Parasitic Child: Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Vortex

Three Mind Devourers were wandering in the laboratory building.  

“What do you think?”  

“No harm,” Mr. Mao replied, crouched on the stairs of the laboratory building. Strange black tadpoles swam near him. “Not too much noise. Just a tiny bit of anomaly.”  

Captain Ban ran back and forth in the corridor. “But why here? Is this laboratory building abnormal?”  

Xiao Zhen said, “If my sensory ability hasn’t malfunctioned, this school only has one other alien besides me—Teacher Xiao Yuan. I’ve probed her, and she’s unaware of the abnormalities in this building.” Anomalies of this level, if not detected with equipment, could only be perceived by beings like the Mind Devourers with their unique sensory abilities.  

“The cause of the building’s anomaly is hard to determine.” Mr. Mao nudged his tail with a paw. “It could be an accident caused by a space storm, it could be man-made, or there could be a vortex nearby…”  

At the mention of a vortex, Xiao Zhen and Captain Ban fell silent. Such an abnormality meant that the local Galactic Supervisory Eye would inevitably report it, attracting the Galactic Council Legion Security Committee’s Supervisory Eye and everything else synonymous with trouble.  

“Let’s not go there,” Captain Ban said.  

“It’s not something that disappears just because you don’t want it to.” Mr. Mao retorted, “The best-case scenario is that it’s just an accidental space storm.”  

Xiao Zhen recalled his conversation with the girl yesterday. She had told him that Ah Hua had passed away the previous night. She was deeply upset. Xiao Zhen had asked where she found the box. The girl had answered that she had picked it up in the laboratory building, where it seemed no one wanted it.  

So, who could have left this box from outer space here?  

For now, they had no answer.  

The black tadpole swam in front of Xiao Zhen. Though unnecessary, he instinctively took a step back. It was a visceral aversion from his body. These void particles were harmless, at most interfering with one’s mind and vision. The Mind Devourers’ extraordinary sensory ability undoubtedly put pressure on the fragile human nervous system. Xiao Zhen’s head began to throb.  

The class bell rang.  

Xiao Zhen jogged back to his classroom.  

This period was math. The math teacher was a strict middle-aged man with the surname Li. He was filled with resentment over the class’s performance on the math test. Xiao Zhen’s class had ranked second-to-last in the entire grade, narrowly avoiding the bottom spot thanks to Liu Xingquan, whose high score saved them from falling to rock bottom. This made Teacher Li feel deeply humiliated.  

He glared at the group of ungrateful, lazy students wasting their precious youth and began his usual verbal lashing.  

Although it had only been a few weeks, Xiao Zhen could already recite Teacher Li’s tirades backwards. Don’t think that just because you’re studying in this key middle school, you can rest easy. Only those who get into this school’s key high school are truly outstanding. With results like these, if eight of you make it into the high school, we’ll have to thank the heavens. The rest of you, if you keep this up, will end up in trashy high schools, taking the college entrance exam for trash universities, unable to find jobs, sweeping streets, and becoming burdens to your parents, living and depending on them in adulthood until death.  

(His surface thoughts are about shooting us all.) A voice rang in Xiao Zhen’s head—it was a brainwave transmitted by Captain Ban from the tree outside the window.  

(I can sense it too. You don’t need to describe it again.)

Captain Ban chuckled. (“This one’s enthusiasm reminds me of the overly passionate supervisor on my ship. Except he spent every day figuring out how to rally us to charge headfirst into certain death.”)  

(“Supervisor? You were in the military?”)  

(“Back then, I had a stronger host. While the development of interstellar civilizations varies, the competition in Homo sapiens societies is surprisingly similar. By the way, your teacher here has plenty of passion but is clearly working in the opposite direction when it comes to stirring emotions.”)  

(“Well, he doesn’t have the authority to execute anyone for failing a test.”)  

Xiao Zhen’s silent exchange with Captain Ban must have made him look absent-minded, because Teacher Li set his sights on him.  

“Yan Zhen!!”  

“!?” Xiao Zhen snapped out of it, startled.  

“Come up and solve this problem.”  

Several equations were written on the blackboard. Without much thought, Xiao Zhen wrote down the answer.  

The students murmured amongst themselves.  

“Yan Zhen!” Teacher Li called again. “Where’s your solution?”  

“I’ve already written the result.”  

Teacher Li scowled. “What about your solution process? The derivation?”  

“…” Xiao Zhen thought, I’ve already written the correct answer, and yet I still have to laboriously jot down the meaningless steps. Humans really do care about appearances.  

With a sigh, Xiao Zhen picked up the chalk and began writing the solution process.  

