Cupid kept scooping. Handful after handful of pure animal fat, shoving it into Tòumíng's mouth, manually operating the throat muscles to swallow, the body's digestive system forced into accepting massive quantities of dense calories.
One handful. Two. Five. Ten. The process was mechanical, disturbing to watch—a corpse consuming food through puppet-like movements, no breathing, no life signs except the methodical eating.
Měi Nán watched with tears streaming down his face, occasionally helping steady the bucket when Cupid needed both hands to scoop.
Ghost Claw stood off to the side, her gas mask finally removed, her expression caught between horror and fascination.
Fifteen minutes later, Cupid stopped. He checked the internal caloric reserve counter that the M.I.N.E. system provided.
Current Stored Calories: 19,000
He opened Metabolic Healing, focusing on the brain damage assessment.
CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED:- Temporal Lobe: Severe trauma- Brain Stem: Partial destruction
- Frontal Cortex: Multiple bullet impact sites- Neural Pathways: Extensive severing
REQUIRED CALORIES FOR FULL REPAIR: 86,500
Fuck.
He tried activating the skill anyway.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
He tried again, forcing the command through sheer will.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Again.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
"Come on," Cupid muttered through Tòumíng's mouth, his frustration building.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Again.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Měi Nán's hand touched his shoulder. "Is it not working?"
"It will work," Cupid said with determination he didn't entirely feel.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Again.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Again.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
"Please," Cupid whispered, trying one more time.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Tenth attempt.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Eleventh.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
Twelfth attempt. Cupid put everything he had into the command, seventeen thousand years of willpower focused on making the skill activate despite insufficient resources.
INSUFFICIENT ENERGY RESERVES. HEALING CANNOT PROCEED.
WARNING: PARTIAL HEALING OPTION AVAILABLE
Current reserves insufficient for complete neural reconstruction. However, emergency partial healing protocol can be initiated using available calories. This will:- Stabilize critical brain stem function- Repair essential neural pathways
- Restore basic consciousness capability- Leave residual damage requiring additional healing later
WARNING: Partial healing may result in temporary cognitive impairment, memory gaps, or altered personality traits until full reconstruction is complete.
PROCEED WITH PARTIAL HEALING? YES / NO
Cupid didn't even finish reading the warning before slamming YES.
The skill activated.
And immediately, Cupid flexed every nerve in Tòumíng's body, taking manual control of the entire nervous system. He blocked pain signals, redirected neural pathways, held back the tsunami of sensation that was about to hit.
Veins bulged across Tòumíng's skin. Visible. Pulsing. So many veins that he looked like a character from Baki, the kind of exaggerated musculature that shouldn't exist in reality but did because of the sheer force being applied to every biological system simultaneously.
The strain was immense. Greater than any pain any of Cupid's many hosts had endured over millennia. He'd guided bodies through torture, through war wounds, through diseases that dissolved flesh from bone.
But this was different.
The brain had no pain receptors, that part was manageable. But the emotional information, the psychological content, the memories that were being rebuilt as neural pathways reconstructed themselves—those hit with devastating force.
Tòumíng's childhood. Every moment of it flooding through Cupid's consciousness as the temporal lobe reassembled.
Poverty. Real, grinding poverty. Not the romantic "struggling artist" kind but the soul-crushing "will we eat this month" kind. Parents screaming at each other about debt. Bill collectors at the door. Wearing the same clothes until they fell apart. Watching other kids with new shoes and feeling shame burn in his chest.
The desperation. The hopelessness. The gradual crushing of any dreams beyond basic survival.
Then the suicides. Finding them. The note. The debt that transferred to him, a teenager, burying him before adult life even began.
Cupid had hosted poverty-stricken individuals before. War-driven refugees. Sole survivors of genocides and massacres.
But this... this particular flavor of modern poverty, the kind where society was wealthy but you were not, where abundance existed but was denied to you, where you could see what you'd never have...
Tears started streaming from Tòumíng's closed eyes. Not from physical pain. From the memories. From experiencing, second-hand but vividly real, the absolute crushing weight of Tòumíng's short, brutal life.
But that wasn't the focus. Couldn't be the focus.
These memories, tragic as they were, were essential for growth. Were what made Tòumíng who he was. Were the foundation that allowed him to appreciate what he had now, to survive what he'd survived, to become someone worth saving.
So Cupid rebuilt them. Every painful memory, every moment of desperation, every crushing disappointment. Reconstructed the neural pathways that held Tòumíng's identity, his experiences, his personhood.
Eight hours passed.
The villa's windows shifted from darkness to the gray pre-dawn light of 4 AM.
Měi Nán and Ghost Claw stayed awake the entire time, watching Tòumíng's body convulse occasionally as major neural reconstructions completed, watching the veins pulse under his skin, watching Cupid fight to maintain control.
Ghost Claw had made coffee around 2 AM. Neither she nor Měi Nán drank it. Just held the warm mugs and stared at the body on the couch.
Finally, as the first hints of actual dawn began touching the eastern sky, Cupid felt something shift.
The pull. The familiar sensation of being drawn back, of control releasing, of the host consciousness reasserting itself.
Tòumíng's consciousness was coming back online.
Cupid let go, retreating back to his position in Tòumíng's heart, exhausted in a way he hadn't been in centuries.
Tòumíng's eyes opened. Brown. Normal. No blue glow.
He blinked slowly, his vision focusing on the ceiling, then shifting to Měi Nán's tear-stained face hovering over him.
"Hehe..." Tòumíng's voice was rough, weak, but unmistakably his own. "Didn't get to finish my quote."
Měi Nán let out a sob and threw himself onto Tòumíng, hugging him so tightly it should have hurt, crying into his shoulder with the kind of relief that came from watching someone you cared about come back from actual death.
Tòumíng grinned, his hand coming up to pat Měi Nán's back awkwardly.
"I thought you died!" Měi Nán's voice was muffled against Tòumíng's shirt, broken with sobs. "I thought—you weren't breathing and there was so much blood and—"
"Eheh..." Tòumíng's grin widened, his brain still reconstructing motor control but managing to pull together enough coherence for one more movie reference.
"My death was... greatly exaggerated."