Act.10 Bad Obsession · Bewitched

[Part 1 - The Heartthrob]

The Big Sister carried J76's head, dragging along the mangled female corpse.

The parasite that had been embedded in Hasben Madison's brain suddenly lost all its strength, and even its steel-hard hair became soft.

She pulled hard, Hasben was in so much pain that he couldn't speak, finally waking up from his dazed state.

"Glory! What are you doing here?" Hasben, still not fully conscious, screamed, "Hey! Watch out! There's a monster hiding in this corpse!"

"A monster?" Xue Ming grabbed Jacqueline's head, feeling a stinging pain in his palm as the skin of his hand was stuck to the blackish-green hair.

These hairs were like sentient worms, trying to burrow into her palm.

Hasben was terrified, but the strange woman before him seemed completely unafraid of the Canaanite creatures' parasitism.

--Or rather, the grotesque figure that had been chuckling and about to yell "RUARUA!" and "I want to eat people!" was now unusually quiet.

He watched helplessly as Glory tossed Jacqueline's body back onto the operating table. The Canaanite tentacles offered no resistance, weakly and effortlessly detaching from Glory's right hand. It was as simple and casual as tearing apart a piece of chewing gum.

Hasben was incredulous. "You actually... you actually subdued her?"

"Although I don't know what happened," Xue Ming answered truthfully, "She should be asleep. Dreaming—I can sense something is wrong with her hair, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Even in her sleep, she still wants to hurt me."

A Xing leaned against Jacqueline, his eyes wide as he observed the female corpse.

"I feel a familiar spiritual pressure! But I just can't remember it!"

"Is he still alive? If he's still activating spiritual pressure, then he's definitely still alive." Xue Ming picked up a knife, preparing to perform brain surgery.

"No, no, no, no!" Mr. Hasben stood in front of Xue Ming, frantically explaining, "Jacqueline Sirius is alive! Don't damage her brain! This woman is innocent! She's been parasitized! Parasitized by Canaanites!"

"Oh!" A Xing exclaimed in surprise, "It's my ex-girlfriend!"

For a moment, the other three people present all turned to look at the little girl.

Xue Ming frowned, wearing a strange expression that seemed to say, "Hey bro, what's wrong with you?"

Hasben was baffled and looked on with suspicion, believing that the girl's Madness Index had exceeded the limit.

On the operating table, Ms. Jacqueline turned her head slightly. She and the Canaan biome still possessed a sliver of consciousness. Upon hearing these words, she barely managed to twist her head and roll her eyes.

"Hahahaha," A Xing laughed awkwardly.

In just one minute, Hasben Madison explained the whole story, pointing out that Jacqueline Sirius was not dead and needed Universal Elixir to revive her, and that they also needed to find a way to expel the Canaanite life force from her body.

When the Big Sister understood why the Rangers had broken into the prison, she was quite surprised and scrutinized Hasben Madison from head to toe, trying to find any unusual spiritual pressure activity.

Hasben explaining, trying to clear his name of the horrific image of a perverted necrophiliac.

"It's not what you see. This Canaanite creature is extremely cunning—it tried to destroy my mental world, attacking me with shame and reputation, trying to break through my psychological defenses. I—"

Before Hasben could finish speaking, Xue Ming picked up Meteor and let the A Xing's harmless hands touch Mr. Hasben's cheeks.

A Xing, like a human lie detector, waved her little hand to wipe the sweat from Mr. Hasben's forehead and tasted it.

"Very good." A Xing pouted, his eyes serious and determined, with the earnestness of an old scholar. "You didn't lie, I'm very satisfied."

Hasben frozen in place, unsure of what to say.

It seemed that the two sisters in front of him were not as simple as he had thought.

Why are they here?

Why was the eldest sister able to subdue this terrifying Canaanite demon?

Why does the younger sister possess the ability to metamorphose from a cocoon? Can she identify pheromones?

Were they really, as Morian said, warriors of the Ming De? Or accomplices of the robbers? Or...?

