Lanpu

Kapitel 1

Wasteland Author: Butterfly

Synopsis:

"Raging Bird" is a monster that feeds on the blood of infants or young men. It has a woman's upper body and face, both of which are extremely beautiful. It is free-spirited and unrestrained.

This ferocious bird is named "Wilderness," because its very existence is as its name suggests.

Prologue: Stared at by the Abyss

"...I don't even dare to look at the ceiling, it's so scary. Hengzhi, are you listening?" The beautiful girl in front of me nudged me, and I quickly nodded, snapping out of my daze.

"Yes, yes, I'm listening. You just mentioned your bathroom problem."

"There's nothing wrong with it," Xue Zi sighed sadly. "It's causing quite a stir. Having the ability to see ghosts is such a hassle..."

The classmates surrounding her buzzed with curiosity and sympathy, talking about all sorts of terrifying experiences.

I lowered my head, pretending to carefully smooth out the folds of my skirt. Above those childish voices, high-pitched laughter echoed.

"Look at me, 'Supernatural Beauty'!" The giant bird with a human face made of black mist started her prank again, pressing her beautiful face close to Xue Zi's eyes. "See me first before you talk about supernatural things, you idiot!"

"...I'm talking to you, but you don't answer." Xue Zi appeared and disappeared from the other side of the black mist, looking dissatisfied. "You don't trust me, do you?"

It wasn't easy to hear what she was saying in such a noisy environment; I really tried my best. "Of course I believe that's not true... it's just that I don't have any experience to share."

The human-faced bird laughed even more shrilly and high-pitched, so I could only see Xue Zi's mouth opening and closing, and had no idea what she was saying.

"Forget it, Xuezi, just ignore her." The other female classmates pulled her away. "What's the point of talking to her?" They walked towards the restroom in a group.

The large bird with the human face didn't follow; it simply flew back to perch on my left shoulder. "They said you're a liar, an idiot, and mentally unstable." They were very malicious and eager to see my reaction.

But I just took out my textbook and started reviewing the Chinese text that I hadn't been able to listen to properly in class.

She was extremely disappointed. "With a single command from you, I could take their lives. They are the liars, the liars! Foolish fools who can see nothing yet spout empty lies!"

"They're still just kids, they crave attention. A little fantasy now and then is harmless," I answered inwardly. "Don't mess around, Huang'e, move aside, your feathers are blocking my textbook."

But it seemed she was angry. She shoved her face close to mine, yelling, "Get angry! Get angry! Let me go kill people, leave a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood! Give the order! What kind of saint are you pretending to be?! They hate you to death! That idiot Xue Zi is putting on airs, saying that if she ignores you, no one will want to be your friend... So hypocritical, so condescending and contemptuous! If you were a human being, you'd get angry!"

I tried to shoo her away, but people around me stared in disbelief as I waved my hands haphazardly into the air. I could only awkwardly slap my neck and mutter "there's a mosquito," trying to get away with it.

This is already abnormal enough; it doesn't need any more attention, really.

"Do you kill whoever I tell you to kill?" I asked myself, staring intently at the textbook, which was completely blank.

"Of course, of course!" Her ecstatic face was very, very close to mine, her blood-red pupils revealing intense greed.

"Alright then." I sighed. "Please go and kill a ferocious bird for me. I think its name is 'Wilderness'..."

She glared at me fiercely, her eyes filled with intense hatred. Without a word, she landed heavily on my left shoulder again, deliberately so heavily that I shrugged, her sharp claws almost digging into my flesh.

I know she'd gladly kill anyone for me, to satisfy her own bloodthirsty desires. But that doesn't include herself.

This is the "reality" I find myself in. Bound together with a monster whose race is the Wraith Bird.

Therefore, we are never far enough away from the other world.

This is truly unfortunate for a human being.

cause

It was an unfortunate fate for both her and me.

She was originally a demon who craved the blood of infants or young men, possessing a woman's breasts and a woman's face, both extremely alluring. Free-spirited and unrestrained.

The reason it is called the Desolate Calamity is because its existence is just like its name.

