Love and Rivalry Between Two CEOs

Marcus was speechless.

How could this kid be so shameless???

He'd attacked him twice out of nowhere, then acted as if nothing had happened and asked him to keep talking. What was going through his head???

"I'm not telling you. If you want to find Spencer, you have to take me with you. I want to see that old bastard die with my own eyes!" Marcus emerged from the water and climbed onto the bank, his voice thick with hatred as he ground out the words—even though he didn't have any teeth.

"Take you with me? If you know the hidden passage to get to him, why didn't you go after him yourself?" Xia Tianming asked, voicing his doubts.

Spencer explained, "In my current state, I can only function normally if I stay near a water source. If I'm away from one for too long, the Leech Queen Virus quickly dries out and enters dormancy. So I need someone to take me there."

With that, he controlled the densely packed virus leeches in the water to fish a goldfish bowl covered in green algae up from the bottom of the pool and push it to the bank.

Xia Tianming had indeed seen the virus leeches writhing over his body gradually dry out after he climbed ashore. They detached from the mass and fell to the ground, turning into dried leeches.

But he could still sense a faint trace of life in them. They had probably entered a dormant state, and would soon come back to life if they touched water.

Seeing him roll the goldfish bowl over, Xia Tianming understood what the Leech Man had in mind. He simply said coldly, "Let's go."

"Good. The entrance to the hidden passage is in the drainage outlet at the bottom of this pool. But don't think you can just leave me behind as soon as we get in. There's still a long stretch ahead, and I'm the only one who knows the way."

After being attacked twice out of nowhere, Marcus was wary of Xia Tianming, who played dirty. He put on a stern face and spoke seriously.

Xia Tianming said nothing more. He picked up the goldfish bowl full of water from the ground, signaling that they could set off.

Seeing that he was ready, Marcus, the Leech Man, separated his head, which was made up of virus leeches, from the rest of his body. It wriggled into the goldfish bowl in Xia Tianming's hand, then reformed into a head several times smaller.

A lively leech head swimming around in a goldfish bowl—it looked bizarre no matter how you sliced it...

Carrying the leech head, Xia Tianming went to the edge of the pool and prepared to jump in.

Just then, a series of rough, heavy breaths sounded behind him. The Hunter, Wesker after mutating, was crouched obediently behind him and wanted to jump into the water too.

But it was far too large and conspicuous. It would easily draw the enemy's attention, and Spencer might escape if he learned they were coming.

So Xia Tianming used his viral senses to give it an order: stay on the bank and don't follow.

The Hunter could only lie down on the bank, aggrieved, its throat rumbling.

"By the way, I have one more question. What kind of virus do you have inside you?" Marcus's head poked up in the bowl and asked curiously.

"Seven-Colored Spiral Rainbow Virus."

Xia Tianming had no intention of revealing his secrets to anyone, so he made up a name. Before Marcus could question him, he jumped into the pool.

The emerald-green pool was unfathomably deep, and visibility underwater was no more than two meters. Large numbers of frenzied Zombie Piranhas prowled nearby.

But, unexpectedly, they didn't attack Xia Tianming this time. Perhaps it was because Marcus's head was in the fishbowl he carried.

As soon as he entered the water, the Blacklight Virus automatically wove fin-shaped tendrils from Xia Tianming's elbows and legs, helping him swim faster.

It even split open gill-like filtering organs on either side of his neck, allowing him to breathe freely underwater.

That was the Blacklight Virus's most powerful adaptation: it could rapidly alter its host to suit any harsh environment!

If Xia Tianming ever went into space, would the Blacklight Virus be able to keep him alive in a vacuum?

Once underwater, Xia Tianming followed the Leech Man Marcus's directions and swam to a corner at the bottom of the pool. He pushed aside the lush water plants and, sure enough, found a filter pipe about a meter in diameter.

The filter screen welded over the pipe's opening was covered in all sorts of debris and slimy algae. It was disgusting.

Xia Tianming hooked a finger through it and easily pulled the screen free. Then he took the head in the fishbowl and crawled into the pitch-black pipe, whose far end was nowhere in sight.

The pipe slanted upward. After climbing for a while, they left the water behind completely. No wonder Marcus couldn't pass through here himself to get revenge.

The narrow pipe was pitch-black and damp, and a heavy, suffocating stench filled the cramped space. It was so oppressive that most people probably couldn't last even ten minutes.

Xia Tianming held the fishbowl in his left hand and turned his right hand into a claw. Like a gecko, he quickly climbed the narrow pipe as it grew steeper and steeper.

The head in the fishbowl kept chattering the whole way.

"Your ability to transform looks familiar. Does it have anything to do with the G-Virus?"

"Did you have some kind of falling-out with that old bastard Spencer too, and come here to get revenge?"

"How did you get here? Did you wipe out all the infected you encountered along the way? Tell me about it. I'd love to hear how Spencer looks when all his hard work is destroyed. Ha ha!"

"Do you know Wesker? That kid who wears sunglasses even in broad daylight? He was my traitorous disciple. He killed me with his own hands back then."

"You look kind of familiar too. What was your mother's surname?"

Marcus sounded like a lonely old man who hadn't spoken to anyone in decades. Now that he had the chance, he just wouldn't stop talking. He was practically driving Xia Tianming crazy.

No wonder Wesker had killed his own teacher. He'd probably been driven to it too.

Xia Tianming had no idea how Marcus could stay so lively with only a small pool of water in the fishbowl...

"Shut up."

Xia Tianming finally spoke. He sensed the presence of a large number of living things around the bend ahead, along with a rustling sound.

The Leech Man Marcus noticed them too and whispered, "They might be Zombie Rats. They often poke their heads out by the filter pipe to catch piranhas swimming past. They're highly cooperative, and they'll be hard to deal with in this narrow space. We should sneak past without alerting them... Wait... why are you still crawling toward them???"

Xia Tianming didn't follow Marcus's advice and carefully sneak around. Instead, he headed straight for the bend where the sound was coming from!

After all, wherever the Blacklight Virus went, it left nothing behind.

In the darkness around the bend, where the rustling came from, countless scarlet points of light flickered. They looked like a sky full of stars.

They were the blood-red eyes of mutant rats, blinking!

Their bodies were at least a meter long, their tails as thick as an adult's wrist, and their protruding incisors were packed together like saw teeth!

Seeing prey come to them of its own accord, the ravenous rats let out frenzied shrieks that made one's scalp crawl.

"You're done for, kid."

Marcus shook his head, already mourning the young man's fate...

Here are some worlds I think might suit the protagonist: Dead Space, Parasyte, DOOM, Alien vs. Predator, The Thing, Silent Hill, Pacific Rim, Hellboy, Sweet Home, MonsterVerse, Love and Monsters, StarCraft Zerg, Warhammer World, and so on. Which ones do you like best?

You can suggest others for me to consider too, but please don't suggest pure cultivation, fantasy, or magic worlds. They'd feel too out of place.