Her Tentacles 26

Chapter 26: Weird

Lin Ran, using the excuse that she was sensitive to smells, asked Shu Yao to wait until after her business trip to call the extermination company. Her beautiful girlfriend rarely asked anything of her, so Shu Yao naturally agreed.

However, before she could worry about exterminating the unknown crawlies at home, she encountered another problem—

At that time, she was being drafted by the teachers from the administrative department to inspect the girls’ dormitory with members of the student council. Shu Yao was holding a notebook and had just come out of the dormitory when she wanted to go to the restroom.

In broad daylight, in the women’s restroom where she was the only one, she looked up after washing her hands, and fine, dense water droplets suddenly appeared on the log-colored wooden door and the white ceramic tiles.

The air humidity increased sharply, and there was even a salty, fishy smell like a sea breeze.

Shu Yao didn’t notice at first. She was about to pick up the notebook on the sink when she found that the handwriting on the open page was smudged and wet, blurring before her eyes. The silver-white doorknob was rusty, and the dark brown rust spots slowly turned into the color of the rocks on a coastal cliff. On it, round, dark green and black objects protruded.

Dense, covering the door, walls, and ceiling, it made her immediately withdraw her hand.

As Shu Yao’s CPU was about to be burned out by this scene change, the dense, dark green objects began to slowly wriggle. Messy, nail-like parts grew on their pitted backs. As they wriggled, the changed environment of the door and walls gradually turned into muddy soil, with thin, long, root-like tendrils hanging down.

Brown mud tendrils swayed in the shadows of the cliff-like walls, and the crevices were filled with crowded, irregular barnacles—

This was a lethal dose for someone with trypophobia!

Even though Shu Yao didn’t have this phobia, the moment she was suddenly immersed in the scene, her pupils shrank, her face turned from green to white, and she looked as if she had been gone for a while.

She didn’t know how long she had been standing there like a log in the restroom until the door was knocked on and pushed open from the outside. The scenes dissipated like mist, and in the curious voice of the person who came in, “Teacher Shu, I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Why are you standing here alone? I thought you were missing.”

Shu Yao closed her eyes and fainted.

…

When she woke up, she saw the white walls and bedsheets of the infirmary.

And a concerned head leaning over her, the small braid at the end of her hair swaying in her vision. But Shu Yao didn’t even blink, just stared blankly at the ceiling.

She didn’t know if it was because the sudden mental pollution was too intense, but she actually felt as if those dense little vortexes were about to appear on the ceiling, turning into the shape of barnacles…

So she sat up abruptly.

“Ouch.”

Mu Qing reflexively raised her hand to block her forehead, thus avoiding the tragedy of her forehead hitting her chin directly. But she still gasped in pain because her movement was too fierce, and she shook the hand she had put in the middle vigorously.

“Hiss—Teacher Shu, are you okay?” she looked at Shu Yao with a puzzled expression, lifted the white curtain to look outside, “Do you want me to ask the school doctor to come and see if you need an IV drip? She said you fainted from fright and shock. Weren’t you alone in the restroom? What did you encounter?”

Shu Yao glanced at her weakly, not wanting to say the word “barnacle.” She felt that as long as she spoke or thought about it, that disgusting image would fill her brain again.

She couldn’t figure it out.

Am I some kind of walking monster catnip?

Why do these weird things always find her?

“Nothing…” she finally replied. Anyway, saying it would only make the other faculty and students in the school panic again. It hadn’t been long since the last monster-eating incident.

Maybe her hallucinations were getting worse?

She took a moment to recover, then got off the single bed and declined the school doctor’s offer of an IV drip, just promising to pay attention to rest, keep her mood stable, and recover as soon as possible.

Mu Qing saw her walking out and quickly followed, asking her as she walked if she wanted to take leave and go home to rest.

Shu Yao naturally shook her head again.

As long as she didn’t run into this kind of weird incident again, her health was very good!

But some things just can’t be talked about.

Not two days later, Chen Le suggested in the office that everyone go out for a meal, because now was a good season to eat crayfish.

Crayfish with beer, whether it was spicy, braised, or thirteen-spice and stewed with big bones, as long as it was flavorful enough, it could be made to look, smell, and taste delicious, making one’s mouth water.

Because Lin Ran was on a business trip for a free clinic activity recently, Shu Yao was alone at home after work in the evening. With Chen Le’s reason of “having a welcome party for Teacher Mumu,” she also nodded, thinking that if it was delicious, she could go again with Lin Ran later.

