Regarding the god’s gender, well, from the protagonist’s perspective, it’s still unknown. From our (the reader’s/audience’s) perspective, it’s feminine. And the author keeps shifting the gender, using the pronoun typically reserved for deities that doesn’t represent a gender, although at times it changes as another point of view, a little confusing. The author uses this pronoun: 祂 (tā) – a third-person singular pronoun used for the Christian God, equivalent to the reverential capitalized ‘He’. Well, ‘He’ is used simply due to cultural convention or prior knowledge, but it can also be interpreted as ‘She’ or ‘It’ (genderless).
Chapter 10: Surveillance
In the brightly lit meeting room, a tentacle as thin as a finger swayed leisurely, its movements like something drifting in the ocean current, with a light and supple grace.
Within Xiang Er’s field of vision, there was only this single tentacle. It wasn’t connected to anything, no statue, no body. It looked like a red cigar floating in the wind, carrying a faint fragrance, shimmering with bright red, crystalline specks of light.
It was alive, independent, a red worm embedded in Xiang Er’s vision, writhing and coiling, bright and vivid. Its countless tiny suckers at the bottom opened and closed gently.
Just now, it was this tentacle that had flung the folder back.
And now… Xiang Er slowly turned her aching neck, looking around. Her colleagues were all staring at her; none of them were looking at the red tentacle.
In other words, only she could see it.
It was… the god.
She silently asked in her heart: What do you want from me? When will you let me go?
Naturally, she received no answer. The tentacle continued to curl and stretch, its purpose unknown.
Xiang Er looked away, deciding to ignore it. She turned and walked out of the meeting room.
“What did you do? It was definitely you!”
The supervisor, clutching her cheek, chased after her. Her words were slurred, her momentum considerably weakened, but she still muttered curses, unwilling to give up.
Xiang Er turned to look at her.
The young girl stood half in shadow, half in the pale light of the meeting room, her face a mix of light and dark, the light parts whiter than the walls, the dark parts darker than the night.
Her dark eyes held the cold indifference of a polar glacier.
It seemed that nothing in front of her mattered. Her mind was occupied with grander matters, leaving no attention for the mundane realities.
This wasn’t her usual demeanor… The supervisor involuntarily recoiled, not daring to say another word.
Xiang Er didn’t speak, just turned and walked away, her footsteps dragging, the squeak of her flat shoes against the floor echoing, but no one stopped her.
She slowly returned to her seat, under everyone’s gaze, lowered her head, a few strands of hair falling forward to obscure her face, her expression blank.
The other colleagues in the meeting room didn’t know what to do. They exchanged glances, whispering insignificant words, cautiously returning to their workstations, their faces filled with bewilderment.
Someone said:
“Is this… a workplace haunting? Or some kind of superpower?”
Another replied softly:
“Shhh! Don’t say such things. Maybe we just saw wrong. Talking about these things too much will make them real… It’s scary!”
Everyone fell silent, pretending to be engrossed in their work, but their gazes kept drifting towards that corner.
That usually unnoticed corner, where the frail, pale girl, like a wildflower, was often overlooked.
She… was an enigma.
The supervisor, clutching her folder, was the last to leave. She had wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, but her messy hair and swollen cheek were impossible to conceal. She used the folder to cover half of her face, walking quickly towards her workstation, tripping over a small object on the way and falling again, this time seemingly hitting her knee.
As she passed by Xiang Er, she couldn’t help but glance at her again, seeing only Xiang Er’s calm profile and her cold, indifferent eye. She gritted her teeth, the taste of blood still in her mouth. She didn’t know what tricks this Xiang Er had used, but she wouldn’t let this go!
Undercurrents flowed through the office. During lunch break, Xiang Er’s takeout arrived. As she was about to get it, a colleague brought it over to her desk, thoughtfully unwrapping the disposable chopsticks and saying:
“Sister Xiang, please enjoy your meal.”
Xiang Er looked at the colleague strangely. It was a girl who had joined the company a year before her. She was older than Xiang Er, yet she was calling her “sister.”
Why? Xiang Er had no time to ponder this question. She took the chopsticks:
“Thank you.”
But the girl didn’t leave. She suddenly leaned in and asked:
“My name is Zhu Minmin, you know, right? This morning in the meeting room… what exactly happened?”
Xiang Er paused, her chopsticks hovering over her rice. She tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes fixed on Zhu Minmin, her face almost expressionless.
Zhu Minmin felt a chill run down her spine, a feeling of being stared at by something inhuman. She shrugged, thinking she must be imagining things. A normal office, how could there be anything inhuman here?
She said with a smile:
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to say, I also really hate the supervisor, she always makes things difficult for me. You slapping her in the face in the meeting room was like avenging me, I think you’re super awesome!”
Xiang Er didn’t say anything, just hummed in acknowledgment and continued eating.
Zhu Minmin instantly felt the sense of being watched lessen slightly. She made a bit more small talk, and seeing that Xiang Er still didn’t respond much, returned to her own workstation. A little while later, she gave Xiang Er a piece of chocolate, clearly expressing her desire to befriend her.
Unfortunately, Xiang Er wasn’t interested. She ate only to maintain her strength, her mind not really on such mundane matters.
