She completed the brainwashing and parasitization of the octopus, and the octopus, along with the Ghost Domain, vanished. The ferry returned to normal, sailing on the calm sea. People came to their senses and looked at the life vests in their hands, not understanding why they had walked onto the deck, but their minds were blank; they could not remember the eerie event that had just occurred.
The black mist in Yu Ying’s pupils dissipated, and she returned to normal. Her current body could not support the eerie power; using it with such intensity would cause her to lapse into a coma.
The wound on her palm slowly healed, and the glass shard disappeared.
Yu Mianmian woke up and saw Yu Ying slumped on the ground. She braced her body to crawl over and hug Yu Ying, calling her softly, “Sister Yu Ying?”
After self-destructing all its tentacles, it needed time to recover. Yu Mianmian’s new tentacles had not yet grown, so she could not heal Yu Ying.
She remembered that Yu Ying had a history of hypoglycemia. Could it be that her low blood sugar had flared up again? Yu Mianmian reached into Yu Ying’s bag, unscrewed the cap of the glass jar, and released the clone.
“Hurry up and heal her,” Yu Mianmian commanded the clone.
The jellyfish baby’s slender tentacles crawled out of the glass jar. It had just been sleeping; why had Mother fainted? It crawled onto Mother’s forehead, its slender tentacles stroking Mother’s temples, conveying a steady stream of energy to Yu Ying.
Its body had only recently recovered, and transporting so much energy caused its body to melt. The melting droplets slid down Yu Ying’s forehead, passed over her nose, and fell onto her lips, where they were absorbed by Yu Ying.
Jellyfish are born with the power to heal everything. It could perceive that Mother’s body was severely deficient, like a giant hole that needed more energy to fill.
It also sensed the jellyfish power wandering within Mother’s body, mixed with other, more massive forces. All the powers gathered together in a way it could not perceive.
But it still captured a trace of the power of the “Deity Jellyfish.” It pretended to be calm while healing Yu Ying, guessing that Yu Ying was Yu Mianmian’s mother. It injected its last bit of power to suppress the rioting eerie energy within Yu Ying.
“She only has low blood sugar; how could she exhaust so much of your energy?”
Every creature looked down on it, treating it as Yu Mianmian’s clone, believing it was a useless object without subjective consciousness.
It had seen the eerie entities searching for Mother. It also wanted to have a Mother of its own. So, from the day Yu Ying picked it up, it had called out to Yu Ying over and over, regarding Yu Ying as its own mother.
No eerie entity could take Mother away.
It fabricated a reason at will, concealing the fact that there was Deity Jellyfish power within Yu Ying’s body. “My body has not recovered.”
“Useless trash.” Yu Mianmian grabbed the jellyfish baby, stuffed it back into the glass jar, closed the lid, and put it back in the bag.
Yu Mianmian asked the server for warm sugar water and held the cup to Yu Ying’s lips, pouring the sugar water in.
After drinking the sugar water, Yu Ying woke up. “What happened to me?” Yu Ying pressed her temples with her fingers and used her palm to push herself up off the floor.
She always felt she had forgotten something important. Regarding the incident of entering the Ghost Domain, Yu Ying had no memory at all; she didn’t even know why she had fainted.
“Sister Yu Ying, your low blood sugar just acted up.”
Yu Ying caught a glimpse of the sugar water cup in Yu Mianmian’s hand and said thank you.
“You’re welcome. You are my sister; it is only right that I take care of you.”
Yu Mianmian placed the sugar water cup on the table and urged Yu Ying, “You must remember to bring sugar when you go out in the future.”
“Mm.”
Yu Mianmian looked at the black sea outside the ship’s window. Countless eerie monsters were hidden beneath the calm surface. She took a small sip from the sugar water cup that Yu Ying had drunk from. Sugar water drunk by humans is so sweet.
