Her Tentacles 42

Chapter 42: Drunk

Situ Jin didn’t quite know what Shu Yao was worried about, but seeing her friend in dire need of alcohol to drown her sorrows, she still followed her suggestion and chose a recipe with a vodka base.

But before that, she first took an ordinary straight-sided glass from the side, washed it, and poured half a glass of milk to hand over—

“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

The whole ship was in chaos now, and the restaurants had long since closed. Even if there were some open, an ordinary person wouldn’t know who was the meal to be enjoyed. Thinking that the little couple seemed to have been in their room for a long time, Situ Jin could now even keenly spot half a love bite peeking out from the edge of Shu Yao’s neck scarf.

“Have some milk first to line your stomach. You don’t usually drink, so it’s easy to hurt your stomach if you drink too much.”

Shu Yao was very obedient.

After she finished the milk, she even licked the milk stain from the corner of her lips, and then her gaze continued to fix on the silver shaker in Situ Jin’s hand. Coincidentally, there was a menu nearby. Situ Jin pulled it over and flipped through it, preparing to learn and sell on the spot.

The girl’s little white shoes, on the other side of the bar, were not on the footrest of the high stool, but were slowly dangling in the air. She leaned over curiously to look at the page Situ Jin had flipped to, and pointed to a rainbow-colored drink, asking:

“This one looks delicious.”

“It’s not bad,” Situ Jin glanced at her. “It’s sour and sweet, but this one is called ‘First Love.’ Are you sure you want to try it?”

Shu Yao: “…”

She let out a slow “oh,” and took the initiative to help Situ Jin turn the page. She saw another picture, with jasmine buds blooming in a transparent soda with crushed ice, and the name was ‘White Moonlight.’ She then happily announced, “Then I want this one!”

Situ Jin pursed her lips and, as she reached for the coconut juice, said to her, “Why don’t I just create a drink for you today and call it ‘Love-Struck Fool,’ how about that?”

Shu Yao blushed, but nodded. “Okay.”

…

A little vodka was mixed into the transparent coconut drink, and the taste of jasmine tea was used as a cover. As the glass was shaken, the ice cubes inside clinked, and the clusters of white flower buds sprinkled on top were also shaken with great charm.

This reminded Shu Yao of how Lin Ran looked when she wore a white dress or a white shirt.

It seemed that as long as it was related to Lin Ran, even if this cup was poison, it would become particularly sweet.

She drank this cup of wine in one gulp.

Then she looked at Situ Jin with anticipation.

Situ Jin didn’t expect that she, who usually didn’t touch a drop of alcohol, could now drink it so readily. But then she thought that novices who drink also like to do this, chugging it down recklessly, and it wouldn’t take more than a few cups to knock themselves out.

She sighed and changed the base and recipe, placing the next cup in front of her—

“Sunrise over the Sea.”

With an orange juice base, rum was mixed in to create a gradient of color from dark to light from bottom to top. A slice of lemon was stuck on the rim of the cup. She handed this beautiful scene, which she could see every morning from the executive VIP room, over.

“Starry Sky under the Sea.”

This cup was a color-changing magic trick with butterfly pea flower water, gin, and lemon juice layered together. The liquid was turned a dreamy purple, reminding Shu Yao of the magnificent jellyfish tide she had seen with Lin Ran in that bathtub.

Shu Yao drank three cups in a row, her cheeks flushed with the alcohol. She let out a light burp, the kind of full feeling from drinking too much water. Only then did she stop her chugging and instead looked at her friend behind the bar in confusion:

“Every cup is clearly Lin Ran.”

“But why do I always see Lin Jingshu?”

Situ Jin was a little baffled by her question. She tried to understand her words. “What Lin Jingshu? You’ve been mentioning her a lot lately. Is she harassing you with messages again? Or calling you? Is your bad mood related to her?”

If it weren’t for the fact that this bar was made of hard marble, Situ Jin would have slammed her hand on it right now.

