Cataclysm Chapter 76: Afterbirth 2; Fear

Chapter 76: Afterbirth 2; Fear

Translated by Kirio/Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

 

Kui Xuan did not actually like humans but Chen Xiaoyang was the only exception, and that extended to liking Chen Xiaoyang’s friends too. Then again, she will also not blindly hate those who show her kindness. She wasn’t someone who hated things or a person that was good.

To her, school was a place to learn new things and to further learn to join to blend in with the society. Kui Xuan never experienced life outside from birth until her death, she was forced to stay away from society but was allowed to observe. People watching became one of her hobbies and she would notice a lot of small details other people couldn’t. There wasn’t anything peculiar about that, but to a group of middle school students, what was a mundane hobby to Kui Xuan, was alien to them.

Especially when this alien had a beautiful fair appearance and a dark pair of eyes. In the imaginative world of these middle school students, her existence itself was very out of the ordinary. Everybody wanted to stand out, which made her, the one who stood out, an outcast.

Some adored her while some envied her. For a small number of them, this envy would only turn into an even more poisonous feeling called ‘jealousy’.

“Jealousy starts out as a lake, and after time it gets concentrated and turns into a bucket of water, then a bowl and in the end a drop of water. The potent drop of jealousy is far more deadly than a drop of jiangshi blood.” Kui Xuan muttered to herself and sighed, like an old person. 

“Chen Kuixuan, you’re wanted.” The student committee representative of her class shouted.

The atmosphere in the class instantly got somber, as they stared at Kui Xuan and the student representative. The latter bit her lips and her eyes were darting back and forth uneasily. Kui Xuan looked over and locked eyes with the student representative. She was caught off guard by her stare and broke their gaze. She continued to speak but without looking at her, “Q-quick, you want to let others wait for you?”

After a pause, only Kui Xuan got up and walked towards her, “Do you need something?”

The student representative didn’t dare look at her directly and said softly, “Go to the warehouse. The teacher is there, she is looking for you.” She was afraid that Kui Xuan would ask her why, but luckily, she did not.

“Relax.” Kui Xuan said faintly as she walked past her.

The student representative was so scared she almost broke out into tears. She was afraid of Kui Xuan, both fearful and jealous of her. But she didn’t think that that was anything out of the ordinary, she wasn’t the only person who hated Kui Xuan anyway. So many students in their class were not happy with the arrival of Kui Xuan, a sudden transfer student, who was younger and smarter than them, plus, the teachers adored her.

Kui Xuan was an outcast. An outcast had to be eliminated in order not to drag the others down.

The student representative sat back in her seat, her pupils rotated strangely, like a chameleon. Her front deskmate turned around, wanting to ask her why she called Kui Xuan out, but let out a scream as was shocked to see the chameleon-like eyes. Someone next to her nudged her and asked her if she was alright. She pointed at the student representative, “H-her eyes…”

“What’s wrong with her eyes?”

She calmed herself down and looked at the student representative’s eyes again. The brown eyes looked normal, but at her reaction, they were now filled with curiosity, surprise, a hint of disgust and even impatience. Before Kui Xuan’s transfer, the student representative was the top student in their grade. She was gentle, kind and friendly. She was also known to always help others and had a good reputation. But with this reaction, one could easily tell that she was filled with jealousy. If jealousy was a needle, the student representative’s heart was probably hole-ridden.

The student representative asked her in a friendly tone, “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah…” She was still shocked and didn’t dare to look at the student representative anymore. She could still feel the bloody aura emitting from the latter. Though she originally wanted to ask about the matter with Kui Xuan, the thought was no longer there.

The student representative stared at the fair exposed neck of her front deskmate and chuckled silently. Her pupils turned into an insect-like slit in a flash and she breathed out a low inaudible sound. Then she rested her head on her arm and closed her eyes. It was noon, and she wanted to get a good rest before afternoon classes.

The warehouse mentioned by the student representative was located in the southwest corner of the school and it was relatively barren. Overgrown weeds surrounded the warehouse and it was used to store old and unused sports equipment. It was also probably because it was so deserted, the warehouse was rumored to be haunted.

