Her Tentacles 19

Chapter 19: The Elder

Shu Yao had a dream.

In the dream, she seemed to have fallen into the deep sea, her hands and feet entangled by black seaweed. No matter how she struggled, she couldn’t break free from the seaweed around her wrists and in the gaps between her fingers. She could only exhale tiny bubbles in the water, futilely.

Just as she was panicking, thinking she was about to drown, the alarm for work startled her awake.

She suddenly opened her eyes, and was almost blinded by the light.

The curtains, which she hadn’t drawn before bed, swayed in the breeze coming from outside, like a swing basking in the sun. Shu Yao lowered the hand she’d been using to shield her eyes, blinked hard, and saw her arm, glowing under the sunlight.

The bluish-purple bruises stretched from the outside of her forearm all the way to her upper arm.

The color looked even worse than before.

But strangely, the deep, bone-aching pain was gone.

Shu Yao tried to move her arm, and there was no residual pain from the impact at all, including the bump on the back of her head, which no longer hurt… However, on the back of her hand, there were several heart-shaped marks of varying sizes, as if she had been pressed against something.

She belatedly remembered that she had fallen asleep on the sofa last night. She got up and walked out. “Lin Ran—”

The only answer was the rustling of the leaves of the flowers and plants on the balcony, blown by the wind.

Shu Yao chuckled, guessing that the other woman had probably gone to work. She casually ran her fingers through her slightly messy long hair, went back to her room to get her phone, and sent a message asking if it was her who had moved her to the bedroom last night.

She also took a picture of the back of her hand, which was covered in heart-shaped marks, and sent it to Situ Jin:

“Is this cute?”

…

Unfortunately, by noon, neither of them had replied to her.

Shu Yao did some chores at home, tended to the flowers and plants upstairs and downstairs, and was just starting to feel that this unexpected holiday was a bit idle when she received concerned messages from other colleagues in her office.

“Teacher Shu? Director Zhou said you took sick leave. Are you okay?”

“Teacher Shu, I saw you in this video from Century City. Are you okay? I heard that several Century City malls are closed for rectification today. Do you know what’s going on?”

She clicked on the video. It was a fleeting shot of the scene before the crisis at the fruit tea shop, and she was briefly visible in the corner.

After she had woken up in the hospital, Jin had mentioned that the incident seemed to have been taken over by some secret department, and that everyone was forbidden to leak related video materials. Those who spread rumors and caused social panic would be held legally responsible.

So Shu Yao did not satisfy their curiosity, only replied that she was fine, and then stared at the message “several Century City malls are closed for rectification,” wondering if something had happened to the Situ family.

At the same time, she received a private message from Fan Xin.

“Teacher Shu, if you’ve recovered, could you please help me substitute for my class this afternoon? Something came up at my daughter’s kindergarten, and I have to go over immediately. I won’t be able to make it back. Please, please.”

The other party had even, for a rare occasion, sent a red envelope.

Shu Yao did not accept it, replied “Okay,” and then forwarded the message from her colleague to Situ Jin:

“What’s going on?”

At four o’clock.

Shu Yao came out of the English listening lab, picked up her phone to check, and still had no new messages. Her friend, who loved to surf the 5G wave, was rarely like this… Lin Ran was one thing, after all, she was a doctor.

She frowned and walked toward the restroom at the end of the hallway.

This floor was rarely used except for student computer exams, and the restroom was in a very secluded location, with no smell of frequent use.

Shu Yao stood in front of the mirror, turned on the faucet, and twisted the metal switch several times with a creaking sound, but no water came out.

Her expression gradually became confused.

Tucking the red umbrella under her arm, Shu Yao half-squatted and bent down to see what was wrong, but before she could do much, a clear stream of water slowly flowed out, reluctantly increasing in volume after a long time.

She didn’t think much of it and went out after washing her hands.

At the same time, several girls came this way, talking and laughing. They toned it down a little as they passed her, and all said, “Teacher Shu.”

“Teacher, we’re… going to the restroom.”

“Mmm,” she nodded.

But she had only walked a few steps past these students when she heard a terrified scream from behind:

“Ah————!!!”

Shu Yao was startled and looked back, but could only see the closed door.

Green slime was slowly seeping out from under the door.

She was stunned for a moment, and as the other students in the computer lab heard the commotion and rushed out to watch, she suddenly rushed toward the closed door, pounding on it. The umbrella tucked under her arm slipped and fell at the door.

…

“So, you just rushed in and brought several students out?”

An hour later.

At the entrance of the women’s restroom, which was crisscrossed with yellow tape, while special department personnel were scanning the area with various instruments, Shu Yao, as the teacher who had bravely rescued the students in the strange incident, was being questioned.

