NO00f3: Gluttony

The girl was stunned as she looked at the piece of artificial starch cut into thumb-sized pieces. After hesitating for a long time, she finally stuffed it into her mouth with bated breath.

"How does it feel?"

Ji Mu on the side observed Youxue's expression and asked nervously.

Youxue didn't make a sound, just frowned and shook his head. At the same time, the speed of chewing in his mouth became slower and slower. During this period, he almost couldn't hold back his stomach and vomited it several times.

"Don't force it. If it doesn't work, it's okay to spit it out."

Ji Mu said, stood up and put the opened vomit bag over.

But Youxue reluctantly but firmly stopped her movement - not only pushed the vomit bag away, but also gritted her teeth and forcibly swallowed the chewed starch chunks in her mouth.

Ji Mu stared at Youxue nervously, seeing that she kept pressing her lips tightly, and didn't even dare to ask anything, for fear that she would spit it out when she opened her mouth.

After a while, the painful expression on Youxue's face gradually calmed down. She first waved her hand to indicate that she was fine, then lay back on the sofa. It took a long time before she said:

"It's better..."

Regarding this, Ji Mu asked with surprise:

"So, the treatment plan at the Thracian Club is really effective?! Has the hallucination that made you feel sick before weakened?"

Youxue shook her head:

"No... Even now, I can still 'see' the digestion process of the food in my body, and I still have the illusion that those disgusting things are left in my mouth..."

"Ah? Then why are you..."

Hearing Youxue's answer, Ji Mu's heart, which had been slightly relieved, suddenly rose again.

"To be honest, I can probably tolerate those hallucinations better than before... Even though I still feel the horrible taste and touch in my mouth at this moment, I can still endure this feeling and forcefully eat the food. ”

Youxue thought for a moment and then replied. After looking up and seeing Ji Mu's worried expression, she couldn't help but squeeze out a smile, and then reached out to touch her head:

"Okay, compared to before, this is already a big improvement. At least it can prove that the method introduced by the Thracian Club is really effective."

Youxue was right. Although this did not cure her anorexia, it allowed her to successfully eat some normal food - which was already a qualitative change.

Speaking of this, Youxue continued excitedly:

"And I have only participated in three club activities. There is a person in the group who suffers from arachnophobia. After participating in ten activities, she has now been able to completely overcome her fear. At yesterday's assembly, she spoke in front of Our team member grabbed a live tall spider in front of her... Although she was so frightened that her face turned pale and her hands kept shaking, compared to before, she would be frightened to the point of incontinence when she saw a spider-shaped toy. It can be said that it is almost back to the level of a normal person.”

Even with the example Youxue mentioned, Ji Mu still asked with some worry:

"Is that Thracian club really so magical? The problem can be cured just by having you gather together and share your own experiences of fighting against psychological shadows... I'm curious. Can anyone tell me more about their process? ?”

Youxue's anorexia is essentially an organic disease, and at least from the information Ji Mu has found, a placebo-level treatment like this will not have much effect on organic disease.

Therefore, even at this moment, Ji Mu was indeed happy that Yuxue's condition was relieved, but an uneasy feeling always lingered in her heart.

Regarding her question, Youxue pursed her lips and said in a calmer tone:

"Let me think about it... people who attend club gatherings for the first time will watch the introductory simulation of the Thracian Club under the guidance of recommenders to determine whether they will eventually attend these gatherings. Then, for the first time, When a mutual aid group gathers, you must introduce yourself to everyone, and your personal identity information can be concealed. The main purpose is to introduce the problems you have encountered.

"After that, it is no longer mandatory for everyone to speak in meetings. You can always listen. But if your condition improves, the club encourages you to show your progress and share your experience with everyone. Finally, every meeting ends. Every time, there will be a fixed blessing session. The organizer will pour a glass of wine for everyone to toast to themselves and the brothers and sisters around them who are still fighting against themselves.”

There are no strange drugs injected, no strange brain-computer interface software required to be installed, and no religious brainwashing lectures. It sounds like a very normal mutual aid meeting.

Jimu sorted out the activity process mentioned by Youxue one by one, and finally said with a bright smile:

"The organizer's wine... Can you bring some to me next time, dear Yuki? I also wanted to cheer for you at the rally, but my previous application to the club was rejected."

Youxue tapped Ji Mu’s forehead and said angrily and funny:

"There's nothing wrong with you, how can I let you pass? And you can buy wine yourself, right?"

"No~ok~"

Ji Mu hugged Youxue's skinny arms, coquettishly, and then said:

"I'm going to drink the exact same drink as you, otherwise it will be completely meaningless."

