Blood Neon-Chapter 5

Chapter 5
About the Body (2)
Speaking of it, Lin Ying had thought a lot about what exactly she could be considered now.
She had three simple guesses.
The first one was the theory she currently felt explained her situation best: she was an indescribable monster with a beautiful girl growing out of its head to deceive others. In a way, it was somewhat similar to those Vtuber-like entities, only more despicable. Truly vile—something that deserved to be glared at with tentacles.
The second was that she was a mass of indescribable tentacles, which had, without any conscious intent, attacked a beautiful girl and parasitized her, taking control of her body. Just like a horsehair worm, she had begun using the host to carry out her grand mission of survival. Though that idea reeked of a certain overused internet meme, it still wasn’t entirely impossible.
And then there was the third: she had originally been an innocent, cute girl, just enjoying hotpot, singing, and strolling down a nighttime street… until one day, some sanity-eroding worm from an unknown dimension had burrowed into her.
Hiss...
Honestly, the first two weren’t so bad—at least, in those scenarios, she still had a sense of self. She, Lin Ying, was the main body, and with her own free will, she hunted and survived.
But that third possibility was truly creepy. What if she was the mantis, and the grotesque, indescribable thing beneath her was actually the parasitic creature? What if she was being driven by it, used like bait to hunt her own kind, all the while under the illusion that she was the one feeding and surviving? That was just too horrifying.
But then again, it did make sense. A normal person, with their body and brain taken over, suddenly experiencing an awakening of memories from a past life—this might lead them to mistakenly believe they still had a sense of self.
“You’re awake. The surgery was a success. You’re now a ghoul. Go eat someone first.”
That was possible, right? Considering how her memories were hazy, hadn’t countless novels described the same scenario? Something like: after a serious injury, near death, and a bunch of drama, they suddenly awakened memories of a past life... Right—just like in the Ganges River.
Sigh. That kind of possibility was deeply unsettling.
If normal people could come to understand themselves through mirrors or by observing others, Lin Ying found herself in a very awkward position now. She had no peers to observe, no proper “mirror” to truly reflect her image. Maybe some Taoist temple somewhere sold demon-revealing mirrors? That might actually work.
So, all of her self-awareness now could only come from how she felt within her own body—eating, reacting to humans, the sensations when lifting an arm or stepping forward. This directly led to her understanding of herself being akin to the blind men and the elephant… or in her case, tentacles groping a maiden.
Lin Ying speculated that the first scenario was still the most likely. It best explained her experiences over the past week or so.
At present, many of her emotions and thought patterns felt like a kind of “phantom pain”.
Phantom pain typically occurred in patients who had undergone amputations. After losing a limb, the brain continued to operate on the assumption that it was still there. When it sent out signals for movement, it expected feedback as usual. When that feedback failed to arrive, the system glitched and pain occurred.
To put it simply: when you make a fist, the process involves the brain sending a signal, the fingers moving, the fingers touching the palm and sending feedback, and the action being completed. If part of the hand was missing, the brain would still run the same pre-programmed action. Without the feedback signal of finger touching palm, the conditions weren’t satisfied, and it would assume the fingers were still trying to bend. Relying on prior knowledge, the brain would then think the fingers had pierced the palm. And that thought alone would trigger a pain signal in the cortex.
Thus, one of the most baffling behaviors of the human brain—phantom pain—was born. Treating it, though, was relatively straightforward. One common method was having the patient move in front of a mirror. By observing their reflection, they could gradually rewire their subconscious to accept the changes in their body.
In short, phantom pain was a clear demonstration of how complex and mysterious the brain’s neural networks were. It could, quite literally, "think itself into pain." On the flip side, the ability to treat phantom pain using mirrors was proof of the brain’s plasticity. In fact, the links between neurons in the human brain were highly dynamic—just keeping your eyes shut tightly for a while could already cause notable disorientation when you opened them again. And it wasn’t just because of light sensitivity—during the brief period your eyes were closed, some of the neurons in the visual cortex had likely been "borrowed" by other parts of the brain.
There was even a theory that the reason people saw visual imagery in dreams was to keep the visual system active during sleep—preventing it from being overtaken by other high-demand brain regions and thus avoiding sensory degradation.
By that logic, Lin Ying had plenty of reason to believe that her current emotions and desires stemmed mostly from the inertia of once being human. After all, if she now thought humans looked as appetizing as little buns, how could her neural system still be the same as a human's?
Therefore, to avoid losing her humanity entirely, she had to reinforce that fragile inertia through self-recognition.
Don’t underestimate a (former) human, okay kora.
Practically speaking, it meant that even if human food now tasted bland, she had to keep eating it. She needed to give herself a name, to strengthen her identity as a human individual. She needed to follow human routines, behave according to human customs, and maintain a human-like appearance—at the very least, not go around skipping clothing.
And so on, and so forth.
It was okay to think humans tasted good, but she also had to remind herself that cola tasted great too.
Imagine waking up one day, unable to tell whether you drank Pepsi or Coca-Cola. That would be terrifying. That sort of confusion had to be avoided at all costs.
Alright, that would be her provisional survival goal.
Each day she would emerge at sunrise and rest before dawn. At night, starting around eleven or twelve, she would wander through high-risk areas, relying on the "luring prey with a beautiful girl" strategy to feed herself.
This body of hers could go without eating humans for about a week at most—assuming she could regularly consume other high-protein alternatives in the meantime. Gnawing on a tree… might help with digestion.
If luck wasn’t on her side, Lin Ying would have to consider taking the initiative. Although she didn’t have any concrete plans at the moment, maybe hitting up bars or clubs wouldn’t be a bad idea?
Please, someone save this poor girl—she hadn’t eaten in days. Could someone just drop something in her drink so she had an excuse to dig in?