Suddenly, an intense pain shot through his skull, like a venomous snake coiling and convulsing. His human body, unable to withstand the abrupt surge in perception, issued a sharp warning. Xiao Zhen restrained his sensory powers, but his brain’s neurons twitched under the stabbing sensation. The force was overwhelming and swift—where was it coming from?  

He turned his head to look outside the window. Then, in an odd tone, he exclaimed, “Teacher, I don’t feel well! I’m going to the infirmary!” Without waiting for a reply or acknowledging Teacher Li’s attempts to stop him, he dropped the chalk and bolted out the door.  

Outside, the laboratory building was entwined by a colossal creature. Its appearance resembled that of an enormous eel, though its true form was obscured in a misty haze. Its body shimmered with glistening scales, its greenish tail bristling with glaringly bright hairs. The massive being writhed and coiled around the building.  

Inside the classrooms, the students carried on with their lessons, completely oblivious. This was not a phenomenon visible to Homo sapiens.  

The campus remained peaceful.  

The giant creature twisted around the laboratory building.  

…  

…  

“This is what you call ‘no big deal’?” Xiao Zhen pointed at the laboratory building and interrogated Mr. Mao, whose tail flicked nonchalantly.  

Mr. Mao replied, “There’s indeed no harm. Besides, no one else can see it.”  

“Even though my host is brain-dead, I can still sense his residual consciousness questioning reality!!” Xiao Zhen shouted. “This anomaly far exceeds normal comprehension!!”  

“It’s just a projection of a void creature. Harmless. Ordinary people can’t perceive it. Don’t let your host’s residual influence get to you.”  

“If it were just void-floating particles, I could handle that. But why is there something this massive now!?”  

“This is absurd!” Captain Ban landed on Xiao Zhen’s shoulder. “I just barely managed to keep my host from being scared to death.”  

“No harm.” Mr. Mao averted his gaze, his tail wagging furiously.  

“Your tail’s wagging a lot.”  

“Is it?”  

Xiao Zhen and Captain Ban: “It is!”  

“No, it isn’t.” Mr. Mao pressed his tail down with a paw and looked away.  

“What are you hiding?”  

“Nothing.”  

“What did you do after I left?”  

“Nothing.”  

Xiao Zhen picked up Mr. Mao, whose tail kept wagging. “When I returned to class, Captain Ban was outside my classroom window the whole time. That damn giant eel wasn’t there then. What did you do to the lab building?”  

Mr. Mao tilted his head, seemingly debating whether to answer.  

Xiao Zhen shook him violently.  

“Stop shaking me!! Fine, I didn’t do much. Just ran a little test.”  

Xiao Zhen repeated in a bizarre tone, “A little… test?”  

“Yes, just to check if there’s a vortex. And, well, uh… this happened.”  

The enormous void creature entwined around the lab building opened its mouth, sucking in countless black, tadpole-like void-floating particles. Its body slid across the building’s windows, resting its massive maw on the ground. From Xiao Zhen’s perspective, the half-open mouth revealed an illusory abyss of darkness, reeking of decay and malice.  

Some students unknowingly walked into the creature’s mouth and out through its gills, unaffected. It was merely a projection of a void creature, incapable of interacting with this reality.  

“I just… made the void projections multiply a bit. No need to overreact,” Mr. Mao said, scratching his ear.  

“Thanks. You’ve officially driven my brain-dead host to insanity.”

“Don’t you think your words are utterly illogical?”  

“Get rid of these damn projections for me!!”  

Mr. Mao replied, “I can’t do that. But I can share my experiment results.”  

“What?”  

“There is indeed a vortex.”  

Xiao Zhen let go. Mr. Mao fell to the ground, rolled over, and said, “I can confirm there’s a vortex in your school’s lab building.”  

“A vortex,” Xiao Zhen repeated.  

“A vortex,” the chicken echoed robotically.  

Xiao Zhen guessed their expressions at that moment must have resembled two fools. The last time he was shocked into a momentary state of idiocy was on Planet No. 28 of the N-36 Galaxy when the authorities announced the prohibition of Mind Devouring Demons parasitizing living organisms.  

“There shouldn’t be a vortex here,” Xiao Zhen said.  

“And I’d like to say there shouldn’t be any alien visitors here either,” Mr. Mao straightened up. “I tested the force field, and thanks to this lab, void projections increased dramatically. But that’s not the most important thing. The key is—I’ve pinpointed the vortex’s location.”  

“There shouldn’t be a vortex here,” Captain Ban repeated.  

“Could you two face reality for a moment?”  

