Infinite: Dawn Game

Chapter 915 Memories of Nourishment

The old field mouse began arranging one "blind date" after another.

Thumbelina, in different stages of her life, has different "husbands"—a fat mole, a short, vain toad, a hypocritical beetle… Their greedy gazes… constantly scan Thumbelina's entire body, as if checking to see if there's any part of her that hasn't been tainted…

run away!

I want to get out of here!

Thumbelina, with her long, disheveled hair and clutching her tattered dress, ran wildly through the dark cave, followed by countless hairy claws protruding from the walls!

"Disobedient...disobedient..."

"She escaped... Damn it... Where did the field mouse go? What are we going to do if she gets away? We still need her to get more food to keep us warm in the cold winter..."

"Catch her...we must catch her..."

“Bad kids…bad kids need to be severely punished…”

"..."

Countless claws emerged from the burrow, grabbing the thumb that screamed and fled, its face filled with despair and terror as it repeatedly reached out for help.

"No...no no no no no no..."

Thumbelina screamed, tears and grime mingling together, the heavy pain driving her almost insane.

"No...whoever it is...please come and save me..."

He Lingling, who was forcibly pulled into the "memory," suddenly coughed up blood. As her blood churned, she watched as Thumbelina and the old field mouse in the "memory" were captured, beaten, and deprived of any clean food. They were then locked in a small burrow... The old field mouse's cold voice kept echoing in Thumbelina's ears.

"Poor Thumbelina, disobedient child, worthless."

"What do you want me to do to make you listen?"

Just as Thumbelina was in utter despair, even beginning to forcefully suppress her pain and break down in compromise, and as she was about to marry her next "husband," a swallow suddenly appeared in the burrow.

The dying swallow looked at her and told her about the world outside the burrow, promising to take her to the warm south so that Thumbelina could please her "husband" to get medicine to heal her wounds... It even gave Thumbelina many dandelion seeds.

"Chirp chi ...

—Plant it, wait until it blooms with yellow flowers, wait until its flowers are woven into bracelets, wait until it completely transforms into freely fluttering white fluff and leaves this dark cave…

The seed of hope was rekindled in Thumbelina's deathly despair.

With a longing for freedom, she believed again and followed the swallow once more.

She mustered her courage, perched on the back of a swallow, and flew across the cold plains, leaping over the fields where farmers were spring-plowing... But the place she landed was another magnificent yet oppressive "palace," another "husband" (the king of Lilliput) waiting to marry her...

Thumbelina was utterly desperate. She broke down and began to rebel, even abandoning the gentle and kind swallow that had brought her out of the burrow and hurling insults at it... but it was too late.

Thumbelina begins to be punished by new "rules" and imprisoned in a new "cage"...

In countless cycles, Thumbelina... no, more and more Thumbelinas began to "die" in various cruel ways.

Death... or, even more terrifying than death, is "fusion".

Thumbelina's sense of self-pursuit is stripped away in each cycle of "escape from marriage." Her body is discarded, and the resentment born of her pain is absorbed by the cave, becoming part of the faceless woman on the bed of bones... and then becoming "nourishment" for the next cycle of "Thumbelina"...

He Lingling's tears flowed even more profusely. In this environment, she felt as if her limbs and body were being dragged down by something unseen.

Boundless crimson and distorted female faces flashed one after another, and He Lingling's throat made a gurgling sound as if blood was flowing backward, as if the blood vessels in her body were beginning to "burst and bleed".

"Well……"

The "memory" in front of He Lingling was still vivid... She stood in the darkness, watching a "Thumbelina" from some unknown loop being beaten to death by an old field mouse, then dragged away and thrown into the main room, and then, the old field mouse raised the knife high in his hand...

The scene was so gruesome that it made one's stomach cramp and twist. He Lingling covered her mouth tightly, blood-red tears flowing silently. Deep in her eyes, something completely froze and went dark...

