261: Chapter 261 A Hymn to the Outsiders

At the northernmost tip of the Huaxia map lies Mo City.

This is the edge of the national border, a land of exile permanently ruled by cold currents.

It was one in the morning; despite being midsummer, the temperature outside was already near freezing.

The wild wind, carrying snow grains as hard as gravel, tirelessly lashed against the attic's thin window frames.

The "crackling" sounds were like countless hands scratching from the outside, trying to pry open this final sanctuary.

Inside the attic, only a single dim, yellow light bulb swayed overhead.

The mixed-race youth, Danyi Lopivich, curled up in an old wool blanket,

holding a heavy Russian edition of "Crime and Punishment" in his hands, his grayish-blue eyes drifting across the pages.

Dostoevsky's moral judgments were too heavy, and too human.

That was the struggle and redemption belonging to normal human society, whereas he...

Dan Yi subconsciously touched his high bridge of the nose and deep-set eye sockets.

In this secluded middle school in Mo City, such looks were an original sin.

His classmates called him Maozi and bastard,

some mischievous children would even throw coal cinders at him on his way home from school to vent their rejection of an outsider.

That kind of loneliness wasn't standing on the edge of a crowd, but being surrounded by one yet feeling as if separated by a thick layer of bulletproof glass.

"Buzz—"

The phone screen by his pillow suddenly lit up, piercing the suffocating silence of the attic.

The phone by the pillow vibrated, and the notification sound for a special follow pierced the air.

Dan Yi's previously vacant gaze instantly froze.

Almost reflexively, he tossed aside the copy of "Crime and Punishment" that the world revered as a literary benchmark.

The book slid onto the floor with a dull thud.

He didn't even bother to pick it up, his trembling fingers grabbing the phone.

On the screen, the black avatar pulsed.

[The "Hell Dream Weaver" you follow has just posted a new chapter of cthulhu mythos!]

Just those few words made Dan Yi's heart beat violently.

It felt like hearing a summons from deep within his bloodline,

a low-frequency vibration that only those of the same kind could perceive.

Without the slightest hesitation, he clicked to continue reading.

The cold light of the screen reflected on his deep-featured, clearly non-average mixed-race face, making him look somewhat pale and fanatical.

The words poured out like a tide.

It was no longer the dry, biting cold of Mo City that threatened to crack a person open.

The world under the Dream Weaver's pen was moist and viscous, carrying a nauseating, fishy saltiness.

[The bus to Innsmouth was dilapidated, its windows covered in years of grime.]

[The driver was an oddity with a short, thick neck and eyes set too far apart; when he turned to stare at me, his eyelids seemed never to blink, like some kind of fish living in the deep sea...]

Dan Yi's breathing quickened.

This feeling was all too familiar.

He thought of the long-distance bus in Mo City that went to the county seat.

In winter, the windows would be covered in thick frost,

and the cabin would be filled with the smell of sweat and rotting frozen pears.

Every time he boarded, the driver with the fleshy face would look at him with that same gaze.

There was no kindness in that gaze, only the scrutiny of an outsider and an undisguised loathing.

The passengers on the bus would instinctively move away from him,

as if he carried some unspeakable contagious disease.

"A fishy-smelling bus..."

Dan Yi murmured softly, his fingers sliding across the screen.

The protagonist in the book arrived at that cursed town on a rainy night.

The streets were empty, the houses decayed, and the air was filled with that lingering smell of dead fish.

Then, that cursed term jumped into his sight without warning—

—[The Innsmouth Look].

[It was an extremely unsettling appearance.]

[Their heads appeared too narrow, their eyes always bulged out abruptly, and their eyelids seemed to have lost the ability to close.]

[Their skin took on an unhealthy, grayish hue, and there were strange folds on their necks...]

[Those were not traits humans should have at all; it was some kind of regression, or...]

[Evolution?]

A normal reader would likely have felt a chill down their spine by this point.

But Dan Yi did not.

Or rather, he didn't even have time for fear.

A current-like shiver exploded along his spine; he nearly stumbled as he threw off the blanket and rushed barefoot toward the full-length mirror in the corner.

By the dim, flickering light, he stared intently at the face in the mirror.

Grayish-blue pupils, deep-set eye sockets, high brow bones, and skin so pale it was almost bloodless.

