Yu Sheng's mind was submerged in a vast, indescribable tide of darkness. The shadow projected by the hungry "progenitor" was far more immense than he had imagined, yet its sheer scale seemed precisely what "hunger" ought to look like—a colossal, primordial terror suspended above every living thing and buried deep within every living thing's heart.
Then, deep within that shadow, he sensed the slowly drifting, writhing... "entity."
It was difficult to describe exactly what it was. It seemed to have countless tentacles and bloated masses of proliferating flesh, while every part of its body constantly changed shape. It was even as though new structures and gaps were collapsing into existence in real time beneath Yu Sheng's gaze. Its surface was pitch-black, yet deep within the weave of its tentacles, ever-shifting colors seemed to hide, carrying a disordered texture that gradually caused the mind to lose itself.
The instant Yu Sheng sensed that thing, it sensed his presence as well.
There was no time to react. Countless new tentacles and branching structures spread from within it in the blink of an eye. The tentacles, brimming with malice, arrived in an instant and abruptly coiled around Yu Sheng's mind.
Yu Sheng felt ten thousand voices explode inside his "head." He had no way to resist or dodge before his mind formed an irreversible connection with something far more immense. That thing howled in the depths of his consciousness, transmitting frenzied and terrifying thoughts. But in the next second, Yu Sheng realized that it did not seem to possess any true reason or thought—
It was merely some vast and savage "instinct." The frenzied thoughts and temptations he sensed were only tools this immense instinct had mimicked for the sake of "hunting."
They came from the living things it had devoured in the past—from their madness and despair at the end of hunger, and from the lingering echoes of its victims' dying cries. All of it had fused into the monster's entire malice, allowing what had originally been nothing but a conglomeration of instinct to gradually grow into what it was today. It had even become a powerful "entity" capable of actively "foraging," tempting, and coercing its prey.
And it was still growing rapidly. Its thought process, originally nothing more than a mimicry, was now gradually becoming true "thought"!
Now, it had begun trying to dismantle Yu Sheng's mind, attempting to turn this uninvited guest before it into its new "nourishment."
The sensation of his mind gradually "dissolving" spread through him. Yu Sheng felt himself being rapidly "digested," becoming part of the monster. He strained with all his might to break free of the tentacles wrapped around him, only to discover that the stronger his struggle became, the stronger the tentacles became as well!
Just then, Yu Sheng suddenly sensed something.
He abruptly looked toward the immense entity writhing endlessly in the darkness. In the next instant, countless eyes of various shapes suddenly surfaced among the mottled colors in the depths of the darkness. One of those eyes... was his.
His vision shook again. In the darkness, he saw countless tentacles stretching forward, their ends wrapped around a constantly struggling humanoid phantom.
He felt the monster digesting and absorbing him.
He felt himself devouring something.
He was feeding.
He was feeding.
Just as Yu Sheng could almost no longer distinguish where his perspective lay, nor where the boundary between himself and the monster was, Eileen's startled cry suddenly drifted faintly from deep within the darkness—
"What the fuck?!"
The next second, Yu Sheng felt himself plummet violently.
He instantly experienced that unbearably painful forced awakening from last time all over again.
Yu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes. Violent stabbing pain and roaring filled his head, while agony from every inch of his body instantly drowned out all other sensations. He rolled over and clutched the bedside table, retching violently, as though he wanted to vomit out even his heart, yet nothing came up. Only after a long dozen or so seconds did the terrifying aftereffects finally begin to fade.
Clinging to the bedside table, Yu Sheng struggled to pull himself upright. He saw the faint morning light spilling through the curtains into the room, and the doll carrying a picture frame sitting on his bed, her tiny face filled with immense anxiety and nervousness.
"Are you okay?! Are you still you?" Eileen crawled over with all four limbs, scrambling rapidly as she grabbed Yu Sheng's arm and shook it hard. "Do you remember who I am?"
"Don't shake me, don't shake me. I'm still dizzy... Fuck, why does my whole body hurt..." Yu Sheng hurriedly interrupted the doll. "I'm awake, Eileen. I'm fine."
Eileen stared at Yu Sheng for several seconds before finally letting go. "You scared me to death! You—you—you suddenly became just like you were dead, and your mental response disappeared! Then you suddenly came back to life, but your entire mind was a mess. I didn't even know what kind of thing I had awakened! You scared me to death! You scared me to death!"
