The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 17

Lin Yang’s spirit was invaded. It felt as if an eye had opened inside his mind, flagrantly peering into everything he was. He quickly made his thoughts blank, forcing the eye out.

Lin’s left pupil bled, the red streak snaking down its ice-white face. “I saw it all.”

In a palace condensed from ice crystals, Lin Yang, dressed in red ritual robes, sat cross-legged in a private cell that was as warm as spring. An indifferent kinsman—one that filled Lin with loathing—stood outside the cell, gazing at Lin Yang for a long time with ice-white eyes identical to its own.

The harmony of the image made Lin want to tear it to shreds.

In the blood-water, Lin’s wings imprisoned Lin Yang, while an endless stream of black silk threads softly bound his wrists and ankles. They swarmed over him with frantic urgency. Like a cold-blooded animal with its captured prey, Lin sniffed Lin Yang’s slender, white neck.

“From the first moment I saw you, your eyes have looked as if they were seeing someone else through me.” Lin’s voice dropped low. “So, you mistook me for that disgusting fellow? All the ‘like’ and ‘love’ you used to coax me… were they for that rotten worm?”

Lin’s strength increased; the sound of cracking came from Lin Yang’s bones as the creature nearly crushed them.

Lin Yang’s expression remained cold. “F*ck, what kind of fit are you throwing now?!” He hadn’t even questioned this evil creature for using such despicable means to peep at his memories, yet the creature was acting as if it were the one in the right, getting angry first.

“Lin Yang,” Lin’s thumb pressed against Lin Yang’s lips. Its silver-white eyes drew close, shimmering with a flowing light. Its voice was like snow falling rustily in winter. “I understand the base nature of humans very well. Your approaching me, saying you love me, and wanting to be with me… it’s all a deception. You want to coax me into sparing humanity.”

Under the gaze of those pupils, Lin Yang’s consciousness began to spiral out of control. This was the Evil God’s original power—its eyes could bewitch all things.

However, Lin’s eyes didn’t seem to possess this ability before it peered into his memories. Can it learn the main body’s skills just from memories? That would make it even harder to kill.

Lin Yang had confronted the Evil God’s main body for a thousand years; he wasn’t about to be rendered immobile by a single pair of eyes. What made him uncomfortable were the black silk threads that were gradually evolving into tentacles. They weren’t powerful, but they regenerated incessantly, leaving Lin Yang with no way to stop them. They invaded him without giving him a clean end, tormenting him with a sensation like scratching an itch through a boot.

“You… you put these black threads away first… don’t touch… put them back… and then I’ll explain… mm!”

Lin Yang’s pupils dilated in an instant, losing focus. Physiological tears and hot sweat mingled on his face before being washed away by the blood-water.

Lin’s teeth bit into the skin of Lin Yang’s neck, much like Lin Yang had bitten the area between its thumb and index finger. “I don’t need to hear your explanations. Lin Yang, this body truly likes you very much. These filthy desires cannot help but want to get close to you, touch you, and tear you apart.”

Lin stroked the bite mark on Lin Yang’s neck. Its silver-white eyes were like a beast hunting in the forest, devoid of human emotion.

“What if I modify and overwrite your memories? I’ll utterly erase the shadow of that rotten worm, making you remember only me. I’ll make you forget your duty to save humanity as well.”

“Forget where you came from, forget where you are going. Forget your identity as a human and stay by my side as a monster, along with these filthy desires.”

Lin Yang had been tossed about by those black silk threads until he was neither here nor there. His cheeks were flushed a deep red, looking like a ripened fruit, yet his expression was icy. He sneered, “Do it then. Wash away my memories and cognition—see if you can actually erase me.”

Lin’s expression darkened. Is Lin Yang so confident he won’t forget that disgusting rotten worm? Exactly how deep are those feelings?

Frustration, rage, jealousy, and fear saturated Lin’s heart. It reached into Lin Yang’s memory region. Lin Yang didn’t offer any resistance; he submissively allowed Lin to invade.

Lin skipped over the chaotic fragments and found that indifferent, hypocritical rotten worm in the Crystal Palace.

It could not be erased. It could not be covered. It could not be tampered with.

Lin Yang looked at the increasingly furious creature before him, his smile icy. “What, can’t you do it?”

Those profound, painful hatreds were lynching him every second of every day. If they could be forgotten or tampered with, what kind of “agony” would that be?

Lin’s fingers clenched, and its ice-white eyes grew murky. “Is that disgusting rotten worm really that important to you?”

Lin Yang narrowed his eyes. Has he misunderstood? The Evil God fragment considered itself a substitute for the main body. They shared the same origin and essence; the creature before him was equivalent to a part split from the main body. It was the same Evil God, no doubt.

In those sharp memory fragments, did Lin only see the images related to the Evil God? Is its focus a bit skewed?

Lin Yang was so angry he laughed. “You are the same monster. It is you, and you are it.”

” I am not,” Lin said, entangling Lin Yang even more. “Before I gained consciousness, I slept in endless malice and darkness. I couldn’t hear sounds or smell scents. When I opened my eyes, I was already in the temple, and the first person I saw was Fu Bai.”

