Her Tentacles 43

Chapter 43: The Draft

Shu Yao felt as if she had smelled a very strong and pungent smell again, mixed with a very unpleasant rusty smell.

She wrinkled her nose and buried herself deeper in her girlfriend’s embrace. Although she had been drinking, she felt that her brain was now unprecedentedly clear.

But her behavior was completely different from this clarity. Not only was she too lazy to open her eyes, but she even acted spoiled, rubbing against the embrace that was full of her girlfriend’s scent, like a little cat that insisted on “meowing” to find its mommy when it was sleeping.

It wasn’t until she heard the sound of the room door opening and closing, and vaguely heard the sound of broken glass being crushed, that she remembered something:

“Just now… I broke it…”

Her nasal voice muttered in Lin Ran’s ear.

Lin Ran said “Mmm,” and comforted her with a “It’s okay,” then ordered her tentacles to clean up the broken glass, lest her girlfriend accidentally get pricked later.

And so, the tentacles, which had just been on a killing spree and had even sneaked in a lot of food, were now like sweeping robots. Some held brooms, some gathered the glass, and some even found a little bit of sweet blood left in the broken glass shards.

【Jar spirit? Injured?】

【Sweet!】

Noticing their feedback, Lin Ran changed direction, placed her drunk girlfriend on the sofa, and held her ankle, carefully checking where the injury was.

The cool fingertips caressed her skin, making Shu Yao, whose body temperature was higher after drinking, feel itchy. She couldn’t help but shrink her foot, her eyes full of smiles. “Itchy…”

But Lin Ran didn’t let her move. “Did you get hurt when you broke the glass?”

Shu Yao; “Mmm?”

The blush on her flushed cheeks had spread to the vicinity of her thin eyelids. When she opened her eyes, her lowered gaze made her light-colored pupils look unprecedentedly beautiful, like a small pond with ripples.

Then she just lay there with her head resting on the high part of the sofa armrest, and looked at her girlfriend, who was sitting on the other side and had her feet pressed on her lap, for a long time before she slowly thought and shook her head. “No…”

But Lin Ran had already seen the little bit of red.

Right at the front of her big toe.

It was probably a shard from the broken glass that had scratched a little bit of her skin, and Shu Yao hadn’t realized it, so she didn’t feel any pain. Now it had already healed, leaving only a star of red, which was particularly conspicuous on her skin.

She gently pressed on the wound with her fingertips. “Does it hurt?”

Shu Yao shook her head. She always felt that the foot she was holding felt particularly strange, and she couldn’t help but want to pull it away. After thinking for a moment, she simply propped herself up on the sofa and threw her upper body into her girlfriend’s arms.

“Lin Ran, Lin Ran…” she repeated her girlfriend’s name, like a spoiled puppy.

And her girlfriend also took the opportunity to hold her, her palm stroking down her spine, one vertebra at a time, and at the same time, she answered again and again:

“Mmm.”

“I’m here.”

…

By the time Shu Yao was tired of this game, she was hugging Lin Ran’s neck, sitting in her lap, her eyebrows relaxed, her eyes closed, as if she were about to fall asleep in her arms.

Thinking of the water she had drunk in the bar before, Lin Ran’s palm rested on her abdomen. “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something?”

Shu Yao shook her head.

She had been hungry, but she had drunk too much wine and had also eaten the fruit that Jin had put in it. Now she couldn’t feel her hunger anymore.

In her girlfriend’s gentle and considerate embrace, she suddenly said, “I have something to tell you.”

Perhaps when she was sober, Shu Yao would not have mentioned these abnormalities. But after getting drunk, a person’s mental defenses were almost zero. When she saw her girlfriend, she couldn’t wait to tell her what was hidden in her heart.

Lin Ran still very cooperatively asked her what it was.

Shu Yao raised her hand and touched her face, blinking to confirm, “You won’t be angry if you hear it, right?”

“I won’t.”

That was true.

No matter what happened, Lin Ran seemed to never show any bad emotions to her.

So Shu Yao was relieved. As if she were telling a secret, she cupped her hand to her ear, raised her chin and leaned over, and said in a low voice, “I’m telling you, my ex, Lin Jingshu, she’s also on this ship.”

Her voice became even lower. “And… she is Mu Qing!”

Lin Ran raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

She showed a gentle smile and said in an encouraging tone, “How did you find out?”

Shu Yao was greatly encouraged and gestured with her hands. “It’s like—it’s like the disguise techniques in those TV dramas. I saw her face covered with many layers of gauze. She… mmm… she used those to disguise her appearance, but the face underneath, it was Lin Jingshu…”

Can she already see through the monster’s disguise?

Lin Ran listened to her quietly, but what appeared in her mind was the information she had gotten from that mackerel.

According to the speculation of that group of jellyfish—

Shu Yao had already undergone some abnormal changes because she had been with her for too long.

