Work Text:
Alternative title :
心静自然凉
The breaks of the train screeched, and as the machine came to a halt, its structure grumbled in a deep steamy roar. A common and homely man had, for an instant, the unsettling feeling of sitting inside the stomach of a beast. Not for much longer, though; he got up and struggled with the train door before he managed to get out, as if it had tried to keep him inside until it finally surrendered.
The station was empty, not even the train attendant had made the effort of standing outside for a single second. The platforms, the buildings, the train rigs sitting here and there on unused railway segments were all bleak, devoid of any soul, as if suspended in time. The overcast sky blurred the lines between light and shadow. The station signaled “安思 | Ansi”, Peaceful Thoughts. Some had jokingly painted “暗死 | Ansi”, Gloomy Death , over several boards. The man found that to be a bit on the nose, but proceeded.
He headed towards the only door of the station that wasn't barred or forbidden of access, and entered the main hall. He'd been expecting the place to be left abandoned, like the rest of the station, but he was surprised to see a clerk sitting behind a desk, and what could only be a homeless woman sleeping in a corner.
"Hi, excuse me. Is there a recommendable hotel close to the station?" He came up to the station worker and offered a stiff, cordial smile, but there was no reaction. He asked again, and the woman sighed, looked up : “I heard you the first time," to then go back to whatever she was busy with. The man was about to speak again when she finally answered :
"I'm not a travel guide."
"...Surely. Where can I find a travel agency, then?"
"In Ansi?" She raised an eyebrow, seemingly questioning his intelligence. "Nowhere," she concluded.
The man felt a bit clueless; he would have to rely on his remarkable observation skills to find one himself.
His capabilities didn't prove to be useful at all, since as soon as he got out, a big "HOTEL" sign greeted him down the road ahead.
While short and uneventful, the way towards the hotel felt unsettling. Concrete, grey bricks, still and lifeless. Any sign of passing time amounted to ugly decay. There was only one open bookstore, from which grew a line of people, all seemingly lost in thoughts, some looking at their feet, most of them middle aged or older.
He had first wondered why going to Ansi was such a hassle, and why there were only 4 trains a day stopping there. He sighed, entered the hotel, expecting an interaction as unpleasant as the one he got in the station. Instead, he managed to smoothly get a room and go settle.
His stay in Ansi would probably last a few days, so he packed lightly but efficiently: some clothes, a few burner phones, snacks, and some additional faces.
He sent a message to Duan Pengju, his second in command: I'm in Ansi; just to make sure he knew.
One seasoned commander of Tian Chuang wouldn't, as a peerless spy and master of disguise, be fearful of Ansi's somber reputation: an inky spot on the map, a city that was more akin to a bottomless pit swallowing whole anyone who dared cross its bounds; but one wouldn't let his guard down either, as the city upheld its promises: seldom would anyone come back from it.
And yet, somehow, an unruly subordinate, Song Ji, had stepped foot in this cursed place. He was to be found and interrogated for some due explanations. His commander had come in person to make sure that the matter was handled properly. One didn’t escape Tian Chuang’s surveillance without consequences.
The man tailing Song Ji had come a long way, having first looked for him in the stale city of Waren, where he was last seen in service. He had been in charge of their Dream Stupor dealing market in the area, until he wasn't anymore. The main lead had pointed towards Ansi, but only vaguely so. Where in Ansi, and why, had yet to be figured out.
And so, the man started searching, inquiring. Tian Chuang's presence in the area was feeble, and the spy had no intel to rely on except the one he could gather by himself… which proved to be a rather difficult task in Ansi.
The people didn’t really speak. Or rather, they spoke about the most superfluous things. A good agent knew to decypher meaning from vapidity, but here, there was nothing but emptiness.
The first vaguely conclusive lead came from a strange fellow who greeted him with "Hello again," from the first time their paths crossed. His interest piqued, the spy asked some questions, which were all skillfully deflected, until the man gave him an advice: "You shouldn't wander so late at night. There are monsters lurking."
