Zhou Heng called a cab, gave the driver his destination, then sprawled across the back seat.

How should he put it? Zhou Heng found the whole situation wildly unreal. Mutants, Devourers, Silver Rank beings—one thing after another had left the young man feeling restless.

Zhou Heng felt like he’d stepped into an entirely new world. But he didn’t get the sense that this world was going to be kind to him.

He’d seen enough from what happened not long ago: Su Xi had been driven to the brink of death by the bugs, and one of Su Mo’s arms had been severed while the other was crushed to powder by them. The door to this newly opened world might lead to plenty of things that could tempt Zhou Heng, but it was bound to hold danger, too.

His indecision lasted until the taxi driver hit the brakes, turned around, and said to Zhou Heng,

“Miss, we’re here.”

Zhou Heng blinked. That was a first. He’d been called a big, burly guy, a manly man, and the sort who looked born to run with the wrong crowd—the kind of actor who could grab a knife, slick his hair back, and star in a gangster movie. But no one had ever called him “Miss.”

“Are you blind? I’m a grown-ass man, and you’re calling me a miss?”

“Oh! Oh!”

The driver looked shocked.

“Well, you do have a delicate face, sir.”

What was going on today? Zhou Heng could accept running into a whole pile of things that didn’t belong in his normal view of the world—but now, even in the ordinary world, he was hearing descriptions he’d never heard in his entire life.

A “miss.” Delicate.

Normally, Zhou Heng would’ve given the clueless driver a good dressing-down. But so much had happened today that, for once, he felt no anger rising in his chest.

He paid the fare with Alipay and got out of the cab.

He turned into a quiet little alley and walked all the way to the end. That was where his home was.

It was his only family left to rely on now: his grandfather’s little courtyard.

He opened the door and went inside. The old man wasn’t home. He’d probably gone out to play chess and chat with the neighbors again.

That was for the best. School hadn’t let out yet, and if the old man found out Zhou Heng had skipped class, he’d probably hang him up and beat him.

It was still too early for dinner, so Zhou Heng wondered if he should take a bath.

He checked his body. Whatever Mu Yuan had done, the through-and-through wound in his chest and the cut across his abdomen had completely healed. There wasn’t even a scar. Heaven knew where the surgical stitches in his abdomen had gone—he’d still been able to feel them just a few dozen minutes ago.

But either way, since he no longer had any wounds reaching into the dermis, taking a bath should be fine.

He ran a bath in the bathroom, then sank comfortably into the tub.

The slightly hot water slowly warmed his skin, soothing him like a massage.

But the body hair floating on the surface didn’t look normal.

Zhou Heng stared in shock. He’d only been in the water for a few minutes, yet the hair under his arms, on his legs and arms, and across his chest was coming loose from his pores one strand at a time, then floating on the surface. Only his head hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were spared. All the long, coarse, plainly visible body hair was falling out.

This wasn’t good news. Zhou Heng had been soaking for less than a minute when he hurried out of the tub, wondering if he should go to the hospital for a checkup. If he had some terminal illness, maybe catching it early would give him a chance to recover.

The thought of the hospital reminded Zhou Heng of a few things Mu Yuan had said.

“If anything strange or unbelievable happens to you in the future, come find me.”

“I’ve already put my contact info in your phone, and we’ve added each other on WeChat. Just to remind you: if you have any problems later, contact me anytime.”

“I’m a doctor, you know.”

Zhou Heng’s heart tightened. He felt like Mu Yuan had set him up.

That foreign bastard was obviously no good. He must’ve known something Zhou Heng didn’t, and had just been waiting for the right moment to make him come begging.

And Zhou Heng hadn’t noticed a thing. He’d walked straight into Mu Yuan’s trap like an idiot.

“Damn it, that foreign old bastard plays dirty. Why couldn’t he just tell me to my face? He had to scheme and make me come crawling to him.”

That still didn’t feel satisfying enough, so Zhou Heng added,

“When I get the chance, I’m beating him so badly his own mother won’t recognize him.”

He could say whatever he wanted, but he still had to deal with the problem.

Zhou Heng threw on a bathrobe and went to the living room. He found his phone on the sofa, tapped Mu Yuan’s avatar on WeChat, and sent him a message.

Zhou Heng: Something’s happening to my body.

Mu Yuan replied in less than three seconds.

Mu Yuan: What is it?

Zhou Heng went back to the bathroom and took a picture of the body hair floating on the water.

Zhou Heng: All the hair on my body fell out, except for my head hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes.

This time, Mu Yuan sent a voice message.

“Seriously? I thought it’d be something big. You had me waiting all this time for that?”

