Yu Sheng's mind was immersed in a vast and indescribable tide of darkness. The shadow cast by the "main body" of hunger was more astonishingly large than he had imagined. And this vast scale was just as "hunger" should be—it was the greatest and most primitive terror that hung over the heads of all living beings and was buried deep in their hearts.
Then, in the depths of this shadow, he noticed the… "entity" that was slowly floating and writhing.
He found it difficult to describe what that thing was. It seemed to have countless tentacles and bloated, hyperplastic flesh masses. Every part of its main body was constantly changing shape, and even seemed to be collapsing into new structures or gaps in real time with Yu Sheng's gaze. Its surface was pitch black, but in the depths where the tentacles intertwined, there seemed to be constantly changing colors, with a chaotic texture that made one's mind gradually lose itself.
And the moment Yu Sheng noticed that thing, that thing also noticed Yu Sheng's existence.
There was no time to react at all. Countless new tentacles and branch structures instantly spread out from within that thing. The malicious tentacles arrived in an instant and violently entangled Yu Sheng's mind.
Yu Sheng felt as if ten thousand voices had exploded in his "mind." He had no way to resist or dodge. His mind had already established an irreversible connection with something much larger. That thing roared in the depths of his consciousness, transmitting chaotic and terrifying thoughts. But the next second, Yu Sheng noticed that that thing did not seem to have any real reason or thought—
It was just a kind of vast and wild "instinct." And the chaotic thoughts and temptations he felt were just tools that this vast instinct had mimicked for "hunting."
It came from the living beings it had once devoured. It was their madness and despair at the end of hunger, it was the lingering echoes of the victims' final wails. All this converged into all the malice of this monster, allowing this thing, which was originally just an aggregate of instincts, to gradually grow to this day, and even become a powerful "entity" that would actively "forage," actively tempt and force its prey.
And it was still growing rapidly. The thinking ability that was originally just mimicked was now gradually becoming its real "thought"!
Now, it began to try to dismantle Yu Sheng's mind, trying to turn the uninvited guest in front of it into its new "nutrient."
The feeling of his mind gradually "dissolving" came. Yu Sheng felt that he was being rapidly "digested," becoming a part of that monster. He tried his best to break free from the tentacles that were entangled around him, but he found that the stronger he struggled, the stronger the tentacles became!
And just then, Yu Sheng suddenly felt something.
He looked sharply at the huge entity that was constantly writhing in the darkness. The next second, he saw countless pairs of eyes of various shapes suddenly appear in the colorful colors in the depths of the darkness, and one of those pairs of eyes… was his.
He felt his vision shake again, and in the darkness he saw countless tentacles extending forward. At the end of the tentacles, a struggling human-shaped phantom was entangled.
He felt that the monster was digesting and absorbing him.
He felt that he was devouring something.
He was eating.
He was eating.
Just as Yu Sheng was almost unable to distinguish where his perspective was, and could no longer distinguish the boundary between himself and that monster, Irene's cry of surprise suddenly came faintly from the depths of the darkness—
"What the hell?!"
The next second, Yu Sheng felt a violent fall.
The extremely uncomfortable experience of waking up violently last time, he experienced it again in an instant.
Yu Sheng suddenly opened his eyes. The sharp pain, roaring, and pain all over his body instantly drowned all his perceptions. He turned over, held the bedside table and retched violently. He even wanted to vomit out his heart, but he couldn't vomit anything out. And it was not until a long ten seconds had passed that this terrible aftereffect finally gradually subsided.
Yu Sheng held the bedside table and艰难地supported himself to get up. He saw the faint morning light shining into the room through the curtains, and he saw the doll with a picture frame on her back sitting on his bed, with great anxiety and tension on her small face.
"Are you okay?! Is it still you?" Irene climbed over with her hands and feet and grabbed Yu Sheng's arm and shook it vigorously. "Do you still remember who I am?"
"Don't shake, don't shake, I'm still dizzy… what the hell, why does my whole body hurt…" Yu Sheng quickly interrupted this doll. "I'm awake, Irene. I'm fine."
Irene stared at Yu Sheng for a few seconds before she finally let go of her hand. "You scared me to death! You, you, you… you suddenly died. Your mind's reaction disappeared! And then you suddenly came back to life, and your whole mind was in a mess. I didn't even know what I had woken up! You scared me to death! Scared me to death!"