Night barely distinguished itself from day: the sky was always grey, the clouds heavy, the light mostly never changing. The man could only rely on his phone to know what time it was.
At night came no monsters. Once he grew tired of roaming the streets, looking at nothing but lifeless buildings and dazed, mute pedestrians, the man went back to his hotel and attempted to sleep. He mostly thought about Song Ji.
His first assumption was that he might have betrayed them; and for some reason slipped under the radar. But if his lead was correct, and that he was indeed in Ansi, that suspicion made no sense. What opponent, or rather what possible ally could he have come to associate with here?
A buzzing sound woke him up. He checked the time, it was early in the morning. He tried to find the origin of the buzzing, but it was too faint to properly trace, and seemed to travel around the space of the room.
He gave up and went outside, to gather more information, or at least attempt to.
After several, unfruitful hours, he texted Duan Pengju again. I need confirmation that he's really here.
We already got it. He’s there. Duan Pengju texted back. The man groaned.
Do you know where exactly, then?
No.
Sighing deeply, the man put the phone back in his pocket, and got out.
Although the man was now in the streets, the buzzing sound grew stronger.
He grabbed a newspaper racked in front of the sole library in town. While searching for interesting articles, he noticed an old woman standing by, looking at him. As he was about to speak, she asked: “Do you know why there are so many disappearances in Ansi?"
"No."
She brought up a meaningless anecdote. He heard other, similar stories, when sitting down at cafés and bars in order to try chatting with the locals. They barely spoke, but when they did, they either mentioned that someone died, that some other had been found dead or tortured, or that there was indeed a man-eating monster lurking around. Soon enough, the wanderer understood why, most of the time, they simply refrained from speaking.
The man attempted to follow other leads, based on the most believable rumors, but they mostly lead nowhere.
When back at the hotel, the man noticed that the buzzing was now accompanied by irregular scratching. In spite of his great ability to bear most hindrances, he tried asking for another room. He was met with sorry eyes : “Unfortunately, this will happen again. We have many rooms that are now out of service…” The clerk apologised some more, and the customer finally gave up and went back to his room to write a bit about what he’d heard until he fell asleep on his notes.
Ansi started exceeding his expectations the following days.
He was recommended the mall to buy some food, as one morning he found the snacks he'd brought along covered in maggots. The mall was an empty wasteland, a sad microcosm in the middle of the city, reeking with the stench of sewage and surrounded by clumps of rat poison. The food he bought there looked bad, tastes bad, and started rotting after a few hours.
The next day, as he was about to grab his phone from the desk, he found the black plastic of the furniture to look oddly grayish and oddly fuzzy. Looking closer, he saw thousands of tiny white acarids moving around. He took a step back and looked around, feeling suddenly a bit helpless; the walls were covered as well.
He was offered another room, and the clerk declared that this room was out of service. He also warned the man that, just like the scratching and buzzing, this would probably happen again.
He’d been in Ansi for seven days now. Although he remained composed, the man was slowly developing a chronic feeling of uneasiness in his own body, as if his clothing were inhabited by uninvited guests. His eyes were now trained to spot any movements of insects, always leaving him with the eerie sensation of feeling them on his skin.
Two days prior, the stench had settled permanently. Even though his brain did the trick of partially getting used to it, the man was still left with a lingering nausea that wouldn't go away. He had enough self-restraint not to vomit every now and then, but he did feel that sickness was slightly eating at his strength.
He was standing in front of black and brown rotting vegetables at the market when he decided to follow the man-eating monster's lead. Should the monster not come to him, he would have to find it himself. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the putrid, decomposing flesh of the cabbage, and figured that should he touch it, half of it would remain glued to his hand.
No wonder someone would be eating humans; they seemed to be the only supply of meat that wasn't already eaten away by teeming worms and bacteria.
