The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 3: System

Pain.

It was so very painful.

All there was other than pain was a deep, bottomless fear. I’m going to die, Gao Yang thought. I’ll die soon. What will it feel like? It won’t be the same as transmigration. I’ll be erased from all worlds. Even this thought, this fear of mine will be gone.

No!

He refused to die!

Gao Yang opened the eye that was being squeezed by tentacles with all he had. There was something hovering over it.

It was a translucent hexagram with a faint golden glow. It rotated quietly, like it was waiting for someone to touch it.

Gao Yang didn't know what it was, but his instinct told him that it was the one thing he could do to cling onto his life before death claimed him.

He struggled the hardest he could to lift his left hand, reaching for the hexagram in the air.

Almost...he was almost there.

“Ah!” Then overwhelming pain drained him of any strength, and his left arm dropped.

“Is this what a human is? Your blood, your taste...” Excitement colored Li Weiwei’s voice with what sounded like arousal. “So good! It’s so good!”

Gao Yang’s head was like an uncooked egg in her hand. If she applied even a little pressure, it would explode.

She didn’t want to break him just yet. With all the self-control she could muster, she kept her grip just short of breaking the head of her prey. She wanted to enjoy the fear and desperation of a human struggling to survive to the fullest.

Those emotions were too precious to not savor.

She may never have another feast like this in her lifetime.

Finally, the climax was about to come. Li Weiwei shuddered violently with anticipation. “What a good boy you are, Gao Yang. I like you... I love you...”

“I want you!”

“Give it to me. Give me everything!”

The vice-like grip of the tentacles loosened for a split second. She was getting ready to apply greater force.

Seizing the fleeting opening, Gao Yang lifted his hand and finally reached the hexagram with his middle finger.

[Beep—]

[System activating.]

[Loading user information...]

[Loading complete.]

[Name: Gao Yang. Age: 18.]

[Sex: Male. Species: Human.]

[Status: Awakened.]

[Talent: Lucky. Serial Number: 199. Rune Type: Miracle.]

—Are you my system? Or a cheat? Forget it! I’m using my Talent!

Gao Yang couldn’t talk, but the system recognized his inner voice.

[Lucky is a passive Talent. It cannot be used.]

—Then what good are you?! I’m dying! Help me! Somebody!

[Access ends. System hidden.]

[Beep—]

The system was gone.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. The hexagram had vanished. Gao Yang wasn’t able to do anything. Frustration rose in his chest, but there was no hope for him.

He closed his eyes and waited for death.

...

Strange. Why am I still alive? Why is the pain fading? Why are the tentacles crushing my head growing weak?

Splash. The tentacles went slack and retracted back into Li Weiwei’s arm.

Freed from the suffocation and pain, Gao Yang fell onto the ground and held his neck, coughing his lungs out. “Ack... Cough, cough!!”

Still coughing, he looked up.

Li Weiwei’s arms had gone back to normal. There was a look of befuddlement on her face, and her widened eyes brimmed with tears. “Why...why...”

Gao Yang’s gaze shifted from her face to her chest. There was a patch of crimson red.

Li Weiwei’s eyes lingered on Gao Yang with unfulfilled want. She even reached out to him as she said, “You...are mine...mine...”

Swoosh! A long, thin Tang Dao[1] penetrated through Li Weiwei’s heart from her back. She curled up like a fish being harpooned.

“Move,” a voice said from behind Li Weiwei.

Still trembling, Gao Yang picked himself up. He finally got a clear look and realized that Qing Ling was standing behind Li Weiwei. With both her hands holding onto the hilt of her blade, Qing Ling maintained the posture she had made a thrust with, her body slightly lowered.

“Qing Ling? Why...are you here?”

“Move!” Qing Ling repeated icily.

Gao Yang hurried to take a step back. “Okay...”

“Stand behind me,” said Qing Ling.

Gao Yang did as she said.

With a swift move, Qing Ling pulled out her blade. Blood gushed out from Li Weiwei’s chest and splattered all over the road before her, leaving a scattering of red stains.

It was all Gao Yang could do to stop himself from throwing up. Then he noticed that Qing Ling’s weapon was still pristine silver with nary a drop of blood.

Qing Ling held the black hilt of her weapon with one hand and rested the forefinger of her other hand on the tip of the blade. Then she glided her finger along the blade, and the 150-centimeter long Tang Dao vanished into thin air as if it had been tucked into a subspace.

Gao Yang gaped.

A magic trick? Or actual magic? Or was it a superpower?

Without sparing Gao Yang a look, Qing Ling said, “Don’t ask any question. Go home, now. I’ve destroyed the surveillance cameras in this area. What happened here doesn’t concern you at all.”

“But...”

“You know nothing. Say it.” Qing Ling’s gaze was as sharp as her blade.

“I...know nothing.”

“Again.”

“I know nothing.”

“Again.”

“I know nothing.”

“Good.” With an elegant jump, Qing Ling landed on the two-meter tall wall and disappeared into the night.

