The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 16

After handling Su Gang’s business, Lin Yang and Lin left Lü He’s house together.

Lin Yang walked half a step ahead of Lin. He looked back at the creature. “Regarding tonight’s events, you, as an evil being, were actually so angry.”

According to the knowledge shared by 00, monsters didn’t have concepts of siblings, parents, or family. Eating one’s own offspring shouldn’t be a significant issue for them. Could it be that his recent efforts at “seducing” this creature had, as written in those books, given it a heart that loves the world?

“Those infants were meant as my apology to you. They had no right to destroy them.”

Lin’s expression was serious. It used the words “apology” and “destruction” to describe the infants, easily erasing their individual significance. It did not view those infants as important lives in their own right. In other words, if those killed tonight had been any other younglings besides those specific infants, Lin wouldn’t have spared them a single glance.

The answer was unexpected yet within reason, but Lin Yang still felt a wave of irritation. This attitude of disregarding life filled him with loathing. He knew full well he couldn’t criticize an evil creature for being indifferent to life, so he grew even more frustrated. He said, “Give me your hand.”

Not understanding the intent, Lin instinctively reached out. Lin Yang grabbed Lin’s hand and bit down hard on the area between the thumb and index finger.

The cold, white flesh was pierced, and blood flowed out. Lin Yang licked it up. The sharp pain made Lin frown, but Lin Yang lifted his eyes; he liked the creature’s pained expression—it made him forget his own frustration.

He released Lin’s hand, fresh blood lingering on his lips. His soft lips curved upward. “I’m tired. Going back to sleep.”

Lin Yang waved his hand, signaling Lin not to follow. Lin took one step forward then retracted it. It lifted its pale, blood-stained right hand before its silver-white eyes, staring for a moment. Lin sniffed the scent of its right hand and extended its tongue to lick the spot Lin Yang had just tasted.

The same contact of the tongue, yet when replaced by its own, its heart did not experience that feeling of an electric current racing through it. Lin could not figure it out. It turned around as the firelight suddenly flared up.

Lin Yang returned to Lin Lin’s belly and knelt to pick up the scattered black beads one by one. The beads in his palm weren’t enough to make a bracelet, so Lin Yang manifested a dagger and gouged out several more—seventeen in total.

00 hugged its tail, hesitating to speak. Does a suitor really send out their own eyeballs made into a bracelet? You won’t catch anyone like that! You’ll just be treated as a psycho, hey!

Lin Yang worked until the horizon turned white, not closing his eyes the entire night. However, he wasn’t tired at all; he was highly excited. He picked up the string of refined, dark, shimmering beads and walked out. Leaving the giant rock monster’s belly, he stopped at a distance of ten meters.

Lin’s head had been severed, its face slashed to a mess, and it was hung upside down from a thick chain. Lin’s fragmented body was scattered across the black silt. After he had left last night, Lin’s duplicate had been hunted and killed by the humans or Silver Merfolk on the ground, then hung outside his dwelling as a trophy.

Lin Yang murmured, “Do you think killing this evil creature would make me sad?”

“Not at all.” Lin Yang met the gaze of Lin’s hollowed-out eyes. “I dream of killing this beast every single day.”

Lin Lin woke up with bleary eyes. It wondered why Lin Yang was up so early, standing motionless in the silt. Once it saw the scene before it, its frame shuddered, and a few small stones fell off. “Has the Evil God’s duplicate been hunted again?”

Lin Yang caught the word. “What do you mean by ‘hunted again’?”

“Lord, you should know that the Evil God’s duplicates can be killed, right?”

Lin Yang tightened his grip on the scorching beads in his palm. “It is the Evil God. Even if it’s a duplicate, the humans and Silver Merfolk cannot defeat it.”

“One cannot defeat it, but what about two or three? Ten or a hundred? No matter how powerful a duplicate is, it can be worn down to death.”

“Then what is the point of trading a hundred lives for the death of one duplicate?”

Lin Lin fell silent. A few seconds later, it answered in a muffled voice: “Everyone hates the Evil God. The Evil God will not let us off; every living thing on this land will eventually die. Everyone believes this.”

Therefore, trading a hundred lives for a duplicate’s death allowed them to deceive themselves at the moment of their passing, telling themselves they had perished along with the Evil God—a worthy death.

“Every time a duplicate is found on the ground, those humans and Silver Merfolk who harbor such thoughts will unite to hunt it down regardless of the cost. Everyone calls this ‘the Great Hunt’.”

Lin Yang understood this sharp hatred, but he wanted these people to live. Living was more important than hatred. Lin Yang’s dark eyes were clouded; he himself had no right to say such things. To him, killing the Evil God was more important than survival.

Lin Yang picked up Lin’s head and moved it back into Lin Lin’s belly, followed by the arms, legs, torso, and feet. After several trips and finishing the task, he said to Lin Lin: “Help me look after them. Don’t let anyone take them away. Your belly can close, right?”

