The short-term rental apartment was very nice: one bedroom and a living room with plenty of natural light, fully equipped with all the necessary amenities, and even a smart vacuum and an AI housekeeper. On top of that, every floor of the building had vending machines and a gym, perfectly solving the problems of an Alpha getting hungry easily and having excess energy.
In such an environment, things should have been ideal. Yet Jiang Yue still missed her dorm life terribly. How joyful it had been to be with everyone, bustling and lively, now she was all alone, and every time she looked in the mirror, her expression was gloomy.
The dorm and the Federal Military Academy were the only two places where Jiang Yue felt a true sense of belonging.
At six in the morning, Jiang Yue drew open the curtains, got up, and went through her morning routine. Afterward, she drank a cup of coffee and gnawed on an energy bar, then headed to the gym for a two-hour workout.
By eight, she was running to the Blue Whale Mall, where she had a part-time job, working at the cosmetics section as a temporary sales clerk.
The once delicate little princess had, after traversing interstellar society, been ruthlessly beaten down by life, forced to become a diligent corporate worker just to earn a living and support herself.
Even though she now lived a rough, unpolished life, there were still countless ways that money had to be spent.
Clothes that were torn had to be replaced; running shoes that were coming apart had to be replaced; even underwear had to be changed after a month.
Drinking water cost money, eating cost money, and the energy bars and nutritional drinks she used to supplement her diet also cost money.
Through her tireless efforts, her life had finally been raised, albeit barely, by a notch, allowing her once again to use fragrant facial cleansers and soft face towels.
Sometimes she would sneak a few samples from the store back home, quietly using them to draw her eyebrows.
She had also tried putting on lipstick herself, but her face just didn’t suit it, it looked as strange as if TFBOYS were performing a traditional yangge dance in [blank] Square.1TFBOYS is a very popular Chinese boy band, short for The Fighting Boys. They’re known for singing, dancing, and having a “cute” image, mostly aimed at a teen audience. Yangge (秧歌) is a traditional Chinese folk dance, often performed during festivals like the Lunar New Year. It’s usually lively, exaggerated, and rhythmic, with dancers swinging handkerchiefs or props, stomping their feet, and moving in coordinated group formations.
As a part-time sales clerk at a cosmetics counter, Jiang Yue was responsible for promoting makeup to Omegas and Betas. This job came naturally to her; occasionally, when she felt inspired, she couldn’t resist showing off a little, giving Omegas a full makeup look.
Her sales performance was excellent, after just half a month, her commissions had already exceeded ten thousand.
It was well known that life as a corporate worker was tough, and she often couldn’t leave work on time.
When you’re utterly exhausted, ready to go home, wash up, and collapse into bed, the manager insists on holding a meeting. At times like that, Jiang Yue would roll her eyes and immediately flop to the ground as if fainting.
Jiang Yue’s part-time job was at the Blue Whale Mall. The fifth floor of the mall was filled with cosmetics and luxury brand counters, places that generally didn’t hire temporary workers during winter or summer breaks.
But Jiang Yue’s appearance was so outstanding that even just standing at the entrance could suddenly increase foot traffic in the store, let alone at a cosmetics counter.
The male Alpha manager of the neighboring luxury counter had taken a liking to Jiang Yue. He would subtly offer her “olive branches”2an idiom that means offering peace, reconciliation, or a friendly gesture, basically trying to make amends or build rapport, hoping to lure her over to work at his store.
Jiang Yue was deeply touched, but she still declined him.
By nine in the evening, only the exhausted employees remained in the mall. After finishing restocking and summarizing the day’s sales, they were about to leave.
Half of the mall’s lights had been dimmed. The staff rubbed their sore waists and necks as they began organizing merchandise. Jiang Yue yawned while wiping makeup boxes, smudged with fingerprints and dust.
The female Beta manager of the store stood nearby, massaging her spine. Jiang Yue casually asked, “Manager, why aren’t you leaving yet?”
The manager turned her head, and under the dim light, she showed a stiff smile.
She slowly rotated her spine, producing a series of crackling sounds that made anyone listening wince. Jiang Yue grinned and noticed that the manager’s spine seemed to have stretched by two centimeters all of a sudden.
Could moving one’s spine really have such a miraculous effect?
Jiang Yue tried twisting her own neck. She glanced at the mirror in the cosmetics section and found that her neck hadn’t grown a bit.