...

With darkness as cover, Gao Yang hurriedly escaped from the nightmarish scene and ran home without stopping.

His parents had gone to bed, leaving only his little sister using her phone on the couch. She jumped when she saw Gao Yang in the entryway with a scattering of cuts on his face.

“Whoa, what happened to your ugly mug?!”

“Hm? Ah...” Gao Yang was so eager to come home that he forgot there were wounds on his face.

“Oh, I got it!” His sister came to a realization on her own. “You’re cosplaying a zombie!”

“Right...that’s right!” Gao Yang played along. “That’s special effects makeup for you. Looks like the real deal, right?”

“It does! Like a real zombie!” His sister snickered.

This girl... He could never tell if she meant what she said.

Forget it. Everything was so sudden and unbelievable that Gao Yang was still reeling from the shock. He had enough on his plate already. First thing first, he would be in even more trouble if his parents woke up and saw him in this state.

Rummaging through the cupboards in the living room, Gao Yang found a first-aid kit and ran to his bedroom with it.

Once he shut the door, he took some time to compose himself before taking out a bottle of antiseptics and some cotton swabs to disinfect the wounds on his face. He covered them with bandaids afterward. Then he disinfected the wounds on his arm and wrapped it with gauze. The process left him wincing in pain and his forehead covered in sweat.

With his wounds all patched up, Gao Yang lay prone on his bed, exhausted.

Fear and shock left no room for sorrow in his heart. Everything that happened tonight felt so surreal to him.

Li Weiwei...she was the childhood friend he had known and spent time with for more than a decade. They trusted each other and had no secret between them. How could she have suddenly turned into a monster that ate people?!

Gao Yang would rather think that the real Li Weiwei had been eaten and replaced by a monster. Like the Big Bad Wolf that ate and impersonated the grandmother in Red Riding Hood.

But was that really the case?

Why would the monster talk like she was Li Weiwei, like she was merely another personality of hers?

There were too many questions without answers.

My wounds are throbbing. Have I been infected? Am I going to turn into a men-eating monster like her by tomorrow morning?

Gao Yang couldn’t calm himself down.

Without him realizing it, the hexagram had appeared again, hovering quietly in the air.

Gao Yang sat up and touched it.

[Beep—]

[Access granted.]

[Congratulations! You have survived for 3 hours!]

—Congratulations?! I almost died!

[You have acquired 3 Luck points.]

—What?

[Talent: Lucky. Serial Number: 199. Rune Type: Miracle.]

[Effect: Those who possess the Talent acquire 1 Luck point for every 60 minutes they survive.]

—Is that so? What can Luck points be used for?

[The Status Screen displays your stats. You may permanently increase any of your stats with Luck points.]

—Open Status Screen.

[Constitution: 10 Endurance: 10]

[Strength: 10 Agility: 10]

[Willpower: 10 Charisma: 10]

[Luck: 0]

...

Gao Yang spent some time looking over his stats. As a gamer, he knew the six major stats were likely to correspond to hit points, defense, attack, speed, magic, and control. As for Luck, it was probably related to his chance of evasion or acquiring equipment.

He only had 3 Luck points, which wouldn’t do much for any of his stats. Gao Yang looked back at the glaring zero among the numbers.

[Luck: 0]

—Luck? My Talent is Lucky, isn’t it? What’s the difference?

[Lucky is your Talent. Luck is your stat.]

—You’re not helping.

—Lucky doesn’t seem all that useful. Can I exchange it for something else?

[No.]

—Show me the list of Talents. I’d like to take a look.

In an instant, a dense list of text was displayed to Gao Yang.

He spotted the serial number 199 at the top of the list immediately. That was his Talent, Lucky. However, the name and description of serial number 198 to 1 were all hidden from him.

—Why can’t I see anything?

[The system cannot display information you have not acquired.]

—You really are useless! You’re nothing like the systems in those webnovels.

Knock, knock. Someone knocked on his window.

[Access ends. System hidden.]

[Beep—]

Gao Yang sat up hurriedly. The system had become hidden automatically.

An uninvited visitor opened the window and jumped into his room with practiced ease.

It was Qing Ling. She was dressed in the running shorts and t-shirt she wore when training. Under the moonlight, her long limbs were as fair as the finest jade.

Quickly kicking off her sneakers, she untied her ponytail with one hand. Her long black hair ran down her shoulders and covered her voluptuous breast.

“You...” Gao Yang was just about to say something.

Qing Ling gracefully jumped onto his bed and stepped on his chest with her bare feet, pinning him back onto the mattress. “I’ll ask the question. You’ll answer.”

“Understood...”

“Are you into men or women?”

“Wo-Women.”

“Okay.” Qing Ling lifted her t-shirt with her arms crossed and pulled it off her head. “Come on.”

1. Tang Dao is a Chinese Saber with a single-edged blade and a double-edged tip. It was widely used in the military in the Tang Dynasty, hence the name. ?