“You know what this means,” Xiao Zhen said. “A vortex here means this planet requires intervention from galactic civilization.” Given this planet’s level of development, it couldn’t possibly handle such a severe anomaly. Once the Supervisory Eye reports it, the Independent Civilization Protocol would immediately become invalid. The best-case scenario Xiao Zhen could imagine was the council or military directly taking over the planet.  

This rare tranquil haven would forever lose its peace, becoming a colony contested by the military and government council—or worse, a battlefield.  

No matter how he thought about it, Xiao Zhen disliked this outcome.  

“I can’t accept this!!” the chicken shouted.  

“I can’t either,” Mr. Mao said. “So, I have a proposal.”  

Xiao Zhen and the chicken stared at him. Mr. Mao cheerfully said, “Let’s just hide the vortex!”  

“…”

“The way you say it makes it sound like hiding a lollipop.”  

“This vortex has probably been here for a long time. As long as the Security Council and the Supervisory Eye don’t discover it, we can absolutely keep it hidden.”  

“How do we hide it?”  

Mr. Mao’s sly yet delighted grin made Xiao Zhen feel like the cat had been waiting for this question. He said, “Let’s go take a look first.”  

The vortex Mr. Mao spoke of was located in the library on the third floor of the lab building. Xiao Zhen ignored the massive fish head lying half-open at the lab building’s entrance. When he stepped inside, the light shifted from bright to dim, and countless black tadpoles swirled wildly in the air. The projection chaos had increased more than tenfold compared to an hour ago. All thanks to Mr. Mao’s damned test.  

But without Mr. Mao’s test, they wouldn’t have been able to observe the vortex at all.  

They eventually stopped in front of the library on the third floor. Xiao Zhen pushed open the door. Thankfully, it was class time, and there were no teachers or students inside. Explaining why he was bringing a cat and a chicken into the library wasn’t something Xiao Zhen wanted to deal with.  

Walking past rows of bookshelves, they finally stopped in front of a cabinet. Mr. Mao pointed to a dead corner beside the cabinet and said, “The vortex is right here. It’s the culprit behind the void anomalies in the lab building.”

Xiao Zhen saw nothing but the wall. The chicken was no different.  

Though they were all Mind Devourers, individual perception and abilities varied. Xiao Zhen knew his sensory perception was decent within their species, but his strongest skills lay elsewhere. Captain Ban excelled in physical modifications, and among the three of them, Mr. Mao undeniably had the sharpest perception. Even so, it seemed impossible not to detect even the faintest trace of the vortex.  

Doubtful, Xiao Zhen asked, “Are you sure? I can’t feel a thing.”  

Mr. Mao said, “Hold my tail.”  

Xiao Zhen crouched down and grabbed the cat’s tail.  

In an instant, Mr. Mao disappeared. To be precise, his body vanished as if sliced away, leaving behind a soft, fluffy tail in Xiao Zhen’s hand.  

The cat had stepped into the vortex.  

“Ah…”  

He *felt* it—on the other end of the cat’s tail, there was the vortex’s far side. A distorted spatial void, the source of the chaotic projections.  

It was silence, emptiness, deathly stillness, and chaotic nothingness. It was an endless loop formed by countless Ouroboros entwined.  

This was the vortex.  

His consciousness spun and drifted among countless stars until Mr. Mao’s voice pulled him back to reality.  

Just as it had vanished, Mr. Mao’s form reappeared again.  

Xiao Zhen asked, “What’s on the other side of the vortex?”  

Mr. Mao shook out his fur. “This vortex connects to a junkyard.”  

“What?”  

“You should be quite familiar with that urban planet. It’s a junkyard somewhere on Zhiye Star, part of the planetary metropolis cluster in the Ciphertext Galaxy. And let me tell you, it reeks.” Mr. Mao added, “Now we know where that box came from.”  

“It came from that junkyard?”  

“Exactly. This vortex recently experienced a spatial storm. The box was most likely blown here by it.”  

Xiao Zhen blinked. “Are you certain?”  

“That’s the only explanation,” Mr. Mao sighed. “And who knows how long this vortex has existed on this planet. I suspect the storm brought more than just one box—probably a lot of other trash, too.”  

“…”  

“So, not only do we need to hide this vortex, but we also have to monitor whether the local humans have picked up any strange alien garbage, like that replicating box, to prevent them from causing even more trouble.”  

“…” Xiao Zhen suddenly felt that simply reporting this vortex to the Supervisory Eye might be the easier option after all. 

If you're enjoying the story don't forget to support the author! You can also support me on KOFI for site maintenance, raws purchase or as an energy boost~ 

Join discord to get notified whenever a new chapter is uploaded since I'm  incapable of keeping up with a schedule~