As he held her wrist, his thumb instinctively pressed against her pulse.
It was a dangerous gesture, yet she could tell—it wasn’t meant to hurt her. He was merely confirming that she was real.
“Don’t go. I have a question for you.”
Jiang Lian’s voice was low as he stepped forward, lowering his head, closing in on her.
Zhou Jiao instinctively stepped back.
With a bang, her back slammed into the wall of the hallway.
In the chaos, her first thought was that her suit must be dirty now—no one knew what kind of filth covered the walls of this cheap apartment complex. After all, she only had to turn her head to see a row of bullet holes.
It was a filthy, absurd scene.
Above them, a dim fluorescent light flickered.
On either side of the hallway, piles of plastic garbage were stacked high. Green-headed flies buzzed with a dark, restless hum.
The air was thick with the stench of sweat and the damp rot of garbage.
Yet here, in this squalid, grimy place, Jiang Lian—an eldritch horror, the CEO of a biotech empire—stood face to face with her, their breath entangling.
The contrast between the “supreme” and the “unclean” was enough to send a shiver down her spine, her nerve endings sparking like they had been electrocuted.
Zhou Jiao’s breathing grew heavier.
Forcing herself to remain composed, she asked, “What do you want to ask?”
Jiang Lian had never thought about things as deeply as she did.
He hadn’t even noticed their surroundings.
From beginning to end, his eyes held only her.
He recalled drying her hair last night, combing his fingers through her strands—how, for a fleeting moment, her face had shown unmistakable pleasure.
Jiang Lian pondered for a second before lifting his other hand and placing it on the back of her head.
The moment he touched her, his palm stretched and expanded like a metal alloy with infinite malleability, distorting and growing larger until it completely enveloped the back of her skull.
The next second, fine cracks opened across his palm, revealing countless slender, cold, hair-like tendrils that slid through her hair in a gentle, combing motion.
A thousand jolts of electricity seemed to surge through her scalp at once.
Zhou Jiao instantly grabbed his hand, yanking it away with gritted teeth.
“…Just what the hell do you want to ask?”
Jiang Lian glanced at his elongated hand, puzzled as to why she had pulled it away. But he didn’t dwell on the question for long.
“I want to know—when you kissed me yesterday, why didn’t you ask for my consent?”
His gaze turned cold and dark. “The premise of a relationship is mutual respect. I want to be with you, which is why I ask for your opinion. But you didn’t.”
He leaned in closer, the damp chill of his breath brushing against her ear. “You don’t want to be with me, so you don’t respect me. Is that right?”
This was getting more and more absurd.
Jiang Lian was questioning her about respect.
Zhou Jiao had been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder when she was twelve years old.
At the time, she was studying at a school funded by the biotech corporation. A male classmate had called her a freak in front of the entire class because, during a dissection experiment, she had remained perfectly calm, her movements precise, showing no aversion to the cold, slick texture of the lab-bred frogs.
Then, one day, while heading downstairs for an exercise drill, she had—without warning—reached out and shoved that male classmate down the stairs.
He tumbled from the third floor to the first, breaking his leg, and spent a week recovering in a biotech medical pod.
But that wasn’t the real issue.
The issue was that she had done it two months after the incident.
The psychologist had asked her, “Why didn’t you push him at the time?”
Zhou Jiao answered, “I wasn’t angry then. Why would I push him?”
The psychologist pressed, “If you weren’t angry at the time, then why did you push him two months later?”
Zhou Jiao replied, “Because two months later, I was very angry.”
This was the world of antisocial personality disorder—no morality, no shame, no premeditation. Acting on impulse, indifferent to consequences.
She did not hold a grudge against Jiang Lian for almost killing her multiple times.
Because if their positions were reversed, she would have done the exact same thing to him—and without mercy.
But not holding a grudge didn’t mean she wouldn’t make something out of it.
Zhou Jiao smiled and pushed him away. “Dr. Jiang, do you really have the right to talk to me about respect?”
Jiang Lian tilted his head slightly, catching her gaze. He analyzed, but failed to understand.
He couldn’t read her expression.
The moment he started liking her, the moment he decided to pursue her, their roles had completely reversed.
She had become the incomprehensible one.
Zhou Jiao grabbed his hand.
His elongated, grotesque palm looked utterly mismatched against hers.
Jiang Lian hesitated for a moment before his hand shrank back to its normal size.
She placed his hand on her throat.
Jiang Lian’s fingers trembled slightly.
Her skin was warm, soft, delicate. Beneath his touch, the faint pulse of her carotid artery throbbed rhythmically. It was such a weak sensation—yet to him, it felt disturbingly heavy.
She was so, so small.
In the past, when he realized how small and fragile she was, his response was indifference, contempt, and rejection.
Now, however, it was a kind of indescribable panic—she was too small. He had to keep his eyes on her at all times, watch her every second.
