Chapter 56: The Devil’s Sacrifice (06)
A cold scoff.
“Family doctor?”
Yuan Cang rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, Yuan Cang’s arm resting on his bent leg, his terrifying eyes fixed on the newcomer. Yuan Cang’s muscles were bulging, like a beast waiting to pounce.
“Who was it that said—” Yuan Cang mimicked Helan Duo’s tone, “—’I’m not the Yu family’s family doctor’?”
After his imitation, Yuan Cang raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm? Dr. Helan?”
Helan Duo’s smile didn’t change. Helan Duo took the ID tag hanging on his chest between two fingers, tapped it a few times, and when Helan Duo showed it again, it had become:
Apocalypse Cult
Name: Helan Duo
Position: Madam Yu’s Exclusive Family Doctor
(Note: Yuan Cang and dogs are not to be treated.)
Yuan Cang: “…”
Yuan Cang: “You’re so childish.”
Helan Duo: “To be called childish by an idiot is truly frustrating.”
—A childish squabble.
Yu Jiao was lying on her side on the bed, propping her head on her hand, and yawned.
Yu Jiao’s loose robes were half-off, and the thin, bloody lines on her exposed skin crisscrossed. A kind of borderline beauty, luring an unbearable wicked desire.
A light, cheerful alarm sounded at the right time.
Helan Duo feigned surprise and lifted his wrist. “It’s exactly eight o’clock.”
Helan Duo picked up his medical kit and, with his long legs, stepped over the blood vine on the floor. With a composed air, Helan Duo walked to the bed. Under Yuan Cang’s displeased gaze, Helan Duo looked at the disheveled Yu Jiao and smiled, as pure as the moon and the wind.
“It’s the routine prenatal check-up.”
Yuan Cang sneered. “Didn’t you already check her during the day?”
Helan Duo ignored Yuan Cang and explained to Yu Jiao in a gentle voice, “Because the Madam has been in direct contact with the glory of my God, as a mortal, she may have an aberration reaction.”
【Main Quest: Uncover the secrets hidden by the cult and survive (Progress: 5%)】
Yu Jiao said, unfazed, “Aberration?”
Helan Duo nodded and smiled. “Hmm, for example, her skin might fester all over, a third foot might grow on her head, her ears might turn into a grimace, and countless eyeballs might grow in her eye sockets… and the newborn might become a ghost child, things like that.”
Yu Jiao: “…”
It’s that dangerous, and you still want to send people into the coffin?
Yu Jiao pressed her temples. “How do I get checked?”
“First, I need to know what the Madam experienced in the coffin.”
Helan Duo lowered his eyes and looked at Yu Jiao quietly. Yuan Cang’s ears pricked up… In this strangely expectant atmosphere, Yu Jiao glanced at the blood vine on the floor and said in a simpering voice, “This kind of thing… how can I say it out loud?”
“…”
The tip of the vine moved slightly, as if it had formed a question mark.
Yuan Cang was sitting cross-legged, his chin on one hand, his demonic eyes fixed on Yu Jiao. Helan Duo had the AI butler pull up a chair for him. Helan Duo crossed his long legs and tilted his head slightly. “Oh?”
Yuan Cang and Helan Duo’s expressions were inscrutable, as if they were all ears.
Yu Jiao’s eyes darted away, and, as if in unease, she twisted a strand of her hair with her slender fingers.
“He told me not to tell anyone…” Yu Jiao’s hoarse voice was suggestive, leaving much to the imagination, the end of it lost in a rosy smile.
“It’s just a little bit of fun between a husband and wife.”
“…”
Helan Duo’s watery green eyes deepened. His back was straight, his posture elegant and leisurely, a faint smile on his lips. Helan Duo was like an adult, listening to a child’s babble with a mixture of interest and indifference.
Helan Duo clearly didn’t believe her.
Yuan Cang’s brain capacity didn’t allow him to think about whether it was true or not. Yuan Cang’s judgment was blocked at the first hurdle. At this moment, Yuan Cang was grinding his teeth in resentment—
“Hey! You just said my skills were much better than that old bastard’s! Now that you’re talking about him, why do you look so lovesick?”
Faced with Yuan Cang’s question, Yu Jiao blinked. “How do I check for aberration?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
Helan Duo changed his sitting position, putting a little distance between them, and brought the bickering two into his field of vision. Helan Duo’s gaze shifted, like a green silk net, constantly shrinking.
Helan Duo’s gloved fingers tapped his chin, and the smile on his lips deepened.
“It’s like this.”
Helan Duo spoke up, interrupting Yuan Cang’s shouting, and said to Yu Jiao in a gentle voice, “Although this person is hopelessly stupid, he is, after all, the Holy Son. His body is a holy vessel, handpicked by the former cult leader. It has a miraculous effect against pollution and can resist the aberration reaction.”