When the two looked at each other, Norimu kept blinking in a cute way, trying his best to hide his true thoughts.

After a long time, Youxue, who was defeated, gave her an angry blow.

"You are the one who is always bothering me."

"Yeah!"

…………

Afterwards, Ji Mu secretly took the wine You Xue brought back for testing. The test results showed that it did not contain any harmful substances such as parasites, nanomachines, or hallucinogenic substances.

Not only that, the wine You Xue brought back was not a cheap industrial blended product, but an expensive brand for the upper class. The raw materials used were some gene-edited products cultivated by Apollo Biology. The wine made from it was extremely rich in nutrients and even had the effect of promoting cell metabolism, beautifying the face, resisting aging, and increasing intelligence.

On the other hand, You Xue went to the Thrace Club more and more often. Every time she came back, she would share her interesting experiences at the mutual aid meeting.

"...Today we went to an outdoor team building. The boy with acrophobia took us to the Sky Dome Tower. I looked for our home for a long time and wanted to take a photo to show you, but unfortunately I couldn't find it..."

"...Don't worry, these are just paint. Because there is a child with strong mysophobia in the group who is almost cured, we mixed washable brown paint with clay to make "poop balls" and threw them at each other to play "snowball fights"...Ji Mu, don't be angry, I was wrong, I promise not to play with them next time...Wait, what do you mean wash it yourself? No, sister! I call you sister!"

"...Didn't I tell you before that there was a girl who suffered from male phobia because she was molested when she was a child? This time she actually took the initiative to shake hands with the boys in the same group. Isn't it amazing? Right "Little Ji Mu, will you come with me to the shrine later and try to help catch the scum who molested her when she was a child?"

"...Ji Mu Ji Mu, do you remember the girl with arachnophobia I told you about before? She was really good at this gathering. She actually reached into the box full of spiders! I feel that she is braver than ordinary people. I feel scared just watching from the side..."

You Xue was eating fried chicken fast food with the "M" logo printed on it while talking. Especially when she talked about the girl accidentally knocking over the box full of spiders at the end, causing all the spiders to run all over the room, she couldn't help but stuff half of the burger in her hand into her mouth, chewing while telling how they caught spiders the whole afternoon.

You Xue's voice was mumbling, and she would occasionally spit out crumbs of fried chicken and bread while talking.

Ji Mu looked down at the burger in his hand that he had just taken two small bites of, and then looked at the mess on the table after the whirlwind, and finally couldn't help but burst out.

"Youxue! You've eaten too much!"

She put down the burger in her hand and yelled.

Youxue was frightened by her sudden outburst. It took her a long time to swallow the burger that almost burst her mouth. Then she wiped the saliva and crumbs from her mouth and said:

"I'm anorexic, right? I'm trying to make up for my weight?"

As she said that, she also tried to show a flattering smile that she usually showed when asking others to do housework.

"I think you just cured your anorexia and then you got bulimia!"

But Ji Mu was in no mood to joke with her at the moment. She stared at Youxue's eyes and said very seriously:

"And is your illness really cured? Didn't you say before that the 'illusion' that the food you ate was being digested in your body still exists?"

Seeing Ji Mu so serious, Youxue's expression also became serious.

"Those hallucinations do still exist, but they don't affect my eating at all now... I went to the hospital for a check-up before, and the doctor said that my physical indicators are now very close to normal people. At least in terms of the impact on real life, the disease will not..."

"Really?"

Ji Mu said as her eyes swept across the mess on the table. She ordered a set meal for four people today. But she only ate a few fries and a few bites of hamburgers, and the rest was almost eaten by Youxue.

A similar situation has been going on for a long time. In the past month, Ji Mu's takeaways have been increasing. From the initial one person may not be able to finish it, to now four people are not enough to eat...

"Did the mutual aid group of the Thrace Club really cure you? Or..."

Ji Mu stared at her and said word by word:

"Did you suffer from other mental problems?"

The moment she heard this, Youxue stood up with a "squeak".

"Ji Mu, what do you mean? Are you disgusted with me for not making money now and eating too much of your food? Are you regretting that my anorexia has been cured?"

She slapped the table with her now-recovered hands, and her expression was twisted with anger.

"How could it be possible... Youxue, do you know what you are saying? You are my best friend and my only relative in this world. How could I not want your anorexia to be cured, but the current situation is..."

Hearing Youxue's accusation, Ji Mu felt that all the emotions she had accumulated before were instantly extinguished like carbon immersed in ice water. Her voice softened and she hurriedly explained.

"Then don't say that anymore!"

