Her Tentacles 52

Chapter 52: Pleasing

The little octopus’s ears twitched, a hint of confusion in its black eyes.

Just then, Shu Yao extended her left hand as well, and said again, 【If you want to come home with me, then stay on the other hand.】

She hadn’t expected it to cling to her and refuse to get down just now, otherwise she wouldn’t have let it affect her actions like this.

This little octopus was really too small. When it was feeling insecure in the water tank earlier, it had wrapped its tentacles tightly around its body, like a round little ball, and had looked a little bigger. But as soon as its tentacles opened and it made other movements, its body would shrink another circle.

She didn’t know if it was originally this small, or if it had been starving itself.

Her light-colored pupils stared at it quietly.

She seemed to be thinking, if it was a non-mutated species that couldn’t communicate, then staying by her side was definitely not the most suitable choice, because Shu Yao was really too busy with work now. She couldn’t always go home on time to feed it and pay attention to its condition.

She was thinking about the underground markets that had recently sprung up in Nancheng, and whether there was a shop that was suitable for fostering this type of pet—

The force wrapped around her right hand suddenly loosened a little.

Under her gaze, the little octopus slowly and tentatively loosened one of its tentacles, and then wrapped it around her left wrist in mid-air.

Seeing that she had not changed her mind and thrown it into the fish tank, and that her gaze was still patient, it slowly moved its entire body to her other hand.

Then, the little octopus, sure that it had made the right choice and would not be thrown away by her again, began to be picky about its temporary habitat, and started to fight with the tactical glove Shu Yao was wearing.

Its slender tentacles kept pulling at the connection between her glove and her wrist, trying to pull off this thing that was preventing it from clinging to the back of the woman’s hand and throw it away.

…

The communication and the subsequent actions had only taken a very short time in reality.

Sure that the little thing could understand her, Shu Yao ignored its small movements and turned to look at the communication channel. She found that her part of the mission was over, and then said to Situ Jin:

“I’m not going to the seaside. I’m going home today. What about you? Do you want me to take you back?”

In a world where monsters were rampant, the night was even more threatening to humans.

Hearing that she was going to take her home, Situ Jin couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She was still not used to the fact that this friend, who used to even call her to move flower pots and was so frail she couldn’t take care of herself, was now an all-around talent in the special department, with both civilian and combat duties.

“No need. You go back.”

Situ Jin pointed to the direction of the auction house, which was still brightly lit. “Dating a crown prince like this, if you leave him behind and run away early, the consequences will be very troublesome.”

Noticing that she didn’t seem to have much affection for this blind date, and even seemed to be constrained by his family background, Shu Yao subconsciously asked, “Do you… need help?”

Although she didn’t know what she could help with.

“Not for now.”

Situ Jin blew her a kiss. “Don’t worry. When I really need your help, I definitely won’t be stingy with this phone call—then my princess will come to save me from thousands of miles away, through fire and water, right?”

Shu Yao said seriously, “Going through fire and water is not very good. And it would be better if it were closer.”

And so, when the two parted, Situ Jin’s laughter could still be heard from afar.

Although she was also someone who had been through a lot during this time, she always had this indomitable spirit of riding the wind and breaking the waves, as if there was nothing in the world that could bother her.

Shu Yao hoped that her Miss Situ could always be so happy, without having to be anyone’s girlfriend or wife, just being Situ Jin was enough.

When she returned to the Star River community by taxi, it was already late at night.

Shu Yao got out of the car at the entrance and walked forward. It was rare for her to come home at night without working overtime or staying at the training ground. She had forgotten what it felt like to walk in such a cool, late night.

The moon in the sky was particularly round.

Today should be the fifteenth.

When she stopped and looked up, the little octopus that had been crawling all over her wrist, leaving behind a series of faint red marks, had at some point climbed onto her shoulder. It insisted on squatting on her right shoulder, and at this moment, it was quietly watching the moon with her.

Its cool head touched Shu Yao’s cheek, and its surface temperature, which was close to human skin, was very low. The sudden contact made Shu Yao think of the feeling of being kissed on the face by Lin Ran before.

It was also like this.

Cool, soft, and delicate.

She suddenly regretted accepting this gift, because it would turn the relationship that had ended without a resolution into a rain in her life. Whenever she thought of it, it would dampen her entire world.

Such a her would repeatedly question her own heart every night, thinking of Lin Ran again and again, and constantly imagining what would have happened if the other person had not been a monster, if they had not gone on that cruise trip.