Kui Xuan pushed open the metal doors and it made an unpleasant creaking sound. She walked in and circled the warehouse but it was empty. She turned around and wanted to leave, but the door suddenly slammed shut with a very loud ‘BANG’. Kui Xuan tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t even budge. It seemed like it was shut from the outside.

Kui Xuan took a few steps back and looked up. Above her head, on the ceiling of the warehouse, were several sunroofs, those were the source of light for the entire warehouse. They were approximately three meters from the ground. If it were any normal middle school student, that meant they would be trapped.

But Kui Xuan was a feijiang.

She leapt up and sat on the roof of the warehouse and saw two delinquents outside the warehouse. One was standing and the other squatting, while they chatted. Kui Xuan could easily and clearly hear the conversation between the two.

“Ge, any idea why it’s so quiet in there? Is it possible that she fainted? If she fainted then wouldn’t it not instill any fear in her? If that’s the case, the quality won’t be that good. That won’t fetch us a high price,” the one squatting said.

The delinquent that was standing was smoking. He threw the finished cigarette to the ground, crushed it with his foot and said, “Go in there and take a look. Shake her awake then inject her with the drugs.”

“That won’t do, ge. Stimulant type drugs will affect emotional changes. It’s not suitable to be used on these breeding vessels.” ((check back later))

“Tsk, she’s only a nine-year-old. She’s only chosen because she’s smart and quite the looker, or else she’s obviously not suitable to be used as a brewing vessel. Nine…too young. They should at least be thirteen. Nine-year-olds don’t have enough nutrition, anything bred by that won’t be any good.”

“That’s true, but isn’t it rare to find such a quality vessel? Such a pity that she’s still so young…’ The one squatting stood up and patted his pants as he said, “Open the door, let’s give her a little scare. Ah, you know what, forget about it, since it’s unexpected luck we even found her anyway.”

As they were about to open the door, a thought flashed in Kui Xuan’s mind. She climbed back down along the side of the sunroof and hung above the doors. She recalled one of the ghost characters in the horror game she played before and changed her appearance into that. When the doors opened, she dropped herself, falling face flat on one of the delinquents before hitting the floor. The slimy brain matter dripped on the latter’s nose. The cold liquid slipped down to his lips.

He subconsciously licked his lips before snapping back to attention with great shock and retreated a large step. He focused on the thing that fell and realized it was the girl they locked in just now, “I-is…she d-dead?”

The other delinquent stepped back, “They said this warehouse is haunted but it can’t be this bad right? We just locked her in for a while and she’s already killed?’

“Ge, let’s go. Leave her here.”

“Yeah, g-go. Let’s go first. It’s none of our business anyways.”

The two delinquents stumbled a few times as they fled. Anyone who could run away for their lives calmly in such circumstances must have balls of steel! Kui Xuan heard the after lunch bell ring, so she turned back into her own face and went back to class.

The student representative was a little uneasy when she saw Kui Xuan return to class. When she saw the teachers and classmates concerned about Kui Xuan because she was a little late, the poisonous feeling of jealousy gushed out again in her heart, making her even more uneasy. She thought angrily, how everyone was such hypocrites as they also wished for Kui Xuan to fall. She was nothing but a mere nine-year-old child, whose future was brighter than everyone present, they must be jealous.

Kui Xuan was seated at the very front, away from the student representative. After she took her seat, she suddenly turned around and shot a grim smile at the student representative who was staring daggers at her. She lost control of herself with the sudden burst of jealous feeling in her, her face turned into the face of a scary evil spirit. Scaring herself so much, her entire body posture shrank as she buried her face in her arms.

The student representative was so frightened she cowered as her face was buried in her arms and she couldn’t help but to bite it. She muttered some inaudible words. It was so fuzzy her deskmates weren’t able to tell what she was muttering.

Surprise flashed past Kui Xuan’s expression, but she switched back to expressionlessness. At the end of class, some girls from the same class approached her and invited her, “Chen Kuixuan, do you want to go eat dessert(shaved ice) together?”

Kui Xuan shook her head, “No thanks.”

“Okay then.” The girls were a little disappointed. Then the student representative came up from behind them. With a forced smile on their faces, one of them asked, “We’re going to get dessert, do you want to join us?”

The student representative’s face was pale as a ghost and expressionless, “Where to?”