"Stop overthinking." Xue Ming said succinctly, "Let's get down to business. To save J76, we need to use the Universal Elixir on her, right?"

"Yes," Hasben stammered, yet he sensed a familiar yet strange spiritual pressure.

When he faced Glory, he could see her bright red hair, which, like his mother's, exuded a gentle and warm intimacy.

But the expression on that face was like that of a demonic shrew, a heartless killer.

Her eyes and brows exuded a strong killing intent. Even though the Canaan life on the operating table was powerless to resist, this woman seemed to be on guard at all times. She slightly hunched over and bent her knees, as if she had entered a battle state. All her mental energy and all her focus were gathered into a sharp sword, and the direction the sword pointed was the enemy's location.

I feel like I've seen this somewhere before!

It feels like I've experienced this somewhere before!

[Gunsmith]

The name flashed through Hasben Madison's mind.

When he stood at the front desk of [JoeStar] bar, making unreasonable demands under the guise of insurance money and repeatedly breaking the gunsmith's rules, the way that man leaned forward, his hands braced against the counter, resembled a tiger unleashed from its cage—exactly like Glory!

However, their spiritual pressure is completely different.

Gunsmiths can calm people down. The psychic energy emanating from this woman is like the unpredictable monsoon and air pressure during the scorching July heat. Just looking into her eyes or peering into them can create a strong sense of unease!

If you draw your gun and fight in this state of mind, you're bound to miss the first shot! And if you make one mistake after another, you'll lose all will to fight.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" Xue Ming turned to look at the young man from the Rangers: "Is there something on my face?"

Hasben clutched his head, the nerve damage causing a dull ache in his skull. "No, no. I just feel like... this isn't the first time we've met."

Xue Ming shrugged indifferently. "Many people use this excuse to strike up a conversation with me, to say something interesting."

A Xing burst into laughter. "Hahahaha! G117! You never used to say things like that! You've become so funny!"

"Hasben," Xue Ming, getting back to the main point, pointing to Jacqueline's mangled body, "How do we heal her? With medication? What dosage? How much time does she have left?"

"Sixteen minutes, maybe less," Hasben, glancing at the victim on the operating table, his expression hardening again. "We need to inject her with 250 milliliters of the Universal Elixir."

Before she finished speaking, A Xing took the syringe from the table and used it to draw the Universal Elixir into the can of yellow peaches, giving it to her bad neighbor.

Hasben tried to stop her but couldn't; the girl was simply too fast and agile.

"Wait! Aren't you afraid something might happen?"

The young man was anxious and sensitive, and picked up a scalpel with wary vigilance.

"What if the Canaanite life form inside her awakens? And do you really trust me that much? This method was told to me by the Canaanite life form, and I'm not even sure if it's telling the truth. I..."

Xue Ming remained silent.

Meteor stood with his hands on his hips, head tilted back, looking quite smug.

"This guy wants to eat me! If I die like this, how am I supposed to beat him up?"

Hasben didn't understand, so he looked at the older Glory.

Jacqueline's body rapidly recovered under the nourishment of the Universal Elixir.

--That's what Xue Ming said.

"You're willing to come all the way to prison for two strangers to prove our innocence, but you don't even know if you've saved the wrong people, or if you're just meddling in other people's business."

Hasben's pupils went unfocused; for a fleeting moment, he thought he had found a kindred spirit.

"The situation is the same now." Xue Ming pointed to Jacqueline's intact body. Just as the horrific wound in her chest closed, he tore off some medical bandages and made a makeshift set of underwear for the woman. "I don't know where this woman came from, but she's still a human being. If she comes back to life, we can beat the interrogator up and then not have to take any responsibility."

"You hit Interrogator Mike?!" Hasben exclaimed, his mouth agape in surprise.

Xue Ming: "Otherwise what? Guess how I found you?"

A Xing chimed in, "What else? Fortune telling and divination?"

Hasben was at a loss for words, increasingly suspicious of the two women's true identities.

