Chapter 39 Delirium

There seem to be a lot of people in the main city of the M31 galaxy who have caught a cold recently.

On this weekend afternoon, Guan Buhui sat on a rocking chair at the door of the store, watching the people walking back and forth on the roadside.

In fact, it's not just office workers. Even the orders from nearby residential areas have increased by a large number of medicines and nutritional supplements.

Maybe it's some kind of flu that the elderly and children are more susceptible to?

"Eh?"

Lilith leaned over the counter in the store and looked at the anxious child in front of her with embarrassment: "Did your parents not come to pick you up today? Do you have to wait in the store for a while? That's no problem... Do you want to use my smart phone to call your parents?"

"...You mean, your parents are at home?"

"Then why don't you go home? Because you were scolded?"

"...Because, scared?"

Guanbuhui paused in his lazy leaning on the rocking chair, and Lilith's confused voice came from the room: "You said you are afraid of them? Why?"

"...You mean, you think they were taken away by monsters?"

The trusting pink and purple little parrot raised its ears, Listening to the child crying incoherently at the store door: ".....They are not...not my mom and dad, the fake mom and dad also brought me disgusting water to drink...I won't drink it....."

"Don't tell them I'm here...I won't leave..."

"Disgusting water? Is it medicine?" Lilith racked her brains to think about what the child said, "Did he have a conflict with his mom and dad? Or..."

"It's a monster!! Today in kindergarten...many children turned into monsters..."

"And the teacher is a monster too! They are all monsters!!..."

Most children of this age have animism, not to mention that what he said really sounded like nonsense. Lilith didn't pay attention to it, but immediately tried to contact the child's parents.

The child's parents came over quickly, thanking the owner profusely and preparing to take the child home.

The child was crying and making a fuss in the store. The young owner couldn't bear it and said a few words of advice: "You should educate your child well at home, don't beat or scold him too often..."

"Yes, this child is too noisy, his father and I just said a few words..."

"Well, thank you for this time. Here's a box of drinks for you to drink."

Without the rest of the greetings, this little episode was over. Guan Buhui stood in front of the window and watched the child crying and making a fuss, looking back every few steps. He was dragged away reluctantly, and he scratched his chin a little confused. Behind him, Lilith was having trouble with a large box of drinks. She raised her head worriedly and suddenly saw Guan Buhui in a daze not far away.

"What's wrong?" She walked over, "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing, just a little weird," Guan Buhui frowned, stroking his chin and looking at the backs of the three people, "I wasn't very obedient when I was a child... Every time I was messing around outside, my adoptive father would at least pull me to scold me, or ask me what's wrong... In short, the focus would always be on the child."

"Why, I always feel that this couple doesn't seem to care about the child."

Hearing this, Lilith couldn't help but look up, but soon lowered her head and looked at the box of drinks carefully.

"Forget it! Maybe their family situations are different?" The store manager gave up thinking and unpacked the box, saying casually, "But they look quite rich. Even the juice they give away is a famous brand... Here, do you want to drink it?"

Guan Buhui came to his senses and looked at the drink that Lilith kindly handed to him.

This brand of drink was the same brand as the drink that the grandmother gave him when she delivered the goods a few days ago.

*

In fact, for some reason, he has had no appetite these past few days.

Therefore, Guan Buhui did not touch a single sip of the juice that the couple brought him.

However, Lilith, who drank the juice, suddenly developed symptoms similar to a cold and cough the next day.

"Are you sick? The medical robot didn't give you an early warning?"

She coughed a few times in confusion, touched her forehead, and tested it with a thermometer: "My temperature is normal... cough, what's going on?"

"There aren't many orders today, so I'll finish delivering yours! Let's close our store for a day?" Guan Buhui also took her temperature, frowned and thought for a while, "Did you get infected by the customers from the past few days?"

"It's possible, but aren't you okay?"

"My immunity is better, right?"

The two of them whispered for a long time but couldn't come up with anything. Guan Buhui could only carry the store manager's earnest expectations, carry large and small packages, ride his familiar electric donkey, and go to the residential area again.

Now Guan Buhui, a skilled worker, has a close relationship with the residents around him and knows the nearby terrain very well.

He rode his electric donkey around for a while, and the familiar faces in the residential area were the same as always. The elderly took their children to sit on the slide in the play area, and young couples were affectionate by the landscaped lake.

The only strange thing was.

Deathly silence.

Whether it was the play area or the landscaped lake, everyone was playing and making noises as usual, but it was as silent as a cemetery. Even the children who loved to make noises and screams on weekdays were now unusually quiet, without any sound - no, compared to deathly silence, it was more like a group of zombies covered in human skin, rigidly imitating the movements of their lives.

