Invade the World

   The night is lonely.

   There were no fingers in the room, steady breathing came from the darkness, and the woman on the bed rested quietly, ignorant of what was going on around her.

   Zhu Qingyue, who broke into the bedroom in the middle of the night, staggered back several steps, her bright eyes trembling, and she shuddered at the thought she had just thought.

   An unprecedented fear arose in the heart of the little girl.

  Me, how did I get this idea? !

   That is her mother!

   is really unreasonable—

  Zhu Qingyue hurriedly turned around and left, slamming the door behind her.

  …

   The woman on the bed still closed her eyes tightly, as if she had dreamed of something good, the corners of her mouth raised slightly.

   Zhu Qingyue did nothing, turned and ran away.

   But at that time, the thought that came up for no reason was like a poisonous thorn with a barb, which stuck into her heart muscle and was difficult to pull out.

   The sinister thought that lingered in her mind from time to time, always lingering.

  Zhu Qingyue's mental state was once again mired in the quagmire, tortured by terrifying thoughts, and the situation worsened as she cared for her mother day after day, to the point of hallucinations.

  At first, the girl felt that her soul was split into two halves, so what she saw—the world in her eyes, was also divided into two halves:

   For example, when she was cooking Chinese medicine for her mother, half of her vision, she was cooking medicine for her mother in front of the gas stove, taking care of her seriously, sweating profusely, and everything was business as usual;

   In the vision of the other half, she looked around like a thief with a guilty conscience, then took out rat poison, opened the ceramic jar, and sprinkled white powder into it...

   No, no, no!

   How could I do this!

   Just having this thought made her feel terrible—

  Zhu Qingyue shouted in her heart, shaking her head vigorously, trying to put that vicious and false scene behind her.

   But her mental state never improved; on the contrary, she realized that she was on the brink of a cliff, and was only a step away from breaking down.

  The evidence is that her vision continues to split, split—

   One is divided into two, two is divided into four, four is divided into eight, like a broken mirror, large and small fields of vision reflect a gorgeous scene, and the self on each fragment is doing something completely different...

   She gradually became unable to distinguish reality from hallucinations.

   As if standing in front of a huge rotating kaleidoscope, dizzy.

   When the "world in her eyes" is divided into two halves, she can bear it at first, knowing what she is actually doing and what she imagines;

   However, when everything is on the verge of being broken, and the field of vision has changed from two halves to hundreds of thousands of petals, the real and the fake are mixed and confused, and it is impossible to distinguish each other.

  Which side is true and which side is false?

  Which side is right and which side is wrong?

  …

   Once again, Zhu Qingyue stood in front of her mother's bed.

The    medicine bowl slipped from her hands, making a loud cracking sound.

   In the next second, with the splashing liquid medicine and fragments, her world was also broken, and her face was reflected on every ceramic fragment:

Among them, some of her showed a vicious expression that did not match her age, picked up the fragments on the ground, and clenched the pointed end in her palm. She held it so hard that blood began to ooze between her fingers; Roaring, he threw himself on the bed, used the shard as a dagger, and slammed it down towards the target—

   Blood splattered, the woman screamed and sat up from the bed, struggling, jumping like a fish thrown ashore.

  Zhu Qingyue looked blank, watching all this happen.

Maybe,

   I am now…

   is completely useless.

   Suddenly, she heard footsteps approaching.

   Zhu Qingyue's shoulders shrank. After she woke up, she looked around and found herself crouching in the corner of the living room.

  …Fortunately, I'm not in my mom's room.

   The little girl let out a sigh of relief, which means that I just escaped, and the worst did not happen, it was her hallucination...

   But her nerves tensed up again.

   Wait, footsteps?

  The door has been closed, there are only her and her mother who is seriously ill in bed in this house, where is the third person's footsteps?

  Zhu Qingyue raised her head, but saw a familiar figure standing in front of her.

   "...Mother-in-law?"

   A few years ago, the mother-in-law who once took care of the family for a short time and then disappeared completely from her life after she left, reappeared at this time.

   She was smiling kindly at herself.

  Zhu Qingyue was silent for a moment.

In the past few years, she has thought about this series of things that happened to herself countless times, thinking about why it happened - maybe because she was still young, she didn't find that reason, but she still found that Some details that I had overlooked in the past.

   Zhu Qingyue had an unexplained sense of familiarity about this mother-in-law who suddenly appeared in her home, which made her have a whimsical idea—

   she asked cautiously:

   "You're... Mom, right?"

  Mother-in-law looked at her, did not speak, just smiled.

   "Sorry, sorry, I didn't recognize you at that time."

  Zhu Qingyue murmured, and before she knew it, crystal tears had begun to spin in the little girl's eyes.

   She was very scared, what she saw was just an illusion.

   "It's okay, at least now, we meet again."

  Mother-in-law bent down and stroked her head with a smile.

  Zhu Qingyue's body trembled.

The warmth from   's palm dispelled the fear in her heart. This solid and gentle touch was enough for her to confirm the authenticity.

   "But since you're the mother, that means..."

   The little girl looked up at her.

