Beautiful, Yet Deadly
///
It was very clear—becoming a part of them had only one outcome: death.
Zhou Jiao almost laughed in exasperation.
If death awaited her no matter what, then what was the point of his protection? Could she be born with an extra set of parents just because of him?
She turned her head and stared directly at Jiang Lian, her eyes burning with a cold, piercing fury:
“Don’t even think about it.”
Jiang Lian was also looking at her.
He had no concept of human beauty or ugliness. In his eyes, humans were nothing more than walking lumps of flesh, exuding either a fresh or decayed scent.
Even Zhou Jiao, in his perception, was merely a piece of flesh with an unusually sweet and cloying scent.
However, after their lips had brushed against each other, he had inadvertently caught a clear glimpse of hers—two petals, moist and red, their texture warm and slick.
Clearly, the temperature was not high, yet they burned like flames.
Recalling that sensation, the tentacle gripping her lower jaw suddenly swelled with thick, bulging veins, looking as if they had turned flushed with excitement. The surface of the tentacle also became unbearably wet and slippery.
Zhou Jiao felt as though she had gotten her hand stuck in a glob of adhesive—no matter how she tried, she couldn’t shake it off. The stickiness made her scalp tingle.
Yet, there was no denying it—the creature before her was both terrifying and beautiful.
Strangely… it drew her in.
Jiang Lian’s human facade was beyond question—his nose was high and straight, his features sharp and well-defined, his eyes narrow and long. His jawline carried an elegant yet chiseled angularity, sleek and unyielding. Even with grotesque, writhing tentacles extending in all directions, he still exuded an air of cold austerity and grace.
As for the tentacles surrounding them—
At first glance, they were nothing short of horrifying, so utterly fearsome that they sent a chill straight into one’s spine. But when they undulated, the thin membranes on their surface scattered specks of luminescent blue light, like the bioluminescent glow of nocturnal plankton—appearing in a fleeting shimmer, only to vanish just as quickly.
Like a creature that existed only in fantasies.
Beautiful, yet deadly.
Zhou Jiao looked at the tentacles constraining her limbs, a strange and inexplicable emotion welling up inside her—there was anger, fear, but more than anything else… a secret, unspoken thrill.
Just then, a sharp pain shot through her chin as the tentacle around her jaw tightened further.
She saw Jiang Lian lower his head, leaning in close until their noses touched. He took a deep, frenzied breath.
Zhou Jiao: “You—”
Jiang Lian said, “You’re excited. Because of me.”
His gaze locked onto her, dark and filled with an inescapable hunger, pressing in on her from all sides, suffocating her.
“You want to become a part of me. Why won’t you accept it?”
“…I don’t want to.” Zhou Jiao enunciated each word carefully. “No one wants to become a part of a monster.”
“You do,” Jiang Lian said, bringing his nose down to her lips and taking in a deep inhale. “I can smell your emotions.”
As he spoke, he suddenly opened his mouth. A purple-black tentacle shot out abruptly.
“If you don’t believe me, I can sniff even deeper.”
As soon as the words fell, he moved to force her jaws apart, as if intent on letting the tentacle burrow into her stomach to take in her scent from within.
“Enough!” Zhou Jiao shuddered and gritted her teeth. “I am indeed excited, but not because I want to become a part of you.”
Jiang Lian did not speak.
As expected, when she was emotionally stirred, her scent was at its most intoxicating.
He wanted to, really wanted to…
Press his lips against hers?
No, that wasn’t enough.
Parasitize her, so he could keep her scent forever?
That wouldn’t work either. Although parasitism would make her willingly cling to him and be at his disposal, it would alter her scent.
Moreover, rather than endlessly sniffing her scent in a way that could never truly quench his thirst, what he craved even more was her saliva—to relive that numbing, intoxicating sensation at the base of his tongue.
Jiang Lian thought for a moment. One hand gripped her chin, while the other pressed against the back of her head.
Towering over her, his tentacle flicked out like a venomous sea serpent, aiming to pierce into her mouth.