Even though he was not alone in his sight, Guan Buhui felt a chill running down his spine.

Slowly, slowly, it climbed up.

As if it was a sign before something happened.

"......"

He suddenly pulled the accelerator of the electric donkey, left the crowd with a chill, and went to the residential building where the order owner lived with a new order.

Looking at the address, this order seemed to belong to the old lady with the cub.

Because of her bad legs, the grandmother often ordered door-to-door delivery. After running back and forth several times, their relationship gradually became warmer - it was precisely because of this that Guan Buhui subconsciously chose their house as the first one to deliver the order.

The little parrot rushed to the elevator in a panic, almost as if he was running for his life, unloading and ringing the doorbell in one go. As expected, it was the child who opened the door again, and the grandmother walked out of the house slowly.

The smell of the residents' home was blowing in his face, and the reassuring scene of life made him relax a little.

But for some reason, he always felt that there was an indescribable salty smell in the air... Was it an illusion?

The grandmother greeted him warmly as always, and brought him a bottle of juice drink, which was still a familiar brand. Guan Buhui wanted to wave his hand to say no, but the old man suddenly raised his head, with a familiar and kind smile, staring at him straight: "Aren't you going to drink it yet?"

The young man shuddered and almost bit his tongue. He subconsciously wanted to make up a reason: "I, I have no appetite recently..."

"Didn't you drink the previous bottles?" The old man asked immediately.

"..."

Guan Buhui raised his head a little dazedly and saw that the old man's irises were gradually stained with sticky gold, as if countless hands were tumbling in that layer of skin.

Grandma smiled and took a step forward, her voice still gentle and kind: "Why don't you drink it? I gave it to you many times... Why don't you drink it. Why?"

"Why?"

"Why."

The intense burning sensation in his stomach came again, and he saw the child behind the old man also stepped out.

Together with the grandmother, he slowly opened his mouth with a smile and made the same sticky and salty voice: "Why?"

"Why..."

The child's voice and the old voice overlapped, and the rational strings in his brain seemed to be tightened suddenly, and the indescribable fear and anxiety that belonged to biological instinct surged and spread to every part of his body.

He turned around and ran without looking back, not even caring about the money, and staggered and pressed the button to open the elevator.

The moment the elevator door closed, he saw the old man standing at the door of his house indifferently, and smiled at him. A

standard, rigid, familiar smile.

Guan Buhui's pupils trembled violently, and his brain trembled with a buzzing sound as if it had been hit hard. He stumbled out of the apartment building and rolled and crawled towards his electric donkey.

With his staggering steps, the whole world seemed to be silent. Those people who were still maintaining their originality just now - those playing children, the elderly and adults chatting, and the little couples walking by the landscaped lake all stopped their movements, like neatly arranged puppets giving up their disguises.

Countless heads turned slowly, and countless pairs of eyes with peaceful smiles were cast on him who was sweating profusely.

In an instant, Guan Buhui seemed to be lifted to the center of the stage, with audiences staring at him and glaring magnesium lights everywhere. He could not escape from the shadowy gazes, and all the faces with different appearances wore the same smile.

And he seemed to be a little fool who broke the world's pretense and could no longer pretend that nothing had happened.

The entire residential area.

No, the entire main city seemed to have pressed the pause button.

If someone on the M31 galaxy was looking down from a flying ship at this moment, they would probably find that this huge star field was unprecedentedly silent.

The once bright planets, the vibrant orbits and ports, the stations of interstellar migration—all were wrapped up by invisible, amber-like, viscous, chaotic, and soft golden soft tissues, as if time had stopped, and everything was completely stopped.

Or, in other words, the rules that were originally running normally in this star field were completely destroyed by the soft and greedy golden soft matter.

The busy traffic, the prosperous city, the mountain and sea tides, on this seemingly ordinary day,

turned into the seedbed of "God".

At this moment, Guan Buhui, who was standing alone in the crowd, seemed to finally realize something.

The zombie-like, gentle, calm, and ignorant people slowly and steadily gathered towards him, like countless high walls made of flesh, with irresistible and unquestionable pressure, slowly squeezing out the oxygen and space he needed to exist.

In the farther place, those hurried office workers, those staff members who bowed their heads and coughed, and even the noisy traffic on the road, seemed to have pressed the pause button or mute button, and the order of the city in the morning was completely suspended.

More dark and oppressive people surged aimlessly, squeezing into this small residential area.

With Guanbuhui as the center, this silence of order collapse spread across the entire star field at the speed of light in an instant.