69novels Chapter 689 The Worst Guess!
Chapter 689 The Worst Guess!
Matteo opened his mouth as if to say something casual like, "I'm back to get something," but before he could finish speaking, he caught a glimpse of a figure standing at the end of the corridor.
Lynn stepped out from Mateo's door, his figure fully revealed in the living room light. He wore a dark coat, his shoulders and back were straight, his left arm movement was still slightly restricted, but his gaze was steady. He said nothing, he just stood there.
Matteo's expression changed instantly.
First came surprise, followed by the natural hostility and wariness a young man feels when he sees a strange adult male on his own turf. His gaze swept from Lynn's face to Lynn's figure, then to Carmela, and finally settled on the all-too-natural familiarity between the two. His expression immediately turned ugly.
"Who is he?" Matteo's voice deepened.
Before Carmela could speak, Matteo had already drawn a conclusion that was clearly most hurtful to him. He chuckled, but his laughter was entirely cold: "Well, Carmela. I've only been away from home for a few days, and you've already brought your boyfriend home?"
"What nonsense are you talking about—" Carmela's face flushed red, and she took a step forward in anger.
"I'm talking nonsense?" Matteo threw the plastic bag onto the coffee table with a thud. "Then why did he come out of my room?"
The air in the living room seemed to tighten instantly. The excited shouts of the commentator on the television across the hall created an absurd contrast with the silence on our side.
Lynn looked at Matteo, not immediately offering an explanation. The young man's current state was typical—exhausted, shocked, annoyed, and instinctively defensive after his territory had been invaded, plus a hint of jealousy and a sense of being replaced. The more hastily he explained, the more it would be perceived as a provocation.
Carmela was furious: "He's not my boyfriend! What are you thinking about all day long?"
Matteo stared at Lynn, his sneer deepening: "Not your boyfriend? Then what is he? A plumber? He doesn't look like a plumber at all."
Lynn finally spoke, his voice low: "You're quite good at judging people."
This neither-too-soft nor-soft remark made Matteo even more uncomfortable. He narrowed his eyes, looking Lynn up and down: "Who are you?"
"Lynn."
"Just give your name?" Matteo sneered. "Sounds like a cop."
Carmela's heart leaped into her throat. Just as she was about to interject, Lynn spoke up first: "No."
The answer was too bland, sounding both casual and deliberately avoiding the main point. Matteo clearly didn't believe him, his gaze growing colder: "Then why did you search my room?"
“Because your sister is worried about you,” Lynn said.
“I’m asking you, not her.” Matteo took a step forward, his shoulders and back slightly tense, the prelude to an attack honed in the street environment was obvious. “You’d better not try to brush me off with that.”
Carmela immediately stepped between the two: "Matto, you stop right there."
"Move aside." Matteo didn't look at her, his eyes fixed on Lynn. "He came into my room, went through my things, and you told me to stand still? Is this why you've been so busy lately and haven't been replying to my messages? You've been bringing strange men home behind my back to investigate me?"
"You didn't come home for a week first!" Carmela finally exploded. "I called you but you didn't answer, and when I texted you you just replied 'I'm fine' and then disappeared again! Do you know how I felt when I saw you covered in blood on the street in the middle of the night? Do you know how I thought the next call I would receive wouldn't be from you, but from the police station or the morgue?"
Matteo's Adam's apple bobbed, and something flashed in his eyes, but that slight hesitation was quickly suppressed by his defensiveness. He turned his head away, as if not wanting to be hit hard by her words, and his tone became even more aggressive: "That's no excuse for you to bring people to search my room."
“If you had just asked, I wouldn’t have done this at all.” Carmela’s eyes were already red, but she still glared at him. “Matto, do you think I wanted this?”
Lynn stood a few steps away from the two men, not moving forward. He observed Matteo's posture, eyes, and breathing. The young man appeared like a cat with its fur standing on end, but in reality, he hadn't fully shifted his weight forward, and his fists weren't clenched tightly. This indicated that he was more interested in intimidating and questioning them than in immediately attacking.
"Where did you get that injury on your hand?" Lynn suddenly asked.
Matteo looked at him abruptly, as if he hadn't expected the other to suddenly change the subject: "What's it to you?"
“You’re not applying it correctly.” Lynn’s gaze swept over the haphazardly applied gauze on the back of his hand. “If you keep it covered, it will get infected.”
Carmela, still angry, instinctively looked at Matteo's hand upon hearing this: "Are you hurt again?"
