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| Descend from the Stars (STARS) |
Xu Rongchuan had a sound sleep and, checking the time, found he had slept a full eighteen hours. Stretching lazily, he got up to make some food when his hand suddenly brushed against something warm and round.
An egg that was seemingly still warm.
Frowning slightly, he stared at the spherical object by his pillow, trying to recall why it was there. His memory felt sluggish from oversleeping, and it took him a while to remember placing it on his desk before bed.
As for how it ended up beside his pillow, he had no recollection whatsoever.
Xu Rongchuan didn’t dwell on it, treating the egg as an utterly mundane matter. He got up, placed it back in the kitchen, washed up, and started preparing breakfast.
However, having survived as the captain of the Field Team until now, his greatest strength was his acute sensitivity to all anomalies. An egg involved in mysterious incidents mysteriously appearing in his pillow should have set off alarm bells in his mind, yet today, for some reason, he let it slide without a second thought.
Even he didn’t notice anything amiss—everything seemed perfectly natural.
Xu Rongchuan took out a cutting board and, after a moment’s thought, decided to make tomato and egg noodles. He grabbed a kitchen knife and began slicing tomatoes with practiced ease.
Any blade felt like an extension of his body in his hands, whether he was cutting monsters or vegetables. Humming a light tune, he suddenly felt a sharp pain—the knife had sliced deep into the back of his index finger. Blood gushed out eagerly, mingling with the red tomato juice.
For a moment, Xu Rongchuan froze before lifting his hand to stare at the wound.
What was going on today?
As he stood there dazed, blood dripped from his palm onto the egg meant to accompany the tomatoes. The pristine white shell absorbed the blood instantly, and a dark shadow flickered beneath the surface before vanishing with what seemed like delight.
In the world of the mysterious, blood always held special significance.
Yet once again, he overlooked this crucial detail, treating it as just another trivial, natural occurrence. He rinsed the wound under the tap, dabbed on some alcohol, and slapped on a bandage.
With the tomatoes chopped, he heated oil in the pan. When cracking the eggs, a thought crossed his mind—"these don’t seem fresh"—so he opted for the newly bought eggs from the fridge, cracking three into the pan.
After enjoying a delicious breakfast, Xu Rongchuan booted up his computer in good spirits to draft his Field Team mission report.
Given his notorious reputation in Pangu for being a "teammate killer," which made it hard for the Sixth Division to recruit even newcomers, he always worked solo on missions. As a result, his reports were scrutinized with extra rigor, and after submitting them, he had to undergo comprehensive physical and psychological evaluations at Pangu.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, and soon the report was printed and ready. Changing into loose casual wear, he drove to Pangu for work.
An hour later, sitting in his captain’s office, he stared at the egg in his palm, lost in thought once more.
When had he stuffed this thing into his pocket???
Had two months of kneeling before eggs with cultists messed with his brain?
No matter how slow he’d been today, even he couldn’t ignore the strangeness now. After submitting his report, he immediately sought out his psychologist and honestly described his inexplicable relationship with an egg.
The psychologist listened for a while before asking, "Did Dr. Du examine the egg?"
"Yes, and Alice checked it too. It's just an ordinary egg."
The doctor pondered for a moment. "Perhaps you were subjected to covert hypnosis during the mission. Let's run a test."
The testing took most of the day. The doctor conducted a thorough evaluation of his mental state and finally concluded, "You were under excessive psychological stress during the mission, giving yourself too many subconscious suggestions. You developed a dependency on the mission's key element, leading you to unconsciously bring it with you even after the mission ended. My advice—go home tonight and boil it. Get some extra protein."
Xu Rongchuan: "..."
But the egg wasn't the key element of his mission. From the start, he hadn't paid it any attention, focusing entirely on that high-IQ cult leader.
Still, he ultimately chose to trust the doctor. After the session, he drove home, determined to boil the egg.
Having had tomato and eggs for breakfast, he decided to keep it simple for dinner—just boiled eggs. To prevent himself from doing anything strange with the egg again, he placed it far away in the bedroom while he stayed alone in the kitchen to boil water and prepare.
Xu Rongchuan had no parents or siblings, living alone in a spacious three-bedroom apartment in the city center. The master bedroom was especially large, with minimal furniture, giving it a cold and lifeless feel. The egg lay lonely on the desk, facing one of the few decorations in the room—a photo frame.