In a flash, Zhou Jiao swiftly pulled out a Taser-gun, aimed it at Jiang Lian’s head, and pulled the trigger—Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Four arcs of electric blue light shot out in rapid succession, each one striking Jiang Lian’s vital points. If he had been human, he would have already collapsed to the ground, convulsing.
However, Jiang Lian’s expression remained unchanged.
He tilted his head slightly, his Adam’s apple shifting as he retracted the tentacle in his mouth. Then, he casually removed the arcs of electricity coiling around his gold-rimmed glasses, nose bridge, and cervical bone and tossed them aside.
“Not only did you make the mistake of attacking me,” he said, “but you also chose the wrong weapon. Voltage will not harm me.”
Zhou Jiao said coldly, “Then what is the correct choice? Lying still and letting you perform an endoscopy on me?”
Jiang Lian stared at Zhou Jiao without answering.
The more she resisted, the sweeter and more cloying her scent became.
He had ten thousand ways to subdue her, to force her mouth open—but the closer he got, the stronger the sensation of losing control.
He feared that if he lost himself in his hunger, he would tear her to pieces.
It was an incredibly strange feeling. He had always looked down on Zhou Jiao, believing she was unworthy of even being a part of his food chain. And yet, merely because she had fired four electric arcs at him, he now felt… an inexplicable, seething rage.
She was so small, so fragile, so weak.
And yet, she considered this level of electricity to be a viable weapon for self-defense.
She should feel honored that he was willing to grant her his protection.
Zhou Jiao furrowed her brows and instinctively tried to step back, but the ground was densely packed with writhing tentacles, leaving her no choice but to remain where she was, warily watching Jiang Lian.
“—What are you thinking?” She maintained her raised stance, enunciating each word.
“I am thinking…” Jiang Lian looked down at her and spoke slowly, “whether I should kill you. You are irritating me to no end.”
Even as he said this, his head drew closer and closer.
As if pulled by some terrifying force of attraction, he stared at her without blinking. His head lowered straight down, until his face was almost pressed against hers.
This should have been a languidly intimate scene: the man’s profile was coldly sharp, his nose bridge adorned with gold-rimmed glasses. His skin was pale, as pristine and translucent as a glass vessel, yet he lowered his head, his breath intertwining with hers.
—If not for the fact that beneath his skin, tentacles were writhing violently.
At that moment, something even more terrifying happened—
Jiang Lian’s straight nose bridge suddenly split open from the middle, unfurling like the gaping maw of a man-eating flower, extending dozens of purple-black tentacles outward, which clamped tightly around Zhou Jiao’s neck. (TL: Mom, I’m scared)
The apex predator had finally revealed its horrifying true form.
Jiang Lian had not lied—he truly wanted to kill her.
As his killing intent surged, “Xie Yueze” and the mutated corpses lost control as well.
Zhou Jiao felt an overwhelming, suffocating chill engulf her. Her vitality was draining away at an alarming rate. Struggling to turn her head, she realized—her hands and feet had been ensnared by the tentacles of “Xie Yueze” and the mutated corpses.
Their intelligence was inferior to the main body’s, and so was their self-restraint. The moment they coiled around her limbs, they began ruthlessly and greedily siphoning away her life force.
Very soon, her hands and feet turned cold and stiff, completely losing sensation.
Jiang Lian did not notice how deathly pale Zhou Jiao had become.
In fact, he didn’t even notice his own abnormal state.
At first, he had indeed intended to kill her.
But—
She smelled too good.
The instant he caught a whiff of that overwhelming sweetness, a numbing sensation coursed through him from head to toe, as if he had been electrified. His entire mind became consumed by her scent.
He didn’t even realize how frenzied his gaze had become. It was as if, from this moment onward, he existed for a single, absolute purpose—
—To sniff. To mark. To claim.
To inhale the scent of the person before him.
To imprint her with his mark.
She was his.
Only he could sniff her. Only he could mark her.
