Yu Ying gazed quietly at Sui Lin. Sui Lin’s silvery-white eyelashes drooped as her bright red snake tongue licked the blood from Yu Ying’s finger, the forked tip of her tongue slightly swollen and red.
“Teacher Sui Lin, let’s go back.” Yu Ying withdrew her arm, taking the small snake from Sui Lin’s wrist. The slender snake tail coiled around Yu Ying’s wrist, its tongue licking the web of Yu Ying’s hand.
The little snake was stuffed and slightly dizzy; its nose filled with the scent of its mother. It pressed its head against its tail, closing its eyes.
Sui Lin’s snake tail swung, snapping a tree trunk. The thick tree crashed down with a booming sound, startling the birds in the forest into flight.
Sui Lin slithered ahead, her tail twisting. She had only wanted to help a human treat a wound; why did this human reject her? When snakes are injured, they lick each other’s wounds—don’t humans do the same?
After thinking for a long time, she finally came to a conclusion: humans are so boring.
Hearing the massive crash, Yu Ying looked back at the fallen trunk. She kept reminding herself that all of this was merely auditory and visual hallucination.
The blood rain had stopped, but the air was still thick with the smell of blood. Yu Ying caught a glimpse of the trunk, where the rough, dry bark was covered in dense compound eyes, pitch-black pupils staring at her. Though the ground beneath her feet was damp mud, what Yu Ying saw were writhing tentacles.
A bulge appeared in the soil, and a soft, pink tentacle broke through, slime dripping from its tip. More and more pink tentacles erupted from the soil beneath her feet, resembling vines growing in the jungle.
“Teacher Sui Lin.”
Sui Lin turned her head. Yu Ying was surrounded by the bizarre; eyes stared from the trunks, and tentacles from the soil clung to her.
A madman! This tentacle freak is a lunatic! How could it dare to act against an unarmed human in defiance of the rules?!
Sui Lin’s tail flicked flexibly toward Yu Ying, coiling around her waist and pulling her close.
In Yu Ying’s perspective, the image of Sui Lin’s silver-haired, red-eyed, human-snake form was a hallucination, and the use of her tail was also a hallucination. In her vision, Sui Lin’s arm simply wrapped around her waist, pulling her to her side.
Sui Lin released her tail. Humans are such a hassle.
Sui Lin picked up a tree branch with her tail and handed it to Yu Ying. “Hold onto this.”
Sui Lin firmly believed that humans, with their mortal eyes, could not see the supernatural phenomena, but their five senses could perceive the presence of the bizarre. For instance, when the supernatural descended, humans would panic, feel a chill, or constantly feel someone standing behind them.
These were all within the range of human perception. Just moments ago, Yu Ying had indeed sensed the tentacle monster.
Sui Lin did not like prolonged contact with humans; their body heat made her uncomfortable. She poked Yu Ying’s arm with the branch and said coldly, “Hold it.”
Without hesitation, Yu Ying grasped the other end of the branch. Being near Sui Lin was like standing next to a block of ice. She yanked the branch from Sui Lin’s hand and dropped it on the ground, then wrapped her warm palm over the back of Sui Lin’s hand, lacing her fingers through Sui Lin’s and gripping them tightly.
They were too close. Sui Lin could smell the fragrance on Yu Ying, and she stood beside her, greedily absorbing the scent; her stomach, scorched by digestive juices, was filled by this aroma.
A tingling, itchy sensation traveled through her skin into her bones, making them feel numb and electrified. Sui Lin wanted to pull her hand away, but Yu Ying gripped it firmly.
Humans are such a hassle.
Thinking this, Sui Lin did not continue to make things difficult for Yu Ying. She wanted to stay with her a little longer, so she mimicked Yu Ying’s grip, squeezing her palm back.
Fortunately, the forest was not far from the castle. Back at the castle, Yu Ying flipped the light switch, and a bright glow fell upon them.
She tilted her head to look at Sui Lin. The warm light caught the silver-white strands of Sui Lin’s hair, and her red eyes narrowed under the glare. Her porcelain-white skin was covered in a light mist, appearing near-cold.
At this moment, Sui Lin looked like a deity descending; she possessed both the divinity of a god and the sinister nature of a snake, her aura wavering between the two.
“Teacher Sui Lin, thanks to you today, I managed to find the little snake.” Yu Ying stood at the entryway, reaching into the shoe cabinet to pull out two pairs of slippers.
Sui Lin’s gaze was like a venomous snake, sliding from the back of Yu Ying’s neck down her spine.
The scent of her mother drifted past her. She regained her focus, grabbed Yu Ying’s fingertips, and lied without the slightest panic: “The showerhead in my bathroom is broken. I’ll borrow yours.”
Before Yu Ying could nod in agreement, Sui Lin slithered up the stairs, the underside of her snake tail rubbing against the steps with a rustling sound.
Yu Ying followed behind. Sui Lin’s tail skillfully inserted itself into the copper lock, and she stood sideways, waiting for Yu Ying to enter first. As Yu Ying passed by, she cast a suspicious glance at Sui Lin.
She placed the little snake on the pillow and rubbed its head with her thumb. Then, she opened the wardrobe, found a set of spare clothes, and handed them to Sui Lin.
Sui Lin took the clothes. She wanted to bury herself in the soft fabric. In front of the human, she maintained a moment of restraint, but in private, she would hold Yu Ying’s clothes, rubbing and nuzzling against them.
Yu Ying set the bathroom temperature to a constant 26 degrees Celsius and turned on the heater and warm lights. For a snake, this was considered a high temperature; in the heat, Sui Lin’s cheeks flushed, and the scales on her tail stood on end.
