Even if the chocolate was indeed very stale, it shouldn't taste so terrible.
Lin Xi's body trembled slightly. He was almost torturing himself as he carefully savored the chocolate—it seemed as if it would corrode and melt away his tongue in the next second.
Lin Xi quickly realized that the problem wasn't with the chocolate.
The problem lies with him.
Since his body began to mutate, his physical form has become very different.
For example, the menacing mouthparts located under his tongue, or the straw that protrudes from deep in his throat when he is distracted.
Moreover, he clearly felt the attraction of fresh flesh and blood to him... He had mistakenly thought that it was because his body was too weak that he felt such hunger for those terrifying things.
But now that I think about it, this idea was clearly just him deceiving himself.
If he were still a normal person, even if he were starving to death, he probably wouldn't have such a strong craving for the flesh pulp transformed from the corpses of those alien insects, or for the already stiffened human remains.
And now, this extremely unpalatable chocolate in his mouth unexpectedly shattered the self-deception he had unconsciously constructed—it told him a cruel truth.
He has indeed transformed into some kind of monster that humans had never known before.
Moreover, it seems that from now on... he will never be able to enjoy the pleasure that human food brings him again.
A tearing pain swept through Lin Xi's chest, and this pain would repeat itself every time he found himself sliding a step closer to the monster.
In comparison, even the various chemicals in chocolate seemed insignificant compared to the stimulation they caused to his tongue and nerves.
Lin Xi stood there blankly for several seconds, neither speaking nor making any movement.
The air around him seemed to be freezing.
"Lin Xi..."
Xavier blinked.
As a highly adaptable alien species, after a brief adjustment of its digestive enzyme secretion, the chocolate belonging to the human world had lost its terrible effects.
Although Xavier still didn't like this thing, it would no longer be so stimulated by a single piece of chocolate that its wings turned gray and its nerves tensed up.
In comparison, it was Lin Xi who worried Xavier more.
It tentatively reached out its hand to Lin Xi.
Then it called out to the other softly.
The next moment, Lin Xi finally came to her senses.
He quickly realized that Xavier's gaze had been fixed on him. He looked up, and their eyes met.
Lin Xi was increasingly surprised to realize that such intense worry could actually flash in the eyes of a cold-blooded alien insect like Xavier.
"sorry."
Xavier muttered to Lin Xi, sounding a little sad.
It didn't miss the moment Lin Xi froze after eating the chocolate it had brought.
For Xavier, the whole world seemed to turn cold at that moment.
The heart that had been soaring to the heavens because of Lin Xi's thanks was suddenly pulled back into the body.
Lin Xi was incredibly sad because of that chocolate.
Upon realizing this, Xavier's chest instantly filled with ice and snow.
It knew something was wrong... but it still felt confused.
More than once, it secretly hid in a corner, carefully observing the intimate interactions between the humans named Bryce and Elisa.
It had witnessed Bryce secretly handing a sweet-smelling chocolate to Elisa while carrying Lin Xi on his back.
The female human would laugh incessantly whenever this happened, a laugh she would never show in front of Lin Xi. After eating the chocolate, there was a subtle change in her aura, and then, a few times, Bryce and Elisa would roll together intimately and blissfully under Xavier's probing gaze—even if they didn't have time for that level of intimacy, they would at least exchange a wet and sweet kiss.
Of course, when Xavier brought the chocolate back, he didn't think too much about it; he simply hoped that Lin Xi would be happy.
But his plan had clearly failed—not only failed, but Xavier could now vaguely sense that his actions had backfired.
Yes, it messed things up.
Thinking of this, Xavier's wings gradually turned a dark blue, and his antennae trembled uneasily behind his head.
Its nervousness and unease were very obvious, and Lin Xi noticed it immediately.
"It's not your fault..."
Lin Xi was slightly taken aback, and then spoke.
He found himself seemingly able to read the monster's thoughts through its body language.
Then, before Lin Xi himself could even react, he had already started comforting Xavier.
But Xavier was not cheered up by Lin Xi's words of comfort.
"Lin Xi..."
