My Roommate is a Non-Human | Chapter 29 | The Primordial Deterrent | Novela.app

Chapter 30 - The Primordial Deterrent “Think about it again,” Lu Daoshi said, his voice dropping into a low, analytical register that made the hair on my arms stand up. “Flaying is a task that requires immense technical skill and precision. To perform such an act, the perpetrator must first be an intelligent life form. Without a sufficiently high level of cognitive function, one simply cannot execute it. And as with any creature possessing intelligence, their actions are almost always driven by a specific purpose.” I stared at him, my mind a blank slate of growing dread. How was I supposed to know the motivations of a monster? I was just a student trying to survive the semester, not a profiler for supernatural entities. Lu Daoshi turned his gaze toward me, his eyes sharp behind his glasses. He asked me what I felt when I first learned that Old Chu had been flayed. The question felt like a physical blow. “Isn't it obvious?” I stammered, the memory of that gruesome discovery flashing behind my eyelids. “I was terrified. Utterly paralyzed. My skin crawled just thinking about it. Every time I have to use the communal bathroom at night, I’m looking over my shoulder, terrified that I’ll be the next one turned into a human anatomy exhibit.” “Exactly,” Lu Daoshi nodded, as if I had just provided the final piece of a complex puzzle. “In biology, we call that empathy. The perpetrator successfully triggered a profound sense of empathy between you and the deceased Old Chu. You didn't just see a corpse; you saw your own potential fate. In strategic terms, this is called deterrence.” He leaned forward, the shadows of the room deepening around him. “It uses a method of extreme cruelty to force other beings—including humans—to avoid certain areas or to live in a state of constant, submissive fear. You must understand, Ye Xiao, that flaying has appeared in various religious rituals since ancient times. It was always a display of power, a way for gods or shamans to manifest their absolute authority over life and death.” He reached out and tapped the photograph of the Majungasaurus fossil, his finger landing right on the jagged impressions of the scales. “Look at this. The region in central France where this was found was once a flat, sprawling rainforest. During the Jurassic period, it was thick with towering ferns and prehistoric flora. Below the Lias Group strata, the number and variety of dinosaur fossils are staggering. It was a vital, bustling link in the ecological chain of that era. But above the Lias Group? Within a hundred-mile radius, not a single other dinosaur fossil has ever been unearthed. It’s as if they all evaporated overnight.” I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. The silence in the room grew heavy, suffocating. “The very last dinosaur fossil found in that entire region,” Lu Daoshi continued, his voice barely a whisper, “was this Majungasaurus—a giant, apex predator that the local dinosaurs of the north had never encountered before. It was an outsider, a nightmare with a scent they didn't recognize. And it didn't just die. It was flayed. Its skin was stripped away and hung up like a banner of conquest. What do you think that means?” I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like it was filled with dry sand. The connection he was drawing was too massive, too ancient to fully comprehend. “So... what you’re saying is... the owner of this scale killed and flayed a Majungasaurus two hundred million years ago, and then on September 20th, it did the exact same thing to Old Chu? All of this... just to bluff us? To scare us away?” Lu Daoshi didn't answer immediately. He just stared at the ancient scale, his expression unreadable. The idea that we were dealing with a prehistoric deterrent—a message sent across eons through the medium of flayed skin—settled in my gut like lead. If this was just a "bluff," I dreaded to think what the creature would do when it actually decided to get serious.