“You wash first.” Sui Lin walked out of the bathroom in a foul mood and thoughtfully helped Yu Ying close the door.
Fearing the cold, Yu Ying turned the temperature up even higher. She took off her raincoat, threw it in the trash, lifted the hem of her shirt, and reached behind to unhook her bra.
Outside the bathroom, Sui Lin lay on the large bed, burying her face in the quilt. Her hearing was sharp; she clearly heard the sound of clothes hitting the floor, followed by water splashing against the tiles. Her brain automatically played out the scene, imagining Yu Ying gripping a paintbrush, water droplets sliding down her stomach…
Hot water poured down from overhead, washing away the fatigue of the day. Yu Ying turned off the shower, put on a leopard-print bathrobe, and shuffled out in slippers, meeting the gaze of Sui Lin, who was clutching the quilt on the bed.
In that instant, Yu Ying recalled the outside world’s assessment of Teacher Sui Lin: cold, abstinent, zero scandals after years in the industry, always staying in the crew for filming. These were only what outsiders saw, and the persona Sui Lin maintained in the entertainment industry.
Sui Lin held the quilt, pressing the white fabric against her body. Her face was flushed like a drunkard, and she bit the corner of the quilt with a pitiable, innocent expression, her silvery-white snake tail winding across the bedsheets.
Yu Ying looked away, not wanting to watch Sui Lin, and picked up a towel to dry the tips of her hair.
Sui Lin was different from her. From the moment Yu Ying stepped out of the bathroom, Sui Lin’s gaze remained glued to her, her dark, damp eyes feeling like a snake’s tongue licking Yu Ying’s skin.
The room’s lighting was perfectly ambiguous. Sui Lin stared at Yu Ying greedily, not wanting to look away for even a single second.
Yu Ying had a powerful presence; she exerted a strong aura just by standing there, her eyes looking at Sui Lin with pressure.
Her wet black hair hung down, water droplets trickling down her chest and disappearing into the bathrobe. The belt was tied loosely; Sui Lin could pull the robe open with a single hook of her finger, and the lines of her thigh muscles were visible as she moved.
“Go wash up.” Yu Ying dropped the towel, which landed on Sui Lin’s face, still carrying her scent.
The towel obscured Sui Lin’s vision. Yu Ying leaned over toward her, and that strange fragrance pulled Sui Lin into a gentle wonderland. For a moment, Sui Lin was dazed, as if her mother were right beside her, looking at her with disdain and covering her face with a scented towel.
Her body reacted first; she yanked the towel off her face, and her snake tail hit the floor, slithering rapidly into the bathroom.
The mist in the bathroom and the rising temperature made the snake uncomfortable. Sui Lin preferred dark, humid environments; she turned the temperature down to sub-zero and the water to the coldest setting. The scent of her mother seeped into her body, slowly filling the emptiness in her heart.
Sui Lin’s silvery-white tail writhed in the bathroom, and something hotter than the water temperature fell onto her tail, from the underside of her belly to the tip of her tail.
A certain snake, whose head was full of erotic thoughts and self-written fanfiction, was holding the showerhead in Yu Ying’s bathroom and spraying water…
Sui Lin wiped the water from her body with a bath towel and put on Yu Ying’s clothes. Silver-white hair fell behind her, water droplets still falling. She hummed a long, winding melody and slithered out of the bathroom.
Hearing the lock click, Yu Ying hid the book on mental illness under her pillow and took a sip of warm water.
She lifted her eyes to look at Sui Lin. Teacher Sui Lin was wearing her clothes. The thin white camisole was somewhat translucent, and after being dampened by the residual water, one could see the mermaid line on Teacher Sui Lin’s stomach, and beneath that, the silvery-white snake tail.
Ever since she contracted her mental illness, Yu Ying found Sui Lin’s snake tail increasingly pleasing to the eye. Sometimes in her dreams, she would even imagine the little snake turning into a python. She wondered, how cool would it be to hold Sui Lin’s snake tail while sleeping in the summer?
Yu Ying got up, opened the drawer, took out a box of desserts, and offered it to Sui Lin. “Thank you for helping me find the little snake today.”
Sui Lin froze slightly, eyes drooping as she looked at the desserts in the transparent box. She had no interest in human food. She hadn’t expected Yu Ying to express gratitude, as she had only helped her on a whim.
Well, fine, fine. She had to admit it.
She was afraid that this fragile, tiny human would die.
A gift? Sui Lin had only ever received gifts from her mother. She had helped humans before—once finding a lost human child for a family—but she had been pelted with stones by the whole village, tied to a post, and bled out as they watched.
No one would believe a word a monster said; no one would believe a monster had a heart.
Only her mother, only her mother trusted her. Only her mother would give her a gift.
Sui Lin didn’t want this gift; she wanted other gifts. She opened the box and held a piece of dessert to Yu Ying’s lips.
Yu Ying grabbed Sui Lin’s finger, eyelashes lowered, and took a bite of the dessert. Her hot breath landed on Sui Lin’s hand, and Sui Lin felt as if she had been scalded, pulling her hand back with a blushing, racing heart.
Sui Lin slithered out of the room, leaning against the wooden door and listening to her heart pounding uncontrollably before devouring the rest of the dessert Yu Ying had bitten.
Human food doesn’t seem so bad after all.
The sweet, fragrant flavor exploded in her mouth, and Sui Lin half-closed her eyes in satisfaction. This was the first gift she had received since arriving in the human world, and the best gift.
No, that’s not right, she corrected herself. The gift my mother gave me is the best.
Certain that she was stuffed and satisfied in every sense, the snake returned to her room to sleep. She would not sneak into Yu Ying’s room tonight, would not go hunting in the wild, and certainly would not satisfy herself by clutching Yu Ying’s clothes.