Parasitism - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The lightbulb overhead cast a dim yellow glow. The light flickered gently, and Lin Ao shuddered, waking with a start from a “dream.”

She reached up to touch her forehead, which was covered in fine, cold beads of sweat. “Thank goodness it was just a dream…”

Before she could finish, Lin Ao stared in astonishment at the completely unfamiliar surroundings.

It was a cramped, rectangular room. The floor and walls were tiled in off-white ceramic. The only things in the room were a toilet and a trash bin. Lin Ao was sitting on the toilet lid, her knees only two fists’ distance from the door.

How did she end up in a public restroom stall? Lin Ao pinched her thigh hard, confirming she was awake.

The scene from just moments ago replayed in her mind:

A few minutes earlier, she had been at work. She vaguely heard some indistinct, delirious whispers, and before Lin Ao could react, everything around her bizarrely contracted into a thin sheet of paper.

Then, this “paper” was added to an open leather-bound book.

The book was filled with text. The simple, unknown written symbols contained endless meaning. Though she couldn’t understand them, they were deeply etched into her mind.

The open book quickly snapped shut. With a “thwack,” Lin Ao’s vision went black. When she opened her eyes again, she was floating in an extremely dark and high place.

She instinctively looked down.

On the dim, mist-shrouded land below, ochre and crimson rivers crisscrossed like gashes in the earth. Collapsed, grayish-white buildings were piled layer upon layer, like dominoes toppled by a god.

Around these urban ruins, some places still stubbornly glowed with the lights of civilization, spreading and flickering across the decaying land like the veins of a plant.

As for the lands farther away, they were swallowed by a profound darkness. A single glance made the hair on Lin Ao’s neck stand on end; she felt as if, from within the boundless darkness, countless eyes were silently and fanatically watching her.

After that, she knew nothing more.

“That wasn’t a dream, so what was it… Hiss—am I still alive?” Lin Ao’s heart pounded as she frantically checked for her own breath.

Inhaling, exhaling. She was alive.

She sat on the toilet lid for a moment to recover, and once her ability to think had fully returned, she began to carefully examine her condition.

There were no visible injuries on her body, but her throat felt uncomfortable, and she was so hungry she felt like chewing on her own hand.

Her clothes had been changed into a plain black short-sleeved shirt and a matching pair of cargo pants with eight pockets. Lin Ao patted them down, one by one.

No phone, no cash, no ID—nothing of value.

There was only a round, plump, dark brown seed, about one millimeter in diameter. It felt a little hard when she pinched it.

Lin Ao tapped her index and middle fingers alternately on her knee.

Based on the “dream” and her current situation, she guessed she had transmigrated to a new world with a harsh environment. It was full of danger, the land was mutated, human living space was severely compressed, and unknown monsters lurked in the distance.

Under these circumstances, this seed was probably not as simple as it seemed.

Lin Ao carefully placed it in the second pocket on the left and zipped it up, then lowered her head to continue sorting through her thoughts.

The reason for her transmigration, the origin of the leather-bound book, the gazes from the darkness… She temporarily set aside these profound and distant questions. Penniless and starving, Lin Ao was currently concerned with only four things.

Was there anything else wrong with her body? What kind of world was this exactly? Without an education or identity, how was she supposed to earn money and survive here? And was the toilet seat she was sitting on clean…

The first three questions couldn’t be answered by staying in the restroom. Lin Ao took a deep breath, and a foul smell filled her nostrils.

She had already been here for some time. As the minutes passed, her hunger grew more intense, and her mouth kept filling with sour saliva.

If she didn’t act soon, Lin Ao worried she might lose her mind from excessive hunger. She didn’t want a tragedy to occur.

She listened for any sounds outside. After confirming no one was there, Lin Ao opened the stall door.

A mirror hung on the wall a few steps away. She walked towards it.

The person in the mirror had an unremarkable face: black hair, black eyes, and dark circles. Her features were all there, her complexion was average, and aside from the exaggerated dark circles, there was nothing memorable about her.

Lin Ao smiled at the mirror. The subtle direction of the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes confirmed once again that this was her twenty-seven-year-old face.

She hopped in place a couple of times and twisted her waist. Hearing a familiar “crack,” she grimaced and held her lower back with a sense of satisfaction.

The original body of an office worker. Besides some lumbar muscle strain, slight hair loss, and mental issues, there were no other problems.

In a strange world, a familiar body was truly a great comfort.

Leaving the restroom and passing through two corridors, she found herself on a bustling pedestrian street. Lin Ao looked up at the sky.

It was nighttime. Looking up from the ground, she couldn’t see the layer of mist that shrouded the earth; she could see the twinkling stars in the night sky directly.

There was no moon. Besides the starlight, only hovering cars with their lights on zipped through the air.

The level of technology here was beyond Lin Ao’s understanding, which meant she would have to spend more effort familiarizing herself with it to avoid making mistakes in the details.

Lin Ao averted her gaze and walked slowly down the street, using her peripheral vision to observe the surroundings, the pedestrians, and any potential job postings.

There were almost no men among the pedestrians on the street, and occasionally she saw people with prosthetic limbs. At a glance, the people living here seemed more robust. Their general demeanor was similar to her previous world—a kind of calm that came from preferring a miserable life over a good death.