“The one outside the school, it’s so popular!”

“Hmm, that one…” the student representative revealed a grim and eerie smile,”I’ll pass.” After she said that, she walked past the girls and Kui Xuan and left the school gates without even turning to look at them. The girls whispered to each other, “Wow, did you see her smile? So creepy.”

“The student representative has been acting really weird lately. It’s so uncomfortable when she looks at you.”

“I turned around wanting to talk to her today but then when I saw her eyes, they looked like insects’ eyes! It scared the hell out of me!”

“You spent too much time gaming, you must have seen wrongly. What kind of person has eyes like an insect? It’s not like she’s a monster.”

“It’s not impossible…I heard my mom saying there’s been attacks recently at the old alleys in Xicheng District. These attackers suck blood and eat human flesh! Someone actually managed to snap a photo of the attacker, it looked terribly scrawny and ugly. The scariest thing is that they were all young girls around sixteen-ish before they turned into those things. They said it was because they got ill suddenly and it was impossible to treat. My mom said it’s because they were haunted by those things.”

“What things?”

“What else? Those dirty things.”

“Nonsense. From how you’re describing them, it sounds more like they’re jiangshis.” 

“Heh heh, it’s up to you to believe it or not. I, for one, am not going to Xicheng District, sounds too scary.”

“Hasn’t the rumor been debunked? They said it’s because of some drugs…”

One of the girls suddenly spoke up, “It’s not those dirty things, it’s black magic¹…”

“Black magic? It’s even more unbelievable than those dirty things.” The girls laughed and walked away, leaving the school gates, while the girl just now seemed like she had something else to say but bit her tongue and left in a different direction.

The girl hugged her own shoulders and left hurriedly. She was genuinely terrified so she picked up her steps. Suddenly, she heard someone call out to her, “Su Nini.”

Su Nini turned around and saw the transfer student Kui Xuan, “Chen Kuixuan? How can I help you?”

“What did you mean by black magic just now?”

Su Nini’s pupils constricted with fear, “I didn’t say anything, you must have misheard.” She was so scared that cold sweat started forming on her forehead and the color drained out of her face, she started trembling and her emotions getting unstable, “I really don’t know anything! Don’t ask me, I don’t know!” She shook her head and backed away, suddenly turning around and ran, looking back from time to time as if someone was chasing her.

This fear was very abnormal.

—

Ma Shanfeng frowned and stared at Chen Yang. In his mind, he recalled the silly appearance of Kou Xuanling when offering sacrifices to the ancestors, which was easily intriguing to others. But he was afraid that this interest would turn into mere amusement. If they truly harbored playful intentions, there would be nothing they could do about it. Ma Shanfeng clicked his tongue and shook his head, sighing, “Love without marriage as a premise has no guarantee. You and Du Shuo are married, but there’s no guarantee that Lu Xiuzhi will marry Kou Xuanling. If Kou Xuanling is deceived into marriage and misled, ah!”

Ma Shanfeng was so distressed that he felt his hair was about to fall out. Chen Yang comforted him, “It’s not to that extent yet. Old Kou hasn’t come to his senses, still thinking he’s made of steel.” Then he pondered, “But if they marry, how do we determine who marries whom?”

“As long as they marry, it doesn’t matter who marries whom,” Ma Shanfeng firmly believed in the power of marriage as true love.

Chen Yang flipped through documents, calculating how to persuade Old Kou to bring Lu Xiuzhi back to the office. If he gets married, the office would lose two people, which wouldn’t be worth it. He heard Ma Shanfeng ask, “What do you think?” Chen Yang repeatedly expressed his support.

“Speaking of this… Recently, there have been many attacks in the West City District. The attackers are thin, emaciated, stiff in their movements, and have vacant eyes. When attacking passersby, they would first bite and suck blood, leading to rumors of them being jiangshis. The official response is that they’re going crazy after taking a new type of drug, which seems plausible based on the symptoms.” Chen Yang picked up another list and said, “But the information here shows that all these attackers are teenage girls, aged between 15 and 18, with the youngest being 13 and the oldest being 20.”

He turned back to the previous document, which contained photos of the captured attackers looking terrified and haggard, with dry, sparse hair resembling dehydrated vegetables. “These are their medical records. Before this, without exception, they had all suffered from emotional disorders.”