“I don’t have the memories of the Crystal Palace. I didn’t fight with you for a thousand years, and I didn’t lock you in a cage. Those things have nothing to do with me.”

Ah, so it did see it.

Lin Yang was expressionless. “So what are you trying to say? Are you saying those things weren’t done by you? Are you trying to shirk responsibility?”

“I am jealous, Lin Yang.”

Black tentacles wound around Lin Yang’s neck, the cool skin rubbing against him. A bloody hue surfaced in Lin’s silver-white eyes. “I am jealous that you hate that rotten worm.”

And the “love” it received was a fake, pasted imitation. Even the hatred was merely a gift-wrapped byproduct belonging to the main body. All the memories of its existence in Lin Yang’s mind originated from the long-silent Evil God in the Crystal Palace. That Evil God was more powerful, more stable, and more capable of attracting Lin Yang’s gaze.

It was so jealous. The emotion burned Lin. It uncontrollably wanted to destroy Lin Yang, to leave its own brand on his body, yet it feared its actions would completely enrage him and cause it to lose him forever. It had no way to handle Lin Yang.

Thus, a pitiful emotion appeared in the silver-white eyes, and blood-colored tears fell. The tears solidified into pearls and dropped into the blood pool.

From the moment Lin admitted its jealousy, Lin Yang was stunned. He watched the indifferent, handsome creature shed bloody tears before him, his heart filled with bewilderment.

This evil creature didn’t even realize it was crying. Its face was like a coffin frozen for a thousand years. Its fingers rested over the location of its heart. “What makes me most furious and terrified is that this heart started beating wildly out of control the first time it saw you. My body and will both defy my desires to be close to you.”

“It’s as if this body has known you for a long, long time—has liked you for a long, long time. And I am merely a vessel used to carry these emotions.”

“I don’t understand if my craving for you comes from my own will or if it is the result of being encroached upon by that rotten worm.”

“I can’t even judge if my liking for you is truly mine.”

“Leave, Lin Yang.”

Lin spoke words of abandonment, yet the tentacles, tail, and wings were all tightly imprisoning Lin Yang.

Lin Yang spoke: “In my heart, you have always been the same existence. However, if you insist that you aren’t…” Lin Yang smiled playfully. “Then work hard to surpass it. Earn more love and hate than that rotten worm, and utterly replace its position in my heart until you become my only one.”

“You’ll work hard, right… puppy?”

Lin stared straight at Lin Yang. It nodded.

Lin Yang clapped his hands. “Good. Then for the first step, you cannot continue to harm the humans on the ground. As for the Silver Merfolk, I don’t care.”

Lin shook its head.

The smile on Lin Yang’s face stopped at his lips. All that talk was for nothing.

“Fine,” Lin Yang said, not discouraged. He took the black bracelet he had made and put it on Lin’s wrist. “This is a bracelet made from my eyeballs. I’m giving it to you as a gift, as thanks for standing up for those infants last night.”

“I didn’t,” Lin said. It toyed with the beads around its pale wrist; they were each pitch-black and translucent, pressing against its skin with a scorching temperature. “I didn’t intend to save them.”

“It doesn’t matter. I only care about the results.”

Lin Yang flipped himself out of the blood pool. “Since you aren’t willing to tell me what happened a hundred years ago, I’ll go ask Fu Bai. He brought you to this world; he must know what happened back then.”

The black silk threads wanted to follow Lin Yang’s footsteps. Lin Yang looked back. “Don’t follow me. Otherwise, I won’t come to see you for half a month.”

The silk threads stopped spreading and remained quietly in the blood-water. Lin Yang thought of something and his dark eyes gazed at Lin. “And don’t send your duplicates to the ground anymore. It’s dangerous there. Wait for me to come find you.”

Lin stood in the water, its fishtail splashing. It said: “Alright.”

A moment before Lin Yang stepped out of the temple, he heard Lin’s voice: “My wanting to obtain you and my retaliation against them are two separate things. I will not compromise for you. If you hate me for this and never want to see me again, one day I will leave this temple, kill everyone except you, and confine you within my world.”

Lin Yang stopped his footsteps, the dark of his eyes impenetrable to light. He smiled. “That moment will never come.”

Lin wasn’t sure if the “moment” Lin Yang spoke of meant that Lin Yang wouldn’t stop seeing it, or that it wouldn’t be able to leave the temple and kill everyone. It watched Lin Yang’s back leave the temple. The feet that had transformed into legs couldn’t help but want to follow him out. As its soles stepped onto the blood-colored steps, the chains on the pillars suddenly tightened. The magic array at the top of the dome surfaced, and golden light pressed down on Lin’s spine, forcing it to its knees.

Having been imprisoned in the temple for decades, Lin once again felt the agony it had experienced when it was first locked away.

It wanted to see Lin Yang. It wanted to talk about meaningless things with him. It wanted to smell his scent. After seeing Lin Yang’s memories, this feeling was even stronger.

The monster standing outside Lin Yang’s private cell, watching him when Lin had peered into those memories, that monster had looked back and met its gaze.