And so, he traced, following any clue possible, which lead him to neighborhoods that he somehow hadn't visited before; or had he? Most streets, most buildings looked alike—their only distinguishable features would be how worn out the bricks were, or how much trash was left out on the front porch or backyard.
Soon enough, he circled back closer to the station, after he'd dived into what could only be open-air sewers disguised as residential neighborhoods. It seemed like locals weren't really preyed on by the monster; they were more likely to die from old age or, occasionally, killed by another. The man guessed that food poisoning was probably another prevalent cause of death.
Many travelers such as himself, though, didn't manage to stray too far from the station, especially when they attempted to leave. Those who arrived at night never made it far—that seemingly included Song Ji.
He'd studied surveillance footage multiple times already, but this time he paid more attention to the direction late night visitors would go towards, and the man finally recognised a somewhat familiar silhouette. The face was new, the clothing also, but the demeanor was very close to Song Ji's.
The spy damned his own lack of belief in legend and stories; for it appeared that clearly, the man-eating monster had become the most conclusive lead so far.
It didn't explain why Song Ji has come to Ansi, but at least, he was growing closer to finding out whether or not he was still alive.
The night was darker than the previous ones. In the distance, warm lights drew colorful patches in the sky, curiously contrasting with the absolute lack of nightlife in Ansi. Where these lights came from, he had no clue.
He ddidn't have time to reflect on it much longer, as he carefully entered what he assumed was the monster’s lair. The streets somehow reeked more, and there were small, nearly imperceptible signs of past violence scattered all over; a shift in the air, in the colours, in the nature of stains on the walls. Ansi exuded with rot and decay, opposite to the place’s soothing smell of iron and roasted flesh. The spy let out a sigh he didn't know he held since he'd arrived in town.
He made himself invisible; he knew he was no prey for the man-eating monster, only himself a hunter chasing for information.
He passed by the remains of a shop, seemingly broken in. It was empty, except for some rubble and neatly arranged piles of clean bones. The monster was seemingly tidy?
Further down the area, the air got denser, warmer, almost inviting; for a brief instant, it felt like being invited to a barbecue party. Finally, the man heard something else than the constant, faint buzzing of Ansi. Tools, sizzling, fire.
There was a portable stove lit in the middle of an unlit street; there was fog and smoke, two bodies on the ground, and a thing dismembering them, its back to the observer. Its limbs were like a human’s, but just too long, almost disproportionally so, to really be human. The thing moved around to get its spider-like hands on a metal tool, displaying a pair of crane-like, stiff legs, their silhouette neatly cut out by the light emitted from the stove.
It finished its business and laid pieces of human meat on the stove, sitting by it, lonely. A noise coming from behind caught its attention, and without the faintest hint of fright or nervousness, it turned around to look. The face was also close to human, only its eyes were a black so deep it absorbed all light. His mouth was sharper, built and angled in a way best suited to devour a man. Its elegant hooked nose was a nice compliment, an artistic touch to its unsettling visage.
After a glance to the meat, it got up and came forward to check if there was anything there, looming in the dark. As it got closer and peeked around the corner, both its humanity and inhumanity grew more distinguishable; its expressions, its skin, its hair and styling were those of a human, but the rhythm and angles of its gestures somehow weren't. It looked around, saw nothing, but stared for a second in the direction where someone should have been.
The man hesitated, until he didn't anymore, certain that he was out of reach of the monster’s limbs.
“I’m looking for someone. Mind if I check around to see if you haven’t gotten your hands on him already?”
The monster looked up, its lips twitched. Its eyes locked on the man sitting on a window sill. “Hello to you, too.” Its voice was like honey to the man’s ear, deep, suave, pleasant. The hint of a cavernous echo barely gave it away. “You can surely look around. I store my supper’s belongings in the house over there.” The thing grinned, pointing its wand-like finger at an ugly, rotten house further down the street.
