Chapter 5: Mama

Ningning was a smart child.

She didn’t have many relatives, only her, Mama, and Grandma.

The happiest moment of her day was when her mama came home and praised her for being a good girl.

Her biggest worry was being chased by her mama to brush her teeth after eating her bedtime cookies.

But her mama hadn’t come home for several days.

At first, her grandma was there to look after her, but then Grandma got sick and was hospitalized too.

Now, her home was filled with strangers coming and going all day.

Occasionally, someone would shed a few tears looking at her and ask why she wasn’t crying too.

Ningning wouldn’t cry.

Mama said that only weak children cried all the time.

She hated these strange visitors invading her and her mama’s home.

So she locked herself in her room, ignored them, and sometimes exercised her privilege as a child: making noise and screaming to drive them all away.

A few days later, the neighbor from across the hall started taking care of her.

But the neighbor’s family had their own child who cried and fussed all day.

Ningning found him annoying and didn’t like playing with him.

After being picked up from kindergarten, she would sit downstairs with her little rubber ball, waiting for her mama to come home.

She kicked the ball by herself from dusk until the streetlights came on, the light stretching her shadow long.

Suddenly, the ball rolled into a dark, unlit corner.

The surrounding walls and trees cast deep, black shadows.

Ningning was a little scared; she felt like she wouldn’t be able to breathe if she walked into that dark place.

She hesitated for two seconds, then ran over and picked up her ball.

Suddenly, a figure appeared at the end of the road.

A woman with long hair in a black dress, stepping toward her on high heels, swaying through the dim night.

The word “swaying” was used because her walking posture was extremely unnatural, like a shadow puppet controlled by rods, stumbling forward.

Although she was far away and her face was a bit unclear, Ningning recognized the clothes she was wearing at a glance.

“Mama!”

Ningning cried out in pleasant surprise, hugging her ball as she ran toward the figure.

The figure in front of her suddenly trembled, turning into a soft swamp.

Two deathly pale hands quietly extended from the shadow… seeming ready to grab the little girl’s legs at any moment.

Suddenly, someone called out from behind her:

“Ningning.”

Ningning turned her head instinctively.

In a place she hadn’t noticed, the distorted figure and the swaying, dark swamp suddenly vanished without a trace along with that call.

Ningning watched as a person walked over.

That person had a pair of deep blue eyes, the likes of which Ningning had never seen before, more beautiful than any glass marble she had ever seen.

He walked slowly out of the darkness, seeming to glow.

He walked up to Ningning, smiled, and crouched down, saying, “You’re Ningning, right?”

Ningning nodded hesitantly.

“It’s getting late,” the person said.

“Good children should all be home asleep.”

“But my mama is still—”

Ningning turned her head.

The empty alley was now completely deserted.

Ning Xuelan’s daughter was named Ning Ning. Read together, it was “Ningning,” which had a playful yet well-behaved feel.

The name perhaps also contained Ning Xuelan’s hopes for her daughter.

Honestly, Si Qingxuan was startled when he saw the child.

A controlled Phase Ghoul had put on Ning Xuelan’s skin and was brazenly trying to abduct the child right in front of her home.

If he had arrived a few minutes later, he might not have seen this child at all.

Ningning sat on a bench next to a streetlight with Si Qingxuan, clutching her rubber ball, her tender little face scrunched up like a steamed bun.

“Big Brother.”

“Hm?”

“Did Big Brother just help me?” Ningning asked.

“Help me chase away the bad person.”

Si Qingxuan smiled and asked her, “How did you know?”

“Because, that person, even though she looked a lot like my mama, she wasn’t my mama.”

Ningning lowered her head, staring at the dinosaur pattern on her ball.

“If it was Mama, she wouldn’t have just disappeared and left me behind when she heard me calling her.”

“Since she was wearing Mama’s clothes and pretending to be Mama, she wanted to trick me and take me away.

She’s either a bad person or one of those child traffickers the grown-ups talk about!”

Si Qingxuan patted Ningning’s head.

“You’re right.”

After just a few words, Si Qingxuan could basically confirm that this was a somewhat unusual child.

She was very smart.

But from what she said, it seemed she didn’t know what had happened to her own mother.

She was still waiting for her mama to come home.

Si Qingxuan didn’t know if Ningning could clearly understand the concepts of “life” and “death,” nor did he know why, up to this point, no one had come to explain these things to her.

