Parasitic Child: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Becoming Human

The Yan family has two children, with Yan Zhen being the eldest son.

Yan Zhen has a younger sister named Yan Zhu. This family has loving parents, and their family relationships are very harmonious.

After invading Yan Zhen’s body, the entity naturally accepted everything about him.

The family all call Yan Zhen “Xiao Zhen.”

Xiao Zhen’s accident caused quite a commotion in the family. In the initial days, both the sister and the parents were clearly overly concerned.

The alien parasite can probe human emotions, but the warmth of this enthusiastic Homo Sapien family was something it wasn’t quite accustomed to. Observing and being an experiential subject are two completely different concepts. For it, the most intense emotion recently experienced from intelligent life was the residents’ screaming and headshots after it and a fellow kin greeted them with rotting corpses.

In any case, a corpse is no match for a living body. It couldn’t help but feel the body—it was soft, elastic, and youthful. This pleasant sensation reduced its anxiety about the Safety Assurance Committee and the Supervisory Eye to nearly zero.

From now on, it was a young human named Yan Zhen.

Xiao Zhen, Xiao Zhen—it manipulated the body’s vocal organs to utter this nickname. It liked the sound of it and liked being called that by others.

Yes, it was him, he was Xiao Zhen.

I am Xiao Zhen.

********

After Xiao Zhen’s body was checked several times and it was confirmed that there were no major issues, his parents finally returned to their normal lives.

Human society considers aliens to be distant and unreachable entities. Aliens are mere figments of science fiction and entertainment media. After several observations, Xiao Zhen believes that even if he loudly proclaimed himself to be an alien parasite, no one would believe him. It would only lead his family to send him to a mental hospital. Humans have a common affliction: once a fixed perception is established, it is very difficult to overturn it. Xiao Zhen is satisfied with the current societal understanding of aliens, which means as long as he doesn’t overstep too much, no one will likely notice.

Xiao Zhen is a middle school student, at an age full of energy and activity. With summer vacation underway, he soon faced his first challenge in pretending to be a human.

That challenge was hosting his peers.

The visitor was Xiao Zhen’s peer, named Liu Xingquan. He was the son of Father Yan’s former driver and Xiao Zhen’s childhood friend, as well as a classmate in the same school. He had fair skin, delicate features, long and thick eyelashes, and smooth, glossy black bangs—a typical human pretty boy.

From the moment Liu Xingquan stepped into the Yan household, Xiao Zhen sensed something unusual.

Xiao Zhen couldn’t quite grasp the nuances of human relationships between friends and family, but he had already observed the difference between family members and outsiders. Father Yan, Mother Yan, and Yan Zhu were Yan Zhen’s family. Aunt Li, Driver Zhang, and Aunt Wang were outsiders. Liu Xingquan should have been categorized as an outsider.

However, the moment Liu Xingquan entered, Mother Yan’s joy was beyond words. One of the tentacle monster Xiao Zhen’s species’ abilities is sensing the surface emotions of humans. At that moment, he was standing beside Mother Yan, and the warm and joyful surge of emotion flooded his consciousness. In Xiao Zhen’s eyes, this emotion formed a warm, soft glow, like candlelight in a dim room. Mother Yan smiled as she looked at the boy—Liu Xingquan.

This warm emotion had subtle differences compared to what Mother Yan felt for Xiao Zhen and Yan Zhu, which Xiao Zhen savored, tasting something akin to affection.

My host’s mother seems to like Liu Xingquan very much.

Liu Xingquan was completely different from the adolescent boys Xiao Zhen had conceptualized.

Shortly after entering the house, Liu Xingquan went straight to Xiao Zhen’s study. Apart from the initial few polite greetings, he didn’t say much else. He opened his books, took out his homework, and began writing non-stop, never once lifting his head. Mother Yan couldn’t stop praising Liu Xingquan’s diligence, while Xiao Zhen began to doubt whether this boy was truly a human adolescent.

From what the tentacle monster Xiao Zhen knew about other intelligent species across different planets, nearly all intelligent beings exhibit traits such as curiosity, constant chatter, and a headache-inducing level of destructiveness during their juvenile to adolescent stages.

But here was Liu Xingquan, quietly sitting at the desk for two hours. He was bent over, writing his homework, his lips tightly pressed together, and his long, thin eyebrows slightly furrowed, shutting out all distractions from his world.

Xiao Zhen was secretly amazed. With such a peer before him, he had no choice but to silently do his homework as well. After these past few days of familiarizing himself with this civilization, Xiao Zhen found the homework quite easy. However, Xiao Zhen had one major obstacle when doing homework—he wasn’t very adept at controlling the body. While daily activities posed no problems, the fine motor skills required for writing were a different story; his hand was not cooperating at all.

To achieve precise control, more time would be needed to coordinate with this body. At the moment, the result of him forcibly trying to control his hand to write was a series of illegible scribbles.

Xiao Zhen glanced at Liu Xingquan’s workbook across from him. The boy’s handwriting was just like him—neat, elegant, and pleasing to the eye.

Noticing Xiao Zhen’s gaze, Liu Xingquan looked up at Xiao Zhen’s workbook. His eyes scanned the unsightly writing, and he was clearly taken aback.

“I’m not fully recovered yet, my hand shakes,” Xiao Zhen said frankly. After all, in everyone’s eyes, he had just survived a serious accident, so it was normal to have some lingering effects for a while.

Liu Xingquan nodded and offered a few comforting words, telling him to rest well and recover soon, before lowering his head again to focus intently on his homework.

A poor communication partner, Xiao Zhen thought.

