MMPS Ch. 17

Chapter 17: Fading Color?

Yu An felt a strange weakness in his limbs as he leaned against the sealed elevator door, his ear pressed to the cold metal, listening to the cacophony of sounds from the chaotic struggle outside. All he could hear were the monstrous growls and pained howls echoing through the hall, mixed with the unmistakable sound of the interviewer’s cruel laughter. The man sounded like a villain relishing his victory, clearly overpowering his opponent, savoring each moment as he twisted and tortured his foe without a care.

Each new wave of noise made Yu An question his very role in this nightmare. Is this really the side of justice I’ve chosen?

The hostages? He had been told not to concern himself with them, but that only left him wondering why he was even here. Had he made the right choice? The interviewer was no hero. He was the villain, someone who needed to be brought to justice.

But honestly, Yu An wasn’t all that concerned about the hostages. He had only mentioned them to please the interviewer, hoping that bringing it up would make him seem serious about the task ahead. There was, however, another mystery still gnawing at him.

The interviewer hadn’t lost a hand, had he?

Despite the gloves he wore, Yu An had been able to tell, when the interviewer wiped away blood, that the hand underneath was solid and real. It was a hand, whole and intact, gripping firmly at the wrist. Was that a mistake? Or did it have nothing to do with him at all? Maybe the interviewer’s bizarre world had simply conjured up another impossible creature, a tiny monster, one that didn’t belong in this reality.

“Hey, where did you come from?” Yu An slowly unzipped his shoulder bag, his right hand trembling as he cradled his injured fingers, huddled in the corner of the bag. Could this be some kind of misunderstanding? Is this little thing not connected to the interviewer? Since the beauty salon has become an Illusion Chamber, it seems reasonable that some little monsters that do not exist in reality would also breed within the Illusion Chamber

With a dry chuckle, Yu An mused aloud, “I shouldn’t have called you my ‘buddy.’ It’s always male on the left, female on the right^[1]… What if it’s a little female hand?” He pulled the right hand out, its fingers twitching. What do I feed this thing? If it needs human flesh, then it has to die.

His thoughts were interrupted when the hand suddenly clawed at the elevator door, desperate to return to Zhao Ran, to explain its odd, gruesome success. The hand had already taken quite the beating, the skin torn and bruised after its battle with the doctor’s vicious couple. The back of the hand and its palm were marred by deep gashes, caused by a sharp bone axe.

“You’re covered in blood…” Yu An muttered, grabbing the interviewer’s bloodstained shirt and gently dabbing the hand.

The little creature recoiled, trembling violently, but did not dodge and was now enveloped by the oppressive, decaying scent that clung to the shirt. It squealed, a harsh sound that sent it into a faint, its hand curling inward, fingers tight, almost pleading.

“Does that feel good?” Yu An murmured with a sense of dark curiosity as he gently scratched its palm. He then shoved it back into his bag, zipping it up. From now on, you’re my pet.

His moment of reflection was broken. The interviewer had instructed him to go downstairs to meet Officer Ye.

Yu An braced himself against the elevator’s walls and stood. The constant switching of Aberrant Cores bodies was taking a toll on his own, every transformation slowly eating away at his life force. Even a machine couldn’t endure such waste without eventually breaking down.

He pressed the button for the first floor, and the numbers above the elevator door blinked, beginning to descend from the seventh. But there was no sensation of weightlessness, no tilt that he was so accustomed to when riding this elevator. It was as though something unnatural had warped the mechanics.

It turned out that the young man in the yellow jacket hadn’t lied. The elevator, in its current state, could only go up—not down.

Yu An’s interest piqued as he fished out the elevator card he had taken from the director’s desk. He slid it through the sensor.

For a brief moment, the familiar feeling of weightlessness struck. The elevator dropped to the first floor with ease.

When the doors opened, Yu An was met with an icy muzzle, cold and hard, pressed directly into his forehead. The texture was unmistakable. The grooves and wear on the barrel were so familiar, and Yu An could instantly identify the weapon—an old, trusted 9mm police revolver.

“Who are you?” Officer Timon demanded, raising her arm, standing in front of Officer Ye, and keeping the gun pointed toward Yu An.

Yu An, cloaked in a pure black hoodie, stood with his face entirely obscured by a void of darkness. No one could see his face.

He pulled out his Underground Metro ID and flashed it to both officers.

Officer Ye gave a small nod. Both of them were dressed in civilian clothes, blending in as disillusioned office workers headed to a bar for a drink in the dead of night to avoid suspicion.

But, judging by Officer Timon’s imposing height and Officer Ye’s black face mask, they’d look more like enforcers of some sort in a nightclub brawl.

Timon recognized Yu An by his stature and swift movements. She hastily put her gun away, sliding it back into its holster with a relieved sigh: “Good God, you really just barged into the Illusion Chamber alone. That’s… impressive.”

Yu An had no words. At moments like this, his mind always seemed to freeze. He desperately searched for something humble and polite to say.

 Yu An: “1.”

Timon, taken aback by Yu An’s intimidating silence, finally realized Underground agents were all a bit eccentric. Not wanting to upset the strange man further, she awkwardly scratched her nose and, looking towards the blackness under the hoodie, muttered softly: “Sorry, sir.”

The dark hoodie was a gift at this moment, allowing Yu An to avoid unnecessary small talk with strangers. It had been a wise purchase.

Officer Ye was more concerned with the hostages: “Are there still people alive in the building?”

“Mr. Zhou is still alive,” Yu An replied quietly, holding his ball bat upright between his legs. “Follow me.”

The elevator groaned as it began its slow ascent, the ancient pulleys creaking and groaning with every movement. Yu An stood with his back to the two officers, staring absentmindedly at the floor buttons.

It had been a long time since anyone had cleaned the elevator. Cobwebs clung to the corners, and grime had smeared over the buttons. Only the seventh floor seemed to have fallen into the Illusion Chamber’s grasp, while the rest of the building appeared untouched by the so-called “cleaning workers.”

The button for the seventh floor, due to constant use, had worn smooth, while the button for the eighth floor was relatively clean.

Curious, Yu An pressed it.

Nothing happened.

He took out the elevator card again and swiped it across the sensor. Then, pressing the eighth-floor button again, it finally lit up. Both the seventh and eighth floors were now lit simultaneously, but the others remained dark.

Eight? Yu An hadn’t ventured beyond the seventh floor, unsure if danger awaited, but since the interviewer didn’t need him to intervene on the seventh floor, why not use the officers as cover and explore the eighth?

He wasn’t foolish enough to lead the officers directly to the interviewer. If he managed to defeat the doctor couple and earn those two cores, he wasn’t about to let the police seize his hard-earned trophies.

Officer Ye, a seasoned special police officer, could read Yu An’s intentions with a mere glance. Though she saw right through him, she didn’t call him out, allowing him to make his choice.

When the elevator reached the seventh floor, it didn’t stop. Instead, it continued upwards, then suddenly jolted, stopping between the seventh and eighth floors.

The elevator doors creaked as Timon drew her gun, aiming at the small gap in the doors. She quickly pulled a triangular wedge from her belt, preparing to pry the doors open.

In theory, prying the doors open would reveal the ceiling of the seventh floor. But when Timon forced the doors open, the elevator didn’t reveal the expected ceiling. Instead, it opened into a pitch-black room. Despite the elevator having a ceiling light installed, it could not reach the depths of the room.

The foul, rancid stench hit them like a wall.

“Another hidden room.” Officer Ye muttered, her voice tinged with experience. She drew her pistol and flashlight, cautiously stepping out of the elevator, with Timon close behind, watching her back.

What they found was far worse than they could have imagined: a filthy, low-budget hospital room, iron-framed beds lined up in rows, and the walls were suffocated by the smell of decay. Around twenty beds filled the small room, each one topped with disheveled, greasy bedding.

Bloodstains dotted the sheets, red splotches marring their once-white surface. The mattresses were bunched up at the center, and beneath them, faint, human-like shapes could be seen.

It became clear to Yu An what this room was for when he saw the hidden bodies.

When Yu An stepped into the Xiliu Beauty Salon, the scene was unsettlingly pristine, each detail curated to perfection. Four customers, including himself, were assigned to rooms 701 through 704. Yet, as he ventured deeper into the body sculpting area, inspecting door after door along the corridor, only the dim light of the farthest corner revealed life—or what remained of it. Imprisoned in that oppressive silence was Mr. Zhou, bound and alone.

Something felt wrong. The numbers didn’t add up.

Where were the others? Those morbidly obese patients who had starred in the eerie “bone art” videos—where had they vanished to?

The thought barely took shape when Officer Ye’s flashlight beam swept across one of the beds, illuminating something.

Lying on the pillow was a body—or rather, what was left of one. It took some effort to discern it had once been a man; the skeletal face was stretched taut beneath paper-thin skin, its hollow eye sockets teeming with maggots. The lips were pulled back, exposing yellowed teeth embedded in desiccated gums. The figure seemed to mock death, frozen in its final throes.

Officer Ye’s sharp voice broke the suffocating stillness. “Victim’s remains. Timon, help me move him to the elevator.”

While Officer Ye managed the remains, Yu An prowled the room, his bat gripped tightly in hand. Beneath one of the overturned beds, a small, unmarked bottle glinted faintly. Curiosity drew him to unscrew the cap, revealing vibrant green capsules with a mesmerizing, phosphorescent glow. Transparent shells encased a vividly strange liquid.

He extracted one and fed it into the Core Analyzer, handing the rest of the bottle to Officer Ye. As he stepped forward, a faint noise stirred to his right from the shadowy recesses of the room.

His flashlight flicked toward the sound, the beam slicing through the gloom.

“Officer Ye, you might want to reconsider moving him.”

Officer Ye froze, her gaze following the direction of Yu An’s finger.

“He seems to be able to walk by himself.” 

In the dark corner, a figure shifted. It stood frail and impossibly thin, its emaciated frame draped with sagging skin that clung to sinew like dried parchment. The figure’s face was a tapestry of crude stitches, now festering and blackened. It stumbled forward with uneven, halting steps, each movement accompanied by the wet squelch of maggots tumbling from its gaping wounds.

Then, without warning, the skeletal man lunged towards him.

“Not my fault!” Yu An barked as the creature charged, instincts honed in an instant. The bat swung with a feral grace, the wind whistling before the sickening crunch of the impact sent the creature sprawling three meters away. “Self-defense!”

But there was no time to celebrate. All around, beds began to shift. Slowly, unnervingly, the covers slid away, revealing more skeletal figures. Their joints groaned with the sound of grinding bone as they rose, one by one, their heads tilting unnaturally toward the living intruders.

Timon raised her gun without hesitation, her aim fixed on the nearest creature, but Officer Ye forced her gun down with an iron grip.

Instead, she slid a black baton from her sleeve with chilling precision, extending it in one smooth motion. The air vibrated with the weapon’s whistle as she swung, targeting joints with mechanical efficiency.

“Preserve the victims’ remains as much as possible!” she barked, her voice cutting through the chaos.

“Yes, ma’am!”

Even as skeletal figures swarmed, Officer Ye’s movements remained calculated, her strikes aimed to incapacitate rather than destroy, only attacking their knees and elbows. Yet, the darkness was a battlefield of shadows and noise, and no precision could guard against every attack.

One skeletal creature lunged, its teeth sinking deep into her arm. Fabric tore as blood streaked her sleeve.

“Captain!” Timon’s shout was raw with fury. She fired, the bullet tearing through the creature’s skull with brutal force. The head snapped back, the rear of the cranium blown away.

The gunshot reverberated through the room, dust raining from the ceiling.

“I said, no firearms!” Officer Ye scolded, her glare razor-sharp.

“I’ll write a report!” Timon retorted, her anger unrelenting as she fired again, the bullet driving into the throat of another advancing creature. “Two reports! In Chinese!”

Yu An, meanwhile, had abandoned restraint entirely. His task was singular—protect Mr. Zhou. Whatever these creatures had once been, they were now obstacles, and obstacles needed to be crushed.

The female officers worked in tandem, subduing half the creatures with ruthless efficiency, binding their brittle limbs.

And then, like an exhale after holding one’s breath too long, an electronic chime pierced the chaos.

The core analyzer announced its verdict: “Illusion Chamber ‘Beauty Salon’ neutralized. Chamber cleared.”

It seems that the interviewer has already taken care of the aberrant doctor.

The remaining skeletal figures faltered, their bodies sagging lifelessly to the ground as though puppets cut from their strings.

*

At dawn, Jiu’an City Police encircled the desolate pedestrian street. A tactical team stormed the derelict building, evacuating survivors and recovering the mutilated remains of victims. Mr. Zhou, barely clinging to life, was rushed to the central hospital.

For Yu An, the mission was complete. He lingered at the curb, weary but intrigued, eager to watch the aftermath.

Until Zhao Ran seized him by the collar.

“Forty-eight hours without sleep, and you’re still watching?” Zhao Ran’s voice was equal parts amusement and exasperation.

“I’m tired.” Yu An admitted, yawning. “Eyes hurt. Taxi back?”

Zhao Ran wiped the dust off the motorcycle, straddled it, spread his long legs to one side, put on her goggles, and patted the empty seat behind him: “I can take you a ride back, get on.”

The motorcycle roared like a beast unleashed, tearing down the narrow roads with reckless speed. Yu An clung to the backrest, but each sharp turn and leap across gaps drove him closer to the edge of panic.

Finally, he caved, throwing his arms around Zhao Ran’s waist, burying his face against the warmth of his back as the world blurred past.

Zhao Ran’s lips curled up as he accelerated.

When the motorcycle finally slowed, they had entered Hongli City. Zhao Ran pulled to a stop in front of a modest villa, explaining it was housing for senior operatives of Underground Metro.

The first rays of sunlight kissed the world in gold, driving away the chill of the endless night. Yu An stood in the garden, eyes heavy with exhaustion, his body yearning for rest as he soaked in the morning light. A whole night of high tension had exhausted him, and he hadn’t even noticed where the interviewer had taken him.

Zhao Ran emerged from the garage, though he could have entered the house directly from inside. But he couldn’t resist the fact that the intern, a bit dazed, had been waiting in the garden all along.

As the interviewer approached him, Yu An patted his face, trying to perk up. Could pulling an all-nighter cause color vision deficiency? The interviewer’s hair color seemed much lighter than before.

No, wait—his eyes had turned white too.

Zhao Ran raised a hand to shield his face from the sunlight streaming onto his cheeks, looking like a delicate flower scorched inch by inch by the blazing sun.

“Albino… UV-sensitive…” Yu An’s thoughts scrambled. Oh no, the interviewer is losing his color!

Suddenly jolted awake, Yu An swiftly removed his hooded jacket and lunged, covering the interviewer’s head with it.

Zhao Ran, now entirely hooded by Yu An’s black jacket, stood rooted to the spot, utterly baffled, feeling as if a small, overzealous animal had ambushed him.

Yu An clamped his legs around Zhao Ran’s waist, freeing both hands to lift a corner of the jacket, poking his head inside to cautiously inspect whether the color had completely faded.

“…” Zhao Ran locked eyes with the face now peeking in from under the jacket. After a few seconds, he sighed, adjusted his grip to hold Yu An by the thighs, and carried him into the house.

He was used to it by now. This was just how Yu An was—somewhere between unpredictable and endearing, like a house cat. Sometimes, it was impossible to figure out what exactly he was doing, and there wasn’t a good reason to scold him either.

Zhao Ran’s thoughts: The three-step guide to bringing home a stray partner: open the door, toss them inside, and close the door.