Her Tentacles 54

Chapter 54: Flower Arrangement

Rubbing the back of her neck, she slowly came to her senses amidst the somewhat noisy sound, and recognized it. It seemed to be the sound of the second-hand sweeping robot she had bought.

…The time she had set didn’t seem to be this early?

Oh no!

Could it be that the little thing had been exploring the living room in the middle of the night and had made the noise? It was so small. What if it had been sucked into the dustbin? Wouldn’t it have been suffocated into an octopus jerky?

Shu Yao got up in a hurry, twisted the bedroom doorknob, but was stunned by the sight that presented itself in the living room—

The floor tiles were wiped clean, and the dusty cover on the sofa, which had been wrinkled and had not been taken care of for a long time, was neatly spread out. The throw pillows of the same color scheme, one straight and one crooked, were placed in the middle, but had a cute artistic sense.

The succulents on the wooden shelf by the window had fine water droplets on their surfaces, as if they had just been bathed in a sweet rain. In the dim light of the dawn, even the leaves of the foliage plants on the balcony were crystal clear like morning dew.

Her originally lifeless home was now like a forest that was only temporarily sleeping before dawn. As soon as the first ray of light shone in, it would wake up in the morning glow.

And then it would be full of life.

Shu Yao stood there blankly for a while, thinking of her girlfriend who used to actively help her water the flowers and would cook in the kitchen with the door closed, making a clattering sound.

It was at this moment.

The sweeping robot turned a corner and passed in front of her. The bright orange little octopus squatting on it as a supervisor raised its tentacles, as if opening a flower, to greet her, as if to say good morning.

Before Shu Yao squatted down, she glanced at the fish tanks and found that all the seafood in them, including the one with the octopus, had disappeared. She couldn’t help but chuckle:

“You can really eat a lot?”

The little octopus flicked its ears.

It was actually very disgusting, and it was not full. Its stomach was still roaring with hunger.

Shu Yao looked at its appearance and found it cute. She reached out and gently poked its ear. “Miss Octopus, why do you have a hobby of cleaning? Which circus illegally employed child labor? You tell me, and I’ll take care of it for you.”

The little octopus extended a tentacle and bent it in front of her, making a question mark.

On the bent tentacle, the suckers on the inner white side were all round. Even the marks left by it pulling on Shu Yao’s fingers were a faint pink that had spread, making her ring finger look as if she had worn a ring, with a ring mark.

But it was not that unique heart shape.

This bright, sun-like little octopus, although it could perform tricks and do housework, its behavior was more like it had been trained.

It also had a very hot temper. She thought that last night, the flower fish must have almost stepped on it, which was why it had been hit first and then chased and bitten.

In short, no matter how she looked at it, it didn’t look like her once-gentle girlfriend.

…

Shu Yao scooped it up from the sweeping robot.

“No matter what kind of life you had before, we don’t have a tradition of children doing housework in our family.” She put the little octopus back into the beautiful little bowl of water she had prepared for it on the table. “Leave the housework to me when I get off work. You can just stay here.”

After thinking for a moment, she said, “If you don’t like this plate or those water tanks, I’ll bring you a few new beautiful bottles tonight, how about that?”

Hearing her say beautiful bottles, the little octopus’s pupils gradually widened and became round, and its ears also began to flap. It couldn’t wait to get out of the bowl with the little dog’s head painted on it and extend its tentacles to pull her hand.

As if it were a child who had just heard an adult say they were going to buy a toy and was about to go out immediately.

“Not now,” Shu Yao pressed its head and pushed it back. “I have to go to work.”

The little octopus was held down by her index finger, but its eight tentacles opened like a flower to climb her hand. And so, when she raised her hand again, it was already hanging upside down on it, as if it were going to grow on her today and was unwilling to come down.

Shu Yao reasoned with it for fifteen minutes—

Until the flower fish sent a location, saying that the missing person case at the Sheraton was still happening, and this time there were some new clues. Lu Ren and another colleague were already on their way, and she should also come over as soon as possible.

The location was a police station in another district.

Shu Yao no longer had time to continue her tug-of-war with the little pet. Thinking of how this little thing had sneaked in through the crack in the bathroom door last night, and fearing that she would not be able to find it when she came back at night if she left it at home, she could only hastily stuff it into her pocket and take her pet to work.

