My Cthulhu Girlfriend (gl) 16

Chapter 16: Exquisite Porcelain

The moonlight trembled in the emerald green treetops. The whole world seemed to be eavesdropping on the struggle within the apartment, even the wind and leaves were silent.

Suddenly, Xiang Er was violently thrown to the floor.

The bleeding man roared hoarsely, lunging at her like a wild animal, pinning her to the floor, and reaching for the high heel in her hand.

“You fucking… you crazy woman! Let go!”

But Xiang Er’s grip was tight, her fingernails digging into the shoe, her hand and the shoe becoming one, with no intention of letting go. Even on the floor, her face remained expressionless as she raised the shoe, about to bring it down on the back of the man’s head.

The man finally gave up. He stood up, moved away from Xiang Er, and stumbled backwards, his head bleeding, his eyes filled with fear.

He muttered:

“Fucking crazy… crazy! Crazy woman… insane…”

Muttering these words, he retreated to the door and, while Xiang Er was still on the floor, quickly opened it and ran out, slamming the door shut behind him.

With a “bang,” the apartment fell silent.

The world quietly observed the apartment, the moonlight shifting and entering, casting a silver glow on the struggling girl on the floor. Her face, illuminated by the moonlight, was expressionless, or perhaps… the calmness of utter numbness.

Xiang Er lay still, sprawled on the wooden floor, her body limp and relaxed, as if merging with the floorboards. The apartment was quiet, a quiet that carried a warm drowsiness, and she felt like falling asleep right then and there.

She turned her head and saw a thick tentacle, latched onto her right wrist, licking the blood.

The tentacle was nimble, soft, and elastic, its suckers like countless tiny feet, moving across her skin, cold and slightly ticklish, like a small animal crawling on her.

Xiang Er’s gaze followed the tentacle to her own hand. Her hand clutched a high heel, the metal heel broken off, the entire shoe covered in blood.

Somehow… the black, business-style shoe, now stained with irregular patterns of blood, looked almost like a designer piece, beautiful under the moonlight.

Xiang Er’s emotions were heightened, her body drained of strength, but her mind was clearer than ever.

She didn’t regret her actions. In that critical moment, by striking the man’s face and neck, she had actually saved him from the Evil God’s tentacles.

A few injuries were better than being drained dry and devoured by a Evil God. There was no doubt that if she had asked the tentacle for help, she would now be facing a corpse.

A Evil God knew no restraint.

Xiang Er wouldn’t ask anything of the Evil God. The implied meaning of “What do you desire” was actually “What price are you willing to pay,” and she wasn’t willing to pay any price.

So she had chosen to act, to solve the problem herself, and to show the Evil God that she had a will of her own.

Yes, she would handle her own matters. She had never invited the Evil God into her home to help her, and she wouldn’t pay the price It demanded!

Xiang Er extended her left hand, moving it above her right wrist, and grasped downwards.

As expected… she grasped the tentacle.

Thick and elastic, its surface slimy and unpleasant, the tentacle wasn’t easy to hold. In Xiang Er’s weakened state, the slightest struggle from the tentacle would have been enough to break free from her grasp.

But the tentacle didn’t move at all, no struggle, no wriggling, it didn’t even pull her into the black domain to lecture her again.

Instead, the tip of the tentacle extended, moving around her hand, its rounded tip slowly tracing the lines of her palm.

From her thumb, to the base of her palm, to the center, then to the blue veins on her wrist.

The tentacle, with its slimy, elastic tip, touched each of these places, its movements gentle and slow, patient. As if aware of her fragility, it didn’t attempt to damage the exquisite porcelain.

It was merely… observing.

Like observing all the porcelain in a museum, up close, slowly and carefully.

Xiang Er would rather it fight her than do this. Every part of her skin that the Evil God’s tentacle touched burned, her veins itched, her joints felt like they were about to burst.

The sensation was strange. It felt like the places the Evil God had touched no longer belonged to her, but to…

“Akhe.”

Xiang Er mustered her strength and squeezed the tentacle, signaling for it to stop.

The tentacle obediently stopped tracing her wrist and fingers, remaining pressed against her hand, its tip raised, as if looking at her, waiting for her to speak.

It had become much calmer, even willing to communicate… Compared to a few days ago, when It had unceremoniously dragged her into its domain, the Evil God now seemed almost gentle and patient.

“Akhe…”

Xiang Er tried to remain calm. She released her left hand, no longer gripping the tentacle. Feeling the sticky residue on her hand, she licked her dry lips, forcing herself to treat the tentacle in front of her as a person, to look at it directly, to negotiate.