After hearing Ji Mu's surrender, Youxue interrupted her next words with a firm hand.

"No matter what you say, the fact is that my body is slowly recovering with the help of the Thrace Club. When I recover enough to go out on the field, I will continue to work at the Maple Syrup Shrine. You can rest assured that I will never rely on the kindness of earning money to support you for those years in the early years, and feel at ease to be a retired useless person at home and let you take care of me. After all, it was a choice made to keep myself alive, so you don't have to have any psychological burden about it."

The cold and sharp words like wind and snow kept piercing Ji Mu's heart, making her so painful that she couldn't say a word.

While Youxue was talking, she took the fast food packaging bag and swept the leftovers on the table into it. When she swept the hamburger that Ji Mu had left, she hesitated for a moment, but finally bypassed it.

After packing up the leftovers of the fast food on the table, she looked at Ji Mu again and said:

A correct version at 1619, 1 book, 1 bar!

"You don't owe me anything, and similarly, I will never owe you anything. My illness is both self-inflicted and something I have tried to cure myself. In the future, I will pay you back the extra nutrition fees during the recovery period, and I will never bother you again..."

Speaking of this, she paused, her eyes constantly glancing at the half-eaten hamburger in front of Ji Mu's desk.

Finally, she gritted her teeth and turned around and left a sentence:

"In short, after I recover, you don't have to treat me as a burden to yourself."

At this time, Ji Mu finally struggled to speak.

"I never..."

Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's whisper, and Youxue, who turned around, didn't know whether she didn't hear it or didn't want to hear it, and didn't look back once.

She walked quickly to her room, slammed the door and locked it directly.

"I have always been afraid that I would be a burden to you..."

For the first time, Ji Mu spoke his mind to the closed door.

…………

Late at night, Ji Mu was awakened by a strange sound coming from the kitchen.

Recalling what happened during the day, she didn't turn on the light, and didn't even wear shoes. She just put on a blanket and walked barefoot to the source of the sound in the kitchen.

It was a sound that was constantly alternating, sometimes like the sound of vomiting, and sometimes like the sound of eating.

Although the person who made the sound tried to suppress it, it was still clear enough - perhaps the source of the sound only had a little rationality to suppress those sounds at this moment.

She tiptoed to the kitchen door. At this moment, the only light in the kitchen came from the night light in the refrigerator.

A figure knelt beside the refrigerator with her back to Ji Mu, and around her...

Egg shells, vegetable scraps, instant food packaging bags, milk bottles, beverage cans, candy wrappers... These food remnants were now soaked in vomit.

Soaked in herself.

And the figure sat in the pool of vomit without hesitation, lowering her head and seemed to be tearing something hard.

Suddenly, the person stopped and began to vomit violently, allowing the filth to flow from her esophagus to her surroundings.

"Youxue?"

Hearing the familiar voice, Ji Mu asked tentatively with disbelief and a trembling voice.

Her hands had already begun to unconsciously grope around for things that could be used as weapons.

The figure froze for a moment, then slowly turned around.

It was Youxue, but it was Youxue who made Ji Mu feel scared and unfamiliar.

A Youxue with a mouth full of blood, a ulcer on her jaw corroded by stomach acid, and countless vomited filth on her chest.

At this moment, she was still holding a half-eaten piece of raw meat tightly in her hand.

"Youxue?"

Ji Mu said her name again, but this time it was already terrified.

"Ji...Ji...Ji Mu?"

Youxue responded with a broken voice.

The kitchen was too dark, and Ji Mu couldn't see her expression clearly.

"I...I...just..."

The broken voice continued.

"I...I just...can't help...to eat..."

As she spoke, the sound of gnawing and swallowing came again.

Then she suddenly threw away the raw meat in her hand and rushed towards Ji Mu on all fours like a reptile.

Ji Mu only had time to scream before being knocked down by the other party.

Ji Mu closed her eyes and covered her face, feeling those disgusting things dripping on her body, waiting for any ending that a minor character in a horror movie might encounter.

But after a long time, she still felt nothing.

"Ji... Mu..."

Youxue's voice made her slowly let go of her hand, but she still didn't dare to open her eyes.

"No... No... No..."

Youxue seemed to want to say something, but her rationality seemed to have been disconnected so that she couldn't organize a logically coherent sentence.

Suddenly, the weight on Ji Mu disappeared.

Youxue, or the thing that used to be Youxue, had crawled to the door.

"No..."

She struggled, but in the end she couldn't say a coherent sentence.

In the end, she disappeared in the corridor like some kind of quadruped.

That was the last time Ji Mu saw her. (End of this chapter)