Nightmare Shuttle

The black haired beauty squinted, a mocking smile staining the lifted corner of his eyes. His lips were red and his black hair slipped from the side of his face, hanging down like satin on the crumpled wet suit of his shirt, 

Suppressed by the shadows, Chu Yi listened to the extremely provocative drawl and grinned playfully, 

"Do you really want to sleep with me."

"Then you try it, the end result is either we both lose or you'll die." 

The devil's crazy nerves were instantly ignited by Chu Yi, and the trembling pleasure made him laugh uncontrollably. He suppressed his excitement and smiled inexplicably like a gentleman, "What about if I win?"

Chu Yi sneered, "Not a chance."

"Then let's play a game–"

From the moment he had caught sight of Chu Yi, fire had already risen in his heart. But it was not anger or killing intent, but a strange and inexplicable emotion. He doesn't know what this is, but he has a kind of irritability that has nowhere to vent.

It made him want to tease this little merman, and even the somber and hatred that filled his heart seemed to dissipate along with his excitement,

Then make him happy.

Sweat beads rolled from his face to his hair, sucked away by the dense black hair. Chu Yi kicked the evil spirit's a few more times without giving up, and successfully kicked the evil spirit's arm with one leg, leaving half a greyed footprint on the evil spirit's clothes. The evil spirit raised his eyebrows and circled Chu Yi's foot. The slender ankle was gently rubbed by him, and the evil spirit slowly praised: "The feel is good."

"But the game I want to play is–"

Before he could finish speaking the man violently looked up and his head swiveled sharply in the direction to the east. A faint smell of seaweed and rust overpowering the sticky and ambiguous atmosphere permeating the darkness,

Sigh–

The man looked back down at Chu Yi, faint regret and disappointment rising in his heart, he now had to leave this intresting thing to settle some urgent matters, 

The man gently tightened his grasp and lightly tapped Chu Yi's lips teasingly before letting go, 

"I guess for now we'll have to play some other day kitten."

"By then, we'll have lots of fun together."

Without waiting for Chu Yi to react, the man disappeared in place and a cloud of black mist that enveloped Chu Yi dissipated to once again reveal the dilipated and broken corridor of the Institute, 

"Chu Yi?"

"Chu Yi!"

Chao Bin's worried face silently appeared directly in his field of vision and reflectively he stepped back defensively, Chao Bin didn't seem to notice his strange reaction and looked more relieved when he realized that Chu Yi had finally come around.

"You just stood there for the past five minutes staring into the deep end of the corridor blankly, no matter how much we yelled, you wouldn't wake up."

He furrowed his brows, "Did you also hear a voice like me?"

The black-haired young man's forehead was sweaty, the breath he exhaled was heated and moist, and his face exuded a ambiguous red stream. Chu Yi is like a rosy beauty that a fanatic painter has spent countless years to sculpt

Chu Yi sighed, a dark gleam settling in his pupils and shook his head, "It's more complicated than that."

Tang Shun walked to Chao Bin's side and stared meaningful at the faint redness at the corner of Chu Yi's eyes, before speaking up plainly, "Let's go back to the room to discuss. The walls have ears."

As if reminded of something, Chao Bins face turned down in disgruntlement and displeasure.

Mu Fang's behavior is just too disgusting.

By the time they got to the room, Chao Bin was still not calm and right after walking in, he flung himself onto the bed and buried himself in the pillows. But just as quickly he bounced right back up, face scrunched in disgust, who knows how much blood has been spilled on those sheets, the rusty and uncouth smell still hadn't dissipated after so many washes.

He rubbed his face heavily, trying to wipe away the pervasive scent but his attention was quickly brought back to the happenings of a few minutes ago and he still couldn't help but curse.

"What kind of magnanimous and holy appearance is he pretending to be, isn't it still all at our expense!"

Tang Shun was amused by Chao Bins rant and didn't seem to put Mu Fang's stunt to heart, "Alright don't dwell on it, there's nothing much we can do."

"Don't dwell on it– He completely dismissed Chu Yi's hard work and still had the gall to pretend to be understanding in front of us."

Previously after Chu Yi had pried the letter from the hands of the dead creature, before he could even open it to see, Mu Fang had spotted his actions from a far and under the guise of everyone falling and rising together had brought all the pressure to Chu Yi and simply snatched the letter from his hands in the end, reading it out loud to the whole player base.

This was something Chu Yi had right his life for, albeit Mu Fang had made some contribution, it still did not warrant him taking full responsibility over the distribution of the letter.

And after all that, with the intention of securing his own prestige amongst the players, Mu Fang had quickly reported to dashing the rising admiration for Chu Yi in the hearts of the others by once again bringing attention back to the inhumane strength that he possessed and insinuating that all of that was brought out by his increasing changes to becoming a monster.

