Kindhearted straight guy x sinister nonhuman being
Zhan Zhiqing was an ordinary university student with a good heart who loved feeding stray cats and dogs.
But one day, strange things began happening at home. Every night at midnight, he heard dripping sounds, and the lights would inexplicably go out.
No matter what he was doing, he would suddenly become unable to move, as if pinned down by a ghost. Then a cold, clammy sensation would creep from his feet up to his waist.
To escape the strange happenings, he accepted a professor's field research assignment and went to a remote mountain village.
Lanxi Village was surrounded by mountains and almost completely cut off from the outside world. Most of its residents were elderly. Zhan Zhiqing settled there and began his research project.
But while carrying heavy equipment into the mountains for his research, he found a child in an uninhabited ravine.
The child was filthy and seemed to be around seven or eight, but he seemed unable to understand human speech and wouldn't answer any questions.
With no other choice, Zhan Zhiqing brought him back to the village.
The villagers went pale when they saw the child he had brought back. The village chief told him that the boy was called Li Ergou, and that half a month earlier, he'd gone into the mountains to gather firewood with his grandparents. The whole family had fallen off a cliff, and their funeral had already been held.
But since no one had found the child's body at the time, and he was now alive and standing before them, they took it as a miracle.
As luck would have it, the house the village had given Zhan Zhiqing to stay in belonged to the child. So he took on the task of looking after him for the time being.
The child neither cried nor made a fuss. He didn't even eat or drink, but he followed Zhan Zhiqing everywhere like a ghost.
With no other choice, Zhan Zhiqing took the child with him to the mountains and rivers to conduct his research.
Gradually, Zhan Zhiqing noticed strange things. The child would crawl on top of him and lick him in the middle of the night, stare at him with a bizarre grin, and give dark, sinister looks to any villager who got close to him. The next day, something would always happen to those villagers' families...
Zhan Zhiqing also discovered... that the child's skin could be peeled off, revealing an indescribable mass underneath!
He had to run. He had to get away from this monster!
But just as he'd secretly packed everything and reached the village entrance, a long black tentacle dragged him into the woods...
*
It didn't know what it was. When it opened its eyes, it found itself in a strange world of bright lights and bustling streets.
It swallowed the first living creature it saw, a kitten, then put on its skin and walked out of the park woods.
It imitated the creatures whose skin it wore, licking its paws and grooming its fur, and learned to rummage through garbage cans.
Later, it wore many different furry skins.
One day, when it jumped onto a garbage can looking for food, a few children ran over, grabbed it, tied up its limbs, and kicked it around on the beach like a ball.
It hurt a little, and it didn't like that. Just as it was about to peel off its skin and eat them, someone ran over, shouting, and rescued it.
That person's embrace was as warm as sunshine, and their hands were so soft. Having its head patted felt wonderful, and that thing called cat food tasted delicious, too.
But this person was hard to find, appearing only once in a while. So it kept changing skins, showing up in his neighborhood, along his usual routes, at school, in the library...
Still, there were many days when it couldn't see him. It grew so anxious waiting that it decided to visit him every night...
But he didn't welcome it at all. He even ran away in secret...
It understood. It needed to wear the same skin as this person for him to see it. So it put on the skin of the dead child...
Premise: To be determined
