"Dr. Lin Xi..."
A pale face slowly emerged from the darkness.
Lin Xi had to admit that he was startled, and he almost punched the ghostly face. After a moment of hesitation, he realized that the face that appeared from the darkness belonged to Ando Shizuo.
"Professor Ando? Is it really you? What's wrong with you?"
Lin Xi asked without thinking.
The last time I saw Shizuo Ando, even though we had only passed each other in the corridor, he looked like he had aged ten years—or worse.
Shizuo Ando now looked like a skeleton wrapped in dead person skin, with sunken cheeks and cracked lips. Only his eyes were shining, revealing an abnormal spirit.
"Did something happen?"
Lin Xi felt an inexplicable chill. He looked at Shizuo Ando and added uneasily.
It took Shizuo Ando a long time to focus his gaze on Lin Xi, and his reaction seemed particularly slow.
"Me? I... I'm fine..."
He said in a low voice.
But his weak voice made his words unconvincing.
"I'm just a little tired. You know, Liz's condition... She's had a hard time before this, and I had to stay by her side to take care of her. It's hard for a person to rest well during this period... This is normal, isn't it?"
No, this is not normal at all.
Lin Xi complained in his heart.
"But you... you don't look well. God, how long have you not slept? Maybe I can ask Bryce to check on you?" Lin Xi pretended to be calm and said to Ando, "Is Liz okay? Maybe she needs some extra help too?"
While talking, Lin Xi looked into the cabin without making a sound, past Ando's hunched body.
It’s a pity that he didn’t see anything.
Whether it was the darkness in the cabin or the stench emanating from the room, Lin Xi's heart was filled with an ominous feeling.
He felt his heart grow heavy.
"Ah, Liz... She just needs some quiet time to recuperate. There's no need to bother Dr. Bryce." Ando Shizuo rolled his eyes and thought for a moment before muttering to Lin Xi, "The previous period was the most difficult, but now she has stabilized."
This evasive attitude made Lin Xi frown.
Especially considering that Ando was talking incoherently and seemed to be in an extremely bad mental state. The more Lin Xi listened, the more horrified he felt.
The more Shizuo Ando emphasized that Liz was fine, the more terrifying the thoughts in Lin Xi's mind became. Yes, Shizuo Ando was indeed a good husband, at least in the eyes of the outside world. But how to say it? Who can guarantee that a person is the same face in front of the public and at home? Especially Liz is such a special woman, she is so weak after pregnancy, and has no power to resist.
Lin Xi vaguely remembered that since she became pregnant, few people saw her on the ship.
Some dark memories slowly surfaced from the deepest part of Lin Xi's soul, and he had to grit his teeth to control his emotions.
Fortunately, just as Ando finished speaking, a hoarse and strange voice came from the depths of the dark cabin, dispelling Lin Xi's speculation about Liz's current situation.
"Who is it, dear?"
Although the voice was faint, it was still audible that it came from Liz.
Lin Xi was immediately relieved, but he still couldn't feel at ease.
"It's Dr. Lin Xi. He is very concerned about your condition."
Ando turned around and whispered softly into the darkness of the room.
"Oh my goodness, Dr. Lindsey... why don't you let him in for a cup of tea?"
Liz said enthusiastically in the room, sounding a little more energetic than before.
"Sorry, look at me, I almost forgot to let you in."
Ando's eyes flickered and he said dryly.
Lin Xi's nerves were on edge. He observed Ando Shizuo carefully and of course did not miss the unnatural look on his face at that moment.
It was obvious that Shizuo Ando did not want him to enter the dark cabin, but Lin Xi could not get rid of the uneasiness and doubt in his heart, so he seemed to be completely unaware of Ando's stiffness, and followed Liz's invitation and strode directly into the cabin where the Ando couple lived.
As soon as I stepped into the room, the strange smell became stronger.
Lin Xi was almost grateful for the darkness in the room at this moment, otherwise the Ando couple would have seen his suddenly distorted face. Lin Xi used up all his willpower to avoid retching.
The temperature in the room was very high, completely abnormally high, and the smell was like rotten blood, sweet with a hint of stench and fishiness.
"It's so dark in here, is there something wrong with the lighting system?"
Lin Xi asked cautiously.
He heard Ando following him into the room, and then the hatch slowly closed behind him. The friction sound of the old spaceship's hatch sliding might sound like nothing at ordinary times, but at this moment it sounded like the scream of a banshee, which made people's heart tighten.
Lin Xi almost ran away. After all, the room became even darker after the cabin door was closed.
The only source of light might be the emergency light on the wall, which was as dim as a firefly, but the weak light from that small light couldn't even illuminate the area within a fist.
Lin Xi opened his eyes wide unconsciously, trying to find Liz's trace in the cabin.
The stench, which was similar to that of blood, made him increasingly worried about Liz's condition.
"No... I just... can't stand the glaring light."
