Her Tentacles 27

Chapter 27: Company

Lin Ran called directly.

The new phone, a compensatory gift from her friend, reproduced the other’s voice almost perfectly, giving Shu Yao the illusion that she was being held in her girlfriend’s arms, with her whispering gently in her ear.

“Which friend?” she asked.

Shu Yao faltered. “A… a new friend?”

Lin Ran was quiet for a while. Shu Yao couldn’t see her expression through the phone and could only guess at the reason for her silence. Just then, Lin Ran’s unhurried reply finally came:

“I made the umbrella myself with materials. There’s no link.”

“What kind of materials?” This time, Shu Yao was quick to respond.

“The materials were from a DIY workshop. I’m not very clear, but I just checked, and that shop has already closed down.” Even a fool would have understood Shu Yao’s intentions by now, not to mention Lin Ran, who had noticed from the beginning that her breathing and tone were off. She now asked, as a matter of course, “What’s wrong with the umbrella? You seem to be suddenly very concerned about it. Did something happen recently?”

Shu Yao opened her mouth to speak.

After thinking about it, she still said nothing, just shook her head sullenly, and then realized the person on the other end couldn’t see her. So she forced herself to cheer up, propped her head up from under the blanket, and breathed the air outside. “It’s just… I feel like there’s something wrong with my eyes?”

“Mmm?”

“I often see things and scenes that other people can’t see?” For example, the crab claw infested with gill lice on the dinner table earlier. After she had suddenly stood up, the wriggling scene in the shell had disappeared. What was left inside was clearly just the dead bodies of the parasites, steamed along with the crab shell.

Shu Yao shook her head vigorously, trying to forget this disgusting scene. Thinking that this kind of hallucination was probably related to a brain lesion, she let out a “wuwu” sound. “Am I dying of some terminal illness, Lin Ran?”

But her girlfriend’s firm reply came quickly. “Don’t worry. I’ll take a look when I get back. Are there any other abnormalities?”

Shu Yao thought for a long time and said no.

Then she heard her girlfriend say, “Whatever it is, I can solve it.”

Perhaps it was because her reputation as a star neurosurgeon was too renowned, or perhaps it was because the emotion in her tone at this moment was so reassuring, but Shu Yao suddenly felt her long-held bad mood slowly being soothed. Her limbs, which had been cold even when wrapped in a thin blanket in the middle of summer, began to warm up.

Her eyes curved into crescents as she said, “Lin Ran.”

“Mmm?”

“I like you so much. How can I have such a capable and gentle girlfriend?” This proud mumble was meant for Shu Yao herself, but the person on the other end of the phone also let out a light laugh.

That night, Shu Yao clung to her girlfriend, who was on a business trip, talking on the phone for a long time without getting tired of it. From the sofa to taking a bath in the bathtub, she always kept her phone by her side, muttering to herself. She didn’t know if it was because the weather was too hot recently, but the soap water in the bubble machine in the bathtub always dried up very quickly, and she had to refill it every day.

Her girlfriend accompanied her silently and patiently on the other end of the phone.

Until after her bath, Shu Yao had no appetite and simply went to bed.

That night, she didn’t know when the call was disconnected. In short, with Lin Ran’s company, she had a good sleep. In her dream, there was no clinging seaweed, no dense barnacles or gill lice. When she woke up, her phone had long since entered a dormant state, its battery depleted.

Shu Yao washed up and got ready again, composed herself, charged her phone, and only then did she face a new day at work, a new self.

…

But it seemed that the new self was of no use.

At noon.

Shu Yao was asked by Teacher Fan to take everyone’s materials to the administrative building. She was holding the materials and passing by the empty lecture hall when her attention was completely drawn to the black gauze curtains hanging all over the hallway.

The semi-transparent light gauze, exuding an ominous aura, seemed to have cut through the floor from upstairs, seamlessly connecting to the ceiling. It hung down naturally, overlapping in layers, completely blocking her way.

It was as if someone had played a prank and had taken all the black gauze from a funeral home and stuck it here.

Any living person would have their scalp tingle at the sight of these black sails blocking the way.

She turned around and walked away without hesitation.

But then she found that the way she had come was also the same.

