My Cthulhu Girlfriend (gl) 9

Chapter 9: Slime

Through the barriers of countless times and spaces, she glimpsed the first light of dawn, cities and houses collapsing… A tall, slender woman approached, cupping her pale, weak, and helpless face, leaning in, bestowing kisses and licks and bites, a shower of touches and pressures, intertwined in a world filled with smoke and dust.

She opened her eyes wide, rising and falling in a sea of desire, but no matter what, she couldn’t see the woman’s face.

***

That night, Xiang Er slept soundly.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt so refreshed that she was surprised.

Even before her trip, she hadn’t slept this well in a long time. What had happened last night? It was as if someone had been guarding her dreams.

Moreover, she couldn’t remember the content of her dream at all, only a vague feeling that she had a beautiful dream.

Was it because sleeping with someone else made her feel more secure? Xiang Er turned to look at Li Wan, assuming she must have slept well too, after all, she knew Li Wan always had good sleep quality.

But that one glance almost made her jump out of bed.

Li Wan’s hair was a mess, her dark circles reached her chin, her eyes were dull, her complexion sallow, her whole body looked like it had fallen apart, like a vengeful ghost.

Xiang Er asked:

“What’s wrong? Did you not sleep well?”

Li Wan’s voice was weak:

“I had nightmares all night… I’m going to die…”

She crawled out of bed like a sleepwalker and left the room, leaving Xiang Er alone, bewildered.

Had her and Li Wan’s sleep quality completely reversed last night?

But then again, Li Wan had just experienced the bloody bathroom incident, so it was normal for her not to sleep well. On the other hand, she was the one who had slept well, which was the bigger problem.

But time was tight, and this wasn’t the time to think about these things. Xiang Er grabbed her quilt and pillow, left the master bedroom, and headed towards her own room.

Standing in front of her closed door, Xiang Er hesitated.

The memories of last night gradually surfaced in her mind. The sweet fragrance filled her nostrils, the slime from the tentacles reappeared on her skin, the dark red and black, rough surface writhing in the air, as if ready to tear her to shreds…

She knew these were just memories, just illusions, nothing to worry about, but Xiang Er still couldn’t shake them off.

The slender girl in the green nightdress stood at the door, her head bowed, her fingers digging into the quilt. A sharp pain in her fingertips reminded her that she had scratched them.

Slime, the slime seemed to reappear on her fingertips. She rubbed them hard against the quilt.

She wished she could never enter this room again.

But that was obviously impossible.

She told herself not to be afraid, it was fine, it was just an Evil God, the price should have been paid yesterday, it wouldn’t happen again today. Even an Evil God had to be reasonable, right?

With her scratched fingers, she touched the doorknob and turned it.

Xiang Er pushed open the door, squinting as she looked inside. For a moment, she seemed to see those dark red and black tentacles again, writhing and coiling on the ceiling, on the floor, in the air.

Fortunately, it was just her imagination. The room was clean and tidy, no tentacles, no abnormalities. And the sculpture’s eye, unusually, wasn’t facing the door.

Xiang Er breathed a sigh of relief. It was good that there were no tentacles… but, what were those?

The faint morning light, filtering through the dark blue windowpane, cast a pale blue glow on the ceiling. And under that light, the entire ceiling was covered in countless crisscrossing trails of slime, thick and thin.

Sparkling, transparent, dotted with shimmering specks of light.

When she was young, in the orphanage, Xiang Er often saw snails on the walls. After it rained, the snails would crawl out of the fields, climbing high, sticking to the cement walls. The matron said they were coming out to bask in the sun.

The walls where the snails crawled would be covered in such trails of slime, long, thin streaks, the width of a snail’s body, making her fingers sticky when she touched them. After the sun came out and dried them, the slime would disappear, turning into white, dry trails, eventually crumbling into fragments that would be blown away by the wind. The dried-up snails would also fall, their withered, dark bodies curled up inside their shells, dead.

Xiang Er hated snails.

And now she also hated these tentacles.

They had completely dirtied the only place she had in this world!

“So disgusting!”

She glared at the sculpture.

Anger momentarily overwhelmed her fear. Carrying her quilt, she strode into the room, threw the quilt and pillow onto the bed, turned to leave, and glared at the sculpture again.

The next second, her feet slipped.

The floor was also covered in slime trails. She hadn’t noticed and stepped right into it. Her slippers flew off, and she went crashing towards the wall, with enough force to crack her head open!

“Ah—!”

Xiang Er cried out, reaching out blindly, but grasping only air.

She was facing the wall, about to crash headfirst!

The expected pain didn’t come. Instead… there was a feeling of her forehead pressing against something warm.

Xiang Er’s breathing was heavy, her nostrils filled with that strange, sweet fragrance, and a faint fishy smell, much like… tentacles!

She abruptly looked up, her mind filled with images of writhing tentacles, fearing that she would be captured again. But… there were no tentacles.

The surroundings were clean, except for the shimmering slime, there was nothing unusual.

She looked at the wall where her forehead had struck, her eyes widening slowly.

That part of the wall was—breathing.

Slowly rising and falling, rhythmically expanding and contracting, like the surface of a woman’s skin, warm, honey-colored skin, stretching out smoothly.