Liz answered Lin Xi quickly, and it didn't sound forced. However, Lin Xi felt more and more nervous because he found that Liz's voice came from the corner of the wall.
And in the corner of the wall, there are two faint reflections, just above the ceiling.
Both his reason and intuition told Lin Xi that something was wrong. He subconsciously took a few more steps in Liz's direction, and then he tripped over something in the dark.
"Well-"
Lin Xi let out a muffled groan.
"Are you OK?"
Ando Shizuo asked nervously.
"I'm so sorry, I should have helped you find the way... This is really..."
At this time, Lin Xi didn't have time to pay attention to Ando's repeated apologies.
His mind was completely drawn to the thing that tripped him.
It was a massive mass, so large that it should hardly appear in the living space where space crew members lived on a daily basis.
And its texture is also very subtle. The rough surface feels very hard, but that hard feeling is very different from steel, plastic or glass - and most of the equipment in the spacecraft is made of these materials.
Lin Xi supported himself with it and slowly climbed up from the ground. His eyes were completely useless in this environment. He could only try to identify what the thing was by touch.
There are many fine and complex lines on the surface of that thing. Some parts have very round lines, while others are extremely sharp.
The touch of it always gave Lin Xi a vague sense of familiarity, but perhaps because he was too nervous, he could not remember where he had encountered something similar.
"Please turn on the night light, dear, or it would be very disrespectful to our guests."
Just when Lin Xi was puzzled, Liz said quietly in the corner.
"But… "
Ando seemed very reluctant.
"It's okay," Liz said, and then Lin Xi felt that she seemed to turn towards her. "Dr. Lin Xi, I'm sorry to have you see us like this. Shizuo didn't mean to be so rude, but I..."
Liz's tone was a little strange: "I hope you are a little prepared for my current situation. Turn on the light, dear, Dr. Lin Xi is not such a shallow and ignorant rude person, I don't think he will mind my current appearance too much."
At Liz's urging, Shizuo Ando seemed to have made up his mind to turn on the night light.
The light of the night light is definitely not bright. After all, it was originally designed for crew members who are half asleep and half awake, but such light is enough for the cabin at this time.
The yellowish light spread across the room, illuminating everything in the room.
The moment he saw everything clearly, Lin Xi finally understood why the Ando couple had been so reluctant to turn on the lights before.
For a moment, he just stood there, staring at everything in front of him, his mind blank.
The scene was so beyond common sense that it seemed particularly bizarre and magical, more like some nightmare of Lin Xi than reality.
He saw Liz.
Liz is alive and well.
No domestic violence, no injuries, no killing.
but…
But he couldn't understand the other person's current situation.
The Sunu hybrid woman was as thin and gaunt as she had been in the medical room before, but her abdomen had expanded countless times more than before. Her already sparse hair had all fallen out, and some tentacles-like things had replaced the hair and emerged from under her scalp. They formed a flesh-colored mesh-like thing that was tightly attached to the wall. Some translucent mucus was secreted from the tentacles, wrapped around Liz, and helped her fix her deformed body firmly to the corner of the ceiling.
In that corner, everything from the ceiling to the floor was wet, all of it was the mucus that slid down from Liz's body, and the suffocating stench came from her body.
The two reflections that Lin Xi saw in the dark before were not some mechanical devices as he thought, but Liz's eyes.
"Oh my god."
Lin Xi swallowed his saliva and looked at Liz blankly. This was the only thing he could say.
Liz opened her dark eyes wide and opened her mouth to reveal a terrifying smile.
"It's a bit ugly. I think I should scare you, right?"
The woman whispered.
"No need to hide it. I know. I think it's terrible for me to be like this. But I have Sunu blood in my veins. Sometimes you just can't change your origins."
"Women born in the planet Sonu will experience some physical changes when they are pregnant..."
At some point, Shizuo Ando came to Lin Xi's side and explained to her in a hoarse voice.
"So... it's like this..."
Lin Xi finally felt that he had regained the ability to speak.
Although he still didn't calm down.
"I never thought that..."
Lin Xi spoke stiffly, although even he himself didn't know what he was saying.
He took two steps back unconsciously and almost tripped over the same thing again.
This time, he only needed to turn his head to see what it looked like.
A hideous insect face dotted with fangs, compound eyes, and strange bone plates was aimed directly at him.
"Oh—God—"
Lin Xi really screamed this time.
He jumped straight away, his knees weak.
"No, don't be afraid, it's just that sculpture!"
Shizuo Ando followed behind him and shouted in panic.
Lin Xi retreated to the very edge of the cabin. He pressed his back tightly against the metal wall, his face pale.
And Ando's words seemed to come from the distant horizon.
"sculpture?"
It took Lin Xi a long time to understand that apparently simple sentence.
Then it took him even longer to recognize the thing's true identity.
"… What in God's name have you done?"
Lin Xi felt that he had used up all his strength to shout angrily at Ando.
