My Roommate is a Non-Human | Chapter 3 | The Jealousy of a God | Novela.app

Chapter 4 - The Jealousy of a God Everything had descended into utter chaos. Old Chu’s repulsive "sons" were currently breeding at an exponential rate, and we were completely powerless to stop them. Our only glimmer of hope had been pinned on my miraculous roommate, but as it turned out, that same roommate was now intent on wiping us all out simply because Ren Xing had the audacity to pursue me. Now, not only did we have to worry about Old Chu’s monstrous offspring, but we also had to fret over my roommate’s impending apocalypse. Of course, what weighed on my mind even more was a personal slight: if my roommate was going to destroy the world, how could he possibly have forgotten me? *Liu Wukong, when you were pedaling away on that bicycle of yours, did you not notice that something was missing? Did you not realize that your little boyfriend was no longer on the back seat? Talk about being scatterbrained. You’re the one who told me I might even be pregnant, yet you handle things like this... it’s heartbreaking. I’m so angry I’m about to have a stress-induced miscarriage.* As Ren Xing and I stood there, staring at each other in a daze of mutual confusion, thunder began to rumble outside. The buildings in this area were quite low—relics of an older era—and the wide gaps between them offered an unobstructed view of the horizon. We hurried out onto the balcony, only to see lightning webbing across the distant sky. It wasn't just a few stray bolts; it looked like a massive cage of electrified barbed wire had been dropped over a vast swathe of the city. The sheer brilliance of the discharge made me fear for the safety of the silhouettes of high-rises trembling on the skyline. For a moment, the only sound was a deafening, continuous *crackle-pop*. Below us, many elderly residents had crawled out of bed in the middle of the night, pointing at the heavens with trembling fingers. "Look there," Ren Xing said, gesturing toward the space directly above our heads. A massive vortex of swirling clouds hung low over us, nearly brushing the rooftops. At the center of the whirlpool, something unknown pulsed with a deep, vermilion glow—flickering in and out of existence. Every few seconds, a thunderous roar erupted from the center, sounding like a colossal celestial boiler about to burst. It was a sight designed to inspire nothing but primal terror. "What exactly *is* he?" Ren Xing hissed through gritted teeth. I tried calling my roommate, hoping to plead for mercy or at least ask him to come pick me up. The automated voice informed me that he was "outside the service area." Not only that, but I nearly got struck by lightning for my trouble. While the bolt missed me, the surge blew out every single lightbulb in Ren Xing’s apartment. Shards of glass rained down onto the floor. Ren Xing grabbed me and hauled me back inside, slamming the balcony doors shut. He cut the power and water, and we huddled on the floor by the shoe rack in the living room, staying as low as possible. In the darkness, I attempted to call Lu Daoshi. I was dying to know what my roommate’s deal was—how he could be so terrifyingly powerful. I felt like he had let slip quite a bit of information tonight, and Lu Daoshi was the only one who might be able to piece the puzzle together. I gave Lu Daoshi a frantic summary of the situation. The signal was abysmal, and halfway through, Lu Daoshi cut me off, demanding Ren Xing’s address. I told him it was too dangerous to come out, but he wouldn't listen; he insisted on seeing the situation for himself. About twenty minutes later, a frantic pounding echoed at the door. we scrambled to let him in. "Your house is... it’s..." Lu Daoshi’s face was as white as a sheet. "It’s terrifying!" Ren Xing’s apartment was only about sixty square meters, and now, with lightning flashing from every direction, the interior was illuminated as brightly as high noon. The ivy clinging to the window frames had been scorched and shredded by the electrical discharge, hanging there like a row of charred corpses. The three of us huddled together in a tight knot on the living room floor, listening to the thunderous *crack-boom* as the lightning seemed to target the building specifically. "What the hell is going on?" Lu Daoshi screamed. The noise was so overwhelming that we had to shout just to hear one another. I screamed back, "Ren Xing tried to hit on me, and my roommate lost his mind!" Lu Daoshi let out a string of curses. "Are you insane? I’m asking why the weather suddenly turned into a scene from the end of days!" He cursed again, muttering something about how asking us was a waste of time. I shouted back even louder, "But we *do* know! It’s because Ren Xing pursued me! My roommate got jealous, so he turned a perfectly clear night into this!" Ren Xing pulled out his phone, plugged in his earphones, and shoved them into Lu Daoshi’s hands. Lu Daoshi gave him a suspicious look but put them on. Ren Xing started playing a recording. Had he actually recorded everything my roommate said earlier? I shot him a look, and he gave a grim nod. After listening to the recording, Lu Daoshi set the phone down. He pulled out a stack of paper and a pen. The three of us lay flat on the floor, beginning to communicate through writing. Speaking had become an exercise in futility. Lu Daoshi wrote: *The way he speaks is very strange.