Chapter 7: Lucian The Man With A Million Mistakes

"Malenia, Maeve. Daddy's home!"

Sometime more than 3 years ago, Lucian still carried the stoic face and eyes filled with void in him; but they once again instantly disappeared as soon as he stepped inside his house —

"Ah, Daddy!"

"Oh, did my baby girl miss me?"

—and replaced only by a very gentle smile as he picked up and carried his daughter. He wasn't as tired yet, of course, he worked a mundane job as an accountant in some local retail store,

"Hm…? Wait, don't tell me you haven't taken a bath yet, hm…?"

"Hehe… I'm waiting for Mommy to wake up!"

"What? You mean Mommy fell asleep?"

"No. I'm waiting for her to wake up."

Those words. Those words started and ended everything for Lucian. He had always lived a very weird life; hiding away from the world that wanted to bring him down. Lucian perceived life and the entire world differently; his mind, unable to stop thinking even once.

He wanted to end it all, but his wife… Malenia saved him from the chaos. With her, he was normal.

But all of a sudden, the hand of the world reached him again. It was just supposed to be a normal day until he saw Malenia lying in bed; her skin melting away with each of her hampered and faltering breaths.

And before he could even feel a tinge of sadness or anger, he heard a thud behind him. And when he looked, he saw his daughter suddenly lying on the ground; both of them contracted the Rot at the same time, with Malenia's condition a lot worse.

And once again, his entire life changed.

He used up his entire life savings to procure pills and all sorts of materials that would help him synthesize a cure that would completely stop and eradicate the Rot entirely — and he did the former, in a way.

On his very first try, he was successful in creating a cure that would slow down the progress of the Rot — but not completely stop it. He tried and tried again, but he could not find a solution to completely stop it from spreading — and so, his only chance was to completely eradicate it.

And he did, actually — he was successful in synthesizing a cure for the Rot in his very first trial, or so he thought.

T1A.

The mouse he injected T1A with, Subject 1A, was completely cured by the Rot. Of course, he wasn't going to immediately inject his wife and daughter, he needed a human subject…

…Himself.

He did not wait at all — one of the many mistakes he had made in his life… but perhaps the only mistake he would ever repeat again and again.

A few hours after injecting the T1A on himself, he noticed Subject 1A eating the lithum he had placed inside the cage to promote the Rot in its body… and afterward becoming extremely feral after it was done, running around its confinement and almost managing to shatter it.

That was when Lucian realized he had to develop another suppressant, not for the Rot… but for himself.

He locked himself in his little laboratory as soon as he felt himself change. He tried consuming raw lithum, as T1A was calm whenever he had his fill — but it never did anything for him. It took Lucian almost an entire day to come up with something that would suppress his sudden urge; he would fall unconscious from time to time, only to wake up with his laboratory completely trashed.

The lithums he gathered all scattered everywhere with bite marks, but never consumed almost as if they were just thrown away after a single bite.

Even with this, however, it took Lucian just an entire day to come up with a drug that would suppress his sudden change of… nature.

He used to inject himself once a week, and then it became once every other day, and once a day… until he had to use it several times in a single day.

He was becoming worse — he knew he was running out of time. Not for himself, however, but for his family. He needed to find a cure for the Rot…

…before whatever it is that he turned himself into completely overtakes him.

***

"M… Maeve…"

"Doctor! He's awake! The patient on 69B woke up! Should… should we call the police!?"

"They're already here, just having coffee outside! Sir, do you know your name? Sir?"

Back in the present, Lucian found himself coming into and out of consciousness as he stared at the ceiling above him. He knew he was in a hospital, he just couldn't do anything but lie on his bed.

"...Maeve."

"Maeve…? Is that your name?"

"Where's… where's my daughter? My… my wife?"

"Sir, I don't know where they are. Can you tell me your name? Sir?"

"Zhang… Lucian Zhang," Lucian answered weakly as he followed the light being flashed on his eyes by the doctor attending him, "My family… where… where are they?"

"I don't know where they are, Lucian," the doctor placed his flashlight in his pocket, "Do you know where you are, Lucian?"

"...Hospital."

"Okay. Are you feeling any pain, Lucian?"

"...No."

That was the truth. For some reason, as Lucian was becoming more and more lucid, he also realized just… how light he was feeling — perhaps because it was the first time in 3 years that he had actually fallen asleep, literally.

"I need to go home."

"Sir, you—!!!"

Lucian sat up from the bed and tried to get up, but he was not able to — not because he was still too groggy or weak to do so, but because his wrists were bound to the bed. Were.

He completely shattered the cuffs; even bending the frame of the bed.

"Lucian, please calm down! Guards, guards!"

"I am calm," and as the doctors and nurses started to panic, Lucian just stared at nothing in particular, confused only for a second before lying back down on the bed, 

"Calm is my default disposition, Doctor. I apologize for scaring you. But I need to get back to my wife and daughter, can you please remove my restraints?"

"They are not going to do that, Mr. Lucian Zhang. All of you out."

"But the patient—"

"Out."

A group of individuals wearing suits with unusually long coats barged inside Lucian's room, quickly kicking out all the nurses and doctors without even any regard for them.

"Humans," they were being led by a woman who was wearing a pair of sunglasses and an oversized cap even though they were inside, "Can't live with them, can't live without them."

One of the men then grabbed a chair and placed it in front of Lucian's bed, where the woman who seemed to be their leader sat and even leaned close to Lucian, placing her hand on the mattress.

"My name's Mary Ross, and we're from the Heaven's Judgment sect," the woman, Mary, slightly leaned down so that Lucian could see her light purple eyes which seemed to have some sort of insignia right in the center of the irises, "Or you might know us as the Immortal Police sect…

…we're sort of transitioning on that because our old name just sounds so archaic and menacing. We don't want people to be afraid of us, you know. Especially these little Gen Z bitches. We're like—"

"Ma'am, you are losing track."

"Right," Mary then raised her finger as one of her men advised him, "Mr. Lucian Zhang, do you remember anything?"

"No…" A lie. He remembers everything — he remembers the hunger, and he remembers how he just bit Foreman Yang's neck before opening up his stomach…

…and then devoured the lithum inside his body. Of course, Lucian was not about to say that to the woman smiling at him, 

"...I just want to see my wife and daughter."

"You mean these two?" Mary then threw a couple of photos on Lucian's lap, and he quickly grabbed them to look at them, only to see Malenia and Maeve, fortunately in their respective beds and rooms.

"Are they…"

"Alive, but not for long," Mary shrugged, "That's kind of how the Rot works, you know. Just a few weeks, and the humans just wither. Quite interesting that you're married to a human, you know?"

"Why would a human be interesting in marrying another human, Ms. Ross?"

"Drop it, Mr. Lucian Zhang," Mary shook her head and sighed, "There's no use hiding anymore…

…you're a Cultivator."

"A Cultivator?" Lucian blinked a couple of times as he looked at his hands,

"...Is that what you see me as?"