The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 19

By the time Lin Yang returned from Fu Bai’s dwelling to Lin Lin’s belly, the sky had already fallen into a chaotic darkness.

Suddenly, Lin Lin let out a startled cry. “The blood rain has started! Ah!”

Lin Lin shrieked instinctively, but half a second later, it said in confusion, “Eh? Why does this blood-water not hurt at all when it hits me? It’s no different from regular rain. The feathered arrows… they don’t seem to be falling on Lin Lin’s head either.”

Lin Yang walked quickly to the window, his dark eyes sinking. The sky had turned a blood-red, corrosive rain was drizzling down, and dense white feathered arrows were piercing the air. The peace of the recent period had given the living beings on the ground an illusion: that the Evil God had finally let them off.

Several humans and Silver Merfolk who had lingered outside after dark had no time to hide when the blood-water and arrows fell; in the blink of an eye, they became skeletons riddled with arrows. Eventually, even the white bones were corroded, becoming a pool of dead blood flowing into the black silt.

The blood-water and feathered arrows were not as harmless as Lin Lin claimed.

Lin Lin was at a loss. “Why is this happening?”

Lin Yang watched everything unfold. He reached his hand out; the blood-water dripped onto his hand, blooming into the shape of a flower. His skin remained intact, showing no signs of being scorched. Lin Yang clenched his palm, and the rain-flower shattered in his hand.

He suddenly started walking out.

Lin Lin grew anxious. “Lord Lin Yang, you can’t go out! Lin Lin will protect you—it’s too dangerous outside!”

Lin Yang’s footsteps didn’t stop. He stepped directly out of Lin Lin’s belly and into the blood rain, which was as dense as silk. With Lin Lin as the center, no feathered arrows fell within a five-meter radius. Within this range, the blood rain held no corrosive power.

As soon as Lin Yang stepped out of this safety circle, the scarlet blood-water dripped onto him like highly corrosive sulfuric acid. In an instant, his palm was reduced to white bone, only to heal in the next heartbeat—the process repeating over and over.

Just as Lin Lin thought Lin Yang would retreat back to safety, his entire body left the circle. He walked into the sulfuric blood rain, bending down to pick up the white feathered arrows.

The hand picking up the arrows was half-flesh and half-bone. Lin Yang was a lunatic in the realm of pain; from rotting flesh to white bone, then back to new flesh—most people would find such agony unbearable, yet Lin Yang’s face showed not a trace of pain. His soft lips even held a smile.

Not just his hands, but his entire body was being corroded, only for new flesh to sprout due to his powerful self-healing ability. Decay and bloom alternated across Lin Yang’s frame; traces of death and rebirth could be found simultaneously on his body.

He lived as half-skeleton and half-flesh. The combination of pink skin, red muscle, and withered bone added an eerily enchanting and seductive quality to him.

Before long, Lin Yang had gathered a large armful of white feathered arrows. He continued forward, repeating the motion of bending to pick up arrows. As he straightened up, a pair of bare feet appeared before him. The feet were elegantly shaped, the muscles and tendons powerful—the feet of a man. These feet stepped in the blood-water without any sign of corrosion.

Lin Yang straightened his body and looked up. Sure enough, he saw Lin’s face.

Lin’s expression was impatient, tainted with a hint of frantic anxiety. It looked at Lin Yang, its words icy. “Go back.”

Lin Yang did not look at Lin. He averted his gaze, walking around Lin as if the creature were merely an obstacle. He knelt down again to continue picking up arrows.

Lin followed Lin Yang’s back. “I set up a safety zone for you. Why must you go to this length for those people?”

Hearing this, Lin Yang turned his face. Half of his visage had been reduced to bone by the erosion of the blood-water, looking ghostly and grim—more like a monster than Lin itself.

“You refuse to stop your retaliation; that is your choice and your freedom. I have no right to persuade you. And as a human, I cannot stand by and watch my own kind die in misery. I choose to save them; that is my choice and my freedom. Similarly, you have no right to interfere.”

Lin looked at Lin Yang’s mangled half-face, his tattered body, and the wounds that were still unceasingly worsening. The corresponding parts of its own body seemed to ache in sympathy.

But even darker thoughts churned within its endless malice. It was jealous. This jealousy was different from when it had seen that indifferent god in Lin Yang’s memories; it was like a rusty knife trying to carve into its heart. Because the blade was too dull, it stabbed in with great difficulty, creating a jagged, messy wound. By the time the heart was bared, it was already a pulp of meat.

It was a longer, slower form of lynching.

“Lin Yang, if a choice must be made between me and humanity… who do you choose?”

Lin Yang’s eyes pierced through the curtain of blood rain to rest on Lin. He smiled movingly; paired with the white bone, the beauty was deformed and bizarre. He exhaled like an orchid: “Great Evil God, exactly what relationship do we have that allows you to ask such a question?”

Lin was confused. What relationship do I have with Lin Yang?

Lin didn’t know; it didn’t understand the definition of “relationship.” It only vaguely perceived that it wanted to be near Lin Yang—humans called this “love.” It possessed an intense desire for possession over Lin Yang, so the answer seemed obvious.

Lin said with total seriousness, “You are my object (dōngxī).”

