Chapter 143

What... what's going on?!

On the high-rise building, Ye Jiang looked down at the piece of meat in her hand. The meat was sticky, smelly, and wriggling like a living thing.

She remembered that piece of meat.

When the Mushroom Man and the Invisible Man go berserk, they have these chunks of flesh on their bodies. The Invisible Man says that these chunks of flesh supply him with power.

What exactly is this thing?

No, now is not the time to dwell on the chunk of flesh. She needs to go back to find Yu Qingyi; she told Yu Qingyi she would be back soon. With that thought, Ye Jiang clenched her fist and easily crushed the disgusting chunk of flesh that was trying to burrow into her skin.

Just as Ye Jiang was about to leave the rooftop, the screams of the citizens suddenly rang out. Ye Jiang looked up and saw that the Polluted had stopped disintegrating, but it had not returned to a human form like the Mushroom Man or the Invisible Man. Instead, it maintained a smaller, spider-like deformed body and was attacking the people.

"Perhaps for the Polluted, once the power reaches a certain point, if they subconsciously desire to be human, they can reshape their bodies."

The Invisible Man once said this.

Therefore, this spider-like Polluted had no intention of being human, even though Ye Jiang sensed from it an aura similar to that of the Mushroom Man- Invisible Man.

It is still alive, but it has given up being human and chosen to be Polluted.

Ye Jiang's eyes turned cold. She darted over, grabbed the Polluted's head, and slammed it heavily onto the ground. Tissue fluid splattered, and the Polluted was reduced to a mere body, with only a dark hole remaining where his head had once been.

Several citizens were rescued in time. They stared blankly at everything until Ye Jiang left, at which point they exclaimed with joy.

"A Healer! Healer!"

When the people from the Ability Control Bureau arrived to handle the scene, Ye Jiang had already left. She went back to find Yu Qingyi, and as she passed a cake shop, she paused, and although she had already walked far away, she turned back.

The cake shop was damaged. The owner's family lived upstairs from the shop. When the Polluted appeared, the family immediately noticed, but Polluted were too close to escape in time. The owner was seriously injured while protecting his family, and as a result, the family was stranded inside the shop.

When Ye Jiang entered the shop, she startled the family. The shop owner's wife, like a frightened chick, still protected her husband and child, screaming and throwing a cake spatula at Ye Jiang. This kind of attack was nothing more than child's play for Ye Jiang; she easily dodged it, went straight to the injured shop owner, and then reached out to heal him. The effect of her healing ability was remarkable; the shop owner's wife's screams stopped abruptly.

Ye Jiang stopped treating the patient once she was cured. She didn't ask the shop owner's family for payment, and the shop owner's wife forgot to offer to pay as well, as she had been Pollution too close to the Pollution and was feeling unwell.

Without being asked, Ye Jiang took a small cake from the shop window.

Ye Jiang returned to Yu Qingyi's place, just as she had said, very quickly; the round trip took no more than ten minutes.

Yu Qingyi kept craning her neck to look in the direction Ye Jiang had left, and only relaxed when she saw Ye Jiang return.

Several people were lying next to Yu Qingyi; they were all her colleagues. They had all fainted. While Ye Jiang was away, Yu Qingyi had moved them from the ruins to another location.

Ye Jiang's gaze swept over the few humans, and after confirming that they were all alright, she ignored them. She took out something from behind her—a small cake, which she had specially chosen. It was blue and white, with clusters of blue buttercream flowers on top, a very gentle style that suited Yu Qingyi perfectly.

The moment the cake was taken out, Yu Qingyi shuddered. A crack appeared in her doll-like state as she stared blankly at the cake.

Ye Jiang opened the transparent cake box on her own, placed the cake in front of Yu Qingyi, studied it seriously for a while, and successfully inserted the candle. With a whoosh, a small flame lit up, flickering in the night breeze.

The monster, oblivious to human emotions, lit birthday candles amidst the ruins, igniting a tiny firefly.

Yu Qingyi's eyes flickered, her gaze shifting from the cake to the monster. The monster, oblivious, was earnestly holding the cake box to shield the candles from the night wind, while also pondering the next steps of a human's birthday celebration.

Oh, it's the birthday song.

The host's memories told her it was time to sing a birthday song, so she started singing, her face expressionless, and she sang the birthday song terribly.

Ye Jiang had never sung before. After finally finishing her song, she looked up and noticed that the human opposite her had been crying at some point, tears silently streaming down her face. Ye Jiang was startled. At that moment, the human suddenly spoke—the first time she had spoken to Ye Jiang that evening—saying, "Do you want me to blow out the candles?"

Ye Jiang hesitated and said, "Shouldn't we make a wish too?"

The process seems to be like this.

