Inside the castle kitchen, the warm-toned lights spilled onto the floor. Yu Mianmian poured flour and water to knead the dough. Having learned how to knead dough last time, she pretended not to know how so she could ask Yu Ying for guidance.
Yu Ying stood behind Yu Mianmian, placing her palms over the backs of Yu Mianmian’s hands, pressing down to knead the dough with force.
A lock of hair fell by Yu Mianmian’s temple, shielding her reddened earlobe. The warmth of Yu Ying’s palms—the moment they touched the back of her hands—left her feeling flustered; her heartbeat accelerated, and her breathing became ragged.
She lowered her eyelashes, gazing at the dough being kneaded in the copper basin, feeling as though it wasn’t the dough Yu Ying was kneading, but the soft flesh of her own cheeks. Her cheeks flushed with a red tint, and she mumbled vaguely, “That’s enough.”
As the warmth belonging to Yu Ying dissipated, Yu Mianmian regained a sliver of her composure.
Sui Lin stood to the side, silently observing their interaction. Feelings of jealousy were like a red-hot iron plate, leaving a searing brand at the bottom of her heart.
She had clearly met Yu Ying first, and she hated herself for being unable to possess her. She wanted to wrap her snake tail around Yu Ying’s lower abdomen, drag her into a damp nest, and have her snake tongue lick Yu Ying’s neck, leaving her own scent all over Yu Ying.
To Sui Lin, humans were merely a fragile species; she felt she could toy with them however she pleased.
Stung by the interaction before her, Sui Lin thought to herself: It’s just kneading dough, what is there to be jealous and envious of? Mother has taught me how to knead dough, too.
Pouting, Sui Lin poured in flour, stealing glances at Yu Ying from time to time. The dust floating in the air made her cough, so she added a large amount of water into the basin and stuck her snake tail into the metal tub to stir the flour.
Yu Ying didn’t hear a sound from Sui Lin, so she turned her head and saw Sui Lin stirring the flour with her snake tail.
“Are you making noodle soup?” Yu Ying felt that Sui Lin should sign up for a “Dark Cuisine” contest; she would surely take home the championship.
Sui Lin caught the disdain in Yu Ying’s voice. “It’s not for you to eat; I’m eating it myself.”
Yu Ying felt helpless; after all, Teacher Sui Lin was her senior, so she didn’t know what to say. She turned back to continue instructing Yu Mianmian on how to whip egg whites to make cream.
Sui Lin stirred the metal basin with her snake tail for a long time, resulting in a large tub of clumpy flour paste. She picked up the basin and took a gulp of the paste.
It was disgusting. The paste got stuck in her throat, neither going down nor coming up, and Sui Lin’s face turned bright red as she began to cough violently. In a fit of rage, she threw her “masterpiece” out the window.
Yu Ying, who had witnessed Sui Lin drinking the paste: “…”
Teacher Sui Lin’s digestion is quite strong.
Yu Ying chopped meat filling and wrapped xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), and Yu Mianmian followed suit, wrapping them as well.
At first, Yu Mianmian wrapped them quite ugly, but after wrapping a few, they started to look decent. She held a small dumpling in her palm. “Sister Yu Ying, can you teach me a few more dishes? When I go back, I want to make them for my mother.”
Thinking of making food for her mother, Yu Mianmian was filled with drive. In the past, she and her mother had only hunted in the ocean. Once she found her mother and returned with her, she would show off the culinary skills she learned on land.
Perhaps her mother would praise her for her cooking and slowly come to rely on her, unable to leave her side.
“Alright, I’ll teach you.” Yu Ying placed the xiaolongbao in a steamer to cook. The fillings were pork and cabbage, as well as fresh shrimp. Soon, the room was filled with a fragrance that made one’s mouth water.
Yu Ying put on gloves, lifted the lid, and brought out the steaming dumplings, handing them to Yu Mianmian and Sui Lin. “Eat a little to pad your stomachs first.”
Sui Lin picked up a dumpling and stuffed it into her mouth. She swallowed the food quickly, chewing only casually a few times before it slid into her belly.
Yu Mianmian picked up a hot dumpling and held it to Yu Ying’s lips. “Sister, you eat first.”
Seeing the flour on Yu Mianmian’s cheek, Yu Ying raised her arm to wipe it off. She took a bite of the dumpling. “It tastes pretty good.”
She held a kitchen knife to process the goose, chopping the meat into small pieces. She threw half into a clay pot, added green onion, ginger, and cooking wine to simmer, then skimmed off the boiled ginger, onion, and foam from the surface.
“Mianmian, help me time it with your phone.”
Yu Ying prepared a cup of warm salt water to feed the baby jellyfish in the glass jar later, and she steamed the baby mice and put them on the snake’s personal plate.
Once the meal was prepared, Yu Mianmian and Sui Lin carried the dishes to the dining table. Before Yu Ying could even sit down, the two began to argue over the seating. Sui Lin used her snake tail on the chair to drive Yu Mianmian away, but Yu Mianmian wasn’t going to indulge her; she grabbed Sui Lin’s tail with both hands and pulled backward.