When she went out, in the square pocket of her combat suit under her black coat, a piece of warm orange quietly poked out of the pocket, with two tentacles pulling on the edge. Then, in the elevator, the little octopus saw a little kitty in a pet bag carried by another person, poking its head out of the protruding transparent cabin and also looking around.

When Shu Yao arrived at that police station, she thought that this missing person case had just been caught by the local police, and that there was a supernatural force intervening, so it needed the support of the special department.

But in the end, she, along with Lu Ren, Guan Tong, the flower fish, and a few newly appointed police officers from the police station, were sent to a park that was very popular with the local elderly, and even stood behind a large group of square dancers.

In the passionate singing of “Lady Shexiang,” Shu Yao turned her head and asked Lu Ren, “Aren’t we investigating a missing person case?”

In the strong rhythm of the song, Lu Ren turned his head and said to her, “Last time I thought this case just needed our preliminary assistance, and I didn’t think too much about it. But in the past two days, more and more family members have been reporting cases. The higher-ups have decided to set up a special task force and let the police officers with case-handling experience assist the four of us in handling this matter—”

This time, he sent the mission documents and materials to Shu Yao.

Shu Yao took out her phone.

The missing people were all elderly people who liked to buy health products. At first, it was getting free eggs and listening to lectures. Later, it was buying health drugs and participating in tour groups.

After joining the tour group, these elderly people preferred to go out, saying that going out for a walk was good for their health. And then, on an unknown long-distance trip, they lost contact with their families.

Her expression was blank. “Shouldn’t this be handed over to the anti-fraud team?”

Lu Ren endured “Lady Shexiang,” then endured a song called “Under the Sea,” and finally couldn’t help but start shaking his head to “The Most Dazzling Ethnic Style,” and said leisurely in a voice that no one else could hear, “There’s a ridiculous thing.”

“When those elderly people first went out, their families not only did not object, but all of them agreed with both hands and feet. Because after they ate these health drugs, their energy and spirit were better than before—”

He pointed at the various anti-fraud slogans posted on all four sides of the square, and then gestured with his chin for her to look at the police officers who were handing out leaflets to educate the public. He said to Shu Yao, “Look, even with this kind of publicity, the number of reported cases is still increasing. And now there are already young people who are missing.”

Shu Yao flipped through the materials again, looking at the information of the missing people. Each person had a medical report attached to the back, which was hard to ignore.

“They’re all cancer and serious chronic diseases…”

She was a little lost in thought.

She thought of the appearance of Mrs. Shu’s hospital room before she passed away, and of Zhou Wenbai, who often had to go to the hospital’s pharmacy to pick up a pile of painkillers.

The three-no organizations and three-no drugs that others could not understand were, in the eyes of these patients, the only miracle they wanted to entrust.

This made this fraud organization particularly hateful.

Shu Yao was still thinking about how she was supposed to investigate this when she heard Lu Ren snap his fingers. He looked at the uncles and aunts who had been sitting in the blind date corner with their materials and were now surrounding Shu Yao from all directions, and gave her an encouraging look. “So it’s up to you to infiltrate them, Teacher Shu.”

Shu Yao: “?”

…

Next, Shu Yao was enthusiastically surrounded by the uncles and aunts because of her outstanding looks.

“Do you have a partner, young lady?”

“I did,” she said sincerely. “But all my exes are dead.”

All.

Dead.

These three short words had infinite killing power. Half of the surrounding area was instantly cleared. The uncles and aunts looked at this black widow with horrified expressions. Only one of them happily raised his hand. “It’s okay. My son has a strong horoscope. He just killed a wife. You two are a perfect match!”

“I only like girls,” Shu Yao said again.

This time, only two or three parents remained. “It’s—it’s okay. Our child is just like you. She likes to keep some flowers and plants, and cute animals…”

The little octopus crawled out of Shu Yao’s pocket and all the way up to her right shoulder. Its black eyes looked at them, as if to say, who’s calling me cute?

Ever since the deep-sea monsters had landed and officially appeared in the public eye, ordinary people had been afraid of marine life as if they were fierce tigers. They didn’t even dare to eat river fish anymore. Now, seeing a live octopus come out of her pocket—

Screams came from all directions.

