The Empty Ones

“Why did you have to bite them to death?” Yuan Anqing asked.

Only when he heard that deep, familiar voice did Peng Jingchang confirm that this terrifying, blood-soaked monster was indeed Zhuo.

After registering the content of the Savior’s words, Peng Jingchang was utterly dumbfounded. The Savior didn’t know why his bodyguard had killed them?! The monster had just charged out and slaughtered the entire transport team on a whim?! He had no orders, no strategic thoughts?!

“They were contaminated,” Yuan Anqing said, looking down. “They’ve been in prolonged physical contact with the Saviors’ preserved flesh. They were already hollowed out.”

Zhuo blinked his massive, dark eyes and tilted his head. He had a few too many domestic, child-like mannerisms. Even though his eyes were now opaque pits of black, one could still sense his confusion.

Peng Jingchang let out a shaky breath, his hands trembling. He patted his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.

“Their blood doesn’t taste right,” Zhuo grumbled, smacking his lips and tasting the gore. “It doesn’t taste weird or bitter like the Savior meat. It’s actually pretty good. Normal human blood.”

Peng Jingchang’s breath caught again.

“And I didn’t see any trace of active desire on them before I bit,” Zhuo extended a massive, scaled finger and casually poked the broken torso on the ground.

“Take off their pants,” Yuan Anqing pointed at the lower half of the bodies.

Zhuo instantly split off an extra pair of hands from his back to cover his eyes. “That’s not good, Savior! I’m in a committed relationship now! Isn’t this too risqué for me to look at?!”

“You won’t see anything,” Yuan Anqing said deadpan.

Zhuo slowly parted his fingers. He turned a torso over, then gasped. The lower half of the body was completely smooth—there was nothing there. No skin, no flesh, no anatomy whatsoever. He turned the buttocks over. “Oh! How did this guy even go to the bathroom?! It’s completely hollow!”

“They’ve become like Senior Qing,” Yuan Anqing said, crouched over the corpse. “A knockoff version of him.”

Zhuo went to rip the clothes off another courier. Without exception, the interior of the clothes was empty. The fabric was merely draped over a hollow shell of hardened black fibers. “There’s really no resentment or desire left in these bodies,” Zhuo noted.

“They’re completely empty. How could there be resentment?” Yuan Anqing countered. “The ones you bit to death weren’t humans anymore. They were just mutated puppets.”

“Empty?” Zhuo didn’t quite understand the biology.

Peng Jingchang took a deep breath and backed away in sheer terror.

Yuan Anqing reached out and pressed a hand against Peng Jingchang’s back, preventing the trembling actor from falling over.

“Hey! Don’t touch someone else’s boyfriend!” Zhuo bared his fangs at Peng Jingchang, nearly scaring the actor into cardiac arrest.

“This finger joint,” Yuan Anqing ignored him, holding up the small, glowing bone from the lockbox. “Its energy signature resembles your own.”

“Who? Me?!” Zhuo’s eyes widened. “I’m not like that ugly, dead thing!” Zhuo considered himself a lively, handsome youth. They had absolutely nothing in common.

“This bone has nothing to do with the living Savior anymore,” Yuan Anqing said. He could feel the residual energy. “Countless resentments have condensed into something resembling self-awareness, but it’s not a complete soul.”

It was just a chaotic loop of pain.

Through the contact, Yuan Anqing saw the “Second Savior” again in his mind, but this time she was completely insane, devoid of any logic. Even though this finger joint was many times larger than the minced meat from the office, the ghost he met here could only cry out in pain and repeat, [I am dead. It hurts.]

A Savior’s soul dissipated because they saw through the illusion of reality, finding it entirely meaningless. They voluntarily gave up their lives. How could they harbor unwillingness or resentment toward death itself?

This preserved bone indeed retained some of the Savior’s physical memories, but in essence, it had become a parasite, a vessel for collective human desire.