...Every time Swallow "rescued" a Thumbelina, a fleeting, cold assessment and...a barely perceptible greed, similar to that of the old field mouse, flashed in her beady black eyes.

My guesses were surprisingly close to the actual hidden plot by more than 90%!

The amount of information entering her brain was too much... He Lingling felt as if her brain had been thrown into a giant meat grinder after being forcibly stuffed with so many memories.

Every image that appeared in her mind and before her eyes carried the extreme pain and despair of the "Thumbelinas," washing away her rationality.

Under this intense mental pollution, He Lingling curled up in a ball and trembled violently.

She saw not only the despair of the "Thumbelinas," but also the disgusting mechanism behind this cycle.

Completely different from the original story... the foster mother in the story is not a kind woman who loves children, and the old field mouse is never a benevolent adopter.

The foster mother can only be described as an extremely self-centered and twisted psychopath, but the old field mouse... it is more like a shrewd "predator" and "tamer".

From the beginning of the story, the old field mouse has used "life-saving grace" and "food" as chains to gradually and silently bind the hands and feet of the "Thumbelinas" who have drifted here to escape the winter winds. He then "cultivates" them into "brides" who meet the requirements of different "clients"—docile, obedient, beautiful, and hardworking. Because they have eaten his food, their souls seem to be branded, making it impossible for them to truly escape.

Swallows are not the "saviors" in fairy tales; they are "smugglers" or "human traffickers" on another level, different from the old field mice in the burrow.

Its injury is fake, or even if it is, it's just part of the plan.

It cleverly exploited Thumbelina's kind heart, using the unattainable lie of "a warm south" as bait.

It lured the "Thumbelinas," who were trapped in the hole and unable to escape, to cooperate with it, making them jump from one cage (the hole) into another cage (the land of little people).

What the swallows need is simply the docile quality that the old field mouse has specially cultivated in the "Thumbelinas," so that they can "sell" them and receive a more generous reward from the "buyer" (the Lilliputians).

Moles, toads, the king of Lilliput... they are all "buyers" in this dark industry chain, and are "cages" in different forms.

They pay "bride price" (food, resources, or something else) to the old field mouse and the swallow in exchange for a "perfect bride" who has been "domesticated" and meets their expectations.

Those densely packed "claws" in the walls are not only monitors and "thugs," but also part of the "domestication system" of this underground cave.

He Lingling initially estimated that they were responsible for dealing with "disobedient defective products," absorbing Thumbelina's resentment and remains before her death, and maintaining the operation of the burrow itself.

The reason why the "contamination" on Yu Shijiu's arm makes the mole feel like it is "one of its own" is because this contamination comes from the burrow itself, from the "relatives" of the old field mouse behind those "claws".

It also originates from the "thugs" who obtain resources at the very bottom of this cycle system. Yu Shijiu is being identified and assimilated by these "thugs and claws".

"I really want to leave here..."

"I want to...I want to see dandelions fly out of...this hell..."

"...Save me...Save me...Whoever it is...please save us..."

"..."

Thumbelina's lingering will to live, like a candle flickering in the wind, rang out one last time on the verge of He Lingling's collapse.

He Lingling's eyelids twitched spasmodically as a possibility gradually took shape in her mind.

Is it...

He Lingling thought of Yu Shijiu's crazy, mutated left arm.

Pollution... is a conduit... or it could be a weapon... If Yu Shijiu uses pollution to get close to that head... could he destroy something?

He Lingling suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood and forced her eyes open.

The fragments of illusion before her eyes receded like a receding tide, but the lingering pain and bone-chilling despair almost overwhelmed her.

He Lingling knelt on the ground, panting heavily, dark red tears of blood streaming down her pale face.

On the other side of her, Yu Shijiu's situation was even more horrifying.

The changes in his left arm were completely out of control.

Thick, blackish-yellow hair, like living moss, covered most of his left side and even began to climb up his right cheek.

Beneath the yellow fur, the skin had turned a dull bluish-gray, covered with bulging, pulsating blood vessels.