Emotional disorders, as the name suggests, are illnesses where emotional disturbances affect physical health. Disorders such as OCD, phobias, anxiety, and depression are all classified as emotional disorders. When a certain emotion is amplified indefinitely due to external forces or internal psychological factors, it can significantly impact one’s life.

“They all suffered from emotional disorders without exception, and after treatment, they recovered. Both the parents and the individuals themselves thought they had recovered, but within less than a month of returning to normalcy, their bodies rapidly deteriorated, aged, and they became extremely thirsty for blood and flesh. Their abnormal behaviors indicate something is wrong, but the reason for their emotional disorders and the rapid deterioration of their bodies after recovery remains unknown.” Chen Yang placed the documents on his knee, lifted his head with a stern expression, “Because they all died.”

Ma Shanfeng was shocked, “This is so terrible.”

When Kui Xuan returned from school and entered the bureau hall, he saw Chen Yang and walked over, carrying his schoolbag. “Chen Xiaoyang, are you working?”

Chen Yang smiled gently, “Yes. Finished school? Do you have homework?”

“Yes.” Kui Xuan didn’t like doing homework.

Chen Yang asked, “Have you finished? If not, you can do it here.”

Kui Xuan shook her head, “I’ll do it in my room.” She noticed the two documents on Chen Yang’s knee, quickly glanced at them, and grasped the gist of it. She recalled that a few girls were discussing the attackers in the West City District when she came back. She asked in confusion, “Emotional disorders?”

“Medical conditions caused by emotional disorders,” Chen Yang replied.

Kui Xuan acknowledged and went upstairs. She thought about not telling Chen Xiaoyang about what happened today to avoid worrying him. Carrying her heavy school bag upstairs, she promised Chen Yang obediently that she would finish her homework. But once she closed the door behind her, she put down her school bag, opened the window, and called out, “Come out quickly.”

Then Ji Jiang and two maojiangs climbed down from the roof and entered the room. Kui Xuan brought out thick books and notebooks, spread them out on the table, and said, “All the homework is here. No using ancient characters or brushes, only pens and simplified characters.”

Hearing this, Ji Jiang quietly pushed all the homework towards the two maojiangs, “Come on.” The maojiangs, about to take out carving knives and brushes, stiffened their bodies, pitifully revealing their wrists with nails driven into them, indicating that they were disabled.

“Do you want me to do the homework myself?” Kui Xuan asked.

The two maojiangs silently withdrew their hands, curled up their bodies, and began to write their homework in high school textbooks. They weren’t actually incapable of doing the homework, but they were accustomed to brushes and carving knives and were still learning simplified characters.

In the evening, Chen Yang checked Kui Xuan’s homework under the lamplight, furrowing his brows as he flipped through the pages. “Kui Xuan’s handwriting isn’t very good. The characters she wrote with a brush are particularly beautiful. Should I buy her a copybook to practice?” After a while without a response, he called out, “Lao Du?”

Du Shuo unbuttoned his coat, took it off, and walked over to see Kui Xuan’s handwriting. Saying it wasn’t very good was an understatement; it was terrible! Even elementary school students wrote better than Kui Xuan. After looking at a page, Du Shuo noticed something, “Weakness and stiffness, not like the handwriting of Kui Xuan.”

“If she didn’t write it, then who did?” Chen Yang said indifferently, “Kui Xuan just started using a hard pen, so it’s normal for her handwriting to be a bit off.”

Du Shuo suddenly looked up at the ceiling. Chen Yang glanced at him curiously, “What’s up?” Du Shuo shook his head, walked to the window, suddenly opened it, and looked up at the roof, a piece of clothing slowly dragged up. After a while, he closed the window.

“I agree to buy a copybook for Kui Xuan to practice her handwriting; it’s indeed ugly.” 

Chen Yang nodded. “Mn. We’ll go choose one tomorrow, but we should ask Kui Xuan first what font she likes.”

Du Shuo casually asked, “Have you ever helped Kui Xuan with her homework?”

“Not really.”