Yuan Anqing looked down. He saw countless thin, black root-like fibers spreading from the finger joint, which had been deeply embedded into the courier’s nervous systems before Zhuo tore them apart. These threads had devoured the humans’ true organs and consciousness from the inside out, turning them into empty, hollow puppets. All of their actions on the highway had merely been automatic loops of their living habits.

“Can’t you sense that their desires are completely blank?” Yuan Anqing asked.

He looked at Zhuo, who was examining the hollow limbs. Zhuo stiffened slightly. “My attention wasn’t on them.” He had only been focused on protecting Yuan. He hadn’t felt any active malice from the couriers, so he hadn’t paid their empty shells any mind. As long as they didn’t touch his Savior, they were beneath his notice.

Yuan Anqing lightly patted Zhuo’s arm beside him in gratitude.

This light pat, however, made Zhuo look terribly aggrieved. “You hit me again.”

Peng Jingchang: “…”

“Stop messing around. Report the discovery of these ’empty’ puppets to Bai Tian immediately,” Yuan Anqing examined the severed finger joint, turning it over. “This bone cannot remain in contact with the atmosphere for long. We need to find a way to destroy it.”

“Wait! Wait!” Peng Jingchang raised his hand, his voice shaking. “Report to whom?!”

“Report to the authorities, of course,” Zhuo said matter-of-factly, returning to his human form. “You actually thought your little rebellion was powerful? Do you really think we’re afraid of your organization?”

He dusted off his clothes. “Come on, star. You didn’t even notice something was off with your own delivery team.”

“You… who exactly are you two?” Peng Jingchang stared at Zhuo in absolute terror.

Zhuo wanted to proudly declare he was the Savior’s “super duper sweetheart,” but before he could speak, Yuan Anqing reached up and covered his mouth.

“You don’t need to know who he is. Just be wary of his appetite,” Yuan Anqing released Zhuo. He looked at the actor. “Mr. Peng, do you think your parents are still okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have dozens of siblings, but they’re only a little over four hundred years old, right? Their father’s physical functions shouldn’t have degenerated. Yet they suddenly went crazy having children decades ago…”

Peng Jingchang was stunned, the implication hitting him like a physical blow. “Are you saying…?”

“If you stay in physical contact with the Saviors’ remains for too long, you get parasitized,” Yuan Anqing displayed the finger joint. “Not to mention that outsiders wouldn’t realize, even the victim themselves might be completely unaware.”

“When you want to raise your hand, you can raise it. But it’s not controlled by your mind—it’s controlled by the parasitic Savior fibers,” Yuan Anqing said. “I don’t know if they realize they’ve been hollowed out at the later stages, but obviously, even if they do, it’s useless. The body no longer belongs to them.”

Yuan Anqing paused. “Among the high-ranking members of your rebellion… how many are actually still alive?”

He found it peculiar. These bones contained the Saviors’ “memories,” but these remnants seemed to have no active awareness to resist the rampant desires of the parasites. They only cared about the “meaninglessness of life.”

“Ah!” Zhuo suddenly shouted, pointing a finger at Yuan Anqing. “Your dream! Your dream! All you Saviors have this exact same tendency!” Zhuo still couldn’t forget the shock of Yuan’s nightmare.

Ruined, moss-covered concrete, no flowers, no grass, no chirping insects. Countless clean white skeletons lay quietly, staring up at the stars. That absolute, dead silence made Zhuo feel terrible. Back then, he had preferred watching human despair and struggle. Absolute silence was Zhuo’s ultimate nightmare because it meant no desire to feed on.

Now, these controlled, hollow people were no different from the bones in that dream. They didn’t even have the most basic human desires. They were just walking, hollow vessels. And this state of “nothingness” was what the dead Saviors sought.

Yuan Anqing realized it too. In a way, his predecessors were still carrying out their “Savior” duties—they were preparing to drag the entire world into what they thought was the best direction: absolute, quiet non-existence.

“Tch.” Yuan Anqing placed the finger joint on the ground, then extended his hand to Zhuo’s mouth. “Bite me. Draw blood.”

