Su Su’s release of her grip triggered the alarm once again.
Those already cold and ruthless vertical pupils had shrunk into a thin slit, devoid of any emotion, as if… they had simply locked onto a disobedient prey.
Su Su lowered her eyes in a panic.
With her gaze lowered, she suddenly realized that the tight-fitting long-sleeved and long-pants outfit she had been wearing had somehow been replaced with a loose, homey sleep T-shirt.
Due to their current height difference, her knees, thighs, and calves were all pressed tightly against the serpent man’s chest. After prolonged contact, the originally cold and firm skin had started to warm up slightly.
It was extremely uncomfortable.
Su Su tried to pry open his arms. “Let me down first.”
Thank heavens, she managed to move them a little.
After standing rigidly for a moment, the massive serpent body slowly set her back onto the ground.
Finally, her feet touched the floor. Instinctively, she took several steps back before she barely managed to steady herself.
In those vertical pupils, it was yet another piece of undeniable evidence of rejection.
Su Su wasn’t aware of this.
After stabilizing herself, she slightly tilted her head up and found that the top of her head barely reached the waist of Xuan Mang. And below the waist… was a bloodied, mottled serpent body. Wherever her eyes landed, many of the scales were turned outward.
The once sleek and jet-black serpent body had become such a mess—it was anything but pleasant to look at.
Su Su’s eyes grew sore.
She recalled the most excruciating moments before she lost consciousness. Xiao Hei had endured nearly half of the energy from that Grade 7 crystal, leaping to the peak of Tier 6, but the suffering it went through was no small matter either…
Su Su didn’t regret the murderous intent she had toward Lin Weiran, but she did regret—regret neglecting the potential threat posed by the Research Guild. She should have chosen a more suitable opportunity to kill her. She had been too impatient…
Though the outcome was favorable, the process…
She subconsciously reached out, gently stroking the areas where the scales had lifted.
She was just about to ask, Does it hurt? when she looked up and met the black serpent’s scrutinizing gaze.
Her words stuck in her throat.
Her fingers also hesitated before slowly retracting.
With the sudden transformation into human form, Su Su had no way of guessing what was on Xuan Mang’s mind.
If he still looked the same as before, perhaps she would have just thrown herself at him and hugged him outright. But now that “it” had become “him,” Su Su instead felt an overwhelming sense of panic, helplessness, and… fear.
Her neck was getting sore from looking up, so she took a few more steps back.
“Let’s go out first?”
She waited for a moment, but there was still no response.
Su Su blinked her slightly stinging eyes and took the lead in walking toward the door, feigning calmness and indifference. “Maybe there’s another way to open this door…”
The moment she turned her back, she completely ignited the pent-up unease and fury within Xuan Mang.
He suddenly lunged forward.
A vast shadow instantly enveloped her, and before Su Su could react, she was pounced upon. She was trapped completely, sandwiched between a powerful body and the ground, her frantic hands finding nothing but cold, smooth skin no matter where they touched.
This was an unmistakably aggressive posture.
It was the stance large predators took while hunting. Next, they would mercilessly clamp down on their prey’s throat, tearing and biting it apart, fresh blood splattering everywhere before they feasted.
Fear surged within Su Su. The more she struggled, the more oppressive the half-human, half-serpent pressed down on her.
Rip!
A violent tear split through her T-shirt.
A cold serpent’s tongue flicked against her newly exposed skin, tracing its way up her spine. The delicate curve of her shoulder blades rose sharply, as if offering flesh and bone directly to the beast’s maw—waiting for him to gnaw, devour, strip away skin and disassemble bone…
Her taut nerves snapped in an instant.
Su Su let out a frightened cry. “Ah Xuan! Xiao Hei… Xuan Mang!!!”
But her call did nothing to halt the beast behind her.
He continued his climb, his tongue now reaching the nape of her neck. A strong arm suddenly locked around her slender waist, while the other lifted her delicate face, guiding it toward his descending lips.
Su Su was forced to turn her head, and in her wide, panicked eyes, she saw his transformed human visage—fine, jet-black short hair draped over his face, his long and cold eyes slightly hooded, concealing half of those dark green vertical pupils. The violent aura emanating from him was even more pronounced, as if he had already found the tenderest flesh of his prey.
“You… mmph!”
Her words were swallowed back into her throat, along with her trembling pink lips, which were seized with unrestrained force.
This was the first kiss of the transformed Xuan Mang.
It was also Su Su’s first time sharing lips with a “man.”
Her soft lips were crushed, and her tightly sealed mouth was pried open without mercy.
The serpent’s tongue, which had always lingered at the corner of her lips before, now delved deeper, meeting the softness of her tongue for the very first time.
For humans, a kiss was supposed to be an intimate pleasure.
For the transformed Xuan Mang… it was the same.
He plundered insatiably, ignoring the feeble hands that clutched at his hair—her strength nothing more than a tickling sensation.
She smelled sweet.
She was soft.
Xuan Mang had not forgotten the rejection he had suffered just moments ago. He punished her, grinding against her lips as if he wanted to swallow her whole.
Even though he had observed another of his kind tenderly engaging in intimacy with their mate at close range, that gentleness and lingering affection—when applied to himself—had morphed into something entirely different.
At first, Su Su only lightly clutched at Xuan Mang’s hair. But gradually, without realizing it, she exerted all her strength.
She felt awful.
Terribly awful.
Pinned to the ground and forced to turn her face to the side, even though it was Xuan Mang who leaned down, the position was anything but comfortable or relaxed.
His close, pressing embrace seemed determined to make every inch of their skin touch, suffocating her.