This short stretch of hallway seemed to have been cut off and transported to another time and space, with both ends stretched into an endless straight line. And these gauze curtains had a consciousness, beginning to move without wind, like seaweed swaying in the ocean, constantly approaching her.

Closer, and closer.

Even though Shu Yao didn’t move a single step, the ends of them, which were floating up, touched her face.

The bone-chilling softness made her shiver involuntarily.

It was like someone was holding a round ice cube in their palm and repeatedly rolling it over her cheek.

That indescribable malice appeared again. Shu Yao knew that in this situation, she couldn’t lose her mind, couldn’t scream and shout to provoke the perpetrator, and put herself in a deeper crisis. But after being touched by the black gauze on her face and hands, her scalp still tingled, and she began to walk forward, wanting to escape this predicament.

After walking a few steps, the thick black gauze wrapped around her ankles and covered her neck and waist—

She was clearly wearing a white floral long dress, but this black gauze wrapped around her from behind, creating a new garment for her. And the part around her neck, like a collar, tightened more and more, making her expression dazed, as if she were suffocating.

Shu Yao couldn’t take another step.

Just as her vision was blurring, the black gauze that had been wrapped around her retreated like a tide. She fell forward, exhausted, but did not fall on the cold ground.

Someone who had passed by at some point knelt down on one knee and caught her, one hand supporting her back, the other stroking the back of her head, their tone concerned:

“Teacher Shu?”

“Teacher Shu, are you okay?”

Half an hour later.

Shu Yao sat by the lotus pond at the back of the school, her expression vacant. The person next to her handed her a cup of warm water. “Drink some to calm down?”

Only then did she look at the paper cup in the other person’s hand with some surprise, and then at the student dormitories on the mountain nearby. She didn’t know where she had gotten the hot water from.

Mu Qing smiled and pointed to the mountain. “I got it from the dorm manager over there.”

The student dormitories on this mountain were above a hundred steps, and there was no elevator in the building. Every time school started, the parents would sigh in front of these steps when they helped carry the luggage, and feel sorry for their children who would have to go up and down these steps every day in their future studies.

Not to mention that the dorm manager of this building was usually unwilling to move, even the students living in this area were the least likely to be seen in other parts of the school.

Shu Yao’s expression softened a lot. After thanking her, she took the warm water from Mu Qing.

“Why does it feel like ever since I’ve known you, I’ve always been hearing you say thank you?”

Mu Qing said, sitting down at the other end of the long bench. The two of them blew in the wind from the lotus pond. Even the scorching summer heat was a little lower than elsewhere, even though the long bench here was exposed to the sun.

Shu Yao had just been through that ordeal and desperately needed the heat of the sun to warm her body. She drank the hot water and looked at Mu Qing, who was already sweating a little. “It’s very hot here. Aren’t you going to stay in a shady place?”

Mu Qing smiled and shook her head, looking at her with a meaningful gaze. “You look like you need someone to be with you right now. And I’m always either in the office or the dance studio. It’s good for my health to come out and get some sun once in a while.”

After a pause, she said, “Since I’m always helping you, is there anything I can help you with this time? Even if it’s just to talk about it, will it make you feel better?”

She was really good at subtly leading people to talk.

Shu Yao drank the hot water. She had originally wanted to keep all these abnormalities to herself and tell Lin Ran when she came back. But in this relaxing environment, with the sun shining and the breeze blowing through the lotus leaves, compared to the near-death experience just now, her guard was thus let down.

She briefly talked about the things she had encountered in the past few days. To avoid being treated as a mental patient, she added at the end, “I—I’ve already made an appointment for a hospital check-up. Just listen to it as a story.”

Who knew that Mu Qing did not show her an embarrassing look. Instead, she listened thoughtfully for a while, then said:

“It seems that these things always happen when you’re alone.”

“Although I didn’t see anything just now, for your safety, and to verify if these weird incidents are only targeting you, why don’t you call me whenever you’re at school from now on, how about that?”

She looked at Shu Yao, who was staring at her blankly, and couldn’t help but curve her lips into a smile.

Like a hunter smiling as he watched his prey fall into his trap, step by step.

But that hint of a hunter’s interest was only fleeting, and was hidden in a concerned inquiry.

“Will it be better if I’m with you?”