Yu Ying stood by the old castle window, looking out through the hazy glass.
The rain had finally stopped, and the sunlight falling onto the black sea surface resembled sewage mixed with oil slicks flowing out from a factory discharge. Yu Ying had no interest in such an environment, but she did not want to stay with Sui Lin.
Before opening the door, Yu Ying asked Sui Lin, “Do you want to go out with me?”
Yu Ying was a professional actress; since she had signed onto this dating variety show, she would interact with the guests according to the persona set by the show’s script.
Of course, she had only asked casually, never expecting that Sui Lin would agree.
Yu Ying felt helpless, sitting in a chair waiting for Sui Lin to return to her room to change into a formal dress. She looked down at the hour hand rotating on her wristwatch.
“Let’s go.” Sui Lin walked slowly down the spiral staircase after changing into her dress. Her hands were adorned with black lace gloves, her palms resting on the banister, while her other hand supported the brim of her hat.
The calm and restrained color did not suppress her flamboyance; instead, it made her appear like a blooming datura flower—mysterious, dangerous, and alluring, enticing humans to draw near her.
Yu Ying held a coffee cup, her thin lips taking a sip. Whether it was her face or her figure, Sui Lin always made Yu Ying think of the snake she raised in her video game.
Would the little snake also grow into such a beauty after passing the game’s dungeons? Thinking about the game servers shutting down, Yu Ying felt a sharp pain in her liver from anger.
Sui Lin picked up a gorgeous floral parasol and followed Yu Ying out of the castle gates.
Yu Ying stood on the steps of the castle, took a deep breath of fresh air, and looked out at the nearby beach, which looked as if it were paved with a layer of gold leaf.
She liked to lie on the beach and sunbathe, but she didn’t want to get sunburned. She took sunscreen out of her exquisite little handbag and applied it to her face, neck, and arms.
Beside her, Sui Lin watched Yu Ying. She liked Yu Ying’s wheat-colored skin; it possessed the steady, grounded feeling of Mother Earth.
Every time Sui Lin fixed her gaze on Yu Ying, she always had a sense of familiarity, inexplicably feeling dependent on Yu Ying and unable to resist wanting to get closer to her.
She knew that her mother was a pure black python, possessing a head shape like a dragon and a thick, powerful tail. She also knew that when her mother transformed into human form, she possessed wheat-colored skin.
Sui Lin had been different from birth. She was an ominous snake egg; her arrival would cause the world to collapse. Other snake eggs were solid-colored, but only hers was covered in pure white scales.
Her mother did not despise her ugly eggshell and took her away from the clan to hatch her. The first thing Sui Lin saw was her mother’s wheat-colored skin.
For a long time, Sui Lin had been contemplating why there was such a skin color difference between her and her mother. She would hang herself on tree branches to dry in the sun and smear dust on her beautiful, fair face.
When her mother found out that Sui Lin wanted to change her skin color, she gently lifted the little snake’s chin with her fingertips and educated her.
Baby, your skin is the most beautiful color in the world, like snow.
‘Like snow.’
This sentence was deeply embedded in Sui Lin’s heart; she had remembered it since she was a hatchling.
Sui Lin’s gaze was fixed firmly on the sunscreen. “Can I use it?”
Her voice was strained, struggling to force out the words; she felt as if her throat was parched, making it feel exceptionally awkward. In the past, if she wanted something, she would simply seize it; she had never politely requested anything from a human.
“Sure.”
Yu Ying naturally took hold of Sui Lin’s palm and pulled off her lace glove. Under the sunlight, Sui Lin’s skin appeared even fairer, approaching a porcelain white, with cyan veins winding beneath the surface.
She carefully applied the sunscreen for Sui Lin. The smooth lotion brushed against Sui Lin’s skin; the human’s warm palm scalded Sui Lin. Sui Lin looked at Yu Ying in a daze, feeling Yu Ying’s body temperature.
Sui Lin abruptly pulled her hand back and put on the lace glove. She pretended to be nonchalant, opened the floral parasol, and walked down the stairs quickly.
