Chapter 3: Scales

“Brother Ming, Brother Zhou Liming, wake up, wake up quickly…”

A somewhat ethereal shout came to his ears, causing Zhou Liming’s consciousness, which was sunk in darkness, to gradually wake up. The shaking of his body made Zhou Liming open his eyes with difficulty, but the tearing pain from his head made Zhou Liming, who had just opened his eyes which were still in a daze, see everything go dark, with golden stars constantly appearing.

Subconsciously, he used his hand to cover the place on his head where the tearing pain came from, but what he touched was some liquid that had become somewhat sticky.

Touching the wound on his head, the tearing pain became even more intense, causing Zhou Liming to hiss and suck in a breath of cold air. He put his hand in front of his eyes and saw that his hand was covered with dark black blood that had coagulated to become somewhat sticky. An uncomfortable feeling also came from his neck, and his collar was also stuck full of fresh blood.

With a “boom,” Zhou Liming was stunned; he simply did not know what was going on at all.

The thirteen or fourteen-year-old child, who had just been shaking Zhou Liming with a crying voice, saw that Zhou Liming had woken up. With a child’s nature, the fear from just now instantly turned into joy, and he said happily: “Brother Ming, that’s great, you’re okay now.” He had never encountered this kind of thing before; just now, besides being scared silly, he only knew to shake Zhou Liming to make him wake up.

Only with great difficulty did Zhou Liming come back to his senses. His lips were so dry they were cracking, and his throat felt like it was smoking. He said in an extremely hoarse voice: “I, I, what happened to me?”

At the mention of this, the child, Zheng Le, immediately stuttered a bit: “I… I don’t know what happened either. I… and Lu Lu and the others were looking at the flames in the sky, and then… then we heard a very loud sound from the yard. At that time, we didn’t pay attention and just kept watching the flames…”

Stumbling through his words, Zhou Liming finally understood.

To put it simply, Zheng Le and Lu Lu and the others were still thirteen or fourteen-year-old children, just like himself. Once the novelty of the strangeness in the sky passed, it became boring. The places to play in the Orphanage were just this lake, the woods, and the small playground not far away. Out of boredom, they naturally came to this place. Then they discovered the pit on the path and themselves, who had fainted.

The situation at that time truly gave them a big scare. Zhou Liming didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. There was a large pool of nearly coagulated blood on the ground, and his head and shirt were covered in glaring blood. Faced with this situation, the timid girls screamed and ran to find the staff of the Orphanage.

Only Zheng Le, who usually followed behind Zhou Liming often, managed to hold back the fear in his heart and desperately shook Zhou Liming.

Originally, with such a big commotion, it was impossible for no one to discover it, but the Dean had taken some staff to attend a small charity auction tonight. At that time, most people put their attention on the strange phenomenon in the sky, and with the sound of the meteorite belt friction covering it up, how would they notice just a single sound? Zhou Liming was also unlucky; who would have thought that staying here would bring such a disaster?

Shaking his head, Zhou Liming figured it out; he had been hit on the head by a splashing object.

He touched the wound on his head; the blood had already stopped. It was just that excessive blood loss made Zhou Liming feel his head was a bit dizzy, especially seeing the dark black blood stains sticking to the grass, a wave of dizziness surged up. He didn’t know whether he should cry or laugh. What made him want to cry was the unwarranted disaster he suffered, and what made him want to laugh was that he had a gash an inch long opened on his head, lost so much blood, and yet he didn’t die.

However, the aftereffects of excessive blood loss were still there; Zhou Liming felt his legs go soft even when he stood up.

The Orphanage staff who were notified arrived quickly. They didn’t investigate exactly what happened but supported Zhou Liming as they walked toward the Orphanage’s infirmary. When they reached the infirmary, the doctor in charge first looked at the wound. Seeing that it had already healed and stopped bleeding, he said: “It’s good, it has already healed. There is no need to put in stitches. Just clean the area around the wound, disinfect it, and bandage the wound.”

