Chapter 45: Part-time Daily Life (3), Can’t Catch

The air fell silent for a second. Both He Sui and Xie Lincheng were speechless.

Xie Lincheng spread his hands and laughed, “Well, that’s it then. I won’t scream, but they definitely will.”

Xu Xiye thought so too and offered his own solution, “That’s why I won’t talk to them.”

“Pfft.” He Sui suddenly laughed.

That was it?

Xu Xiye looked at him blankly, not understanding why he was laughing at him.

He Sui couldn’t be bothered to explain and just said casually, “I won’t talk to them either.”

Xu Xiye wasn’t a little kid, playing the game of “If you talk to him, I won’t talk to you.” But hearing Blue Eyes say that still made him very happy.

Xie Lincheng: “…”

The only one who needed to talk to them was himself.

“Ahem, let’s just get to work,” Xie Lincheng said.

Xu Xiye looked at him helplessly. He’d wanted to work ages ago; it was Xie Lincheng who said they should wait.

Xie Lincheng checked the time. It was almost three in the morning. The concentration in the C-Class Contaminated Zone hadn’t changed much even late at night and was now more stable.

He asked He Sui, “Still no movement down there?”

He Sui: “No.”

Xie Lincheng pointed outside. “I’ll go to the balcony. You two seize the right moment to come.”

The second-floor balcony was for drying laundry. At its end was a shared washroom.

Xie Lincheng stood on the balcony for a moment. Finding nothing unusual, he simply walked into the completely dark washroom.

Someone had used it not long ago; the floor was wet and gave off a chilling, damp coldness.

Like any ordinary person coming in to wash up, Xie Lincheng fumbled to turn on the light. The light was pale and grayish, as if covered in dust, its illumination barely better than nothing.

He walked to the sink and turned on the faucet. The pipes gurgled and spluttered, no water coming out immediately.

Only after a wait did water sputter out. It looked dark and murky. Looking closely, what flowed out with the water was a mix of black and white hair.

Xie Lincheng watched this with a blank expression. The flow of water increased, and soon the basin was full.

A basin overflowing with oily, hair-filled water—nauseating to behold.

Xie Lincheng rubbed his temples. His Sanity Value had definitely dropped again.

Suddenly, a hand reached out from behind him and patted his shoulder.

The hand was cold and stiff, a sensation he could feel even through his clothes.

Outside the washroom, in the hallway of the second floor, Xu Xiye kept poking his head towards the balcony. “Once you become weak, those things will come to you on their own?”

“Mm.”

“So powerful people actually affect the job.” Thinking about it, that made sense too. There were all sorts of jobs in the world, and different jobs suited different people.

He Sui stood in the darkness, his gaze almost never leaving Xu Xiye. After a long moment, he suddenly said, “It probably wouldn’t affect you.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying I’m not powerful enough?”

“No, I mean you’re very popular.”

Why was he suddenly complimenting him?

Xu Xiye said, embarrassed, “That’s true. But the landlord old man is crazy. Do crazy people like me too?”

He Sui didn’t know the answer to that. Xu Xiye didn’t seem to need his answer; he seemed to have already thought of something.

He thought of Bai Luwei.

Bai Luwei had been so severely insane, yet she always seemed to cooperate with whatever he wanted. In the end, she exhausted all her strength and died on her way crawling towards him.

Was that liking him?

Xu Xiye fell into deep thought.

Just then, a loud “Bang!” came from the direction of the balcony.

Xu Xiye’s eyes lit up. “Are they here?”

He Sui: “Yeah. Go catch them. There’s more than one thing inside.”

Xu Xiye could hear that too. He dashed over excitedly, with He Sui following behind at a more leisurely pace.

Whether crazy people liked him or not… he’d probably get his answer tonight.

There was no doubt Black Blob was a powerful, high-level Aberration.

After meeting Black Blob, He Sui had started being besieged by unidentified Aberrations one after another. He didn’t believe it was completely unrelated to Black Blob.

But he believed Black Blob wasn’t lying.

If Black Blob hadn’t lied, then those Aberrations surrounding him, capturing him to deliver to Black Blob, was a spontaneous action.

This had surprised He Sui and also made him curious about exactly what kind of existence Black Blob was.

Xu Xiye rushed straight for the washroom without looking anywhere else. He Sui, however, stopped at the doorway.

The floor inside was covered in dirty water everywhere; he absolutely didn’t want to step in it.