But she could never think of the rest.

Because her heart was already aching again and again in those memories, and even the oxygen in her breath would become thin—

And then, in such a sleepless night where she was clearly tasting the pain, Shu Yao slowly realized:

She really liked Lin Ran.

So much, so much.

She now knew how to answer the last question Lin Ran had asked her:

‘Yes, you learned well enough. You learned too well, so well that you fulfilled all my fantasies of a perfect love. From then on, I can no longer see anyone else. Even when I look at all the beautiful scenery in this world, I can only think of you.’

Her most perfect dream was woven by a monster.

…

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—Yaoyao?”

Just as she was lost in admiring the moon, someone walked over in a hurry, and the bag in his hand almost bumped into her. Shu Yao’s body reacted faster than her, and she half-turned to dodge, meeting the other person’s gaze:

“Uncle Zhou.”

She then saw the middle-aged man standing in front of her. Compared to his appearance at school before, the white in his sideburns was more obvious, and even the sweater under his black jacket was on backwards, but he himself hadn’t noticed at all.

Previously, during the Baiquan sports meet, Shu Yao could no longer find the vigor he had when he had kept the teachers back and used a megaphone to encourage everyone to practice for their events.

She saw the bag in Zhou Wenbai’s hand. It seemed to contain an old-fashioned frosted cake, the kind that was rarely seen in stores now, with thick white cream and red and green flowers.

This was the kind of cake Mrs. Shu would buy for Shu Yao’s birthday when she was very young.

At that time, there were very few styles to choose from in the cake shop. Besides this thick cream frosted type, there was only another one with a pile of mangoes, dragon fruit, and other fruits. And then there was the longevity peach and monkey style for the elderly.

But now, to find a cake with this taste, you would probably have to go very far.

She came back to her senses and looked at the cake in a daze. “Is it… what Auntie wanted to eat?”

A month ago.

Auntie Zhou had been feeling unwell. When she was sent to the hospital, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and it was already in the middle to late stages. At that time, Zhou Wenbai’s own daughter had just returned to school to do her graduation report. Shu Yao had urgently taken half a day off to help with the hospitalization procedures, and at the same time, she had inquired about the best hospitals and technologies in the country for treating this disease.

But this type of cancer was the most dangerous of all cancers. Even the most advanced medical technology and treatment methods could only play a very small role in the face of this problem that plagued the entire medical community.

Shu Yao had taken the time to visit the hospital many times last month, until Auntie Zhou herself said she wanted to stay at home. At that time, she had gone to help get her medicine, and several of the drugs were for pain relief.

Now, seeing Uncle Zhou out in the middle of the night, still carrying this kind of cake, she thought for a moment and said to Zhou Wenbai, “If Auntie wants to eat anything else, I can go and buy it.”

Zhou Wenbai shook his head and gave her a forced smile. “You, you get off work so late. I’ve passed by your community several times at night and saw that your floor was dark. You’re still young, you have to take care of your body and rest more, you know?”

He didn’t quite know what Shu Yao’s new job was. He was just giving her the most common concern from the perspective of an elder, but Shu Yao knew that their concern for her was not just this.

Recently, when she visited, Auntie Zhou would always rush her away, because she was afraid that if she saw her appearance, she would be reminded of her deceased mother, and she was also afraid that her illness would scare her. So every time, she would remind her through the door to live a good life and rest well.

Shu Yao nodded.

The words were stuck in her throat, and she didn’t know what to say.

Zhou Wenbai wiped the corner of his eye, said a hasty goodbye to her, saying that he had to take the cake in his hand back early. As he walked, he waved to her, telling her to go back, saying that it was very unsafe outside now, and a girl shouldn’t go home so late.

Shu Yao nodded, but after turning and walking into the community, she casually propped herself up against the wall and jumped over, following Uncle Zhou from a distance, all the way to the bottom of his building. She heard him take out his keys and open the door, and tell the person inside that he was back.

Hearing the sound of the couple’s conversation, which was still full of laughter and ease, as if this family had not been shrouded by such a terrible disease, Shu Yao stood under the streetlight downstairs for a long time before she turned and went back to her own community.

She saw many of the flowers and plants that she had previously had no time to take care of and had put down from the rooftop into the green belt for interested neighbors to take.

A third of the beautiful flowers were gone, but the remaining ones were blooming even better than before. It was probably because the community’s gardener had helped her take care of them when he was watering the flowers every day.

But Shu Yao felt that it was more because they could grow freely in this world, so they could be more unrestrained than before.

