The Creatures that We Are

There was no light on the rooftop, but the cold blue moonlight provided enough illumination for them to see clearly. The one standing by the railing was a girl dressed in a blue and white long-sleeved uniform. She had her back to them, and she was on the shorter side with chubby limbs, her hair tied into a braid.

When she heard the sound of the door opening, she slowly turned around, revealing a flat, round face with small eyes, flat nose and a scattering of pimples.

“Xiang Xiaoqin?” Yellow Butterfly’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Sister Xiang Hong.” Xiang Xiaoqin beamed at her.

“Thank god you’re alright.” Yellow Butterfly took a step forward. “I thought you were bitten too..”

“Yellow Butterfly!” Nine Frost stopped her warily.

“Yellow Butterfly?” Xiang Xiaoqin paused, the smile on her face dropping. “Are you talking to Sister Xiang Hong[1]?”

Yellow Butterfly smiled awkwardly. “I…that’s because I’m a journalist, and using my real name can be troublesome.”

“No.” Xiang Xiaoqin shook her head. “Why would a journalist know how to use a gun? I saw, Sister Xiang Hong. I saw how good of a shot you are.”

As they talked, Gao Yang noticed the comment wall on the side of the water tank. Surprised, he said in a lowered voice, “Look at the wall.”

The others followed his gaze.

—I’m waiting for you in hell!

The line hadn’t been there earlier.

“When did Li Zhaunghu write that?” Gray Bear was surprised.

Gao Yang answered gravely, “It wasn’t him.”

When he chased Li Zhuanghu and Yu Pengliang to the rooftop, the curse hadn’t been there. Then Li Zhuanghu jumped off the building with the Rune Circuit. He couldn’t have returned to write that line as a rune corpse.

“It was me,” Xiang Xiaoqin said and smiled mischievously. “Tee-hee.”

She didn’t look cute at all with that smile. Both her action and expression were eerie.

“But why would you…” Yellow Butterfly asked.

“You lied to me, Sister Yellow Butterfly, so I lied to you too. It’s only fair.” Xiang Xiaoqin cocked her head. “It was easy for me to mimic Li Zhuanghu’s handwriting.”

She couldn’t stop once she got started. “I’ve been pining after him forever. We were both mocked and ostracized by the class. I thought he would be different, that he would understand me… I often borrowed his notes and secretly learned his handwriting…”

“Xiang Xiaoqin, you…”

“But he rejected me!”

Her face looked suddenly twisted, and she shouted, “But Li Zhuanghu rejected me! He said that he didn’t like me, that he liked Liu Ting!”

A moment of silence followed.

It seemed to be a love triangle that was quite common among students.

Yellow Butterfly had connected the dots. “Was Liu Ting the girl who got expelled for cheating?”

“Haha, hahahah…”

Xiang Xiaoqin laughed while holding onto her belly. “She didn’t cheat. I set her up hahaha! But the teachers wouldn’t believe her. Because I got good grades. That was the only time my good grades did me any good.”

She stopped laughing abruptly and crouched down dejectedly, holding onto her knees. Her voice cracked as she said, “Why? Everyone’s tall and slim, pretty and has good skin. They dress fashionably and come from rich families. They are surrounded by boys and, arms in arms with their friends, they go to the restroom, the campus shop, the cafeteria.”

“But I’m short, ugly, and drab. No one ever spares me a glance.”

She looked up at Yellow Butterfly, her eyes shining with resentment. “Why can’t I be pretty like you, Sister? Why am I so mundane? Why?”

“You’re a good girl, Xiang Xiaoqin. I mean it. You’re a good girl…” Yellow Butterfly assured her gently. “Everyone’s unique with their own strengths…”

“No! You lied!”

Mood everchanging, Xiang Xiaoqin suddenly shot to her feet and growled, her voice becoming booming and metallic like that of a machine, and inside her sunken eyes, two orbs of blue ghostly light shone.

She was wearing a white t-shirt under her uniform, under which a cool blue light flickered. It must be the Rune Circuit!

Like Li Zhuanghu, her heart had become one with the Rune Circuit, and she mutated as a result.

“Tee-hee.” She smiled happily again and even twirled with her arms extended wide. “Doesn’t matter now. Everyone has become mundane like me.”

Mundane.

That explained the situation for Gao Yang.

After getting a Rune Circuit, the chosen monster became one with it, gaining its unique power. Simple as that. However, unlike humans, monsters couldn’t effectively control and utilize the power of the Rune Circuit. Instead, the monster’s obsession when they were in human form became the fuel of the Rune Circuit’s power and triggered their mutation.

When Li Zhuanghu became one with the Summon Rune Circuit, his wish was to take revenge against the world. Thus, the Summon Rune Circuit granted him the powerful and cruel power of puppeteering, allowing him to trigger a rune corpse outbreak that swept the entire school.

Meanwhile, Xiang Xiaoqin’s obsession was to make everyone as mundane as she was. It aligned with what the Support Rune Circuit could do—total silence. Inside the Rune Cave, awakeners and monsters alike lost their power and became regular people.

Eighteen years ago, the two brought about a great disaster with the two Rune Circuits. For that, they were subject to the punishment of the Heavenly Way. The Eleventh High School was dragged underground and turned into a prison, the Rune Cave they found themselves in.

That was basically what had happened to the Gu Family’s Village.

The others might not have figured out the story as thoroughly as Gao Yang had, but they could grasp what had happened when they saw the blue light coming from Xiang Xiaoqin’s chest.

“Let’s go, Captain!” Gray Bear had an adrenaline syringe in his grasp.

“Tee-hee. We’re all regular people. We’re all the same.” Xiang Xiaoqin had lost her mind. She started dancing around without a care of her surroundings. All the while, blue veins spread from her chest and climbed up her neck, moving toward her face.

They couldn’t wait any longer!

There was no telling what would happen once the Rune Circuit became one with her completely, but they knew they wouldn’t be able to deal with her then.

“Go!”

Gao Yang commanded, and Nine Frost and Gray Bear administered adrenaline shots into their chests.

Their expressions tensed and their eyes shook as they seized up for a moment. Then their gaze became sharper than ever. Each taking a side, they rushed up to Xiang Xiaoqin at a greater speed than before.

Gao Yang, Black Sparrow, and Yellow Butterfly followed.

Xiang Xiaoqin stopped dancing. She cocked her head at her attackers with confusion, her lips tugged into a strange smile. “Are you going to play with me?”

Gray Bear lunged at her, but she easily dodged away and reached out to grab his arm, her movement impossibly quick.

“Tee-hee, let’s have some fun.”

Crack.

She crushed Gray Bear’s five fingers like they were paper mache.

1. Her code name is Xiang Die in the raw. Xiang is a surname and can refer to the Hunan province. Given the naming convention of color + animal, though, I opt for a color. And the word is close to another word that means an orangish yellow. ☜

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