The restaurant Chen Le chose looked very unique. Even the variety of crayfish was carefully selected, using the small green lobsters from Southeast Asia, which were large, with very impressive claws, and fresh roe.

After Fan Xin picked up her child and the teachers from the office had all gathered at the restaurant, everyone began to discuss what to order. A classic spicy crayfish, a house special flavored shrimp, and a spicy crab claw.

The first to be served was the spicy crab claw. The reddish-orange crab claws were sharp and impressive, at first glance comparable to king crabs. They were soaked in a special dark sauce, with a cool taste that was spicy enough to offset the coldness, and smelled extremely flavorful.

Chen Le first put on a glove and took one, broke it and cut it open, revealing the snow-white meat inside. After tasting it, she praised it greatly, “Delicious! You all try it. What I look forward to most every summer is coming to this restaurant to eat crayfish, and their secret recipe crab claws. It’s a pity it’s not the crab season yet…”

Mu Qing was closer to the plate of crab claws, so she used the serving chopsticks to get a piece for Shu Yao.

After Shu Yao thanked her, she also put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves, broke the crab claw joint, and picked up the scissors to cut open the white hard shell on the inside, which was full of meat—

It was completely different from the one Chen Le had just opened.

The plump crab shell was not filled with tender snow-white meat, but with rice-grain-sized, yellow, unidentified creatures. The moment they met Shu Yao’s eyes, the ones that should have been cooked and dead suddenly came to life, wriggling like maggots as if they were about to drill out of the crab shell…

“Ah!!”

She screamed, stood up from her seat, knocking over the stool behind her, her face pale, and sweat beading on her forehead.

Fan Xin, who was feeding her child crab meat, was startled by her.

Chen Le also almost got scratched by the tip of a crab claw.

Several people looked at her at the same time. Mu Qing was the first to poke her head over, looked at the opened crab claw in her plate curiously, and then smiled calmly, “Ah~ it’s a crab infested with gill lice.”

She looked up at Shu Yao. “Do you want me to get you another one?”

Chen Le, who often ate seafood, patted her still-pounding heart. “Teacher Shu, you’re so jumpy, it’s too scary,” then she added in confusion, “Don’t gill lice usually grow on the crab’s belly? So they can also grow in the claws?”

Shu Yao shook her head.

The others just thought it was a very common thing. Even Chen Le was thinking of calling the waiter over later and using this crab claw as an excuse to complain that the food the restaurant had served was not up to standard, and ask them to change it for a new plate.

And Fan Xin had already very naturally started to peel the crayfish for her child.

Everything made Shu Yao, who had knocked over her stool and was still scared, seem to be making a big fuss over nothing.

But she really had no interest in sitting down and eating peacefully anymore, because she understood that this was not a coincidence, but that she was really being targeted by something strange again.

“I—I need to go to the restroom first,” she hastily made an excuse and left the table.

…

The restroom was deep within the winding brick wall design of the restaurant. Shu Yao cupped some warm water and washed her face, leaning on the sink, feeling her whole body trembling with fear.

The previous times she had encountered monsters, she had only been innocently involved, and before she could even react to what was happening, it was all over, as if these strange things were just passing through her world.

Only this time.

This prank-like, shadow-like terror.

Shu Yao’s heart tightened for a moment. She forced herself to calm down. After a long time, she remembered the business card with the special department’s phone number that Lin Ran had failed to dial before, which was in her bag.

Without even drying her hands, she quickly left the restroom and walked toward the small private room in the corner where everyone was having their meal.

The private room was surrounded by hanging bamboo curtains on all four sides, and was on a high platform, giving customers an excellent dining experience. Shu Yao passed by outside, and was about to step up the stairs to go in when she heard a conversation from inside:

“Yeah, she’s been so weird lately… I live in the same community as School Doctor Wang, right? I heard her say that when Teacher Shu was sent over that day, she was so scared, just like the students who encountered those things at school before… Could it be that those things haven’t left yet?”

“Don’t scare me. We’ve only had a few days of peace. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days. I hope that man-eating monster doesn’t come out again. It should just go where it’s supposed to go. Didn’t they say it came ashore with the typhoon? It should just go back to the sea…”

“Then what’s wrong with Teacher Shu? It can’t be that this weird thing is only targeting her, right?”