Her slightly furrowed brow finally relaxed a little. It wasn’t until she went upstairs and returned home that she remembered that the little octopus on her shoulder had been quiet all along and had not made any movement. Could it be that it had already starved to death?

She urgently grabbed it to look.

The little octopus moved its ears, blinked at her, and tried to stretch its tentacles to touch her forehead, then retracted them.

Shu Yao just thought it was randomly flailing its tentacles. “What did you used to eat?”

After asking, she remembered that this little thing was on a hunger strike. She simply made a phone call to the flower fish, and at the same time, gave him a red envelope for overtime, asking him to go and buy all the food that an octopus could eat on the market for her now.

After seeing the amount of the red envelope, the flower fish replied with great enthusiasm, “Okay, my team leader boss.”

Seeing that this little thing was still lively and didn’t look like it was about to starve to death, Shu Yao threw her phone to the side, casually found a beautiful bowl and filled it with water to serve as its temporary habitat, and then went into the bathroom herself.

As the bathtub was slowly filling with water, Shu Yao was taking off her clothes, and at the same time, she looked in the mirror and felt that her hair had grown too long recently, and she had no time to go to the barbershop, so she simply picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed it herself.

After the “snip” sound in front of the mirror, the woman who was bending down to tidy up the cut hair suddenly heard a soft sound by her ear:

“Thump!”

She turned her head to look, and only saw the ripples spreading on the surface of the bathtub water.

Shu Yao: “?”

The woman walked closer to look and saw the little octopus that had enjoyed the bathtub one step ahead of her.

It was swimming lively in it. Seeing her raise an eyebrow outside the bathtub, its two semi-circular ears moved. It suddenly opened its tentacles, curled and unfolded them, and spit out eight small, gradually spreading transparent water rings.

After the water rings disappeared, it found that Shu Yao still had no expression, so it tried even harder—

After it had gathered a large, agile water ring under its abdomen, it nimbly flipped over and chased this water ring back and forth in the bathtub with its round head, like a small animal performing with a hula hoop at the zoo.

Shu Yao herself was against animal performances.

But she couldn’t refuse an animal that insisted on performing.

After seeing the little octopus go from controlling one water ring to being able to shake eight rings with its eight tentacles, and presenting a wonderful performance for her in the water, she let out a very calm “wow.”

In the time when the little octopus floated to the surface and blinked at her, she thought for a moment. “If you had performed this skill earlier, you wouldn’t have been worth only five hundred yuan.”

The little octopus: “…”

It clung to the edge of the bathtub and used its back tentacle to splash a handful of water on Shu Yao’s face as an answer.

But Shu Yao was amused by it at this time. She let the warm water fall from her face, with water droplets hanging on her eyelashes, and reached out to tap its head. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

The little octopus’s ears moved even more vigorously.

It even stirred the surface of the water.

Like a happy little dog, wagging its big tail vigorously.

Where did this puppy octopus come from?

Finding that it could understand human language without her using mental communication, Shu Yao intentionally tested its intelligence and deliberately made things difficult for it. “If you want to make me happy, this level is not enough.”

Human women are fickle and difficult to please creatures. Shu Yao decided to let this little octopus see the sinister side of society.

Sure enough, after she said this, the frequency of the little octopus’s ears moving slowly, slowly decreased.

…

It seems a bit too much.

What if this octopus is really depressed? Wouldn’t I be too mean to do this?

Shu Yao quickly changed her mind, wanting to tell it that she was just joking, and to praise its talent show for being very amazing, taking an encouraging route—

But before she could speak.

When she bent down to scoop up the little octopus, her palm caught nothing.

The little octopus, which had been clinging to the edge of the bathtub, balled itself up, its tentacles sucking on the edge of the bathtub, and with a huff, it launched itself!

The next second, its soft body hit its soft owner.

Then it quickly used its tentacles to cling to that patch of skin, lest it fall off.

Shu Yao: “?!”

Her eyes were full of shock. She looked down at the creature, which was like a special breast patch, and had just landed on her left chest, below her collarbone.

At first, she thought it was a mistake to hit here.

But she met its four eyes, and before she could give the command “get down,” the little octopus’s eyes rolled. Its mouthparts, which were used for eating and were hidden under its eight tentacles and abdomen, at this time, tried to wrap around her skin, sucked on it, and then spit it out, and then its eyes shone with anticipation.

As if it were saying: This way of pleasing you, it should be enough, right?

Shu Yao: “!!!”