Zhuo drew his neck back in panic. “Biting with my fangs hurts! You have low pain tolerance!”

He knew Yuan Anqing wanted to use his own Savior blood to try purifying this strange, parasitic bone.

Yuan Anqing was about to say they could get a clean knife from the kitchen when Zhuo reached back, looked at his tail, and plucked a loose, metallic scale. He handed it to Yuan Anqing. “Use this. It’s very sharp.”

The sharper the blade, the less pain.

Yuan Anqing was surprised. “Are your scales really that sharp?”

“Yes,” Zhuo nodded. “But usually, when you want to touch them, I soften them so they won’t cut your skin.”

Yuan Anqing took the red, metallic scale and made a light, swift cut across his palm.

Watching the action, Zhuo couldn’t help but hiss, clutching his own hand as if he felt the cut himself through the ring.

Peng Jingchang saw Zhuo’s absolute, trembling nervousness, glanced at the hollow, torn corpses on the ground, and a profound sense of dissonance rose in his heart.

He finally figured it out: This Savior has almost no physical defensive power. But even with such vulnerability, no rebel could ever harm Yuan Anqing, because beside him crouched an unkillable, unhinged god.

And now, that huge monster had both hands covering his own mouth, his red eyes wide as he stared at Yuan Anqing’s hand, looking absolutely terrified of a paper cut.

Blood dripped from Yuan Anqing’s palm onto the finger joint. The moment the red drop touched the bone, it was like water hitting a red-hot iron pan. The gray resentment surged exponentially, screaming in agony.

“Step back, Peng!” Yuan Anqing shouted.

The gray resentment condensed into thick, black root-like fibers, lunging directly toward Yuan Anqing’s face.

Zhuo instinctively reached out with his bare hand to grab the fibers. Yuan Anqing raised his voice in warning: “Don’t touch that!”

His voice wasn’t as fast as Zhuo’s reflex. Before he could finish the warning, the intangible, parasitic resentment had already pierced straight through Zhuo’s palm and shot into Yuan Anqing’s brow.

Peng Jingchang saw Yuan Anqing’s eyes go completely blank, the gold flaring violently. Zhuo, after a brief, frozen pause, roared and transformed back into his colossal, true form.

The red, mountain-sized monster bellowed at the sky, then opened his massive, fanged maw and swallowed Yuan Anqing whole to protect him.

Peng Jingchang: “???”

The red monster, having swallowed Yuan Anqing, immediately turned and bounded up the mountain, crashing through the forest.

Peng Jingchang waited in the yard for a long time. After confirming that the monster wouldn’t come back down to eat him, he walked over to where the two had been standing.

He found that the severed Savior finger had also completely disappeared from the ground.

Meanwhile, the red monster, having lost his conscious mind to the feedback, crushed a large patch of the orchard’s fruit trees and then fell into a state of total confusion.

At this moment, his instincts told him he should destroy everything—destroy all beautiful things. But the big monster couldn’t muster the energy to care. Thinking about having to coordinate an attack and destroy buildings made him feel incredibly tired.

So after being dazed for a bit, the big monster chose to simply curl up on the spot, lying in a comfortable hollow he had carved in the orchard.

The human he had swallowed earlier was still spacing out in his domain, completely unafraid of his stomach-room.

How strange.

And inside the red monster’s belly, Yuan Anqing lay with his eyes open, golden light flickering in them as he processed the memories of the dead.

A red hand extended from the surrounding crimson walls, gently closing Yuan Anqing’s eyelids. Keeping them open too long in the void will dry them out, the hand’s intent murmured.

After closing Yuan Anqing’s eyes, the hand gently poked his wounded palm.

This human’s blood smelled really good. The big monster wanted to lick it badly. But he felt that wouldn’t be right. He had to wait for the person to wake up and get his consent first.

Had he always been this polite? The big monster couldn’t figure it out.

