Time rewinds five minutes.

“Clues—still not enough.” His unease rose like cold mist from a river; Ye Weibai stewed in that fog, then pulled a black book from his chest like drawing a knife from the dark.

He turned back to the marked page, and read on like following footprints through wet snow.

[Before you kill a Monstrosity, learn to tell a Monstrosity.]

[No matter how a Monstrosity mimics a human face, it can’t escape the following.]

[First: when badly wounded, a Monstrosity’s blood runs purple. Note: with minor wounds, it can mask the blood as red, like paint over rust.]

[Second: a Monstrosity must feed. It’s not that it refuses human food; it’s that its organs only accept human flesh—tests show wheat, pork, fruit cause violent bodily reaction, like human food poisoning.]

“Like human food poisoning…” He echoed it softly, eyes glinting like twin shards of ice under moonlight.

[Third: Monstrosities can sense each other’s flavor. Catch a live one; by its reaction, you can locate another—though that’s hard, like trapping wind in a jar.]

[Fourth—]

“Philia?” He broke off, head lifting like a stag hearing a twig snap. The little girl paused her crayon, stood, her gaze dull and empty like fog over a pond. It slid past Ye Weibai as if he were air.

She slipped wordlessly under the quilt, shut her eyes, and sank into sleep like a pebble into still water.

“[Venting] time’s over?” His voice was calm as winter ash.

Ye Weibai rose and picked up the drawing on the desk like lifting a fallen leaf.

Clumsy strokes showed a man carrying a stunned blonde girl home, then turning into a Monstrosity and eating her piece by piece—a story scrawled like charcoal across snow.

Everything matched what he had feared, like thunder answering lightning.

“No.” The word was sharp, like glass. His face shifted; he set the black book down, aligned all of Philia’s drawings, and skimmed again, faster, like riffling cards under a lantern.

Paper whispered between his fingers; what his eyes reflected began to change, like a lake rippling under wind.

“These pictures hold three people… but photographers don’t show up in their own photos.” His thought clicked like a lock tumbling.

That black shape wasn’t Philia—it was someone else, like a shadow that had its own breath.

Staring at the drawings, he finally felt what he’d missed, like stepping on a hollow board.

He had ignored that the main cast in this tale might be more than Philia and her brother Owen; from the first clue, he had assumed a fixed headcount like counting candles and forgetting the dark.

“The height of this view…” The angle floated like a hawk’s eye.

He or she was present from the start. From that height, he or she stayed by Philia’s side—or rather, held Philia, like cradling a doll in the crook of an arm.

Then who was that shadow?

Human Philia. Monstrosity Owen. The last choice was already knocking at the door, like frost on glass calling your name.

Ye Weibai’s eyes brightened like stars. The name rose to his tongue—

A thick, coppery reek of blood hit him like a tide crashing into stone.

…

…

“So she’s dead.” He looked at Daisy’s ruined form and let the line fall, flat as a blade laid on a table.

He pressed a hand to his heartbeat, listened like a doctor with an ear to wood, then said without expression, “As expected.”

Owen swallowed a mouthful of organs, then unrolled a long tongue and licked his lips clean, like a snake polishing iron.

He lifted the girl’s small body and turned it left, then right, eyes red as coals, hunting for a new bite, like a wolf nosing bone.

“Put her down. Let’s talk outside.” Ye Weibai’s face held no fear, like a calm lake before dawn. He looked at Owen and spoke lightly.

Owen ignored him, opened his maw toward the girl’s right leg, jaws spreading like a gate to a pit.

“Philia—” Ye Weibai dropped the name Owen cared for most, voice cool as rain—“she’ll turn into you.”

The three syllables hit like sleet. Owen froze, turned, and pinned Ye Weibai with a glare that bled into cruelty and rage, like fire catching dry grass.

Even a human could read that look—it was naked killing intent, a blade unsheathed.

Because Ye Weibai was using Philia as the lever against him.

“Ugly.” In the dark, Ye Weibai’s smile was a thin hook. “Philia will become an ugly thing like you.”

Roar—!!!

Owen’s snarl rumbled like a drum. He flung the child’s corpse toward the corner wall, claws chewing dirt, then launched like a cannonball at Ye Weibai.

Boom—!

