Her Tentacles 13

Chapter 13: Mark

“I heard it’s going to rain heavily tonight, and there might be thunder. Do you want me to come over and keep you company?” Lin Ran repeated the message word for word, then looked at the sender’s name and asked toward the kitchen:

“Who is this Lin Jingshu who wants to come over and keep you company tonight?”

The sizzling sound of hot oil hitting the pan was suddenly silenced.

The person inside was quiet for a while.

When she came out again, her footsteps were not as light as before.

Shu Yao walked up to her, took the phone, glanced at the message, then deleted it and blacklisted the number. Finally, she took a deep breath.

“A crazy ex.”

Lin Ran’s expression shifted slightly.

Every word her girlfriend said had struck a nerve—

What was an ex? Someone who had also received so many pretty jars from Shu Yao, perhaps even more than she had? And this person might only be one of them?

Finally, Lin Ran’s lips slowly curved into a smile, her expression what one might call amiable as she looked at her. “Crazy in what way? Does she need surgery?”

Although she was smiling, Shu Yao felt that if she were to nod, Lin Jingshu’s brain would become a case study for Nanshan’s star neurosurgeon, Director Lin.

Having mustered the composure to use that description had already exhausted her of all the decency she had accumulated in the first half of her life.

Shu Yao’s lips moved futilely, and in the end, she could only squeeze out, “Don’t mind her. It’s not important.”

She quickly changed the subject. “I don’t have many ingredients left in the fridge. Do you want to come and see if there’s anything else you’d like to eat?”

The refrigerator door was open for a long time.

Shu Yao, with her back to her, was just finishing up a dish of braised prawns. Thinking her girlfriend hadn’t decided yet, she was about to turn around and offer some recipe suggestions when a warmth suddenly pressed against her from behind, making her hand, which was putting down the spatula, tremble.

“…Lin Ran?”

Her palm was pressed against the countertop, her soft, light-colored hair falling with her gaze, brushing past the hands that had come around from behind and were now clasped at her waist.

The one being called answered with her usual good temper. “Mmm.”

But the grip on her waist tightened.

Not only that, Shu Yao could feel a damp, cool breath slowly tracing a path down the nape of her neck. This made the palm of her hand, pressed against the marble countertop, also become moist, and the moisture seeped into her voice. “Lin… Ran?”

Her voice was broken, as if she were about to cry.

The person whose nose was pressed against the nape of her neck, confirming how much of her scent remained, answered again, her gaze locked on the pearly white skin before her. She couldn’t help but wonder, had that ex left a scent on her too?

—That would not do.

Shu Yao was hers now.

If the scent wasn’t enough, she would leave a unique mark.

The person in front of her couldn’t see her eyes, which were now surging like the tide at a new moon, but she instinctively sensed danger. Her palm slipped a little on the countertop, and she stumbled over her words again. “Are you… angry?”

The answer was the crisp sound of raindrops.

Outside the kitchen window, which reflected their figures, large raindrops began to patter against the glass, leaving behind dripping streaks.

The rain had come.

But it wasn’t just rain.

Lin Ran had only glanced at the window, which blurred their shadows, but she saw a few traces of transparent mucus mixed with the water, sliding down the glass slower than the rain.

In the mucus… there were two faint tentacles, extending and retracting.

It all happened in a very short time.

She narrowed her eyes. The air that filled her nose was a mixture of sea breeze and rainwater. The presence hidden within was too small, its aura successfully concealed.

So the predator slightly closed her eyes.

And used only her hearing to capture—

Amidst the pattering of the rain, there were countless other pattering sounds.

Innumerable impurities fell with the raindrops, landing among the thousands of high-rise buildings, then flowing along the gutters and channels throughout the city. The predator, who had always welcomed the arrival of these [parasites] and gladly accepted the expansion of her menu, now felt that something was wrong.

“Ngh!”

The muffled grunt from the person in her arms pulled her attention back.

Lin Ran brought her gaze back and saw a tentacle that had taken advantage of her distraction to sneak up onto Shu Yao’s nape. She reached out and plucked it off, at the same time saying, “I just remembered I have something to deal with at the hospital. You go ahead and have dinner. Don’t wait for me.”

“Eh?”

Shu Yao turned to the side in confusion, her eyes wide. “Now?”

When Lin Ran walked out of the residential complex, the heavy rain brought by the tropical cyclone was close at hand.

