Chapter 8: Sweet Fragrance
The silence in the room was terrifying.
Like an isolated boat, adrift in the damp night wind, causing her mind to sway uneasily.
Xiang Er strained her ears, but heard nothing.
The splashing water in the bathroom, the constant chirping of insects outside the autumn night window, the rustling branches of the camphor tree, the occasional whirring of a tram motor… the night shouldn’t be this quiet.
But she couldn’t hear anything.
Nor could she see clearly. Everything outside the window was hazy and indistinct. The moon, as if draped in a fuzzy edge, shone in from a distant point beyond the glass, making her dizzy the longer she looked.
The world… was shut out, beyond the confines of the small room.
And Xiang Er and the Evil God residing within the sculpture stood facing each other. The air seemed to shift, and she wondered… how would it collect its price? And what price would it demand? Wasn’t now the perfect opportunity to strike?
She realized what was about to happen. Perhaps it would be her flesh, perhaps her spirit. She was about to be harvested.
She stepped back, then suddenly turned and ran towards the door.
But after running for a while, she found herself still in the same spot, her body hadn’t even turned. Her body was no longer under her control. Turning, running, the door, it was all an illusion. In reality, she just stood there, frozen.
Her skin began to itch, and she found it difficult to breathe. Where had all the air gone? Her throat, her throat began to prickle with a thousand tiny needles… but even more prominent was the itching on her skin, almost unbearable.
Her mind was muddled. Was she the price? The sacrifice? The gift to please the god? Was she standing here, a dish waiting to be savored? Was the god about to taste her?
She didn’t want to be eaten. Although the human world wasn’t perfect, she didn’t want to die! Especially not to be reduced to a pile of mush, swallowed whole or chewed up, bones and all, by an Evil God… No!
Xiang Er struggled, but her body was limp and weak. She couldn’t muster any strength, and she couldn’t even see where the door was, the light was too dim.
The air slowly grew hot and thick, a unique sweet fragrance permeating the room.
The sweetness was cloying, as if a million flowers of every variety had been overturned, so thick it was almost tangible. It forced its way into Xiang Er’s nostrils, into her body, surging through her veins, filling her from the inside out with a sweet fragrance, until she could barely stand her own scent.
But there was nowhere to escape. Her body grew sweeter and softer, until she could no longer stand, her thoughts sluggish and dull.
She could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion. She watched helplessly as several dark red tentacles extended from the sculpture. The tentacles, covered in endless suckers and bumps, writhed and flailed, like a group of excited elementary school students about to go on a spring outing, flying towards her through the air!
With a few “plop” sounds, more than ten tentacles reached out, clinging to her clothes, wrapping around her entire body, leaving almost no gaps!
“Nn… let go…”
Xiang Er gasped, her voice hoarse, laced with a strange desire that startled her.
She was terrified, but unable to move, her sweet-scented body twisted into strange positions by the tentacles.
She no longer needed to stand. The tentacles bound her feet and lifted her into the air. Her slippers fell off, and the soles of her feet suddenly touched the tentacles’… countless suckers.
So cold!
Her feet were burning hot, but the suckers on the tentacles were incredibly cold. The contrast made her gasp, and she quickly lifted her feet, forced to cling to a thick tentacle in front of her to prevent herself from falling.
Beneath her palms, the strange, thick tentacle pulsed and shifted.
This was the first time she had truly touched it. The tentacle felt soft, elastic, and cold, covered in a thin layer of unsettling slime, completely different from human skin. Its surface was covered in tiny, raised bumps, like some kind of marine creature, or a cold, scaled serpent.
As she touched it, the slime clung to her fingertips, both disgusting and terrifying.
Xiang Er could feel several such tentacles, some large, some small, some constantly changing shape, wrapping around her body coil after coil. The force wasn’t particularly strong, but it was enough to immobilize her.
She had been hot before, and being wrapped like this, close to suffocation, was even more unbearable. The slime constantly emitted a nauseating sweet fragrance and fishy odor, a combined assault on her senses!
She was about to vomit, but she didn’t dare open her mouth. A small tentacle, like the tip of a vine, hovered near her lips, poised to strike.
She could easily imagine that the moment she opened her mouth, the tentacle would nimbly and forcefully invade, forcing its way inside until she exploded!
Absolutely cannot… open her mouth… Xiang Er half-closed her eyes, trying to ignore the slime and the smell, desperately trying to move her muscles, but to no avail.
Countless suckers on the tentacles, large and small, opened and closed, like countless mouths about to tear her apart and devour her.
The tentacles, with their uneven bumps, pressed tightly against her through her clothes, binding her, twisting her, their cold, damp breath staining her completely red!
The tentacles completely engulfed her, lifting her high into the air. She stared straight ahead at the ceiling, her fragile neck craned back, a weak sound escaping her lips:
“No… let me go… ah…”
The dim yellow light flickered, the tentacles twisting into a writhing root system, enveloping and lifting the slender girl in white. Numerous red, fleshy lumps, like snakes, twisted, pulsed, and coiled, tightening and wrapping around her thin limbs. The girl’s eyes widened like a dying fish, the whites almost bloodshot…
“Knock, knock, knock!”