As for me, I was supposed to be an ordinary person. Lacking both talent and inspiration. If I had to find anything different about me... supposedly I'm a delicious food, from an outsider's perspective.

It was this insignificant little feature that allowed the harbinger to leave its mark on clothes left out to dry overnight. Unfortunately, another harbinger also left its mark at almost the same time.

I was only seven months old at the time. My mother gave birth to me when she was sixteen, while my father was thirty-three and worked as a tutor.

A handsome, hot-tempered professor and a smart, beautiful female student fall in love, elope, and have a child—it seems like a scene straight out of a manga, or even a shoujo manga. But reality is often cruel.

My surname is Lin, and my given name is Hengzhi. This name and this life are all my mother gave me, and I have never seen her since. It is said that on the day I turned seven months old, she went home, divorced my father, and went abroad.

On that very day, a strange experience occurred that changed the course of my life.

Huang E said that after midnight, she would come to collect her "food." (Supposedly, this was me.)

But another ferocious bird was already eyeing the cradle covetously. The very name "ferocious bird" suggests they were not a peaceful, benevolent species. Both ferocious birds claimed ownership of the food; sharing and cooperation were never virtues of their kind.

So the two ferocious birds fought fiercely, and in the end, they were both badly injured... I'm sorry, only Huang E was seriously injured, the other ferocious bird died.

The severely wounded Huang E lay beside me, on the verge of death, too weak to even eat me.

So wounded, she anxiously awaited my mother's arrival. Now, she was only strong enough to disintegrate and lie dormant in the womb of a fully mature woman, waiting for the woman's next pregnancy, to become one of the illusory twins, before she would have the strength to regain her body and freedom.

Unfortunately, on that very day, my mother decided to divorce my father and had already run back to her parents' home. So she could only watch helplessly as her life slowly slipped away, staring blankly at me, who was crying loudly.

They had neither the strength to leave nor the strength to tell me to shut up.

It wasn't until noon the next day that my grandmother came into the room, still cursing, and bent down to pick me up. Although it was a bit too familiar, and she was over fifty, it was still better than having no hope at all.

The desolate creature, its life force fading, mustered its last strength and disintegrated into black mist, attempting to invade its grandmother's womb...

“But she…she…she…” Every time he got to this part, Huang’e’s eyes would well up with tears, his pink lips trembling. “She actually…”

"She doesn't even have a uterus," I added helplessly. Apparently, my grandmother had her uterus removed in her forties due to illness.

I've heard it millions of times, I can recite it by heart.

Just like millions of times before, Huang E would burst into loud wails, the sound shaking the house.

So, extremely unwillingly, she possessed me. Because I was so small at the time, she had to use the form of "oath" and "covenant" to become my protector in another form.

But what she said was so difficult to understand that I've never figured it out in all these years. All I know is that some people intentionally raise little ghosts, while I involuntarily raise a large ghost.

But others raise ghosts for power, wealth, or sex; they might even make a profit. I raised a ghost with anger and shadows, but it only made my childhood exceptionally miserable. Even now, as I'm about to graduate from vocational high school, people still call me a "liar" or a "disaster god."

However, life always finds a way. I eventually learned how to hide her existence and try to live a normal life.

Even though her existence is so real and beyond question.

My grandmother didn't raise me. She was a very busy person and didn't have time to clean up the mess her son made.

So I moved from one nanny's house to another, never staying for too long. This continued until I was one year old and learned to speak, at which point it became increasingly worse.

Growing up surrounded by the incessant chatter of the desolate world, I learned language at a young age, but lacked morality and self-awareness to understand what I was saying. And humans always have all sorts of not-so-lovable little secrets they don't want others to know.

A child who is not yet one year old really doesn't understand these things. He just blankly repeats those malicious words that the absurdity sees into people's hearts. Before I even knew words like "affair" and "abortion," he had already said them many times.

I'm truly sorry to have heard that this has caused many families to break up or fall apart. But I really had no idea.

Families that haven't broken up or fallen apart firmly believe I'm lying, considering me a "creepy liar." However, no one finds it strange that a child so young uses such mature language; they blame television and their own family upbringing.