She rolled up the puff sleeves of her dress in indignation. If it weren’t for the fact that they were on a lonely cruise ship, surrounded by the sea, she would have driven her sports car straight to that annoying person’s face to settle the score in the next second.

Shu Yao’s expression was sullen. She opened her mouth to speak, but found it difficult to organize her words. After gesturing for a long time, she remembered that this was just her persecutory delusion, so she shook her head and smiled at Situ Jin again:

“These few cups just now weren’t sweet enough. Where’s the ‘Love-Struck Fool’ you promised me?”

That cup of ‘Love-Struck Fool’ was still made by Situ Jin.

It was a pink drink made with watermelon juice, perfume lemon, and syrup, with a very small amount of rum. It was placed in a glass with a semi-circular base, and then a melon baller was used to scoop out clusters of watermelon pulp and put them in, bulging from the cup.

Between the watermelon balls, she had also casually plucked a pot of white daisies from the side and decorated it with them. It looked both like a pink dessert to coax a child, and also cute and dreamy, very much like the sweetness of Shu Yao’s love affair.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, love should be a cute fruit like strawberries—

But for her, who didn’t like strawberries, pure sweet watermelon was the most perfect.

Thinking about it, she hadn’t even had watermelon with Lin Ran this summer.

Shu Yao narrowed her eyes and stared at this drink for a long time before she cherished it and took small sips.

As she drank, she was like a little honeybee drunk on honey in the forest. Her cheeks were pressed against the cold bar, but she was still reluctant to let go of this cup of wine.

Situ Jin looked at her quiet appearance after getting drunk, walked over from behind the bar, and squeezed her cheek, as if talking to herself, or to her:

“Since you like her so much, why are you still so miserable by her side?”

Shu Yao didn’t hear clearly. She squinted at the person squeezing her cheek. After a few seconds, she recognized her happily. “It’s Jin!”

“Mmm, mmm.”

Situ Jin looked at her red and soft face, withdrew her hand, and looked away, muttering, “Lin Daiyu really got lucky.”

Just as she finished speaking.

A figure appeared at the entrance of the bar, where few people passed by.

The woman’s long black hair fell smoothly on her shoulders. Under her black windbreaker, a brilliant red dress showed off her myriad charms. At this moment, her expression was stern, and she had an indescribable cold and aloof beauty, a completely different temperament from usual, and it even made Situ Jin feel a little sharp.

Her gaze quickly locked onto the target she was looking for. She paid no mind to the warnings floating in the dark of this bar, and stepped into this human safe house as if she didn’t see them, walking straight toward the person she was looking for.

…

Just as she was about to get close enough to be accidentally injured by the special bodyguards in the dark, Situ Jin made a stopping motion, her eyes looking at her uncertainly. “Special times, Director Lin. Why don’t you prove that you are who you say you are first?”

Lin Ran’s dark eyes looked at the figure next to her. Smelling the strong smell of alcohol coming from her, her expression became a little complicated. Her reply to Situ Jin became nonchalant:

“No one on this ship would dare to impersonate me—”

“Is she drunk?”

Situ Jin keenly heard another meaning in her words, but it didn’t matter even if someone else was impersonating her. It wouldn’t be so easy to take Shu Yao away from this room as if by magic.

Because she was satisfied with her attitude of having only Shu Yao in her heart and eyes, Situ Jin led her to the drunk person’s side and said, “Mmm… she’s still in a very bad mood. She even mentioned Lin Jingshu to me just now. Is that person bothering you two again lately?”

A thoughtful expression appeared on Lin Ran’s face.

A moment later, it turned into realization. “So that’s how it is.”

If ‘Mu Qing’ was Lin Jingshu, plus the [Martyr] that had descended upon her, it was no wonder she had found her so disgusting when they first met.

Situ Jin: “?”

