At 4:00 AM, the sky over Black Water Island was pitch black and overcast. Lightning streaked across the dark veil, and a flash of light shone into Room 404.
Sui Lin’s silver hair cascaded down. Her crimson eyes scanned the distorted handwriting in the book. She held the book with both hands, her red lips parting slightly, “Chapter 1: Making Love in the Nest.”
Yu Ying leaned lazily and casually against the rosewood chair, glancing at the title of the book.
The Nest: Forced Oral and Climax
Sui Lin’s voice carried a sense of seduction; it always made people feel as if they were immersed in the scene, automatically projecting themselves into the story she was reading.
“Inside the nest, it was dark and damp, with a mutton-fat jade bed placed in the center. Only two snakes, one white and one black, were entwined on the jade. The black snake was on top, its tail wrapping around the white snake. The white snake transformed into a human body with a snake’s tail, turning into a bewitching woman. Her silver-white hair scattered over the jade, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the rock water dripping from the stalactites above the cavern.”
Sui Lin held the book with both hands, raised her eyes to glance quickly at her mother sitting on the seat of honor, then quickly lowered her head.
“Continue.” Yu Ying issued the command.
Sui Lin licked her dry lips, her dark thoughts magnifying infinitely. In her mind, she fantasized about everything happening in the book, her snake tail coiling around Yu Ying’s snake tail.
“The black snake extended its black forked tongue, lowered its head toward the white snake’s belly, and slowly caressed its soft abdomen. The white snake leaned into the black snake’s embrace. The rock water from the top of the cavern dripped down, pitter-patter, falling into the pool in the cave and stirring up ripples.”
Yu Ying rested her chin on one hand, her fingers kneading her temples. She hadn’t realized before that Sui Lin was so well-suited for writing novels. However, she found it necessary to teach Sui Lin to distinguish between punishment and reward.
She snatched the book from Sui Lin’s hands. The fragrance emanating from her wrist brushed past Sui Lin’s nose. Sui Lin inhaled the scent deeply, her expression intoxicated, her cheeks flushing with heat as she pleaded with her.
“Mother, please punish me.”
After all, she was the little snake she had raised herself; Yu Ying understood Sui Lin too well. If she were to slap Sui Lin right now, she guessed the snake would shamelessly beg her, ‘Mother, I need the right side of my face done, too.’
Yu Ying held a leather whip in her hand, letting it lightly brush against Sui Lin’s cheek. “You are a good child; how could I bear to lay a hand on you?”
Sui Lin’s eyes dimmed. “Mother said that children who make mistakes will be punished.” Sui Lin rubbed against Yu Ying’s snake tail, her cheek pressing against the scales of her mother’s tail. “I have made a serious mistake; Mother should punish the disobedient child.”
Yu Ying looked down at Sui Lin disdainfully. She didn’t expect this snake to use logic to play word games with her just to get some ‘color’ (erotica) into their interaction.
All she needed to do was stir up the desire for her within Sui Lin, letting her be swallowed by it.
“Continue reading, don’t stop.” Yu Ying distastefully picked up another book, selecting the most unbearable page. “Start reading from this page.”
Yu Ying caught a glimpse of Sui Lin’s snake tail cloaca. She took out a silk handkerchief and threw it at Sui Lin’s face. “Wipe yourself clean before you read. If this happens again during the reading, the punishment will be increased.”
Sui Lin picked up the handkerchief and wiped the abdomen of her snake tail. The handkerchief was stained with the scent of a killing snake. She lifted the book and began reading Human-Beast Anthology: Her and Mother.
“The snake was picked up by the woman on the first day, and it began to covet her. It would hide in the crack of the door to peek when she bathed, and would sneak into the woman’s quilt at night.”
“Stop.” Yu Ying interrupted Sui Lin helplessly.
“Mother, what’s wrong? Did I make a mistake again?”
Yu Ying’s tail tip was stained with a certain scent. She raised her tail and held it out in front of Sui Lin. “Lick it clean.”
Sui Lin brought her red lips close to Yu Ying’s tail, extended her vivid red tongue, and slowly licked the scales of Yu Ying’s tail clean.
“Stand up.”