Irene said "scared me to death" several times in a row, obviously she was really scared. But Yu Sheng hardly had any extra energy to comfort this little doll. The huge impact of establishing a deep link with "Hunger" still remained in his heart, and even seemed to still have a huge shadow. Yu Sheng tried to get rid of its influence, and leaned against the head of the bed, panting for a long time, before his mind finally completely cleared up.
"Irene, that thing is very dangerous," he said.
The little doll stood on Yu Sheng's stomach. "Of course I know it's dangerous! I told you from the beginning that that thing is dangerous!"
"No, I mean that thing is more dangerous than you know—it's about to really learn to think."
Irene stared blankly.
"It originally only had instinct. It was only after devouring countless minds that it learned the means of coercion and temptation," Yu Sheng leaned against the head of the bed and looked at Irene's eyes. "Simple and crude hunting can only get limited 'nutrients.' Forcing and tempting a mind to go mad can get amazing 'nutrition.' That thing didn't know these things from the beginning. It learned them gradually. And now… it's almost about to have real thinking activities."
A trace of fear finally gradually appeared on Irene's face, but then she suddenly reacted to another matter.
"How do you know?!" The doll suddenly leaned over, her face almost touching Yu Sheng's nose. "You…"
"…I established a deep link with that thing, deeper than we had originally planned," Yu Sheng did not hide it. "For a moment, I felt that I had even become a part of that monster… so in the depths of the darkness, I saw its most primitive form, and the secret of its continuous growth."
"What… what the hell!" Irene almost jumped up, followed by a storm of babbles. "I told you this wouldn't work! This is very dangerous! No one knows what will happen, and you still insisted on trying. What should we do, what should we do, what should we do… we're screwed! It must have taken root! You're not just being targeted, you've been bitten by it! 'Hunger' has definitely taken root in your mind, ahhh—it's over! It's-all-over!"
The little doll's fussing became louder and louder. She crawled all over the bed and Yu Sheng's stomach. Yu Sheng tried to interrupt her several times but failed. In the end, he had to forcibly lift her into the air to make her quiet down. "Calm down, Irene, calm down."
"Calm down my ass! 'Hunger' has already taken root in your heart! Aren't you nervous at all?!" Irene swayed in mid-air. "It will grow in your mind, bigger and bigger, and then 'bang'! You'll be screwed! Even if you hide in the real world! Do you know your current situation… don't say you'll be resurrected! This thing is rooted in your mind! Your body can be renewed, but can your mind? Are you sure that you can get rid of this 'rooting' after you die and come back to life?"
Of course Yu Sheng knew all this, but he didn't know why he didn't feel any sense of urgency in his heart that his life was on a countdown. Even his increasingly sharp "spiritual intuition" didn't warn him.
He just knew from a rational level that the situation was dangerous, but his heart was filled with an abnormal calm.
But he knew that he couldn't show this calm too much, or Irene would go even crazier.
"As long as we eliminate 'Hunger' before then… I mean, kill the 'entity instance' that is affecting me, there won't be any problem, right?" Yu Sheng tried to divert Irene's attention. "The 'rooting' part needs a certain amount of time to erupt. We still have time."
"Time… yes, there's still time. Hurry, we have to hurry!" Irene's attention was instantly diverted, and she also belatedly noticed that she was being held in mid-air. "Put me down! Quickly put me down. Let's set off immediately and get rid of that 'entity instance.' Yes, yes, yes, let's go right away, before you feel anything…"
Yu Sheng let out a light breath, put Irene on the bed, and prepared to get up and get down to the ground.
But as soon as he moved, he immediately felt a wave of soreness coming from all over his body, and he immediately sucked in a breath of cold air.
"Hiss! Why does it hurt so much…" Yu Sheng looked down at himself in astonishment. "I clearly remember that the aftereffects disappeared quickly after the last 'violent awakening'… and my body didn't hurt at that time. Why do I feel like I've been beaten…"
As he was speaking, the doll who was anxious and flustered a second ago suddenly quieted down. Then Irene quietly climbed towards the end of the bed while muttering in a low voice, "Some… sometimes 'violent awakening' can also produce some physical aftereffects…"
"No!" Yu Sheng reacted at once and pulled open his sleeve. "I was beaten—I have a tooth mark on my arm!"
At this time, Irene had already climbed to the end of the bed. "You grind your teeth in your sleep. You bit yourself."
"You say I bit myself with such a small tooth mark?"
"Isn't that to wake you up! If conventional methods don't work, then you have to use some unconventional ones?"
Irene stood at the end of the bed with her hands on her hips and said理直气壮. Then she turned her head, jumped to the ground, and ran out with her legs!