Seeing this, Yu Ying began to suffer from a headache. She untied her apron and went upstairs to wake the sleeping little snake, holding the glass jar in her palm. When she went back downstairs, she saw Yu Mianmian still fighting over the seat with Sui Lin.
“Eat.” Yu Ying found a random empty seat, sat down, and picked up her chopsticks. On her left side sat the glass jar, and on her right side, the little snake occupied the seat.
Sui Lin retracted her tail sullenly, her cold, venomous gaze fixed on Yu Mianmian—it should have been her sitting next to Yu Ying. She clumsily picked up a piece of goose meat and swallowed it, enjoying it with her eyes narrowed. The cooked goose meat was delicious.
Yu Mianmian ate a piece of lettuce and glared at Sui Lin. If it weren’t for this foolish snake, she would be the one sitting next to Yu Ying. She loathed the clone in the glass jar; it was merely her substitute, so how could it deserve Yu Ying’s favoritism?
Too many “extraordinary entities” are selfish. The only vocabulary etched into their genes is possession and plunder. They are self-centered and detest the existence of other such entities. This remains true until someone teaches them how to love.
The atmosphere at the dinner table finally became warm, though invisible dirty tricks continued to happen under the table.
Yu Mianmian stomped viciously on the snake tail, wishing she could crush it into meat paste. Sui Lin’s tail wrapped from Yu Mianmian’s lower leg upward, tightening with increasing force, wishing she could strangle her. Both monster entities used all their strength to try to kill the other, while on the surface, they wore friendly faces, pretending to be good sisters.
Yu Ying felt as though her illness was recovering; she hadn’t been strangled by a python while eating today, and there was no feeling of suffocation.
She unscrewed the glass lid and poured in the special nutrient solution to feed the baby jellyfish, put on a disposable glove, and tore up the baby mouse to feed the little snake. The jellyfish in the jar emitted a blue fluorescent light, its fine, long tentacles with stinging cells looking like blooming sunflowers, greedily absorbing the water droplets.
Its tentacles pressed against the glass jar, rubbing affectionately against its mother’s fingers through the glass. It was expressing its gratitude to Yu Ying.
The little snake hooked her tail around Yu Ying’s finger to divert Yu Ying’s attention to herself. Her mother’s gaze could only rest on her.
The snake head rubbed against her mother’s hand, her pale pink pupils bright. She opened her snake mouth to reveal two sharp fangs, gulping down the baby mouse.
So hungry, so hungry. Her body needed more energy. After finishing the mouse, the little snake’s pale pink vertical pupils stared at the food on Yu Ying’s plate—the food that carried her mother’s scent, which was the best supplement for her.
Taking advantage of the moment Yu Ying wasn’t looking, the little snake crawled onto the dining table. She opened her mouth, about to swallow the food, when her tail was tightly grabbed by her mother.
“No more eating.” Yu Ying was worried that something might be wrong with the little snake’s health; a sudden increase in appetite over a short period could be influenced by other factors, such as weather, temperature, humidity, or estrus.
The little snake was reprimanded by her mother, so she rubbed against her mother’s hand and wrapped her tail around her mother’s wrist. She snuck off the table, the hunger burning in her stomach prompting her to disobey her mother’s orders. Her body moved in an S-shape, slithering out of the castle gate.
She looked back at her mother once and flicked her tongue. She was too hungry; she needed to go out to hunt for prey to gain energy. She also wanted to become strong enough to protect her mother.
Outside the castle, it was raining incessantly, and raindrops fell into the sand, turning into steam. The little snake liked this kind of weather; it meant she could capture more prey.
She didn’t have hard scales to protect herself, and if she went hunting by the sea, she could easily be poisoned by her prey. She slithered along, smelling the scent of moss and plants. There must be a forest nearby; that was her hunting ground.
Her snake belly crawled over the beach, across the asphalt road, and over rotten wood covered in fungi. She arrived in the jungle for the first time, curiously eyeing her surroundings—lofty trees that reached the clouds, the eerie bird calls in the woods, and tunnels leading into the unknown.
Food. The little snake smelled the scent of food. In a small hole covered by pine needles and moss, there should be many ants building a nest; the queen ant’s scent was the most delicious.
The little snake’s tail drilled into the ant hole, the wet soil enveloping her tail as more and more ants bit her snake skin. The little snake withdrew her tail, and dense black ants covered it; her tongue curled and snatched the ants away.
This was her first meal in the forest, yet the ants in the hole were only enough to fill the gaps between her teeth; they were not enough to satisfy her hunger. She needed more food…
The little snake continued to crawl forward. The silence of the forest made her feel a bit afraid, but to grow quickly and protect her mother, the little snake did not retreat a single step.
She was quite lucky; before her stomach began to rumble, she found insect eggs hidden in the grass. Transparent eggs were connected together; looking closely, one could see the larvae about to hatch.