Sui Lin closed the book in her hands. Her snake tail stood upright like two human legs, and she stood before Yu Ying.
“Mother, I…”
Yu Ying pulled out several tissues. “Can you also not control yourself from drooling over me? Wipe yourself clean.” She threw the tissues into Sui Lin’s lap.
Sui Lin wiped the abdomen of her snake tail, the tissues being crumpled into balls and thrown onto the floor. The room was filled with an indescribable scent.
She understood now: her mother was punishing her. Her mother knew that physical punishment would only make her feel good, so she didn’t use it. Instead, she changed the form of punishment to reading fanfiction.
She craved her mother intensely. She longed for her mother to punish her, longed for her mother’s warm palm to land on her face, longed for her mother’s cold tail to grind against her—but her mother only tormented her.
Stirring up the desire within her yet refusing to fulfill it—this kind of torment was agonizing.
“Continue. You haven’t finished reading.” Yu Ying closed her eyes to feign sleep, reminding Sui Lin softly.
If she couldn’t covet her mother in reality, could she not do it in a dream? Sui Lin defied her mother. She didn’t intend to continue reading. She wrapped her silver-white tail behind her mother and crawled onto her mother’s back.
“Mother, don’t you want to discipline me?”
The descriptions in the book refused to fade from Sui Lin’s mind. Sui Lin circled behind Yu Ying, gently placing her hands on her mother’s shoulders, and flicked her tongue to lick Yu Ying’s neck.
“Mother, let me relieve the desire within you.” Her fingers hooked onto Yu Ying’s shoulder strap, caressing her collarbone. Like a slippery, mucus-coated snake, she wound herself around Yu Ying.
Yu Ying opened her eyes abruptly, grabbed Sui Lin’s left wrist, and used the leather whip to bind her hands together. She locked eyes with Sui Lin. “Do you think that just because I am in a dream, I am not real, and you can play with me as you please?”
“Sui Lin.” Yu Ying pressed her palm against Sui Lin’s neck, forcing her to the ground. Her silver-white tail twitched twice before being coiled up by the black snake’s tail and pinned beneath her.
Sui Lin wanted to kiss Yu Ying. Yu Ying pressed her palm against Sui Lin’s lips to cover her mouth. Sui Lin extended her tongue to lick her mother’s palm.
Yu Ying parted her lips and leaned in to lightly bite Sui Lin’s collarbone.
Black hair and silver hair entwined.
Yu Ying looked down at Sui Lin. Sui Lin’s eyes were filled with moisture, crystal-clear tears rolling down her cheeks. Yu Ying pressed her palms against Sui Lin’s tail.
Sui Lin wanted to hold her mother tighter.
Yu Ying stroked Sui Lin’s hair with her fingers, tucking it behind her ears. “I said that good children get rewards, and bad children get punished.”
“Remember my punishment for you.”
“Mother, no, please, I beg you, please help me.” Sui Lin’s tail wrapped tightly around her mother’s. She needed a deeper touch from her mother to soothe her inner hunger.
Yu Ying slowly withdrew her tail, wiped the sweat from her palms with a wet tissue, and threw it onto the snake tail. She looked down at Sui Lin, who was lying on the ground begging her to stay.
“This is the punishment Mother has for you.”
Sui Lin hugged her mother’s tail with both hands, tears streaming down. “Mother, please, help me. I promise I will be obedient in the future. I will never disobey Mother again; I will never covet Mother again.”
“I promise…”
“Sui Lin, you disappoint me so much.” Yu Ying pressed her warm palm against Sui Lin’s cheek. “If you are obedient, I will reward you.” She wiped the tears from Sui Lin’s cheeks with her thumb, then turned and left Sui Lin’s room.
As the sky was just turning light, Sui Lin woke up from her dream, her subconscious still immersed in it.
She scrambled to hug her mother’s dress, burying her face into it, tears falling onto the fabric. “Mother, Mother, don’t leave me.”
She begged her mother humbly. The mother in her dream did not respond, and no one in the room responded to her either.
Sui Lin opened her eyes blearily, discovering it was already morning. She had only had a dream about her mother—a dream where she was punished.