The spot where Xiang Er’s forehead had hit had somehow transformed into a patch of female skin, looking incredibly delicate and soft, rising and falling with each breath, smooth as jade.

The delicate, honey-colored skin spread outwards, as if Xiang Er’s impact had broken some kind of barrier. It grew rapidly, soon covering the entire wall.

The skin continued to inflate and deflate, following the same rhythmic breathing. Faint blue lines of veins were visible beneath the delicate, honey-colored skin, even tiny pores with fine hairs, detailed and exquisite, just like… a large sheet of human skin, the skin of a young woman.

Living, breathing, woman’s skin.

Covering the entire wall.

A prickling sensation ran down Xiang Er’s neck, her hair standing on end.

She couldn’t bear to look any longer. Her head buzzed, her vision blurred, her ears rang, her sanity slipping away. Her survival instincts kicked in, and she quickly backed away from the wall, stumbling out of the room.

The wall… didn’t follow.

Fortunately, the wall had no eyes, it wasn’t staring at her.

The sculpture hadn’t turned around either, its blood-red, shimmering eye not looking at her.

Xiang Er managed to escape.

***

Throughout the workday, Xiang Er was distracted, not even reacting when her supervisor scolded her in front of the entire team.

“…Are you even listening to me? Hey! Xiang Er!”

The supervisor slapped a folder against the table. The sharp sound finally broke through the invisible barrier. Xiang Er looked up at her supervisor and replied:

“What?”

The supervisor was furious. This employee dared to ignore her during a meeting? She had never seen anything like it! She slammed the folder on the table repeatedly:

“There were three data errors in yesterday’s summary, and you didn’t notice? Huh? Why didn’t you check them? Even though Xiao Zhang wrote the report, you were responsible for compiling it. Didn’t you know you had to check it carefully before sending it out? I was called out by the boss and criticized because of you. Let me tell you, I lost my performance bonus, and don’t think you’ll be getting yours either! Go back and write a self-criticism report, do you hear me?!”

Xiang Er listened, but a mental barrier seemed to separate her from these real-world events. She felt like a detached observer, watching a play unfold, with an air of cold indifference.

She thought, what could be worse than this?

The walls of her home were made of human skin.

Was this job really worth keeping?

Her home had been invaded by an Evil God, and she herself was about to be torn apart and eaten by it.

She let out a cold laugh:

“Heh.”

The supervisor instantly flew into a rage. This time, instead of hitting the table, she threw the folder directly at Xiang Er’s face:

“What are you laughing at! You dare to laugh!”

Xiang Er stood still, not moving an inch, her eyes even following the trajectory of the folder, her mind sluggishly thinking: Oh, she wants to hit me in the face with this.

But she didn’t react, nor did she want to.

Some of the other team members wanted to reach out and stop the folder, but fearing the supervisor’s wrath, they retracted their hands, only able to watch Xiang Er with pity.

The supervisor’s eyes flashed with malice, also fixated on the folder, watching it fly towards that pale face, anticipating the impact.

The supervisor had her reasons for doing this. Yesterday, her boss had told her that they were going to promote someone within the team to assistant supervisor to help her with her work, hinting that her position might be replaced, that she might be demoted to a regular team member at any time. And the candidate the boss had in mind was Xiang Er.

If she could force Xiang Er to quit at this juncture, then there would be no one to compete with her for the supervisor position. She wanted to humiliate Xiang Er publicly, to crush her self-esteem, because she knew that young graduates like Xiang Er were thin-skinned, and this method would definitely force her to resign.

So, today, this hit had to land.

She assumed Xiang Er would dodge, but found that she just stood there, motionless. Wasn’t this even better? The supervisor waited, a smirk playing on her lips, already picturing Xiang Er’s swollen, bruised face. It was just too…

However, just as the folder was a few centimeters away from Xiang Er’s face, the wind it created rustling Xiang Er’s hair, the folder suddenly stopped.

Yes, it completely froze in mid-air, defying all laws of physics, hanging suspended.

“Eh?” “What’s this…” “Huh?”

The others, witnessing this scene, couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise.

The next second, as if pushed by an invisible force, the folder abruptly reversed direction, flying towards the supervisor!

“Ah!”

The supervisor screamed and, although bewildered, dodged to the side. Under normal circumstances, the folder would have simply fallen onto the table. But now, as if equipped with an automatic guidance system, it accurately changed its trajectory in mid-air!

With a “bang,” the folder slammed into the supervisor’s face. Her face instantly reddened and swelled, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

She looked on in disbelief, clutching her face, muttering in pain as blood flowed:

“What’s going on? How… ugh, how is this possible?”

The mischievous folder landed on the table, behaving itself, as if nothing had happened.

Silence descended upon the meeting room.

Everyone froze, their terrified gazes fixed on—Xiang Er.

They had all seen clearly that Xiang Er hadn’t done anything, yet the folder had turned and struck its owner.

And Xiang Er, at the center of everyone’s attention, was even paler than before, staring at a point in the air, a vein throbbing in her forehead.

Only she could see that what had just happened was the work of a familiar, dark red tentacle.

“It”… truly wouldn’t let her go!