At this point, Helan Duo paused, his green eyes curving. “We can make use of this waste.”
A vein throbbed on Yuan Cang’s forehead, and his fists clenched. But after hearing the rest of the beast-in-human-form’s words, Yuan Cang’s expression grew strange.
Yuan Cang heard Helan Duo say, in a very serious tone:
“So, please let him use his holy body to help you purify the pollution.”
Yu Jiao: “…Purify with what?”
Helan Duo: “His body.”
Yuan Cang’s eyebrows shot up, and Yuan Cang shot a half-smiling glance at the blatant liar, Helan Duo.
Then, Yuan Cang spread his arms and said in a cheap voice, “Come! Mother, let me purify your filthy body.”
Yu Jiao: “…”
“First—”
Without giving Yu Jiao time to react, Helan Duo’s tone rose slightly. “Madam, please take off the clothes you brought from the coffin and lie flat on the bed.”
Their gazes met. After a long moment of staring.
The mysterious warnings flashed through Yu Jiao’s mind… like a well-intentioned attempt to help her avoid danger, or a reverse-psychology lure, or a harmless flirtation.
Yu Jiao grew more and more curious about what Helan Duo was up to. Yu Jiao decisively took off Yu Fenghe’s long robe. Her bare body sank into the soft bed, and Yu Jiao shot Helan Duo a thorny glare.
Helan Duo lowered his eyes and opened his medical kit, looking very professional as he made his preparations.
On the other side, Yuan Cang picked up the black robe with his long nails and, as if it were trash, threw it far away. The wide robe landed on the floor, just happening to cover the blood vine.
—Returned to its original owner.
Yu Jiao sneered inwardly.
The next moment, Yu Jiao met the dark eyes of the portrait of Yu Fenghe. It was like a deep, dark well.
Yu Jiao was instantly pulled into a no-man’s-land. In the emptiness, Yu Jiao saw Yu Fenghe’s pale, thin lips open and close, a cold warning:
“Leave here. Don’t cross the line.”
“…”
A crisp, pleasant collision sounded, like a holy, ethereal chant, instantly rescuing Yu Jiao from the strangeness and loss of control.
Yu Jiao closed her eyes, calming her racing heart.
—That dead ghost had just revealed his killing intent again.
“Madam, it’s about to begin.”
A clear, mellow voice sounded.
Yu Jiao opened her eyes and met Helan Duo’s curved, watery green eyes. Yu Jiao saw that he was holding a… bell?
As it swayed, a glistening, colorful light flashed, like water, like a gem, one layer on top of another, mysterious and strange. The sound it made was at a strange frequency, nimbly entering her ear and going deep into her brain.
“The Divine Sound Bell.”
Helan Duo shook the bell lightly and explained, “One of the holy relics.”
Then Helan Duo paused, his tone meaningful. “It can ward off evil spirits.”
Yu Jiao slowly frowned.
On one hand, there was Yu Fenghe’s warning. On the other, there was the mission progress, which was constantly rising with Helan Duo’s explanations and actions.
【…7%… 8%… 12%】
Yu Jiao looked up and made her decision. “Let’s begin.”
Helan Duo smiled and nodded. In a proper manner, Helan Duo suspended the Divine Sound Bell before Yu Jiao and shook it for a long while, then took out a jar. The powder inside, which was the same color as the bell, was shining with a strange luster through the glass.
The jar of unknown purpose was snatched away by Yuan Cang. Yuan Cang weighed it in his hand. The gloves of his tight combat suit were a perfect fit, covering his knuckles and muscles, with only his fingertips and sharp claws exposed.
Catching Yu Jiao’s gaze, Yuan Cang narrowed his eyes and smiled, looking very malicious.
With a flick of his wrist, the shining powder flowed out, like a river of stars, and fell, handful by handful, onto Yu Jiao’s bare body.
Yu Jiao’s glistening grey pupils constricted, and her breath caught.
An unexpected, burning pain, like a raging fire, spread, inch by inch, burning through her skin and into her soul.
Yu Jiao was like a miserable snail, thrown into a salt pot, every inch of her insides melting in torment.
Through her sweat and tears, Yu Jiao met a pair of cool, calm green eyes. Yu Jiao suddenly remembered Helan Duo’s words: aberration… her skin might fester all over… Yu Jiao subconsciously touched her body to check, but in the unbearable, burning pain, she scratched her once-flawless skin until it was covered in wounds.
In a daze, Yu Jiao heard a distant, divine sound, pulling her, bit by bit, into a fantasy of a divine kingdom.
“You’re courting death.”
A rough voice grumbled.