It lowered its voice and sadly repeated Lin Xi's name.
It has to be said that its undisguised emotions made Lin Xi increasingly unable to cope.
"It's really okay, thank you for the chocolate. I just... I just didn't expect it."
Lin Xi said dryly.
Immediately afterwards, in order to appease Xavier, Lin Xi directly put the collected food bags to his mouth in front of it.
"Don't worry, I can still eat this..."
Lin Xi said.
Then he tentatively bit open the food bags and took a bite.
After the ordeal with that chocolate, Lin Xi had assumed that the food bag would taste even worse.
But surprisingly, the moment the thick liquid entered her throat, Lin Xi found it actually tasted quite good...
When she was still human, she had eaten the same thing before, and Lin Xi still remembers her evaluation of it at the time: the taste was disgusting.
Lin Xi couldn't help but glance at the packaging bag in her hand again.
The food bag is indeed still a food bag; it's the same thing, but it tastes much better than before.
"call……"
Lin Xi breathed a sigh of relief.
In any case, the fact that there was human food available for him to eat on this spaceship made Lin Xi feel a little more at ease.
He silently sucked on the food bags.
Although the amount was extremely small, the flavor of the earth's milk was still very strong in these liquids. And perhaps this is why Lin Xi had subconsciously resisted eating the contents of the food bag before.
Lin Xi sucked on the liquid in the food bag, which had little nutritional value.
He could clearly sense the changes in the aura emanating from the large insect beside him.
After seeing his actions, Xavier visibly relaxed a bit more than before.
This insect really cares about him.
Lin Xi's instincts seemed to tell him that all of this was only natural, and that he was supposed to enjoy the service and support of his clan as he was now.
On the other hand, Lin Xi's human instincts made her feel that everything was so subtle.
Beyond the natural affection and dependence, there seemed to be something else in Xavier's feelings for him.
"Here, have some."
After the failure of his chocolate business, Xavier finally saw a glimmer of hope.
It kept pushing the food bags it had collected in front of Lin Xi, and then kept gesturing for Lin Xi to enjoy them to her heart's content.
Under that intense, almost burning gaze, Lin Xi had no choice but to grit her teeth and continue drinking.
He certainly couldn't admit that while drinking from those food packets, deep down he was secretly craving more vibrant, more viscous flesh and blood... Nor could he show any hint of it to Xavier.
After all, given Xavier's enthusiasm for him, if Lin Xi were to reveal even the slightest hint of interest, he would probably wake up to find mountains of alien corpses.
Lin Xi, as a human being, didn't want to face this.
And just after he ate the nth bag of food... Lin Xi couldn't help but frown. He knew very well that the part that made it taste good came from the earth's milk, but...
But it was the taste of the earth's milk that made a fleeting thought cross his mind.
The familiar feeling evoked by the earth's milk always made him feel concerned.
He rarely participates in long-distance interstellar travel, let alone consumes such expensive food bags.
But now, he has a feeling that he ate something similar a long time ago.
Lin Xi subconsciously began to recall.
Perhaps it's because his control over his own memories has also increased after he became a monster.
After he tried to recall, some images vaguely surfaced in his mind.
That must have been when he was very young. Judging from the scene of him being held in someone's arms, he was probably still an infant at the time. His vision was very blurry, the surrounding environment was very bright, and the air was filled with the smell of disinfectant.
That's... a hospital?
Lin Xi pressed her hand against her temple, thinking vaguely.
He remembered that it was a woman who looked like a nurse who put a sugar pill into his mouth.
The sugar pill melted immediately upon touching his tongue, followed by the distinctive fishy smell of earth milk filling his mouth.
I probably cried back then. After all, if I were still human, I would have found that smell extremely disgusting.
Beside him, a woman with a blurred face began to gently comfort him; perhaps it was the mother who had abandoned him. If he hadn't become a monster and regained his memories, Lin Xi would never have been able to imagine that the woman could have been so tender when he was young.
Lin Xi remembers crying very hard, and his mother quickly became agitated.
