Chapter 186: The Man in the Vat (Best Not to Read While Eating!)

Chapter 186 The Man in the Tub (Don't Read This While Eating!)

Outside Room 602.

The Ability "Silent Command" spread like an invisible curtain, enveloping the area. Within its range, all information flowed in the form of unique sound waves—no whisper from any being or object could escape Meng Siyou's ears.

He quickly pieced together information about the apartment's owner: "Male, around thirty years old, heavyset."

"Returned from abroad three days ago and hasn't left since, bizarrely ordering large quantities of purified water..."

Water.

Meng Siyou frowned, his nose seemingly catching that odd fishy odor again.

Could the apartment owner's abnormality also be related to consuming the so-called Universal Capsule?

To document the entire investigation, Meng Siyou turned on the bodycam in his chest pocket, adjusted the angle to ensure clear footage, and then began his operation.

First, he knocked politely on the door. Receiving no response, he pulled out the "Key to the New World's Door" from the system shop, unlocked the apartment door with two quick turns, and silently stepped into the dimly lit space.

The moment he entered, Meng Siyou stopped dead, nearly kicking over an empty plastic bucket—

Looking down, he saw the floor cluttered with stacks of purified water jugs. Some were unopened, some completely empty, some standing upright, others toppled over, leaving almost no space to step.

On the shoe rack by the entrance, two stacked receipts showed that the apartment owner had ordered five buckets of water yesterday afternoon and urgently added another thirty this morning—hoarding water like there was no tomorrow.

Just then, a faint voice drifted from the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

Weak, like a sleepy mumble, interspersed with the sound of sloshing water:

"Water... need more... so much water..."

"Thirsty... gulp gulp... still so thirsty..."

Realizing something was wrong, Meng Siyou forgot about stealth and kicked aside the water bottles, rushing to the bathroom in a few strides before wrenching the door open.

Instantly, a thick mist billowed out.

Dense water molecules wove into a palpable shroud, clinging tightly to his mouth and nose, choking him with oppressive moisture.

Meng Siyou instinctively squinted, adjusting to the dim, foggy bathroom before his gaze dropped to the bathtub.

It wasn’t just filled with water—it held a person of grotesquely distorted form.

The man in the tub was completely naked, his skin separating from his flesh at the edges, revealing rippling, pale stretch marks. The thin skin floated up and down with the water’s movement, like a diaphanous membrane or the fin membranes of a fish.

Compared to the loose, oversized skin, the man’s flesh was tightly shrunken inside, as if a slender frame wore an oversized coat. Only his belly remained swollen, stretching the skin taut around his waist—looking ready to burst at any moment, spilling out his bloated organs... or something else entirely.

Less a living person and more a water-bloated corpse.

Recalling the apartment owner’s originally obese physique, Meng Siyou couldn’t help but form a horrifying conclusion:

The man in the tub had likely lost weight at an unnatural speed over just three days.

So fast that his stretched skin had no time to shrink back, instead dangling limply, even separating from his flesh, drifting in the water like fins...

Hearing the door open, the man’s eyeballs rolled slightly, but his gaze remained glazed and empty.

His eyes bulged unnaturally, covered in a thin, glistening film—resembling the mucosal layer of a fish’s eyes, making them seem more suited to an aquatic creature than a human.

Through the rippling water, the man stared blankly at Meng Siyou for a moment but showed no normal reaction to a stranger intruding into his home.

His only response was to open and close his mouth like a fish, guzzling water in large mouthfuls, further inflating his already distended belly.

The skin of his stomach stretched taut, nearly translucent with a bluish-purple tint, veins visible beneath.

Meng Siyou genuinely feared that if the man kept drinking, his belly would burst like an overinflated balloon...

He instinctively reached out, about to pull the man from the tub, when a line of golden text appeared before his eyes:

"Take a closer look first—what exactly is the 'water' in the tub?"

His hand froze just above the surface. A shiver ran down Meng Siyou’s spine as he slowly lowered his gaze to inspect the bathtub.

Upon closer inspection, the seemingly clear water had an unnatural, oily surface, its surface dotted with shimmering particles.

They flowed thickly, gathering at the edges of the tub into bulging, circular oil slicks. These circles crowded together, their greasy reflections shimmering in Meng Siyou’s vision, casting iridescent hues like soap bubbles under sunlight—mesmerizing and nauseating.

At the same time, an oddly sweet greasiness hit his nostrils, reminiscent of cooled meat broth.

Meng Siyou paused before finally realizing—

The water was mixed with... fat.

It was... the fat leaching from the man’s body.