Yu Ying put the sunscreen back into her bag. She stood on the steps and watched Sui Lin run away in a panic. Sui Lin’s dress hem tangled with her snake tail, and she nearly fell down the stairs several times.
“Watch out.” Yu Ying was nervous and quickly walked down the steps.
Sui Lin’s snake tail twisted into a knot to stabilize her body. She looked back at Yu Ying while holding the floral parasol, pretending to be relaxed as she tidied her silver hair. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you twist your ankle? I just saw you trip.” Yu Ying’s gaze shifted down to Sui Lin’s snake tail; the tail was twisted into a slipknot.
Yu Ying firmly believed that everything was a hallucination; Teacher Sui Lin did not actually grow a snake tail. She almost blurted out a question to Sui Lin.
Is your snake tail hurt?
God bless, thank goodness she hadn’t blurted it out. If she had been caught by the viewers of the dating show, they would surely have sent her to a mental hospital.
“No.” Sui Lin stood on the step below Yu Ying, and the moment their eyes met, she looked away in a panic.
The castle was right by the sea. They walked down the stairs and stepped onto the beach. Yu Ying took off her high heels and carried them in her hands. Her soles touched the warm sand, and as she stepped on the granules, she lifted her dress, revealing her calf muscles.
She turned to pick up a bucket, holding a shovel in her hand, expecting to find some unexpected bounty at the seaside.
Yu Ying grew up by the sea. When she was a child, she looked forward to holding her mother’s hand while foraging for seafood; her mother would pick up a large bucket of seafood, and she would always bring back strange seashells.
Once, she picked up an unidentified creature and fell into a serious illness. Ever since then, her whole family had been cautious and would not let Yu Ying forage.
With the soft sand beneath her feet, her nasal cavity was filled with the salty, wet smell of the sea; she could even smell the stench of decaying fish, shrimp, and crab carcasses.
All of this made Yu Ying feel as if she had returned to that bay in her dreams.
Sui Lin followed closely behind Yu Ying, holding the floral parasol to block the sun for her. Her own skin was exposed to the sunlight, and her fair complexion began to flush red.
The sea breeze lifted Yu Ying’s hair, and the strands brushed against the tip of Sui Lin’s nose; the mother’s scent drifted over gently, only to be blown away by the sea breeze.
Sui Lin closed her eyes and enjoyed it. The mother’s scent entered her nasal cavity and invaded her lungs, as if it had become one with her body, reaching the deepest parts of her soul.
Drones circled under the dim sky, filming the interaction between Yu Ying and Sui Lin from above, and the discussion in the live broadcast room was rising steadily.
【I’m dying of sweetness, who gets it? The moment Yu Ying’s hair drifted past, I felt like the fragrance on Yu Ying made Teacher Sui Lin feel so good!】
【Damn it, I don’t even dare to imagine how good it will be when everyone is finally gathered! I’m urging once a day: when will the other guests arrive?!】
【Holding an umbrella for someone else and smelling their hair—if this isn’t love, what is it?】
From the viewers’ perspective, the sea was a transparent blue, the warm sun shone on the water, and two beautiful women were interacting sweetly.
They could not see the harsh environment, nor could they see Sui Lin’s snake tail.
Yu Ying squatted down and picked up the broken seashells on the ground; she liked to use seashells to piece together a picture. She was focused on selecting shells of various shapes, while Sui Lin stood beside her holding the umbrella.
Sui Lin did not want Yu Ying’s wheat-colored skin to turn dark. She flicked her snake tail against the reef on the shore, and the stone shattered instantly.
No one noticed that on the beach behind them, there was a small mound; a jellyfish baby extended its slender, light-blue tentacles, raking the sand on both sides as it lurked within the granules.
The jellyfish shook the water in its head, listening to the sloshing sound. It held up its tentacles blankly, but the tentacles were withered and ugly.
The little jellyfish was nothing more than a clone split from the God-Jellyfish; it had no emotions, no brain, and didn’t even know why it had gotten separated from its master.
Its entire body was covered with a neural network, a dense web that allowed it to perceive its surrounding environment. Its tentacles touched something hard, and sharp scales cut its tentacles.