Watching Black Blob pad in with a splat splat, his white shoe tips getting stained with dirty water, He Sui instinctively frowned.

Inside the washroom, things were actually a bit chaotic.

Xie Lincheng was leaning against the door, his expression grim. The thing that had patted his shoulder earlier was undoubtedly part of the Pollution Source.

He had immediately turned his head at the time but found nothing behind him. But the instant he looked back, a pale, withered hand suddenly reached out from in front, lunging for his throat.

Xie Lincheng had stumbled back several steps, his back slamming against the open door. He caught the hand that was reaching for him.

The moment he grabbed it, a cold, stiff sensation spread through his entire body, instantly telling him it was the arm of a dead person.

The arm of an old man, freshly dead, still in rigor mortis.

Xie Lincheng wasn’t afraid, but the feeling was far from pleasant. He couldn’t just keep holding this thing. He was just thinking about how to deal with it when suddenly, the sound of tap tap tap footsteps echoed in the washroom, which should have been empty except for him.

Xie Lincheng followed the sound. Under the shower head stood a leg, as thin as a bag of bones.

The leg was bare, unclothed, and barefoot. The tap tap tap sound was made by it walking on the waterlogged floor.

Tap tap tap. After wandering blindly in the shower area for a few circles, the leg started walking towards him.

Just then, a pitter-pattering sound arose. The faucet at the sink, which had already been turned off, turned back on by itself. Water, mixed with grease and hair, overflowed from the basin and spread everywhere across the floor.

Under the dim light, the grease and hair seemed to come alive, forming a distorted, ferocious face. Even though it was blurry, the terror and pain on that face were palpable.

Xie Lincheng frowned deeply. Just as he was thinking of dealing with the arm in his grasp first, it suddenly crumbled into fine powder and fell rustling to the ground.

Almost simultaneously, Xie Lincheng saw a meat cleaver chopping ferociously at him. The next second, the blade swept across his arm.

Yet, there was no cry of pain, no blood. Xie Lincheng hadn’t even moved.

The image of the blade was very faint and illusory—the shallowest layer of Anomalous Phenomenon, practically indistinguishable from a hallucination.

When Xie Lincheng looked down at the minced flesh scattered on the floor, Xu Xiye and He Sui arrived.

The most conspicuous thing in the washroom was the leg still tap-tapping its slow way towards Xie Lincheng. Xu Xiye’s first reaction was to rush at that leg.

He grabbed for it with both hands without any hesitation, but the leg suddenly jumped away. Xu Xiye grasped at empty air.

He wasn’t discouraged and continued trying to grab it.

To any ordinary person, these severed limbs were the most horrifying and grotesque sight imaginable. But to Xu Xiye, it was like catching grasshoppers in a field.

The distorted face formed in the water was trampled and dispersed. The scattered minced flesh on the floor was washed away by the flowing water. Xu Xiye himself got splashed with quite a bit of water.

“Black Blob!” He Sui couldn’t help but call out to him.

His face was set in an expression of irritation and barely-contained tolerance.

Xu Xiye stopped his pursuit and turned to look at him, confused. He felt Blue Eyes’ tone was a bit harsh. “What’s wrong?”

He Sui didn’t reply immediately. He turned his face away and let out a light breath. Then, as if nothing had happened, he said, “Nothing. Turn off the water first.”

“Oh.” Xu Xiye happened to be standing right next to it. He reached out and turned off the faucet.

He Sui assessed the situation in the washroom and asked Xie Lincheng, “It’s all minced body parts. Getting rid of these things is easy. Containing all of it intact won’t be so simple for you.”

Indeed. Initially, they thought it was a case of murder and dismemberment. It was easy to imagine. The Lost and Found Notice also led one to believe they only needed to find the head, torso, two hands, and two feet.

Now it seemed it wasn’t just dismemberment, but chopping the body into pieces.

Even more troublesome.

Xie Lincheng glanced at Xu Xiye, who was still bustling around on his own, and said, “I don’t care how we handle it, but I did say we came to help him. If he wants that, we’ll have to think of a way. You have a cleanliness obsession?”

He Sui: “I’m not a clean freak. Do you really think this is just a matter of cleanliness?”

“It really is filthy enough.” Anyone with basic hygiene standards couldn’t stand it.

“Black Blob!” The veins on He Sui’s temple throbbed. He suddenly called out to Xu Xiye again.

The leg Xu Xiye had been chasing had also turned into fine powder. And he actually wanted to grab that powder directly with his hands.