“Mn. Sometimes it’s good to accompany her. Parents helping their children with homework can promote their physical and mental development,” Chen Yang felt something was off but couldn’t quite pinpoint it. So he agreed to Du Shuo’s suggestion and decided to find some time to accompany Kui Xuan while she did her homework. Du Shuo took the workbook from his hand, “Rest and go to sleep, no need to check anymore, there are no mistakes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure.” How could those few maojiangs allow any mistakes in their little master’s homework?

“Alright.” Chen Yang trusted Du Shuo, also because he had nearly finished checking the homework, and aside from the handwriting being a bit ugly, there were indeed no mistakes.

Late at night, Su Nini hurriedly ran down the street, clutching the straps of her backpack, knowing something was following her. She didn’t need to look back to know what it looked like; it was a monster. Its skin was dark green, eyes like insect compound eyes, hundreds of teeth protruding outside its lips, looking deformed and terrifying. She wore tattered red clothes, with black hair flowing behind her, and she was looking for someone to parasitize.

If someone saw her, they were suitable hosts. She would follow closely, and no matter where they ran, they would surely be caught.

Su Nini was extremely terrified. As she walked, she called her father, tears welling up the moment the call connected, “Dad, come and pick me up quickly. That thing is following me again.”

Su Nini’s father anxiously comforted her on the other end of the phone, “Don’t be afraid, try to walk towards crowded places. I’m coming to pick you up now, don’t be afraid.”

“Hurry up.” Su Nini cried softly in despair.

Seeing the lights of her own neighborhood, Su Nini quickened her pace, feeling a bit relieved when she saw someone in the security booth. She stood under the light, mustering up the courage to look back, and the monster was gone, nothing behind her. It was eerily silent all around, not even the sound of insects. Su Nini felt like her heart was being gripped by a giant hand, as if it could crush her heart with a ‘bang’ at any moment, declaring her death.

She took a few steps back, opened the door with her key card, and hurried into the neighborhood. After a few steps, she suddenly remembered something and looked back at the security booth. The figure inside, which she thought was a security guard, slowly looked up, and through the glass, she clearly saw: dark green skin, insect-like compound eyes, and hundreds of teeth protruding outside the lips. It was crawling out.

Su Nini screamed, “Ah!!!”

Su Nini crashed into someone, screaming in fear. The person grabbed her, “Nini, it’s me, Dad!” Su Nini looked up and indeed saw her father, immediately throwing herself into his arms, crying uncontrollably, “I’m scared, Dad, that thing is following me again, I’m so scared. It’s clouding my mind, luring me out in the middle of the night, wanting to parasitize me… I’m so scared.”

Dad comforted his daughter and led her to the elevator. From the entrance to the elevator was a small hall, the receptionist was dozing off, making a snoring sound, and there was a small fan blowing beside him. Then there was the occasional ‘zz’ sound of the lights, other than that, it was very quiet, eerily quiet.

The floor was very smooth. Su Nini deliberately stepped hard to make a sound, afraid of this suffocating silence. Every time that thing appeared, everything around her would become very quiet, and no one could hear or see anything, as if she was isolated from the world, alone with that thing.

Dad said, “This receptionist is clearly on the night shift and still slacking off, otherwise how could he not notice you running out? I must complain tomorrow…” He kept rambling, his voice seemed very distant, even though he was right beside her.

Su Nini felt a wave of drowsiness. She tried hard to keep her eyes open and suddenly saw that thing rushing in from outside, shouting and screaming at her, then lunging at her with bared teeth and claws. She frantically pressed the elevator button, and after she and her dad got into the elevator, she madly pressed the close door button.

Finally, she closed the door before that thing could reach her, so she didn’t notice the thing, which in her eyes was a monster, shouting, “Come out quickly, the thing beside you is not human!”

The next day, a local newspaper carried a story: a girl from a certain neighborhood in the West City District seemed to have been scared out of her wits in an elevator, resembling a ‘supernatural incident.’

Author’s Note:

“Anyway, she’s not the only one who dislikes Kui Xuan…” To avoid misunderstandings, this part is the jealous imagination of the class monitor.

Ji Jiang and the eight maojiangs can leave the ancient tomb, but they can’t all leave, and some still need to stay inside to guard. Without them, how would Kui Xuan complete her high school homework?

 

 

 

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