After evolving, 428 was completely different from the small mass it once was. Its limbs were long and slender, with fingers and toes that had transformed into beast-like claws. A single swipe against metal left deep gouges, a testament to their sharpness. Its skin remained blood-red but now carried a fibrous texture, akin to mycelium. The most terrifying change, however, was the addition of a pair of blood-colored appendages on its back—resembling wings, yet composed of mycelium and numerous watchful eyes. They lacked any sense of lightness; the drooping wingtips reflected a chilling sharpness akin to blades.
Anyone could see at a glance—this form was born for war.
Its face had evolved to be more human-like, though still covered with a membrane like a lizard-scorpion hybrid. Its elongated mouth stretched back unnaturally, revealing rows of shark-like fangs when it grinned.
The researchers gathered around, whispering as they analyzed the new form of ‘Jun Tesi’. Only Tang Xiao stood coldly in place, clearly seeing the hunger in 428’s eyes.
He knew this monster had never given up on its desire to devour him. And now, it must have thought it had finally accumulated enough strength to do so.
Fine.
Tang Xiao curled his lips into a cold smirk and mouthed the words: “Then come and try.”
Nightfall.
Tang Xiao left the laboratory early, instructing the researchers to complete data collection on 428’s evolution by the end of the day. The lower-ranked researchers dared not protest, only grumbling quietly before dutifully working overtime. Once everything was prepared, Tang Xiao lay on his bed with his eyes closed, resting. The clock in the room ticked steadily forward—past midnight, past 1 AM, until finally, at 3 AM, a thin tendril of mycelium silently emerged from the vent cover.
Tang Xiao’s eyes snapped open. He rolled to the right just as razor-sharp mycelium slashed through his pillow and sheets. Like a liquid, 428 oozed through the vent cover before solidifying into its grotesquely evolved form upon landing, taking up nearly half the room. Its non-human slit pupils locked onto Tang Xiao, who had tumbled to the floor. A flick of its wing-like appendages left deep, blade-like gashes in the ground.
Tang Xiao rolled under the bed to evade the next attack, then swiftly crawled out, drawing a thermal gun and firing at 428’s torso. He didn’t wait to confirm the hit—he bolted straight into the kitchen.
Did he really think that same trick would work again? 428 scoffed internally, lowering its gaze. The wound on its chest, where the shot had landed, was already healing at an alarming speed. That weapon was no longer enough to harm it.
Just as it was about to enter the kitchen, the smoke alarm blared. At the same time, the dormitory door was blasted open from the outside, and a masked figure stood in the doorway, raising a glowing palm toward 428.
“So you really were here… I thought he was just messing with me.”
Before he could say anything more, 428’s pupils shrank. A luminescent blue force enveloped its body, paralyzing it in place.
The masked figure waited a few seconds, ensuring that the experimental subject was restrained, then immediately called for backup. He turned toward Tang Xiao, who was peeking out from the kitchen. “Alright, I did what I promised. Now tell me—how did you know my identity—”
Before he could finish, the supposedly immobilized monster suddenly broke free from the telekinetic hold. Its flesh-wings gleamed with a deadly sheen as they slashed down—cleaving through half of the masked man’s shoulder in an instant.
The moment the monster turned its gaze toward him, Tang Xiao didn't hesitate. He pressed the detonation switch. The custom-made explosives, installed under the bed in advance, went off.
BOOM!
When the arriving armed forces rushed in, all they could do was stare in stunned silence at the rolling flames and debris.
Load Game.
This time, the monster’s ambush succeeded—Tang Xiao failed to dodge the initial attack. He rewound again.
Load Game. This time, Tang Xiao held out until the masked man arrived. He took advantage of the monster’s brief immobilization to land a thermal shot on its neck and survived until the armed forces arrived. Seeing that capturing the creature alive was impossible, they executed it on the spot.
Load Game.
Tang Xiao had lost count of how many times he had reloaded. 428 had nearly killed him more than a dozen times. He had killed 428 more than a dozen times. But the scenario that played out the most was mutual destruction. 428 was gambling—betting that it could kill and devour Tang Xiao before he had a chance to rewind.
And Tang Xiao? He was wearing it down.