Eileen said "you scared me to death" several times in a row, clearly terrified. Yu Sheng, however, barely had the energy to comfort the little doll. The immense impact brought about by establishing a deep link with "hunger" still lingered in his heart, as though a vast shadow remained there as well. He struggled to shake off its influence, leaning against the headboard and panting for a long while before his mind finally cleared completely.
"Eileen, that thing is dangerous," he said.
The little doll stood on Yu Sheng's stomach. "Of course I know it's dangerous! I told you from the beginning that it was dangerous!"
"No. I mean that thing is even more dangerous than you know—it's about to truly learn how to think."
Eileen froze, eyes wide.
"It originally had only instinct. It was after devouring countless minds that it learned how to coerce and tempt," Yu Sheng said, leaning against the headboard as he stared into Eileen's eyes. "Simple, brute-force killing can only obtain a limited amount of 'nourishment,' while coercing and tempting a mind into madness can provide astonishing 'nutrition.' That thing didn't understand this from the start. It learned gradually. And now... it's almost capable of genuine thought."
A trace of fear finally appeared on Eileen's face. But immediately afterward, she suddenly realized something else.
"How do you know?!" The doll lunged forward, her face nearly touching Yu Sheng's nose. "You..."
"...I established a deep link with that thing, deeper than we originally planned," Yu Sheng said without hiding anything. "For a moment, I felt as though I had even become part of that monster... So, deep within the darkness, I saw its most primitive form and the secret of its constant growth."
"Wh—what the fuck!" Eileen practically jumped into the air, then launched into a furious torrent of beeps. "I told you this wouldn't work! It's dangerous! No one knows what might happen, and you insisted on trying anyway! What do we do, what do we do... We're screwed! It must have taken root! You weren't just noticed by it—you were chewed on by it! 'Hunger' has definitely taken root in your mind! Aaaah—this is the end! It's—all—over!"
The little doll grew louder and louder as she scrambled all over the bed and Yu Sheng's stomach. Yu Sheng tried several times to interrupt her, but failed each time. In the end, he had no choice but to grab her and hoist her into the air to make her quiet down. "Calm down, Eileen. Calm down."
"Calm down my ass! 'Hunger' has already taken root in your heart! Aren't you even a little nervous?!" Eileen swung helplessly in midair. "It'll grow in your mind, bigger and bigger, and then—boom! You'll be screwed! It'll be the same even if you hide in the real world! Do you even know what state you're in right now... Don't tell me you can revive! This thing has taken root in your mind! Your body can update, but can your mind? Are you sure dying and coming back to life will let you escape this 'rooting'?"
Yu Sheng naturally knew all of that, but he also did not know why he felt no sense of urgency, no feeling that his life was approaching a countdown. Even his increasingly keen "spiritual intuition" had not warned him.
He knew the situation was dangerous on a rational level, yet his heart was filled with an abnormal calm.
But he knew he could not show that calm too obviously. Otherwise, Eileen would panic even more.
"As long as we destroy 'hunger' before then... I mean, kill the 'entity instance' that has affected me, there won't be a problem, right?" Yu Sheng tried to divert Eileen's attention. "The 'rooting' needs some time before it erupts. We still have time."
"Time... right, we still have time. Hurry, we have to hurry!" Eileen's attention was indeed diverted in an instant. Only then did she belatedly notice that she was still being held in midair. "Put me down! Hurry and put me down! We'll leave immediately and go kill that 'entity instance.' Yes, yes, we're leaving now, while you still don't feel anything..."
Yu Sheng let out a soft breath, placed Eileen on the bed, and prepared to get up.
But the moment he made a larger movement, waves of soreness and pain surged through every limb and bone in his body. He immediately sucked in a sharp breath.
"Ah! Why does it hurt so much..." Yu Sheng looked down at himself in bewilderment. "I clearly remember the aftereffects disappearing quickly after the last 'forced awakening'... And my body didn't hurt then, either. Why does this feel like I've been beaten up..."
As he spoke, the doll who had been frantic only a moment earlier suddenly fell silent. Then, while inconspicuously crawling toward the foot of the bed, Eileen muttered softly, "Well... sometimes 'forced awakenings' can cause some physical aftereffects..."
"No way!" Yu Sheng realized it at once and pulled open his sleeve. "I was beaten up—I've even got bite marks on my arm!"
By then, Eileen had already crawled to the foot of the bed. "You grind your teeth in your sleep. You bit yourself."
"You're saying I bit myself? These bite marks are this small?"
"I was trying to wake you up! If conventional methods couldn't wake you, I had to use unconventional ones, didn't I?"
Eileen stood at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips, utterly righteous. Then she turned her head, jumped to the floor, and bolted out the door!
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