But in fact, he just pursed his lips slightly and murmured with difficulty.
The familiar feeling that I had when I stroked that thing in the dark before finally had an answer, because the thing located in the very center of the Ando couple's room was none other than the extremely troublesome Sunu fossil statue!
However, the two times Lin Xi saw it before, it was wrapped in gel, and even if the gel dried and hardened later, it was only slightly. But now, the statue is out of the protection of the sealing gel, and the entire shell has been completely hardened.
It originally looked like a sculpture carved by a Sunu craftsman, but now it has completely transformed into an extremely hideous and terrifying insect shell.
From the mouthparts to the compound eyes, as well as its complex physiological structure, everything is lifelike.
Even though Lin Xi already knew that this was the natural appearance of the sculpture after it was removed from the gel wrapping, he still couldn't look directly at it.
Sometimes the feeling of fear is indeed beyond the control of will.
Especially when he thought that just a few minutes ago, he had been touching the surface of the huge insect sculpture with his own hands, Lin Xi felt his scalp numb.
Under such a strong impact, even Liz's swollen belly stuck to the ceiling by gel seemed nothing special.
After all, Liz has alien blood in her body, and aliens sometimes have some strange habits.
And bugs—bugs are bugs.
Insects this huge are like nightmares.
Of course, after calming down (which took Lin Xi a lot of effort), Lin Xi had to start asking Ando what was going on. After all, even if he was scared to death, he was still sure of one thing - the fossil sculpture should be in a sealed container in the bottom warehouse at this time, not in the crew's living cabin.
"Because... it is a sacred object of the Sunu people..."
Faced with Lin Xi's questioning, Ando stuttered for a long time before giving an extremely vague answer.
"Shizuo did all this for me."
In contrast, Liz, who was obviously in a very strange state, seemed calmer.
After listening to her explanation, Lin Xi barely understood the reason.
In fact, as Ando had said many times before, Liz's physical condition had been quite bad since she became pregnant. Before those little lives were born in her belly, neither Ando nor Liz had thought that the blood conflict between the Sunu people and the Earthlings would be so intense.
Pure-blooded Sunu females only need to be pregnant for three months, and they usually eat like crazy before pregnancy until they turn themselves into bloated balls of fat, which makes it easier for them to face the crazy absorption of the baby in their belly in the next three months.
But Liz's physique was more like that of an Earthling. She had no way of eating herself to three times her original size in a short period of time like her peers, and the special closed environment on the spacecraft did not allow her to do so. But the fetus in her belly obviously inherited the greedy and ferocious characteristics of the Sunu fetuses. They were killing the thin Liz while growing in her womb.
And the children were healthy, even surprisingly lively (especially considering that their mother was half Earthling), but the healthier they grew, the weaker Liz became.
Even without Bryce's diagnosis, the Andos could clearly feel that before those children were born, Liz would probably die of exhaustion due to her own excessive consumption.
"Dr. Bryce has been trying to convince us to kill these children. He is indeed a good man, but we don't want to lose our children... Given my special physique, these may be the only offspring between Jingxiong and me. Their appearance is a miracle." Liz lowered her terrifying head and looked at her abdomen softly, "But I must admit that my condition was really bad. I almost lost my children. And at that time, I dreamed of my father... Then I remembered that if I was still in Sunu, my maids would probably take me directly to the temple and let the great star god bless me so that I can give birth to my children smoothly."
Liz said.
There was a hint of illusory worship in his tone.
"The power of the Star God can help us overcome all difficulties. I know this and I can feel it. Because when I thought about it, I suddenly felt its call."
As Liz spoke, her eyes were fixed on the terrifying Sunu statue. For a while, Lin Xi felt that despite her terrifying appearance, her mind was quite clear. But now, Lin Xi was a little unsure of his judgment.
Because the fanaticism and obsession displayed by Liz didn't seem like she was still rational.
By the way, Lin Xi also remembered that Liz's father, who was of exceptionally noble blood, seemed to be a priest of the temple before he completely lost his mind... and according to the report of the Earth's researchers stationed in Sunu, when those Sunu people went crazy, all the clergy were the craziest.
"So I tried to steal this sculpture from the warehouse. Oh, Dr. Lin, I can swear to you that once the child is born, I will immediately return the sculpture to the warehouse. I just... I have no other choice..."
This must have been the first time that Liz had fallen into a frenzy while looking at the Sunu statue, because just as she began to mutter some incomprehensible prayers, Shizuo Ando quickly took over the conversation.
"I really don't know what to say."
Lin Xi looked at the couple in dumbfoundedness.
"If Taran knew..."
Based on Lin Xi's previous understanding of Taran, if that paranoid man found out that his beloved sculpture was secretly brought into the hold by researchers... Lin Xi didn't dare to imagine what that man would do.
"Taran won't be a problem."
Liz suddenly turned her head and said, she stared at Lin Xi and giggled.