ABFA Chapter 36

Xiang Sui said, “All I have at home is some orange jam.”

Jiang Yue’s expression grew a little heavy. “Orange jam… well, I guess that’ll do.”

He took a jar of orange jam from the fridge and handed it to Jiang Yue. “I’ll go back to the bedroom to get dressed. Everything to eat is in the fridge, help yourself to whatever you want.”

Jiang Yue nodded.

After Xiang Sui left, Jiang Yue carried the orange jam into the bathroom.

Before entering the base, people would be searched, and anything dangerous wasn’t safe to carry anywhere. If there had been any other option, Jiang Yue wouldn’t have chosen to swallow this thing.

She took out the two eyeballs from her pocket and carefully washed them under the faucet. After washing them ten times, she scooped a spoonful of orange jam and spread it evenly over the eyeballs.

The red eyeballs coated with bright orange-yellow jam created a rather odd color combination.

Suddenly, they were smeared all over with jam. The two eyeballs looked utterly confused, stretching out their white tendrils to scrape off a small patch of the jam, revealing the spinning silver pupils beneath, and glanced at Jiang Yue with a hint of unease.

No matter how you looked at it, it was impossible to swallow.

It was really a test of one’s mental endurance.

She never expected that after spitting it out, she’d have to eat it again, she might as well not have spat it out at all.

What kind of thing was this?!

Oh, heavens!

In the mirror, Jiang Yue’s eyes were slightly red-rimmed. She held back her tears, covered her face, and with her eyes closed, let out a long, drawn-out sob. Then, gripping the tendrils of one eyeball, she tossed it into her mouth.

In the mirror, her face looked like a crumpled rag, every crease etched with bitterness, helplessness, pain, and sorrow.

The eyeball was rather large, and it got stuck in her throat.

Choking, Jiang Yue’s eyes rolled back. She had no choice but to lower her breath into her dantian, plant herself firmly, and after a silent, furious roar, she finally, with immense difficulty, managed to swallow the eyeball.

Half of her soul, along with the eyeball, now forever remained in her stomach.

The orange jam, sweet and tangy, offered a small comfort to the lost and dazed Jiang Yue.

If it had been strawberry jam instead, it would have been even better. Coating the eyeball in a matching strawberry color, she could have deceived herself, convincing herself she was merely swallowing a slightly oversized gummy candy.

After the first eyeball went down, the second one, which had been watching the entire process, was terrified. Its small spiral pupils unraveled into a ring like a mosquito coil, and it stretched out eight tendrils in an attempt to escape, only to be swiftly grabbed back by Jiang Yue’s quick hands.

The second swallow was a little easier. One eyeball or two, it was all the same. Jiang Yue took a deep breath and smeared a thick layer of orange jam over it again.

She told herself it was just a slightly oversized orange gummy.

Once the jam was evenly coated, completely hiding the eyeball, Jiang Yue let out a sob, her eyes brimming with tears, and swallowed them with unbearable pain.

Water gushed as she desperately rinsed her mouth.

She was filthy.

There was no way to get clean again.

Most of the jar of orange jam was gone. Jiang Yue, utterly exhausted, carried the jar out of the bathroom. The more she thought about it, the sadder she felt, sadder with every passing moment.

How could a perfectly delicate little fairy, a girl who carefully arranged even her fruit for presentation, end up in such a state?

A beauty by nature, yet cursed to be an Alpha!

Jiang Yue rubbed her throat. The orange jam was far too sweet and a bit cloying, so she had to gulp down water by the ton.

When Xiang Sui came downstairs after changing, he saw only the bottom of the orange jam jar left on the table.

“Wow, you actually ate jam straight from the jar? That’s a… unique taste.”

Jiang Yue held her stomach and weakly waved a hand at him.

“Did you contact the people at the base?”

Xiang Sui nervously rubbed his butt. “Yeah, I did. They’re on their way here. Not sure about the others… I just don’t get why I have to be so unlucky. Why couldn’t this thing just parasitize somewhere else, why my butt?”

Jiang Yue thought for a moment. “Better than parasitizing your… thing, right? If it really got there, your little guy in the next life would be toast.”

