Content Warning: The content contains graphic descriptions, including mentions of transparent skin and visible internal organs. Reader discretion is advised.
The kiss on his forehead was tender and affectionate.
The man in front of him seemed intimately familiar.
“Who are you?” Shen Jie spoke up.
Mr. Zong paused for a moment, his thin lips leaving Shen Jue’s forehead as he looked at him with some surprise. “What’s wrong with you?”
Shen Jie: “Mr. Zong, I seem to have forgotten a lot of things.”
His voice was weak, tinged with confusion.
Mr. Zong fell silent for a moment and then said, “Perhaps it’s because your brain has been affected by the shock of abilities, causing temporary memory loss.”
Then, Mr. Zong reached out to cover his forehead, probing his temples for a moment, and said, “I am your partner, Zong Lin.”
Shen Jie: “… Partner?”
He looked pale and weak lying on the hospital bed, but his features were still handsome. After a moment of contemplation, he asked, “You do seem familiar to me. How did I address you before? Zong Lin? Mr. Zong? Ah Lin?”
Zong Lin seemed surprised that Shen Jie’s first question after losing his memory wasn’t about his current situation but about how to address him.
“Call me by my name,” he said, “but sometimes you also call me… brother.”
Shen Jie: “Brother?”
Zong Lin didn’t answer, but his skin turned white—not the healthy kind of radiance but a lifeless, cold white, making his slightly red earlobes stand out even more.
“You need a full-body examination and further treatment now,” Zong Lin said. “Can you cooperate with me?”
Looking at him, Shen Jie asked in return, “Will you hurt me?”
“I won’t,” Zong Lin said, his gaze pausing on the hand with the IV tube, “It was an accident last time.”
With that, he knelt on one knee on the bed and leaned forward, reaching out to touch the button of Shen Jie’s hospital gown, but Shen Jie lifted his other hand and grabbed it.
“I’ll do it myself,” Shen Jie said.
When Zong Lin’s hand was caught by him, it stiffened for a moment, but quickly relaxed, and he said, “Alright.”
Shen Jie used the strength of Zong Lin’s hand to sit up a bit before letting go, then he began unbuttoning his shirt one by one with one hand.
The white hospital gown hung loosely, revealing his slender and graceful shoulders. His long hair was untied, flowing over his shoulders.
The pale light from outside and the dim hospital lights shone on him simultaneously, creating intersecting angles of light and shadow. He looked like a perfect human model in a still life painting, reminiscent of Aphrodite
Halfway through unbuttoning, he suddenly stopped and turned his head to look at Zong Lin.
“Where do you want to examine?”
Zong Lin’s gaze remained firmly on him, and after a moment, he said, “Heart, spleen, lungs, stomach, intestines, limb joints, and the brain.”
Shen Jie replied, “That’s quite a few places you want to examine, Mr. Zong.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Zong Lin explained, “The residual fluctuations of the ‘Soul’ category’s abilities are easily retained. Your body is weak, and leaving them on your body can lead to contamination.”
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Zong Lin reached out to touch the injury on his arm and asked, “Does it still hurt?”
“Somewhat,” Shen Jie said, “but I’ve forgotten when I got injured… When was it?”
Zong Lin replied, “You encountered mist in the subway before, that’s when you got injured.”
As he spoke, he leaned down to kiss the bruise and said, “I arrived late… I’m sorry.”
Perhaps because his lips were too thin and cold.
Shen Jie’s arm stiffened imperceptibly.
Zong Lin didn’t notice, instead, he reached for a tube of bruise ointment from the nearby drawer and carefully applied it to the injured area, inch by inch, before proceeding with the “examination.”
His flat abdomen was pressed down by the other’s broad and warm palm.
The man leaned against his chest, as if listening to his heartbeat, the movement of his internal organs, and the flow between his blood vessels.
Shen Jie lowered his head, looking at the fluffy white hair in front of him.
The soft hair stuck to his body, itching a bit.
If it were any other time, he would reach out to run his fingers through the other’s hair, covering the back of their head, pulling them deeper into his embrace.
But now, he was “amnesic.”
The warm breath sprayed on the surface of his skin, as the other hand pressed against his abdomen and the other wrapped around his back, pressing against his shoulder blades and slowly moving upwards, like a large predator sniffing its prey.
Suddenly, Shen Jie reached out and grabbed the restraint collar around Zong Lin’s neck.
“What is this?” he asked, his tone tinged with curiosity.
The restraining collar around his neck was tightly fastened, with electromagnetic needles piercing flesh, causing pain and suffocation as he was lifted up.
Zong Lin’s muscles tensed immediately.
His vulnerable points were held, triggering his instinct to attack, yet the fragile human body before him couldn’t withstand even a slight shake.
He dared not move.
Meanwhile, Shen Jie still held onto the object, like a child grasping a toy of interest, blissfully unaware of the distress it caused the wearer.
Zong Lin furrowed his brow, squeezing out a hoarse voice in the suffocating environment, “It’s a superpower suppressor.”
“A suppressor?”
“It restricts the abilities to prevent harm to others. This is just one of the ones I wear.”
“I see.”
Shen Jie said lightly, still curious as he stroked the suppressor, not letting go.
The feeling of being restrained by the suppressor around his neck was unbearable, so Zong Lin had to sit up straight and stop the examination.
“Your body seems fine now, but your soul is still weak. If possible, I’d like to give you more thorough treatment.”
“Thorough treatment?” Shen Jie’s gaze shifted, glancing around the empty ward. “I heard Professor Xu say earlier that Mr. Zong specially brought some friends to help save my life. Are they also here for this treatment? Where are they?”
“It’s not them,” Zong Lin said. “This treatment is just between you and me.”
