Chapter 234: Mother And Daughter
“How could it be her?” He Jia’an frowned slightly.
Finding Kikuhide Ichi’s body parts here didn’t seem wrong to him at all, but Takayama Keika herself was truly too bizarre and horrifying.
He had originally thought that Takayama Keika herself hadn’t died, or at least she shouldn’t have died in the school, and not in this way.
But after Takayama Keika quit her teacher job, there was no more news about her. He Jia’an had thought that after Takayama Keika took revenge on Kikuhide Ichi and that school worker, she would find a place where no one knew her to start life over, but now it seemed she hadn’t started over at all—clearly her human head had fallen, her death was gruesome, and no one even knew she died.
Just as He Jia’an was pondering this carefully, he saw Takayama Keika’s swollen and bloated head suddenly move a little. Looking closely, he saw Takayama Keika suddenly open her dilated eyes, gazing at him expressionlessly.
The next moment, He Jia’an saw a black oil-like substance surge into Takayama Keika’s eyes, and suddenly her pupils turned pure black, her face gradually becoming ferocious.
“You really are the source of Hanako’s curse.” He Jia’an quickly retreated a step, only to see several jars on the shelving unit shaking violently, gradually detaching from the shelf, then falling and shattering on the floor. The body parts swollen from the potion and Takayama Keika’s ferocious head slowly pieced together. The body parts continuously produced black viscous substance, sticking different parts together, ultimately piecing together a roughly human shape.
A girl’s crying and wailing echoed in the classroom, as if Hanako was pouring out her grievances to this sutured creature slowly learning to crawl.
As Takayama Keika raised her head and let out a strange screech, her black gooey mouth coughed up foul-smelling black saliva one after another. Then, the Hanako originally hidden around the classroom suddenly poured into Takayama Keika’s mouth in the form of black smoke.
Under He Jia’an’s incredulous gaze, Takayama Keika’s originally twisted and eerie body became even more deformed and mutable. Black bubbles kept emerging from her body, sharp black thorns blooming and sprouting from it. Every part of her body twisted and inverted randomly—her chest twisted to her back, her back to her chest, her hands and head entangled together, forming a bizarre fleshy hat.
Takayama Keika twisted her deformed super knock-kneed legs and charged at He Jia’an.
He Jia’an retreated hurriedly. Even with his extensive experience, he was shaken by this grotesque scene.
Bang!
He Jia’an turned to evade. Takayama Keika charged faster and faster, eventually bouncing instead of running with astonishing jumping power. In her reckless rush, her body crashed directly into the wall.
In this enclosed and cramped classroom, He Jia’an felt like a weaponless warrior in the Colosseum, facing the beast-like Takayama Keika. He had no confidence to confront her head-on, nor any chance to safely stick the New Year’s red envelope on her.
The monstrous Takayama Keika was no different from an out-of-control high-speed truck. Her one charge would make it hard for He Jia’an to react in time, and if he got hit, he would undoubtedly die.
Bang!
He Jia’an didn’t even see her pull her body out of the wall. She vanished from the spot in a flash, and the next second she was almost brushing past his body, flying out and crashing directly into the blackboard.
He Jia’an’s heart pounded wildly, cursing aloud, “What the hell is this thing?”
The power of the blessing combined with some unknown monster, turning into this brutal and terrifying creature.
However, before he could curse a second time, he held his breath and dropped to the ground prone. He felt another gust of wind rapidly pass over his back. The monster with Takayama Keika’s face charged again, this time crashing into the shelving unit, triggering a domino effect as rows of bookshelves toppled one after another.
“Ah!”
He Jia’an, crawling on the ground, slightly raised his head and followed the terrifying screech. He saw Takayama Keika pinned under the weight of several shelving units. The body parts and biological specimens originally stored on the shelving units unfortunately shattered and fell to the ground. The soaking potions spilled everywhere, emitting a strong pungent smell, and Takayama Keika couldn’t exert force to escape for the moment.