Inside the frame, a younger Xu Rongchuan, dressed in camouflage, smiled brightly and carefree, with his arm draped over the shoulders of a boy around thirteen years old. The boy wore a typical high school uniform, his hair slightly long and his features bearing a fifty percent resemblance to Xu Rongchuan's—more delicate and gentle—as he smiled faintly at the camera.
The egg rolled in a circle, then rolled back.
Footsteps approached from a distance—the water was ready. Xu Rongchuan picked the egg up from the desk, returned to the kitchen, and unceremoniously dropped it into the boiling water.
"You'd better be an egg," Xu Rongchuan muttered while watching the tiny bubbles rise in the water. "I don't want to waste food."
He turned the heat to maximum. The water boiled violently, tossing the egg around until, unable to withstand the temperature, it cracked with a sharp snap.
Xu Rongchuan's brow twitched inexplicably. Then, his heart began to race uncontrollably and his muscles tensing as if something terrifying beyond sight was approaching—something was wrong!
His instincts were sharp. Even when facing fully mutated monsters, he had never felt this level of dread—his hands and feet icy, while his hair stand on end.
Unable to immediately determine whether the anomaly came from the egg in the pot or some other unknown presence, Xu Rongchuan turned and swiftly, silently dashed into the bedroom. He grabbed his gun from under the pillow, pressed his back against the wall, and scanned the surroundings. Confirming the bedroom was clear, he cautiously moved toward the living room and kitchen.
The living room was also safe. He could confirm the danger wasn't here—the answer was obvious now...
Xu Rongchuan looked toward the kitchen's transparent sliding door. The water was still boiling, the surroundings so quiet he could only hear his own suppressed breathing and the faint sound of the eggshell cracking in the water. Without hesitation—and with no curiosity about the egg's condition—he pulled the kitchen door shut and locked it. Grabbing his phone, he dialed Pangu's emergency hotline.
The inspiration grew sharper, and his palms were drenched in sweat—something unusual for someone who had long walked the line between life and death. He dialed the wrong number several times in a row. There’s no time, he thought. This intuition was overwhelming, laced with indescribable fear and an urge to flee. But this was a residential area. Whatever had triggered his instincts to this extent had descended upon an ordinary neighborhood. He couldn’t leave!
Xu Rongchuan took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the gun, and once again turned his gaze toward the kitchen.
Just as his eyes were about to land on the stove, his brain screamed—
Don’t look!
Don’t look!
DON’T LOOK!!
But his vision was like a magnet caught in a magnetic field, uncontrollably drawn toward the boiling pot in sheer terror.
A blood-red, pupil-less eye was staring straight at him.
Xu Rongchuan’s brain felt like it was exploding in agony as blood stream from his eyes. He let out a scream as his retina captured one final image: the tentacles of that crimson eye gripping the edge of the pot and crawling out of the boiling water. The next second, darkness swallowed his vision, and his consciousness followed suit.
……
……
He didn’t know how much time had passed when Xu Rongchuan groggily opened his eyes. Instinctively, he looked toward the clock in the living room. His vision was impaired, but he could just barely make out that it was now 8:30.
Half an hour had passed.
Not good!
He rolled over, gritting through the splitting pain in his head, and reached for the gun beside him—only to freeze abruptly, his pupils contracting violently.
A humanoid figure stood right next to him.
His temples throbbed, each pulse like a needle stabbing into his skull. Reflexively, he shut his eyes, but this time, no blood flowed from them. Assessing the situation, he forced them open again, grabbed the gun, and strained to make out the blurry silhouette.
As he focused, his vision gradually cleared—and every hair on his body stood on end once more.
It was a boy around thirteen years old, dressed in a school uniform and standing beside the sofa. His face was one Xu Rongchuan knew all too well—delicate, gentle features, identical to his younger brother who had died of a heart condition, as if the dead had returned to life. Only the eyes were different: blood-red, without pupils.
A surge of rage suddenly overtook Xu Rongchuan, eclipsing even his fear.
How dare it?!
His muscles reacted faster than his mind. He had already aimed at that eerily familiar face, right between the brows, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
The humanoid creature tilted its head slightly, its expression stiff with confusion. It opened its mouth as if to speak—but the bullet struck its forehead, instantly blowing the left half of its brain into a pulpy mess, leaving only squirming white matter behind.
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