"It's nothing." Matteo quickly hid his right hand behind his back, the movement almost instinctive.
“Show me your hand.” Carmela immediately stepped forward.
I told you I'm fine!
As he dodged, his sleeve was pulled up slightly, revealing the skin above his wrist. Under the living room light, a tiny, transparent crack seemed to flash across that small patch of skin, as if something was slowly growing beneath a thin layer of ice. Then, it vanished as if it were just an illusion.
Lynn's eyes darkened.
Carmela had obviously seen it too, and her expression changed instantly: "Matteo..."
Matteo immediately pulled down his sleeves, as if his last bit of covering had been stripped away, and his whole body tensed up: "Don't look at me like that."
"What did I see in you?" Carmela's voice trembled. "Tell me what you were touching!"
"You wouldn't understand even if I told you!"
"Then why don't you say it first!"
"What did you say? That I'd be in excruciating pain at night, like glass was stuck in my bones? That my hands would crack if I exerted any force? That the people at the registration center would lock me up for six months just to see me like this?" Matteo, finally pushed to the edge, raised his voice sharply, his eyes filled with suppressed anger and embarrassment. "You're a nurse, Carmela, of course you'd only think of taking me to the hospital, getting me checked out, and filling out the records. But I'm not a patient, and I don't want to be treated like a medical record number!"
Carmela was taken aback by his words, her lips moved but she couldn't respond for a moment.
Lynn, however, quickly gleaned a more crucial point from those few words: "Did someone give you something to suppress pain or stabilize the mutation?"
Matteo turned sharply to him, his eyes like knives: "I wasn't talking to you."
“Answer me.” Lynn’s voice remained calm, yet carried an undeniable force. “Is it an injection, a pill, or powder?”
"Who the hell are you?" Matteo finally snapped. He stepped over the edge of the carpet and charged at Lynn, his shoulders taut as if he were about to ram her. "What right do you have to interrogate me in my own home?"
Carmela was startled and quickly tried to stop him: "Matto!"
Lynn didn't back down, only slightly shifting his body when Matteo closed in to within an arm's length, avoiding direct force on his left arm. Looking at the young, haggard, angry, and clearly strained face before him, he suddenly spoke: "Because the way you look right now is exactly like those people who are tricked into moving forward like expendable fodder." These words were more precise than any provocation, directly hitting the spot Matteo least wanted to be pointed out. His movements abruptly froze, and the pure anger in his eyes instantly turned into a hint of panic at being seen through.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through gritted teeth.
“You know,” Lynn looked at him, “your first reaction when you got home wasn’t to ask why your sister was looking for me, but to ask if I was a police officer. That means you’ve been involved in things lately that you’ve implicitly assumed will involve law enforcement. You thought I was her boyfriend not because you care whether she’s dating or not, but because your first thought is that she’s brought someone else into a safe area that you could have controlled. You’re unhappy not just because I went through your room, but also because you’re afraid she’ll find out too much.”
Matteo's face gradually darkened, and his Adam's apple bobbed heavily.
Carmela stood to the side, staring blankly at the two of them, as if she had forgotten to even interrupt.
“And another thing,” Lynn continued, “you came home without a change of clothes or anything that would keep you here for a while, only carrying a bag of odds and ends you bought on the spur of the moment, which means you didn’t plan to stay long. You just came back on a whim, maybe to pick up some things, or maybe to check if it was still safe here. But you didn’t expect to run into us.”
“Shut up,” Matteo whispered.
"The wound on your hand wasn't from a street fight. The edges are too clean, like it cut itself when the crystals spread outwards. Your symptoms have gotten worse recently, haven't they?"
"I told you to shut up!"
It was almost a shout.
The next second, a series of sharp cracking sounds came from under the gauze on the back of Matteo's hand, like an extremely thin pane of glass being forced open by internal forces. Transparent crystals rapidly spread along the edges of the gauze, thin and sharp, reflecting the light from the living room chandelier, cold as ice. Carmela gasped, her face instantly turning deathly pale: "Mateo!"
Matteo himself seemed startled, taking a sudden half-step back and gripping his wrist tightly, cold sweat immediately beading on his forehead. His breathing was rapid, his eyes filled with a fierce yet clearly painful expression, as if something was slowly tearing apart his flesh.
Lynn didn't pull out his weapon or back down, but his voice deepened: "Watch me. Don't let it go any higher."
"Don't fucking order me around—" Matteo gritted his teeth, but before he could finish speaking, his body visibly swayed.