She was thinking about the god.
As she thought, the small, dark red tentacle, like a vine, climbed to the top of her laptop, its soft tip swaying gently.
Xiang Er thought, this tentacle was undoubtedly a part of the god. And, for now, it seemed to be protecting her, even retaliating, but not excessively.
Connecting this to last night’s events, Xiang Er pieced together the chain of logic.
First, she had casually made a wish to the sculpture, wanting her roommate to finish her shower quickly.
Then, when her roommate showered, the showerhead spouted blood. But when she turned on the shower, it turned back into clear water. However, after she left, the clear water turned back into blood, specifically targeting her roommate.
Why did the god do this? At first, she couldn’t understand, but later she realized: It was for the “price” of the wish.
It had been interrupted when it was about to collect Xiang Er herself as payment, binding and entangling her with its tentacles.
Xiang Er didn’t think her roommate’s knocking could interrupt the god’s predation. So why did it stop?
Was it because… the god wanted to savor her properly, undisturbed?
So, this meant that the god rather liked her as “food,” didn’t it?
At least Xiang Er herself liked to enjoy her favorite food slowly and without interruption. If she was disturbed, she immediately lost her appetite.
Perhaps the god was the same.
It hadn’t devoured her last night, and today it even sent a tentacle to protect her. Was this the god protecting its favorite ingredient? Or perhaps, it was a form of all-encompassing surveillance?
So… with mixed feelings, Xiang Er reached a conclusion: She was the god’s favorite ingredient, therefore, before being devoured, she would be temporarily protected and monitored in every aspect of her life.
Such a conclusion, she didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.
How long could she survive as an ingredient? And how could she delay the inevitable, prevent the god from devouring her too soon, or at all?
Could she try to convince the god that she didn’t taste good? But Xiang Er couldn’t imagine the god’s palate, and besides, she couldn’t prove whether she tasted good or not.
Delaying the inevitable seemed like a good strategy. She could continue sleeping with her roommate, away from that terrifying room, after all, the walls of that room were covered in human skin… or maybe she could find another place to rent?
Xiang Er browsed rental listings online, then calculated her savings, and had to abandon the idea of moving for now.
She had spent all her savings on her trip, and with rent and student loans to pay, she simply couldn’t afford to move. Besides, moving wouldn’t get rid of the god.
Looking at the tentacle in front of her, Xiang Er’s heart sank. The god had already followed her to work. Even if she moved, the god would surely follow…
Staring at the leisurely swaying tentacle, Xiang Er’s mind wandered.
The tentacle turned towards her, its tiny black suckers facing her, opening and closing in small groups, as if greeting her.
Such a small tentacle… well, it looked rather like a small craft from Yiwu, no longer scary or repulsive.
Xiang Er couldn’t help but extend her finger, reaching towards the small tentacle.
The small tentacle immediately straightened, its tip cautiously yet excitedly wiggling, reaching towards the tip of Xiang Er’s finger, the suckers opening and closing more rapidly. The entire tentacle turned a translucent, blood red, its surface becoming semi-transparent, blood and darkness swirling within.
Finally, the small, rounded tip of the tentacle touched the tip of Xiang Er’s finger.
Like the tip of a ballpoint pen touching her finger, slightly cold, but because it was so small, there was almost no other sensation.
Xiang Er gasped and quickly withdrew her hand. Was she crazy? This was part of an Evil God’s body, and she had actually touched it, was she afraid of not being eaten fast enough?!
She broke out in a cold sweat, quickly lowering her head, not daring to look at the tentacle again. She had forgotten again, that Evil God could clearly interfere with human perception. Just looking at it would affect her! It would even evoke a strange… grotesque appreciation… this was very wrong!
She hated tentacles, she hated the Evil God!
Xiang Er emphasized this to herself, her racing heart gradually calming down.
The mundane workday ended. This time, Xiang Er went home from work normally, without encountering the black river. But the tentacle remained steadily floating a few inches away from her, always appearing in the corner of her eye.
Xiang Er got off the bus and entered the isolated residential compound. In the darkness, the old women who always sat nearby looked at her with green, gleaming eyes, like a group of tired fireflies.
The compound felt different today. The shadows of the camphor trees were longer, the broken stone path more difficult to navigate, a cold, fishy-smelling autumn wind blew, and not a single insect chirped.
There were very few people around. Along the way, Xiang Er hardly saw anyone. Many of the streetlights were broken, some flickering erratically. As she walked past, their flickering cold light fell upon her, heavy and oppressive.
Passing by a nearly abandoned building, Xiang Er suddenly felt a chill down her spine.
It was the sixth sense of impending danger.
She abruptly looked up, towards the darkness beyond the reach of the streetlights. There, a man, like a drunkard, stood up.
The man chuckled at Xiang Er and walked out, into the light of the streetlamp.
His neck was severed, the jagged edges of the wound lined with sharp canine teeth, forming a large mouth. He tilted his head, both the mouth on his face and the one on his neck chuckling, extending a pair of black, hairy dog paws.
“Little girl… come play with big brother…”
He slurred drunkenly, his voice seemingly coming from both mouths.
Then, those black dog paws lashed out at Xiang Er!
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