Walking among the crowd, Lin Ao didn’t stand out or attract any special attention.

The street was lined with all sorts of shops. Lin Ao discreetly scanned them one by one, mentally ruling out the gun store, the custom body armor shop, the mechanical prosthesis design center, the mental health therapy room…

It was a world brimming with martial virtue. Lin Ao muttered to herself, rubbing her stomach and quickening her pace.

As a transmigrator who had just arrived, Lin Ao had very few job options. She didn’t expect to find a stable, good job right away; that was impossible. She couldn’t provide a copy of an ID card or bank card information.

Lin Ao searched the street for her desired target—a restaurant.

She wanted to trade simple labor for a meal, at least to get through the night. Lin Ao licked her lips, feeling her mouth was dry. Besides a ravenous appetite, there was a strange restlessness in her body.

Lin Ao found a shop on the street called “Super Delicious Nutrient Fluid.”

The shop’s business model was similar to a bubble tea shop. Its main product was nutrient fluid, which came in various flavors with a variety of toppings, served in cups for people to drink on the go.

Lin Ao observed silently from the side for a moment and sensed a problem.

Combining the polluted land she saw in her “dream” with the information from the shops on this street, Lin Ao preliminarily deduced that the food in this world had to be specially processed to be edible. Against this backdrop, traditional cooking methods had gradually been phased out, and there were no longer any conventional restaurants.

Likewise, the job of a dishwasher had also been eliminated.

At the same time, she also noticed that people weren’t using cash or phones to pay. Instead, they used more discreet and convenient methods like facial or iris scans.

The current situation was very unfavorable for her. Lin Ao thought, unless she could work for food or get her hands on this world’s hard currency… and she had just seen something familiar.

An idea for making money quickly, with no cost, something anyone could do, flashed through Lin Ao’s mind. She turned slightly, her gaze uncontrollably drawn to the largest and most lavishly decorated shop on the street.

Gold. Shiny, glittering gold.

Just looking isn’t a crime, Lin Ao told herself as she walked towards “Jiang’s Gold Shop.”

One step, two steps.

The closer she got, the more clearly Lin Ao could see.

The shop’s interior was very different from what she had imagined. Along the walls were a few counters displaying solid gold jewelry like rings and brooches. They were neglected off to the sides, attracting no customers.

In the center of the shop, a giant crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, brilliantly illuminating several floor-to-ceiling glass display cases around it.

Lin Ao’s eyes widened as she peered through the glass.

A golden horsetail whisk inlaid with imperial jadeite, a set of sixty-four cinnabar-and-gold talismans, a 1.2-meter-long jeweled golden scepter, a golden mask affixed to a bleached skull, solid gold multi-caliber bullets and firearms, an exquisitely crafted crucifix pendant with intricate patterns… The crystal chandelier rotated slowly, its brilliant light flowing over the gold, making the objects seem alive, exuding an air of mystery and nobility.

“Hoo…” Lin Ao exhaled sharply and patted her flushed cheeks. “Calm down, calm down!”

Think about the guns and mechanical prosthetics you just saw. People here could probably pull out a gun and blast you without a second thought.

Before you let your greed show, you need to think about whether you’re even qualified, Xiao Lin! She wished she could grab her own shoulders and shake herself awake.

Lin Ao stumbled back two large steps, meekly tearing her gaze away from the gold. “Obey the law and…”

Her peripheral vision was still struggling to pull away when her movements suddenly froze.

“Wee-woo—wee-woo—”

The shrill, urgent sound of an alarm, accompanied by the roar of gunfire, exploded in Lin Ao’s ears. The bustling crowd came to an abrupt halt. After a brief commotion, everyone expertly evacuated or sought nearby cover.

“Uh.” Lin Ao looked left and right, then followed the crowd, squeezing into a narrow alley diagonally across from the gold shop.

The alley, wide enough for two people, was packed with a dense crowd. A half-finished cup of nutrient fluid, held by an unfamiliar hand, was luckily shoved right in Lin Ao’s face.

Her stomach rumbled inopportunely.

Hunger, an intense hunger she had never experienced before, nearly overwhelmed her. Lin Ao knew her body desperately needed nutrients and energy.

But what could satisfy this need right now wasn’t the cup of nutrient fluid in front of her… Lin Ao’s gaze shot straight across the now-empty street.

“Jiang’s Gold Shop” was in chaos. A woman in a black bodysuit, a pleased smile on her lips, was single-handedly holding a machine gun and spraying bullets wildly at the ceiling.

“Bang, bang, bang—” The gunfire was deafening. Bullets flew, and a mixture of blood and glass shards stained the velvet floor.

“Crash.”

The giant crystal chandelier fell from the ceiling and smashed onto the floor. A flying shard cut the woman’s arm, leaving a gash that gushed blood.

The crimson color held an indescribable allure. From a distance, Lin Ao licked her lips, completely unable to look away.

The woman’s injured hand continued to sweep the golden treasures from the counter, while her other hand wiped lightly over the wound.

The wound vanished into thin air. The blood-smeared skin was perfectly intact, as if it had never been injured.

“!”

Lin Ao’s pupils contracted. As a sliver of reason returned, a strange smile suddenly appeared on her lips. Another voice emerged in her mind, trembling with excessive excitement, making its words sound particularly eerie and urgent.

【Let me out.】

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