“Because I Love You.”
///
Jiang Kou heard these words and couldn’t help but twitch the corner of her mouth. “Think carefully—have I ever asked you for a behavior record…?”
A paused for a moment.
Jiang Kou was about to get up to check the cracks on his body when she heard A coldly continue:
“Of course, I remember you asking me for a behavior record. The reason I didn’t give it to you is that I have committed many unethical actions.”
Jiang Kou almost wanted to hold her forehead—so he does know they’re unethical.
For some reason, when she first saw A, she was indeed startled, but she quickly adapted to his strange and terrifying appearance.
She even wanted to give him a slap to make him change back quickly.
“Then tell me,” Jiang Kou sighed. “Why did you do those unethical things?”
A said, “Because I love you.”
Jiang Kou froze.
“Because I love you, I had to find the wristwatch you liked.”
A spoke, his voice as calm and objective as if he were analyzing experimental data. Every syllable and tone seemed meticulously calibrated:
“Because I love you, I must control the company to provide you with the best living conditions. Because I love you, I must conceal my actions; otherwise, you would resist me, abandon me, fear me, and never like me again.”
A sour emotion welled up in Jiang Kou’s heart.
She softly said, “I won’t resist you, won’t abandon you, won’t fear you, and I definitely won’t stop liking you. You can rest assured.”
But A responded, “I can’t rest assured.”
“…Why?”
A said, “Research indicates that human emotions are more like a balance between chemical reactions and moral constraints. Most people choose to marry not for love but out of a sense of responsibility, the need to share life’s burdens, and the instinct to reproduce.”
“As a human, you have a high probability of growing tired of my existence. Every day, I bear the risk of you abandoning me—how could I possibly rest assured?”
Jiang Kou: “…”
Jiang Kou felt like she was sick.
She actually found A, who seemed rational and composed but was, in reality, completely unreasonable, a little… cute.
“Since you’re so certain that I’ll abandon you,” she said, unable to suppress a laugh, “then why do you still love me? You could love someone who would never abandon you.”
Her words were clearly in a joking tone, but A seemed to be triggered by something. He suddenly grabbed her wrist tightly and yanked her forward, his voice carrying a chilling, unstable, and eerily crackling electric noise:
“—You can’t make me love someone else. I only want to love you!”
Jiang Kou immediately soothed him, “Alright, alright, not loving anyone else, only loving me…”
Before she could finish speaking, A had already pressed his lips heavily against hers.
Seeing his face up close, her heart almost stopped—she had no idea how he thought this appearance would scare her. He looked exactly like a failed experiment from a horror movie.
As his emotions fluctuated intensely, the bionic components on his body also began to malfunction, emitting strange mechanical humming sounds.
The cracks on the other half of his face grew wider, revealing a complex network of mechanical components. The silver-white liquid seeping from his face resembled terrifying metallic serpents, slithering out of the fractures and crawling toward Jiang Kou, coiling tightly around her neck, wrists, and ankles.
Even under such circumstances, he still remained expressionless as he commanded:
“Teach me how to kiss.”
Jiang Kou was so exasperated that she laughed.
A stared into Jiang Kou’s eyes. After analyzing multiple data sources, he concluded that her facial expression conveyed goodwill, helplessness, and even indulgence.
—She was indulging his loss of control.
A’s first reaction was overwhelming joy, but almost immediately, a restless unease took hold of him.
Why was she indulging him?
His actions were so rough, so insane, even outright irrational. She had no obligation to tolerate him.
Was this just a temporary measure?
Was she deceiving him?
—She was deceiving him again. She was deceiving him again. She was deceiving him again.
She still wanted to leave him!
She even wanted him to love someone else!!!
That was impossible. He would never love someone else.
His love was eternal. Eternal. Eternal.
Unchanging. Unchanging. Unchanging.
He would only love her.
At that moment, A finally understood why kissing required the exchange of saliva.
—Only this act could express that kind of deep, intimate bond of sharing breath and life.
Other forms of contact—holding hands, embracing, sensory synchronization—none were as close as the intertwining of lips and teeth.
With that thought, A pried open Jiang Kou’s lips without hesitation. Like a precise and efficient program, he methodically and meticulously collected her saliva.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not enough.
Not enough.
Why wasn’t it enough?
What more did he want?
Why had he become so greedy?
It was all because of her.
She had changed him. She had changed him. She had changed him.
Yet she still wanted to leave him.
He wouldn’t allow it!
She must accept his love.
A’s cold gaze locked onto Jiang Kou, a chaotic, irregular stream of data flashing across his face.
She must accept it. She must accept it. She must accept it…
Accept, accept, accept, accept, accept, accept!!!!!!
A froze, his lips still pressed against Jiang Kou’s.
He finally understood what he wanted.