The little snake opened her mouth and ate the eggs. The sticky texture clung to her throat, and it felt as if larvae were wriggling and crawling in her mouth. She swallowed the eggs. Her tail swept through the grass, and she found wriggling white fat worms; the insects left transparent trails on the leaves.
She wrapped her tail around a fat worm and stuffed it into her mouth. Other worms wiggled their bodies forward. The little snake was not in a hurry to eat the rest; she liked watching the young insects struggle, wriggling and struggling inside her mouth.
Hunting and enjoying the act of hunting was her nature.
The little snake’s head hit an iron wall, leaving her dizzy and tumbling into the grass.
Spider-web cracks appeared on the iron wall, and foul-smelling pus seeped out. The little snake subconsciously felt the iron wall was dangerous and twisted her tail to move away at high speed.
Bang! The iron wall shattered completely. The little snake’s tail went stiff, and she struggled to twist her snake head around to look at the wall. Only then did she realize the iron wall was a square iron box. Inside the box was a giant embryo.
That’s right, it was an embryo; the little snake wouldn’t be mistaken. The iron box before her looked like a cracked eggshell. What the embryonic membrane wrapped was not a human infant, nor any mammal, but a deep purple octopus, its tentacles’ suckers sucking on the embryonic membrane.
Thump, thump. The little snake clearly heard the heartbeat. She wanted to crawl away quickly and return to her mother’s side, but her body stopped in place, refusing to be controlled by her brain.
The tentacle monster in the embryo opened its eyes. The tentacles extended out of the embryo, and the membrane wrapping it shattered instantly, thick liquid dripping into the soil.
It had been trapped in the iron box for a long time, and the mucus it secreted had formed the “embryo” that wrapped it. It felt very hungry and needed to eat high-energy food to supplement high-quality protein.
Its pink, tender tentacles easily curled around the little snake and brought her to its mouth. It could sense the “strangeness” value on the little snake; it was too weak, not even enough to fill the gaps between its teeth. But this was not the time for it to be picky; if it didn’t eat, it would die.
“Say goodbye to this world.”
The little snake struggled, wrapping her tail around the tentacles, but her weak strength couldn’t strangle the tentacle monster. The little snake’s internal organs were compressed, and fresh, bright red blood flowed from the corner of her mouth.
She gave up struggling and closed her eyes, consoling herself that before she died, she had eaten the baby mouse her mother made and had bathed with her. The days spent accompanying her mother were time she had stolen; dying at the hands of this tentacle monster was worth it.
It caught a hint of a sweet scent. The tentacle suckers licked the scent off the little snake bit by bit; the mother’s scent intoxicated it. Compared to killing the little snake, it needed the little snake to help lure the mother.
It loosened its grip, and the little snake fell to the ground, preparing to escape. Its tentacles pressed down on the little snake, preventing her from moving at will.
Dense fog rose in the forest, and its massive body and eight tentacles slipped into the shell. It quickly adapted to a human body, walking out of the fog on long, slender legs.
The fog dissipated, and it transformed into a young woman with a beautiful appearance and a sexy figure. Its articulated fingers gripped the little snake her mother raised; while hunting, it didn’t forget to feed the little snake.
My mother, long time no see. Why do you like such a weak creature?
Its cold fingers stroked the little snake’s head, and it said hypocritically, “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”
Outside the window, a violent storm raged, the rain hitting the glass and running down in lines. The room was dim; such weather was perfect for sleeping.
Yu Ying turned on the bedside lamp, holding the book on mental illness in her hands. After reading for a while, she felt sleepy and reached under her pillow, but she couldn’t feel the little snake. Her drowsiness vanished. She sprawled on the floor, looking under the bed and mimicking the “hissing” sound the little snake made.
She took out the freeze-dried snacks the little snake loved best, rubbing the bag to make a sound, but the little snake didn’t respond. She searched the entire room, even the bathroom, but couldn’t find a trace of the little snake.
Yu Ying paced back and forth in the room. She suddenly realized the little snake was gone. She put on her black raincoat, grabbed a flashlight and the little snake’s favorite snacks, and prepared to go out to look for her.
As she was about to leave, the scene in front of her distorted, and she entered an “extraordinary domain.”
She saw a strange, enchanting woman walking out of the dense fog. The woman wore a black Gothic-style brim, her thin gown lifted lightly by the wind. Her strange eyes met Yu Ying’s across the space. The wide, pleated sleeves blocked the emerald ring on her index finger. She wore a corset around her waist, and the mermaid-style skirt hem displayed her excellent body proportions.
Her ethereal voice seemed to be speaking to Yu Ying from across the void; others could not understand the language she used.
Yu Ying heard clearly what she was saying; she heard clearly those words from the abyss.
She was saying:
Mother, long time no see.
The fog in front of her dissipated, and the hallucination vanished. Yu Ying inserted her dagger into her belt, hurried down the stairs, pushed open the castle gate, and opened her umbrella, walking into the darkness. Deep inside her heart, a strange voice kept guiding her, pointing out where she should go.
A pair of cold palms grabbed Yu Ying’s wrist, and a clear, cold voice came from behind her: “Where are you going?”