Unless he abandoned her himself, no other creature was allowed to look at her, smell her, approach her, or leave their pheromones near her.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. The air grew thinner, more stifling.
Zhou Jiao was becoming oxygen-deprived. She wanted to take in deep breaths, but no matter how much air she inhaled, it was mercilessly stolen away by the tentacles.
A wave of unbearable suffocation crashed over her—far more agonizing than drowning.
Zhou Jiao had never been this close to death before.
Her chest burned like fire.
Her mind felt like a piece of paper, and her consciousness was like ink—smudging and fading under the spreading water, becoming more and more indistinct.
Where was she?
What was happening to her?
She was going to be…
Killed by Jiang Lian.
Her life force continued to drain away. Her awareness blurred further.
Her hands and feet were growing so cold—so stiff—nearly frozen solid.
She was clearly still alive, yet she had already become a lifeless corpse at the mercy of others.
In the face of overwhelming power, she had no ability to fight back.
At that moment, an excruciating pain shot through her fingers. The agony was so intense that her entire body convulsed, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead as she was jolted awake.
She forced herself to lift her hand—her fingers, as if something had drained them dry, had turned into a horrifying shade of withered yellow, shriveled and desiccated.
…Even Jiang Lian’s puppets could carve her apart at will.
A fire of unwilling rage surged up from her chest.
She could not let herself be at their mercy.
She had to live.
What should she do?
She had to fight back.
Zhou Jiao abruptly clenched her fist, and the stabbing pain from her withered fingers made her vision clearer than ever before.
Jiang Lian was drowning in her scent.
It was as if he had been split into two halves—one that held an absolute, disdainful contempt for Zhou Jiao, and the other that was strangely obsessed with her scent.
Sweat, blood, saliva, tears… as long as it carried her scent, he wanted to savor it again and again.
If he were a man, and she a woman—
Then he would be the most fervent, the most abject lover.
But unfortunately, he was a monster, and she was human.
Jiang Lian stared fixedly at Zhou Jiao. His gold-rimmed glasses had long since been shattered by the electric arcs, leaving behind only the broken frame and fragments. His eyes were overflowing with an uncontrollable, violent hunger.
Had Zhou Jiao’s willpower been anything less than extraordinary, she would have already died at his hands.
But—it wasn’t enough.
The thin membrane on the surface of his tentacles had mimicry and bioluminescence functions. When his outer skin entered a state of camouflage and defense, it could not even be detected by heat sensors or electromagnetic fields.
At the same time, this membrane possessed immense resistance—it was immune to temperature changes, pressure shifts, and impervious to bullets or electric shocks. However, as a trade-off, it also dulled a portion of his sensory perception.
Should he retract this membrane so he could smell her more deeply?
Was she worth taking such a risk?
Jiang Lian did not hesitate for long.
Almost immediately, the membrane on the tentacle peeled away, revealing its silver-white core.
If Zhou Jiao could open her eyes at this moment, she would see that this tentacle had become incredibly vulnerable—as delicate as a peeled egg, so smooth and fragile that even the faintest bite could leave a mark.
But—she could not open her eyes.
She felt as though she were melting, dissolving. A great waterfall seemed to be crashing before her eyes.
Only after a long time did she realize—
It was not a waterfall.
It was the rapid outflow of her vanishing life force.
She really was about to die.
How could a human possibly fight against a monster?
Humans had descended from water to land, from the treetops to the ground, from walking on all fours to standing upright, from consuming raw flesh to striking the first spark of fire.
The blood of her ancestors flowed through her veins.
Her genes carried the most intricate answers—the Creator could never derive another species of human from the equations of heredity, probability, environment, mutation, and evolution.
…If she was already this perfect, then why couldn’t she fight against a monster?
She did not want to die.
She could not die.
Zhou Jiao’s eyes snapped open.
Her face had already taken on the pallor of near-death.
But suddenly, her lower jaw jutted forward, the bones protruding sharply from her cheeks—her jaws clenched tight and sank viciously into Jiang Lian’s tentacle.