She indeed didn’t remember what had just happened, but she remembered waking up on the deck and remembered that a certain octopus could parasitize different species. If she had been parasitized by an octopus, that would explain the loss of memory, but why would the octopus choose her as a target?
Yu Mianmian made eye contact with Yu Ying.
Perhaps she could find the answer she wanted from Sister Yu Ying. Yu Mianmian drank the rest of the sugar water, right where Yu Ying had sipped from.
Inside the ancient castle, a damp, humid snake stood under the clock. With every tick of the second hand, her tail struck the wooden floor.
Why hasn’t Yu Ying returned yet? Sui Lin hadn’t fallen asleep at all. The scent remaining on the quilt couldn’t satisfy her; she needed to smell Mother’s fragrance at all times.
Sui Lin paced back and forth in the room anxiously. She pushed open the old wooden window, held a pair of binoculars aimed at the passenger port, and saw the ferry return. She pressed the spray head of her perfume, spraying it onto her neck.
Now, she had to go see if the “little snake” had cleaned up. Sui Lin twisted her snake tail and walked to the door of Room 202, pushing it open. The room was filled with the smell of a mother snake in heat; clothes were scattered everywhere on the floor, and there were already-dried transparent traces on the bed sheets.
Sui Lin only then noticed that the little snake had no breath left. She touched the little snake’s forehead with her fingertips, inputting eerie power into its body. “Why isn’t it better yet?”
Cold sweat fell from her forehead; the eerie power was swallowed by the little snake. The little snake had already woken up. She felt a surge of heat flow through her belly; her snake scales stood on end. She opened her pale pink pupils, and a vertical red line appeared in the center of them before quickly disappearing.
The little snake bit Sui Lin’s finger hard, sharp teeth piercing the skin and tasting the smell of blood.
Bad snake! Let’s see if I don’t bite you to death! A shameless snake that dared to do such things to Mother’s clothes!
She reached out with her snake tongue to lick up the blood droplets, still biting Sui Lin’s finger without letting go. She had to let Mother know the true face of this snake.
The little snake did not realize that some kind of eerie change was happening to her body. She was about to complete the transition from “her” to “Him.”
Seeing that the little snake could bite her again, Sui Lin felt relieved. If the little snake died, Yu Ying would probably throw her into a wine jar to be soaked.
Sui Lin didn’t notice that she cared about Yu Ying’s emotions. Her snake tail rolled up a broom, swept the moist paper balls on the floor into the trash can, and used a mop to clean the transparent traces.
As an eerie entity, Sui Lin had never taken care of a human before. She changed the bed sheets for Yu Ying, packed up Yu Ying’s intimate clothing—leopard print, black lace, red patterns—she took them all away; she could hold these items and sleep for a week.
After cleaning the room, Sui Lin closed the door and, just as she turned around, bumped into Yu Ying and Yu Mianmian.
Yu Ying: “Teacher Sui Lin?”
Sui Lin clenched her fists, holding Yu Ying’s intimate clothing in her palms; the thin lace was easy to hide. “I saw your room was dirty, so I helped you clean it by the way.”
Sui Lin felt guilty, her snake tail twisting into an S-shape as she crawled back to her room at high speed…
Yu Ying opened her door, and the little snake was obediently coiled at the entrance waiting for her. Yu Ying reached out her hand, and the little snake coiled stickily around her wrist, spitting out its tongue at Yu Mianmian. “Good baby, you cannot be impolite to Mianmian.”
Called “good baby” by Mother, the little snake excitedly spat out its tongue to lick the web of her hand. Mother was warm, and coiling around her hand made her feel a little less cold.
She crawled into Mother’s bag and saw the glowing glass jar. She used her tail to unscrew the cap and released the jellyfish.
She was so hungry, so hungry. She wanted to eat something. This jellyfish was just right to supplement her energy. The little snake opened her snake mouth, revealing two sharp teeth, and bit into the jellyfish’s tentacles.
She completely forgot that last time, she had been poisoned unconscious by the jellyfish releasing toxins…