Chapter 524 - 465: Chaisi: Seeing Daiju Monroe Again

Chapter 524: Chapter 465: Chaisi: Seeing Daiju Monroe Again

Chaisi had never seen so many residents.

Perhaps they loved a spectacle, or perhaps the scene currently unfolding in the butcher shop was a novelty even for them. Before long, the shop was packed inside and out with things Chaisi wanted nothing more than to pound into a pulp, one by one.

The residents stood in the cramped shop, craning their necks to see the corpse on the stainless steel slab. Those who couldn’t squeeze inside clung to the windows, pointing and tapping on the glass.

No matter how he flailed or roared, he couldn’t make the residents from twenty-five years ago move an inch.

"If she’s left out any longer, she’ll start to decompose and spawn more residents,"

a resident who looked deceptively normal, like an ordinary housewife, remarked while looking at the corpse on the stainless steel slab. "She’s going to become a resident in the end anyway, so why go through all this trouble? Besides, it’s not natural. I’m a naturalist."

The throng of residents, however, had left a single gap, and through it, Chaisi could see Kai Luonan.

Kai Luonan sat amidst the room full of residents. At a glance, Chaisi could barely distinguish him from the crowd—the man to whom he owed the greatest debt in his life.

Surrounded by residents, Kai Luonan was visibly tense, perched on the edge of his chair, ready to leap up at a moment’s notice.

"These gawkers... Aren’t you going to drive them out?" Kai Luonan asked the butcher resident, one hand resting on his hip.

"They’re neighbors. No need to be so cold,"

the butcher resident said with a wave of its hand, nearly dislodging a neatly sliced piece of flesh from its face. It adjusted the face-meat and continued, "Besides, the more residents there are in the immediate vicinity, the higher the chance a dead person will transform into a complete resident. You’re a Hunter, aren’t you? How could you not know that?"

Kai Luonan’s expression didn’t change, and he offered no reply.

But Chaisi could tell he was silently committing this piece of information to memory.

Even now, in this situation, Kai Luonan was still memorizing valuable clues about the Nest.

Chaisi was suddenly grateful the shop was so crowded—as long as he didn’t walk through the residents to get closer, he could only see his mother’s feet.

Those feet were a deathly pale, stiff and curled, looking even colder than the stainless steel slab.

’No, no, that’s not Mom. Daiju Monroe is already gone. This is just a trace she left behind in the world.’

’...Just like me.’

"Before we begin, I’ll detail my requirements." Kai Luonan’s words stabbed into Chaisi’s ears.

"You have *detailed* requirements?"

The butcher resident had already picked up its knife—to cut meat. It was actually going to cut meat.

’No, not meat. A trace, just a trace, not Mom...’

"Of course. Since I’m the one paying, I’m the customer, and I have the right to make requests." Kai Luonan’s voice was calm, as if this were a perfectly ordinary, everyday conversation. "First, from the brain, find her memories of her son."

’...What?’

"Oh," the resident grunted, then violently raised the huge bone cleaver in its hand and brought it crashing down onto the corpse on the stainless steel slab.

Chaisi squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear his own ragged breathing, his irrepressible whimpers—and Damian’s distant, incorporeal laughter and applause.

He didn’t dare look, but the sound of the blade chopping into his mother’s corpse, blow by blow, felt as if it were hacking into his own flesh and bone.

’...Kai Luonan knew that my greatest fear in life was becoming useless and incompetent.’

In this "movie" of what happened after his mother’s death, there was no one more useless and incompetent than the Chaisi of this moment. Separated by twenty-five years, whatever he said or did now had no more force than an empty gust of wind.

"She did have a son," the resident said, pausing its knife work as if surprised. "I see it. Wow, she was still thinking about him right before she died. I don’t get it. You want me to cut this out?"

"Not all of it," Kai Luonan said. "Just leave enough for her to remember she has a son."

"What do you mean?"

"Leave only the information that ’her son is Chaisi Monroe’," Kai Luonan ordered, as if the resident were just another Kai Family Hunter under his command. "But sever her obsession and affection for the child and take it out. I want it whole. Don’t chop it to pieces."

"Now that takes real skill with a knife," the resident said, swapping its cleaver for a pointed knife from the counter behind it. "You’ve got a good eye, coming to me. An ordinary butcher shop wouldn’t have this kind of skill."

’After it’s cut out... what will happen?’

As if hearing his thoughts, the "voice-over" chimed in at the perfect moment.

"After she turns into a resident, she will still remember you," Kai Luonan’s voice-over explained. "She’ll remember giving birth to you, how she raised you until you were five... All those memories will be there. Because one day, if I have use for her, I need you to recognize that she is, in fact, your mother, and not just some shapeshifting resident."

’But...?’

"But her feelings for you will have been cut away. To her, you’ll be no more important than an ordinary neighbor."