The grandmother and father thought it was the nanny's family's fault, while the nannies thought it was due to poor upbringing.

As for me at the time, I felt completely lost. Speaking seemed like a bad thing...it would always bring beatings and insults. I learned to stay silent, only to shake my head and nod, and to ignore Huang'e's incessant chatter, no longer saying anything to her.

This infuriated the sullen and desolate. She chose to ignore the oath, so I often saw all sorts of oddities, and occasionally I was even hurt.

I started elementary school amidst this turmoil. I think if my dad hadn't decided to remarry at that time, I might have become a cynical, world-hating brat.

Before my stepmother married into the family, Huang'e constantly threatened me, saying that she would scald the children with boiling water, cut their fingers, and would definitely abuse me to death.

“So it would be best if I killed her,” she coaxed. “I’m the only one in this world who’s truly good to you, Master. You’d better understand that.”

But I didn't believe her. The little black dog next door bit me, and when I was crying, Huang'e said she could help me kill the little black dog.

I agreed to her request. Then, Little Black exploded right in front of me, turning into a pile of mangled flesh. Some blood even splattered onto my face.

The adults all said the little black dog was run over by a car, but only I knew the truth. And Huang'e was licking the rotten flesh and blood with ecstatic satisfaction; it had once been a living little dog.

Although I'm still a primary school student, I truly understand what "death" is like. Unlike in cartoons, where you get up covered in dust after an explosion.

From that time on, I stopped believing in abhorrence.

Although I'm afraid of my stepmother, I don't want anyone to die.

My stepmother is ten years older than my dad. She's not beautiful, rather plump, and looks a lot like my classmate's mother. She makes absurd and sarcastic criticisms, saying that my dad married such an old and mediocre widow because he wanted to avoid ten years of hard work.

She really is a very good person. I'm once again convinced that what Huang E said shouldn't be trusted. She may not be beautiful, but her heart is beautiful.

She approached me with a confused yet tender heart, becoming my mother in essence.

“She has autism, don’t worry about her,” my father said. “Just feed her and clothe her, she’ll go to school by herself. By the way, don’t pay attention to what she says, she’s a liar, you can’t teach her!” Then he glared at me fiercely.

“…Watch out for the car,” I said timidly.

"Shut up! You'll bring bad luck!" He was about to slap her. His stepmother stopped him.

“The child is just concerned about you, don’t do this,” she earnestly advised.

That evening, my father limped into the house. He had injured his foot on the motorcycle stand and wanted to hit me as soon as he came in.

I guess my stepmother was scared too, but she protected me and prevented my dad from hitting me.

She was my mother for five years, helping me get through my entire elementary school years. I don't know if she was aware of the existence of the absurdity, but she gently but firmly told me to hide this talent.

“Grow up like a normal child, okay?” She stroked my head. “Maybe you have to lie to be a normal person. I allow you to lie. The sin of lying… will be borne by Mom.”

I'm so sad, really. I really like her.

But when she came, I knew she only had five years left to live. Calamities may lie about everything, but prophecies of disaster and premature death always seem so fervently real.

She held my hand tightly before she died, so worried. On the seventh day after her death, I returned home and sat by her bedside, crying all night.

My father wasn't good to her, and I was such a gloomy child.

“Mom,” I told her, “now you know I wasn’t lying.” The desolate creature let out a startling laugh on my shoulder.

She nodded, crying incessantly.

"As long as you understand me, that's enough." I told her firmly, "Mom, don't worry. I will try my best to lie and become a normal person, and grow up well."

I think my stepmother will definitely be reborn into a good family in her next life, because she is such a kind and good person.

Although I've encountered many setbacks, as long as she believes in me, I feel I can keep going. I won't let her worry.

Of course, things couldn't have gone so smoothly from the start.

I was very young then, and I was terrified of harm and death. I couldn't help but speak up to warn people, and if the disaster came true, I would be called a "jinx"; if it didn't, I would be called a "liar."

Gradually, I came to realize that everyone has their own destiny, and it's wrong to try to interfere. As a human being, one shouldn't have any connection with the underworld. The fact that Evil would try to lead me down a path of bloodshed and madness is simply due to her nature.