Chao Bin could still see that hypocritical smiling face staring at the three while his mouth fervently incited the players growing hostility.

He had seen enough of those types of players to just want to bring out a bat whenever he saw one.

Chu Yi came stepping out of the bath, wet hair still softly clinging to his face, and with a lazy expression he plopped down casually onto dresser table and lightly pressed his feet to the bed. The winding green veins seemed to be particularly distinct on the tender white foot, toes glimmering with a pale pink sheen as they curled shyly on the white sheets.

He gently brought the hanging fringe on his face back and turned his gaze faintly to the two, the man was dangerous yet somehow their eyes couldn't turn away from him, as if their souls were slowly being sucked into those sinking red pools, 

"Black Cat."

The hoarse, low voice of Chu Yi was the one that snapped them out of their daze and after a brief lull, Chao Bin coughed in embarrassment, shifting uneasily on the bed.

Tang Shun was also affected by the sultry darkness surrounding Chu Yi, as if his thoughts had been wholly captured by this thorny rose and even his most basic vigilance had been stripped away from him as the only thing occupying his mind was those unfathomable red eyes.

Was this brought about by his alienation...

Tang Shun didn't have time to worry, a more pressing matter was at hand, "Black Cat?"

Chu Yi nodded, "The numbers of we found in the file room connected to the letter we found. This is cipher text and if we take the 5th letter of the first sentence, 6th letter of the second sentence etc. The code deciphered is the key word, "Black Cat."

In such a chaotic situation before, Chu Yi did not immediately dwell on the grievances brought about by the snatching of the letter by Mu Fang but his mind had turned quickly enough to pick out the connection between the two seemingly unrelated things.

"But what does black cat have to do with anything in relation to clearing the copy..."

Tang Shun nudged the glasses slightly, they didn't know where he got it and spoke gently, "It isn't a matter of clearing the copy right now but sufficient clues have pointed to the black cat has some relevance in the secrets hiding in the Institute. Maybe if we find out what exactly is that connection we can find a way to leave."

Most players already had a rough outline of what happened in the Institute, but there were still some crucial clues missing that would prove vital to their mission. They searched but didn't find direct answer only increasing questions and confusion that overthrew any conjecture that they had previously held.

Chu Yi suddenly felt a faint tingle in his arms and dropped his gaze only to see another translucent scale had pushed out from beneath his skin and was now lying like a pale pink ornament on his arm.

There were several of these scales that had emerged from the time underwater and although splattered he could already see a faint pattern emerging,

It gave him a kind of unusual but melancholic beauty, like a fallen flower waiting to be picked up from the side of the road, to be nourished and carefully watered to back to its most blooming and iridescent form–

Chu Yi pinched the scale lightly and felt a faint shudder racking his body.

Very sensitive.

"Speaking of the more I find out about the Institute, the more I just want to put razors in the food of whoever is behind this whole mess..."

Chu Yi turned his eyes away and looked back at Chao Bin, for the first time, he didn't blunt Chao Bin and nodded in agreement.

Although their reasons for hatred were slightly off point.

The letter read by Mu Fang only spoke of one thing, instructions sent down by the Federation to a mysterious head researchers to continue making cannon fodder.

The cannon fodders in this sense were failed experiments from the archives of the Federation that were sent out to the battlefields in order to harm the enemy without causing too many damage to the soldiers. They were disposable flesh bags in a sense.

Considering this, maybe some of the monstrosities they've seen were things that were deliberately fostered by some people in the Institute to meet the demands of the Empire. Chu Yi even remembered the one line note previously written on Tang Shun's file that said unable to be transported to War Zone X.

The Federation had more of its own peoples blood than even the enemy stars did.

As if he had remembered something, Chao Bin turned back to Chu Yi,

"What happened in the corridor just now...."

Chu Yi's eyes deepened when he thought of the mysterious man that had encroached on him, his heart speeding up slightly when he remembered the sticky ambiguous gaze that stuck to him like cold poison, 

"A creature.....well a man appeared. Someone who've we've never noticed in any previous records. He's a new factor, a new addition to this game and he only appeared after I deciphered the code, Black Cat."

He didn't go into detail of what had happened but the eyes of the others still grew apprehensive,

Tang Shun hid the dark flash of his eyes behind the cold light of his glasses, "This signals to all of us, that a new chapter in this building has been opened to explore and it also means that the true dangers here are beginning to surface."

Chu Yi suddenly laughed, the red gems gleamed with a charming and dangerous luster, as he leaned lazily against the wall. Low, playful voice hummed strangely,

"Where to run, where to hide..little black cat come play inside"

The corners of his lips hooked higher and higher, he had the appearance of an evil spirit, like a glamorous ghost who seduced people into hell.

He licked his lips, a gloomy excitement festering in his heart,

He was dangerous, more deadly than anything else in this Institute. 

He was the paradox,

And he had a vague idea of who it was.