Chapter Thirty-Three: The First Time
“Ding ding—ding ding—!”
With a flash of silver light, the kn*fe in Lu Yibei’s hand swiftly fell, and the core of the urban legend was being meticulously cut into tiny particles under her blade.
As she sliced through the core, her father’s figure unconsciously appeared in her mind.
Although her dad hoped she would become an artistic worker, he never hindered her from learning cooking. Every year during the winter and summer breaks when she helped out in the family kitchen, he would take time to teach her one or two family culinary skills.
The precise kn*fe skills she demonstrated were learned during those times.
Thinking of her father made Lu Yibei’s heart feel heavy with a sigh.
……
It took Lu Yibei a few minutes to cut the core of the urban legend into nearly a dozen almost identical-sized particles.
After carefully wiping the kn*fe to ensure no residue remained, Lu Yibei looked at her masterpiece on the cutting board and couldn’t help but feel a little puffed up with joy.
Look at these kn*fe skills; aren’t they impressive?
In a cooking-centric setting, I could at least earn a title like “Top Ten Chefs”!
Too bad this world is full of urban legends.
Lu Yibei thought, bending down to take a clean porcelain bowl from the cupboard. She placed the cut urban legend core into it, smashed some garlic, chopped it into minced pieces, added it to the bowl and stirred it all together before drizzling a bit of sashimi soy sauce over it to complete her dish.
As Lu Yibei approached with the bowl and chopsticks, the urban legends were still pressing their eyes firmly against the coffee table.
She glanced at the eyes and the urban legends, frowning slightly. “I see you don’t have mouths? How do you usually eat?”
“Like this.”
Mafun responded, its body beginning to writhe. The messy fur made a rustling sound, and then with a “puff!” that sounded like a bubble bursting, a large mouth filled with sharp teeth grew from within its thick fur.
“Hiss—!”
Seeing this slightly horrifying scene, Lu Yibei couldn’t help but take a deep breath to calm herself.
Before this, she had almost considered these little creatures as harmless pets.
It wasn’t until this moment that she realized, even if she could treat them as pets, they were still genuine urban legends.
However…
Taking advantage of Mafun opening its big mouth as if to show off its sticky tongue, Lu Yibei used her chopsticks to pick up a piece of the urban legend core and tossed it into its mouth.
“Mm—!?”
Suddenly, a foreign object intruded into its throat, and Mafun let out a confused muffled grunt.
The urban legends reacted, “??? What’s going on? Isn’t it the eyes being pressed down? Why is Mafun being fed?”
Is it really true what outsiders say, that a witch’s mouth is deceiving? Scary, scary.
While the urban legends pondered, they were distracted by Mafun’s painful moans.
“Ugh—!”
Its body twitched and convulsed, tiny electric arcs danced across its surface, its already thick fur rustled and grew wildly as its somewhat ethereal body began to solidify.
Lu Yibei observed the changes in Mafun’s body, feeling a twinge of guilt and worry.
I can’t have killed it just like that, can I? Lu Yibei thought. Should I have cut the particles smaller?
After anxiously waiting for a few minutes, the changes in Mafun’s body stopped.
The once football-sized form had swelled much larger within those few minutes, from afar, it resembled a medium-sized dog that hadn’t been groomed for a long time.
Seeing this, Lu Yibei quickly asked with concern, “How do you feel? Is there any discomfort?”
Hearing Lu Yibei’s inquiry, Mafun snapped out of the intoxicating sensation filled with spirit energy.
“Thank you, great witch, for the gift. I don’t feel anything unusual; instead, I feel filled with power, except…”
“Except what?” Lu Yibei pressed, eager to learn about anything related to consuming the urban legend core after hearing Mafun was fine.
“That thing’s taste is a bit weird, how can I put it?” Mafun paused, as if reminiscing about the flavor in its mouth, “It tasted like herring in a can mixed with spoiled old vinegar.”
“And it seemed to have a certain liveliness; before being absorbed, it felt like countless tiny cold tendrils were whipping against my esophagus.”
Lu Yibei tried to imagine the eerie taste Mafun described, her feelings were complicated.
Although she had guessed the taste of the urban legend core wouldn’t be too pleasant and was likely at the level of dark cuisine, she hadn’t expected it to be this horrifying!
However…
Lu Yibei looked thoughtfully at the porcelain bowl filled with urban legend core fragments in her hand.
Since Mafun didn’t suffer any harm from eating a small piece, it meant that at least I could eat a fraction of that size without issues.
Alright, let’s begin! Lu Yibei thought. After that, if there’s no adverse reaction in my body, I’ll try to increase the dosage.
While pondering, she used her chopsticks to pick up the first piece of urban legend core, parted her red lips, and sent it into her mouth, starting her first consumption.
As her teeth bit down, it resisted slightly, releasing a strong sour stench, mixed with a hint of garlic flavor and a burnt taste, exploding in Lu Yibei’s mouth.
The slippery, sticky texture between her lips and teeth, along with the slight struggle infused with some liveliness, made her feel as if she had swallowed a half-dead octopus, causing her to feel nauseous.
Just as she was about to reflexively spit out what was in her mouth due to the nausea, something strange occurred.
Her body temperature slightly rose for a moment, and the urban legend core in her mouth instantaneously melted into a cold current that drilled down her esophagus into her body.
