Love in Cthulhu

Chapter 9: Wanting to Become Human
"What do you mean you ate her?"

The word "eat" always evokes images of swallowing and eating, such as pythons.

Their mouths, which can open to 180 degrees, allow them to swallow animals more than six times their own size. There have been cases of pythons swallowing entire crocodiles in the rainforest, but they themselves were also choked to death by the crocodile, resulting in mutual destruction.

But Jianxi's thin, cherry-like lips didn't look like that at all.

"Personality, memories, emotions, or even the soul? I'm not quite sure. In short, I consumed all of hers and put them into a new body, so I am a new Jian Xi."

"Then why do you still say you didn't kill her?"

"Because I really didn't kill them. I don't need to kill anyone to eat them, didn't you see that?"

Her face began to move strangely, like a babbling brook, with black mist swirling around it. A moment later, a completely new face, belonging to Zhou Lan, appeared. She giggled and then returned to her original appearance.

"Actually, you didn't resurrect me at all. From the moment you carried me back, I've been awake, reliving my memories and thinking about what kind of person I am. My consciousness can see what you're doing. Since you think the resurrection spell can bring me back to life, then I'll play along and pretend that I've repaired my body."

Jian Xi knelt down and gently stroked Zhou Lan's hair.

“Your sister’s things are with me now. As long as I don’t return them to her, she will never wake up. She’ll be like a person in a vegetative state, alive but dead. So no one will come to call you back now. You can stay with me forever.”

This wasn't the first time Jianxi had said something like this. She once complained that our relationship was like a cursed fate, born in the same hospital ward, raised in the same compound, and attending the same school. We even lived across the street from each other. Wasn't it destined that we would be together for life?

Zhou Nan said, "That's right. We must have owed so much in our past lives to be so unlucky in this one. It's no wonder we two toads are just staring at each other like idiots."

These were just jokes meant to amuse, but now that she's saying them, they have a strange, almost yandere quality to them. It feels like if you dare to deny them, she'll bare her vicious fangs.

The person standing there was both familiar and strange. Zhou Nan couldn't tell if it was the monster or Jian Xi. His intuition told him that it was the monster, but her words and her features were exactly like hers, even her tone was exactly the same.

He should have been afraid of this, right? But because it was a familiar face, he wasn't afraid at all.

“I’ll take what you’re saying as the truth. Since you can devour other people’s souls more than once, why does it have to be Jian Xi? What is your purpose in becoming her?” Zhou Nan said.

“Having no purpose is my purpose.” Jian Xi shrugged.

"What do you mean?"

"Because I don't even know what I am."

Jian Xi gave an innocent look. "Before eating Jian Xi's portion, I had no concept of memory. It was a blank, I didn't even have any cognition. I could only vaguely understand what I was capable of. I think this should be called instinct, right? Like fish that are born to swim, birds that can fly by flapping their wings. So it wasn't that I deliberately chose Jian Xi. It was probably that I met her when she had just died without my knowledge."

"Is it really possible for something to happen that coincidentally?" It wasn't a question, but a statement. Zhou Nan's words carried a cold tone. Although he enjoyed reading about bizarre things, he didn't particularly enjoy experiencing them.

“Life is a live broadcast woven from countless coincidences.” Jian Xi smiled. “I can’t remember where I saw it, but I think it’s very true. The process is no longer important. What matters is now. I thought I could play her role well, but I didn’t expect to be exposed in just one day.”

"Putting aside the fact that I saw her corpse, your acting skills, if you think about it carefully, can actually be considered clumsy."

"How to say?"

“You’re going too far,” Zhou Nan said. “While Jian Xi is indeed the kind of person who says nasty things all the time, it doesn’t happen that frequently. It feels a bit exaggerated to me. It’s a strange feeling. At first glance, you seem exactly the same, but once you realize the differences, it’s hard to ignore these subtle differences.”

“Hmm…” Jian Xi squinted her eyes with some distress, “After all, I’m just acting. I’ve never been a person before. This is my first time. It’s normal that my imitation isn’t perfect since it’s something I borrowed.”

"So, what really happened last night, right?"

"A thief? Ah, yes, I was a little too heavy-handed."

“No, I mean what you saw about me, why I had that dream, why I entered that person’s body, and how you realized I was inside him, which is why you quickly cut off that connection, right?” Zhou Nan said.

"That's because you were too close to me." Jian Xi let Zhou Lan lie on her lap, stroking her hair again and again, as if gently grooming a kitten. "Did your head hurt when you woke up?"

"There's still a little bit left."