“Mm-hmm!” Lin Lin nodded. “Rest assured, Lord Lin Yang. My belly is very hard; it can only be opened if I die.”

Lin Yang left 00 on the ground and climbed up the blood-stained chain. His face was peaceful and his lips were curved, but looking only at his eyes, one would see his pupils were cold.

This time, no attacks appeared on the chain. Lin Yang arrived at the temple smoothly. He pushed open the door and climbed the hundred steps as if he had done it a thousand times. The sacrificial altar had sunk again, forming the dozens-of-meters-deep blood pool.

Lin lay in the blood-water with its eyes closed. Lin Yang realized that only when in the water or in a frenzied battle state would Lin sprout the magnificent fishtail and wings like those of a fairy-tale angel. Lying in the blood-water, the creature didn’t look like an Evil God; it was more accurately described as a pure, imprisoned deity.

Lin Yang made no sound. He jumped from the high platform. The moment he entered the water, Lin opened its silver-white eyes and met Lin Yang’s gaze.

Lin Yang suddenly felt a sharp sensation of pain. In an instant, the strange feeling vanished. He fell atop Lin, and the broad wings naturally wrapped around him like a pure white cocoon.

Lin Yang straddled Lin’s waist, his dark eyes drawing close as he stared directly into Lin’s. “What was that just now?”

Lin Yang’s clothes were very thin, and his body possessed a warmth unlike that of a monster. Faced with such a warm body, a monster couldn’t help but want to draw closer. But because they couldn’t control their strength, it was easy to tear such a fragile human to pieces.

Lin suppressed its desire to touch him and answered, “My pain receptors accidentally linked to you just now.”

Lin Yang’s fingertip slowly rubbed Lin’s thin eyelid. “You can choose to share pain voluntarily? That day in the temple, did those people also link to your pain and explode because they couldn’t endure it?”

“Yes.”

“So, have you always been in pain?”

Lin froze. It had said it was in pain. It had said it was in so much pain, begging them to stop. No existence could hear it. Thus, it descended a wish: it wanted all those people to die. Those people died, but its pain did not stop; the agony those people felt as they died was added onto its own.

It was just that kind of monster.

It sensed Lin Yang’s aura and answered, “Mm. It hurts very much.”

“Why does it hurt so much? Was it innate, or caused later?”

“Later.”

Lin Yang drew closer to Lin, almost merging with the creature. His dark eyes were tinged with a smile. “It was caused by those existences on the ground, wasn’t it? Besides the eyes, there were the ears, the mouth, the nose… what else did they do to you?”

Lin did not answer. “You are human.” It remembered Lin Yang saying he prioritized human interests. If Lin Yang knew those things, he would also choose to abandon it without hesitation, just like Fu Bai.

Lin Yang’s cheek pressed against Lin’s cold face. “But I am also your lover. Humans have a saying: ‘Follow the chicken if you marry a chicken, follow the dog if you marry a dog.’ If you ‘marry’ me, your identity changes from monster to human. I will help you get revenge on every existence that ever harmed you.”

“There is no need. They are all dead.”

Lin sensed Lin Yang’s body go stiff. It told itself it should stop talking, otherwise Lin Yang would leave the temple without looking back just like that day. But it could not control itself; it didn’t want to pretend. “The ones on the ground are still alive. Will you help me kill them?”

Lin Yang asked, “Did they also harm you?”

“Never. It is I who want to retaliate against all living beings on this land. I want them all erased—the guilty and the innocent alike. They hate me and are forced to rise up in resistance.”

The blood-water surged. Lin Yang watched Lin’s ice-white features submerged in the liquid; not a shred of filth could stain the creature’s skin. He recalled the cage in the Crystal Palace, where the creature had gazed at him for a long time, its silver-white eyes like a winter mist. He still didn’t understand what the creature had been thinking during that thousand-year gaze.

After a thousand years of pondering, the news he got was that the creature had exploded into fragments. This Lin was ninety percent similar to the main body in the Crystal Palace, but it lacked the stability and indifference of a thousand years. Its emotions were easily manipulated by Lin Yang. It would feel anger, sadness, and joy without realizing it.

Through his questioning, Lin Yang roughly glimpsed some of the events from a century ago, though the details remained unknown. He was being watched by Lin, who was waiting for his answer.

Lin Yang’s face swayed in the ripples. “If I kill them and every living being in this world dies, then what will you do?”

Lin had never considered this question. It had never thought about what comes after revenge.

“Are you going to guard a barren world and waste your long life away?” Lin Yang’s face was calm. “I have seen that version of you. You obtained everything—humans, monsters, every living being knelt before you. But you weren’t happy. After obtaining the ‘perfect’ ending you wanted, you chose to commit suicide.”

Lin’s expression seemed to waver. Seeing it working, Lin Yang continued, “You trapped yourself in the Crystal Palace for a thousand years without leaving, guarding the cold and…”

Lin Yang suddenly stopped. His face turned deathly cold. “Are you stealing my memories?”