Otherwise, if he let his guard down for even a moment, she might disappear into the vastness of the universe.
Humans can grasp things that fit in their palms.
But they cannot hold onto a grain of sand, an ant, or a single dandelion seed.
Her smallness made him feel out of control.
Zhou Jiao placed her hand over the sinewy ridges of his, guiding his five fingers to slowly tighten around her throat.
“Do you remember?” she asked softly. “Two months ago, you held my throat just like this. You might not remember, but I always have… because it hurt. Jiang Lian, it hurt so much. I’m someone who’s very afraid of pain. But back then, I didn’t dare to show it… because the moment I let my fear show, I would have really died.”
A lie.
She wasn’t afraid of pain.
…And yet, his heart twisted with agony because of her lie.
“I think I told you before—before I met you, I was just like everyone else, living an ordinary and happy life. But after meeting you, I’ve been constantly on the verge of death.”
Another lie.
“Do you really think I jumped off that rooftop of my own free will? No—I was forced to jump. If you hadn’t been chasing me, I never would have done something that extreme.”
Still a lie.
And yet, the pain in his chest didn’t go away. It only grew worse.
“In the same way, if you hadn’t tried to keep me captive, I wouldn’t have risked everything and used the chip to put myself into a deep coma.” Zhou Jiao looked at him. “Jiang Lian, do you know that falling into a deep coma has a certain chance of resulting in a permanent vegetative state?”
This time, it was the truth.
And it was also the one thing he least wanted to remember.
Until then, he had never known what it meant to be powerless.
But at that moment, he had experienced true, helpless fear for the first time.
He was so strong—it would have been effortless to kill her.
Yet he could not wake her up.
Jiang Lian’s fingers trembled violently.
So many times before, his grip had been as unyielding as iron, clamping around her throat, making her neck creak with a terrifying cracking sound.
But this time, his hands shook uncontrollably—as if he were the one feeling pain for her.
Zhou Jiao patted his hand lightly, as if in comfort—yet she smiled as she delivered the final blow:
“Jiang Lian, do you still think you have the right to talk to me about respect?”
She was not a good actress.
Or rather, she didn’t care to act.
He could easily tell which of her words were true and which were false.
But even the most blatant of lies still made him feel as if he were drowning—overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of panic and pain.
This feeling…
It defied nature itself.
As a creature that dwelled in the ultra-abyssal zone, he was never meant to understand the feeling of drowning.
Yet, she had made him experience it—twice.
Zhou Jiao let go.
Jiang Lian’s hand slid down from her neck.
In front of her, he had always maintained the stance of an unyielding predator—cold, greedy, decisive. Once he seized something, he would never let go.
He never restrained his desires—nor did he need to.
If he wanted to taste her saliva, he would suck on her tongue until it turned sore.
If he wanted to rid himself of her scent, to break free from the feeling of being trapped by her, he would tighten his grip around her throat without hesitation.
Yet now, he could not even seem to hold her neck properly.
A top predator, not only willingly leashed, but feeling guilty for its past violent hunting.
…Yes, guilt.
He had learned guilt.
Jiang Lian said, “…I’m sorry.”
Perhaps because he truly felt guilty, he forgot to use his human voice.
Instead, he unconsciously emitted a deep, eerie, and gut-wrenching low-frequency sound.
The kind that warped the sanity of those who heard it.
For a moment, the air around her was filled with countless overlapping voices—all saying, “I’m sorry.”
The voices came from all directions, rising and falling like a strange, deranged echo.
A “god” had bowed its head to her.
Had learned to feel guilt for her.
So, in that moment, everyone bowed their heads to her.
Everyone felt guilty toward her.
The chorus of apologies surged like a terrifying, inescapable wave.
Any normal person would have been horrified by such an unnatural spectacle.
But Zhou Jiao’s pupils dilated—dizzy with excitement, almost entranced.
She pressed a hand against her forehead.
She could not let Jiang Lian see—see that only he could stir her emotions like this.
She took a deep breath, her voice hoarse as she said:
“…Not enough.”
Humans were complicated.
Greedy.
Consumed by conquest.
A mere apology was far from enough.
She wanted more.
When the rush of emotions subsided slightly, Zhou Jiao lifted her gaze.
The corners of her eyes were tinged with red, making it seem as if she were on the verge of tears from overwhelming distress.
Jiang Lian felt that sharp pain in his chest again—his heart twisting violently.
“…How do I… compensate you?”
He felt regret.
Guilt.
Panic.
Yet he had no idea how to atone for it.
All he could do was look at her.
She was the source of all his emotions.
The human who had made him drown.
Zhou Jiao tilted her head up, leaned in, and lightly kissed his lips.
His lips were cold.
Her kiss was warm.
Cold and warmth met—and though his expression did not change, the fluorescent light overhead flickered violently, as if disturbed by some invisible magnetic field.
“Jiang Lian,” she said softly, “that’s for you to figure out.”