What was with that disappointed tone? What exactly had this guy been hoping for?

Zhou Heng grimaced in disgust, his fingers flying as he sent another message.

Zhou Heng: Enough with the nonsense. Just tell me what’s going on with me.

Mu Yuan sent another voice message.

“What do you think? Remember those videos I showed you? Remember how the people who swallowed the Insect Mother’s original form died? They turned into heaps of rotten flesh. Now look at you—you’ve only lost some hair. Don’t you think you’re making a bit of a fuss over nothing?”

Zhou Heng: But…

Mu Yuan’s voice message sounded impatient now.

“No ‘buts.’ It’s just a little hair loss. I already told you: you devoured the Insect Mother. Your body is still based on human genes, but to a certain extent, it’ll change in the direction of whatever you devoured. Under the circumstances, isn’t it perfectly normal for your body to go through some changes?”

“Well, if you’re still worried, you can come by my clinic sometime. I’ll give you a thorough checkup. Don’t worry—I’m a professional.”

How should he put it? Zhou Heng felt Mu Yuan was being a little too irresponsible.

Still, Mu Yuan’s casual, unconcerned tone did reassure him.

The tension and fear in Zhou Heng’s heart eased considerably.

He set his phone aside.

After thinking for a moment, Zhou Heng went upstairs and entered his grandfather’s room.

There was a wardrobe in his grandfather’s bedroom. Inside the wardrobe door was a mirror as tall as the cabinet—the only mirror in the house that could show someone their whole body.

Zhou Heng stood in front of the wardrobe mirror and took off his bathrobe.

The young man wondered: Mu Yuan had said his body would change. Could there be other changes besides losing his body hair?

Zhou Heng did find that his body had changed in a few ways.

For instance, the head perched on his shoulders: his stern, square face had grown slimmer, and its hard angles had softened quite a bit. The spots and dullness on his skin had faded, too. For the first time, words like “smooth” and “delicate” could describe the face of a rough, burly guy like Zhou Heng.

Then there were his thighs, once packed with muscle from the waist down. Now, without a single hair, they looked smooth and tender. Even the bulging muscles had settled into the lines of his calves and knees, giving his legs a long, straight look.

Zhou Heng turned around to examine his once-broad, solidly muscled back, then turned back and ran a hand over his abdomen, which had once sported an eight-pack. Just like everywhere else, the muscles that had shown off his manly physique had all drawn back into his body, leaving smooth, pale-pink skin exposed.

And worse still…

Even though it was his own body, just looking at it made Zhou Heng’s breathing quicken a little. He could barely keep himself under control.

The curves running from top to bottom had taken on a hint of a slender, alluring shape.

“Hey, why does my body look like a woman’s now? No, I’d better stop looking, or I’m gonna get hard.”

Zhou Heng put his bathrobe back on. The more he thought about it, the less right it felt, so he went to his room and stepped onto the scale.

The number was about the same as yesterday.

89.4 kg.

Yesterday, it had been 90 kg.

He’d weighed himself after dinner yesterday, and his stomach was empty now. A little weight loss made sense.

“My weight’s fine, isn’t it?”

Zhou Heng stepped off the scale, went to his wardrobe, and took out his heaviest dumbbell—the 15-kilogram one.

He did a hundred sets. His breathing didn’t grow heavier, and his arms didn’t ache.

“My arm and grip strength seem fine, too.”

Zhou Heng walked over to the punching bag he usually trained on, took a deep breath, and felt warmth surge through his body.

He threw a punch, and the punching bag swung sharply backward.

The bag was heavy on its own, and Zhou Heng had reinforced it on purpose. Someone without much strength could hit it with all they had and probably wouldn’t make it sway an inch.

“Doesn’t seem like I’ve lost much strength, either.”

Zhou Heng rubbed his chin, feeling a lot more at ease. He’d thought this rather girly-looking body would mean a major drop in physical ability, but it seemed the most important parts of his fitness hadn’t declined.

“All right, how about testing my stamina next?”

He pulled a tracksuit from the wardrobe, then strapped several seven-jin weighted bands to his wrists and ankles, adding more than thirty jin of weight to his body in total.

This was Zhou Heng’s usual way of training his stamina: long-distance running with weights. He’d started training when he was ten and could only manage five kilometers with the extra weight. After several years of training, he could now run more than thirty kilometers—and if he paced himself, he could run all day without running out of steam.

But since this was a test, and it was already getting late, Zhou Heng decided to use the most demanding method he could to find out how far he could run.

Ten kilometers would be a pass. Fifteen would be excellent.

Zhou Heng headed out and ran into the glow of the setting sun.