“That’s right, hmm… let me think about how to explain it?” She lowered her head and pondered for a moment. “Just think of me as a walking halo that constantly influences the people around me. Headaches are one of the manifestations, which means your brain has been activated. From then on, you will gradually have superpowers.”

"That's ridiculous! You're not talking like some kind of arrow that can activate StandPower just by stabbing someone!"

After we started chatting, I relaxed a lot. It turned out that this guy was actually quite easy to talk to. I should have just been direct. Otherwise, I would have spent the whole day worrying about this and that.

“You can accept that I’m not even human, so why can’t you accept this?” Jian Xi found it somewhat amusing. “Besides, you’ve already experienced it all, and it only took less than a day for it to appear, which is beyond my expectations. Usually, it would take a month or two, depending on how deeply you’ve been in contact with me.”

"So if your parents come back and stay with you for a month or two, will they suddenly turn into thunder gods and lightning goddesses...?"

For some reason, images from the old version of Journey to the West came to mind. Because of the rudimentary special effects, when the Thunder God and Lightning Goddess unleashed lightning and thunder, they were mainly doing somersaults, like those two muscular men jumping and spinning in Contra. It's really not a good look to see a middle-aged husband and wife like that.

“That’s actually possible…” Jian Xi seemed to have thought of the same thing, and her expression turned a little grim. “But it also depends on talent. Maybe some people will never realize that they have changed in their entire lives. Everyone’s abilities are different. As for you, it should be called possession or something like that, right? To what extent can you do it now?”

"I can't do anything. I'm just an observer inside his body, the kind with a first-person perspective. I can share his feelings. In one morning, I randomly switched identities with more than a dozen people, and every time it made me feel like I was going to throw up."

"Then maybe it will develop to the point where you can enter whoever you want, control others, or even many people at the same time."

"How long will that take?"

"What, interested now?" Jian Xi suddenly grinned mischievously, revealing a foxy charm, and spoke in a Taiwanese accent, "Oh my~ how perverted~ I bet what you're thinking right now is finding a beautiful girl, and then entering her body and doing whatever you want!"

“Perverts always imagine everyone else to be a pervert like themselves.” Zhou Nan said with a dark face. “When something strange happens to your body, don’t you want to figure it out? Besides, I will only ever like literary girls.”

"I can also wear glasses and pretend to be a quiet, bookish girl, a literary young lady." "Your demeanor doesn't lie; what you're doing is just being a hooligan."

"What's wrong with being a female hooligan? Being a female hooligan is great! Powerful and domineering! If a handsome young scholar passes by, I'll just jump out with my axe and shout, 'Hey! This mountain is mine, this tree is mine! If you want to pass, leave your toll! If you dare to say no, I'll kill you and not bury you! Isn't eating meat and drinking wine as enjoyable as being a delicate young lady?'"

She burst into laughter, completely absorbed in her own world. She was clearly a girl with such a pure and innocent appearance that she could play a fairy, yet her laughter was so unrestrained that it didn't even make the flowers tremble; she was more like a restless mother duck.

Zhou Nan also inexplicably followed her in a silent twitch of the corners of his mouth. It was really strange. Why was he smiling? She was clearly a monster. Was it because she was wearing a familiar mask, and her smile seemed to have an ancient magic that made him drop everything and smile along with her?
"Alright, stop laughing. Give my sister her things back, and I can pretend nothing happened before. Then, you can go back to where you came from." After a moment of excitement, he regained his composure.

"Giving it back to her is easy, but you should be prepared that she'll keep bothering you."

"I don't care. I'll just fight to the end. At worst, I'll go out for a stroll during the Chinese New Year and go to the next city."

"So, the next question is, why should I go back?" Jian Xi suppressed her smile and looked at him curiously.

"What do you want to do?" He suddenly became alert, and he seemed to sense a chill from those words.

"Didn't I already say this? This is my first time being human, my first time having memories, my first time eating, everything is a first. Although I have impressions left from Jian Xi's previous life in my memories, for me, everything is unknown territory. Only by experiencing it firsthand can I truly feel its reality."

She slowly grinned, revealing her cute little tiger teeth, and her eyes shone with a faint light.

“So, I don’t want to go back.”

She still had that charming smile, but in Zhou Nan's eyes, her smile suddenly became distorted, mysterious and profound, like a black hole.

She... actually wanted to replace Jian Xi!
He realized he was in a trap. She had seen him last night, so he should have known he was about to be exposed. But she wasn't afraid at all. Why? Because she could easily take away his proof of being alive, just like she did with anyone else, and she could also easily kill him, just like that thief.