The owner of the voice, Yuan Cang, rolled over and pressed down on Yu Jiao, seizing her self-harming arms.
Strange.
Yuan Cang’s body temperature was clearly scorching hot, yet it felt solid and real, like a thick blanket, extinguishing the restless flames, calming the burning.
“It hurts…”
The dazed Yu Jiao, following this sense of security, pressed herself against Yuan Cang.
The powder slid off.
Yu Jiao’s body, covered in wounds, was brushed with a thin layer of a strange, deep, shining substance, like a holy statue of a goddess of war. Incredibly soft.
Yuan Cang froze.
Yuan Cang was straddling the bed, his knees on either side of Yu Jiao’s waist. Because of her soft pull, Yuan Cang’s back was slightly hunched, and his two terrifying claws were frozen in mid-air, like a fool.
“… .”
A head full of revenge plans, now like the glitter between them, was being ground and ground, until it was dizzy, hot, and sticky.
Yuan Cang didn’t know what to do.
So Yuan Cang looked at the third person, who was uninvolved. “Hey! She’s—”
“The hallucinogenic effect of the Divine Sound.”
Helan Duo smiled coolly, his high ponytail swaying with disdain. “Does your walnut-sized brain not even have room for that much knowledge?”
Before Yuan Cang could retort, Helan Duo’s tone changed. “She might be thinking of you as the teddy bear she used to hug to sleep when she was six, or the sex robot she used to masturbate with when she was sixteen.”
“…”
As if pleased by Yuan Cang’s wonderful expression, Helan Duo curved his eyes and slowly added:
“Or maybe the short-lived husband she turned against when she was twenty-six.”
A vein throbbed on Yuan Cang’s forehead.
Yuan Cang applied a little pressure and pulled away from the person in his arms. Yuan Cang lowered his head and, with a serious expression, confronted Yu Jiao.
Yuan Cang got nothing.
Yuan Cang couldn’t tell if Yu Jiao was six, sixteen, or twenty-six.
Helan Duo, while enjoying the show, urged, “Stop wasting time. I’m not cooperating with you with the Divine Sound Bell just so you can act out some stand-in literature.”
“Shut up.”
Yuan Cang’s figure paused. Yuan Cang shot Helan Duo a disgusted glare. “Don’t think I don’t know about your disgusting fetish.”
As Yuan Cang spoke, he peeled the clingy ‘plaster’ from his body and pressed Yu Jiao down on the bed.
Helan Duo was noncommittal. “You and I both know that Yu Fenghe won’t let this go—the effect of the Divine Sound Bell won’t last long. Hurry up.”
Yuan Cang was silent.
Almost as if he were facing a great enemy, Yuan Cang faced this soft, boneless woman.
Yuan Cang said in a heavy voice, “eleven.”
As his words fell, a few mechanical arms obediently appeared to take his orders.
“My apologies, Madam.”
The AI butler said in a slightly apologetic, electronic voice, “Forgive my offense.”
The mechanical arms gently restrained Yu Jiao’s restless limbs.
Yuan Cang slowly leaned down, his long, coppery-red hair falling, tickling Yu Jiao’s face.
Yu Jiao was oblivious to the danger, like a newborn lamb. Yu Jiao narrowed her eyes and, with the tip of her tongue, caught the annoying strands of hair and licked and chewed them.
Yu Jiao seemed to taste a certain sea-salty flavor.
It was unclear if it was because of the hair, which had been accidentally sprinkled with glitter, or the distant, conch-like, white-noise-like chanting in her ear.
“…”
The salty taste stimulated her taste buds. Yu Jiao caught a sliver of clarity and met a pair of eyes, close at hand.
Black sclera, white pupils.
Yuan Cang’s unusual eyes were fixed on Yu Jiao.
Or rather, on Yu Jiao’s unconsciously licking tongue.
Yuan Cang suddenly raised his hand and, with his sharp teeth, bit off the scales on his wrist, leaving only the black combat gloves that covered his knuckles and palm.
From the first time Yu Jiao had seen him, Yuan Cang had been wearing these gloves, which he had never taken off. Yuan Cang was like a hibernating beast, lazy yet secretly on guard.
At this moment, Yuan Cang placed his right palm on Yu Jiao’s flat abdomen, his movements a little tender.
Then Yuan Cang suddenly looked up and gave Yu Jiao an almost ferocious smile, his crimson tongue slowly licking his sharp teeth. The signal to begin feeding.
Yuan Cang’s hand, which was moving over her body, seemed to be following a certain rhythm, like a battle plan, the war drums and horns growing louder and louder.
Yu Jiao suddenly realized that Yuan Cang’s palm was not smooth. It had strange bumps, and when it brushed against her skin, it was chilling.
Like what…
—Eyes.
