Chapter 26 A Bloody Mouth in the Air

Chapter 26: A Mouth in the Sky

"Bro, something on your mind?"

The next day at work, Lin Jianyuan found himself still unconsciously dwelling on yesterday's events. When Pei Shuo asked him this, Lin Jianyuan realized he wasn't quite himself.

"It's not good to keep things bottled up," Dr. Cen had said.

So, following the doctor’s advice, Lin Jianyuan replied, "Not exactly 'something on my mind,' just a bit annoyed."

"Oh?" Pei Shuo immediately leaned in, his sparkling puppy eyes bright, his expression clearly conveying, "Go on, I’m listening."

Lin Jianyuan recounted to Pei Shuo some of the most frustrating things he’d encountered since living with his roommate.

After listening, Pei Shuo looked thoughtful.

Lin Jianyuan asked, "Ever run into this? Oh, you’ve always lived in dorms, right? Living with classmates might be better since you go to class together every day. At least you have some common topics."

His situation with Xie Yu was different—they had no common ground. One worked, the other studied; in fact, they rarely even saw each other.

Thinking about it carefully, he still knew nothing about Xie Yu. He didn’t know where Xie Yu was from, which school he attended, or what he was studying.

Xie Yu actually knew nothing about him either. They’d never discussed these things.

Sometimes, Lin Jianyuan felt Xie Yu was like some kind of... castle in the air. As if detached from the mundane world.

But Xie Yu actually knew how to enjoy food?

And he had quite the appetite.

Alright, so not a castle in the air.

A floating giant mouth? Hahaha.

"Bro, I’ll be honest with you," Pei Shuo suddenly spoke up, interrupting Lin Jianyuan’s reverie. "I think you might be misunderstanding him a bit."

Lin Jianyuan: "How so?"

Pei Shuo: "Hmm, give me a sec to find it."

As he spoke, he took out his phone, opened WeChat, and scrolled through his contacts.

After a moment, Pei Shuo clicked on a contact’s profile and said, "Bro, look. This person only posts on Moments very rarely, and he has his settings on ‘show only the last three days of Moments.’ So when you click in, it looks like this."

Lin Jianyuan looked and saw that the other person’s Moments was completely empty, with only a message saying, "Friends can only view Moments from the last three days."

"If he had blocked me from viewing his Moments, it would look like this," Pei Shuo said, opening another contact’s profile.

This other Moments had no such message—it was just entirely blank.

Lin Jianyuan immediately understood what Pei Shuo meant: "So, as long as someone has posted on Moments before, even if you don’t have permission to see it, you can still click into their Moments?"

"Right."

"Isn’t that even stranger?" Lin Jianyuan said. "There are actually people who have never posted on Moments?"

Pei Shuo hesitated.

Lin Jianyuan: "Just say it."

Pei Shuo: "Alright. Bro, I suspect the account he used to add you is a secondary account."

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

Pei Shuo: "Look, he’s never posted on Moments, and his WeChat profile picture is the default one. It’s possible this really is a newly registered secondary account."

Lin Jianyuan was speechless for a moment: "What’s the point? Why would he specially register a secondary account just to add me?"

Pei Shuo quickly added, "That’s why I’m not entirely sure either. It’s also possible that, well, maybe he really doesn’t use WeChat normally?"

Lin Jianyuan: "If he doesn’t use WeChat, does he use a kids’ smartwatch?"

Pei Shuo burst out laughing.

"What, who uses a kids’ smartwatch?" Qin Shi leaned over, eager for gossip.

Lin Jianyuan replied, "You don’t know them," and turned back to focus on work.

Workplaces are weird. Every time you think there’s nothing left to do and you can slack off, work just shows up on its own.

Lin Jianyuan plunged into his work, feeling as if something heavy was dragging him deeper into a quagmire. Before he knew it, he had spent the entire morning sitting in front of his computer.

His butt was practically numb.

Catching sight of the squirming red veins charging his phone, Lin Jianyuan decisively stopped working and walked to the window to relax and gaze into the distance.

The Eye Vine soaking in the chrysanthemum and cassia seed tea was thriving, its lush green vines already covering the entire interior wall of the office. They even squeezed through the window cracks, slowly taking over the entire exterior of the office building.

The growth was impressive.

If he hadn’t tasted it himself, Lin Jianyuan would have suspected it wasn’t mint but instead a Pothos plant.

But even Pothos don’t grow this fast, right?