Before Jacqueline's body had fully recovered, he immediately returned to his position as a soldier in Guangling Zhixi and requested to interrogate the two prisoners.

"G117, are you an accomplice of the robbers? Please speak frankly and explain to me—what is the purpose of your visit to the Blackland Royal Hotel?"

A Xing sidled up to Xue Ming and whispered something furtively.

"This guy is so stubborn! Is this how he treats the person who saved his life?"

Hasben shouted, "Don't gossip! I came to this prison because of your cases! And now these troubles keep piling up, first the bank robbery, then Canaan Life. I originally thought you were just two ignorant and naive tourists looking for excitement in prison, but..."

Xue Ming interrupted, "I've come to the prison to find someone."

Hasben: "Who are you looking for?"

Xue Ming: "I'm looking for two women. I don't know where they are. They are both my benefactors—they are morpho butterflies, one can foresee the future, and the other can release toxins. They have committed many evils, yet they have saved me."

At this point, Xue Ming grasped Hasben's hand and had the Rangers try to collect some sweat from her forehead to try and identify the pheromones.

Xue Ming continued, "I must find them and repay this kindness. They are all serious criminals. If I don't come to this prison, I will never see them again in my life. This is my only chance in this life. If I fail, I will regret it for the rest of my life."

"He wasn't lying." Hasben breathed a sigh of relief. "So that's how it is, so that's how it is?! So you were unmoved when Morian framed you for a bank robber, but instead overjoyed—is that how it is?"

Xue Ming crossed his arms, and his expression was no longer as sharp as it had been at the beginning.

"Commander of the Rangers, now that you know why I'm here, could you please show me some leniency and grant me this small wish? It would be best if you could help me find these two people. In Hedland, everyone addresses each other by their numbers; finding someone by name is like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Hasben still seemed hesitant, as if searching for the boundary between procedural justice and substantive justice.

Xue Ming simply licked his fingers and held out his hand to Hasben.

"This place is so cold, I'm not sweating much. If you don't believe me, come and lick my fingers, that should make your pheromones stronger."

Hasben timidly took two steps back without saying a word.

But he saw A Xing making funny faces and speaking Chinese that he couldn't understand.

"Don't be a coward, dog!"

[Part 2: She's really embarrassing]

It would be awkward to say anything at this point.

But Jacqueline quickly broke the awkward silence.

As if she had faked her death and risen from the dead, she suddenly straightened her back on the operating table, her cervical vertebrae and brain bending at a very strange angle, then returning to normal within seconds. It seemed that the parts Canaan Life had given her were not yet working well, and she was trying to tame her limbs.

Hasben looked nervously at the girl who was seven years older than him, fearing that the Canaanite life might also awaken.

Prisoner J76 tilted her head and immediately began to gag. Hasben had already removed her stomach, leaving her abdomen empty; her newly formed intestines contained nothing.

But at this moment, clumps of black mud gushed from Jacqueline's mouth and nostrils.

They lay paralyzed on the cold iron floor, their forms sometimes gathering and sometimes dispersing, like living slimes, yet they had been rendered unconscious by the Fragrant Dream, only able to gather together by their Gestalt instincts.

After vomiting out the filth, Jacqueline's face turned pale, and her previously unfocused eyes gradually cleared.

"Fuck! Fuck his mother!"

This woman started swearing in pure American profanity.

"I must have had the worst luck imaginable."

I originally thought I could make a fortune through the secondhand auction and that my good days of success were just around the corner—but I never expected to almost lose my health in the process.

Hasben was about to say something when he saw Jacqueline, now blonde and blue-eyed, step off the operating table, her legs trembling.

Hasben asked, "Are you alright?"

Jacqueline, like a Parkinson's patient, walked forward with a determined look in her eyes. She stepped forward and hugged the young Rangers hero tightly, then, in the moment when he was distracted, she suddenly kissed him.

She almost bit Hasben's lips until they bled, pressing her hands against Hasben's back, feeling the young man's cold body temperature, wanting to meld her entire body into his embrace.