Carmela, disregarding everything else, rushed over and grabbed his other shoulder: "Matto, breathe in, slowly, slowly! Look at me, do you hear me? Don't fight it, sit down first—"
"Don't touch me!" Matteo instinctively tried to shake her off, but stopped abruptly halfway through, as if afraid of hurting her, and could only awkwardly pull himself back. His whole body arched from the pain, his shoulder blades were so tense that they felt like they were about to split, and transparent crystals were faintly visible under his skin, winding along the veins on his wrists and the backs of his hands, a scene so eerie that it sent chills down one's spine.
Lynn took a half step forward, his gaze falling on the layer of crystal, and quickly made a judgment in his mind.
It's not a completely stable mutation; it's more like crystallization, exacerbated by external induction leading to imbalance. The spread is rapid, but it hasn't completely reached the forearm yet. Matteo's continued consciousness indicates that it hasn't reached a point of complete loss of control.
"Do you have ice at home?" Lynn asked.
Carmela paused for a moment, then immediately realized: "Yes, in the kitchen refrigerator!"
"Wrap it in a towel, don't put it directly on your skin," Lynn said.
Carmela turned and ran into the kitchen. Matteo, leaning on the edge of the coffee table, looked like he was about to vomit, but still glared at Lynn: "How the hell do you know all this?"
“Because I’ve seen it before,” Lynn said.
"What have you seen? A monster like me?"
As soon as he said that, the living room seemed to pause briefly. Even the sound of Carmela rummaging through the ice cube tray in the kitchen seemed distant.
Lynn looked at him, not immediately answering "no," nor offering the most hollow reassurance. After a few seconds, he simply said, "I've seen many people think they're beyond saving, only to find out they aren't."
Matteo tried to laugh, but could only manage an awkward smile: "Don't give me that."
"Believe it or not, it's up to you." Lynn watched his fingers tighten and loosen little by little. "But the fact that you still have the energy to yell at me means things haven't gotten to the worst yet."
Carmela rushed back with an ice pack wrapped in a towel, approaching cautiously: "Matto, can I put it here? I won't press on your wound, I'll just put it next to you..."
Matteo was panting heavily and didn't flinch, only turning his face away. Carmela slowly placed the ice pack near the outside of his wrist, avoiding the most obvious crystallization. As soon as the cold pressed down, the wildly protruding transparent rift did indeed subside a little. Matteo clenched his teeth, his forehead pressed against the back of his hand, his whole body trembling.
"How often?" Lynn asked.
Matteo ignored it.
"How often does it flare up?" Lynn asked again.
“…It’s not fixed.” This time, it was Carmela who answered. She squatted down next to her brother, her eyes red, and tried to keep her voice steady. “At first, it was once every two weeks, then once a week, and in the last two weeks it has become much more frequent.”
Lynn looked at Matteo: "Did the person who gave you the things say why it's happening more and more frequently?"
Matteo looked up sharply, his eyes full of wariness: "I didn't say anyone gave me anything."
“You don’t need to say anything, the conclusion is right here.” Lynn swept his arm over his arm. “Naturally awakened mutations don’t feel like being forced in a certain direction by something. What you’re doing now is more like someone temporarily suppressed the symptoms with an external medium, and then the side effects started to come back at you.”
Carmela's face drained of color almost instantly: "Side effects?"
Matteo pursed his lips tightly, offering no denial.
Carmela seemed to have been struck by the silence, her voice changing: "You really used something?"
“It was just… just something to make it hurt less.” Matteo finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, as if each word was stuck between his teeth, “It actually worked at first.”
"what?"
“I don’t know the formula.” Matteo closed his eyes, his breathing trembling. “It’s a liquid, pale purple. Like an injection. Sometimes they’ll give me those water-soluble chip fragments, saying that only a small amount is needed.”
Lynn's worst fears had finally come true.
Carmela could barely keep her balance, her hand still pressed against the ice pack, but her voice was shaky: "Are you crazy? You dare to inject something of unknown origin into your body?"
"What else could it be!" Matteo suddenly erupted again, his eyes filled with anger and embarrassment. "You haven't experienced that feeling of knives growing in your bones! It's okay during the day, but you can't sleep at night at all. I tried to tough it out, I tried drinking, I tried tying my hands together, nothing worked! They said they could help me get through the initial phase, and I believed them. At least after using them, I can go to work normally, I can walk, I can talk, and I'm not a useless cripple lying in front of you anymore!" (End of Chapter)