Staff at high-end brand counters needed to have the right temperament and posture, and the female Beta manager was always complaining about her short neck.
Sure enough, with her neck seemingly two centimeters longer, she looked noticeably more graceful.
When she turned her head, she noticed Beta Sister Liu from the skincare section standing by the shelves, rotating her wrists. Sister Liu seemed somewhat uncomfortable in her own body, so she stretched out her hands and twisted her wrists 360 degrees, turning them twice like tightening a screw.
…
Something felt a little off.
A cold sweat instantly broke out on Jiang Yue’s forehead.
Her scalp tingled. She stood in front of the cosmetics counter, her legs weak, lowering her head to look into the fitting mirror.
In the reflection, Brother Zhou, a male Beta from the haircare section, was moving his shoulders, and two strange protrusions had appeared on his shoulders.
Jiang Yue turned the mirror slightly. In the reflection, the manager’s head suddenly drooped, and a translucent blue tentacle extended out from her neck.
Jiang Yue’s gaze quickly scanned the area. Trembling, she grabbed a brow razor, the only sharp weapon she could find.
Cold sweat streamed down her face as she took in everything around her, yet she forced herself to act natural and walked out of the counter.
Outside the store, a familiar luxury counter employee leaned against the wall, rotating his foot. His toes lifted slightly. Jiang Yue glanced down, pretending to fix her hair, and in that brief look, she saw that the heel of his foot had lifted off the ground, a black tentacle reaching out to grip the floor.
Jiang Yue’s breathing grew heavy.
The employee leaning against the wall lifted his head and smiled at her. “Hi, hello.”
His lips split unnaturally, stretching all the way to his ears, revealing blood-red gums.
Jiang Yue forced a smile. “Hello.”
Her legs felt weak as she hurried to the elevator. When it opened, a familiar Counter Beta was inside. His posture looked human, if only his neck hadn’t stretched to twice the length of a normal human’s.
Counter Beta’s lips split all the way to his ears, revealing a perfect smile with 28 teeth. “Want me to press the floor for you?”
Jiang Yue felt like crying.
She shook her head politely. “No, thank you.”
Jiang Yue turned and walked away. The elevator doors slowly closed behind her. She hurried toward the escalator, only to see another familiar Counter Alpha standing on it, waving at her.
His head drooped from his neck, the skin around his neck stretched like a long, flesh-colored elastic band, suspending his head and letting it sway in front of Jiang Yue. He smiled. “Hi, heading off work?”
Jiang Yue nearly fell to her knees. She stumbled backward several steps, desperately pressing the terminal.
No signal.
There wasn’t a single bar of signal.
Jiang Yue couldn’t even begin to describe how she felt. She hurried to the mall’s alarm panel, intending to trigger it, when a uniformed male Alpha said, “It’s useless. It was destroyed long ago.”
Jiang Yue recognized him, he was the manager of the women’s shoe counter across the way. Just the day before yesterday, he had secretly invited her to dinner, extending an olive branch.
This Alpha seemed completely normal, if it weren’t for the fact that his eyes were filled with countless tiny black compound eyes, Jiang Yue might have truly believed he was just an ordinary person.
All the exits were blocked. The entire fifth floor of the mall was overrun by the Zerg creatures, and Jiang Yue had no idea if there were any other survivors.
What should she do? What should she do?!
This wasn’t the Federal Military Academy. She had no usable weapons in her hands. Ordinary weapons were useless against the Zerg. In a panic, she dashed into a women’s shoe counter and grabbed a pair of 12-centimeter red high heels.
On the fifth floor of the mall, people in various uniforms were approaching from all directions.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
From deep in her throat, Jiang Yue let out a wail of despair.
The shoe store clerk twisted his neck with a loud crack, contorting his limbs, and two long black leg-like appendages extended from his ribs.
“You humans’ bodies are truly ugly and primitive.”
After saying this, he lunged at Jiang Yue. She swung the red high heel with all her strength; the sharp stiletto pierced the clerk’s left eye, and a stream of dark, black liquid slowly trickled down his eye socket.
He seemed incapable of feeling pain. With a swing of the leg-like appendages from his ribs, he ripped the high heel out of his eye.
The flesh remaining in the eye socket writhed violently, and countless compound eyes pressed together inside.
