Swapping Shadows

Ke Meng had considered two factors before showing his Shadow-Grasping Hand skill to someone he knew.

First, Chen Momo had already encountered something strange and stepped into this bizarre circle.

Second, he wanted to prepare her in advance. His home was a destination for sacrifices. If something that caused a huge commotion arrived in the future, Chen Momo downstairs would be mentally prepared and would not be frightened.

At that moment, Chen Momo was digesting the information she had just received and rebuilding her worldview.

Abnormal things actually existed in this world. What she had heard last night really had not been an auditory hallucination, and that dark shadow had not been her imagination either. It had been a real danger.

"So you're saying there's something wrong with my mom now? Something's wrong with her shadow?" Chen Momo zeroed in on the issue of the shadow.

"Very likely."

Ke Meng did not give her a definite answer. He did not know much about shadows himself, and he had only obtained the Shadow-Grasping Hand skill that day.

"Then what should I do?" Momo looked at Ke Meng.

"Keep things as they are for now. Watch your online lessons as usual, and use your phone like you normally would. Stay calm. Don't panic. Your mom should still be there. If anything happens, shout for me, and I'll come downstairs to grab the shadow. We can't alert it just yet," Ke Meng said.

Now that Chen Momo knew there was something wrong with the shadow, she was desperate to strip that abnormal thing away from her mother. "Can't you just grab it?"

"I haven't experimented on living creatures yet. I don't know what happens to someone without a shadow," Ke Meng said.

"Then when are you planning to experiment?"

"I'll go catch some bugs in a moment and bring them back for testing. It won't take long."

Ke Meng had originally planned to buy some live chickens at the livestock market, or perhaps bring back some rabbits. But on second thought, taking Tangyuan nearby to catch live bugs would be the fastest option.

Chen Momo nodded, looking rather distracted, and hurried downstairs.

Ke Meng looked at the golden-furred ball that was Tangyuan and said, "I'll take you outside to catch some bugs and bring them back. You can catch bugs, right? Use your fur to hold them. Don't kill them."

The dog actually wanted to eat tangyuan, but upon hearing the urgency in its master's voice, it sensibly refrained from bringing that up.

It followed Ke Meng downstairs, then its master carried it to the roadside greenbelt, where it rolled for two meters.

"Did you catch any bugs?"

"Woof!"

Hearing Tangyuan's very quiet bark, Ke Meng carried it home.

Some passersby turned to look. They had wanted to take out their phones to capture this baffling human behavior, but unfortunately, Ke Meng had already left.

"What's with that guy? Playing in the greenbelt with a giant plush toy?"

"What a weirdo."

When the passersby saw Ke Meng disappear through the back door, they stopped paying attention.

Upstairs, Ke Meng set Tangyuan aside and said, "Shake the bugs onto the table. I'll get you some tangyuan."

Excited, the golden-furred Tangyuan shook its fluffy dog fur, dropping ten little bugs onto the tabletop.

"Hold them. Don't let them escape." Ke Meng turned and went into the kitchen to serve the tangyuan. Looking at the tangyuan in the pot, he decided that was too much trouble and simply brought the whole pot over to save time.

Ke Meng set the pot of tangyuan to one side for Tangyuan to drink from on its own, then began using the little bugs as test subjects.

He reached out and made a scooping motion above a Giant Ant, catching its shadow.

One second, the Giant Ant had been moving. The next, it lay motionless.

But the ant's shadow on Ke Meng's hand began moving. It seemed panicked, scurrying wildly across his palm at high speed, climbing toward his shoulder while circling around his skin.

Just as it was about to reach his armpit, Ke Meng scooped through the air with his other hand, and the running ant shadow was immediately caught in his other palm.

"You're that good at running?" Ke Meng extended two fingers on his right hand and gently pinched the air.

The Shadow-Grasping Hand was remarkable. He did not need to touch the shadow directly. As long as his hand came within a certain distance of the target shadow and he had a strong desire to catch it, the shadow would automatically be drawn onto his hand.

The next second, a flat shadow shaped like a Giant Ant appeared between his two fingers.

The shadow still wanted to move, but this time, the pads of his two fingers held it in place. It could no longer move.

The shadow had no three-dimensional form. Like a two-dimensional creature, it clung tightly to the skin of Ke Meng's fingers, without any of the weight an ant should have had.

Ke Meng looked at the unconscious ant on the table and poked its body with a finger. The ant did not move.

Was this thing dead or not?

To test his theory, Ke Meng gently flicked his two fingers, keeping his eyes fixed on the unconscious Giant Ant. A pale gray shadow immediately appeared beneath it. It was its own shadow.

Once the ant had its shadow back, it could move again. It ran very fast, seemingly in a panic.

Ke Meng watched it run several meters, then reached out and grabbed through the air again, but caught nothing.

He moved closer. When his hand was roughly half a meter to a meter from the shadow, the ant finally lost its shadow.

He turned his hand over, and the ant's shadow once again scurried wildly across his palm.

"Once a living animal loses its shadow, it stops moving," Ke Meng murmured.

Chen Momo had said that her mother had fainted in the bathroom.

Had Mrs. Chen had a shadow when she fainted?

What if Mrs. Chen's shadow had run out of the bathroom, causing her to faint?

Following this line of reasoning, everything suddenly clicked for Ke Meng.

Chen Momo had seen a dark shadow flash past, and only afterward had her mother woken up. This meant Mrs. Chen's shadow had returned to her body after going out, ending her unconscious state.

Ke Meng looked at the unconscious ant, then at the other nine little bugs on the table. Nine long dog hairs held them in place, keeping them from escaping.

Then what would happen if he grafted the ant's shadow onto another bug?

Ke Meng put the unconscious little ant back on the table, then had the dog release another bug.

A red seven-spotted ladybug landed on the tabletop and crawled rapidly along it. It even spread its little wings, preparing to take off.

He reached out and grabbed through the air. An extremely tiny, round shadow immediately appeared in his palm. It was the seven-spotted ladybug's shadow.

After he caught the seven-spotted ladybug's shadow, its body stopped moving as well, as though unconscious. Its wings had not had time to fold back in and remained suspended in the air, now sinking naturally under gravity.

Ke Meng gave each hand a light flick, swapping the two shadows.

The next second, the Giant Ant's shadow took on the shape of the seven-spotted ladybug.

The shadow beneath the seven-spotted ladybug also took on the shape of an ant. Their shadows had been swapped.

Ke Meng stood to one side and watched closely, wanting to find out what would happen after the two bugs exchanged shadows.

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