In the eyes of Mo City's people, this was weird.

This was the "Innsmouth Look."

"So... this is what I am."

Dan Yi's fingers trembled as they touched the cold mirror surface, his fingertips tracing his face that was regarded as an outsider's.

His scalp tingled; it was a shiver, but not from fear.

He stared at himself in the mirror, the corners of his mouth pulling back uncontrollably into a distorted grin.

The monsters under the Dream Weaver's pen,

those hybrids isolated and rejected by mainstream society, forced to live in dark corners,

actually made him feel an unprecedented sense of kinship.

Compared to the "normal people" on the streets of Mo City who were sanctimonious and spoke of benevolence and morality while spitting behind his back,

these fishy-smelling monsters in the book seemed so real, so endearing.

The plot continued to advance.

The protagonist was pursued in a hotel in the town.

The sound of wet palms or feet slapping the floor came from the corridor outside, and muffled whispers came from the room next door.

The sense of oppression through the words almost drowned Dan Yi.

But he didn't stop.

He seemed to be self-flagellating, yet also searching for some kind of truth.

Until—

during his escape, the protagonist finally uncovered that despair-inducing secret.

It turned out that the fear of the Innsmouth people, that biological revulsion, did not come from the outside.

It came from the bloodline.

[I looked at myself in the mirror and finally understood where that strange sense of familiarity came from.]

[My ears began to sharpen, and my neck started to itch...]

[It turns out I am one of them too.]

[The blood of the Deep Ones flows in my veins; the sea is calling me. That is not hell; that is my home.]

"Boom—"

His vision focused on that line of text,

and in Dan Yi's previously blank mind, a clap of thunder suddenly exploded.

[It turns out I am one of them too.]

Images from deep in his memory began to flash back wildly—

—the Russian mother who had disappeared early on, the father who drank all day and pointed at his nose calling him a "bastard," and the disdainful looks at school.

All along, he had thought he was trash abandoned on land.

"Bastard..."

Dan Yi chewed on the word, the fear in his eyes receding bit by bit, replaced by an eerie light.

Yes, his father was right. He indeed wasn't human.

But he wasn't trash.

He was a wolf among sheep, a child of the deep sea who had strayed into the shallows.

The image in the mirror that had previously disgusted him now actually looked pleasing.

Those bulging eyes were for seeing in the deep sea, and those strange folds were gills that had yet to fully develop.

The corners of his mouth began to twitch uncontrollably, and a series of broken airy sounds escaped his throat,

which then turned into uncontrollable wild laughter.

The laughter echoed in the empty attic, carrying a neurotic tremor.

Tears slid down his high bridge of the nose, dripping onto the phone screen and blurring that line of text.

"So I'm not the only one."

Dan Yi held the phone, slowly squatting on the ground, burying his face in his knees like a child.

He was certain now.

This author called "Hell Dream Weaver" was definitely not writing some horror novel.

He was writing about loneliness.

He was writing about that bone-deep, unassimilable sense of rejection.

"Hell Dream Weaver, I suppose... you're a monster too?"

Dan Yi looked up, a fanatical light shining in his grayish-blue eyes.

He began to wildly sketch the author's image in his mind.

That person must also live on the edge of the world, just like him.

Perhaps they had a face that wasn't accepted by the crowd,

or perhaps they had some unspeakable physical defect.

He hid in the darkness, weaving these nightmares about alienation, bloodlines, and monsters with words.

It was a signal to their own kind.

It was telling all the "Innsmouth people" like Dan Yi:

Don't be afraid; the sea is our home, and those normal people on land are the prey we are to devour.

This was a more complete resonance than with Gregor from the metamorphosis.

Gregor turned into a beetle and could only die in despair.

But the monsters of Innsmouth were to return to the sea and gain eternal life.

"I'm not afraid anymore."

Dan Yi stood up and walked to the window again.

He looked at the blizzard dancing outside the window, at this Mo City that was full of malice toward him.

Before, he felt this place was a cage.

Now, he felt it was merely temporary land.

He felt something inside him awaken.

The low self-esteem and cowardice accumulated over the years were replaced at this moment by an eerie pride.

He was a descendant of the Deep Ones.

What do these mortals know?

...