He shook his head, also feeling it was incredible. Such a large wound could actually heal naturally. Moreover, hearing the situation described by others, he had lost so much blood, yet the person was still so conscious, which really made him unable to figure it out. Logically speaking, with so much blood loss, he should have long since gone into shock from excessive blood loss and fallen into a coma, so how could he be like this now, with only a slightly pale face and a somewhat soft body?

However, he didn’t think elsewhere but deftly cleaned the wound, disinfected it, sprinkled muscle-growth powder on the wound, and then bandaged it with gauze.

After all this tossing and turning, it was already ten-thirty at night when he returned to the small dormitory.

Considering that Zhou Liming had lost too much blood, the staff member went to the canteen to boil a bowl of meat soup. Watching Zhou Liming finish drinking it, he instructed Zhou Liming to rest well before leaving with relief.

Zhou Liming lay on the bed, his head still faintly hurting. Although his body was somewhat soft, his mind was extremely clear, especially with his head wrapped up like a zongzi, so how could he fall asleep?

The Orphanage was somewhat old, but it occupied a very large area with several rows of houses that could accommodate over a hundred people living here. It was built in the 1980s in Zhe B City and belonged to a very professional orphanage institution. The biggest source of economy was relying on government subsidies and donations from people from all walks of life. It was just that recently Zhou Liming heard some rumors that the Orphanage was going to move to the outer suburbs of Zhe B City, because of the real estate fever in recent years, real estate companies had started to eye this large piece of land of the Orphanage.

These things didn’t seem to be something Zhou Liming could care about, but at least now this small single room was like his own home.

There was a small street lamp outside the room. By the light, one could see that besides a row of single beds, a table and chairs, and a small cabinet, there was nothing in the room. Lying on the bed, Zhou Liming had just closed his eyes and thought randomly about some things when he felt his head gradually become heavy, and the pain also gradually became intense.

Zhou Liming groaned slightly; once this pain flared up, it was like someone tearing his head apart, going deep into the bones.

“Didn’t the wound heal? Why does it hurt so much? Ah…”

The intense pain quickly exceeded Zhou Liming’s tolerance, making even the strong Zhou Liming unable to stop letting out bursts of weak roars, constantly hitting his head with his hands.

However, this method was of no use at all. Zhou Liming felt like someone was constantly stirring inside his head, his brain pulp like cement slurry stirred by construction workers. The nerve roots stimulated by the pain popped up one by one, and the blood boiled, rushing in the blood vessels. The heart beat frantically, completely losing its rhythm.

“Ah…”

Zhou Liming suddenly hugged his head and let out a roar, rolling off the bed and desperately rolling around on the floor.

He wasn’t considered strong, but at this moment his muscles seemed to swell up, propping up his clothes and pants. Hideous blood vessels, one by one, were almost about to burst through the skin.

Zhou Liming felt that the pain he had encountered in his whole life added together was not as much as what he endured in one second now. It was as if even his soul was trembling and being torn apart. He felt a power that was strong to the extreme start from his head and rush down toward his lower body, following the blood and seeping into every cell in his body. It was like getting a shot of adrenaline; every cell came alive. They wanted to resist this force, but this force was too strong, so strong that before the cells could even resist, they were crushed over…

“Roar…”

Just now it was only his head, but now every cell in his whole body seemed to be torn apart.

In a moment, sweat soaked his clothes. Zhou Liming clenched his teeth tightly. His incredibly strong willpower made him, even though he couldn’t bear it, only let out a muffled roar. He had to endure it because he didn’t want to cause trouble for the Orphanage; this was just the pain from the wound, it would be fine soon, it would pass soon.

Holding this thought, Zhou Liming only felt the pain becoming more and more intense, as if his soul was being stripped from his body.

Under the dim strands of light, Zhou Liming did not discover that every inch of skin on his body was gradually appearing a layer of thumb-sized dark green scales, which became clearer as the pain intensified, and even more terrifying was his hands and feet…