The cold current flowed through her body like a stream with ice shards, bringing waves of both tingling and painful sensations.
Lu Yibei carefully felt the changes within her body; however, at that moment, that peculiar feeling vanished.
It was as if the stream had merged into the sea, only managing to stir up a few ripples before disappearing without a trace.
Why so quick? Lu Yibei frowned slightly. Could it be that my level is a bit higher than Mafun’s, so my tolerance is also stronger?
Lu Yibei thought as she moved the chopsticks again, this time increasing the dosage to three small pieces.
Accompanied by sharp pain, something began to fill her body unceasingly, as if she were experiencing a long-awaited rain after a draught, every limb and pore was jubilantly celebrating.
“More, more, we want more!”
But such euphoria quickly ended, and the feeling of disappointment was akin to the profound dialogue descriptions that evoke regret.
【It’s here!】, 【Shall we begin?】, 【No, it’s already over!】…
It seemed that three small pieces wasn’t my limit; should I add just a little more?
Lu Yibei considered as she increased the dosage from three small pieces to five small pieces, then to ten, and twenty…
Throughout this process, the unusual sensations of pleasure within her diluted her vigilance and the disgust for the strange taste of the urban legend core.
When only half of the urban legend core remained in the bowl, she took a deep breath, just like when she held her nose to take medicine as a child, and stuffed all the remaining urban legend core into her mouth, tilting her head back to swallow.
The cold, slippery feeling quickly filled her mouth, then passed through her esophagus, instantly sprouting slender, long tendrils that penetrated deep into every single cell of Lu Yibei’s body with a jolt of cold and stimulation.
In the next moment, her vision began to blur, her thoughts drifted yet remained clear, resembling a castaway on floating ice, drifting on the sea, living in solitude, with an uncertain future, enveloped in a cold and illusory mist.
Next, a torrent of information surged into her mind, fragmented fragments like an old film being edited, laughter and pain, sunlight and darkness, every fragment contained emotions that were so strong, so clear.
As the vast amount of information flooded in, Lu Yibei felt a piercing pain in her forehead, and her vision was overtaken by an extraordinarily prolonged dream.
This dream was entirely different from the illusions she had witnessed previously; she was no longer an observer, but had become a participant.
She gradually became fragmented, spreading like an invisible vapor or raindrops, completely merging into the dream.
In the dream, she was no longer Lu Yibei, but a girl named Xue Qi.
The first time she opened her eyes, what she saw was the life intertwined in bl**d and flesh, something referred to as an embryo.
The second time she opened her eyes, she saw a crib, along with a nurse in white. They were skilledly changing her diaper with the scent of disinfectant in the air, and a beautiful woman tenderly breastfed her.
Next, countless broken fragments flickered past, studying hard at school, strolling in a sunlit park, sweating profusely in a dance practice room plastered with mirrors.
This was the experience of the girl named Xue Qi growing up; it was her entire life.
Everything felt so real that, for a moment, Lu Yibei’s thoughts became disordered; she felt that she truly was Xue Qi.
Knowing her joys and sorrows, her likes and dislikes, her knowledge and abilities, she knew everything about her!
This feeling was as though she had acquired a personality with nearly twenty years of growth experience out of thin air—clear, real, and profoundly strange.
Like an immersive role play.
Yet this actress had no room for improvisation, only able to act according to the script, as if her soul was imprisoned in the role.
In the next moment, the process of growth seemed to be skipped, rapidly flashing by like a movie played at thirty-two times the speed.
Then, the scene paused for an instant, freezing in a room decorated with a strong girlish vibe, filled with soft pink and a faint scent wafting through the warm lighting, exuding a drowsy atmosphere.
Lu Yibei discovered that the girl she was playing was wearing a SpongeBob pajamas, her long hair tied up, with a few water droplets clinging to the strands at her temples, as if she had just bathed.
She sat before a computer, moving the mouse and gently clicking on the lower right corner of the screen, where an icon of a chat software was bouncing, followed immediately by a dialogue box popping up.
Before she could even read the content in the chat box, Lu Yibei noticed the girl’s ID, her heart tightening slightly, and then she saw the avatar of the girl’s chat partner, leading to even greater shock.
It was a black sun totem, the emblem of the Solar Eclipse Society!
And 【Yun Meng】 was the girl’s online name…
Author’s Note
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Unknowingly, I’ve published again. Why do I feel the need to say “again”?
It just feels like this time the release was pretty rushed, suddenly needing to store so many drafts, worried about the quality while also pressing to write as fast as possible; it’s all a bit overwhelming.
After all, I am quite a slacker.
My daily routine probably looks like this…
PM: 6:50, writing is too tiring, let me play a few games to relax…
PM: 8:30, d*mn it, I must win at least one game!
PM: 12:40, wow, it’s this late already; time to sleep…
Honestly, I’m not particularly satisfied with the storyline in this chapter of the release; usually, I would revise a chapter several times and let a certain VIP reader read it first before uploading.
However, due to the need to publish, there wasn’t enough time for revisions or trial readings, so I can only leave it like this. Please bear with it for now; just don’t roast me too badly, and I’ll try to make the upcoming plot as exciting as possible.
Since the story has already begun and has taken shape from my hands, I can only let it extract my pain and time as it flows, until the moment arrives for the conclusion.
That’s it.
From an author who is both pained and joyful from writing.
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