* I wrote: *He used to be... well, a bit childish. His vocabulary was limited. But tonight, he sounded like a completely different person.* Ren Xing added: *That last thing he said—'When the third sun rises, I shall overthrow this city with flood and fire, and none shall survive'—what does he mean by 'the third sun'?* I felt a slight wave of relief and wrote: *Luckily we only have one sun... maybe he’s just trying to scare us?* Lu Daoshi shook his head and wrote: *No, he means in three days. His Chinese sounds like it’s full of grammatical errors because the language he is accustomed to is likely ancient—something from the very dawn of linguistic development. When he says 'the third sun rises,' he actually means 'the third time the sun rises.' This suggests his native tongue lacks measure words, which is why he confuses 'times' with 'units.' Furthermore, he calculates time based on celestial movements. This is an incredibly archaic method used by almost all ancient civilizations; the Egyptians used the rising of Sirius to mark the new year, and the Babylonians developed their calendars and sexagesimal system for similar reasons. He doesn't speak like a modern human.* I: *...* Ren Xing: *...* I: *Who do you think he is?* Lu Daoshi started to write, then hesitated, scribbling out his words several times. Finally, he wrote: *The things he said can be found in the Bible.* Holy crap! Why was it always the Bible? Lu Daoshi continued: *There is a city in the Bible called Sodom. It was a place of great debauchery and was known for its tradition of same-sex relations. In the end, Yahweh destroyed it. From what I can see, what we are experiencing bears a striking resemblance to those records. In the Book of Genesis, Yahweh speaks of Sodom’s sins being 'grievous' and reaching His ears. He also speaks of 'overthrowing the city' so that none remain.* My god. My roommate is God? I seem to have found myself a rather high-profile boyfriend. This is getting out of hand! Ren Xing wrote: *But he has almost no sense of morality. He’s exceptionally brutal and views humans with utter contempt. Is there really a 'God' like that?* Lu Daoshi wrote: *My understanding of myths and legends is that they don't record the absolute truth, but rather prototypes that existed in history, which were then processed and embellished. We cannot measure 'It' against the image of the benevolent God we are familiar with today, because what stands before us is the raw prototype of the myth. Humans created religion because they felt no sense of belonging in a terrifying natural world; they imagined a fatherly deity. But what a deity is actually like is hard to say. If they truly exist, I can't think of a single reason why they would show grace to humanity. In many pagan traditions, divine favor must be bought with sacrifice—and those sacrifices are usually bloody. It looks more like an equivalent exchange.* We fell into a long, heavy silence. Ren Xing finally shook his head and wrote: *What do we do now?* Lu Daoshi: *There is nothing we can do. If what you say is true—that the lightning outside, the vortex above us, and the electrical cage sealing the city are all caused by Ye Xiao’s roommate—then we are helpless. He is god-like. And you... why did you have to go and try to date Ye Xiao, of all people?!* Ren Xing ignored the jab. Instead, he looked at me and scribbled: *So, who is Ye Xiao?* Seeing them both turn their focus on me, I waved my hands frantically. Ren Xing wrote: *If Ye Xiao were just an ordinary person, there’s no way he would have caught the attention of someone like his roommate. That entity has no affection for humans.* Lu Daoshi stared at me as well. Ren Xing continued: *He grows mushrooms. He heals himself instantly.* *Hey, hey! Don't sell me out like that!* Lu Daoshi had a look on his face that said, "Is that so? That’s pretty badass." *What’s so badass about it?!* Lu Daoshi wrote: *In the mythologies of various cultures, the consort of the chief deity usually represents extraordinary vitality. Just by standing in a field, they’d probably cause the wheat yield to triple.* I wrote back: *I’m not a goddess of fertility, I’m just a walking bag of Jinkela fertilizer.