First were the changes in her five senses, which would be more acute than ordinary people’s. The most important thing was the mental level. She was already able to resonate with monsters and showed a certain degree of [mental communication] ability.

For example, that ball.

When the thick fog came, Lin Ran had thought it was a prank by Mu Qing, who had summoned the parasites in front of her and then made them disappear, using such a low-level trick to provoke her.

But she hadn’t expected the fish to say that the appearance of those monsters at that time was indeed the summons of the [Martyrs], but their disappearance was not. They were forced back into the thick fog by another suddenly appearing command.

Just like facing a high-level abyss species, it was a command they could not disobey.

While Lin Ran was listening to her girlfriend’s discovery and at the same time observing and summarizing the changes in her, Shu Yao, who had been chattering about her observations, suddenly became dejected.

She lowered her head and said in a very low voice, as if she were muttering or talking to herself, “Is it strange for me to say these things?”

Before Lin Ran could refute, she nodded to herself. “It must—it must be very strange.”

“I don’t know why I’ve become like this…” Shu Yao was so dejected she was about to cry, and began to reflect on herself without any warning. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot these days, thinking about the details of my past with her. At the very beginning, when she went out to play and chat with those girls I didn’t know, I did express my unhappiness…”

“But she said it was because she didn’t get enough love from me, that I didn’t love her enough, didn’t give her enough company, and made her feel insecure, so she needed to get friendship from other friends to fill the gap in her love…”

The day she said this, Lin Jingshu had a very lonely expression. Then she took Shu Yao’s hand and asked her if she could stay at her place that night.

And it was at that very moment.

Mrs. Shu had sent a message, asking her who she was out with at this hour, and why she wasn’t home yet.

In the end, Shu Yao did not stay.

But later, even when she was shopping with Situ Jin and ran into Lin Jingshu, who had rejected her invitation because she was busy with work but was now out laughing and drinking milk tea with other people, she did not show any opposition.

Even when Situ Jin was about to go up and find trouble for her, she was stopped by her.

During that time, Shu Yao tried very hard to give Lin Jingshu more security in other ways. She would stay out until almost twelve o’clock, just to be with her for a longer time.

She would get off work early every day, then take the subway to her rented apartment, buy groceries, cook for her, and even help her clean up the house. And she would rack her brains to plan her monthly salary to buy her all the gifts she wanted.

But Lin Jingshu did not love her more because of this.

On the contrary—

The harder Shu Yao tried to prove that she loved her more, the more disdainful the other’s attitude became. Even during the days when she lost her only relative, she did not appear by her side.

Just as Shu Yao was about to start a new life, on a certain early morning of a holiday, she had crossed half the city, wanting to go to her house to make her breakfast. After she opened the door with her key, she saw the most shocking scene.

…

To her surprise, seeing the two people hugging and sleeping together on the living room sofa, Shu Yao felt nothing.

She was neither sad nor upset, just her mind was blank for a long time, until a tenant from another floor walked by outside the door, carrying a heavy trash bag. An empty coke bottle slipped out, rolled down the stairs with a clattering sound, and woke Lin Jingshu up.

The two looked at each other from a great distance.

Before Lin Jingshu could push away the person in her arms and stand up, Shu Yao finally reacted. She said very calmly:

“Let’s break up.”

The person who had wanted to explain, her expression went from dazed, to surprised, and then stopped at a self-deprecating smile. Lin Jingshu, in front of her, simply sat back down, and even pushed the person in her arms, who had also woken up and was awkwardly trying to leave, back into her embrace.

“Okay.”

She said, “Anyway, you never loved me. I’m also tired of always holding you up, looking at your face, and humbly begging for your affection. Let’s just end it here.”

Shu Yao found it laughable.

Between the two of them, when was it ever Lin Jingshu’s turn to be humble?

But she was really not good with words, and even less good at getting into a conflict with others at a time like this, even if that person had been her girlfriend half a minute ago.

She remained silent, her face looking even colder, as if she had been provoked. If anyone else saw her like this, they would be even more afraid to approach her. Only someone who knew her well could see through her fragile disguise and see her fragile emotions.

“What? You don’t really think you’ve been hurt by me, do you?”

Lin Jingshu said, “From the first day we were together, no matter what I did, you never showed any emotion on your face. Even now that we’re breaking up, I don’t see you shed a single tear—”

“Please, if you really loved me, when you found out I was cheating and saw me sleeping with someone else, you should have cried, you should have come and begged me not to look at anyone else, to only love you. But did you?”

“Shu Yao, you either never loved me, or you’ve been so tormented by your mother that you don’t even know what normal love is. Admit it, the things you did when you were with me were just some boring, make-believe rituals.”

“You just like the rebellious feeling I have, thinking that by getting close to me, you can live like me. If you replaced me with someone else, as long as they had this personality and confessed to you, you would have agreed, wouldn’t you?”