   "Yes, the one on the bed is not me at all...or rather, it is not a human at all, but a monster, the monster that took my body."

  Mother-in-law's expression was calm.

"what is the problem?"

   "Last time, didn't I ask you to do me a favor?" Mom said, "Just to get my body back."

   "I, I don't understand..."

   After the initial joy, Zhu Qingyue began to feel overwhelmed again.

  What "monster"? What "takes away the body"? She didn't understand at all.

   Although Zhu Qingyue has already sensed that something is wrong in her life, things that are too surreal are really hard to understand for elementary school students who have not even stabilized their worldview, even if she has a much more mature mind than her peers.

   "You just do as I say."

   Mom stretched out her hands and grabbed her shoulders.

   "Go and kill her. Because, you can't be reborn until she's dead."

"…die?"

  Zhu Qingyue blinked, feeling incredible.

   Could it be that the terrifying thought that he had been resisting was actually correct?

  No, how is that possible—

  Why would mom say such horrible things?

   "Mom, does my mother want me to kill?"

  The little girl instinctively resisted.

   "Murder? Do you think the guy on the bed is human? It's just a walking dead, I'm your real mother!"

   The real mother's tone became serious, and Zhu Qingyue felt that her shoulder was pinched and painful.

"Qingyue, are you going to choose to escape again and give up the chance to meet me again? As long as you kill her, I will be able to return to my body again. Don't hesitate! This is the last chance, do this again. Go down, and when the demon completely occupies my body and wakes up, it will destroy not only one family, but this city and this world, and then it will be another disaster—"

   "As long as I do, will you be able to come back?"

   Zhu Qingyue couldn't understand what was too difficult, so she asked the question she cared about most.

   "Of course. As long as you do what I say..."

   The smile on the real mother's face was back, and the wrinkles were stretched out.

   "Everything in the past will come back."

  …

  To be honest, from the moment Zhu Qingyue saw her, she has long been unable to understand which words are true and which are false.

   Including the life of a family of three, even if it really happened in memory, in retrospect, there is still a sense of confusion that is "more like an illusion than reality".

but…

   If she can have such a sweet dream again, Zhu Qingyue feels that even if she finds out later that she has been deceived...

   She is also willing.

  Zhu Qingyue walked up the stairs and pushed open the door leading to her mother's bedroom.

   The kaleidoscope-like vision that splits and blooms is still spinning, and every action she makes seems like there are thousands of possibilities.

   However, the moment she really opened the door and saw what her mother looked like now, the broken and divided world in her vision instantly healed and reunited into one scene.

  The girl stood at the door in a daze.

  Only half of the mother's body was still on the bed, and the other half had slid down with the quilt.

  Dry long hair fell down, and a dagger-like fragment was inserted into the thin chest.

   Only, no blood came out of the wound.

   The vitality flowing out of this body escaped like air and disappeared into the darkness deposited in the room.

  It turns out that I have…

   "Hahaha, as expected!"

   "Real Mom" ​​said behind her back.

   "Your mother died a long time ago. The vision you saw a few years ago was her last remaining consciousness, her last struggle, and it disappeared after you rejected it."

   "Mom... is dead?"

   "Use your brain, little girl, how could she be alive until now? If I am really 'she', why did it take so long to come to you?"

   The other party laughed.

   "Then you... what the **** are you?"

   "Me? I am the product of the remnants of human consciousness named 'Zhang Hong', which was born after the fusion of the erosive power released by the monster named 'Nest Mother'."

   The other shrugged.

   "So strictly speaking, I don't know what I am."

   "The hive mother acts according to her instinct to invade the world. It does not need intelligence, because if necessary, it can do so by encroaching on the native intelligent creatures. Human intelligence is an unnecessary burden to it."

"Simply put, it's up to us, the ghosts, to realize its wishes and become a tool for it to invade the world... However, I don't think there's anything wrong with this. It's because of its existence that I can To a certain extent, it possesses human emotions and human intelligence, and becomes a new life completely different from the original 'Zhang Hong'."

   "I...I don't understand..."

   "It doesn't matter if you don't understand, you just need to know that your mother is dead. Strictly speaking, the only person who can be regarded as your mother is me."

   Zhu Qingyue's eyes fell on her mother again, staring straight at her. The expression on her face disappeared little by little, and then she suddenly growled:

   "Nonsense!"

   "Yeah, nonsense..."

  The woman showed a regretful expression.

   "Because I'm going to disappear soon and can't be your mother."

   "Not only does it exist for a short period of time, but even the way it is produced is very awkward. It is born from the scum of other people's consciousness, a similar but completely different consciousness... Sigh, can an existence like me be considered life?"

   The moment when the other party muttered to herself was the most sincere time in her life. She was the only audience present, but she was a little girl who still had difficulty understanding all of this.

   "Forget it, I'll leave this question to my younger generation to think about."

   After saying that, the "Ghost" grinned and revealed an extremely evil smile.

"Because after your mother, it's your turn. You are younger than your mother, and you have more potential as a psychic, just as a replacement. It is really unfortunate that the mother and daughter were chosen by the gods one after another to be the host. what-"