* They actually had the nerve to chuckle. Since they were already suspicious of me, I decided to lay out everything that had happened to me from the beginning. *It all started two years before my roommate arrived,* I wrote. *The real Old Chu was killed by a monster that wears human skin. That monster lived in our dorm as Old Chu and was very close to me. Then my roommate arrived, and 'Old Chu' started courting me. When I rejected him, he planted those spider-things in Chun Xiao’s belly, and my roommate flayed him. We thought it was just a gruesome murder and took the case to the Provincial Forensic Bureau, but the thing escaped by wearing the skin of the security captain. Also, based on the appearance of 'Old Chu’s' offspring, I’m certain the monster that ate Chun Xiao’s 'melted organs' in our dorm bathroom was also 'Old Chu.' We now know those fluids were actually her liquified internal organs. Its feeding method is likely similar to a spider’s: inject, dissolve, suck. And during that injection process, it plants its offspring inside the host.* Ren Xing and Lu Daoshi, who both knew about the horrific "bloody bathroom" incident, nodded as they read. Ren Xing wrote: *So you’re saying that after being taken to the forensic bureau, the monster masquerading as Old Chu actually returned to your dorm?* I: *Yes. And time stopped when it happened.* Ren Xing: *Just to feed?* Lu Daoshi seemed to think that was a bit excessive for a mere meal. The monster was quite the foodie. Ren Xing motioned for me to continue. I wrote: *After time resumed, I was immediately attacked. The monster that attacked me came from the consciousness of some sensitive art students. It takes over their bodies by replacing their consciousness, and eventually, it seems to 'eclose' from within them. I saw it happen—Jin Mu’s body became like a pupa, it split open, and the thing crawled out. That monster has been after my heart. It wants it desperately.* Ren Xing: *Do you think the shadows that attacked you here tonight were also part of it?* I: *I don't know, but they must be related. It’s been appearing as Zhang Litian lately. My roommate has been hunting down the humans controlled by it. It seems to know me, too. It said I made some kind of deal with it, but I’ve forgotten. I don't think I’d ever agree to sell my own heart...* Ren Xing looked at me but didn't write anything else. He began to list out a timeline. He circled the "time stop" event. It was strange for the flayed "Old Chu" to appear during a time stop, and the heart-stealing monster appearing right after was no coincidence. He believed there was a connection between the two. Lu Daoshi wrote: *Maybe they’re besties.* He paused, then added: *Maybe you’re besties with them, too.* Then: *Let’s talk about your 'roommate' bestie.* I wrote: *He’s... well, he smells like the sea. He works part-time washing dishes, he likes cats, and he brings me duck blood vermicelli soup for a midnight snack every night. I’ve seen three of his forms. One is the handsome guy you’ve seen. The second was on the night we... well, after we were done, he started molting. Underneath, he looked like a dried corpse, but his head was like a lamprey—no eyes, just a circular maw.* I drew a quick sketch and continued. *The last form was when he was swimming in the sea. He was massive, like a small island, with huge bony plates on his back.* Lu Daoshi wrote: *You are a very brave man.* I: *He’s actually very good to me. He pampers me.* Ren Xing: *...* Lu Daoshi: *So, can you go 'flirt' with your boyfriend a bit? Be cute, make him calm down?* I wrote: *I want to! I was even prepared to let him take me back and do... whatever! But he’s so angry he 'ran back to his mother’s house.' My roommate usually has a great temper! He must be truly furious this time.* To be honest, I was getting a little annoyed too. Our domestic life wasn't exactly harmonious to begin with, and now our relationship was falling apart. How were we supposed to make this work? Ren Xing: *...* Lu Daoshi: *Fine. Does your roommate have a specific purpose for being in the human world?* I: *I don't know. He’s very passive. All he does is show up to play the hero whenever I’m scared out of my wits. It feels like he has a grudge against Old Chu and Zhang Litian; he said he wanted to cast them into the Abyss. The only time he took the initiative was when he pretended to be Ren Xing to take me to a hotel.* Lu Daoshi: *Are you pregnant yet?* I: *I haven't had a chance to go to the hospital for a check-up. After I called him out on his disguise, my roommate still refuses to admit it was him in that bed.* Ren Xing: *He’s hiding things from you.* Lu Daoshi: *Be careful you don't end up like Chun Xiao. Their way of breeding isn't the 'nine months of pregnancy' you’re thinking of. If he’s hiding it from you, it can't be anything good.* I knew that! I’d been terrified this whole time! I’d already coughed up meat slurry, for heaven’s sake! I’m going to the gynecologist tomorrow. *** **Glossary**