A sudden knock on the door.
The tentacles paused, then quickly dispersed and retreated, vanishing without a trace. Xiang Er, caught off guard, fell to the floor, her hands weakly pressing against the floorboards, gasping for breath.
Her whole body was flushed and hot, her exposed fingers and toes incredibly red. The scent of blood and the intense sweet fragrance mingled, the air in the entire room still thick and cloying, suffocating her with every breath.
Something strange stirred deep within her body, like a slowly growing flame, creeping upwards from her lower abdomen, spreading through her flesh.
She hadn’t felt this strange… flame before, when she had been bound and unable to move, barely able to breathe, on the verge of death.
What was this? What was happening? Why was she becoming so strange?
Xiang Er extended her fingers. They were covered in a transparent slime, that strange, slippery sensation, cold and soft… She couldn’t think about it anymore.
The transparent slime was sweet, with a faint fishy smell.
Xiang Er rubbed her fingers hard against the floor, until they bled.
It was a deep-seated, primal terror, an unending horror that accompanied the slime, the tentacles.
Was this… the price the Evil God wanted to collect?
Xiang Er thought breathlessly, as expected of an Evil God. If not for the knock on the door, would It have already torn her to pieces, savoring each piece?
She had even more bizarre suspicions, but she refused to dwell on them. She knew that the more she delved into the Evil God’s thoughts, the more she would lose her mind. The more she thought, the more the Evil God would revel in it. This was what the Evil God wanted…
The Evil God wanted to drive her mad.
Xiang Er told herself that she would never, ever make another wish to the Evil God.
The knocking came again, more urgent this time, accompanied by Li Wan’s voice:
“Xiang Er? Xiang Er?”
Xiang Er leaned against the wall, pulling her weak body upright, and called out to the door:
“What’s wrong?”
Her voice was hoarse and soft, with an undeniable allure. Xiang Er cleared her throat forcefully, tasting the sweet blood in her throat, and spat it out.
A bright red flower of blood bloomed on the old floorboards.
Xiang Er looked at the blood flower, her throat filled with the sweet fragrance, her body trembling. She was slightly grateful that she wasn’t afraid of blood.
Li Wan’s timid voice came from outside the door:
“Um… I came to thank you… and, I’m really scared tonight, can I sleep with you?”
Xiang Er steadied herself, pushing herself off the floor:
“Okay.”
She had been thinking the same thing. Although she knew that it made no difference to the Evil God which room she slept in, she didn’t want to sleep in this room anymore. It was too convenient for the Evil God to torment her.
She went out and met Li Wan. Li Wan’s hair was still wet, and unlike her usual bossy demeanor, she spoke to Xiang Er cautiously:
“Just now… how did you do that? Why was the shower… like that when I turned it on, but it was fine when you did?”
Xiang Er’s body was covered in damp, sticky slime. Her clothes were soaked through. Li Wan didn’t seem to mind, but she couldn’t stand it.
Swaying slightly with each step, she carried her toiletries basket and went into the bathroom to shower.
At the bathroom door, she turned back to Li Wan and said:
“Maybe… it was just a coincidence.”
Li Wan stood hesitantly at the bathroom door, watching as Xiang Er went in, closed the door, and turned on the shower. A hazy shadow fell on the door.
Li Wan felt like she had encountered something unclean, but Xiang Er was a pure, innocent girl, who hadn’t even had a boyfriend. Sleeping with Xiang Er would surely ward off the evil… hopefully even transferring it to Xiang Er.
Just then, her vision blurred, and the shadow on the shower door suddenly sprouted several tentacles, dancing in the air like Medusa’s hair!
Li Wan’s scream caught in her throat. A second later, she looked again—it was just the silhouette of a graceful girl.
Where were the dancing tentacles? She must have been too stressed and imagined it… imagined it, right?
Still, Xiang Er was really strange. Li Wan thought about this, glancing at Xiang Er’s half-open door, peering inside.
Strange… why was it so dark in there? She must have turned off the light. Li Wan didn’t dare look further and returned to her own room.
After a while, Xiang Er came back. She had changed into a light green nightdress, her figure slender and graceful. Carrying her pillow and floral quilt, she spread them out on Li Wan’s large bed and immediately burrowed under the covers.
Li Wan wanted to talk to her, but when she turned her head, she found Xiang Er already asleep. She had no choice but to turn off the lights and go to bed herself.
Soon, both of them were sound asleep.
In the faint moonlight, a black shadow slowly flowed to the head of the bed, a dark, head-like shadow drooping down towards Xiang Er’s side.
Xiang Er was dreaming. She had showered, but the sweet fragrance still lingered on her body, and the nightmares came quickly and chaotically.
In her dream, she saw a tall woman, her face obscured, leaning down towards her…
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