And then Shu Yao was sent to sit on the side by the headache-ridden Lu Ren, who begged this ancestor not to cause trouble. If she was really bored, she could consider supporting the urban communication office, where a siege case of a parasite that had committed multiple heinous crimes was currently underway on the highway.

But Shu Yao, who was not good at driving and chasing bandits, chose to continue sitting nearby as a decoration.

There was a small flower stall in the park.

The flower seller was a little girl. The flowers in her water bucket were all wild flowers and weeds picked from the countryside mountains. There were no roses or monthly roses. She sat there for a long time, but didn’t sell a single bouquet. Shu Yao saw her several times wanting to take out another sign that said “raising money to save a life,” but she put it back.

Even though the sign said one yuan per bouquet.

After watching for a while, Shu Yao remembered that there was a good glass craft shop nearby. She used to always get her supplies from there, buying some beautiful bottles to arrange flowers. She remembered that that shop also had a lot of particularly cheap, burnt wholesale products, which were only a few yuan each.

Not long after.

She came over with a few bottles, scanned the code, but only picked the broken and incomplete flowers, and casually put them into the glass bottles of various shapes filled with water.

In the teardrop-shaped, narrow-at-the-top, wide-at-the-bottom transparent bottle, there were snowy white flowers on thin black branches. The fork before the break happened to be stuck at the mouth of the bottle, like a spring scene that had grown all the way down the vase, and also like the melting snow and streams on a black mountain cliff in early spring.

In the flower-basket-shaped bottle that couldn’t hold water, it was decorated with lush green wild grass, just the right type for those unknown, small, and broken flowers with thick stems.

The little girl stared blankly at her turning waste into treasure, spreading out the strangely shaped, defective bottles one by one. Just by filling them with water and casually inserting a flower, it became the most beautiful art exhibition under the sun.

Even in the transparent bowl filled with water, with the flower branches placed horizontally, and the fine petals sprinkled on the ground, it was like a scene of falling flowers in a mountain forest.

“So—so beautiful…” the little girl said in a daze.

“Do you like them?” Shu Yao looked up at her. “Then I’ll give you these bottles at the original price. You can change the price to ‘ten yuan per piece.’ But I want to keep one.”

The little girl’s eyes lit up as she nodded. “I like them! This is so beautiful! Thank you, sister. You’re really amazing!”

Her sparkling eyes reminded Shu Yao of Lin Ran, who also had a particular fondness for the bottles she had decorated.

Previously, her skill was, in Lin Jingshu’s eyes, just a decoration with added value, just like her appearance. Later, with Lin Ran, it was her particular fondness—

Until now.

Shu Yao no longer needed to use it to please anyone, but it could become an important skill for another person to make a living and earn important money.

…

The crowd around them quickly grew.

People curiously asked if they bought flowers and then bought other bottles, if the two of them could help with the matching. Shu Yao had nothing to do, so she nodded.

Until the little girl, who was nervously watching and learning her flower arrangement skills, and who was also not good with words, could only squeeze out a sentence, “Sis—sister, do you only want to keep one? You can keep all of these!”

“Mmm.”

Shu Yao thought for a moment, turned her head to look at the warm orange little octopus that had been coiled on her shoulder and had not moved, like a doll decoration. “Which one do you like?”

The little girl was stunned for a second.

Then, she saw the octopus leap from the cold and beautiful woman’s shoulder and land on a heart-shaped glass bottle with a round opening. The bottle was also wrapped with a thin chain from Shu Yao’s combat suit, with a light blue flower branch at the junction of the chain.

The warm orange little octopus slipped into the bottle through the gap in the heart, spread its tentacles, swam a circle in the water, then stuck itself to the transparent wall of the bottle—wiggling its ears at her.

Shu Yao chuckled.

She simply buckled this special heart-shaped water bottle to the shoulder strap of her inner combat suit with a chain.

When she stood up, her coat covered it, and the height of it hanging was just at the side of her heart. No one could see this strange pet she was keeping.

The little octopus and this bottle were both hidden by her.

And under her clothes, the blue flower wrapped around the heart-shaped glass bottle, like a flower blooming on a woman’s heart.

Under the flower, deep in her heart.

She cherished a little octopus that was as bright as the sun.