“Why not? Hey, Teacher Mumu, didn’t you mention when you were telling us the story of the shaman in your hometown that if you bring some strange things home without permission, you’re more likely to have bad luck—do you guys remember Teacher Shu’s umbrella? Don’t you think that umbrella is particularly demonic? Every time I see it, my heart shivers…”

“Huh? I thought I was the only one who thought so. So you think so too, Teacher Chen? But I don’t dare to say this to Teacher Shu, because she seems to treasure it a lot.”

“The way you put it makes her seem even more possessed, you know?”

They were all teachers, and their voices were always a little louder than ordinary people’s when they spoke. This was also a professional habit, so at this moment, Shu Yao could easily hear the conversation between Chen Le and Fan Xin clearly from a distance.

And they didn’t forget to include Mu Qing. “Teacher Mumu, what do you think? Do you think she’s encountered something unclean?”

Mu Qing was clearly taken aback by their cue. She seemed to have choked on her beer, and coughed twice before replying helplessly, “How would I know that… But if you’re talking about bringing strange things home and encountering weird things, the shaman said this is also very easy to identify. Just think about when your bad luck started.”

After saying that, she very naturally changed the subject and did not let Chen Le and Fan Xin talk about this matter anymore.

Shu Yao, standing in the hallway outside, was as if she had been petrified, and stood there again.

It wasn’t until a passing waiter cast a few strange glances at her that she came back to her senses. But this time, she had no thought of the business card. Instead, she quickly walked back to the private room, forced a smile, and told them that she had to leave first.

Ignoring the glances from her colleagues, and no longer considering whether her leaving in the middle of the meal would seem disrespectful and unsociable, she still silently shook her head and refused when Mu Qing asked her with concern if her face looked bad and if she wanted her to take her back.

When she picked up her bag and umbrella, the cool feeling of the bone-white handle once again seeped into her palm.

But compared to before, when every time she touched this coolness, she would think of the reassuring feeling of Lin Ran’s skin, this time Shu Yao’s palm was covered in a slippery cold sweat.

So cold—

Would a normal umbrella handle be so cold on such a hot day?

She didn’t want to doubt her girlfriend, but the more she tried to suppress those strange thoughts, the more some small ideas, like bubbles in water, would gurgle up from the cracks in the stones.

For example, the abnormally realistic, beautiful patterns on this umbrella, which seemed as if they could move at any time, and for example, since she had gotten this umbrella, she had had bad luck with her friend at the juice shop, had been involved in a strange incident with several female students in the women’s restroom of the computer lab, and had even encountered Lin Jingshu’s ambiguous partner, who seemed to have been parasitized, in the suburbs when she went to save Situ Jin…

And the events of these past two days.

All the images irresistibly entered her mind. Shu Yao thought back a little and realized that she had actually encountered so many strange events that an ordinary person might not encounter in their entire lifetime.

She walked alone on the way back to her community. Although it was rush hour, and this food street full of restaurants had long queues, she was in the crowd on a summer night with bright streetlights, but she was shivering with cold.

…

Shu Yao couldn’t remember how she had walked home in a daze.

Just like every time she was afraid of thunder, she wrapped herself in a blanket, curled up into a ball on the sofa, emptied her mind, and didn’t think about anything, like a snail hiding in its shell.

Until her phone vibrated continuously, with a special notification sound.

After a long time.

A hand stretched out from under the blanket, picked up the only light source in the dark living room, and saw the message from Lin Ran. She was replying to the picture of her lunch she had taken at noon, asking her what she had eaten.

“I didn’t eat much. The food here tastes very average.”

“It’s about this time, you should be off work, right? Are you home? If you haven’t finished the food in the fridge, just throw it all away. Don’t get a stomachache.”

They were just ordinary words and reminders, but Shu Yao’s eyes warmed up as she read them.

Tears fell, pattering on the phone screen.

Lin Ran was so good to her, so gentle and considerate since they started dating. She had even taken over the daily dinner after her first time cooking at her place, making Shu Yao look forward to going home every day.

Even if the umbrella was really not right, it must be that Lin Ran was deceived by a bad-hearted seller.

Shu Yao wiped her tears, picked up her phone, chose a cute cat emoji with a heart in its mouth from the sticker pack, sent it, and after replying to her message seriously, she added:

“Oh, right.”

“I have a friend who thinks the umbrella you gave me is very beautiful and asked me for the link. Can you send it to me?”