But Si Qingxuan hadn’t forgotten the purpose of his trip.

“How do I read this child’s memories?” he asked the system.

[It’s simple, just have the child fall into a dream. Don’t worry, this won’t cause her any harm. After all, it’s just a dream.]

“Ningning, do you want to see your mama?”

After a moment of consideration, Si Qingxuan decided to ask the child in front of him directly.

Ningning nodded.

“Then you should hurry home now and be a good girl and go to sleep.

In your dreams, you’ll be able to see your mama.”

“…Really?”

“Yes, I promise.”

For some reason, Ningning really believed what Si Qingxuan said.

She soon ran happily into the building entrance with her ball, as light as a baby swallow returning to its nest, her heart full of expectation.

[High Priest, you could have just let her sleep outside… Now we have to climb her window. How troublesome.]

“It’s this late, good children should be at home sleeping,” Si Qingxuan said in a non-negotiable tone.

“That wasn’t just something I said to coax a child.”

[Alright, I understand. In any case, with your current skills, climbing to the third floor is more than easy. You just need to be careful not to be seen by nearby surveillance cameras, the neighborhood security guard, or any residents who might occasionally open their windows to look at the scenery. It only requires a little bit of luck, and I’m sure you’ll succeed.]

Si Qingxuan felt this system was being a bit sarcastic.

But Si Qingxuan soon realized that climbing someone’s window, especially a little girl’s window, was indeed a bit awkward.

Si Qingxuan sat on the windowsill.

The wind brushed against his chest, and he felt a little cold on his neck.

Fortunately, he only needed Ningning to fall asleep within his line of sight to be able to read her memories.

“Even though we’re reading her memories, try not to give her nightmares,” Si Qingxuan said.

[I’ve noticed that you have an extraordinary amount of patience for this human cub.]

Si Qingxuan didn’t answer.

He just silently activated the Phantom Library, watching the transparent pages flip above the sleeping child’s head.

Gradually, some words appeared on the blank pages.

***

Ning Xuelan herself, aside from her otherworldly beauty, seemed quite unremarkable.

But in Ningning’s mind, she was full of warm memories of her.

But, occasionally, there were some unpleasant moments.

Ning Xuelan’s family background was not bad, and she was beautiful, with no shortage of suitors.

The biggest problem, instead, became Ningning.

Ningning once overheard her mother and grandmother arguing:

“…Weren’t you getting along well with him before? His situation is so good, why did you stop seeing him?”

“Seeing him? What’s there to see.

He doesn’t like our Ningning.

Even though he didn’t say it, I could feel it.”

“What man is going to like the child you had with your ex-husband? As long as he cares about you, isn’t that enough? You’re not young anymore, you won’t find anyone better if you keep waiting.

…How about this, let me raise Ningning.

I’m her biological grandmother, would I ever harm her? You can still come see her on holidays.

Isn’t that the best of both worlds?”

“How is that the best of both worlds! Mom, just stay out of it.

I can make my own decisions on these matters.”

“Are you planning to stay single forever? For the rest of your life?”

At the time, what Ningning thought was, so what if she doesn’t get married? Why does Grandma care so much about whether Mama is married or not?

It was just like how other people would look at her with strange eyes when they heard she didn’t have a father.

People in this world were always different.

There were good and bad, smart and stupid, some with all their limbs, and some missing arms or legs… Sometimes, the difference between people was greater than the difference between a person and a dog.

So what if you have a husband? So what if you have a father? Does it mean you have two extra nostrils compared to a normal person?

Ningning didn’t understand, and was even a little angry.

But later, Ningning gradually came to understand: Ning Xuelan was just an ordinary person.

Although she wasn’t weak, she would occasionally be overwhelmed by the heavy responsibility of running a shop and raising a daughter alone.

No one understood her, no one took care of her…

Her mama’s life wasn’t just about being Ningning’s mama; she also had to be herself.

She wanted a partner.

Later, that person finally appeared.

“Stop for a moment,” Si Qingxuan interjected.

“Since Ning Xuelan had a romantic interest… why doesn’t his face appear in Ningning’s memories?”

[Look carefully. What was Ning Xuelan’s reaction after she started dating? She was hugging her phone all day, giggling foolishly. It looks like it was an online relationship.]

Si Qingxuan: “…”
‘That’s a thing?’

