Female Ghost Shadow

For once, Xiao Hao did not take the subway. He walked home instead.

The fast pace of life had always kept Xiao Hao busy. Now that he no longer had a job, he felt unburdened instead. Though the streets around him bustled with noise, he felt a sense of peace.

With money in his pocket, Xiao Hao spent the entire afternoon enjoying himself without worrying in the slightest about running out.

The sky gradually darkened, and the breeze grew cooler.

Xiao Hao had planned to go home, take a shower, and spend some time on his phone, but as he walked, he suddenly sensed something was wrong.

He was nearly at the residential district. Ordinary people lived here, amid a maze of streets and alleys. There were fewer people around, but it should not have been this quiet.

Xiao Hao stopped.

Something was wrong.

A faint sense of danger rose within him.

At this stage, even if mutated animals appeared, creatures that did not even qualify as Level 0 Monsters would not make Xiao Hao feel threatened.

That meant the abnormality here was caused by a player.

Was the Dragon Transformation Pool testing him, or did some twisted player just happen to be here?

The odds of a player happening to be here and also holding a grudge against Xiao Hao were far too low.

Xiao Hao leaned toward this being a test from the Dragon Transformation Pool.

With that thought, Xiao Hao continued forward.

As he walked, Xiao Hao suddenly stopped again, his pupils contracting slightly.

The shadow beneath the streetlight ahead was writhing!

It resembled his Shadow Seahorse's Shadow Transformation skill, but was not quite the same.

The Shadow Seahorse's Shadow Transformation was simply a mass of darkness.

The shadow beneath the streetlight ahead, however, slowly took human form.

At first glance, it looked like a girl's shadow. A closer look sent chills down his spine.

The girl's head was mangled, white brain matter and blood splashed all over her. Her entire body looked as though it had suffered a violent impact, her bones horrifically displaced.

The Female Ghost Shadow approached Xiao Hao, her bones creaking. Her gait was grotesque, her knees and elbows seemingly snapped backward, held together by nothing but flesh.

"Save me..."

The voice, both familiar and unfamiliar, shook Xiao Hao to his core!

He remembered.

The girl's name was Qiu Yanan. She had been his middle school classmate and deskmate, and she had died by suicide.

A few days before her suicide, she had asked Xiao Hao for help.

But Xiao Hao was only an orphan. He could barely look after himself. How could he have helped her?

Back then, Xiao Hao had been attending school while dealing with thugs both on and off campus. He knew the girl had feelings for him, but he had still refused to help her.

Thus, he did not know why she had killed herself.

Xiao Hao did not believe he had done anything wrong.

With an orphan like him, anyone who became involved with him could easily get dragged down too.

That was precisely why Xiao Hao never made friends.

With the apocalypse upon them, all manner of monsters and spirits could emerge. Xiao Hao could not be sure whether the Female Ghost Shadow before him was real or fake.

Instead of fleeing outright, Xiao Hao repeated the refusal he had given years ago.

"I'm sorry. I can't help you."

The upper half of the girl's head was mangled beyond recognition. The lower half barely retained a blurry outline of flesh and blood. That flesh writhed as a hoarse voice emerged. "Why...?"

The girl crouched on the ground in anguish, bracing herself with both hands as she cried her heart out. "You're the person I love most. Why can't you help me, save me!"

"Xiao Hao! Why... why are you so cold!"

The girl seemed to be condemning the world's injustice and people's indifference, but Xiao Hao remained unmoved.

In this world, kindness was a luxury. If your kindness lacked an edge, you would become someone everyone could bully.

Xiao Hao had no antisocial tendencies. These were merely lessons life had taught him.

"Because... because, just like you, I had no one to protect me." Xiao Hao's voice was unusually subdued. "Some flowers grow in greenhouses, while others grow in cracks between rocks. If they want to survive, they can only protect themselves."

The Female Ghost Shadow sobbed, and Xiao Hao continued, "You can't ask a flower battered by wind and rain to shelter another flower on the verge of falling. It simply can't."

With that, Xiao Hao walked around the Female Ghost Shadow without looking back.

Everyone had to take responsibility for themselves.

Whoever you liked, those feelings were your own business, not the other person's.

If liking someone meant that person had to shoulder some inexplicable responsibility, then being liked would make them terribly unlucky.

"Xiao Hao... I really... love you so much..."

Xiao Hao paused, his brows drawing together slightly.

"I fell for you the very first time I saw you..."

"You were completely different from the other boys... your face was always clean, your words always made people feel at ease, and your grades were always the best in our year..."

"You respected everyone, whether they were fat, thin, beautiful, or ugly. You always treated them equally... you have no idea how many of us girls secretly liked you..."

"Compared with those childish boys, you have no idea... when you worked to pay for school, I counted every drop of sweat you shed. When you endured those thugs, my heart ached for your unyielding stubbornness..."

"I really love you so much... so please... stay and keep me company..."

The ghost shadow's words left Xiao Hao uncertain again. If she was someone from the Dragon Transformation Pool, how could she know so much?

Xiao Hao did not leave immediately.

That was how it always went in movies. If you ran away without resolving a monster's emotional knot, it would keep following you.

Xiao Hao certainly did not want to bring her home.

His tastes were not that extreme.

Xiao Hao turned around, only to instinctively retreat several steps.

The Female Ghost Shadow was practically right in his face!

Looking at the eyeballs embedded in the mangled flesh of her head, Xiao Hao showed no impolite expression. Instead, he said calmly, "Since you knew how hard my life was back then, did you ever step forward to help me?"

The Female Ghost Shadow froze, clearly not understanding what Xiao Hao meant.

"What you're trying to say is that lots of girls secretly liked me, but I was only polite on the surface, while actually treating you coldly and rejecting you all, right?"

The Female Ghost Shadow said nothing. Xiao Hao continued, "You saw that my circumstances were bad, yet I managed to keep everything in order. So you labeled me 'strong' and 'gifted.'"

"But you never knew that I kept everyone at a distance not because I was really that cold, but because none of you ever truly considered things from my perspective, or truly understood me."

"My so-called 'strength' was only a means of survival. Anyone pushed that far would have no choice but to be 'strong.' That 'strength' made you forget that I was just an ordinary person too." Xiao Hao deliberately emphasized, "I'm only human. An ordinary, unremarkable human being. I'm not a god."

"Just doing what I was responsible for already left me exhausted. How was I supposed to save you all? Don't tell me that letting you get close wouldn't mean having to save you. Those thugs were capable of anything."

With that, Xiao Hao turned to leave, not forgetting one final cutting remark. "If you have no ability to protect yourself, at least have a little self-awareness. Getting close to me wouldn't solve your own problems. It would only bring you more trouble."

Xiao Hao did not like trouble.

After a few steps, Xiao Hao stopped again.

On the wall of the building ahead, several identical Female Ghost Shadows crawled toward him like spiders. Their limbs clung to the wall at horrifying angles, and even their heads had twisted a full 180 degrees.

"Xiao Hao..."

"I'm already dead..."

"What would it hurt to grant my wish...?"

"Don't be so cold and selfish..."

The Female Ghost Shadows spoke in unison, leaving Xiao Hao momentarily stunned.

If these Female Ghost Shadows were all the same monster, wasn't this ability to split its attention ridiculously powerful?

Well, if talking couldn't deal with this ghost shadow, force would have to do.

Xiao Hao silently called up the game panel, and a pale red game interface appeared in midair.

Before Xiao Hao could summon his Guardian, he saw a scrolling message notification pop up in the game.

Reading the message, Xiao Hao felt a surge of anger.

The people from the Dragon Transformation Pool had gone too far!