“Ugh! The more you talk, the grosser it gets!”

As the two of them were joking around, the front gate of the villa suddenly swung open. People in uniforms hurried inside.

Leading them was a stern-looking male alpha, with sharp, chiseled features and a cold, austere expression. His jet-black eyes were like icy stones, clearly someone untouchable, a high peak among men.

It was hard to imagine an alpha like him ever using a litter box.

One had to wonder about the author of “Conscious Projection”, what kind of genius dares to write such things? And not even fear getting ambushed by a shark in the middle of the night.

Xiang Liu entered and raised his hand. Behind him, his subordinates brought over earplugs and blindfolds.

Jiang Yue and Xiang Sui, their eyes covered and ears blocked, were escorted to the base.

The base was the same as always. The air was thick with the scent of blue embryonic compound, and since the mutated creatures were in a long, deep hibernation, everyone’s expressions were no longer as tense as before.

In the base’s medical room, the 26 people who had explored the giant pit began undergoing full-body examinations.

Except for the last rescue team and Jiang Yue, the remaining 19 people had all fallen victim, every one of them parasitized by the bizarre red eyeballs.

Jiang Yue was utterly shocked by this outcome. After all, the two eyeballs were clearly inside her own stomach, so why hadn’t the scans detected them?

The base’s human scanners were extremely advanced. How had the eyeballs managed to evade them?

This test result completely broke Jiang Yue’s composure. She had been counting on the base to detect the anomaly so she could conveniently spit out the eyeballs and rid herself of these two dangerous things, but now that plan had utterly failed.

At this point, Jiang Yue’s sorrow had swollen into a raging river. Could she really be stuck with these two eyeballs for the rest of her life?

Or had the eyeballs truly been digested by the hydrochloric acid in her stomach?

If that were the case, it would be a cause for immense relief.

Jiang Yue hadn’t been fretting for long before Major Lu Geng, the one who had given her the photo album, came to speak with her again.

The blonde-haired, golden-eyed Alpha looked like a great angel stepped out of mythology, pure and noble beyond measure.

A translucent ring hovered above his head, resembling a halo.

Lu Geng offered a dazzling, radiant smile. “Did you like the photo album I gave you last time?”

Jiang Yue touched her nose and nodded awkwardly.

“Would you like something to drink? The base recently stocked some very tasty fruit tea.”

Jiang Yue shook her head.

Lu Geng smiled faintly and took a tea bag from the drawer. “No need to be nervous. This is just a routine check. But seeing you fidget like this… you look like you’ve done something guilty.”

Jiang Yue tensed, forcing a wry smile. “I don’t mean to be nervous. It’s just that your appearance… really reminds me of the head director at our military academy.”

Lu Geng: “…”

She truly never expected that.

Precisely because of his naturally approachable appearance, the higher-ups sent him here, to prevent an unruly Alpha like Jiang Yue from developing psychological resistance to the base.

Promising recruits needed to be cultivated from a young age to prevent ideological deviation. Xiang Sui had joined a special department of the military at thirteen, and his brother Xiang Liu had entered even earlier, not yet eleven years old.

Jiang Yue was nearly eighteen. She had never been nurtured by the military, had no proper background, and had grown up in a filthy, chaotic slum.

The slums were a place of survival of the fittest, devoid of warmth. People there had no sense of honor, no sense of responsibility, and no sense of morality.

They would kill for a bite to eat, or sell their bodies for a morsel. Children raised in such an environment were like untamed wolves; cunning by nature, cruel and cold-blooded, with no sense of belonging and even less sense of loyalty.

By this age, a child’s worldview was basically set. If Jiang Yue hadn’t been exceptionally talented, the base wouldn’t have had to expend such immense effort cultivating her.

Lu Geng happened to be one of the people responsible for this mission.

Smiling, he made Jiang Yue a cup of lemon black tea and, in a very relaxed tone, asked, “How did you discover the anomaly? Xiang Sui said you barged into his house and tore off his pants. Were you completely sure he was parasitized at the time?”

She had expected this question.

Jiang Yue answered calmly, “Because I woke up earlier than usual today.”