He no longer bothered to reset to a day earlier and weaken 428 beforehand using lab equipment. Instead, he let the monster attack over and over again, utilizing his ability to rewind until he was fully prepared to defeat it—until one of them finally gave up. And clearly, it wasn’t going to be him.
On the final rewind, 428 collapsed in the crater left by the explosion. Its body was charred, its mycelium desperately trying to regenerate, but it had reached its limit.
Tang Xiao staggered out from behind cover. He wasn’t in great shape either—his abdomen had a deep gash, barely held together by makeshift bandages to keep his intestines from spilling out. His face and arms were riddled with fine cuts.
The masked man and the armed forces lay unconscious in the distance, their condition uncertain. The next wave of reinforcements had yet to arrive. Tang Xiao slowly walked into the crater, gazing down at the struggling 428. After a long silence, he bent down and lightly patted its cheek with the back of his hand.
“No matter how many times it takes… I’ll always be here to accompany you, monster.”
428’s golden slit pupils stared at him in silence. At that moment, the armed forces arrived, guns aimed at them.
“Nobody move! What’s going on here?!”
Load Game.
As soon as Tang Xiao sensed the vent cover shifting open again, he silently opened his eyes and sighed. Here we go again.
But this time… the attack never came. Tang Xiao sat up in bed and looked toward the corner of the room.
428 stood there, motionless in the darkness—like a beast contemplating how to devour its prey.
But it did not attack.
Perhaps it had finally realized—so long as it couldn’t kill Tang Xiao before he activated his rewind, this cycle would never end.
Tang Xiao got out of bed, walked into the kitchen, and retrieved a bowl and a pre-prepared knife.
428 remained in the corner, neither attacking nor leaving, observing everything in the room.
Its gaze eventually shifted under the bed—it remembered the explosives hidden there. It had died to those at least ten times.
Then, suddenly, the air was filled with a rich, thick scent of blood.
428 immediately turned its head, only to see Tang Xiao walking out of the kitchen with a bowl in hand. His wrist was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. Tang Xiao placed the bowl on the floor and took a few steps back.
428, like a feral dog encountering a meal for the first time, watched him warily, unmoving. Tang Xiao didn’t rush him, standing at a safe distance.
Minutes passed.Finally, 428 moved. Its golden eyes stayed locked onto Tang Xiao as its mycelium extended toward the bowl, dragging it closer—And then, it drank it all in one gulp.
“You can’t do anything to me, and I won’t kill you either.” Only after he finished drinking did Tang Xiao finally speak. “Then why don’t we stop this meaningless struggle? I will provide you with blood, and you must cooperate with my experiments.”
“Since you have gained the power to escape the lab but still choose to stay, I assume it’s because of me—your food, right?”
428 didn’t respond. Tang Xiao didn’t know if he had evolved vocal cords capable of human speech. At least, he had never shown any signs of it in the lab, so he assumed he didn’t.
“If you understand, then get lost. If you suddenly attack me again in the future, I will do the same as before—jump back to a previous time point and weaken you in advance.”
After finishing his blood, 428 silently used his mycelium to clean the bowl without saying a word.
But once the bowl was as clean as if it had just been washed, he quietly morphed back into a mass of mycelium and left through the air vent, as if he had never been there.
From that point on, they never exchanged another word. However, this arrangement seemed to stabilize. 428 never resisted the experiments or attacked the researchers again, allowing many tests to proceed normally. But in exchange, every few nights, Tang Xiao would find an experimental subject waiting in his dormitory.
Syringes and blood bags became a common sight in Tang Xiao’s fridge. Yet, despite this arrangement, Tang Xiao knew that the creature had never given up on hunting him. It was just that its prey was currently too powerful. It often lurked in the dark corners of the lab, coldly watching him, waiting for him to show a moment of weakness. Sometimes, even after feeding, it wouldn’t leave immediately. Instead, it would fix its inhuman vertical pupils on him, staring in silence.
Tang Xiao had to remain alert until 428 lost patience and left. But eventually, he couldn’t afford to keep pulling all-nighters just to stare it down. He crafted a special wristband—whenever 428’s mycelium came within a certain range, it would send a warning signal. Yet even so, that ever-present gaze still made Tang Xiao extremely uneasy.
Weak.