Humans, especially those who grew up together, should have endless things to talk about. Yet this young human in front of him was completely focused on his homework. Xiao Zhen tried to throw out a few topics, only to receive light responses like “hmm” and “oh,” as if stones had skipped across the water, leaving a few bubbles before sinking out of sight.

He knew nothing about the relationship between Liu Xingquan and Yan Zhen. Maybe this was just how they interacted? Xiao Zhen gave up on trying to communicate and continued his battle with his own hand.

Mother Yan entered the room, smiling, carrying a plate of fruit. As soon as Liu Xingquan, who had been engrossed in writing, saw her, he immediately looked up and cheerfully said, “Thank you, Auntie.”

“You must be tired, take a break,” Mother Yan urged him to eat as she placed the fruit plate beside him. She picked up Liu Xingquan’s workbook and raised her eyebrows in praise, “Such beautiful handwriting. Xiao Zhen, look at Xingquan’s work. The teacher’s remarks are all excellent; you should really learn from him.”

Liu Xingquan lowered his eyes, his ears turning slightly red.

Xiao Zhen wasn’t particularly concerned with Mother Yan’s words. Such remarks were usually meant to spark a child’s competitive spirit. He hadn’t regressed to the point of competing with a human teenager.

Mother Yan then picked up Xiao Zhen’s workbook. “This…” she sighed.

“I’m not fully recovered yet.”

“Don’t make excuses. Xingquan’s grades have always been better than yours. You should humbly learn from him.” Mother Yan put down the workbook but continued to glare at Xiao Zhen’s scribbles with a mix of disbelief and pain. Clearly, the terrible handwriting had deeply disturbed her. “Should I schedule another check-up with Dr. Li tomorrow?”

“I’m fine! I’ll get better soon!”

Off to the side, Liu Xingquan’s lips curled into a slight smile, making his previously delicate and indifferent face suddenly more lively. Mother Yan, her eyes full of affection, began chatting with Liu Xingquan, her gaze as tender as if this well-behaved, beautiful boy were her own son.

It wasn’t just Mother Yan—Xiao Zhen’s sister, Yan Zhu, was also a devoted admirer of Liu Xingquan. After finishing her homework, Yan Zhu, with permission, clung to Liu Xingquan, calling him “Xingquan Gege” non-stop. Xiao Zhen, who had been the center of attention just days ago, was now completely and publicly cast aside.

Xiao Zhen picked up the remote and started watching TV, while laughter and cheerful conversation between the mother, daughter, and Liu Xingquan continued to flow from the next room. Homo Sapiens seem to be fond of attractive things, and this preference holds true even across the countless stars and distant planets.

After Liu Xingquan left, Xiao Zhen asked Yan Zhu a question that he had just picked up from a melodramatic family drama on TV.

“Between Liu Xingquan and your brother, who do you like more?”

Yan Zhu, who was 12 years old with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, tilted her head and replied with a giggle, “Of course, I like both!”

A typical evasive answer. From Xiao Zhen’s experience, this is the standard response when a Homo Sapien doesn’t want to answer honestly. Essentially, it means you might not rank as highly as your competitor in my heart. The blood ties of humans can be quite melancholic. Xiao Zhen thought that it was foolish of him to even ask such a silly question.

In the days that followed, Liu Xingquan remained the only peer who visited Xiao Zhen. Naturally, he came over just to do homework with Xiao Zhen. They could work on their assignments for an entire afternoon, as their ruthless teachers had assigned enough work to occupy most of their summer vacation. Xiao Zhen didn’t mind this; doing homework was a good way to train his control over his new body.

Unfortunately, after several days, Xiao Zhen still found writing to be extremely challenging. Even when he focused intensely on fine-tuning his nerves, the result was still a mess of crooked and ugly characters. Xiao Zhen would glance at Liu Xingquan’s neat handwriting, then back at his own, and couldn’t help but sigh.

Yan Zhu mentioned that Liu Xingquan had been Yan Zhen’s best friend since childhood.

Is that really true?

Xiao Zhen doubted it. He suspected that the Homo Sapiens on this planet might have a very different definition of the word “friend” compared to the Galactic Standard Language. Or perhaps something had happened between the original Yan Zhen and Liu Xingquan.

In front of Xiao Zhen, Liu Xingquan was taciturn. But in front of Yan’s parents, he was well-mannered and likable, exuding a respectful demeanor wrapped in politeness. This discrepancy in behavior struck Xiao Zhen as odd, though he didn’t care enough to delve into the interpersonal relationships of human teenagers at the moment.

He was fully focused on adjusting to his new body. The original owner of this body was already brain-dead, and since Xiao Zhen had decided to inhabit it, he needed to prepare thoroughly.

Beings like Xiao Zhen’s kind didn’t possess strong combat abilities on their own, but they could modify the physical body after merging with the host’s tissues. Xiao Zhen’s current body was still growing, so he didn’t plan to make any drastic changes, instead opting for gradual physical strengthening and agility training.

Though this planet had yet to establish contact with the galaxy, other enemies or dangerous beings could still exist. His species had a history of being loathed by intelligent life forms. Despite the Galactic Federation’s recognition of their right to exist for nearly a hundred Galactic Standard Years, there was no doubt that over seventy percent of intelligent species would still like to tear them to pieces. The lunatics at the Security Council and the Supervisory Eye were always lurking in the shadows, seeking any opportunity to exterminate them.

“I hate the Supervisory Eye,” Xiao Zhen muttered under his breath, tossing the pencil in his hand. 

Thunk! The pencil embedded itself straight into the wall.

“What did you just do?”

Liu Xingquan was standing at the doorway. His eyes were wide with shock as he asked, “What did you just do?”

The pencil was buried almost halfway into the wall, as if it had sliced through tofu.

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