The Monster's Bride

Sickeningly Sweet...

In fact, he didn't need to deliberately seek Zhou Jiao's gaze. As long as she appeared within his olfactory range, his tentacles, like a shark sniffing blood, would quickly detach from the main body, stick to the tools she had touched, and greedily suck up the traces she had left behind.

Jiang Lian, expressionless, put on blue rubber gloves, beckoning the tentacles to come back with a gesture.

When the tentacles returned, they seemed reluctant to leave, their cilia contracting and relaxing in ecstasy, as if still savoring the taste of the tools—if the main body hadn't forbidden them from approaching Zhou Jiao, they wouldn't have been so pathologically eager for her scent.

"The more you suppress, the more you desire." They protested hummingly, "Don't you know?"

Let us smell her, smell her, smell her, smell her. Lift the ban, let us approach her, touch her, sniff her. We've never seen such a fragrant human, neither have you.

When you were in the elevator, you forbade us to smell her, yet you wished to suck up every molecule of her lingering scent. Smell her, smell her, smell her, sniff everything about her including her fingerprint sweat pheromones...

If someone approached Jiang Lian at this moment, they would find that his surroundings were filled with dizzying low-frequency noise. Listening for just one more second would plunge them into irretrievable delirium.

Jiang Lian was already accustomed to such noise and showed no change in expression.

He forgot his origin, only remembering that he seemed to have lived a very long time, from darkness to light, and then to the profound ocean.

During the dormant period, he had to eat—these tentacles were his eating tools.

The tentacles had a certain level of self-awareness, but not much. Since they didn't need to mate, their only assigned task from birth was to eat.

Jiang Lian closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, the pupils behind his golden-rimmed glasses had narrowed to a thin line. But upon closer inspection, one would realize that these were not the vertical pupils of a predator, but rather, a thin and delicate tentacle.

This tentacle in his eyes split and expanded, wildly proliferating like mold after a rainstorm, quickly filling his narrow pupils. It squirmed densely and thickly, carrying a terrifying murderous intent.

He hadn't expected that the human's desperate struggle before death could affect him to this extent.

He was now disoriented.

On one hand, he disdained Zhou Jiao. In fact, he disdained "Jiang Lian" too. Consuming "Jiang Lian" was entirely accidental -- someone had used a certain spell to forcibly summon him to "Jiang Lian"'s body.

He had no interest in humans.

In his mind, humans were filthy, rotten creatures who liked to throw waste paper, plastic bottles, and metal caps into the sea, their organs filled with disgusting black mucus.

But on the other hand, he found himself crazily wanting to seize Zhou Jiao's neck, draw near her, and sniff her meticulously from outside to inside.

Rather than being at the mercy of her scent, he might as well kill her.

His body fluid was highly corrosive and could dissolve any living tissue. Once Zhou Jiao fell into his tentacles, she would turn into an unrecognizable pile of flesh in less than two seconds.

But what he wasn't sure about was whether, in the moment he seized her with his tentacles, he would become addicted and completely captured by her scent.

He didn't want to touch such a low-level, filthy creature, let alone fall into the obsession of her scent.

Zhou Jiao was unaware of Jiang Lian's inner turmoil, but as someone who had dealt with danger for years, she sensed something was off the moment Jiang Lian started to harbor ill intentions towards her.

She met Jiang Lian's eyes.

Their gazes crossed for a moment.

Jiang Lian paused, then looked away first. "How long are you going to stand there?" His voice was icy and filled with undisguised disgust.

Zhou Jiao hesitated for a moment, "Dr. