Chapter 18
Chapter 18
The child’s burly father immediately ran forward, picked up the shouting child, and fled around the corner.
“The water’s red!” Xu Haitang warned them. “Everyone, close your eyes! Turn around! Face away from the glass!”
Other visitors had been here too, but once the water turned red, they fearfully ducked into the aquarium’s dark corners and quickly disappeared.
Remembering the rule, everyone turned their back on the red tank and closed their eyes.
But Ba Hu, pressed against the glass, seemed frozen by a spell. His mouth gaped and his entire body was rigid.
Deep in the scarlet water, a huge black shape rushed toward the glass at incredible speed.
Bang!
An enormous, pale, bloated human face pressed against the inside of the glass.
The face was grotesquely distorted, its eyeballs protruding. It opened an abyssal mouth that still held broken human teeth.
More terrifying still, human arms grew from both sides of its body and beat frantically against the glass.
[Fish have neither hands nor feet, and certainly do not knock on glass.]
When no visitor paid attention, it scraped its nails across the inside of the tank, making a squeaking, grinding noise that set their teeth on edge.
“H-help…”
“Let me… out… glug, glug… I can’t breathe…”
The entity in the tank did not open its mouth, yet its shrill cries for help penetrated the glass and echoed inside every survivor’s mind.
A sonic attack.
As the human-faced monster’s voice grew sharper, Ba Hu’s legs gave way and he knelt in front of the glass.
He was severely contaminated. His eyes sank inward, their whites slowly consumed by black. The corners of his mouth stretched uncontrollably into a grin as he muttered responses to the fish inside.
At this life-or-death moment, Lin Yinxi’s phone sounded a new-message alert in her pocket.
[New assignment!]
[Extensive traces of blood and human perspiration detected on the exterior glass of Tank 3, Zone A.]
[The nearest cleaner must wipe it down immediately!]
[Countdown: 9 minutes 59 seconds! Penalty for missing the deadline: 50 Rabbit Coins!]
She did not have that much money to deduct!
Lin Yinxi felt her employee wristband.
As a visitor, she absolutely must not turn around.
But she was no longer a visitor. Visitor rules did not apply to her.
So she secretly glanced around.
Everyone stood nearby with their eyes squeezed shut, cold sweat streaming down their foreheads.
Lin Yinxi heard a cart at the far end of the tunnel. She took out her cloth, turned, and walked straight toward the tank of churning scarlet blood-water.
Blood and handprints left by Ba Hu marked the glass.
There was no saving Ba Hu now.
Lin Yinxi walked up beside him and took a spray bottle and an extendable glass scraper from her crossbody bag.
Bracing herself, she slowly looked up at the hideous human-faced monster behind the glass.
Its eyeballs fixed on her, its mouth stretched into an eerie grin, and its fingernails dug still harder against the glass.
Expressionless, Lin Yinxi raised the spray bottle and aimed at the outside of the glass where its face pressed.
Psst, psst, psst…
Foaming glass cleaner sprayed across the pane opposite the monster, obscuring its entire face.
Without changing expression, Lin Yinxi lifted the long-handled scraper.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. Scrub, scrub, scrub.
The face of the monster immersed in red water twisted.
As a low-ranking entity in Deep Blue Aquarium, it cultivated terror in the red water day after day.
It savored watching visitors suffer mental collapse and become feed.
But Lin Yinxi’s presence confused it.
Opening its mouth full of broken human teeth, it battered the glass even more wildly, trying to drive mental contamination through the pane and directly into her brain.
Screech! Screech!
The grating noise, like nails scraping a blackboard, echoed along Zone A’s corridor.
Ba Hu lay completely limp on the floor, foaming at the mouth, his eyes entirely black.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. As long as she wore the wristband, the entity had to follow the rules too.
Lin Yinxi sighed. Her eyes held no fear, only deep exhaustion and the resentment of a worker driven by performance targets.
Gripping the hard plastic handle of the long scraper, she followed the information-desk woman’s instructions and knocked against the glass.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
She raised her blue wristband.
“Would you move a little to the side, please?” She rested the scraper against the glass. “Stop trying so hard to get through it. The slime on your face is practically seeping through. If I can’t clean it with the stuff I just sprayed and they dock my wages, are you paying me back?”
Xu Haitang was shaken. Did that girl have a death wish?!
The others heard it too, their minds racing.
But they had not heard water splashing. They dared not turn around, much less make a sound.
The monster’s bulging eyeballs rotated.
Lin Yinxi needed to stay calm. Fortunately, she was naturally unflappable. When she said nothing, she normally looked as though life were peaceful and uneventful.
Perhaps this entity thought the human before it looked tender and delicious, but Lin Yinxi wore an employee wristband branded by the containment center and carried the damned aura of work instructions.
What was it to do?
Work came first, of course.
The human-faced monster let out an aggrieved noise resembling an infant’s cry. It stopped attacking, slowly withdrew its hands from the glass, and reluctantly shifted its twisted face half a meter aside, leaving Lin Yinxi a clear pane to clean.
“Thank you for cooperating.”
Lin Yinxi resumed work with the scraper. Every trace of blood and grease from Ba Hu’s hands came off the glass.
A new message automatically appeared in the work group.
[Stains removed from Tank 3, Zone A.]
Lin Yinxi put her tools away. The scarlet water that had surged up from the bottom quickly receded.
The water returned to its oppressive, dim blue.
The human-faced monster vanished without a trace, and the original ugly fish drifted slowly over.
Splash!
Water splashed at the top of the tank. According to the rule, the danger was now over.
“It’s all right. You can open your eyes.” Xu Haitang opened hers. The palm holding her gun was soaked in cold sweat, but she still calmly directed their next steps.
Everyone opened their eyes.
Xu Haitang turned back and looked at Lin Yinxi, a mix of emotions in her eyes.
Lin Yinxi had already crouched to examine Ba Hu.
She held one finger beneath his nose, then shook her head and looked at Xu Haitang. “Haitang, I think he’s done for.”
Yang Shu, who had been silent, finally ambled over when he saw his newly assigned partner was dead. Hands in his pockets, he stood looking down without a trace of pity for his companion. “Careful. He might get up and bite you.”