She had to think carefully, to find the right angle, the words that would make It understand… But perhaps It didn’t want to understand at all.

She could only try.

“Akhe, may I ask, what exactly do you want… from me?”

Despite her best efforts to suppress it, her voice still trembled with fear and pain. The tremor in her throat was uncontrollable. Xiang Er closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at the tentacle, trying to appear less panicked.

She waited.

The sweet fragrance in the air suddenly intensified, the tip of the tentacle turning red, becoming blood-red from the inside out, translucent, the transparent slime on its surface… visibly increasing.

Xiang Er didn’t know what this meant.

Or perhaps, it wasn’t a response at all, but a… threat?

Had her question offended the god? But if that were the case, why hadn’t she been dragged into the domain yet?

The tentacle swayed on its own, then suddenly pressed against her skin, and before Xiang Er could react, it slipped into the sleeve of her sweater like a small, red snake.

Slime dripped down, clinging to her wrist and the inside of her sleeve. Xiang Er let out a cry of discomfort and reached into her sleeve with her left hand, trying to pull the tentacle out.

But how could she possibly catch it?

The tentacle was like a snake, a nimble, soft slug, a slimy snail without a shell, elastic and soft, crawling up her arm.

Emitting its sweet fragrance.

Xiang Er could smell the pervasive sweetness, inhaling the intoxicating floral scent, spreading from her nose to her limbs, everything around her distorting and shifting, the living room expanding and shrinking, objects appearing and disappearing.

Xiang Er’s body quickly heated up, turning limp and soft, her joints aching, her mind hazy and swollen, unable to think clearly.

“Don’t… don’t do this with the smell… don’t…”

Xiang Er said haltingly, her senses dulled, barely able to feel where the tentacle had gone.

She tried to push herself off the floor, but her body was too weak. She floundered, then collapsed again. The tentacle inside her sleeve stretched out like a thread, its coldness trailing up her arm and shoulder, then up her neck, where it paused briefly.

There were no lights on in the apartment, only moonlight. The silver moon cast its light on everything that was happening, as if veiling all the filth and evil in the world.

Under the moonlight, the girl, struggling to sit up, her back slender, her shoulder blades trembling like wings about to take flight, the soft white sweater barely concealing the outline of something mysterious beneath.

Like a grand brushstroke on a blank canvas, the sweet-smelling slime marked the girl completely, staining the white with black, her reason slipping away, desire consuming everything…

The girl’s neck arched back, a moan of pain escaping her lips:

“No… get out…”

But from her neck, like a vine, a slender, soft, translucent red tip emerged, swaying gracefully, entwined with her hair.

The blood-red vine extended, coiling around the girl’s slender neck, loop after loop, like a blood-red scarf, slowly covering her fair skin.

Xiang Er sensed something, her survival instincts kicking in. She reached up to pull at the tentacle on her neck, but she couldn’t remove it. She wanted to scream, but her voice was soft and weak, almost a whimper:

“What… what are you doing! I don’t want… I don’t want this!”

The tentacle’s restless tip suddenly stopped. Then, it lifted from her neck and gently touched her cheek.

Like a soft kiss.

Then, the tentacle quickly retreated. The coils around her slender neck unwound, sliding down, the hidden parts within her white sweater quickly withdrawing, the speed of its retreat much faster and more decisive than its advance.

The sweet fragrance quickly faded. Xiang Er’s mind finally cleared somewhat. She watched as the tentacle retreated from the hem of her sweater, its entire length turning black, the dark red upper part losing almost all its color, becoming so dark that…

It resembled a human face, darkened with anger.

Xiang Er was startled by this thought. But after that ordeal, she was now covered in sweat, her body hot, weak, and aching, her neck so stiff she could barely lift her head.

The tentacle, having left her body, quickly slithered towards her bedroom, its entire length dark, leaving fewer slime trails.

Xiang Er was too exhausted to negotiate with It any longer. Panting, she watched as the tentacle disappeared into her bedroom.

After recovering for a while outside, she stood up, cleaned the mess on the shoe cabinet, casually wiped up the slime trails in the living room, and mentally prepared herself before opening her bedroom door and stepping inside.

The Evil God sculpture sat on the shelf, facing the wall.

Xiang Er hesitated, then walked over and turned it slightly. It seemed disrespectful to keep it facing the wall all the time.

She went to the bathroom to change her clothes, wash the slime off her hands and body, and returned in her pajamas.

The sculpture had turned back, facing the wall resolutely.

Xiang Er stared at the back of the sculpture for a long time, before belatedly realizing: the Evil God seemed… angry.

Huh? Why would It be angry?