The man got down from his window sill, landing without a sound in front of the tall, bird-like creature. Without another word, he nodded, and moved towards the designated house. He could feel the monster’s eyes on his back, lingering a bit too long, but there was no trace of a dangerous intent. Hungry, maybe, but not murderous.
The spy master checked around for Song Ji’s clothing, or maybe his tools. There was nothing that could have remotely belonged to him; and if so, his former boss had to question how well he knew his subordinates.
The crane-like man peeked from outside. “Find anything?” He asks softly.
“No.” The man grunted. While he was relieved to see that Song Ji had not been sordidly eaten—yet—he was also annoyed that he had spent so much time on yet another dead end.
“Care to join me for dinner, then?”
"I don't eat people." The man said, still looking around, mostly fascinated by the tidiness of the place; clothes were folded, jewelry, hats, caps, grouped together. Barely any blood stains.
"You don't have to eat. Just keep me company; I don't have much of that here. Company who can properly speak, at least." The crane-man said, moving around a bit, still behind.
"Sure." The other man answered.
They sat around the stove while the monster was carefully cutting its meat and eating from its plate. If it wasn't for the human remains surrounding them and the amount of blood remaining on the gruesome butcher tools laying around, it would almost seem refined. In spite of its endless limbs, its movements were careful, sophisticated.
"My name is Wen Kexing. What is yours?"
"Zhou Xu. What are you doing here, Wen Kexing? If you look for better company, surely you wouldn't stay in Ansi."
Zhou Xu felt a hint of genuine interest for this weird creature who didn't seem to fit in the gloom of the city.
"I was lured here. Now I can't get out. I don’t know for how long I’ve been trapped in this place… Why are you smiling, Zhou Xu?"
"I found you through rumors from people afraid of you, from legends of a terrifying monster luring humans and eating them alive. Instead, I now hear you’re the one who was lured and trapped. That’s interesting."
"You got them to speak this much about me?"
"I probably just got lucky.”
Wen Kexing was silent for a moment, then resumed eating. He was the one to break the silence after a few bites:
“So you were looking for me, because you thought I might have eaten someone in particular. That means you deliberately came to Ansi to search for him."
"I take that it is obvious that I'm not from Ansi?”
Wen Kexing shot Zhou Xu his most incredulous look.
“You don’t smell like rot or mold. You don’t seem like your brain was eaten away by worms. You can’t have been here for long.”
Zhou Xu simply smiled before changing the subject. “Why are you eating people? I never really heard of any man-eating monster in the area before."
"Have you tried the food here? Everything’s decaying, the taste is unbearable, even worse than what I am used to."
"Aren’t the people also decaying?"
"Slower. Some lost souls even smell fresh. Most locals are unedible, for sure."
"I see. What do you think would bring a man here?"
"Either a trap, or madness."
"Nothing else?
"Not that I can think of.”
Zhou Xu pondered. Was Song Ji trapped here? By whom? Was someone after whatever information Tian Chuang could possess? But who exactly would lure him in such a place? So far, Ansi had seemed sadly empty of any sentient menace, aside from Wen Kexing.
“What does your guy look like?"
"…Like someone badly disguised, probably."
"Hm. Unlike you then. Your own disguise is remarkable."
"I’m not disguised.” Zhou Xu didn’t flinch, but he tensed internally.
"Zhou Xu… That bland, forgettable face of yours… it doesn’t match your lovely bone structure.” A long smile stretched Wen Kexing’s lips, the faintest light gleamed in his eyes. Zhou Xu felt a slight shiver in his arms and shoulders.
"Interested in my bones, are you? Do you plan on seeing them up close?"
"Directly through your skin would be wonderful already.”
Wen Kexing kept eating casually, but his eyes were firmly planted in Zhou Xu’s, unwavering. Zhou Xu sustained his gaze, growing increasingly curious of the man facing him; and also slightly annoyed. He wasn't there to flirt.