And then, faster, he flew backward—like a kite yanked by a sudden gale.

That was Ye Weibai.

He moved like a spear through bamboo. One hand shot out and clamped Owen’s thick neck; the hand looked too slender, a reed gripping a tree trunk, yet it crushed down hard, purple flesh trapped, dragging Owen through air like hauling a net.

With Owen choking and thrashing, Ye Weibai didn’t slow. As the girl’s body thudded against the wall, he caught Daisy, gathering her like lifting a drifted bundle of leaves.

Too much blood had run. Her body was cold and sticky, like rain-soaked silk; too many organs gone, she felt light, like an empty gourd.

Ye Weibai’s expression was strange—neither anger nor regret, just a stillness like watching a play. Only his Adam’s apple moved once, a small ripple in stone.

After something clicked in his mind, he seemed changed, like iron quenched and tempered.

Strength and spirit both shifted, like a bow strung for war.

“Quiet.” He tilted his head and let Owen’s wild swipe pass like wind missing a bell.

He laid Daisy down gently, then draped a handful of leaves over the hole in her chest, like covering a lamp with green silk.

“I said, quiet.” His brow pinched, a fine line like a crease in paper. His left hand, free and cold, smashed a fist into Owen’s gut.

The muscle looked rock-hard, but it didn’t help; Owen’s eyes rolled white, his body curled like a boiled shrimp.

“Let’s go. We’ll talk outside the village. Don’t wake Philia. That’s what you want too, right?” The words fell casually, like pebbles into a stream.

Ye Weibai hauled the wracked Owen, then leapt. One bound carried them over the courtyard; he ran, accelerating like a hawk stooping, and vanished down the forest path beyond the village.

The courtyard fell still, silence laid over it like snow. Two bodies stared mute at nothing.

After a long breath, in the empty yard, a black-cloaked woman’s outline slowly surfaced, like a shadow rising from ink.

In the dark, she was a wraith, a whisper behind a door.

“Well—” Under the hood, her mouth curled bit by bit, as if she’d seen something impossible and delicious—“magnificent!!!”

…

…

Outside the village.

Deep in the thicket.

Boom.

Ye Weibai flung Owen aside with a careless motion, let him tumble and slam into a tree root, like storm smashing driftwood.

Leaves trembled down like green rain. Ye Weibai’s voice was light. “Owen, you know, a Monstrosity is basically a mental illness—an infection of the mind. That’s the truest way to say it, I think.”

“It’s terrifying, sure. But illness carries a flaw, like rust under gold—there’s a fixed way to suppress it. That way is forgetting.”

Roar—!!!

Owen shook his head like an ox shedding flies, climbed up, and charged, a streak of purple like lightning under stormclouds.

“I should’ve seen it.” Ye Weibai’s words didn’t pause. He didn’t retreat; he stepped in and sent a hand-knife forward, smooth as a blade sliding along bamboo.

As if choreographed a thousand times, Owen’s claws never touched him; the throat met that hand-knife perfectly, like a knot meeting a blade.

“Ah!” The strike was heavy, a bell struck in a temple. Owen coughed a spray of blood, tried to clutch his neck, and felt his whole body lift, like a doll jerked by strings.

Then he crashed down hard, earth grunting under him.

Ye Weibai kneed him up like a blacksmith’s hammer, then stomped Owen’s stomach, pinning him underfoot like trapping a snake with a boot.

Boom—!

Force went through Owen into the ground, shattering soil; dirt flew, grass lashed the air like frightened birds.

Owen groaned, a wet sound. Blood clogged in his throat, then spurted instead from ear and nose, like a broken fountain.

His eyes bulged, his body writhed like a fish choking on land.

“When I ate Philia’s cooking the first time, I should’ve noticed—but I didn’t think it through. The second time, Daisy’s food, I missed it again—should’ve seen it.” His voice was cool, words falling like cold beads.

“So-called [Misfortune],” Ye Weibai paused, “that’s what it points to.”

“But, if I’d known early, that wouldn’t have been good either,” he went on, tone even as dusk.

“Because once I knew I’m a [Monstrosity], I stopped being human.” Ye Weibai smiled, thin as a crescent moon. “Right now, even though Daisy’s dead—and in such a cruel way—looking at her body, I feel no grief, no anger. Only—appetite.”