"Okay," Yu Qingyi said gently, then closed her eyes and made a wish. No one knows what she wished for at that moment.

Ye Jiang looked at her, and the human opened her eyes, meeting her gaze through the candlelight, and softly asked, "Can I blow out the candles now?"

Ye Jiang said "Mmm," Yu Qingyi leaned forward and gently blew out the candle.

The candlelight went out, leaving only the faint glow of the streetlights. The light shone weakly on the monsters and humans in the ruins, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

"I made a wish," the human said. "Jiangjiang, do you want to know?"

The monster hesitated. "What wish?"

The human said, "I wish that we could be together forever."

After saying that, she stared at the monster, tears streaming silently down her face, and whispered, "Tangtang."

Humans have a friend, she

They had been together since they were very young, relying on each other for survival. One was introverted, and the other was cheerful. Later, the cheerful girl died, a monster came, and the amnesiac monster woke up, unconsciously altering human perception. Humans forgot the names of her friends.

At this moment, the human looked across. A night breeze blew, ruffling the monster's hair and revealing its... blood-red eyes.

The monster was unaware that her eyes were always bloodshot when she recalled that she was a monster.

Thus, humanity realized that the person who saved her from near death and gave her a cake to celebrate her birthday was not her friend.

It's not the original one.

Or perhaps, even earlier, humanity had a vague sense that she had changed friends.

Her former friend had food allergies, but her current friend doesn't.

The woman recalled that a few months ago, her "friend" woke up in the hospital. She was overjoyed, but work was pressing, and she had to go to work first. Feeling very apologetic after leaving the ward, she turned back halfway. She intended to go back and hug her friend, but when she went back, she saw through the crack in the door that her friend on the hospital bed was looking out the window, a pair of dark eyes that were calm and indifferent, creating a sense of incongruity, as if...

It was as if a non-human creature had donned a human shell, sending a chill down the spine of any human.

The day no one entered the ward, the seeds of doubt were sown.

She simply refused to believe reality. Sometimes she doubted whether her friends were truly her friends, while at other times she was extremely dependent on this body, feeling that her doubts were excessive. The contradictions and splits inherent in her emotional being were vividly displayed.

Now, she has to face reality.

"Who are you?" Yu Qingyi asked, not as an interrogation, but merely an inquiry. It didn't come to the point of interrogation; over the past few months, she had sensed that the unknown creature possessing her friend's body had treated her very well, regarding her as a friend.

Ye Jiang's eyes flashed, realizing that the humans already knew she wasn't the original host.

"An outsider," she said truthfully.

Yu Qingyi clenched her fingers. "She... Tang Su, is she dead?"

Her friend's real name wasn't Ye Jiang, but Tang Su, a fact she had only recently remembered.

Ye Jiang said, "... Hmm."

Yu Qingyi was lost in thought.

"Did you see Tangtang at the end?" Yu Qingyi asked, choking back tears. "Did she... did she leave any messages for me?"

Ye Jiang recalled the girl's wish. Looking at the human before her, whose tears were still wet on his face, she said earnestly, "She hoped that you would live well, even if you were alone in the future."

Yu Qingyi shuddered.

Memories drifted back to many years ago, when they chatted under the fruit tree belonging to the orphanage director.

"Qingqing, it's so hard for ordinary people like us to live a peaceful and smooth life. I will try my best, and I will protect you. You are my only family! But, Qingqing..." The girl ate a sour fruit that made her teeth ache, her face contorted with the sourness. She changed the subject, turning to look at her friend beside her, her expression more serious than ever before, "If one of us is gone someday, we must carry on and live well, carrying the other's share, understand, Qingqing?"

Yu Qingyi snapped out of her daze, realizing that her face was soaked with sweat again.

"Good."

"I see."

She spoke softly, tears streaming down her face, unsure whether it was a response to the monster's message or a longing to reminisce with an old friend across time and space.

The moment her words fell, the magnetic field around her suddenly shifted, and the entire city's space was distorted and deformed by the interference of the force. Everyone in the city was deprived of their senses at that moment, as if some truly colossal being had descended.

A Ability System spontaneously popped up, a small piece displayed in front of Ye Jiang's human body. The panel flickered rapidly as if it were broken, and only stopped after a very long time. After it stopped, the screen displayed:

Superpower:??

Grade: S-Rank.

Rank:??

His ability level jumped directly to S-Rank, and the name of his ability disappeared, replaced by an unknown "??".

The "Sewing Box" that once existed was simply something that naturally evolved when the monster saw her human friends dressed in tattered and dirty clothes every day before she realized she was a monster, and wanted to do something for them.

As for the monster's true abilities, even the monster herself didn't know. Her memories were like a sieve, she could only recall the unfulfilled wishes she owed to humans, and she didn't even know what kind of monster she was.