“Back to my guy, shall we. Does he ring a bell?"
"No. Either I didn’t pay attention, or our path didn’t cross. Are you sure he’s even in Ansi?"
"That was my best lead."
"Hm…Well… I could maybe help you find him. I can easily differentiate a newcomer from a resident."
"From smell, right? You’d be like my dog.”
They both chuckled.
'Right. My sense of smell is next to infallible. I would have said it absolutely was, before I met you, though. You’re… remarkably untraceable."
"I was blessed with being remarkably dull.” Zhou Xu smirked. Wen Kexing snorted.
"Sure. Dull, you say. Anyway. I can help you find him, if you show me your real face.”
Zhou Xu considered. “If we find him, maybe.”
When he was about to leave, he thought of his hotel room, and how it would probably be filled with bugs again. Perhaps it would be better to simply go fetch his stuff and never go back.
And so that's what Zhou Xu did, and after he skipped yet another meal; despite Wen Kexing's offer to share his, they started looking for Song Ji.
Wen Kexing's sense of smell was indeed outstanding. They found a good number of "fresh meat", whether dead or alive, very often in stupor, none of them Song Ji, yet.
Interrestingly enough, many of them were partially chewed off, sometimes showing signs of wicked torture. "I thought you were the resident man-eating monster." Zhou Xu threw at Wen Kexing, while they were inspecting yet another half-eaten body, still alive but mute, staring wide-eyed into nothingness.
Somehow, this was yet another thing he had missed during his first investigation. Maybe because he had barely broken into any house, still trying to blend in and remain stealthy.
Since he'd started working with Wen Kexing, however, they had trespassed a good amount of private properties, and had witnessed similar scenes in a ridiculous proportion.
"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if noone around here liked the rotten meat and molding vegetables they sell at the market. It figures that they would all feed from what they can."
Zhou Xu wondered why he hadn't been preyed upon yet. Had he been, unbeknownst to him? He threw a glance at Wen Kexing.
Was he, at this very moment?
"You know, it's interesting, A-Xu." Zhou Xu slightly flinched at the use of such a cute nickname. "Most of them are really… fresh. As in, they must not have been there for more than a few days. Yet you remain unscratched, unattained. Truly, you are remarkable."
"Probably yet another feat of my blandness. The local predators don't even notice me."
The houses they visited were all in a state of more or less advanced decay. The buzzing, the scratching, the stench had all reached a peak, loud and suffocating, not tied to any specific location.
Wen Kexing lead them to yet another sad, gray building.
"Wen Kexing," Zhou Xu asked, "does it smell worse now than when you arrived?"
They opened the door, sending a pack of acarids to run around in panick. A gush of smelly air escaped, leaving the way open to enter.
"It has. I can't really say I've gotten used to it, though. It's always worsening, one way or another." Wen Kexing snorted.
Chances were, Zhou Xu wouldn't even have noticed the bodies when he first searched, should he have broken in back then.
The inside of the house was appalling. Part of the furniture have been chewed on, pieces of half-eaten dishes littered tables, chairs, and there was even a mattress oddly standing on its side in the middle of the living room. Mixed with the usual rotten stench floated a faint scent of chemicals, maybe due to walls being torn open and isolation material spilling allover.
"This place is grotesque." Zhou Xu muttered, mildly disgusted.
"That's how everything is here. It just doesn’t look that bad in the beginning." Wen Kexing shrugged, still sniffing, his face scrunching everytime.
"Down there." He indicated a staircase leading down. Zhou Xu watched him creep down, his lanky members oddly dancing as he moved. Zhou Xu wondered, again, if perhaps he was being lured.
The staircase was drenched in ugly water stains, mixed with black clumps of deeply-seated mold. Insects were coming in and out, and it reeked of stale, contaminated water.
Lonely, sitting in a corner of the cellar, a man, his face aghast, his wide, blood injected eyes fixed on the empty ceiling above him.