The butcher resident was old-fashioned. It pulled out a sheet of oiled paper from somewhere, wrapped up a piece of grayish-pink meat, and offered it to Kai Luonan.

Kai Luonan didn’t take it. He just shook his head and said, "Set it aside for now."

"What’s next?" the resident asked, putting the paper-wrapped bundle down. "Once it’s cut, I can make anything you want, depending on your tastes. Sausage? Cured meat? Ham?"

Kai Luonan thought for a few seconds.

"Her face and torso are no good..." he muttered to himself. "Her appearance can’t be too ugly, too frightening. I have to consider several scenarios... the scenario where he’s obedient, and the one where he’s not."

"What?" the resident asked, its sectioned eyebrows knitting together.

"If I had a leg chopped off, turning her into a one-legged resident, it would certainly have a greater impact, but it would also stray too far from her former image. Besides, it lacks taste. Her appearance needs to remain mostly the same, but with something missing... Hmm, something that sounds tragic and easily stirs up emotion."

He quickly made up his mind. "The heart. Cut out half her heart."

Kai Luonan was very pleased with his decision. "Missing half a heart... that sounds quite tragic, doesn’t it?"

Chaisi heard a rattling sound, but he couldn’t tell if it was his teeth, his throat, or his entire body turning into a wooden bead curtain clattering in the wind.

Soon, another oil-paper package was set aside.

"What else?" the resident asked, full of anticipation.

Kai Luonan stood up and picked up the oil-paper package containing half the heart. "The ’meat’ that held her obsession and affection was originally connected to the ’meat’ that held the memory of her son, correct?"

"Correct," the resident replied. It paused, then, as if it suddenly understood, it let out a long "Ohhh... Don’t tell me you’re..."

Chaisi didn’t know when he’d collapsed to the floor. He sat with his eyes closed and his head bowed, not daring to listen, but every single word came through with chilling clarity.

"Help me put the meat containing her feelings into the space left empty by the heart."

Chaisi’s mind went blank. He no longer had the will to guess at Kai Luonan’s purpose.

"This way," Kai Luonan’s voice-over explained with near-perfect calm, "when she fully transforms into a resident, all of her obsession and affection for you will be transferred to her own heart."

’...And then?’

"She will search for her missing half-heart the way a mother searches for her lost child. She will love that half-heart as deeply as a mother loves her child. As for ’Chaisi Monroe,’ he will become inconsequential to her."

Kai Luonan let out a slow sigh.

"Next, I had the butcher resident air-dry that half of the heart, cure it like jerky, and I later brought it back to the human world."

’...So that’s how it was.’

’So this was the card Kai Luonan had kept up his sleeve.’

"This trick only works on the premise that you’re sentimental by nature and could never forget your mother," Kai Luonan said, as if lamenting. "I took a gamble, betting that you wouldn’t grow up to have a different disposition. See? Didn’t I win that bet? I’m not made of stone; I raised you, after all. I had hoped I would never have to let you know what became of your mother."

He paused for a few seconds before continuing. "...It’s precisely because a resident made from Daiju Monroe exists in the Nest that other residents were able to imitate her appearance, which ultimately led to Damian’s death. You owe me my son’s life. That much hasn’t changed."

By keeping the heart, Kai Luonan could control the resident that was once Daiju Monroe. And by controlling the resident that was once Daiju Monroe, he could indirectly control Chaisi.

’But that’s not Mom, right?’

Daiju Monroe was long gone—even if that corpse were to open its eyes and stand up again—

Chaisi suddenly curled into a ball, like a wolf too gravely wounded to lift its head, and let out a long roar at the ground beneath him.

"I knew she would soon awaken as a resident. Carrying the half-heart she cherished as her own life, it was no longer safe for me to remain. So I handed it to a Household Hunter and had him take it back to the Kai Family first, while I sat in the butcher shop, waiting for the moment she ceased to be human completely."

Chaisi wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of begging Kai Luonan to end the movie sooner. He knew Damian would never agree anyway.

He could only remain curled up, sitting numbly at the butcher shop’s entrance, listening to the sounds from within.

Kai Luonan’s feet walked away, then returned. He must have handed off the heart.

After an unknown amount of time, a sudden commotion and cheering erupted from inside the shop. Through the wave of noise, Chaisi heard it—the soft RUSTLE of cloth and skin sliding across the stainless steel slab.

The sound of a pair of bare feet stepping onto the tiled floor.

A still-familiar voice mumbled, sounding like a whimper, or perhaps a moan of pain from a headache.

Chaisi began to tremble uncontrollably.

"She’s about to walk out the door."

Kai Luonan’s voice-over whispered in his ear, like one of his low-voiced mission briefings from the past. "Do you want to look up?"

From the doorway of the butcher shop behind him, a shadow slowly emerged.

As the shadow fell gently over Chaisi, all reason failed him. Unable to stop himself, he slowly, inch by inch, lifted his head.

He finally saw his mother again.

But Daiju Monroe could no longer see him.