Jiang Lian’s pupils shrank abruptly as he attempted to retract it.
The next second, Zhou Jiao’s hand shot out and clamped down on his throat.
Her palm felt as if it carried ten thousand volts of electricity.
Logically, electricity meant nothing to him—to his body, it was no different from an insect sting.
Yet at this moment—
Every single cell in the areas she had touched heated up, numbed, and convulsed madly.
Her voluntary touch sent a thrill of exhilaration surging through him.
But then—Jiang Lian’s body suddenly froze stiff.
Zhou Jiao had bitten off his tentacle—and swallowed it.
This was not a serious issue—losing a tentacle did not matter. It was part of him; it could return to him at any time.
But—
Once his tentacle entered another organism’s body, that organism would be irreversibly contaminated.
It was no different from parasitism.
Zhou Jiao’s scent would be permanently altered by his tentacle—utterly distinct from what it had been before.
He had lost that irreplaceable, unique scent—forever.
Jiang Lian slowly stood up.
The tentacles that had clung to Zhou Jiao’s face and to the walls of the laboratory snapped back into the fissures on his face like lightning.
In an instant, his face had returned to normal—expressionless, devoid of even the faintest trace of emotion.
Without his glasses to obscure his eyes, the inhumanity in his gaze became even more pronounced.
His stare was utterly detached, as though he existed completely apart from human society.
It was so alien that it did not even evoke fear or horror—only an overwhelming sense of strangeness and unease.
He did not spare Zhou Jiao a single glance.
Turning around, he walked out.
The mutated corpse tried to follow.
Without even looking up, Jiang Lian snapped his fingers—and crushed its head from a distance.
He had intended to kill “Xie Yueze” as well, but after a brief pause, he merely withdrew the tentacle from “Xie Yueze’s” body.
For the time being—
He no longer wanted to smell the scent of humans.
He was disgusted.
Zhou Jiao had a very painful dream.
It was as though she lingered on the brink of death, struggling to breathe. Every time she opened her mouth to inhale, blood gushed like a spring from the base of her tongue.
Her spirit was withering, her flesh decaying.
There was nothing she could do to stop it.
Zhou Jiao struggled to breathe, struggled to resist, trying to grasp a piece of driftwood on the distant surface of the water. She even reviewed her life, trying to find some regret, something to ignite her will to live. Unfortunately, it seemed she had no regrets. She had always been… devoid of desires.
Cold, numb, suffocating, the violent gasping of someone at death’s door, her consciousness weighed down as if filled with lead… she seemed to have become some sort of mollusk, knowing only how to coil and entwine, waiting for commands.
Because she was not an independent being, but an appendage of some other creature.
An appendage?
—Don’t even think about it.
As if suddenly breaking through the water’s surface, Zhou Jiao’s face was drenched in cold sweat as she strained to breathe, again and again.
Her withering spirit bloomed anew, her decaying flesh revived.
She was absolutely not a monster’s appendage.
Zhou Jiao’s eyes flew open as she came fully awake.
Trembling, she looked down—every injury was gone, even the finger that had withered and shriveled from being drained.
Everything that happened last night seemed like a nightmare.
But she knew it wasn’t.
Zhou Jiao took a deep breath, stood up, stepped over the unconscious Xie Yueze on the ground, and picked up a scalpel.
Her expression didn’t change. She looked remarkably calm, even methodically disinfecting the scalpel.
With the scalpel in hand, Zhou Jiao slashed heavily at her own arm.
—The wound appeared, but vanished in an instant, healing in the blink of an eye, leaving only a faint white scar.
After swallowing Jiang Lian’s tentacle, her body had undergone a mutation.
Perhaps it wasn’t a mutation, but… something else.
Zhou Jiao let out a cold laugh and tossed the scalpel aside.
No matter what changes she had undergone, she would kill Jiang Lian.
And return the pain she suffered last night a thousandfold, ten thousandfold.