Zhou Xu recognized the face he saw on the surveillance footage. He recognized the clothing.
"Song Ji." Zhou Xu's voice resonated like an order.
The man barely reacted, merely a jolt in his shoulders. He had his arms wrapped around his knees, and Zhou Xu noticed how bad the flesh of his hands looked; missing bits, bloated in some areas, most fingernails were gone. His clothes were also eaten away, seemingly by acid, and bloody in some places.
Zhou Xu got closer, Wen Kexing stayed back, scanning the environment. Nothing, apart from Song Ji, stood out.
Zhou Xu noticed how tears, blood and puss were oozing from beneath his inelegant, unconvincing mask, staining his shirt; like he had started rotting. "Song Ji."
Still no proper reaction, a slight twitch in the face, a whispery whine. Zhou Xu motioned to kneel as to reach his height—
And then he noticed. It was slight; as soon as he began bending down, there was a shift in the brick wall next to them. He stopped—dipped lower. The lower he got, the more he could distinguish a fleshy stripe settled within the brick wall, coursed by frequent shivers.
Once he was at Song Ji's level, he looked up. A flat, canneled envelope of skin was pressed against the wall, coming from within. It had two long, wrinkly, seemingly disjointed arms which were clinging to the bricks. Stuck to the ceiling, as if trying to make itself as discreet as possible, in spite of its colossal size, a big head, with no mouth nor nose, only two big, puffy holes, and a toothy crown on top.
Zhou Xu, for the first time since he'd arrived, felt really uneasy, and swallowed. The thing on the wall shifted a little, still shivering.
"...A-Xu. What is it?" Wen Kexing inquired.
"Lao Wen…" Zhou Xu muttered. "Crouch, and tell me if you see it too." And so Wen Kexing crouched down, bending his impossibly long legs, and reluctantly clawed at the floor for balance.
"I see it."
"What the fuck is that?"
"I don't know."
Zhou Xu's hand moved to reach his waist, and immediately the worm-like creature slivered backwards, cramping itself into a corner. It brought its tiny hands close to its chest, giving itself the airs of a frightened child. Zhou Xu couldn't help but roll his eyes. He turned towards Song Ji, whose eyes were still glued to the thing.
"Song Ji. We have to go." Zhou Xu shook his shoulder, and Song Ji let out a small shriek at that: "No!! I- I can't!!
"Song Ji, that's an order."
"I can't look away!"
"I doubt you can't."
Zhou Xu grabbed his face and forced him to look his way, until Song Ji could no longer look at the thing. Immediately, the creature shuffled and disappeared, slipping inside the brick wall.
"What the hell was that?" Zhou Xu asked, slightly louder than usual. He could hardly hide his nervosity. "Song Ji, get up, we're leaving." He pulled up a moaning, shivering Song Ji, who had his eyes now anchored to the staircase. Zhou Xu and Wen Kexing looked behind; the worm was there, part of its body erected to stand in the way, its head angled against the upper part of the frame. It shifted slightly, uncertain.
Zhou Xu groaned, impatient, taken aback. He wasn't used to such unfamiliarity.
"Song Ji, look away." His subordinate shook his head without looking away. Zhou Xu exchanged an annoyed look with Wen Kexing. "Look away." He ordered again, still to no effect. He grabbed Song Ji's head and forced him to look down; when the creature still didn't budge, Zhou Xu and Wen Kexing both looked away in sync, and the worm surged forward.
The two men, carrying Song Ji by the armpits, jumped over the worm's thick head and ran up the stairs, one dashing skillfully, the other extending his four limbs one after the other to crawl out like a spider. They stepped on the worm's flat body, which was laid down like a carpet under their feet. The thing screeched and wiggled, and once they reached the living room, which now seemed even more rotten than when they had arrived, Zhou Xu turned around and forced Song Ji's eyes on the big headed worm.