He wrapped his arm around Shen Jie’s shoulder, his thumb rubbing the warm spot on his neck, and spoke in a deep voice:
“I am your partner, you can absolutely trust me. So, when we undergo the treatment later, relax your mind and body and accept me. That way, the treatment’s effectiveness can be maximized… Can you do that?”
He stared into Shen Jie’s face, asking.
Shen Jie had remained calm and obedient since waking up. Now he replied, “Sure.”
He seemed to find the position uncomfortable, so he adjusted the hand with the IV needle slightly and placed it together with the other hand on Zong Lin’s back, forming a hugging posture.
The IV tube made a clinking sound against the metal frame, but this time, Zong Lin didn’t ask him to move.
The man leaned in closer to his neck.
He seemed to have been holding back for a while, his knuckles trembling slightly with restraint. As soon as he received permission, he wanted to open his mouth and bite down on that spot.
Engulf, cover. Mark, possess.
But suddenly, he felt a sharp pain coming from the back of his neck.
Zong Lin’s blood-red pupils instantly contracted into vertical slits.
He realized that Shen Jie had activated the emergency button on the suppressor!
The central control system of the suppressors was installed on the collar of the suppressor. After the emergency button was activated, a high-voltage current released by the electromagnetic needles would instantly spread throughout his body via the nine suppressors, rendering him immobile for a moment.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Shen Jie pulled out the IV needle from the back of his hand and, with precision, pierced through his scalp and directly into the back of his brain.
His actions were swift and ruthless, yet the calmness in the corners of his eyes and eyebrows remained unchanged.
If the other party were an ordinary person, they would have already died from this attack.
“Why?” Zong Lin asked.
Shen Jie replied indifferently, “Because you are not him.”
The fluorescent tube on the ceiling flickered a few times before shattering.
The surrounding scenery began to fracture and distort.
Zong Lin lifted his head from Shen Jie’s shoulder.
His stern face was now covered in bone armor, and his normal human arms that embraced him had morphed into something grotesque.
“Why can’t I be him?” The Pale King asked. “Same soul, same memories, same abilities, what do I lack compared to him?”
It grew excited, “No, I am even more powerful than him, and I can control myself better. Everything you desire to be fulfilled, I can make it happen.”
As it spoke, its grotesque appearance gradually faded away.
The menacing bone spurs disappeared almost entirely, even its right hand showed no abnormalities.
It lifted its right hand to caress his cheek, saying, “Has he ever touched you like this?”
Since Shen Jie and Zong Lin had known each other, the latter had never touched him so intimately with his right hand.
Because Zong Lin couldn’t.
But Shen Jie simply brushed its hand away.
The Pale King looked at its severed hand and said, “Your consciousness is more resistant than I anticipated. But it’s alright, we still have plenty of time before he arrives.”
The glaring pale light poured in from outside the window and the cracked hospital ceiling, resembling molten lava oozing down thickly.
And everything dissolved into the white wax-like lava.
“Soul” category’s Rank Two’s domain space: “Pale Nightmare”.
—-
“Hey! Shen Jie. Good morning.”
At 6:30 in the morning, as Shen Jie pushed open the door of the research institute dormitory as usual, Steven was waiting for him at the door.
The young man’s figure was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. He wore a white lab coat over his body, and on his ordinary face were a few ordinary black holes. Inside the coat, his body was transparent and hollow, revealing a large round black mass with intestines swirling around the heart.
Even his adult features were equally nondescript.
Out on the street, among every ten people, about five were similar to him.
To make himself stand out more, Steven dyed his intestines gold, but it seemed to have little effect.
Shen Jie remembered that during lunch that day, he casually asked Steven why his intestines changed color, but received Steven’s tearful gaze of gratitude – apparently, he was the first person to notice Steven’s dyed intestines that day.
He nodded to Steven and then pushed the wheelchair, heading towards the research institute together.
There were many colleagues clocking in for work in the morning, and they waited outside the institute’s door, slowly moving forward in line.
As he passed through the glass door, he caught a glimpse of himself.
Long hair, purple eyes, white lab coat.
Shimmering scales spread across his cheeks, with some tiny fragments circling his eyelids, sparkling like shattered diamonds.
He sat in the wheelchair, a purple blanket draped over his knees. Tassels adorned the blanket, and cascading down with the tassels was what appeared to be a shimmering phosphorescent… purple fish tail.
And then it dawned on him belatedly.
His adult features.
—Mermaid transformation.
What?
Wait what ? I am confused is Shen jie a mermaid from the start . If so than why did everyone treated him as if he is an ordinary human
It’s another illusion. And I think we see the real Shen Jie. Don’t forget he’s a transmigrated soul.
Did his friend dyed his intestines!!!!!? How does he see them? How did he doo it????
As in the book, his body: Inside the coat, his body was transparent and hollow, revealing a large round black mass with intestines swirling around the heart.
The mental image made me slightly sick. Thanks for explanation – it seems i missed it in the text
I am sorry, I forgot to put warning.
0-0 what
i think u meant hair and not intestines lol
No, it’s not a translation mistake. The author wrote intestines because it’s an illusion, and the translator just translated accordingly.
gah! When reading this part in the raws I was so confused, like- I thought he cleared it but then suddenly where did he go? Also, merman Xiao Shen sounds so pretty!!! I can just imagine a long, black-haired beauty sitting on a random rock in the sunset at the beach, his purple tail gleaming dazzlingly as his scales shine like jewels in the reflection of the sun 🤤
um what? a what?? a mermaid???
Damn this is confusing!
Is the mermaid his actual appearance or is this another illusion of pale king/Zong Lin’s imagination of him if he were corrupted?