Chapter 119 - The Institute (60)

Chu Yi gasped softly, sweat quickly pooling onto the glistening white forehead. The burning dryness in his throat and the painful tightness in his chest made him feel as if he was being slowly cooked under a scorching flame.

Vaguely, he felt an intense and peculiar sensation appearing from his weak legs, it was both itchy and painful, as if his legs were being corroded under thousands of crawling ants. Yet, at the same time it felt similar to having new skin and flesh growing into his bones.

He subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch them but his hands had only just stretched out when the overpowering smell of salt and seaweed suddenly engulfed his body like a powerful hand. The heavy, thick air was damp and moist, as if he was sinking into a deep swamp, but instead of feeling refreshed, it only left him even more parched and dry.

This kind of heat was abnormal, both painful and numb but carried with it an indescribable flavor that made him unable to stop shuddering.

"Chu Yi?"

Chu Yi who had still been immersed in his own thoughts glanced up at the face of Chao Bin who stood over him with a worried face. A direct contrast to this look was the two metal bats glinting faintly with a bloody red sheen being gripped harshly in his hands. 

"..."

"I'm fine."

Chu Yi's hands exerted pressure onto the floor as he struggled to get up. The faint feeling of trembling and weakness that still assaulted his nerves, made the intoxicating flush on his face grow even brighter, like two charming red clouds settling on his face.

He stood up strenuously and slowly walked over to the bloody red knife that no matter how much he tried, couldn't reach in the end. The knife's sharp edge glinted strangled on the soft white, fingertips, and the nails like transparent pink pearls lightly tapped along the edge.

Chu Yi's eyes were blurred and fluttering, as if he looked through the knife and saw another self, trapped, helpless and weak.

Useless.

His eyes suddenly shrank sharply and with a powerful flick of his wrist, the sharp knife was flung forward abruptly!

Swish—"

This was the sound of something breaking through the air!

The cold and sharp tool brushed Mu Fang's cheeks, rubbed out a thin red line, before being nailed directly into the wall behind his ears!

Mu Fang who had been walking towards them, was stunned by the sudden attack and a drop of cold sweat fell from his forehead and traveled down the tip of his nose.

Almost– if he had shifted just slightly, the knife would have landed in his head instead.

Chu Yi sneered faintly and turned away, if it wasn't for the need to maintain that last layer of paper window, the knife wouldn't have deviated from its course.

The blood and chaos of the room still carried evidence of the players madness not too long ago, although it seemed that since only one person died, this madness wasn't necessarily going to change much. However, Chu Yi knew that death here wasn't the real intention, at least for now. Instead it was to completely and unilaterally fracture the fragile player alliance and stretch the already thin line between allies and enemies to a breaking point. Nurturing and fostering the darkness festering in their hearts like a filthy and putrid sore.

Apart from them, there were only three others who managed to remain sober under the infectious madness and two of these three were apart of the pink group. A fat middle aged and a one armed man who stood to the side.

Mu Fang watched the red eyes turn away from him disdainfully, his thin lips were tight, his hair was messy, and his white robe was a little wrinkled and uneven. Even the his usual grace and calmness was wrapped in irritability and gloom. A strand of black hair fell silently in front of his ghostly eyebrows and he could feel a burst of killing intent suddenly crashing into his heart.

He hated that look, like a stray dog cowering across the street, he felt as if his dignity was insulted. He was ridiculed and mocked amongst the official players, he had to take this low level C copy in order to consolidate his sense of existence and now even here, he had to take the contempt of this little well-known vase?!

He deserved to die without a name.

The hostility in his heart was almost overflowing, but none of that showed on his face, he only suppressed this feeling in his heart and continued forwards, with a worried and apologetic smile.

"Chu Yi, are you alright? I wanted to help but I didn't know if interfering would set the players into even more of a frenzy. Do you think it's because of your connection to the NPC in the basement–?"

He suddenly paused and gave Chu Yi an apologetic look, and quickly changed the topic as if trying to cover up a blunder," Let's just talk about what's going on."

The other three players that had managed to remain sober instantly looked thoughtful.