She pressed her lips together and nodded slightly.

The person questioning her was incredulous. “I mean, you didn’t encounter anything strange when you went in? Can you be more specific?”

Shu Yao’s expression was bewildered, but the girls next to her, who had wiped away their tears, poked their heads out and answered actively:

“There was really nothing else. When we went in, a lot of that slimy stuff suddenly came out of the faucet. You know, there have been some censored videos online recently, and the people who encounter that stuff in them are all eaten. I was terrified, but after Teacher Shu came in, that stuff just flowed down the drain and disappeared…”

The public official looked Shu Yao up and down again, perplexed.

He waved over a female colleague, who scanned Shu Yao up and down with the instrument, but it never triggered an alarm.

It sounded as if the monsters that had come out of the restroom were just passing by and were seen by chance, a false alarm.

But they had been tracking this monster for a long time and had a general understanding of its habits. It wouldn’t take more than half a minute for it to dissolve the bones, flesh, and clothes of three female students and one teacher—

How did they escape its clutches?

The recorder truthfully wrote down the answer and gave Shu Yao and the students each a business card, telling them to call this number if they encountered similar incidents in the future.

They all carefully put the business cards away.

Outside the cordon.

Director Zhou, who had come over with the other leaders, breathed a huge sigh of relief when the incident was over. He came in and said to Shu Yao, “You child, didn’t you say you were injured and went to the hospital yesterday? I approved your leave. Why were you in such a hurry to come to school? And you encountered something like this. If anything had happened to you, how could I face your mother’s entrustment…”

He seemed genuinely frightened, his speech much faster than during meetings, and his words so dense that Shu Yao tried to speak several times but couldn’t. In the end, because she didn’t know whether to call him “Uncle Zhou” or “Director Zhou,” she could only listen obediently.

Until Director Zhou changed the subject. “However, you did a great job this time. I will recommend you for this year’s ‘Most Beautiful Teacher’ award at the school. I will also register you for the city-level selection. Later, I’ll see if I can get these comrades to give you a ‘Good Samaritan Award.’ At next Monday’s teacher’s conference, you will go up and speak as a role model…”

Shu Yao: “?”

Her pupils began to tremble. “Huh?”

“What ‘huh’?” Director Zhou looked at her seriously. “This time is fine, but you can’t be so reckless in the future. You’re a girl, the most important thing is to protect yourself when something happens. Hiss, this also reminds me—”

He seemed to suddenly remember something. After confirming that Shu Yao was okay, he turned and left to make a phone call.

Leaving Shu Yao to reach out a little toward his back, muttering, “The speech… can we just skip it?”

Unfortunately, Director Zhou didn’t hear.

Not only did he enthusiastically assign her a series of writing tasks, wanting to vigorously promote her brave image, which made her stay in the office writing documents until ten that night, sending crying cat emojis to her girlfriend, who was also working late—mainly Shu Yao was the one crying—but after work the next day, Director Zhou stopped her again.

“Yaoyao, you should be free after six, right? Your aunt and I will take you out for dinner.”

…

She, who couldn’t refuse to substitute for a colleague, certainly couldn’t refuse an invitation from an elder.

Shu Yao looked at the chat box with Situ Jin on her phone. It said, “You haven’t messaged each other yesterday. Your flame has cooled from a blazing 99 to a blazing 98. Please keep up the good work.”

She clutched her phone. After getting into Zhou Wenbai’s car, she passed by the deserted Century City, where all the shops were closed, and her brow furrowed even more.

Just as she was about to call Situ Jin, her phone suddenly vibrated. A text message from her arrived: “I’m fine. My dad’s company is just dealing with something recently, so I’m super busy. I’ll tell you about it when I’m free.”

Shu Yao’s brow suddenly relaxed, and she replied with an “Okay.”

But she soon discovered that she had relaxed too soon.

Because in the private dining room where Director Zhou had brought her, there were not only him and his wife, but also another middle-aged couple, and a strange young man sitting between them.

Shu Yao was led over in a daze. Before she could speak, she heard the two elders stand up and say with a smile:

“Oh, this is quite a scene. Don’t scare the child. Why don’t we go out to eat and leave this place to the two of them, so they can get to know each other better?”

Director Zhou clapped his hands. “Okay.”

“Yaoyao, don’t be nervous. Just think of it as making a new friend.”

Shu Yao was pressed down to sit. While she was still dazed, her phone vibrated. A reply from Lin Ran appeared on it: “Not moved, but carried you back to your room.”

“Are you home? What do you want to eat tonight?”