"Hey, are you there?"
A head peeked in sneakily.
Seeing it was Li Sitong, Jiang Xia let out a sigh of relief, his tense nerves finally relaxing.
"What are you doing here?" Jiang Xia asked again, "And how did you get a key to my house?"
"Just opening a door, it's no big deal. As for why I'm here, of course, it's because I missed you."
Li Sitong walked in with a mischievous smile, as if she were at her own home, casually taking off her sneakers at the door and slipping into a pair of slippers.
Standing at the kitchen entrance, she looked at the chaotic scene inside and wondered, "What are you doing, slaughtering a chicken?"
Jiang Xia's eyes flickered; he couldn't let anyone know he was using animal blood to fill his stomach.
If word got out, who knows if he'd be taken away for research!
"Yeah, slaughtering a chicken. I planned to cook it myself and make you a pot of chicken!"
"Ah?" Li Sitong was taken aback, looking at Jiang Xia with interest, seemingly skeptical, "You're cooking for me?"
"What, you don't believe me?"
Li Sitong stared at Jiang Xia, as if sensing something, she stepped forward, grabbed his collar, and sniffed near his mouth.
"You're lying! You bought this chicken to drink its blood, to see if animal blood could fill your stomach!"
"You're deceiving me!" Her voice suddenly turned cold.
"Alright, I admit, that was my initial thought, but after you arrived, I really did think about cooking for you." Jiang Xia confessed once exposed.
"Fine, I'll reluctantly forgive you." Li Sitong smiled faintly again, "How does chicken blood taste? Can't fill your stomach, right?"
"It can't." Jiang Xia shook his head dejectedly, trying his best not to let Li Sitong notice anything amiss.
"Stop messing around. I can tell you for sure, as far as I know, nothing but humans can satisfy our hunger. Weren't you going to make me something delicious? Hurry up!"
Letting go of Jiang Xia's collar, Li Sitong began to wander around the house.
She helped herself to the snacks on the table, eating without hesitation, as if she truly considered this place her own home.
But to say she was truly impolite wouldn't be accurate either.
Though she wandered around the house, she was very respectful, never entering Jiang Xia's room, nor stepping into his mother's room, and she didn't even enter the empty room reserved for his sister.
Even when she wanted to check the storage room, she would ask Jiang Xia if she could take a look.
In the kitchen filled with the smell of chicken, Jiang Xia was alone, sweating as he plucked the feathers.
He really hadn't planned on dealing with the chicken meat. Who knew Li Sitong would suddenly show up?
Fortunately, though he hadn't slaughtered a chicken before, he had cooked meals, and could be considered a decent cook, capable of handling ordinary dishes.
After wandering for a while, Li Sitong curled up on the sofa, playing with her phone, having taken off her slippers.
She wore a white turtleneck sweater and loose jeans, her small feet clad in white socks, her long black hair cascading down, still without makeup, her beauty seemingly needing no adornment.
Soon, a pot of fragrant spicy chicken was ready, and the two sat at the dining table to savor it.
Li Sitong hadn't tasted normal food like this in a long time. Ever since becoming a Demonspawn, she had grown to dislike normal human food.
She savored it, not so much to enjoy the food, but to relish the feeling of having dinner alone with her boyfriend. She seemed uninterested in the chicken itself.
Jiang Xia understood. Though normal food couldn't fill them, the flavors still blossomed in their mouths.
But compared to the truly "exquisite delicacies," the taste of normal food was insignificant.
When he drank that bowl of chicken blood earlier, he felt it was so wonderful that no earthly food could compare.
At the dining table, Jiang Xia asked, "Last night you mentioned a way to make my family safer. What is it?"
"I'm not sure how we became Demonspawn, but I have a way to turn your family into Demonspawn too. Well, not exactly Demonspawn, but something similar to us," Li Sitong said nonchalantly.
"No way!"
Jiang Xia immediately rejected Li Sitong's suggestion.
He didn't want his family to become those monsters!
Sure, becoming such a monster would make them stronger, and as long as they didn't encounter an Aberrant Demon, they wouldn't likely be attacked by Demonspawn.
But they'd become something neither human nor ghost, and they'd still be at risk from the Awakened, wouldn't they?
He wasn't truly a Demonspawn, so how could he turn his family into Demonspawn?
It seemed he could only protect his family as much as possible before societal order collapsed.
Li Sitong mentioned that countries were building Safe Zones, and once they were ready, he could send his family there.
"Then make sure they stay in crowded places, avoid being alone outside."
Li Sitong carefully nibbled on the chicken wing in her hand, wary of getting oil on her freshly changed clothes.
After a while, Jiang Xia asked again, "Why didn't I sense your presence earlier? I only noticed when you opened the door."
The same thing happened during the villa crisis last night.
Back then, when facing that Awakened, he couldn't sense Li Sitong's kindred presence around him and thought she had fled, but she suddenly appeared.
Li Sitong didn't hide anything; it wasn't a big secret: "Once you become strong enough, you can control your aura, expand or contract it as you wish!"
"How much can you contract it now?"
"Five meters. Beyond five meters, unless they're incredibly strong, others of our kind can't sense my presence."
Jiang Xia was certain: among many of their kind, Li Sitong was truly strong, not a weakling Demonspawn!
At 8:20 PM, after eating half the pot, before they could wash the dishes, Li Sitong dragged Jiang Xia out to watch a movie.
Jiang Xia didn't want to go out so late, but he couldn't resist Li Sitong, who dragged him to the cinema.
The movie was a classic love story between a foreign couple, with an ending that lingered in one's mind.
But Jiang Xia had seen it too many times, having rewatched it not long ago, so now it felt a bit dull.
Li Sitong, however, watched with great interest, holding popcorn, her head resting on Jiang Xia's shoulder.
Jiang Xia wasn't sure if this counted as happiness.
He had managed to win over the school beauty, coveted by many boys from his school and others, and she was very possessive of him.
He wasn't sure of Li Sitong's true intentions in dating him.
Was it genuine affection?
Or was she looking for a hunting companion?
Or, as Wang Fei suggested, was she dating him to fatten him up like livestock, only to devour him in the end?
Just as Jiang Xia opened his mouth to eat a piece of popcorn fed by Li Sitong.
A sinister voice sounded from behind: "Caught you!"