Song Ji panted, out of breath despite not having moved a muscle. Wen Kexing and Zhou Xu carefully stepped back, bumping into inconveniently placed furniture, now devoured by mites.
"Are we supposed to just keep looking at it until we find a way out of the city?" Wen Kexing asked with a grimace. Something crunched under his foot and the creature sobbed.
"How long would that take?"
"I've been trying for months already."
Zhou Xu sighed. "Let's first see if it follows us out of the house."
They slowly made their way out of the house, the worm still weeping every time they stepped on its body, which, Zhou Xu noticed, was coursing along the stairs leading to the upper floor. Zhou Xu cringed, but remained calm.
They finally reached the streets, a trembling, sobbing Song Ji in their arms. In the gray, even light of the outside, Zhou Xu noted how ravaged Song Ji's body was. The worm stayed inside the house, the bloated flesh surrounding the holes in its head crumpled down, giving it a sad, desperate look. These weren't even eyes, and yet.
They were now fifty meters away from the house, yet the worm still didn't follow. Zhou Xu forced Song Ji's head down, looked away himself. Then, the worm crept back in its house.
Wen Kexing let out an obnoxious sigh. "Wheew, that was revoltingly ugly." Zhou Xu shrugged and shook Song Ji's body. "Come on, let's go."
"Where?" Wen Kexing asked.
"To the station."
"There are no trains leaving Ansi, A-Xu."
"We'll find something."
Not even a hint of doubt was perceptible in Zhou Xu's voice.
They moved on, Zhou Xu hurrying Song Ji to run a little. While they didn't reach a satisfying pace, they managed to at least trot towards their destination.
"Th- thaa- thank you for- for-" Song Ji attempted, now crying loudly. Zhou Xu clicked his tongue, but he was relieved to see his subordinate was still alive. He had a lot of questions. He briefly thought that maybe, should he himself have been munched on by this awful tapeworm, he could have ended in a similar state; and so he softened a bit—
until Song Ji shrieked in his ear. He tensed, looked at the man, and saw his face heavily distorted by pain.
“What?! What is it?!” Trembling, Song Ji looked down in erratic movements, and Zhou Xu followed his gaze. For a split second, he froze.
Song Ji’s left foot was plunged inside the worm’s fat head, its big teeth firmly planted in the flesh of his leg, blood gushing out and spilling on the beast. Song Ji was howling an endless stream of desperate cries. Zhou Xu’s hand went straight to his waist and he brandished his soft blade to slice the monster’s flat body; only the blade bounces off its scaly skin.
“That won’t do, A-Xu.” Wen Kexing jumped at the beast, grabbing its body with his huge hands and crunching it with his fingers, until he could close his fists entirely. Pained gargles came out of the mouth still firmly gripping Song Ji’s leg, the muffled sounds quickly turning into a strangled shrill as Wen Kexing tore the body in two, unleashing all of his strength to fight the resistant skin.
Once the head was severed from the tubular body, Wen Kexing dropped it with a groan. Zhou Xu, still a bit shocked, followed the pinkish line drawn by the body on the sidewalk. It went all the way back to the house, at least two hundred meters from their position. He gulped.
Wen Kexing’s hands were covered in stinky white lymph mixed with human blood, but he seemed unphased, only shaking them to get rid of the goo. Zhou Xu couldn't hold back a smirk:
“I’m surprised you would do something this messy, Lao Wen."
"Why so?” Wen Kexing raises an eyebrow.
"I pictured you as… more attached to cleanliness."
"I was only clean because I had nothing better to do.” Wen Kexing gave him a crooked, playful smile.
Zhou Xu turned his attention back to Song Ji, who was still lamenting. “Are you in pain?” he asked, kneeling to inspect the worm’s head still attached to his leg.
“I- I- I- am.”