Lin Yang laughed again. Lin couldn’t understand what the laugh meant this time, only that it was beautiful—like a vividly patterned venomous snake raising its tail at him.

Lin Yang’s smile was icy. “I’m sorry. I am not an ‘object,’ nor do I have any interest in being someone else’s thing.”

As he spoke, Lin Yang drew close to Lin. He opened his arms toward the creature, and the collected white feathered arrows scattered to the ground. Lin instinctively reached out to receive Lin Yang’s embrace.

Suddenly, Lin’s pupils lost focus. Blood spilled from its lips.

Lin Yang held a single feathered arrow in his hand, which had pierced through Lin’s heart from behind. “I told you not to come to the ground. Wait for me obediently in the temple. You did not keep our promise, so… go to sleep.”

As long as a duplicate of Lin suffered a fatal wound, it would cease breathing. Its consciousness would return to the temple.

In the temple, the Lin sitting cross-legged snapped its eyes open. It looked down at the location of its heart; there was no bloody hole there, and there was no Lin Yang in its embrace.

The deceased duplicate became a lifeless manikin, its full weight pressing onto Lin Yang. Lin Yang used his bone-like fingers to close the duplicate’s eyes. He picked up all the arrows from the ground, cradling them in his arms, and used his other hand to drag Lin’s corpse back.

Ever since Lin Yang had stepped out of the safety circle, Lin Lin’s heart had been suspended high with anxiety. Unfortunately, it was a rock; no matter how worried it was, it couldn’t leave the ground to search for him. 00 was too weak; if it stepped into the blood-water, it would become a pool of blood itself in less than three seconds.

Lin Lin and 00 could only wait. These two monsters waited pitifully for a long time before finally seeing Lin Yang’s silhouette in the blood rain. As he drew near, both were given a fright.

The youth’s exposed skin had almost entirely become bone, yet his lips were a vivid crimson and his skin a pale pink—he looked like a ghost that lived by charm. He cradled a large bundle of white feathered arrows while dragging the Evil God behind him.

Lin Lin stammered, “Lord… Lord Lin Yang, you… you… you brought the Great… Great Evil God back?”

Lin Yang tossed Lin onto the ground casually and turned to study the arrows he’d retrieved. Hearing the question, he gave a hum of affirmation, then denied it. “No. It’s just the corpse of a duplicate.”

“Oh,” Lin Lin nodded. “So it’s just a duplicate’s corpse…”

Wait, that’s still very wrong! Lin Lin remembered the last time Lin Yang had brought back the fragmented pieces of a duplicate; he had looked terrifying, as if he wanted to kill every living being on the ground. Only a few days had passed—how had he “killed” the Evil God again?

Was it because of tonight’s disaster? But the Evil God hadn’t harmed Lin Yang at all.

Lin Yang took the feathered arrows into the bedroom to study them. 00 and Lin Lin huddled together. Lin Lin couldn’t figure it out and kept obsessing over it. “You are their ‘son,’ you must know why. Tell me quickly.”

00’s fur stood on end. “You were eavesdropping on our conversation!”

Lin Lin was innocent. “You said it inside my belly; it’s hard for me not to hear.”

00 gave an “oh.” “I’m not their son. But I think I can understand Lord Lin Yang. He explained the concept of ‘one’s own kind’ to me. He said his feelings for humans are like my feelings for you. He asked me if I would be angry with the Evil God if you died because of it.”

“Lin Lin, you are my friend. If you or Lin Yang—either of you—died because of the Evil God, I probably wouldn’t ‘hate’ it, because my life was a gift from it. But I could no longer be its pet with a clear conscience. I would leave the Evil God, because it harmed my best friend.”

As 00 spoke, its mouth turned down. Its golden pupils shed rounded tears that fell onto Lin Lin’s foot like a brief golden rain. Lin Lin’s rough stone hand patted 00’s springy head, and its own eyes grew teary. “Waaaah, 00 you’re so good to me. I’ll try my best not to die.”

00 hugged its chubby tail with one hand and wiped the tears from its cheeks with the other. It sniffed. “Lord Lin Yang told me he feels that way about humans, but a bit ‘fainter’ than that. I don’t understand what ‘fainter’ means. But I understand that it must be painful for a friend to be harmed.”

“If Lin Lin were harmed and I were safe, I wouldn’t feel lucky. I would feel even more pain. I would rather share that harm with Lin Lin, and I would never want to talk to the bad thing that caused it ever again!”

Lin Lin was moved to tears once more. Fine sand poured from its large eyes, nearly burying the palm-sized 00. Lin Lin said half-comprehendingly, “So Lord Lin Yang is in a lot of pain right now too, right?”

00 rested its chin on its hands melancholily and let out a heavy sigh. “Sigh. I don’t know when Lin Yang and the Evil God will finally develop romantic feelings.”

These two monsters, one large and one small, eventually fell asleep as they talked. Lin Lin used its foot as a bed for 00. 00 slept on its back with its belly exposed, smacking its lips and even drooling.

Lin Yang emerged from the bedroom after studying the feathered arrows. He felt a bit stifled. He leaned against the stone wall without disturbing them and heard the entirety of their conversation.

The bone on Lin Yang’s face had already grown back into flesh; his features were restored, without even a scar.

I am not in pain, Lin Yang thought.