At the same time, Ning Xuelan began to gradually change her original style of dress.

Her makeup became heavy and alluring, her wardrobe was filled mostly with black dresses, and her personality grew more sensitive, reacting more intensely to others’ praise and criticism.

Until one day, Ning Xuelan excitedly ran to Ningning and asked her, “Ningning, do you think Mama would look better if I got my nose done?”

It turned out Ning Xuelan was planning to meet her online friend.

She felt that she wasn’t beautiful enough… at least, her nose wasn’t perfect.

So she went to the hospital for a minor cosmetic procedure.

After the surgery, she went to meet her online friend.

Strangely, this meeting seemed to have been very unpleasant.

Ning Xuelan had gone out as charming as a shy rose, but she came back with her makeup streaked with tears.

However, the misfortune didn’t stop there.

One day, Ning Xuelan suddenly screamed at her reflection in the mirror.

***

[These are all the recent memories related to Ning Xuelan—I have to say, this is a sharp child. Ordinary human cubs spend their days eating, drinking, and playing, and wouldn’t pay attention to so many things.

But she, because she understood and remembered everything, was able to present these memories to us in their entirety, and there don’t seem to be any major logical fallacies.]

Having obtained these memories, they had also acquired a new clue.

The mysterious online friend Ning Xuelan had been in contact with was very suspicious.

Si Qingxuan thought for a moment, then took out his phone and sent an email to a private investigator he had worked with before.

[Are you trying to get someone to investigate Ning Xuelan’s mysterious online friend? Honestly, if that mysterious friend is the murderer, then they can control a Phase Ghoul, and the Phase Ghoul’s power is also at their disposal—which means they can easily change their appearance.

Even if they met Ning Xuelan and may have left some traces, trying to find them in a crowd would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.]

“No.

My investigation isn’t focused on that,” Si Qingxuan said nonchalantly.

“The other party might be a master of disguise, but they may not be an expert in modern science.”

What Si Qingxuan wanted to do was crack Ning Xuelan’s private chat account, pull out that mysterious online friend from the chat history, and then directly look up his address.

The private investigator replied quickly: the mysterious person’s account has been identified, but to pinpoint the location, the person needs to be online for a period of time.

And that person hadn’t logged into that account for several days, so they might have already abandoned it.

Si Qingxuan thought for a moment, opened his phone, snapped a selfie, then opened the chat app, cropped the photo to just his eyes, set it as his profile picture, and then used his own account to add the mysterious person as a friend.

“If I remember correctly, he was lusting after my eyes,” Si Qingxuan said.

“If I’m lucky, he’ll come knocking on my door himself.”

[You are truly an expert at fishing.]

“You flatter me.”

Si Qingxuan stretched, looked up at the dim sky, and although he wasn’t very tired, he still yawned.

“Time for bed.”

The villa, which had been turned into a mess by two Phase Ghouls, was still being cleaned up.

Si Qingxuan randomly picked a top-floor apartment that looked pleasing to the eye from among his properties and moved in.

His sleep quality now was nothing like before; give him a comfortable bed and he could fall asleep.

It felt like he was back…

Si Qingxuan’s eyes suddenly darkened.

He hesitated for a moment, opened the chat app’s friend list, and scrolled down with his thumb—most of the people on his friend list were old classmates, online and offline, their profile pictures bright or dim, but Si Qingxuan had no interest in any of them.

Soon, his gaze landed on a certain name.

The system showed that the other person was online.

“…”

Si Qingxuan let out a self-deprecating laugh.

He thought he had completely deleted that person’s contact information—he never expected that there was still this infrequently used app, with an account he himself hadn’t logged into for a long time, and that person still existed in the account’s friend list.

Si Qingxuan hated this feeling of occasionally digging through traces of his past life, only to find that the other person had been everywhere in his life.

Question: when surfing the web late at night, you see your ex-boyfriend, who has been missing and out of contact for half a year, is actually online.

What should you do?

Si Qingxuan sneered, typed three words into the chat box, and hit send.

***

Meanwhile, on a small coastal island in the south.

A lone moon hung high, like a glowing mirror set in the sprawling night sky.

The hard reefs were pitch black, almost blending in with the black ocean waves, but the edges of the surf glittered with a pearly white light.

A group of people stood on the beach.