In He Lingling's eyes, some tiny, dark red tentacles emerged from under the skin of Yu Shijiu's arms and neck, swaying slightly and emitting a sweet, rotten, and decadent stench that lingered in the cave for years.

He Lingling's breath hitched, and her face contorted in pain.

These red tentacles... what exactly are these things?!

The Yu Shijiu standing in front of her no longer looked like a normal person.

Yu Shijiu's right eye still barely retained human clarity, covered with dense blood vessels, while the white of his other eye had turned a turbid yellow, and the pupil had shrunk into a dangerous vertical line, resembling some familiar rodent.

It's... an old field mouse.

"Ho...ho..."

Yu Shijiu let out inhuman gasps, his right hand gripping the shoulder of his mutated left arm tightly, his nails digging deep into his flesh.

He Lingling knew that he was trying to use the excruciating pain to fight against the insane resentment and assimilation desire that belonged to countless "failed Thumbelinas" that was about to devour him.

"Pollution...leave..."

Yu Shijiu's consciousness struggled violently between chaos and clarity. As a "benefit" of being contaminated, he had just captured the fragments that He Lingling "saw" and heard "Thumbelina's" last hint.

“Lingling…Sister…”

Almost the next second, Yu Shijiu squeezed out broken syllables through his teeth.

His still clear right eye looked at He Lingling, filled with extreme pain and a hint of madness and desperation.

“Go…go find…you go find Sister An…they…are creating chaos according to plan…”

As Yu Shijiu spoke, he suddenly raised his completely mutated left hand. The hand was now swollen and deformed, with its five fingers bent like animal claws and its nails black and sharp.

As He Lingling's breathing became rapid and stopped, he forcefully plunged his mutated left hand into the cold earthen wall beside him!

It's not an attack, but... integration.

"Om-!"

Centered on the left hand point where Yu Shijiu inserted the claw, the claws deep in the wall that had previously remained "silent" over this area suddenly became frantic and restless.

He Lingling's pupils contracted, and she crawled forward weakly.

"Shi Jiu!"

Yu Shijiu seemed not to hear her voice; the contamination on his left arm acted as the strongest signal, instantly transmitted through the soil.

Those low-intelligence "claws," driven by instinct and some kind of profit, felt the extreme pain and violent "call" of their "kin," as well as a vague illusion of their "prey" escaping, and instantly became agitated.

Even though He Lingling wasn't as terrified at the moment thanks to the "Ghost Eye," she still trembled when she heard the dense scratching sounds from the walls and floor.

More importantly, Yu Shijiu's current state is like an extremely unstable "source of pollution," frantically disrupting the balance of power at the bottom of the cave.

In an instant, the entire cave area seemed to come alive.

Violent tremors came from all directions outside the cave, and soil fell in a flurry.

In He Lingling's wide, bloodshot eyes, countless thin, hairy claws, like wildly growing seaweed, frantically emerged from the walls, the ground, and even the muddy gray ceiling surrounding Yu Shijiu. They no longer scratched quietly, but wildly waved and tore, emitting ear-piercing friction sounds and strange rustling noises.

This is causing a huge commotion!

"Shi Jiu!!"

He Lingling's eyes widened in fury as she watched. Despite the excruciating pain of her muscles tearing apart, she tried to reach out and grab him, but was pushed away by an invisible wave of energy mixed with mad resentment and mental pollution.

It's the lingering resentment of "Thumbelina".

Yu Shijiu finally heard her voice and turned to look at He Lingling.

The beast-like yellow vertical pupil reflected He Lingling's entire blood-stained figure.

As He Lingling grew anxious and tried to pull him forward, he grinned, revealing a smile that was a mixture of pain and a strange excitement, and uttered his suggestion as his lips moved.

"Sister Lingling."

Yu Shijiu said with a grin, "Let's go."

"While we still have time, let's find the mole and fight it—oh no, I mean kill it, or... just destroy this place?"