Yu Jiao’s pupils constricted. Looking at Yuan Cang’s eyes, Yu Jiao forgot to breathe.
Helan Duo’s joking voice seemed to sound again:
“For example, her skin might fester all over, a third foot might grow on her head, her ears might turn into a grimace, and countless eyeballs might grow in her eye sockets…”
In her eye sockets, grow, countless, eyeballs.
At this moment, the whites of Yuan Cang’s demonic eyes were no longer a simple black, but were made up of countless tiny black eyeballs.
Dense, like the compound eyes of an insect.
They were staring at Yu Jiao, quietly and darkly. In contrast, Yuan Cang’s white pupils were empty, a silent vortex, sucking in one’s soul, an inescapable searchlight.
Yu Jiao’s head was about to explode. The small black eyeballs were like a spreading mold, squeezing into her skull, turning her memories into a complete mess.
Yu Jiao couldn’t bear such a grand search and finally passed out.
In a daze, Yu Jiao seemed to hear Helan Duo’s soft voice, tinged with a slight contempt:
“So it was right under my nose. To think she chose this vine.”
…
“Madam… Madam?”
Someone was calling Yu Jiao softly by her ear.
Yu Jiao felt a small, cold hand gently push her shoulder… Yu Jiao opened her eyes and met Yu Fenghe’s dead face.
—The portrait was properly placed in a frame on the nightstand.
There was no sign of a haunting.
“You’re awake.”
Fu Sheng withdrew her hand and let out a sigh of relief.
Yu Jiao also let out a breath and sat up.
—The crisscrossing wounds on her body had been treated.
Yu Jiao caressed the ferocious scratch on her arm, her gaze darkening.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
Did Helan Duo do all this just to find Yu Fenghe’s avatar?
And Yuan Cang’s inhuman eyes…
Fu Sheng bowed her head deeply, her mechanical eyes showing a submissive posture. Fu Sheng reminded Yu Jiao in a low voice, “Madam, it’s already five past nine.”
For some reason, Fu Sheng’s voice sounded a little tense.
Yu Jiao didn’t answer, just thought about Helan Duo and Yuan Cang’s scheme.
Fu Sheng, who was standing stiffly by the bed, spoke again. “It’s time to bathe, Madam. You’ll be late.”
This time, Fu Sheng suppressed the trembling at the end of her words, which finally made Yu Jiao look over.
“…”
Yu Jiao glanced at the blue lantern that represented the AI butler and said, as if nothing were wrong, “Where’s Ruo Meng?”
Fu Sheng: “…I sent her to Dr. Helan to cancel the scar-removing ointment for you.”
Yu Jiao nodded, her gaze meaningful.
“Let’s go. Bathe.”
Hearing this, Fu Sheng’s body relaxed.
The master and servant, one in front of the other, took the elevator in the room to the bathing place called the Underground Holy Spring.
A hot, moist air hit Yu Jiao’s face. Yu Jiao smelled a faint, sea-salty scent, which was gone in an instant. Yu Jiao almost thought it was her imagination.
Behind the thin, sparkling white mist were a series of closed doors, like a honeycomb structure.
Seeing that Yu Jiao was not moving, Fu Sheng had no choice but to give the command for her. “eleven, please activate privacy mode for the Madam.”
“Alright. Privacy mode has been activated. I wish you a relaxing time. If you need anything, you can contact me through the Smart Brain. eleven is at your service at any time.”
A blue light flashed, and then, the ubiquitous sense of being watched disappeared.
At the same time, Fu Sheng, who had never made a presumptuous move, suddenly changed her expression. Fu Sheng seized Yu Jiao’s wrist and dragged her into a run.
Fu Sheng’s calm, composed maid’s demeanor was gone. Fu Sheng was as if injected with an ominous life force, completely losing her composure.
“There’s no time, there’s no time!”
Amidst Fu Sheng’s neurotic whispers, one identical white door after another was left behind.
After running for half a minute, Fu Sheng pushed Yu Jiao and, panting, stopped in front of a plain white door.
Fu Sheng ‘looked’ over, her closed mechanical eyes as if they were about to spit fire, her lips twitching uncontrollably.
“Hurry up!”
Click.
The white automatic door sensed a visitor and slid open.
A thick water vapor spread out, carrying with it a familiar, bitter scent of wormwood.
In the dimly lit room, a figure stood with his back to Yu Jiao, a cigarette between his fingers.
The falling ash was instantly annihilated by the water vapor.
Before Yu Jiao had even walked in, she felt as if she had already been swallowed.
“You’re late.”
A deep voice sounded, as if it were resonating with the gurgling of the underground hot spring. A sense of unease and water vapor rose at the same time.
“How should I… punish you?”
—lover.