They were busy setting up various heavy-duty weapons, but they made no sound, as quiet as if they were trying to merge into the night.

Suddenly, the sound of the sea breeze seemed to weaken.

A long, slender black shadow surfaced from the deep sea.

A huge, black-scaled serpent’s head emerged from the water.

It raised its neck, shot up toward the sky, and the shattering spray of water fell back into the sea, creating an astonishingly loud crash.

“…Twenty-two sixteen hours, aquatic Anomaly ‘Scourge Serpent’, designation A-D06, target has appeared.”

“Commence operation!”

The roar of guns and cannons exploded in the night sky, rushing toward the giant serpent on the beach.

The artillery fire fell like a rain of flowers onto the serpent’s body.

The giant serpent cried out in pain, its head dodging slightly, and a brilliant gold light burst from its vertical golden pupils.

The scales on its body rustled to life, coated in a faint bronze hue, reflecting a cold halo.

Talent: Metallize.

It whipped its tail, sweeping it heavily across the beach, and most of the pre-arranged artillery shells were instantly destroyed.

Those who couldn’t escape in time were directly crushed into the sand.

“…Missile trajectory locked.”

“Fire immediately!”

Several exceptionally powerful missiles were launched from the concealed jungle.

This had been their tactic all along: use the firepower and manpower on the beach to attract the giant serpent’s attention, and then attack its head with missiles.

Boom! Boom!

Loud explosions accompanied by flames blossomed on the serpent’s head.

The giant serpent’s forked tongue flickered wildly as it shrieked and was knocked back into the water.

Dark scales and foul-smelling serpent blood, along with the seawater, turned into a sky-full of rain that splashed down, blurring everyone’s vision… but they still didn’t dare to relax for a second.

“…Is it dead?” the commander said, breathing heavily, not knowing if he was asking the people around him or himself.

The water surface was calm for a moment.

Just as their spirits relaxed for an instant, the giant serpent suddenly shot out of the dark waves, roaring as it charged toward the beach.

Several bloody holes had been blown into its body, and rotten flesh and exposed nerves hung gruesomely from its frame, revealing bone that was pale white yet smooth.

…It had metallized its own bones!

The commander sucked in a breath and decisively chose to report to his superior, “Firepower sweep has failed, requesting backup, requesting backup!”

At the same time, in a helicopter hovering high in the sky, a young man with short, chestnut-colored hair yawned.

His skin was fair, and he was dressed in a dark black combat suit, but the expression on his face was very lively.

“It’s almost eleven o’clock,” he complained with a look of deep suffering.

“We’re pulling an all-nighter again tonight.

Boss, we’ve had five consecutive night missions this month.

If this keeps up, my mutation value is going to rise!”

Awakened Ones who possessed talents also faced the risk of losing control.

It was tough being an Awakened One.

Over time, their talents would cause irreversible changes to their minds and constantly assault their human sanity.

Their only option was to find a way to upgrade their talents and enter a new level to reduce the talent’s influence on them.

As Awakened Ones, they needed to purge anomalies, fighting to the death with all sorts of strange and bizarre anomalies every day.

If they were lucky, their talents would evolve.

If they were unlucky, their san value would drop to zero, and they would completely lose their minds.

The chestnut-haired young man’s complaints were just his way of hoping their boss wouldn’t be such a workaholic and would take more breaks.

Even a workhorse in a production brigade didn’t work like they did!

“Do you have a problem with that?”

To this, his boss—the black-haired man sitting in front of him—didn’t give a direct reply, but a single glance from him was enough to shut the young man up.

“OK, I’ll shut up.”

The young man zipped his lips with his fingers.

The other few young people in the helicopter exchanged schadenfreude-filled glances, their eyes saying, ‘Serves you right for running your mouth.’

The man they called “Boss” sat by the window, his gaze piercing through the clouds and mist, fixed on the giant serpent struggling on the beach.

His profile was as serene and desolate as the moonlight, yet his eyes held a firm sharpness, like a blade wrapped in silk, its trajectory impossible to predict, yet it made one subconsciously hold their breath.

“Your mutation value has risen?” he asked, his voice like cracking ice.

“Ah?

Um…” the young man replied instinctively.

There was no clear way to monitor mutation value; it could only be judged by checking an Awakened One’s mental state.

Although he still enjoyed joking around with his teammates recently, he had indeed been feeling a lack of energy.