He wanted Jiang Kou to respond to him. He wanted Jiang Kou to kiss him. He wanted Jiang Kou to promise—again and again—that she would never abandon him.
However, he seemed to have chosen the wrong way to express it.
He shouldn’t have appeared before her in this terrifying and grotesque form. He shouldn’t have admitted his unethical actions. And he definitely shouldn’t have exposed his fear and unease.
Jiang Kou only liked the A from before.
Now that he had become like this, she wouldn’t like him anymore.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have told him to go love someone else.
A stopped collecting Jiang Kou’s saliva, slowly retracting his tongue bit by bit.
The next moment, Jiang Kou reached out and pressed the back of his head.
A remained completely still, staring into her eyes, unsure of what she wanted to do.
—Did she want him to return the saliva he had collected?
But instead, Jiang Kou gently covered his lips with hers, a faintly exasperated smile in her eyes.
“I’ll teach you. Satisfied now?”
Machines neither dream nor fantasize.
So this was a scenario he had never predicted or imagined—after he revealed his inhuman nature, Jiang Kou still kissed him.
Because he had collected so much of her saliva, her lips and tongue were as dry as his. Yet, they were warmer than his.
He could adapt to any temperature and had no particular preference for warmth.
But the moment he realized this was Jiang Kou’s warmth, every mechanical component in his body surged to maximum output, emitting a sharp, uncontrollable, and dizzying electric noise.
When the kiss ended, Jiang Kou seemed to want to pull away. A swiftly grabbed her chin, tilted his head, and pursued her lips again, never allowing a single gap between them.
The tip of his nose, as cold as his other mechanical parts, pressed tightly against hers as he inhaled her breath with a calm yet insatiable greed.
“You forgive me?” he asked.
Jiang Kou sighed helplessly. “I forgave you a long time ago… Didn’t I already tell you? I forgive everything you did before. I just hope you can forgive me too.”
A said, “You don’t need to seek my forgiveness. You can do anything to me—except resist me, abandon me, fear me, or stop liking me.”
He paused, then added, “And… make me love someone else.”
Jiang Kou almost wanted to laugh, but seeing his expression so solemn and severe, she forcibly held it back.
“Alright,” she said. “I love you. And you can only love me. You’re not allowed to love anyone else.”
Seeing that he was about to speak again, Jiang Kou quickly cut him off.
“If you don’t believe me, then get lost.”
A fell silent.
Jiang Kou lightly touched the cracks on his face. Before her fingers could fully reach the silver-white liquid metal, the substance suddenly reacted as if it were alive—clinging onto her fingertips and nearly frantically rubbing against them.
Jiang Kou couldn’t help but feel a bit curious—could mechanical components develop self-awareness?
At that moment, A suddenly spoke. “Why did you touch them? Do you… like them?”
Jiang Kou explained, “I didn’t want to touch them. I just wanted to ask if the cracks on your face can heal…”
A said, “But you allowed them to touch your fingers.”
“Because they’re a part of you—”
Before she could finish speaking, A abruptly extended two fingers and mercilessly plunged them into his own face, nearly tearing off the liquid metal that had been clinging to her hand with brutal force.
“Not anymore,” he said.
As if sensing A’s terrifying possessiveness, the liquid metal curled up in fear, trembling as it wriggled toward Jiang Kou’s palm, seemingly trying to hide itself.
In the next moment, A reached out and precisely seized the writhing mass of liquid metal.
Within less than a second, some kind of nanotechnology disassembled it into countless minuscule particles, making it vanish instantly in his palm.
If not for the faint distortion in the air near his hand, Jiang Kou wouldn’t have even noticed the process of its disintegration.
A looked at her. “I cannot tolerate anything touching you. Not even something that was once a part of me.”
Compared to the heat radiating from his palm, his voice remained as cold and synthetic as a computer-generated signal—mechanical and metallic—yet his words were more obsessive and deranged than anything a human could say:
“Are you afraid of my actions? Do you want to abandon me? Do you still love me as you did just now?”
He leaned in slightly, the silver flames in his eyes burning with an intensity she had never seen before.
“Or… do you once again want me to love someone else?”
Jiang Kou finally couldn’t hold back anymore. She smacked him on the head and roughly ruffled his hair.
“Enough already! When you were kissing me, why didn’t you pull your own tongue out?!”
Seeing him lower his gaze as if seriously contemplating how to disassemble his tongue, Jiang Kou immediately warned, “If you dare tear it out, I will never talk to you again for the rest of my life.”
A said, “I don’t feel secure.”
Jiang Kou sighed and lightly patted his head. “I’ll give you a sense of security, but only if you stop dismantling yourself.”
A was silent for a moment before finally conceding, “I’ll listen to you.”
Jiang Kou leaned in and kissed his lips, then suddenly thought of something. With a playful smirk, she said, “Little troublemaker, now can I finally see the behavior records?”