He Jia’an’s eyes lit up. Without hesitation, he dashed out, pulled out the New Year’s red envelope, ran toward Takayama Keika by stepping on the shelving units, and firmly stuck the New Year’s red envelope on her forehead.
The New Year’s red envelope emitted a dazzling red light again. The blooming red light instantly illuminated the entire dim classroom. The red light was like fierce fire, burning this classroom filled with dark aura to a crisp, with sizzling sounds everywhere and howling gale winds.
Takayama Keika was penetrated by the red light. Her deformed body showed signs of withering, deep red light forming cracks on her body, slowly covering her entirely and infiltrating inside.
Then, with a booming loud noise, Takayama Keika’s body turned to flowing sand, soon carried away by the wind and disappearing.
When Takayama Keika died, this infamous no-exit haunted classroom seemed to lose its eerie power. The classroom environment cracked bit by bit, like grass paper devoured by flames, the terrifying environment decomposing into countless particles.
Moments later, He Jia’an found that everything he had seen earlier had vanished. He stood in an empty classroom with no shelving units, no biological specimens or models, just an empty room.
“This is?” He Jia’an felt something foreign under his foot. Looking down, he saw a will.
The will read:
I opened Pandora’s box, only to find I could no longer close it. I turned my daughter into such a monster, yet I was powerless to do anything.
I discovered another force existing on campus. I once tried to use it to stop my mad daughter, but I gradually realized a fact… Humans cannot dominate any of these super-spec powers.
So, I thought about it and decided to perform the blessing ritual one more time. This time, the sacrifice wasn’t classmate Kikuhide Ichi, but myself.
If someone luckily finds this will, I hope you stay safe.
“Safe my ass! You crazy bitch!” He Jia’an couldn’t help cursing loudly, crumpling the will into a ball and throwing it to the ground.
Just giving up when problems can’t be solved, huh?
Can’t live as humans with her daughter, so live as monsters together, huh?
This Takayama Keika teacher really understood maternal love! A deformed love.
He Jia’an took a deep breath and flipped his palm. The red envelope in his hand was half black, meaning half the New Year’s red envelope’s power had been used. He had at most half left to wield.
“One Hanako’s curse down, one Miyako’s Curse left.” He Jia’an put the red envelope back in his pocket, clenched his fist, and trembled all over.
If the New Year’s red envelope’s power ran out, He Jia’an knew exactly what kind of eternal damnation awaited him.
It would inevitably be boundless darkness, irrecoverable despair. He could only sink in chaos, trapped forever in an unknown realm, with no one to save him.
After Hanako’s curse was lifted, the biology classroom returned to its original state, the classroom door “grew” back, and He Jia’an was able to leave the classroom.
Exiting the biology classroom, He Jia’an returned to the Inner World campus corridor.
At this time, the weather outside the campus had become increasingly adverse, with gale winds making the windows on Kisaragi High School’s corridor flap like flying flags, several pieces of glass already shattered into fragments by the wind, scattered across the corridor floor.
He Jia’an paused silently, went down the stairs, and walked step by step toward the campus main gate.
Before leaving Kisaragi High School’s gate, He Jia’an couldn’t help looking back at the high school.
He saw the high school’s building surface crawling with those green wriggling substances, the school building shrouded in a gradually hazy gray mist, looking surprisingly like a tombstone with black smoke-like blessings coiling around it, eerie and mysterious.
Perhaps the rumor that Kisaragi High School was built on a mass grave wasn’t just a legend…
This was also He Jia’an’s first time stepping into the Inner World city’s streets. The scenery outside the school was far more bizarre and mad than inside. Roads interwoven with unidentified flesh and blood throbbed on the ground, pulsing as if it were some massive creature’s exposed heart. The fake humans and sculptures lining the city’s streets and alleys all gazed at his movements with eerie gazes.
The Inner World’s creatures were like a pack of hungry wolves. They saw a gun-toting hunter barely surviving in the flesh-and-blood forest. Perhaps fearing injury, or not yet hungry enough to go mad and charge recklessly, they patiently waited for the hunter to slowly get lost in the forest and finally collapse powerless.