Lu Geng: ?

He removed the halo above his head and held it in his arms, looking puzzled. “Sorry, I don’t quite understand. Could you explain that in more detail?”

Jiang Yue cleared her throat. “Usually, when Xiang Sui is in the dorm, I feel drowsy all the time. No matter how much I sleep, I never feel rested, I just can’t fully wake up.”

“Major Lu Geng, my biological clock is extremely precise, like a machine with no error. Under normal circumstances, I can wake up after just four hours of sleep.”

“I always thought I was just overexposed to the blastozyme, and that my body couldn’t adapt when I took a break. But on Friday night, when Xiang Sui went home, I was the only one left in the dorm. That Saturday, my biological clock instantly returned to normal.”

Lu Geng nodded. “So that’s how you discovered the anomaly?”

Jiang Yue took a sip of tea, keeping a straight face as she lied. “Actually, I should have noticed it earlier. Whenever I left the dorm without walking alongside Xiang Sui, my mind wasn’t so drowsy. But I didn’t think much of it, I just assumed that being outside and breathing fresh air naturally made me feel more awake.”

Lu Geng asked, “So what time did you wake up this morning?”

Jiang Yue replied, “Five o’clock.”

Lu Geng: “After waking up, what did you do, and why did you suddenly think of Xiang Sui?”

Jiang Yue remained calm. “I went for a run in the small grove, then went to the nearby market and bought three buckets of fish.”

Lu Geng looked up at her. “Three buckets of fish? What for?”

Jiang Yue licked her lips and began to ramble. “I felt so sorry for those little fish. They should be swimming freely, but instead people catch them and put them on the table. They haven’t even grown up yet.”

Lu Geng looked surprised. “I wouldn’t have guessed, you actually have a caring side. So then, how did you realize something was wrong?”

Jiang Yue spread her hands. “I can’t really describe the feeling. I just suddenly realized that being this full of energy didn’t seem right. Everything happens gradually; there’s no way I could have instantly detoxed from the blastozyme. Even if my drowsiness in the giant pit was due to mental fatigue, it shouldn’t have gone away all at once, right?”

“The more I thought about it, the more something felt off. Xiang Sui has been getting drowsier lately, but the moment he leaves the dorm, I feel completely alert. We both went to the giant pit and had contact with the mutated species. So, in my worry, I sent him a message.”

Lu Geng looked at her approvingly. “Jiang Yue, you really are an Alpha with keen insight. None of our elites noticed the anomaly.”

Jiang Yue silently breathed a sigh of relief and, in a nervous, humble tone, said, “They’re just too skilled. The negative effects weren’t that obvious at first, but over time, they definitely would have noticed.”

“Oh, right, Major Lu Geng, can I ask what exactly those things parasitizing them are? Is everyone okay?”

Lu Geng smiled. “You can come with me and see for yourself.”

After putting on protective suits, Jiang Yue followed him into the dissection room.

On the operating tables lay nineteen red eyeballs.

Unlike the two eyeballs in Jiang Yue’s stomach, these ones were more translucent. Hers were more like congealed plasma, and in addition, the pupils of these eyeballs were small milky-white dots, not the silver spirals hers had.

Why were they still different?

A flicker of doubt rose in Jiang Yue’s mind.

She whispered to Lu Geng, “Where are the people?”

Lu Geng replied, “They just finished surgery; the anesthesia hasn’t worn off yet.”

A researcher carried a brood of chirping yellow chicks over to the table. He carefully used tweezers to place one of the eyeballs onto a chick.

The eyeball’s white tendrils pierced into the chick’s body. After half an hour, the parasitized chick died, leaving behind only a layer of dried, shriveled skin.

At the same time, the other chicks in the cage grew listless, lying around with no energy.

This was quite different from the two eyeballs Jiang Yue possessed.

They could drain a five-pound rat dry in the blink of an eye.

Even when their devouring ability was restrained, no parasitized rat survived more than five minutes.

Jiang Yue’s heart sank.

 

 

 

---

Support me on ko-fi for more additional updates~ ʚ(´꒳`)ɞ