Whatever, he was already dealing with psychosis—what did it matter if mint or Pothos grew 10 meters a day?

This thing used to grow in people’s eyes, after all.

Lin Jianyuan stood by the window, looking out at the cityscape through the glass.

There wasn’t much of a view, really—just skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. Though flashy, they gave off a sense of suffocating big-city pressure.

Lin Jianyuan casually took out his phone and unconsciously opened Moments.

An unexpected photo caught his eye.

A potted plant.

It was the Eye Vine pot he had brought home yesterday.

The small flowerpot looked familiar, placed on the dining table by the window.

The window was open, white curtains swaying gently. The vibrant green leaves stretched out, full of life.

It felt very summery.

Lin Jianyuan was stunned.

Just then, Jiang Chen came down from the second floor, knocked on the table, and announced to everyone, "Meeting at 12:30 PM."

"Again?!"

"It's always at 12:30, can you pick another time? We need our lunch break, man!"

A wave of groans swept through the room.

Only Lin Jianyuan's eyes lit up.

...

On the other side of the city, in an utterly inconspicuous area.

Inside a massive underground structure, a man clad in black, his face covered with a mask, strode swiftly.

The specially designed combat mask concealed his features but couldn't hide his tall, straight nose bridge and deep, piercing, commanding eyes.

This is what they call having exceptional bone structure.

His leather boots tapped impatiently on the ground.

After walking for a while, he couldn't hold back any longer and urged, "Can you walk any faster? After this check-up, I still have to rush back for an appointment."

The person leading the way hesitated for a moment. "Then... wanna run?"

Shi Shaoning: "Run!"

And so, the two of them started sprinting through the empty underground building, their footsteps echoing.

After running for a bit, Shi Shaoning suddenly picked up a familiar smell.

The sound of leather boots came to a halt in the underground corridor.

The guide, out of breath, asked, "What's wrong, Captain Shi?"

Without answering, Shi Shaoning frowned, pulled out a card, and swiped it to open a blood-red door along the corridor.

The guide exclaimed in alarm, "Code Red? Captain Shi! That's an S-Class—"

"I know, S-Class Delirium," Shi Shaoning waved impatiently. "If you've got low resistance, don't come in— Achoo!"

An overwhelming wave of toilet water smell hit him, making Shi Shaoning sneeze violently!

He quickly sealed the access door, looking annoyed as he took in the scene before him.

...A swimming pool.

And not just any pool—one filled with toilet water—no, wait, Sobering Potion.

In the pale green water, a figure stood at the very center.

Though "stood" wasn’t quite right—more like "floated."

The pool was deep, a full two meters. Even with its tall and slender frame, it couldn’t touch the bottom.

The Sobering Potion had an inhibiting effect on Delirium, preventing it from releasing large-scale contamination and weakening its mobility.

Its skin remained pale, almost glowing under the water’s reflection. Its hands and feet fluttered weakly in the water, like thin, malnourished seaweed.

But the real kicker was its face.

To be honest, it wasn’t an unattractive face.

Fair skin, finely sculpted features.

Coupled with that dazed, vacant expression, if it were to join a talent show, it’d definitely be labeled as having a "fragile" aura.

Fragile, indeed—cognitively broken.

Delirium had zero intelligence. It couldn’t speak.

All its actions were driven purely by instinct.

...Wrong pronoun again.

Not "he"—it should be "it."

The higher the rank of heretic, the more human-like they appear.

Take this Delirium, for example—who would guess it’s a heretic?

Everyone would just think it’s intellectually disabled.

—No, no, "it"!

Shi Shaoning stood on the edge, arms crossed, coldly watching the creature thrashing around aimlessly in the pool.

Delirium clearly didn’t know how to swim, so it was just "walking" in the water.

Its chaotic, uncoordinated movements kept it bobbing in place, unable to advance even a step.

On the rare occasion when it managed to inch forward by chance, the monitoring sensors throughout the containment area would immediately detect the displacement, and jets of water would shoot out, precisely pushing it back to its original position.

A very simple... and very ridiculous containment method.

...And the pool even smelled like toilet water.

The thought of toilet water made Shi Shaoning’s head spin again.

He’d had enough of this insane world. Without another glance at the flailing idiot, he turned and left.

Shi Shaoning’s purpose for this trip was a routine physical check-up, and to report on last night’s weird encounter.

"Physical results are all clear, sanity levels are stable, self-contamination within healthy range."

In the director’s office, his superior reviewed the report and announced the conclusion. "It seems last night’s heretic didn’t subject you to any mental contamination."

