Day Eight.
“Wife, you’ve worked hard.”
Su Bingyao turned to look at her husband who was about to leave.
“Come back early.”
“Mm.”
As soon as Li Ran stepped out of the house, the smile on his face disappeared again.
Though the house had been meticulously cleaned, he could still spot a few corners where things were deliberately used to cover something up.
And Su Bingyao’s complexion had grown even paler—visibly haggard and worn.
Clearly, that little brat had stirred up trouble again last night.
The only reason he’d managed to sleep soundly until morning was because Su Bingyao and Li Ziyang had guarded him through the night.
Helping Li Ziyang with homework, doing the dishes, handling housework—by the time everything was done and she showered, it was already 11:30 at night.
His plan to see Su Bingyao in a jersey had ultimately fallen through.
Last night, close to midnight, Li Ran had forced himself to fall asleep.
His sleep had always been deep—once out, not even thunder could wake him.
Truthfully, no one wanted to catch that little brat more than he did.
“Just give me a little more time!” Li Ran's gaze was resolute, fists clenched tightly.
As for Su Bingyao and Li Ziyang’s strange behavior—it clearly showed they’d become aware that they were no longer normal.
More precisely, the consciousness that originally belonged to a human had returned to the body.
That’s why they now had more emotions, more worries—and people they felt they needed to protect.
Though he didn’t know what caused this return of consciousness, Li Ran believed it was a good thing.
At the very least, returning home no longer felt like facing monsters, but rather flesh-and-blood family with feelings.
---
Arriving at the community meeting point.
Lu Zhaohui didn’t show up today, but Song Linjia, who’d been absent for two days, was here.
Song Linjia’s eerie energy hadn’t increased much.
“What happened to you these past two days? I couldn’t get in touch with you,” Li Ran asked.
Song Linjia sat in the pavilion, resting her chin in her palm, gazing off into the distance in a daze, lost in thought.
Li Ran felt something off about her, his eyes narrowing slightly.
(She’s very fragile. Go easy.)
A line of text appeared above Song Linjia’s head.
“Very fragile?” Li Ran frowned in even greater confusion after reading the prompt.
Does it mean emotionally fragile? Or something else?
“I… I don’t want to die yet. Save me. Please, save me.” Song Linjia looked up, her face filled with fear, her eyes pleading.
“What happened?” Li Ran’s brow furrowed tightly.
Creak—creak—
Song Linjia slowly stood up, her body making strange noises, like porcelain scraping against porcelain.
“I… I was discovered… He… He threw me into a kiln… Surrounded by fire, so hot… so scalding… I screamed for help, but no one came… It was… too hot, and I blacked out… When I woke up, the fire was out… and I… I escaped.”
Song Linjia twisted her neck, her head shifting frame by frame side to side. Her hands clung desperately to Li Ran’s arms, while her body emitted that creak—creak sound again.
Li Ran stared at her in disbelief. Something was clearly very wrong with her.
Her expression stiff, movements sluggish and mechanical—she looked like a wind-up wooden puppet.
“Li Ran… what’s happening to me? I… I feel like my body is all wrong…” Her head trembled frame by frame, terror etched across her face.
Li Ran was inwardly horrified, carefully helping Song Linjia sit down on the stone bench in the pavilion.
She slowly sat, and the sound of her body meeting the stone bench was exactly that of porcelain clinking against rock.
(She’s very fragile. Go easy.)
Only then did Li Ran understand what the golden finger's earlier message meant.
“Li Ran… am I going to die? I… I…” Song Linjia pleaded through her tears.
“Don’t cry,” Li Ran said with a slight frown.
Only then did she stop crying, but she kept hiccuping.
Li Ran was honestly worried she’d hiccup herself into pieces.
When he helped her earlier, he’d felt her skin—it was cold, hardened, smooth. It felt like the surface of porcelain.
What was even stranger was that Song Linjia’s appearance was no different from a normal person, yet the texture of her skin and the sounds from her joints were all like ceramic.
Li Ran took a deep breath and had no choice but to accept the reality:
Song Linjia had turned into a porcelain person.
She could literally go out now and sue someone for "porcelain fraud."
“Talk. What happened?” Li Ran asked only after she’d finally calmed down.
Just as Song Linjia was about to speak, Lu Zhaohui strolled over and slapped her arm.
Her entire left arm flew off.
“You’ve been gone two days, that’s so not coo—Whoa—Holy—!”
Before Lu Zhaohui could finish, he collapsed to the ground in terror.
The arm he’d slapped clean off was caught by Li Ran’s quick reflexes—just barely saving it from shattering to bits.
Li Ran had seen Lu Zhaohui from a distance but hadn’t expected him to actually smack Song Linjia.
At the site of the break, there was some kind of mechanical joint. Li Ran easily reattached it.
Lu Zhaohui was now a shaking mess, tongue-tied: “Th-this…”
“If you’d slapped her head just now, she’d be dead,” Li Ran shot him a glare.
“Brother Ran, how… how’d she end up like this?” Lu Zhaohui asked, horrified.
Li Ran ignored the panicking fool next to him and circled around Song Linjia, pacing.
“If this were the real world, you’d already be dead. But luckily, we’re in the strange world. As long as you’re still alive, that means there’s hope.”
Hearing this, a hint of joy finally returned to Song Linjia’s face—until Li Ran’s next sentence nearly made her cry again.
“Honestly, being like this isn’t so bad. If a piece chips off, just patch it up and you won’t die.”
He even had the urge to knock her on the head with a hammer to test his theory.
“Brother Ran, did she get infected with the virus?” Lu Zhaohui asked.
Li Ran shook his head. “No. Someone made her this way.”
If it were a virus infection, the golden finger would’ve identified her as a certain class of mental infection entity.
That meant this wasn’t a virus infection.
“She’s a person, not an object! How can someone be turned into porcelain?” Lu Zhaohui was dumbfounded.
That was exactly what Li Ran had been wondering too.
Could there exist a mental infection entity with magic-like abilities—turning people into frogs, sheep, or altering their composition—porcelain people, iron people, stone people?
If that was the case, then the native infected weren’t just freakishly physically powerful—they also had terrifying magical attacks.
Clearly, the entity that turned Song Linjia into porcelain had such a power.
“Can I still be saved?” Song Linjia had realized she’d turned into porcelain, her face filled with despair.
No one could answer her.
She might appear to be alive, but her heart was already more dead than alive.
She looked at Lu Zhaohui—he quickly turned his head away toward the edge of the pavilion.
She looked at Li Ran—he just lowered his head, deep in thought, silent.
In that moment, her heart turned to ashes.
What was the point of living
like this?
She turned to look at one of the stone pillars in the pavilion, slowly stood up, her gaze turning resolute.
Clang!
A sharp, crisp sound rang out!
Li Ran and Lu Zhaohui’s faces changed instantly!
(End of Chapter)