The atmosphere just now was so relaxed, and Jian Xi's way of speaking and appearance completely deceived him, to the point that he almost forgot what the person in front of him was really like.

She's not even human, so why should she follow human rules?
"From now on, I am Jian Xi." The monster finally revealed the dream it wanted.

"I won't allow it!" Zhou Nan roared. "Who do you think you are, to say you can replace her just like that?"

"Why not?" She wasn't angry; she just giggled and replied, "I look like Jian Xi, I have the same personality as Jian Xi, even my emotions are like Jian Xi's, and the words I say are the same words Jian Xi would say. What makes you think I'm replacing her? That's not replacing her. I am Jian Xi!"

Zhou Nan paused for a moment, eager to find a rebuttal to the monster's nonsense, otherwise this guy would really eat his girl.

But he couldn't find it, he couldn't remember it, he didn't know how to refute her. She had everything that Jian Xi had. No matter what he asked about the things they had experienced together in the past, she could answer fluently. So what else could she be but Jian Xi?
No, this is wrong, it's definitely wrong, but he couldn't even put his finger on what was wrong!

“Hey, Xiao Zhouzi!” Jian Xi suddenly said.

Zhou Nan looked up in surprise. It was still that familiar smiling face, as if she might jump up and tease him at any moment. But at this moment, he felt that her face had become so disgusting, twisting and rotating little by little, until it finally turned into a snarling demon.

He pulled a knife from his pocket and lunged forward.

No one knows the secret that Jian Xi was secretly replaced; at this moment, only he can protect her existence in this world.

"Fool." Jian Xi smiled helplessly, then spread her arms and transformed into a dark phantom.

In an instant, irresistible violence snatched the knife from Zhou Nan's hand and plunged it into his back. Hot blood slowly gushed from the wound. At the same time, he was held tightly in Jian Xi's arms, as if she wanted to devour him. Her chin rested on his shoulder, and her eyes shimmered with a scarlet light.

"How dare you raise a knife at me? You've seen it before, no human can defeat me."

As she spoke, she pushed the knife into his body, first just the tip, then the image-like arm she used to hold it.

“I… will not allow you to replace her!” Zhou Nan said hoarsely.

"I've already told you, I am Jian Xi, and I've never changed."

Her whispers in his ear were so soft, like murmurs from the clouds, trying to comfort him into a dream.

"Do you know why I killed that thief? Because he tried to steal things from the old house. That's your old house, and it's also my old house. Everything there carries our memories, and I won't allow anyone to destroy them."

"It's the same for you. I don't know what this is called, but the feelings I've inherited make me understand that you are very important to me. I can't bear to hurt you, but who told you to point a knife at me? Remember to be smarter next time. As long as you behave, I will behave too. No matter the past, present, or future, I will always be your girl."

Next time? What does "next time" mean?
Massive blood loss was rapidly robbing him of consciousness; the severe wounds to his back and arms were tearing his chest open, making it difficult for him to think.

Then he felt something soft against his face, and he tried to open his eyes wide.

Her cheeks were slightly cool, carrying a faint, pleasant scent that enveloped him completely, along with a flood of memories.

In the courtyard where everyone grew up together, she would ride on his shoulders to steal the newly ripe grapes from the vines. Every year, the grapes would be completely devoured before they had even fully ripened, and they would spit the sour grape seeds in each other's mouths.

On that familiar path, they walked in the rain under the same umbrella. She would always reach out to catch some rainwater, then suddenly tug open the back of his collar and fall inside, laughing and running away before he could retaliate.

In the same school, even classes that were far apart would always come over to join in the fun. Every time this happened, someone would ask, "Is this your boyfriend? Is this your girlfriend?" The two of them would always answer in perfect unison, "No way! Who would want someone like that!"

Why do you stubbornly reject her? Is it because you feel that doing so would be like someone stealing something that belongs only to you?
But what's the point? The girl who belonged to you is dead, she'll never come back to life and call your name again. No matter how much you regret it, it's pointless. Who told you not to cherish her before?
He was truly unwilling to accept it, and he really didn't want to lose her. Otherwise, he would truly be all alone. He wanted to do something, but he couldn't do anything. This feeling of powerlessness was so hateful that he wanted to die.

"Goodnight. When you wake up, you'd better think about what to do, okay?"

The girl's voice faded into the distance, like a farewell song carried by the wind. He plunged into an endless, dark sea, a strong sense of suffocation enveloping him, as something soft forced its way into his body.

(End of this chapter)