Su Su did not leave.
Her anger and frustration were just an act.
Xiao Hei was dead set on keeping her out. No matter how hard she knocked, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Rather than wasting time, she might as well break into the stairwell and see exactly what it was avoiding.
Su Su jogged to another parking area, where there was also a quick escape route.
She climbed up the stairs to the first floor of the mall. The moment she opened the door, she had expected to see a horde of zombies surging in. However, to her surprise—
The inside of the mall was completely empty. At a glance, not a single zombie was in sight.
Only scattered heaps of unknown black ash and a dense spread of low-tier crystals covered the ground.
Clearly, Xiao Hei had already cleared out the entire mall.
The more Su Su thought about it, the more something felt off. She quickened her pace and found the tightly shut iron door of the escape passage.
Fortunately! The door on the first floor wasn’t locked!
Su Su took a deep breath, doing her best to lighten her steps. Carefully, she tiptoed down the stairs.
Bang!
Pa!
Thud!
The sound of frantic slaps echoed through the stairwell, accompanied by the sharp noise of fabric being torn apart by teeth. A snake’s tail lashed out, even colliding with the iron stair railing.
“Hiss!!”
A familiar hissing sound rang out, confirming Su Su’s suspicions—Xiao Hei was hiding in this escape passage. It had been it all along, refusing to open the door for her.
The more steps she descended, the lighter her breathing became, afraid of startling Xiao Hei below.
“Hiss—”
Just as Su Su was about to round the staircase corner and get a full view of the basement floor, the agitated hissing suddenly stopped.
She had been discovered!
Realizing this, Su Su no longer cared about softening her steps or steadying her breath. She rushed around the corner, her right foot stepping onto the first stair—
What entered her sight was a massive black python, coiled in layers in the corner of the stairwell.
It seemed to have been here for a long time. The surrounding walls had already been rubbed raw by its body, with patches of peeling paint. The lowest section of the railing had even been dented into a U-shaped curve.
This space, originally meant for storing miscellaneous items or serving as an escape route for people, had been completely claimed by the giant python as its nest.
Its head lifted slightly, as if sensing something—meeting Su Su’s gaze from above.
A fleeting, almost imperceptible trace of panic flashed across those dark green vertical pupils.
But it quickly steadied itself.
“Hiss!”
It didn’t turn and flee upon seeing her, which already made Su Su breathe a sigh of relief.
“Xiao Hei.” Her chest rose and fell, a thousand words swirling in her heart, yet she didn’t know where to begin. In the end, she could only voice two simple questions—
“Why did you come here?”
“And why have you been avoiding me again and again?”
Her tone inevitably carried a trace of grievance and sorrow.
These past two days had been the worst—the harshest weather, the most distressing time for her.
The giant python running off without a word had left her flustered and heartbroken.
“Do you want to abandon me too?”
This was the tone Xiao Hei could never resist.
In the past, it would have already slithered over, licking the female’s cheek—a silent but possessive form of comfort.
But now, at this very moment, it simply remained curled up in the corner, its cold vertical pupils watching her without the slightest reaction to her words.
It even… found her noisy.
This was Su Su’s own assumption. She took a deep breath and stepped down a few more stairs.
“If you really want to abandon me, then drive me away.”
“Just like how you swat those zombies—knock me away, and I’ll never come back to bother you again.”
As she spoke, she continued descending, until she reached the third-to-last step. Below that, the remaining space was entirely occupied by the python’s thick, coiled body, leaving her with no place to step.
“Xiao Hei…”
Su Su tried to reach out and embrace its head.
Yet, just as her hand stretched forward, the giant python coldly and unfeelingly moved away, making her grasp nothing but air.
Su Su stared blankly at her empty palm.
This was the first time it had ever rejected her.
Did Xiao Hei despise her this much?
“Is it because I wanted to sleep separately from you? Is that why you’re still sulking?”
The python refused to meet her eyes, lowering its head and coiling itself into the center of its own body. Its eyes half-lidded… a posture that clearly expressed its unwillingness to communicate.
“Xiao Hei!”
Su Su’s voice carried an unmistakable sob, thick with grievance, as if she was on the verge of crying.
Pa! Bang! Pa! Thud!
That black tail suddenly began slamming against the ground in irritation!
Su Su’s heart clenched in pain.
From the beginning of their journey, she and Xiao Hei had weathered countless dangers together, standing side by side as the closest of companions. And now, just because of “sleeping separately,” it had become this cold and distant? This rejection—she truly, truly couldn’t accept it…
Her lower lip was tightly bitten by pearly white teeth, the soft pink flesh gradually turning pale from the pressure.
With reddened eyes, she took off her shoes.
Barefoot, she stepped onto the thick, coiled body sprawled across the second-to-last step. The moment her skin touched it, she could feel the python’s body stiffen.
Its tail, which had been striking the ground, lashed even faster—becoming increasingly frenzied and restless.
The loud drumming of the strikes echoed like a heartbeat, each impact landing squarely on Su Su’s chest.
Suppressing her grievance and unease, she climbed step by step along the coiled body of the massive snake.
If it truly loathed her so much, then it should just slap her away—strike her hard enough to leave her half-dead. That way, she wouldn’t come back to pester it, and it wouldn’t have to submit to a human it despised.
“Hiss!”
The ferocious snake head suddenly lunged toward her, baring its fangs menacingly—its expression both terrifying and cold-blooded.
At the same time, its tail swept across—
Su Su shut her eyes in fear.
But the anticipated strike never came. Instead, the tail coiled around her waist, pushing her back toward the stairs.
“I don’t want to!”
Su Su clung tightly to its tail, and when she opened her eyes again, she couldn’t hold back her tears.