Zhou Xu grabbed two of the thick teeth and tried extracting them from the man’s skin, but they didn't budge. “Some tough rigor mortis here.” He muttered. “Also, please calm down.” He asked firmly. It didn't seem to affect Song Ji that much, as he was still whining.
“Wen Kexing, help me pull on this.”
When his newfound partner didn't react, Zhou Xu looked up to see Wen Kexing’s perplexed look.
“I think we should get away, A-Xu.” Zhou Xu followed his gaze. Where the body had been torn in two, filaments of flesh were already regrowing.
“Shit!” Wen Kexing made sure to tear it again and they moved away from the spasming body. The movement made Song Ji scream louder.
“Song Ji, quiet.” A-Xu raised his voice slightly, but it was still mostly ineffective.
“A-Xu, it’s regrowing again!” Even as they were moving forward, a new, sleeve-like body was growing from the head at an alarming speed. As Wen Kexing ripped some of the new flesh, he caught a glimpse of a partly dissolved foot poking from the worm’s throat. “Your guy’s leg is being digested, A-Xu.” Zhou Xu grumbled; this thing was a real pain.
He kneeled again, trying some more at removing the stubborn head from Song Ji’s leg; as he pulled, the head suddenly spasmed and clawed up a few centimeters. Zhou Xu gasped.
"Fuck, it’s going up.” To which Song Ji yelled again.
“A-Xu, it’s growing faster than I can rip it off.”
Zhou Xu made the mistake of trying to remove the head again, and now, it had made its way above Song Ji’s knee.
Zhou Xu sighed and got up. “Lao Wen. You have tools to dismember a man, right? We have to remove the leg."
Song Ji violently shook his head : "No, no, no no no please!!"
"Song Ji look at me.” Zhou Xu firmly ordered. “You’re a professional, get a grip and stop weeping.”
Song Ji froze.
Zhou Xu turned towards Wen Kexing : “We remove the leg, we make sure Song Ji doesn’t look away from the thing, and we get out of here.”
Zhou Xu spoke as if he didn't even fear being stuck in An Si. As if it wasn't an option. Wen Kexing saw all colour leave Song Ji’s face as he laid his eyes on Zhou Xu. His jaw jolted, his muscles didn't show any trace of pain anymore.
“C-C-... Commander Zhou?” He choked. Zhou Xu looked at him, impassive. As Song Ji registered who the man in front of him was, his face slowly distorted, until it only reflected sheer horror and hopelessness.
Zhou Xu noticed the shift. “Agent Song,” He said, calmly. “Did you come here to escape?” Things started to make sense. What better place to go to than a city famous for its disappearances, when one tried to actually disappear? Now that he knew what Ansi was made of, it seemed incredibly foolish—but from a confident outsider’s perspective, it could seem reasonable.
Zhou Xu’s eyes darkened. “I thought you would be more responsible than that, Agent.” His voice was calm and even, but both Wen Kexing and Song Ji shivered—although for different reasons. Wen Kexing bent down to tear some more of the newly grown body of the worm, then immediately got up to keep watching the scene.
Song Ji’s face, still trapped inside its clumsy mask, was grotesquely contorted. He struggled to find words. “I-... I just…”
Zhou Xu sighed. “Lao Wen, can you go fetch your tools? So I can get both of you out of this place. I’ll manage the worm until you’re back."
"And then you’ll show me your face, right?” Wen Kexing hurriedly asked, betraying his excitement.
Zhou Xu didn't answer, still coldly looking at his subordinate. He barely shrugged.
“Please, Commander Zhou, not my leg, not my leg, please-” Song Ji cried in despair.
"Agent Song.” Zhou Xu interrupted, and with a placid face, he stated: “Don't worry. Your legs won’t be of any use, once you'll get the Nails.”
Wen Kexing wasn't sure what Zhou Xu was talking about. One last tear at the worm’s body before he left to go get his tools, smiling for himself. He was now certain that the face beneath the mask had to perfectly match his taste.
fin