Jiang Yue could hold back no longer!
She leapt up and yanked the gravity ring off her leg, hurling it at the Zerg.
The 25-kilogram gravity ring smashed into the clerk’s head, leaving a huge crater. Jiang Yue quickly removed the other gravity ring from her ankle and sprinted across the fifth floor of the mall.
She had to get out!
She needed to make a break while these Zergs hadn’t fully developed and couldn’t yet fully control human bodies.
If she waited any longer, it would be too late. Fully matured Zergs were terrifying, their strength and speed were beyond anything she could hope to match.
The terminal still had no signal. She ran toward the escalator, only to come to a desperate halt once again.
A massive white spiderweb stretched across the entrance to the escalator. At the center of the web sprawled a nearly one-meter-long spider, its body shimmering with iridescent colors. Its black mandibles dripped a green liquid, highly corrosive strong acid.
Jiang Yue turned around. The Alpha manager was walking toward her, smiling. “Jiang Yue, we meet again. I wonder how things have been for you at the Federal Military Academy?”
Jiang Yue was terrified. Her voice trembled. “Who… Who are you?”
The manager gave a standard eight-tooth smile. “Sometimes I even reminisce about the times we ate instant noodles together at the relief center.”
Jiang Yue exclaimed, “Song Yang!”
“Oh, that name isn’t wrong. It’s truly an honor that you still remember me,” he replied.
Since being transported to this world, Jiang Yue’s worldview had already been overturned many times, but the scene before her now completely shattered it once again.
She shouted, “You’re still alive? How is that even possible?!”
Song Yang spoke slowly, “I told you, death is not the end of life.”
His compound eyes all focused on Jiang Yue, and he said approvingly, “You’ve done well at the Federal Military Academy. You’re no longer as timid and weak as before, you’ve gained some courage.”
Jiang Yue backed up repeatedly. “What exactly do you want? Don’t tell me it’s just to reminisce with me.”
Song Yang laughed. “Of course not. Leaving this body to you is such a waste, it deserves a higher-quality consciousness.”
Jiang Yue shot a sharp look at him.
Song Yang lazily rotated his neck. “Human bodies are truly inferior. No matter how long you spend in one, you can never fully get used to it.”
“I have to commend your safety awareness. You really didn’t need to go to such lengths.”
Jiang Yue’s breathing quickened. “You’ve been watching me all this time?”
Two dark blue leg-like appendages extended from the front of his arms, sharp and sword-like. He held them crossed in front of his chest, waving them with a sneer. “You didn’t really think no one knew, did you? You, a consciousness that came from who knows where.”
Jiang Yue steadied herself and asked, “So you knew all along, and that’s why you deliberately got close to me at the relief center?”
“At that time, it wasn’t certain. You dodged my repeated tests.”
Jiang Yue’s eyes narrowed. “So the Zerg eggs in the instant noodles, that was you?”
Song Yang nodded.
Even though her hands were trembling uncontrollably, Jiang Yue did her best to remain calm and asked, “How did you figure it out? If you’re a Zerg, how can you be parasitized?”
Song Yang replied, “You mean that fool Song Yang? Don’t confuse me with him. I only occasionally showed myself while parasitizing his body. But now… I’ve devoured his consciousness. In a sense, I am him. For us Zergs, it doesn’t matter. Only you humans care about individual consciousness.”
With each step he advanced, Jiang Yue took a step back. In the corner of her eye, she saw that those parasitized by the Zergs had already formed a circle around her. The fifth floor of the mall had become a massive web, no one, not even a deity, could escape.
Jiang Yue summoned her consciousness, and a round, hefty golden eagle rolled out from the ripples, its weight completely unchanged.
This is useless!
Jiang Yue closed her eyes and recalled the cumbersome, bloated golden eagle.
She would have to fight alone.
Song Yang slowly advanced, smiling. “You’d better not resist. You know humans’ strength is insignificant compared to ours.”
The mall’s glass ceiling was covered with massive white spiderwebs. Giant, rainbow-colored spiders, each the size of a small building, perched atop the webs, watching like predators.
Green acid dripped from their mandibles, and white smoke rose from the marble floor as it was corroded, leaving deep pits one after another.
Song Yang raised his leg-like appendages. “Stop struggling; it’s useless.”
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152
cliffhanger 😔 thanks for the new chapters!