Her consciousness pulled away from the dream. Sui Lin was drenched in hot sweat, the sheets soaked through. She leaned against the headboard, smelling her mother’s clothing.
Sui Lin ran her long fingers through her silver hair, her eyelashes fluttering, exhaling burning breaths. She tried hard to recall the dream, vaguely remembering the final punishment, but the details of her mother’s appearance were blurry.
She crawled up to open her sketchbook, took up a brush dipped in paint, and drew a giant black python on the white paper—this was the mother in her memory.
After descending from the game world to reality, she had always believed in the words of a certain octopus, firmly believing that her mother was a black python. But in last night’s dream, she had seen her mother with a human body and a snake’s tail. Her mother’s eyes made her feel a sense of familiarity; she felt she had seen them somewhere before.
She grabbed a pencil and sketched pairs of eyes on the paper, like the compound eyes of a strange monster. No, that’s not it. This isn’t it either.
Sui Lin was extremely agitated. She tore up the paper and threw it into the trash can. She must have been deceived by that octopus; she must have been lied to by them, which was why she hadn’t been able to find her mother.
She picked up the brush to draw a black python again. While the paint was still wet, she touched the cheek of the python with her fingertip.
Beneath the python lay the human city, and above it was a black hole, with countless monsters descending into the human world from that void. Her mother was so powerful; she must be hiding among humans as well.
Sui Lin was extremely vexed. How had it taken her this long to realize this? Why had she had no memories of her mother before? Why had she been so fixated on searching for her mother among snake packs?
It must be that hateful, evil octopus. She must have tampered with her memory. Sui Lin cursed the octopus in her heart, wishing for that certain arrogant snake to die—to die right now.
She had made a mistake, and her mother was unwilling to meet her—the arrogant little snake successfully comforted herself. She put down the brush, the sensation of hunger burning her empty stomach. She wiggled her snake tail and went out to forage.
Sui Lin lurked on the beach, her silver-white tail buried beneath the sand, her crimson eyes fixed on a rabbit not far away. She moved her tail slowly toward the prey, not daring to make a sound that would disturb it.
The room wasn’t very suitable for raising rabbits. The mixture of rabbit droppings and rotten vegetables was extremely foul-smelling. After getting up, Yu Ying carried an iron cage to release the rabbit near the castle, watching as the rabbit was about to enter the mouth of the snake-teacher Sui Lin.
Early in the morning, Yu Ying saw Sui Lin, in her human-snake form, buried in the sand, her bloody mouth wide open and ready to bite the rabbit to death.
Yu Ying felt her mental state was quite good. She held the rabbit and even managed to greet Sui Lin, “Teacher Sui Lin, are you out early to sunbathe?”
Sui Lin’s expression was foul. Her red eyes stared coldly at Yu Ying, and she flicked her vivid red tongue, wanting to coil her snake tail around Yu Ying’s body and swallow her into her abdomen to digest her slowly.
“I am hunting.”
Yu Ying squeezed out a stiff smile and turned to leave, clutching the rabbit. Was her mental illness so severe that she was experiencing auditory hallucinations? She tried to comfort herself: Teacher Sui Lin said she was sunbathing; she must have hallucinated and misheard.
She held the rabbit with one hand and took out her phone to record her condition in her notes.
April 13th.
I saw Teacher Sui Lin lying on the beach sunbathing. I could still see her silver-white tail, sharp teeth, and those bloody eyes. The only difference this time is that I had an auditory hallucination; I heard her say she was hunting.
Sui Lin’s damp, dark gaze followed Yu Ying’s retreating back. She noticed that the look in Yu Ying’s eyes when she looked at the rabbit was gentle—the kind of look she had only ever seen on her mother.
But her mother had never looked at her with such eyes.
Sui Lin was not as obedient as other monsters. Rebellion and slaughter were programs written into her genes. Most of the time, she would pretend to be obedient to her mother. She needed the special scent on the human named Yu Ying; those scents helped her get through her special periods.
As for her mother’s punishment.
In her dreams, she wouldn’t be afraid of her mother. She just wanted to—she just wanted to receive her mother’s reward.
She thought maliciously, perhaps she could reach some kind of deal with Yu Ying…