While the woman was comforting him, the woman dressed as a nurse, with most of her face covered by a mask, calmly explained to reassure his mother.
“Don’t worry, madam… We’re using the latest type of vaccine here… oral… yes, it’s a donation from… very safe… your insurance covers it…”
When Lin Xi received that information, she was indeed too young. An infant's brain is not capable of fully receiving all the words. So far, Lin Xi can only recall some fragmented words. But just thinking about the fragmented words uttered by that nurse in the distant past makes Lin Xi feel a chill run down her spine and straight to the top of her head.
vaccine?
vaccine!
Yes, he remembered. For decades, newborns had been receiving vaccines after birth. These oral vaccines were said to be safer than the previous injectable vaccines, and for decades, these easily digestible vaccines had become a part of everyone's growth on Earth, and no one saw anything wrong with it.
Only a very small number of parents would inexplicably perceive this new vaccine as a form of harm to their children.
But at that time... almost everyone thought those parents were just crazy, that they were so ignorant or paranoid that they would think of vaccines as the enemy of humanity.
What happened to the parents who refused vaccines and their children afterward?
Lin Xi discovered that she had absolutely no memory of this.
He has no children and no intention of having offspring.
So he never cared about such things...
"God..."
Lin Xi suddenly covered her mouth.
It was as if he could use this action to stop the new oral vaccine that had been stuffed into his mouth decades ago.
His face was deathly pale, and his body trembled slightly uncontrollably.
Hey buddy, you need to calm down—
Lin Xi said to herself in her heart.
But he was completely unable to calm down.
What's the deal with those oral vaccines that taste exactly like Earth Milk? Could it be that... all these years, so many children, and even adults, have had this maddening substance called Earth Milk in their bodies?
Thinking about this, Lin Xi felt her heart clench tightly.
"Lin Xi...are you...alright?"
Xavier approached Lin Xi, whose face was as pale as paper, with great concern.
Lin Xi stared at it blankly.
In a daze, the face in front of him overlapped with the face of Savile from many years ago.
When exactly did Savile begin to go mad?
In fact, Lin Xi had thought about this question countless times after the incident.
"...Lin Xi... Oh, I'm fine, I was just having a nightmare... You can understand, right? Everyone has nightmares..."
"No, don't worry, I'm just under a lot of pressure."
Was it before their relationship was announced and before they received their families' blessings?
At that time, Savile would occasionally wake up suddenly from his dreams, but both of them thought it was just because they were under too much psychological pressure.
"Lin Xi! Look, there's... Oh, sorry, I must be seeing things."
Or was it before Savile became his love interest, but was just a family member by his side?
When they went camping, Savile would suddenly point to an open space and say that something was flying there.
But when Lin Xi looked closely, there was clearly nothing there...
...
And now, Lin Xi is trapped on an alien planet hundreds of light-years away from Earth, facing a terrifying monster face to face.
Lin Xi inexplicably recalled scenes from even further back... even further back in time.
That was the first time Savile entered the house with his adoptive parents. Lin Xi curiously peeked out from behind Bryce to look at the shy and gloomy boy.
Meanwhile, the social worker in charge of Savile spoke quietly with the adoptive parents.
"...Yes, that's right...the child's parents suddenly went mad. They seem to think...oh, yes, it's all some terrible nonsense. They think vaccines are worm eggs, and that if their child takes the vaccine, he will become a host for some kind of parasite...They've been giving him high concentrations of deworming medication, almost killing the child...oh, it's okay, don't worry, he's fine now..."
The conversation, which had been like background noise, was now playing back with unparalleled clarity in Lin Xi's ears.
"Lin Xi?"
Seeing Lin Xi's increasingly grim expression, Xavier grew more and more apprehensive.
Lin Xi bit her tongue hard, and a sharp pain shot through her.
He struggled very hard to climb out of the mire of memories...
"I...I'm thinking about something."
Lin Xi murmured to Xavier.
Suddenly, Xavier reached out and carefully stroked Lin Xi's face.
It was only at this moment that Lin Xi realized that she had unknowingly burst into tears.
"Don't cry."