He Sui couldn’t take it anymore. He absolutely did not want a dirty, messy roommate.

Yet He Sui knew very well that an Aberration’s mindset was different from theirs.

These body parts and minced flesh were no longer real-world remains either. They were just another form of the Aberration. That was why Xu Xiye didn’t mind in the slightest, let alone feel they were dirty.

The fact that He Sui and Xie Lincheng found it dirty was because they were viewing these things entirely from a human perspective.

Xu Xiye was called to a halt again. He turned his head and looked at He Sui as if asking, ‘Why are you calling me again?’

He Sui didn’t use human logic to tell him it was dirty. He pointed to his pant leg. “Your pants are wet. Come out first. Stop messing around. We need to rethink our approach.”

Xu Xiye looked down at his shoes and cuffs, then at the minced flesh sliding away with the water current. In the distance, they were slowly reforming into a leg again.

Catching it directly was indeed proving to be very difficult. Should he find a bag to put it in?

Thinking about these things, under the gaze of Blue Eyes and Xie Lincheng, he decided to step out first. “What if they run away?”

“They won’t. Even if they run, they’ll come back again,” He Sui said.

Xie Lincheng also came out. Those things didn’t harass him. By the time he stepped onto the balcony, the washroom had regained its calm, as if nothing had happened.

Xu Xiye: “They’re gone. What should we do now?”

Xie Lincheng: “They probably haven’t gone. Just hiding somewhere in the darkness.”

As for how to catch them, Xie Lincheng didn’t have a concrete plan yet. Perhaps directly using Spiritual Power to control them was the best method, but his current abilities weren’t up to it.

Xie Lincheng looked at Xu Xiye. Before he could speak, a series of piercing screams erupted from downstairs, one after another.

Xu Xiye’s face scrunched up.

“I’ll go check it out,” Xie Lincheng said.

After a short while, only Xu Xiye and He Sui were left standing on the balcony.

The screaming from downstairs continued for a bit, then quieted down.

After it quieted down, the click-clack of furious typing from room 201 clearly drifted over.

Listening carefully, other rooms also had various sounds: talking on the phone, playing music, and so on.

They lived according to the habits of their former lives, oblivious to the strangers who had appeared here.

In the silence, He Sui suddenly asked Xu Xiye, “Black Blob, have you let them know you are you?”

Xu Xiye: “Huh?”

“Them.” He Sui gestured towards the washroom, then towards the occupied rooms.

Xu Xiye: “I don’t know them.”

He Sui didn’t mean that, but he didn’t immediately explain.

He noticed that whenever Black Blob stood in front of him, he would invariably stare.

The young man’s eyes were pure and dark, beautiful to the point of being soul-snatching. Every time he stared, they sparkled, as if looking at his most beloved thing.

He Sui met those eyes for a moment, then suddenly placed a hand on Xu Xiye’s shoulder and turned him around so he faced the washroom.

Xu Xiye: “?”

He wanted to turn back, dissatisfied, but his shoulder was held firmly.

“Don’t move,” He Sui’s tone was serious. “Didn’t you want to catch those things? Then give this a try.”

“Let them know you’re here.”

“Oh.” Xu Xiye opened his mouth, wanting to shout. He Sui squeezed his shoulder, stopping him.

“Not by shouting with your mouth.”

“Then how should I shout?”

“Mental Energy. Your aura. Anything. Don’t hold yourself back. Release it outwards.”

Xu Xiye understood this. When crawling in the night, if he didn’t want people to find him, he could hide himself completely.

He understood the principle, but Xu Xiye did nothing.

He Sui: “What is it?”

Xu Xiye: “I need to take off my human form.”

He Sui: “Try it just like this.”

Last time, during the downpour at the villa, while He Sui and Xu Xiye were fighting, several other Aberrations had besieged them. But a short while later, those Aberrations had all dispersed at once.

He Sui had sensed something odd at the time—as if some kind of signal had been transmitted. But being an outsider who wasn’t a proper local, he couldn’t clearly identify what that signal meant.

From suddenly being besieged to being delivered as a gift to him, He Sui was certain it was connected to Black Blob.

He hadn’t specifically asked anyone to do that. But he might have unintentionally broadcast information that he wanted him.

That was his speculation.

“Can you do it?” He Sui asked.

Xu Xiye: “I can.”

“Good,” He Sui stepped back several paces. “Try it. Let’s see if those crazy people you mentioned also like you.”