[Alliance] Weird Web

At seven in the morning, the body clock Ren Yi had developed over two lifetimes of eight a.m. starts woke him.

Almost reflexively, he braced himself on his hands and sat up in bed. Then he discovered... he had no hands.

As his memories returned, Ren Yi began to recall how his worldview had been turned upside down yesterday.

Yesterday, after his brother had mercilessly refused his plea for help, he had collapsed back into "a lump" within seconds. Then, snap, he had passed out.

The clatter of pots and bowls in the kitchen came through with exceptional clarity to his brand-new senses. After spending a few minutes collecting his thoughts, Ren Yi decided to go out for breakfast first.

Besides, he had a lot of questions for Ren Man.

But then he suddenly realized that, with no hands or feet, the bed, which was only half a meter high, was like an impassable chasm to him now.

He reflexively tried to call Ren Man to rescue him, only to produce a muffled whimper.

Oh no, he couldn't find his mouth again.

Creak. Just as Ren Yi was struggling, he heard the door being pushed open.

Ren Yi's 360-degree field of vision showed him a clear view of Ren Man walking in with a steaming breakfast.

"Here, time to eat," he said mildly.

"..." How was he supposed to eat?

Ren Yi tried to make his body sway, move, or produce any sound at all, but having just woken up, he was a mess in the literal, physical sense.

He could only pull his field of view toward Ren Man, pulling and pulling, his gaze clinging to Ren Man in a plea for help.

Ren Man set breakfast on the nightstand and looked down at his bizarrely shaped little brother.

He understood.

Then he said coolly, "...I can't."

The silence in the air was unnerving.

Ren Yi even began to wonder whether Ren Man had temporarily switched off his "human empathy" function too.

Amid the eerie silence, Ren Yi's phone rang.

Ren Yi's field of vision automatically shifted toward the sound, as if the room had surround-view cameras installed. The experience was so strange it made his scalp tingle, but he no longer had the energy to panic.

Incoming video call: my son, Old Lu.

Ren Man glanced at Ren Yi's unmistakable "answer it, answer it, answer it" gaze and sighed softly.

He answered the phone, then followed Ren Yi's wildly shifting field of vision and knowingly set the phone by the bed, at an angle that absolutely could not capture Ren Yi's current appearance.

"Hello?" Lu Zihan's voice came from the phone.

Ren Man looked at the phone, then at Ren Yi, and realized he seemed to have fallen for a trick:

"...Just this once."

As he spoke, he reached out and felt around on Ren Yi. Soon, with a smack, a mouth module automatically "loaded" onto Ren Yi's face.

Like an electronic device suddenly being plugged into a socket, the organ switched from "unavailable" to "enabled."

Ren Yi drew a breath and was almost startled by his own sudden breathing.

"You two talk." With that, Ren Man withdrew, gently closing the door behind him.

Ren Yi used his current field of vision to sneak a look at the phone from an impossible angle.

The screen was black, but the camera light showed that it was on.

A voice came from the other end.

"Hello? Ban Deng’er? My... uh... phone camera's broken."

So fake.

Ren Yi sneered inwardly.

You want a sneak peek at what I look like now? Dream on.

He ventured, "Oh, my screen seems to be frozen. Why does it keep showing the ceiling? Never mind that. How did the test go, Old Lu?"

Lu Zihan fell silent for a second, then said in a deliberately casual tone, "Ahem, not great. My parents put me through the wringer. You know, yesterday they... haha... well... what about you?"

"Me?" Ren Yi lowered his "head" and glanced at himself, then decided to be a little more frank. "My brother beat me 'flat.'"

"I see..." Lu Zihan made a sympathetic sound. "Same here. My parents 'twisted' my head off."

"Oh," Ren Yi replied without emotion. He knew Lu Zihan wouldn't be able to hold back.

Sure enough, Lu Zihan soon couldn't restrain himself. "So, uh, Ban Deng’er, you know, that Alliance letter."

Ren Yi decided to stop teasing him. "All right. If I hadn't read it, your parents and my brother probably wouldn't have allowed us to talk on the phone."

"So what do you look like now? Let me take a look."

If Ren Yi had a head right now, it would probably have been covered in black lines.

"Then turn your camera on first."

"Haha." Lu Zihan laughed awkwardly, then changed his tone and said, sounding a little lost, "Ban Deng’er, you've always had ideas. What do you think we should do?"

Ren Yi fell silent. After a while, he answered, "I don't know."

"I'm not much better off than you, Old Lu."

"But... I trust my brother."

"Yeah." A slow reply came from the other end of the line. "I trust my parents too, but..." Lu Zihan suddenly sounded a little like he was grinding his teeth.

"Ban Deng’er, you have no idea. Yesterday my parents put on this whole big show in front of me. My mom turned into a monster and couldn't control her body, and she was crying while saying she wanted to eat my dad. I tried to hug her, but then I found out I also... also... Anyway, they were still making fun of me this morning."

"Uh, that means you have a pretty good family atmosphere." Ren Yi lit a candle in his heart for his best friend. Fortunately, his own brother... wait, no!

He suddenly realized: those eyes, the thing about blocking the sunlight, and telling him to watch the news—could it all have just been his brother messing with him?

The more Ren Yi thought about it, the worse he felt as a person—no, as a weird.

He gave Lu Zihan a brief account, and sure enough, Lu Zihan's voice turned sympathetic. "Looks like we're both in the same boat."

"Enough of the unhappy stuff. Ban Deng’er, have you been surfing the web?"

Lu Zihan was back to his carefree self in an instant.

Ren Yi's interest stirred. "What, you've already looked?"

"Yeah, hurry up and browse it. The stuff on there is so interesting!" Lu Zihan said, unusually excited.

You think I don't want to? Ren Yi squirmed sadly again.

But then he suddenly realized something: that bastard Old Lu's "shape" probably had hands!

There was no hurt without comparison. He was jealous!

The two exchanged a few more words. Lu Zihan realized Ren Yi couldn't wait, so he soon ended the conversation.

"Oh, right," Lu Zihan suddenly said before hanging up. "My mom told me to let you know I'm still going to take that summer job at my uncle's. He's saved a spot for you, and she said to ask your brother if he wants to come take a look."

Wait, wasn't this return to normal life a little too fast?

Or was this also part of returning to normal life?

Ren Yi's interest stirred. "I'll ask my brother. Thank your mom and uncle for me."

"No problem. Bye."

The call ended. During the conversation, Ren Yi had finally managed to "sort" himself out. He extended two tentacles and picked up his phone and breakfast.

Today's breakfast was a shouzhua pancake. It seemed Ren Man had taken Ren Yi's current condition into account after all. If it had been something like plain rice porridge or plain noodle soup, which required the use of "complicated tools," Ren Yi would have been at a loss.

Ren Yi opened his mouth and bit into a corner of the pancake. The sight was so bizarre that even he wanted to call the police:

A life-form with an utterly bizarre shape gripped its food with a mechanical structure that didn't exist and swallowed it bit by bit.

Even more bizarrely, the life-form was scrolling through its phone with a tentacle.

The browser icon hadn't changed, but the once-familiar apps had become Weird Q&A, Weird Bar, Weird Station, Weird Blog... He realized that the change in his "vision" probably wasn't limited to his field of view.

He opened Weird Blog first and saw that the number one trending search was:

"Understand the weirdness classification in five minutes"