Chapter 111: The Awakened and the Past

The severed blood vessels connecting the eyeball had turned white and desiccated. The lens, having almost entirely detached from the socket, rolled around restlessly as if searching for a comfortable position, yet it could never find one.

Her fingers seemed to grow repulsed by this sensation. Extending her middle and ring fingers, she forced her fingertips into the gap between the socket and the lens to pry.

The way she handled those hands was far too brutal—cruel, as if she were gouging out someone else’s eyes.

"Even Xiahou Yuan wasn't this ruthless..." Chen Qing muttered under his breath, only to be met with a look of pure disdain from Jiang Wan, who rolled her eyes toward the heavens.

"Keep rolling those eyes and you'll end up just like her."

She choked on her own saliva at the remark, and the eye-rolling ceased.

"Stop messing around! What are we supposed to do about her?"

Chen Qing looked up at Bu Zhaozhao, who was lost in deep thought while hovering in mid-air.

Meeting his gaze, Bu Zhaozhao replied, "Wait a little longer... just a little longer."

"Wait for what? This girl is about to turn into a drought demon! We're still waiting?"

Chen Qing watched as the muscles on the back of Zhang Lan’s hands rippled like piano keys, and bone spurs, white as jade, pierced through the skin from the gaps in the muscle.

She opened her mouth, and teeth began to surge forward in waves, pushed outward by new teeth erupting from the back gums.

Only after a dozen, two dozen, then hundreds of teeth had been pushed forward did the movement in her mouth finally subside. Those displaced teeth gathered at the front of her mouth, blooming like a chrysanthemum.

The teeth, stained with cadaveric fluid and blood of unknown origin, were mostly shattered or broken, with only a few remaining intact.

"Hey... are we still waiting?" Chen Qing shouted.

But she was in no hurry.

"Wait a moment more... trust me."

Her eyes glowed with an intensity bordering on manic curiosity: "It’s so miraculous... this process of death and rebirth, this spontaneous materialization."

She whispered, her face drawing closer and closer to Zhang Lan’s corpse.

She suddenly realized that the protein compound before her could no longer be described as a corpse.

She turned to Chen Qing and asked, "Is the E-500 ready?!"

"In my pocket."

"Get it in your hand and be ready!"

He acknowledged her, though it didn't matter if she heard him or not. Like Bu Zhaozhao, who was still suspended in the air, she stared intently at the subject before her, completely indifferent to whether Chen Qing had heard her.

They were both lost in their own tasks.

"Stuff it in her mouth!"

At her command, Chen Qing’s figure blurred. In an instant, he shoved the chocolate into the girl's mouth—right into the center of the thumb-sized cavity surrounded by hundreds of teeth.

The very next moment, just as Chen Qing pulled his hand away, the scattered, broken teeth writhed and converged toward the center. The teeth inside her mouth shattered against one another; being fragile, they collided, and fragments sprayed outward like bullets.

However, because the teeth were newly formed, their texture was soft, which significantly slowed the rate at which they shattered.

Chen Qing leaned his body to the side and ducked, letting hundreds of fragments whistle past his face.

The fragments compressed the air as they flew, the resulting wind stinging his skin.

But he had avoided them—at least, he had managed to dodge.

On the wall behind him, where the tooth fragments had embedded themselves, the concrete was corroding and turning black, a testament to the severity of the damage.

"Such aggressive corrosiveness..." Bu Zhaozhao’s eyes lit up. "I should try to collect some of that later."

She muttered to herself, but Chen Qing didn't hear her.

He stood up, his shirt soaked with cold sweat. When he finally regained his composure and looked at Zhang Lan, her movements had ceased entirely.

She stared straight ahead at her own toes—or perhaps it could still be called staring; at least, the side with the lens devoid of blood vessels was fixed on her feet.

She raised her hand, and the bone spurs began to squeeze out from the back of her hand, much like pushing out a large, stubborn clog from a pore. With a series of clinking sounds, they fell to the floor. Her right eye, which had completely defied biological norms, was also nudged back into place by the surrounding muscles.

A second later, her skin began to revert to its human form. The hundreds of teeth fell away from her mouth, and the distorted features of her face gradually softened into something delicate once more.

"Turn around."

"Huh?" Chen Qing paused. "Turn around for what?"

He didn't wait for Jiang Wan’s answer; a strong, firm hand had already forced his head to turn away.

Before he could even struggle, a piece of clothing with a faint, clean fragrance was wrapped over his eyes.

"Eh?" He stood there, listening to the "tsk-tsk" sounds coming from Bu Zhaozhao, enduring the brief moment of confusion.

When he finally pulled the garment from his face, Zhang Lan was already wearing her school uniform.

Her complexion remained pale; neither the mental nor physical trauma could be overcome so quickly.

She looked at Chen Qing and opened her mouth, as if thousands of words were caught on her tongue. A milky white mist clouded her eyes, and the corners of her eyes turned red.

She stammered, but the tears that should have come so easily were now impossible to release.

In her heart, she thought she should embrace these two people, to vent the hardships of her journey and the sorrow of her plight.

But she couldn't say it.

She didn't even want to recall what had happened earlier due to the weight of her emotions. It felt as if every glance left behind in that world, every scene that flashed through her memory or appeared in her mind, would pull her back to that day.

So she chose to let go of the pain; she chose to turn a blind eye to those who had sacrificed themselves for her.

With red-rimmed eyes, she walked numbly to the bedroom door. She gripped the doorknob but hesitated to press it down.

"Chen Qing... Chen Qing?"

She called out as if seeking rescue, like a drowning person clutching at a piece of driftwood.