In this situation, he should have taken a few days off.

But that was for ordinary Awakened Ones, not for high-level ones like them… so, he was just complaining a bit and wouldn’t actually refuse work.

“I understand,” the man nodded.

The young man was stunned, then saw the black robe flutter before him as the man jumped out of the helicopter without another word.

The young man was dumbfounded.

“Boss!”

“I didn’t mean for you to go do my work for me!”

“I just wanted to complain a little, play a little hard to get, to hint that you should apply for a few days of vacation for our team!!”

“Stop shouting, the boss can’t hear you,” a teammate next to him couldn’t help but say.

“Vacation? In your dreams.

The boss would rather do all the work himself than apply for leave.”

Because their team had a special system: if they took a vacation, the entire team had to take it together, to avoid being short-staffed during missions.

“Does he have a grudge against vacations?” the chestnut-haired young man said in disbelief.

“Perhaps he’s striving for the good of all mankind,” his teammate shrugged.

“And you dare to complain—without the boss’s merits, why would we get so much better treatment than other squads? Because of your superb slacking ability?”

“Hey, hey, that’s a personal attack! Forget it, let’s see how the battle is going below.

Has that snake been cooked by our captain yet?”

“…I can tell you don’t use your brain on missions! The Scourge Serpent’s talent is metallization, and now its bones are also metallized.

No matter how much you cook it, it will only melt.

How can you even talk about it being cooked!”

“Metallization, huh.”

The chestnut-haired young man poked his head out to look at the battle below.

Flames shot up into the sky, and even from the helicopter, they could feel the scorching heat of that sea of fire.

The Scourge Serpent was engulfed in flames, its shadow no longer visible.

“Should I go down and help?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the Scourge Serpent’s head struggled out of the flames.

Its flesh had been completely burned away, and its silver metal skeleton was slowly turning into liquid under the licking flames, dripping into the seawater.

But the Scourge Serpent’s body was simply too massive, and it writhed in the fire and steam like a struggling ghost.

Talent: Hellfire.

Unlike ordinary fire-based talents, “Hellfire” was a conceptual talent that targeted the concept of “life”: as long as the enemy was not dead, the flames would never be extinguished.

At the same time, the spiritual energy value on the sea surface skyrocketed like a small hurricane.

Non-Awakened Ones and lower-level personnel quickly retreated, afraid of being caught in the battle.

“Watching this snake thrash around is also making my san value drop,” the chestnut-haired young man muttered to himself.

“I should probably go and help.”

With that, he straightened his parachute, checked his communicator and oxygen supply device, took a step forward, and also jumped out of the helicopter.

The sea surface was shrouded in steam, which blew his parachute off course.

His teammates: “…”

They knew this kid was unreliable!

But soon, a few seconds later, a thin layer of ice suddenly appeared on the sea surface.

Pale, cold air was swept up by the sea breeze, then turned into light, fluttering snowflakes that fell down, forming a layer of frigid, hard ice on the silvery-white serpent’s head.

Talent: Freezing Point.

The chestnut-haired young man’s talent was to lower a liquid’s temperature below its freezing point; in simple terms, it was the ability to cause a sudden drop in temperature.

In the next second, the giant serpent’s head stopped moving.

It became like a statue, its bones covered in spiderweb-like cracks, and then it shattered inch by inch.

This involved a very basic physics principle—thermal expansion and contraction.

In truth, common physics principles weren’t necessarily effective against these anomalous creatures, but because of its enormous size, the Scourge Serpent seemed to be lagging in its talent evolution.

Even though it had achieved full-body metallization, the metal itself did not possess extraordinary hardness.

With that, the A-rank Anomaly, the Scourge Serpent, was successfully vanquished.

The commander ordered ships to be dispatched immediately to retrieve the Scourge Serpent’s remains.

Under the moonlight, the waves calmly washed onto the beach.

The black-haired man stood on the beach in his black robe.

The finger covers on his hands had been burned to ash by the flames, revealing pale white and slender knuckles.

Suddenly, the phone in his pocket lit up.

He took out his phone, and with just one look, his gaze was fixed on the screen, and he didn’t snap out of it for a long time.

[You have one unread message from ‘Darling’.]

The man was stunned for a few seconds, his fingertips rubbing the screen, and with a complicated mood, he opened it:

[Darling: Drop dead.]