He discovered that not only was he polite, but he also had a strong, innate sense of morality. The big monster didn’t know how this human got hurt, so he decided to ask him once he woke up. If the human had hurt himself, he would bare his teeth and growl at him to scare him into never doing it again.

If someone else had hurt him… he would bite that person to pieces! Crush their bones!

Wow, I’m so righteous! the monster thought. So righteous I don’t even seem like a monster!

The big monster was currently in chaos, because his analytical reason and human personality had been temporarily separated from his true being by the psychic feedback.

…

“From now on, I’ll look after you,” a cool, deadpan male voice awakened Zhuo’s consciousness in the dream-simulation.

Zhuo blinked dazedly, then looked up. The man standing before him was refined and handsome, with narrow, elegant eyes and thin lips. He looked incredibly indifferent. He was tall, but Zhuo himself was over two meters, so he had to look down at everyone.

“My name is Yuan Anqing.” The man extended a hand toward him.

“Huh? Oh! I’m Zhuo,” Zhuo quickly reached out to shake hands. He felt he had seen this person somewhere before.

The other’s hand was cool; after a symbolic touch, he immediately withdrew it.

Ah, indeed very cold.

Zhuo scratched his head, but when his hand touched his scalp, he froze. Something seemed to be missing from his head. His horns were gone.

“You’ll share my office for now. If there’s anything you don’t understand about the CAD software, just ask me,” Yuan Anqing said to him, turning back to his monitor.

“Oh.” Zhuo tilted his head. “Don’t you think the name ‘Zhuo’ is strange?”

“No.”

“You’re so cold, senior.” Zhuo glanced at Yuan Anqing’s desk. “Your desk is so empty too. No pictures.”

Yuan Anqing frowned slightly. If he remembered correctly, this new hire, Zhuo, was only a year younger than him. A grown man, why did he use so many whiny, childish tones?

“Senior, are you not married?” Zhuo stared at the empty cubicle, curiosity bubbling up. “Even though you still look handsome, you’re not that young anymore, right?”

Zhuo was genuinely curious. “Someone as good-looking as you should have married early, right? I see the department manager’s desk has a family photo.”

Yuan Anqing didn’t answer. But Zhuo didn’t care whether he replied; he just talked for his own amusement. “Or are you already married but don’t want to display a photo for some special reason? You don’t have a lover, do you?”

Yuan Anqing: “…”

This new hire has absolutely no sense of professional boundaries. No wonder he got transferred to my department.

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring either,” Zhuo pointed at Yuan Anqing’s bare left hand.

“Because I am not married,” Yuan Anqing said tersely.

Zhuo got excited again. “Eh? Why not? Can’t find anyone worthy of your standards?”

“I’m not likable.”

“Wow! You’re not likable?” Zhuo was genuinely surprised. “How many people in this world are actually better looking than you?”

“Appearance is the most superficial, meaningless criterion for judging a person’s worth,” Yuan Anqing explained.

Zhuo understood instantly. “Oh! I get it! Your personality is completely unlikable!”

Yuan Anqing adjusted his glasses. “Yes. My personality is unlikable.” He looked out the office window at the bustling crowds on the street below, feeling a sense of deep detachment. He didn’t hate them, but he didn’t like them either.

Still, all this noise was too much.

Behind him, Zhuo suddenly reached back to touch his own hip. “Hey… where’s my tail?”

Yuan Anqing: “Huh?”

Zhuo was also baffled. “Uh… humans don’t have tails, right?”

“Humans do not have tails,” Yuan Anqing confirmed.

Meanwhile, in the physical world, the massive red monster that had knocked over the fruit trees to make a nest was slowly wagging its tail.

It had safely spat Yuan Anqing’s body back out onto the grass.

The more the big monster looked at the sleeping human, the more it liked him. It happily circled around the human’s body, its tail wagging like a propeller.

Bai Tian and the military transport team, who had just arrived via helicopter, stared from the sky: “…”

What is Zhuo doing? Is he… dancing?