Several seconds passed --

--Hasben, the young upstart, finally came to his senses.

Having completed the territorial markings, Jacqueline felt as if she had repaid a debt of gratitude and finally returned to the human world.

Regarding the question, "Are you alright?"

Jacqueline laughed heartily.

"I'm fine! I'm great! I'm so good!"

A Xing poked Xue Ming's waist and hips. Because she was so short, her elbow could just hit that spot, making her focus very strange.

"Hey, if this woman is a patient, isn't Hasben a close contact?"

Xue Ming ignored the joker's words and immediately squatted down to carefully observe the mud flow that formed the Canaanite life form.

"SD! Wake it up!"

At that moment-

--When these ferocious carnivorous Canaan awoke from their nightmares, their mental energy was almost completely depleted.

They transformed into a terrifying, grotesque face, mimicking the features of the previous host, as eerie as a human skin mask slumped on the floor, emitting a terrifying howl.

Just a few seconds later, the carnivorous Canaan smelled an irresistible aroma.

The fragrance came from the unfamiliar woman before it, and it was absolutely certain that a powerful Homo sapiens was waiting for it to pick and eat the fruit, no more than forty centimeters away.

Without a throat or vocal cords, it can still manipulate the nano-units in its group to create airflow resonance to mimic human language. It is so proud of itself that it instantly forgets why it is lying on the cold floor.

It wants to talk—it has so much to say.

This fake face sprouted six mouths almost simultaneously, causing A Xing's SAN value to plummet.

It's like saying, "I've hit the jackpot! I'm so lucky!"

And there's also "Eat it up, eat it up, eat it up, eat it up!"

And "So sweet! So sweet! So fragrant! It's a woman!"

The remaining three mouths originally wanted to say--

"--Use your body to have babies! Have babies! Have lots and lots of babies!"

"--Crawl into the brain, crawl into the brain, the abundant vital energy can create two hearts! Three lungs!"

"--Happiness! Happiness! Lasting happiness!"

But before they could say anything, they were immediately sealed in a sturdy tempered glass jar.

This reagent bottle was something Xue Ming casually picked up from the dissection table; it was very sturdy and used to store the stomach acid.

Scooping up so many Canaanite creatures from the floor was no easy task, so Xue Ming simply woke them up.

--These Canaanite beings, yearning for powerful hosts, indeed forgot everything the moment they awoke. Lacking complex brains, their minds, tormented by nightmares, could barely retain memories. They pounced straight at Xue Ming's soft facial features and landed neatly inside the reagent bottle.

Xue Ming casually tossed the bottle to Hasben, his attitude relaxed and carefree.

Hasben caught it in a flurry of activity, the bottles and jars flying up and down before finally landing steadily in his arms.

The young man was first kissed by Jacqueline, like a virgin being molested by a greasy, handsome man.

Then she saw the alien bomb that Glory threw, and she panicked like a little rabbit.

Hasben grabbed the reagent bottle. "What are you doing!"

Xue Ming knocked on the door and held up the A Xing, making a face at the camera.

The warden immediately understood what he meant.

--This opened the door to 2766 for the two sisters.

The Big Sister left gracefully and returned to her room.

"This is the evidence."

A very, very long time passed--

Hasben wanted to say something more.

He always felt that Jacqueline Sirius's kiss needed an explanation.

But Ms. Jacqueline stared intently at the Big Sister's retreating figure, completely ignoring the young man beside her, as if their intimate encounter was merely a small, sweet reward for the brave man, part of a ceremony to celebrate her rebirth.

But perhaps her heart had already been taken away; she was bewitched.

Jacqueline fanned her neck, her body temperature rising. "My new neighbor, she's so cool."

Hasben hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

Jacqueline cupped her cheeks. "She's so charming."

Hasben raised his hand and then lowered it, finally falling silent. He took the reagent bottle and went to the interrogator to demand an explanation and to properly preserve the copy of "<The Starry Night>".

The warden saw everything.

But they could only understand a little bit of what was going on.

"She's a disgrace."