Shu Yao didn’t know the answer.

In fact, too many things had happened during that time. Later, when she went home, Jin happened to come to find her. After hearing about what had happened, she became her spiritual mentor on the side, on the one hand, scolding Lin Jingshu for her, and on the other hand, telling her not to listen to her PUA.

“Jin, did I really not love her?”

She finally asked.

And then she stumped Situ Jin. In the end, she racked her brains to comfort her. “There are many ways to love. It’s just that she wasn’t the one who could receive your love—besides, it’s also good that you didn’t love her. A scumbag like her, why should she get your love?”

“If you don’t love her, you don’t love her. The next one will be better. I happen to have a good blind date resource here. I heard the quality of the people who come is not bad. It’s organized by the group owner of the Nancheng university group. There are both men and women. Let’s use the love of a new person to heal the wounds of the old one!”

That day, Shu Yao also drank.

It was still takeout that Situ Jin had ordered. It was just a few bottles of beer, but it was enough to get her drunk. She nodded to whatever her good friend said, only feeling that there was a knot in her heart that needed to be released.

By the time she was woken up by the alarm for work the next day.

There was a location and address for a blind date on her phone.

As if she were afraid she would back out, Situ Jin had repeatedly reminded her that she had already registered her name and had also helped her pay the entrance fee for the blind date. She told her not to waste it, and even if she couldn’t find a suitable person, she had to go through the motions!

And then…

She met Lin Ran.

From Lin Ran, Shu Yao had experienced many feelings she had never experienced before. If it weren’t for Lin Jingshu always appearing, she would rarely think of that terrible relationship.

But until now, Shu Yao knew.

It turned out that she had been hurt so deeply, and that wound was still buried in her heart, and had finally triggered a mental illness!

Shu Yao, who had examined her life three times, believed that there were probably two things that had dealt her the biggest blow: one was her mother’s death, and the other was her ex-girlfriend’s cheating.

But in the hallucinations she had seen these past few days, Mrs. Shu had never appeared.

So even if she was unwilling to admit it, she had to face this problem. That’s right, her state these past few days was related to that failed relationship!

…

“Wuwu…”

The more Shu Yao thought about it, the more she didn’t understand how she could have been so deeply in love with her ex. But now her illness was getting worse and worse, and she definitely couldn’t hide it anymore. So she still decided to take the initiative to confess to Lin Ran, and to analyze her heart with her very sincerely, trying to get her girlfriend’s understanding. Even though it was really embarrassing, she was so ashamed that she was about to cry:

“I really didn’t expect her to have such a big impact on me. I didn’t expect to care so much about that… I thought it was all over…”

“I’m—I’m sorry. If I had known I would get sick because of this, I wouldn’t have started a relationship with you so quickly. You must feel very hurt now, right? Wuwu, I’m sorry!”

Lin Ran, who heard her crying and apologizing in her arms: “…”

Her expression was rarely so subtle.

Because she had never expected Shu Yao to be able to come up with a reason for this so-called “mental illness.”

Absolutely, not, this cannot go on.

She absolutely did not want to hear the two names that she detested, “Mu Qing” and “Lin Jingshu,” from Shu Yao’s mouth again.

So Lin Ran lowered her head to kiss her girlfriend’s lips, and while kissing, she coaxed, “No, it’s not your fault. What happened to you has nothing to do with that person.”

“It does, wuwu…” Shu Yao struggled to wake up in this kiss that spread the taste of wine from her lips and teeth to her girlfriend’s. As she spoke, tears were still falling. “I care so much. I care so much that I’m like this—”

“I’ll get better. Don’t leave me, okay?”

Lin Ran struggled to try and divert this little drunk’s train of thought. “I won’t leave you, but—”

Shu Yao got the answer she wanted most and couldn’t wait to confirm again. “You won’t lie to me, will you?”

“I won’t.”

“Then—will you cheat on me like she did? On the one hand, lying to me that you don’t care, and on the other hand, secretly finding someone else, saying you’re tired of me being crazy and need someone else’s comfort?”

Lin Ran fell silent.

As if she had finally confirmed that it was difficult to communicate with her at this moment just with words.

A colorful black and red tentacle suddenly appeared from the soft checkered sofa.

Followed by a second, a third… After having acted as a sweeping robot just now, they had been quietly dormant on the side, and had not even entered a mimicked state. Now, they swayed in front of Shu Yao like a peacock spreading its tail.

They were clearly reflected in her light-colored pupils.

Until she confirmed that she had seen these tentacles clearly enough, and her attention could no longer be diverted from herself to think about some unsavory character, Lin Ran returned to her former gentle appearance.

She raised her hand and held Shu Yao’s face, her tone gentle, but with an unquestionable authority. “Cheat?

“Which one are you asking about?”

“Me and them, we can all answer you one by one.”