Shi Shaoning nodded. "That’s what I figured. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing here in one piece."

Superior: "Who was it? Did you identify the Mark?"

Shi Shaoning: "No idea, I didn’t bring my gear. But it had to be S-Class, since it had a human form and easily took down two A-classes."

Superior, surprised: "Why didn’t you bring your equipment?"

Shi Shaoning: "Because I was off duty!"

Superior: "..."

Boss: "Alright. Then write a formal report about last night's events and submit it. It must follow the format—no cutting corners. Provide a detailed and rigorous description of the process, with a minimum of 5,000 words."

Shi Shaoning: "..."

I want to die.

I shouldn’t have reported it in the first place.

Damn it, another report to write.

Maybe I’ll just use AI to half-ass it.

Boss: "You might as well have 'Maybe I’ll just use AI to half-ass it' written all over your face."

Shi Shaoning said, "So?"

Boss: "So no using AI. You’ll write it on the bureau’s intranet computer."

Shi Shaoning: "."

I don’t want to die anymore.

I want to resign.

Screw this civil service job!

To hell with side hustles!

Just as Shi Shaoning was about to flip the table and resign, both their communicators rang simultaneously.

"Director!" came the urgent voice of a subordinate over the communicator. "Delirium is showing unusual activity!"

Delirium?!

Table-flipping paused. Shi Shaoning and the Director leaned in together in front of the screen to watch the surveillance feed.

On the screen, Delirium, who had been flailing aimlessly in one direction, suddenly stopped. Its neck twitched jerkily a few times, like a glitchy robot searching for a network signal.

Once it finally found the signal, it reached out in a new direction. Then moved its foot.

The pale anemone began writhing again in the floral water-filled pool. Struggling forward. Forward.

Then sploosh—

Sprayed back to its original spot by a water jet.

The scene was utterly idiotic.

Yet at this moment, both Shi Shaoning and the bureau Director immediately recognized the key detail.

"It changed direction?!" the Director exclaimed in shock.

"And it’s earlier than usual?!" Shi Shaoning frowned.

Since Delirium was captured, it had maintained a daily cycle of "9 a.m. to who-knows-when N," meaning it would flail south starting at 9 a.m. and north starting at some uncertain time in the evening (usually before midnight).

But today, Delirium had suddenly broken this long-standing pattern!

Why on earth?

Delirium has no intelligence; all its actions are driven by instinct.

—So what is its instinct?

What does this Class S heretic’s inexplicable cyclical rhythm, and its sudden disruption, actually mean?!

The expressions on both the Director’s and Shi Shaoning’s faces turned extremely grave.

A few seconds later.

Shi Shaoning asked, "What do you think?"

The Director: "Not resigning anymore?"

Shi Shaoning: "..."

Shi Shaoning snapped angrily, "I’m leaving right now!"

Meanwhile, at 700 North Jiangchuan Road.

Lin Jianyuan stood hesitantly in front of the hospital’s main entrance security checkpoint, eyeing the tangerine-colored net bag in his hand.

Security guard: "Are you coming in or not?"

Dozens of frogs were crammed into the tangerine-colored net bag, piled on top of each other.

The crowding clearly made them uncomfortable, so they kept hopping around irritably.

The constantly shifting net bag resembled a lively slime.

Satsuma-scented.

Lin Jianyuan had been hesitating at the security checkpoint for five minutes. Finally, he decided to throw caution to the wind and put the net bag through.

He had been worried the security guard would yell at him, but surprisingly, the Satsuma slime passed through security without a hitch.

"Of course," the squeeze toy thief said smugly. "Because ordinary people can’t see heretics!"

Lin Jianyuan glanced at the squeeze toy, then at the net bag in his hand, and couldn’t help but nod. "As expected of me, my worldview is so well-developed. Maybe I should take up writing web novels as a side gig."

The squeeze toy: "..."

"Rent: 3k. Daily expenses: 2k+. My health insurance card is already empty—each weekly visit costs 200 out of pocket. Four times a month, that’s nearly 1k."

Lin Jianyuan quickly did the math. "My take-home pay was 7k, but I took too much sick leave these past two months, and they’ll deduct the full attendance bonus of 500..."

The squeeze toy: "..."

Lin Jianyuan looked at his dwindling account balance, then at his income, which had remained as stagnant as a dead turtle for years.

Lin Jianyuan: "I really need to find a part-time job."

So broke!