Danger!
It could not think about whether the opponent was stronger than itself; when it encountered danger, it would attack immediately.
Several slender tentacles floated on the beach, wriggling like snakes, leaving wet traces in the shallow water pits.
It found the right moment to coil around Sui Lin’s snake tail, tightening its grip, releasing the stinging cells on its tentacles into the gaps of the scales.
Hiss.
Yu Ying heard the sound of a snake hissing. She turned her head stiffly to look at Sui Lin. Sui Lin had a layer of cold sweat on her forehead; her face was pale, her bright red lips had turned dark purple, and her fingers, which were holding the umbrella handle, were twitching uncontrollably.
Sui Lin lost her footing and fell into Yu Ying’s embrace. She took the opportunity to bury the tip of her nose into Yu Ying’s neck, greedily inhaling the scent on Yu Ying.
She pressed her palms against Yu Ying’s back; through the corset, Yu Ying could feel a piercing chill, unlike the body temperature of a normal human.
“Teacher Sui Lin, were you bitten by something?” Yu Ying looked behind Sui Lin, seeing only a raised pile of sand.
Was it a crab?
Sui Lin’s snake tail slammed heavily onto the sand pile, gouging out a huge crater. The little jellyfish was smashed into a transparent mess by the snake tail.
Her snake tail occupied the sand pit, pressing down on the jellyfish’s body, which had been broken into several pieces. She let out a cold hum, refusing to move her tail to let Yu Ying see the jellyfish.
Possessiveness controlled Sui Lin’s rationality; she did not want Yu Ying’s gaze to dwell on other creatures, and she did not want Yu Ying to look at any species other than her with such gentle eyes.
Yu Ying squatted down beside the sand pit. “You stepped on it.”
Sui Lin unwillingly moved her snake tail away, looking at Yu Ying coldly.
Mother was right after all; weak creatures are always fond of helping each other. Humans are so fragile and insignificant, yet they are always fond of lending a hand to even weaker creatures.
She looked at the sand pit with contempt, immediately recognizing it as a clone of the God-Jellyfish. She angrily used her snake tail to grind the jellyfish, crushing it into jelly residue.
Snakes and jellyfish were not natural enemies. Sui Lin loathed jellyfish for no other reason than the fact that her mother had held a jellyfish.
Thinking of the scene where her mother embraced a jellyfish, the snake gnashed her teeth in jealousy, wishing she could grab the jellyfish in the pit, stuff it into her mouth, chew it into pieces, and swallow it into her stomach.
Is the God-Jellyfish not capable of eternal life? Can it still have eternal life after being eaten by me?
Sui Lin thought evilly, Will the jellyfish’s blood be filled with the smell of blood just like animal blood? What is the feeling of it in the mouth? Is it like jelly?
She couldn’t eat the main body of the God-Jellyfish, but she could always eat a discarded clone. After Yu Ying left, she would be the first to send the poor little jellyfish to see God.
Yu Ying stretched out her finger to touch the jellyfish; the jellyfish’s soft, slender tentacles coiled around her fingertip, even as its transparent body was crushed into residue by the snake tail.
“It’s still alive.”
The jellyfish wanted to release its stinging cells to attack Yu Ying, but when it met Yu Ying’s gentle gaze, it let go of its tentacles. It understood that the human in front of it wanted to save it.
It was nothing more than a clone split from the God-Jellyfish; it had no perception, no sense of pain, and death to it was just closing its eyes to sleep. Its appearance could not change anything, and its departure could not change anything either.
It was not as powerful as the God-Jellyfish, nor did it have a mother of its own. The monsters of the deep sea were all looking for their moms; only it had no mother.
Mother.
It said a sentence in an ancient, mysterious language, which landed in Yu Ying’s ear as if tentacles were caressing her earlobe, leaving behind a transparent, sticky mucus.
Yu Ying could not understand the jellyfish language and assumed it was the sound it made while crawling. She cupped the broken body of the jellyfish in her hands and walked toward the castle.
I hope Xiao Xue will like the new friend.