Chao Bin almost couldn't resist the urge to punch him, although he didn't know what Mu Fang was talking about, such whitewhashing routine was so obvious, it would be a miracle if the others didn't notice it.

Tang Shun glanced meaningfully at Mu Fang, cold eyes narrowing knowingly.

Something's wrong.

Chu Yi didn't care for this.

This was by no means the natural physiological heat after going through life and death.

Chu Yi stopped suddenly, his nose was heavy, he lifted his eyelids and looked at the others, "Do you smell anything strange."

The scorching heat in his body seemed to be a smoked firewood pile, Chu Yi licked his wet lips, frowning fiercely.

What happened?

This feeling is too much like the hotness after eating natural aphrodisiac and drinking a big tonic soup, the heat felt as if it was about to burn his whole person! 

He pulled his neckline irritably, and suddenly remembered someone.

The merman.

He immediately understood.

Chu Yi didn't know if it was his illusion, but the itching of his feet seemed to grow stronger under the intense seaweed scent.

Subconsciously, he wanted to reach out and touch them, but without warning, a moist and heavy breath was suddenly exhaled on the side of his neck. A soft, and prickly sensation appearing on the round and white shoulder blades. The feeling of being violated by an cold entity made Chu Yi dizzy with goose bumps appearing all over his body, the refreshing and uncomfortable feeling instantly made the ends of his eyes red.

Mu Fang was still talking passionately in front of him but at this moment both of his arms were firmly pressed to his sides by wet, powerful webbed claws, along with a wet, soft object licking around his neck religiously. Chu Yi felt as if the skin there was going to be licked raw.

A low voice, hoarse and dull appeared in his ears, like a lightly tickling against his face, "Can't touch." 

Chu Yi's eyes narrowed dangerously and he went to struggle, but the heavy merman suddenly wrapped his hands around his waist and tightened–

Soon enough, Chu Yi felt a penetrating pain appear behind my ears and around his fingers. It was like thorns were forcibly breaking through his skin or having a parasitic virus struggling its way in. Soft fingers curled uncontrollably and his breathing quickened, and he resisted groaning, not wanting to show his embarrassment.

The pain was only brief and faded away quickly and as soon as his body relaxed a wet finger slowly rubbed the sensitive skin still numb with residual tingling. Chu Yi couldn't help but shake his head, unable to ignore the weird and uncomfortable feeling that the touch brought. 

The dryness of his throat was growing stronger and stronger and his scarlet lips opened up a slight gap to breath in the heavy air.

Suddenly something was pressed at the corner of his lips, wet and moist. It felt like heaven against his heated skin but intuition told him that if he swallowed it, he would regret it later.

The merman seemed incomprehensible of his resistance and rubbed the wet ball on his lips repeated, as if coaxing him to open a gap and swallow.

Chu Yi's Adam's apple couldn't help but bob thirstily.

His eyebrows were dropping, his lips were dyed with intoxicating red ink, and his eyes were struggling back and forth in desire and reason. Such struggles were extremely charming, and this provocative look made the merman want to swallow him into his stomach.

It watched as the scent that emitted from its mate, grow more and more complete, unable to stop the anticipation in its heart. The hand that held the pearl continued to deliberately rub its against it's mate lips, watching as the wet slick ball ran a glistening trail along the red lips.

"Chu Yi?"

"Why are you so red?"

"Are you sick?"

Red eyes raised wetly and took in the doubtful gaze of the others. A bit of embarrassment from doing dishonest acts in public bit his heart and under their stares, he could only open his mouth reluctantly.

The familiar wet, slick pearl was forced past his red lips 

The thing was obviously extremely cold outside, but when it was swallowed into his stomach Chu Yi just felt as if his body and mind were getting hotter and hotter.

This kind of hotness made his movements impetuous, and it also made his mood rise inexplicably sultry. His feet still itched terribly and a tingling sensation rose up to his waist, he had a vague idea of what was happening. The hand that lifted slightly to wipe the sweat from his face, glimmered with a soft red light.