The beautiful, elegant figure appeared alone under the high-rise building, with no umbrella to shield her. She raised her head, her dark eyes staring unblinkingly at the vast gray cumulonimbus cloud.

—There was something behind the clouds.

That thing already knew that this was another predator’s hunting ground, yet it still wanted to sow its own seeds in this fertile land, trying to silently steal some nutrients.

Lin Ran stared at the cloud for a long time without blinking.

She pondered how to drag that furtive creature down from the high clouds.

Just then, the dark gray cloud slowly drifted, and a silver arc suddenly appeared within it. The bright light, under the dim sky, suddenly fell like a descending dragon, and the flash of lightning illuminated half of Nancheng!

Rumble!

After the flash of lightning, there was the sound of thunder.

Lin Ran had been about to reveal her true form and try to capture the prey behind the cloud, but the sound of the thunder diverted her attention.

The rectangular pupils, which had already appeared and locked onto the prey’s scent, suddenly lost their murderous intent. As if possessed, Lin Ran looked back in the direction she had come from.

It was this moment of relaxation that allowed the rain falling on the city to become heavier and more intense. By the time she looked back, the scent behind the cloud had already disappeared.

Lin Ran clicked her tongue in annoyance, then, following her whim, turned and went back.

Shu Yao had already registered her fingerprint on the smart lock at the door, but the electronic voice announcing “Verification successful” did not attract the attention of the person inside.

She walked in from the entryway and heard the television blaring. A jade advertisement was playing on the screen. The curtains on the balcony next to it had been drawn, but she could still see the occasional flash of light and hear the thunder, which was very close.

If she were to open the curtains and the door now, she would probably see the ethereal gray clouds passing through her home.

However, what attracted her more was the lumpy little duck-patterned blanket on the beige houndstooth sofa.

She walked to the sofa and lifted a corner of the blanket.

Revealing a light-colored head, intently focused on a match-three game.

“Huh? You’re back?”

The coolness that flooded the space between her neck and shoulders finally made Shu Yao notice the returned guest. A look of pleasant surprise appeared in her eyes. She looked up and stared at Lin Ran for a long time, as if to confirm that she hadn’t left in a huff because of that neurotic text from her ex. Then she breathed a sigh of relief and sat up from the sofa.

The thin blanket, covered in little yellow ducks, slid off her shoulders along with her messy hair. She casually put her feet on the floor. “The food is still warm. Let’s have dinner together now—”

Before she could finish, she was startled by a clap of thunder from outside and abruptly shrank her neck.

As she flinched.

Her slightly curly long hair fell, exposing the snowy nape of her neck to Lin Ran’s eyes. On it was a dark red mark.

Only then did she remember that when she had left the kitchen earlier, Shu Yao seemed to have let out a cry of surprise.

Lin Ran couldn’t help but raise her hand. Her fingertips landed on the mark on her neck bone, branded by the tentacle’s sucker. She caressed it for a moment, then covered it completely with her palm before saying softly:

“Mmm, I’m back.”

…

The warmth on the back of her neck was still cool, yet it gave Shu Yao a strange sense of security. Even more fortunately, the thunder stopped around ten o’clock, and she slept particularly well that night.

When she woke up the next day, Lin Ran’s room was already empty.

Although it was a terrible day to have to go to work with a typhoon approaching, Shu Yao felt inexplicably cheerful. She even braided her hair into a crown braid and tied it with a light green daisy hair tie.

Paired with her outfit for the day, she looked like a splendid spring day.

And today, an unusual number of people were looking at her, so many that the socially anxious girl began to suspect that something was wrong with her. She couldn’t help but check her makeup every time she passed a classroom window or a mirror.

Until she was stopped by Chen Le. “You’re so cute, Teacher Shu.”

Shu Yao: “?”

“Is this a temporary tattoo or something? Did you draw it on? It’s so cute. I was in a bad mood coming to work in this weather, but you’ve completely cured me.”

Shu Yao: “??”

She looked bewildered.

But Chen Le didn’t care. She made a heart shape with her thumb and forefinger at her, then sat back down at her desk.

Shu Yao: “???”

She was a little overwhelmed by the enthusiastic Teacher Chen. She just managed a twitch of her lips and bent down to turn on her computer.

Her back was reflected in the window behind her.

In the reflection, the person’s snowy white neck was lowered.

And on the slightly protruding part of her neck bone, a light pink heart was conspicuously branded.