She was still a little dazed, but Lin Ran had already walked to Shu Yao’s side, bent down to check her condition, and found that her girlfriend had closed her eyes, looking as if she had fallen into a sweet dream. Her expression also softened a lot.

She even raised her hand to brush away the messy hair that was covering her face and her scent, and then helped her re-tie the loose scarf around her neck. Just as she was about to pick her up, she found that Situ Jin was staring at her with a hostile expression.

So she thought for a moment. “Since Yaoyao said she is Lin Jingshu, then she is.”

Situ Jin still didn’t react. “Who?”

Lin Ran casually raised her hand and, in a puddle of water from a melted ice cube not far from the bar, she wrote two words.

Mumu.

Two woods make a forest.

Situ Jin stared at the two words, her face ugly as she cursed, “Damn it!”

Then thinking of the person who had been captured by her people but had only leaked into a piece of light gauze and disappeared, she couldn’t help but say, “So she’s already a monster now?”

At this time, Lin Ran had already gently picked up the person and was holding her horizontally. Hearing this, she replied rigorously, “The monster is Lin Jingshu, but Lin Jingshu is only a part of the monster.”

After a brief shock, Situ Jin quickly reacted and asked, “You’re going to leave from here? You know it’s very dangerous on this ship now, right? Can you guarantee her safety?”

Lin Ran thought for a moment.

“Do I need to prove it to you?”

Situ Jin, again: “?”

Is this something that can be proven right away?

But then, Situ Jin’s worldview was shattered again.

In her field of vision, Lin Ran, who was holding the person and walking out of the bar, straight toward her room, had not yet reached the corner when she sensed the prying gaze.

She used the simplest method to solve this prying—

The dangerous and thick tentacles, which had been released from their mimicry, shot out like steel needles, directly piercing through the body of that low-level parasite. And in an instant, it had crushed the fused body of the person and the monster into a mist of blood.

In the air, which was dyed red, the black and red, colorful tentacles, which had revealed their original forms, were in a state of both offense and defense, protecting her from all sides, one after another, like curled fern roots growing out of the ground.

But the sharp fangs in the large and small suckers on them also showed her unparalleled identity as a carnivore, not a plant that could only intimidate others with its disguise.

Situ Jin: “!!!”

Her expression was suffocated. She even had to hold onto the bar to react. She had just handed Shu Yao over to a monster!

Before she could order her people to snatch her back, the tentacles in the blood mist, like a radar that automatically searched for prey, waved at a speed that was invisible to the human eye. In the howling wind, the gathering parasites all died under their brute force.

Blood gathered into a pool, flowing all over the corridor outside the bar.

And the color of the thick fog in the air became heavier, as if the water vapor had condensed into clouds and was about to rain down under the unbearable weight of the water droplets. And so, with a “drip,” a drop of brilliant red fell from above onto the woman’s cold, white face.

“Lin Ran?”

A drowsy, spoiled voice sounded. It was the person in the monster’s arms, who had recognized the warmth of the embrace at this moment.

…

From Situ Jin’s perspective, she couldn’t see the expression of her friend, who was completely hidden by those terrifying tentacles and the woman’s back, as if Shu Yao were a pearl hidden in the hard shell of a giant clam.

But she could see that after Shu Yao made a sound, the tentacles, which had been in a hunting mode, suddenly stopped one, and wiped away the drop of blood that had been stained on the woman’s side face and was about to fall.

And this monster, with the remaining red mark, stood in the blood mist, in the pool of blood. The blood reflected the focused and gentle smile on her face, which was no different from usual.

She said to the person in her arms in a slow voice:

“Mmm, I’m here to pick you up.”

“It’s okay, just sleep a little longer. You’ll be fine when you wake up.”

She had promised, hadn’t she?

Whatever scene Shu Yao wanted to see in the human world, she would turn the world into that scene. She didn’t want Shu Yao to suffer from so-called hallucinations anymore.