428 stared at Tang Xiao’s busy figure. Those frail limbs couldn’t even withstand a single blow from him.
And yet… he couldn’t kill him.
Weak, but so strong.
428 couldn’t understand Tang Xiao’s ability, just as he couldn’t comprehend how such a fragile body could contain such an unyielding will. A paradoxical existence.
Weak, but why couldn’t he look away?
428 didn’t understand his own trembling neurons. He began to observe this human more and more, driven by a curiosity he hadn’t even noticed himself.
This was the first prey he couldn’t easily take down, yet also the one he most wanted to hunt. He had failed too many times. By now, it had become an obsession even 428 couldn’t explain.
But despite all his evolution, he still couldn’t succeed.
428 was troubled. To win this hunt, he had prioritized evolving his body into a weapon, even at the cost of forfeiting brain development.
And yet, he still failed.
428 watched Tang Xiao’s every move. When he saw him pick up a milk carton from the table and drink from it, he stared silently at the container.
Tang Xiao took a sip of milk, his dark eye circles prominent. 428’s constant staring had frayed his nerves, leaving him unable to rest properly. He had to find a solution.
At that moment, he suddenly lifted his head, eyes cold as he stared at 428 approaching him. The creature had already breached their established safety distance. Tang Xiao’s hand instinctively moved to the weapon at his waist, his gaze wary.
428 ignored him. He stared at the milk carton Tang Xiao had set down for a moment, then reached out with his sharp claws to grab it. The fragile paper box was instantly punctured, and white liquid trickled out. 428 didn’t react. He lifted the carton to his face, his mouth splitting open to catch the liquid as it leaked from the hole.
…Was he drinking milk?
Tang Xiao watched the scene in silence, frowning slightly.
From then on, Tang Xiao noticed that 428 seemed to have developed an unusual interest in human food—no, more specifically, in the food he ate. The fridge, originally stocked with enough food to last a week, was often ransacked by the time he returned from work. And the culprit? Standing smugly by the fridge, watching as a starving Tang Xiao returned to his dorm, only to pop the last piece of ham into its mouth—then frown and spit it out with a disgusted ‘ptooey.’
A vein twitched on Tang Xiao’s forehead.
After fighting 428 and rewinding time once again, Tang Xiao refilled his fridge with a cold expression.
What was he even doing? Human food had no nutritional value for it.
Tang Xiao couldn’t understand 428’s sudden behavior shift.
The truth was simple. 428 grew stronger by consuming food. So, in its primitive thought process, Tang Xiao was strong the food Tang Xiao ate must be good it should eat Tang Xiao’s food.
But strangely, the food tasted bad.
428 crouched by the fridge in confusion. Tang Xiao didn’t bother to figure out what it was thinking. After a simple meal, he collapsed onto his bed to rest. Lately, between dealing with 428 and managing the lab’s progress, he was mentally and physically exhausted. If he didn’t rest soon, he would collapse.
Normally, as long as 428 was nearby, Tang Xiao would never let himself fall asleep easily. But today, he was too tired. The moment he shut his eyes, he lost consciousness.
428 turned its head, watching him, pupils contracting slightly.
They had a cooperation agreement—though it had been unilaterally declared by Tang Xiao. The blood he provided was limited, and if 428 ever tried to take more by force, their arrangement would be void. Tang Xiao would then do everything in his power to weaken it through experimentation. So even though 428 sat there, swallowing its saliva as it stared at Tang Xiao, the thought of that outcome made it hesitate.
But it was hungry.
What to do?
428 looked toward the fridge, where a bag of cream emitted a sweet scent. Slowly, it hooked a claw around the bag and made its way toward the bed.
As soon as it reached a certain distance, Tang Xiao’s wristband released a weak electric pulse in warning. The young man, barely asleep for a moment, frowned and forced his heavy eyelids open.
Then he saw— 428 smearing cream onto his hand and sticking out a forked tongue to lick it off.
“…” Tang Xiao immediately pulled out the heat ray gun hidden under his pillow and pressed the barrel against 428’s head. His voice was dangerously low. "What are you doing?"
428 fell silent, wary and afraid—yet unwilling to stop. It licked again.
…Delicious.
Its inhuman pupils dilated slightly, its small eyes watchful as its licking suddenly sped up.
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