hui? She, she’s fine—just a bit short-tempered. Wait, you’re Yang Ling? Your mother is Yang Hui?”

Ye Jiaying slapped herself hard, trying to hold onto the memory longer: “I’ll remember you. I’ll call the police, get someone to help you.”

“Thank you, Big Sister Ye, but it’s useless. My ‘existence’ has already been eaten. I can’t leave here.”

“It won’t be useless!” Ye Jiaying tore off her hairpin and carved Yang Ling’s name into her wrist with its metal edge.

“Even if you carve the name, you’ll forget it once you leave.”

Yang Ling whispered: “Even if you see the name, you won’t remember anything about me.”

She stopped walking and led the three of them to the subway platform.

The platform teemed with people, each shrouded in shadow, waiting silently for the train.

Ding-dong.

As the indicator light flashed, a train arrived. If the three boarded it and traveled a few kilometers, they’d escape the Shadow Realm and return to reality.

And forget all of this nightmare.

“Meeting you big brothers and sisters, knowing my mother’s doing okay—I’m already so happy.”

Yang Ling stood before the train doors, smiling: “Go on, hurry.”

“.”

Li Cheng stood frozen, his right hand pressed over his face, fingers digging deep into his scalp, expression unreadable.

“Mr. Dazai?” Yuan Zhixia asked, puzzled.

“Give me money,” Li Cheng suddenly said, opening his palm toward Yang Ling. “One yuan.”

“I have it.” Ye Jiaying hesitantly pulled out a one-yuan coin from her purse, but Li Cheng didn’t move.

Yuan Zhixia snatched the coin and handed it to Yang Ling, who extended two legs to pinch it and place it in Li Cheng’s warm palm.

“Thus, the pact is sealed.”

Li Cheng took the one-yuan coin, nodded, then spun on his heel and strode purposefully back the way they came, toward the mall.

“Mr. Dazai, where are you going?!”

“She saved my life. So I gave her a ninety-percent discount—I’m returning her life.”

Li Cheng didn’t look back: “If leaving the mall means forgetting everything about that spider, then I’ll kill it right here.”

His blood boiled, his heart pounded, his gums bled furiously, his tongue once again tasted the thick, sweet metallic tang.

The infection of the Lord of Insects and the gene suppressant—two mutually exclusive forces—clashed within Li Cheng, suppressing his body.

Until now.

He pulled from inside his clothes a metal cylinder, slightly smaller than a thermos, filled with wood shavings, containing the pupa of the long-horned rhinoceros beetle—still over a month from hatching.

He removed the pupa and pressed a drop of blood amber onto it.

Upon contact with a living organism, the blood amber instantly dissolved, seeping into the pupa.

Powerful energy surged within the pupa, drastically shortening its normally long metamorphosis. The soft casing first hardened, then cracked open.

Li Cheng held the emerging beetle in his palm.

Cold wind from the subway blew across it; the newborn beetle’s soft, pure white elytra rapidly hardened and darkened, taking on a metallic black luster.

Its long horns were massive and razor-sharp, its carapace thick and sturdy, its body nearly thirty centimeters long—far exceeding the species’ natural limits, resembling a miniature tank. Truly worthy of the name Hercules.

The innate subservience of its bloodline made the beetle obediently crouch on Li Cheng’s palm.

Li Cheng no longer suppressed the effect of [Gene Hunger], allowing his skin to sink inward as it absorbed the mutated long-horned rhinoceros beetle’s genes.

Hunted by monsters, infected by the Lord of Insects, transformed into a non-human form, told he had only two months left to live, treated by the company as a rare experimental subject worthy of live dissection.

Since childhood, he’d been taught by teachers, society, and media to believe in official narratives.

But in the face of naked self-interest, the Special Affairs Bureau would never waste exorbitant resources to save someone who wasn’t even a Player.

All he could expect was a bullet to shatter his skull.

He was a monster in the eyes of the Special Affairs Bureau—but the Bureau couldn’t even clean up the real monsters right under its nose.

“Fuck it.”

New genes reshaped his body; black, armor-like carapaces sprouted across his cheeks, forehead, chest, and spine; sharp spines extended from his elbows; horns thrust upward from his skull.

Boom!

He kicked the staff entrance door—there was a clang, and the iron door slid ten meters across the floor before slowly turning to ash.

The deafening sound startled the entire nest; all spider creatures froze, turning their gaze downward.

Crack.

Li Cheng twisted his neck, shook his arms, and extended his Tangbi bone blades—now significantly longer than before.

(End of Chapter)