And that serpent’s tongue…
The moment it first brushed against hers, she had already panicked.
Yet it did not stop at a brief taste—it continued to invade, to greedily claim, advancing inch by inch, until it reached even deeper into her throat…
Su Su’s tears streamed down in an instant.
She couldn’t speak, only sob, her silent tears soaking into her thick lashes. Her beautiful eyes looked as if they held an entire lake, water overflowing continuously, on the verge of breaking its banks.
Xuan Mang finally sensed that something was wrong.
He lifted his gaze and found that the female’s face was already flushed red from crying. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and her half-lidded eyes were filled with grievance and resistance.
The relentless serpent’s tongue finally withdrew.
Su Su pushed him away at the first opportunity, collapsing onto the ground as she started dry heaving.
Seeing this, Xuan Mang’s body stiffened instantly.
He waited until she finished retching before cautiously extending his arms and lifting her off the ground.
“Hiss~”
The sound carried a hint of appeasement and guilt, but Su Su didn’t notice. She only knew that after being forced to retch from discomfort, this half-human, half-serpent still maintained that icy cold attitude. His piercing vertical pupils held no emotion, and his superior, dangerously handsome face remained unchanged, every muscle etched with indifference.
It didn’t feel alive.
It didn’t feel like the Xiao Hei that had accompanied her for so long.
Su Su’s tears began falling uncontrollably again.
She had wanted to ask—ask if his body was still in pain… but with the way he looked at her, she felt no sense of security, let alone the ability to voice words of concern.
The lingering nausea from his serpent’s tongue pressing deep into her throat was still there.
Her tears landed with soft plops on Xuan Mang’s arm.
He was flustered and at a loss, but none of those emotions reflected on his face.
Still so fierce, still so cold.
The female cried too hard. The anger she had felt earlier from his forcefulness, and the desire for closeness that had been born from that anger, all dissipated in an instant.
Xuan Mang carefully cupped Su Su’s tear-streaked face.
The same serpent’s tongue that had only known how to dominate and invade now gently licked away every falling tear.
Su Su’s sobs gradually quieted.
She stared blankly at the unfamiliar face right before her.
Contrary to what Pang Cancan had jokingly suggested earlier, Xiao Hei’s human form wasn’t ugly. On the contrary, if he didn’t stick out that scarlet serpent tongue, just those deep green vertical pupils alone gave him a uniquely wicked beauty.
But those very same vertical pupils had remained cold and detached from the moment she first laid eyes on them.
Whenever they locked onto her, there was always an undeniable fierceness in them.
At certain moments, she truly felt as if they were complete strangers.
Su Su avoided Xuan Mang’s tongue, wiping the lingering tears off her cheeks on her own.
The half-human, half-serpent paused for two seconds.
He reached out again and gently turned the female’s face toward him.
“Hiss~”
Having tasted the sweetness of her, yet unwilling to make her cry again, he reined in his domineering nature. Every movement now carried an unmistakable intent to appease.
Especially his thumb, which gently brushed over her swollen, reddened lips—perhaps he had finally realized his own roughness and mistakes.
The two remained silent for a few seconds.
The speechless Xuan Mang let out another soft hiss. Within those vertical pupils, all that was reflected was Su Su alone.
In the end, it was Su Su who broke the silence first. “You… does your body still hurt?”
“Hiss!”
Xuan Mang keenly caught the subtle change in her tone, the slight softening of her resistance. His serpent tail immediately swung forward, revealing the area where he was most severely injured.
The scales in that patch had almost completely fallen off.
Su Su’s heart clenched tightly.
She could no longer suppress her emotions. Her hand instinctively gripped the firm, muscled arm around her waist. “Let’s leave here and find a healing-type ability user to treat you.”
Xuan Mang didn’t move.
Instead, he fixated on her delicate arms, then suddenly lifted them. Under her tense and confused gaze, he guided them up to rest against the sides of his neck.
“Hiss—”
Su Su recognized the urging within his sound.
Though his vertical pupils remained as cold and unreadable as ever, his actions made it unmistakably clear—he wanted her to hold him again.
Su Su’s arms slowly climbed around Xuan Mang’s neck. The moment they crossed and tightened, the once pitifully drooping snake tail suddenly lashed out—
Boom!
The metal door, battered by countless strikes, finally collapsed under the force! A cloud of dust rose as it crashed to the floor in ruins.
The sealed laboratory was finally open.
The half-human, half-serpent “monster” held the petite human female in his arms as he slithered out of the confined space and into the spacious corridor.
Su Su’s hips and lower back were tightly embraced by his strong arms.
She lifted her gaze slightly and was met with the sight of Xuan Mang’s sharp, perfectly sculpted jawline.
“Ah Xuan…”
Just a simple name, yet it earned her an incredibly intimate lick.
Now that the initial panic and unease had faded, she could finally detect something familiar from this newly transformed half-serpent man—something that belonged to her Xiao Hei.
He was just… a little fiercer-looking.
But wasn’t his previous form even more terrifying?
As long as he was the Xiao Hei she knew, she could always grow accustomed to it…
Su Su’s body gradually relaxed, slowly sinking into his embrace.
Her crossed arms tightened further, pulling them even closer together.
Just as they were about to pass by a familiar fork in the path, Su Su called out in time, “Ah Xuan.”
She was still feeling somewhat awkward, but something else weighed even more heavily on her mind.
“Jiang Hong is over there. Let’s go check on him, okay?”
Considering Lin Weiran’s methods, it was likely that the Research Guild had long set up a trap, deliberately luring the snake into the den.
Then what about Jiang Hong?
He had been facing off against Qi Huiling. What was happening now?