Xavier said helplessly.
Don't be sad.
It also said.
"I'm not sad, I..."
I'm just terrified.
Lin Xi said.
He didn't even dare to think about what those details and facts he remembered actually meant.
And at that very moment...
His voice suddenly caught in his throat.
It was a strange cold that acted entirely on the soul. It was as if a ghost's hand had reached out from behind his head, and at that moment, the ghost's icy fingers pierced directly into Lin Xi's brain.
Lin Xi gasped for breath, gripping Xavier tightly. He could feel his body stiffening, but at the same time… his soul seemed to be growing lighter…
Lin Xi suddenly looked up and realized that his field of vision was changing, as if he were looking at things through someone else's eyes.
Lin Xi had a similar experience before, but that time, he used the eyes of his own familiars—those monsters that had completely mutated. For him, it was like an instinct; his human side felt a little uncomfortable, but it wasn't a big problem.
But now, things seem to be a little different.
Lin Xi had never felt so cold before. It was as if he had been suddenly plunged into the bottom of a frozen lake. The biting cold felt like countless tiny needles, as fine as cow hair, piercing his skin and bone marrow.
Everything around him was shifting and swaying. He felt as if he were at the bottom of a dimly lit lake, barely able to make out his surroundings. Throughout, his vision was shrouded in a faint blue light. It was precisely because of this that Lin Xi didn't realize, after a while, that the swaying environment around him was actually a closed room. Judging from the thick metal plates and the old equipment, this must be a room on the Sun God.
In the very center of the room, there were four figures, their bioluminescence swaying gently like shadows… The core of their torsos was warmer and brighter, while their extremities were much darker. Regardless, they were the most prominent figures in Lin Xi's field of vision, forming a stark contrast to the dim and blurry background of the room.
Lin Xi's heart pounded faster and faster, and that indescribable sense of unease found a new explanation—he wasn't "seeing" these figures with human eyes; he was "perceiving" everything around him in a completely new way, one he had never experienced before. And it must be said, adapting to this entirely new way of perceiving was extremely difficult.
He discovered that only when he calmed himself down and focused all his attention on staring at the figures did their outlines not become blurred like ripples on water.
Compared to the slow and dull perception of humans, Lin Xi can now easily perceive countless details and information that would never be possible for a human being.
The aura emanating from the two figures lying on the ground had a strong sense of familiarity, and Lin Xi recognized them almost instantly.
Elisa...
Bryce?
Lin Xi let out a silent scream.
"Captain Taran... I want to see you. I want to make a deal with you..."
At the same time, he noticed that the figure standing next to Elisa and Bryce seemed to be talking to someone.
The voice seemed to come from a distant body of water. If Lin Xi hadn't been familiar enough with Sith Lem, she would have had a hard time recognizing the guy, since his accent sounded strangely unfamiliar, as if he had lost his mind.
Lin Xi felt as if he were... like some kind of ghost. He floated to Sith's side, invisible and formless, and then stared at him in shock.
Sith is using Elisa and Bryce as bargaining chips in a deal with Taran.
He discovered this very quickly.
However, at this moment, Lin Xi didn't even have time to be shocked by Sith's betrayal.
The man next to Sith attracted all his attention.
He had never seen anything so ugly and horrifying.
To say it was a "person" is an understatement; it was more like a monster.
No, even the word "monster" cannot describe its terror and evil.
Lin Xi shuddered involuntarily at the sight of that thing; a deformed and terrifying shadow was attached to the stiff and twisted body.
That guy was radiating a chaotic, maddening aura.
Suddenly, the monster seemed to sense Lin Xi's spying. It abruptly raised its head and stared straight at the direction where Lin Xi was now.
"Hmm..."
Lin Xi let out a painful groan.
Immediately afterwards, it felt like someone had given me a hard push.
A sensation of plummeting straight down from a great height washed over Lin Xi, and she jerked her body violently—
After the brief dizziness subsided, Lin Xi returned to the normal world once again.
However, at this moment he was half-lying in Xavier's arms, and the latter was calling his name repeatedly.
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