Of course, maybe they were also waiting for the end of their hunger, when instinct would devour their reason, and they would charge regardless to tear the prey apart.
Listening to the prey’s screams, feeling the prey’s fear, they would get a more delicious seasoning. Combined with the taste buds fully unleashed by extreme hunger, they would have the perfect eating experience.
He Jia’an carefully bypassed the flesh and blood and occasional muddy swamps on the street. He knew well that those things connected to the massive disaster creature that had nearly devoured the entire Inner World. Touching them might not incur that abnormal god’s anger, but like mosquitoes harassing humans, humans would instinctively swat and kill the mosquito without anger.
Taomuki City in the Inner World, besides those ubiquitous eerie things, also showed signs of spacetime distortion in its scenery—some places had ancient thatched houses, others buildings with distinct old Heisei-era style, coexisting and blooming in this chaotic city.
Besides past and present buildings, He Jia’an occasionally saw what seemed to be buildings from the future.
At this, He Jia’an felt surprise along with a sense of relief.
After all, if those strangely styled buildings were from the future, didn’t that mean humans still had a future?
At least, humans wouldn’t go extinct in this Sakura Island disaster, right?
At this, He Jia’an even fantasized a bit about his victory.
Perhaps he could escape unscathed?
Thinking this all the way, unbeknownst to him, He Jia’an had arrived at a house. He looked at the house in front of him, at the nameplate hanging outside the door, and said, “The Mizaki house hasn’t been built here yet at this time, huh.”
He wiped the dust from the hanging nameplate, which bore another surname.
Continuing to walk on the empty and deathly silent streets, He Jia’an said nothing aloud, only muttering to himself in his heart.
The New Year’s red envelope protected him from evil spirits’ harassment, but the hidden invasive gazes and this deathly silent environment could easily drive someone who stayed here long enough to breakdown and madness. He had to find ways to ease his tense emotions.
Especially in a world where a mental collapse meant being eaten by monsters, He Jia’an had to guard his mind and stay calm.
“Finally here.” He Jia’an felt like he had walked a very long way, as if almost half a century. He stood in front of a familiar house, suppressed his uneasy heart toward the house emanating inauspicious aura, and entered the house marked “Kawakami family.”
The old residence he couldn’t visit in the human world, he finally set foot in in the Inner World. He was glad the Kawakami Rumi family’s house was preserved in the Inner World.
Pushing open the rotten door, He Jia’an’s shoes stepped into the house covered in dust and gray fluff, continuing to drain his mobile phone’s battery as he turned on the flashlight to illuminate the dark house.
When he reached the living room, He Jia’an fell silent. He saw a hanging female corpse, full of holes, with countless maggot-like things shuttling in and out of the corpse’s holes, as if treating the corpse as their nest.
This should be Mrs. Kawakami, who the news reported hanged herself at home.
He Jia’an didn’t explore the first floor rooms too carefully, instead turning upstairs toward the second-floor bedroom.
First floor was the master bedroom, second floor should be where Rumi Kawakami lived.
Rumi Kawakami’s room was easy to find, with a hanging nameplate nailed to the door clearly stating it was “Rumi’s” room.
He Jia’an gently pushed open Rumi Kawakami’s room door, instinctively holding his breath, and tiptoed inside.
The room was very dark, curtains drawn, no light seeping in. With the flashlight’s limited illumination, He Jia’an surveyed everything in the room, seeing it filled with anomalous flesh fungi—probably the Inner World’s “special fungi.” They grew wildly around the room, each flesh fungus cap covered in dense tendrils that moved without wind, like underwater fuzzy coral, as if sensing the room.
When the flashlight beam moved to the bedroom bed, He Jia’an’s breathing involuntarily grew heavier.
Black paste came into view, flowing on the wrinkled bedding like fresh blood. When the light circle illuminated the depression where the paste had pooled heavily, He Jia’an shuddered all over.
No sign of Rumi Kawakami’s corpse.
But what made He Jia’an suddenly tremble wasn’t the corpse’s disappearance, but the sensation of cold breath on the back of his neck.
One more chapter… Posting tomorrow–