Chu Yi breathed heavily. He exhaled a heated breath and fought to stay calm, "I...Cough–"

Chu Yi's were filled with mist and his cheeks were as red a ripe peach cobbler, but he tried to remain serious, " I suspect that the nurses are about to strike."

Tang Shun and the others looked at him inexplicably, 

"How much longer do we have to wait, it smells so good. A little longer, 'they' are almost ready. Those were the exact words that I heard between the head nurse and an another. They here obviously means us and ready means that there wating for something."

He pointed to the unconscious heap behind him– courteous of Chao Bin, and looked back, "Look at the state of the others, uncontrollable, irritable, filled with hatred." 

He coughed again, his throat hurts, but he swallowed uncontrollably, the sweat on his slender neck was like pearls, smooth and crystal clear, tempting anyone to taste. He added: " The nurses have been looking at us hungrier and hungrier. Do you know this phenomenon? This is the look of beast to newborn monsters. Once we become one of them, we become the lowest ones on the food chain. Therefore once we mutate, we stop being residents, we become prey. And bigger prey always eat the smaller ones. We become a target. This is the law of the jungle."

They looked at each other, it was feasible. Throughout their exploration of the Institute, the only dead besides them were the nurses. As the lowest on the food chain, it was conceivable what's going to happen. It still couldn't fully explain the players madness, but at this point it wasn't important.

There was a tiger in the front and a lion in the back.

There was danger was on all sides.

The groans from behind them, signaled that the players were waking up. Unsure if they'll once again descend into madness and attack him Chu Yi decided to leave first.

Tang Shun looked at his leaving back, and pushed his glasses up to hide the light in his eyes, what he didn't say was that weak animal's would always target the cubs of the ones at the top of the food chain.

Vaguely he seemed to see a broad figure completely shadowing Chu Yi's back but without a word, he looked away.

The smile on his lips was unfathomable.

It's getting hotter.

His eyes were blurred, and the heat on his body seemed to be higher. Chu Yi breathed heavily, and tried to open his eyes to look at the twisted corridor in front of him, his heart beating like drumsticks.

A restless desire burst out from inside.

Uncomfortable.

This kind of discomfort even made Chu Yi feel that if he could solve this kind of pain with sex, then he would also be willing.

It was just sex. As long as it could put out the fire inside him, he was willing to do it.

Chu Yi felt the salty scent engulf him tightly.

His face reddened by heat seemed intoxicated as if drunk, Chu YI squinted his eyes, the shadow of the eyelashes hanging down to cover the blazing heat in his pupils, the brightness of the corridor was dim , but the air was filled with a sweet and greasy affection.

He struggled back to the room and kicked off his shoes to lie strenuously on the bed.

"Chu Yi.."

Suddenly he looked down, the itching on his feet abruptly became stronger.

To his surprise, he saw that a transparent film had somehow appeared and was now closely attached to the two slender legs belonging to him. The outline of the muscles and skeleton structure was extremely beautiful, as if it have been planned by the most precise algorithm and calculations.

Its color was an almost lustrous snow-white, resembling condensed moonlight, even in the dark room, it shone with pure light, cold and clean as the first snow on the mountain peak, as if it would melt with a slight touch.

The soles of his feet were slender, with a graceful arch, and the twisting blue blood vessels could be seen on the white almost transparent instep. The round pale pink toes were slightly curled, giving a sense of pure innocence. Now these were covered in a pale red sheen that almost seemed to billow out from the seams.

Once again his hands reached out, but the heavy fingers once again grasped his. Long webbed fingers tightly held onto the soft white fingers and Chu Yi was forced to withstand the unbearable itch. Psychological tears couldn't help but fall from his eyes, it was too much.

Hot, itchy.

Chu Yi uncontrollably shuddered.

His scarlet eyes were like a fragrant rose.

Suddenly a wet finger reached out and lightly touched the bulging skin on his forehead.

Chu Yi's mind went blank.

Darkness swept in from all sides, as if there was a thick fog all around. In an instant, everything disappeared: no heat, no itch and no merman. The pain was gone, only overwhelming numbness, his body seemed to be sinking deeper into the sea, yet he was aware that he was caught up in a nightmare.

Chu Yi fainted.