Her beautiful eyes were instantly flooded, fragile and trembling.
“Xiao Hei, I just… I just couldn’t accept it at first.”
“Maybe I was just overthinking. Maybe you simply like being close to me. We won’t sleep separately anymore, okay?”
“I won’t deliberately keep my distance from you again. I won’t try to pull apart the closeness between us…”
She had been the one who wanted distance.
Yet now, she was the first to break down.
With great difficulty, Su Su reached out, trying to touch the python’s head.
This time, it didn’t dodge.
She wrapped her arms around it as she had wished, and her sobs finally spilled over. “You did this on purpose! You’re doing this on purpose!”
The crimson forked tongue flicked out, licking away the tears rolling down the female’s cheeks.
The giant python could no longer maintain its act of indifference.
It hadn’t done this on purpose.
No matter how petty and vengeful a snake could be, it would never use something like this to threaten or test its female.
It had merely gone out and been caught in a downpour. The uncontrollable instincts that followed had surged forth like a tidal wave.
Faced with the choice of returning to the villa to “oppress” its female or leaving the city to vent its urges on the zombie hordes—
It had painfully chosen the latter.
Because it couldn’t choose the former.
She would never accept it.
Just the faintest hint of those instincts had led to “sleeping separately.”
If it were to truly act on them, she would abandon it.
Even as she clung to its head and wept with such tenderness—
The giant python could find no joy in it.
To stop her tears, and to finally expose the ugliness within itself—
The tightly coiled body slowly unwrapped, revealing something that had been hidden beneath its massive frame all this time—
A heap of familiar clothes and bedding, crushed beneath the weight of its body.
The fabrics had been rubbed and wrinkled beyond recognition, filthy and crumpled, yet still vaguely discernible—
They were Su Su’s spare clothes, the ones she had stored in Xiao Hei’s space.
The bedding that had once covered them during the snowstorm, the scarf she had wrapped around herself a few times, the nightgown she had worn at home… even her most intimate undergarments.
Su Su, her vision blurred with tears, gazed at the pile of clothes, an ominous premonition creeping into her heart.
“Xiao Hei?”
Since revealing those clothes, the giant python had been staring at her intently, unwilling to miss even the slightest reaction.
“Hiss—”
She was standing on its body, and her restless, turbulent emotions spread across its massive form through the patches of scales where they made contact.
Its instincts roared madly.
Yes—ever since it had devoured that giant python, fragmented racial memories had surfaced in its mind.
At times like this, two massive snake bodies should have been entangled together.
But here, there was no other python—only a delicate, fragile human.
She stood atop its body, her falling tears and unconcealed sorrow becoming the source of its agitation, excitement, and barely restrained restlessness.
Its tail started lashing out again, wildly slamming against the ground and sweeping through the confined space.
Large chunks of the wall peeled away once more, and the already battered iron railing was completely destroyed.
The giant python exerted all its willpower to suppress its instincts, resisting the urge to coil the female tightly within its body.
It was still waiting—waiting for her final judgment.
Su Su’s mind had gone blank.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” She murmured, unsure if she was comforting Xiao Hei or hypnotizing herself. “We can always find new ones if these are ruined. There’s plenty of clothing and bedding.”
Yes, that’s right. That’s all there was to it.
Even though she had already grasped part of the truth—even though she understood the real reason Xiao Hei had taken out these clothes—its behavior, so much like nest-building, was impossible to misinterpret.
Suppressing her panic, Su Su forced a weak smile. “It’ll pass… Once this passes, we’ll find new clothes.”
She chose to tacitly accept Xiao Hei’s actions—not probing further, not questioning, trying to brush the whole matter aside.
“Hiss!!”
But this was not an answer that would satisfy a snake.
The giant python suddenly let out a violent hiss, its massive head breaking free from Su Su’s arms with both tenderness and unwavering force.
Su Su, overwhelmed with fear, clung desperately to its tail. “Xiao Hei, w-what’s wrong…?”
Her Xiao Hei gazed at her deeply.
Then, slowly—almost with a sense of finality—it exposed to her its most ugly truth.
Su Su’s mind completely shut down.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before her arms finally slackened, and the pitch-black tail slipped from her embrace.
At last, she understood.
She understood why those clothes—the ones that had been pressed beneath its body like a nest—had been so thoroughly ruined.
Under the gaze of those deep green vertical pupils, the color drained from the female’s face, turning deathly pale.
Unconsciously, she took a few steps back, her heel pressing against the cold staircase.
The suspicions that had been forming in her mind finally took full shape.
Su Su suddenly realized—she shouldn’t have come looking for him. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had to face Xiao Hei’s undisguised thoughts head-on.
After an unbearable silence that stretched for more than ten seconds—
She turned and ran up the stairs.
The pitch-black tail shot out like lightning, chasing after the fleeing figure. It only needed to move a little farther—just a few more inches—and it could coil around her, pull her back.
But at the very last moment—
The tail stopped.
The female’s figure disappeared around the corner.
The tail remained suspended in midair for a long time before it finally fell soundlessly to the ground.
The giant python curled itself up in the stairwell, shrouded in torment.
It pushed the pile of clothes into the farthest corner.
The familiar scent still lingered around it—
But it could no longer bring any comfort.
It didn’t know how much time had passed—maybe minutes, maybe hours.
Then—
Footsteps echoed from the staircase again.
The familiar scent grew stronger.
When the python opened its eyes, Su Su had already thrown herself against its body—
“Xiao Hei.”
The beautiful human sobbed like a weeping flower, her delicate fingers clutching tightly at its scales.
“Just endure it. Endure it, okay?”
It was too terrifying.
She was afraid of this Xiao Hei.
Would this spring rain—just end already?