Who knew how long the man had been soaking? Much of his fat might have already washed down the drain, leaving only diluted remnants floating on the water’s surface, forming those glistening, floating slicks...

So the scent he’d noticed earlier... was the sickly-sweet grease smell of human fat?

And he’d almost stuck his bare hands into it!

Meng Siyou’s skin crawled. He retched in revulsion but couldn’t vomit.

Through the rippling water, he caught his own reflection—pale-faced, lips pressed tight, eyes bloodshot and pupils contracted to dots.

Staring at his reflection, his thoughts grew foggier, as if his rationality had been ensnared by those oily circles, whirling and undulating with them until dizziness took over.

He couldn’t look away, watching the fat split, split, split...

Into finer, smaller films, undulating in the water before merging back into larger ones, swallowed and reformed.

In that moment, Meng Siyou’s consciousness seemed to lighten, shrinking into a bubble smaller than a fingernail, compressed by countless oily membranes, his consciousness torn apart and remade with something foreign...

Dizziness.

Nausea.

Unconsciously, he leaned lower, face nearly dipping into the oily water—

"Wake up!"

A familiar voice boomed in his mind like lightning splitting the dark, jolting him back to awareness.

Just a fraction closer, and he would’ve willingly climbed into that tub...

Revolted and trembling, Meng Siyou straightened and retreated to the bathroom door.

Now, when he looked back, the man in the tub wore a faint, ghostly, knowing smile, his bulging eyes staring blankly in Meng Siyou’s direction.

In the dim light and the squelching sounds of water, that ghost of a smile was particularly chilling.

...So, had he been smiling from the very beginning?

Meng Siyou tried hard to recall, but after the traumatic shock, his mind felt like a rusted-shut iron box—no matter how much he strained to pry open, he couldn’t retrieve any more detailed memories.

"Stop thinking about it," Wu Suer sighed. "Contact the agency you belong to and have them send a Life Domain specialist."

As his time spent with the prophet increased, Meng Siyou's trust and obedience toward this high-ranking figure also increased day by day.

He hadn’t even noticed it himself—now, he rarely remained suspicious of the prophet harming him. Instead, he subconsciously followed the other’s advice—especially when facing extreme and dangerous situations.

When human common sense and wisdom no longer worked, he could only turn to this otherworldly being's counsel.

"Yes, I’ll contact headquarters immediately..." He paused, then added sincerely, "And... thank you so much for waking me up in time."

Wu Suer gave a mirthless chuckle and said bluntly, "After leaving your consciousness, I still have many things to do—I hope occasions requiring my intervention will be fewer in the future."

Did that mean, in the future, if Meng Siyou encountered a crisis where the prophet had no choice but to intervene, he would still intervene?

Though his tone was reluctant, even impatient, his deeds spoke of kindness...

Meng Siyou’s mouth quirked briefly before he forcefully suppressed it, coughing and nodding. "Of course."

The Anomalous Affairs Bureau’s response team moved with military precision.

In less than an hour, they had completed a series of actions—bringing in a Life Domain specialist to treat the tub-dweller, sending the apartment owner to the hospital, and establishing a perimeter.

Meng Siyou also found a familiar white medicine bottle in the bedroom nightstand, with two capsules left inside.

Gently shaking the bottle, Meng Siyou watched the two blue capsules collide inside, muttering under his breath:

"I remember that woman mentioning before that there were ten capsules in a bottle... So, the apartment owner must have taken eight. Why did the abnormal reaction occur so quickly?"

Using the Anomalous Affairs Bureau’s resources, he exhausted all domestic and foreign leads on Universal Capsules but found almost no similar cases—and given the grotesque circumstances of the "person in the tub" scenario, if other cases had occurred, it would be nearly impossible for there to be no traces or reports.

This meant the apartment owner might be the first to manifest adverse effects after taking the drug.

It wasn’t surprising that Universal Capsules had unpredictable side effects;

But what was strange was—why was the apartment owner the first to become abnormal?

What was special about him?

Meng Siyou treated this as priority one.

Because "the first" often meant "special"—a precious case that required careful analysis. If they could quickly uncover the underlying cause, perhaps they could prevent more people from meeting the same fate in the future.

Deep in contemplation, Meng Siyou sent the bottle containing one capsule back to headquarters for professional testing;

He kept the other one himself, putting on specially made gloves that could shield against energy contamination, and carefully twisted the capsule open.

With a muffled "pop," the capsule split in half, and the drug inside flowed out through the gap, landing in a glass vial.

The reek of fish intensified. Meng Siyou stared at the substance in the vial, his expression turning puzzled.

Inside the capsule... was only water.

To be precise, it was brine—rank with fish and tinged with salt.

Nothing else.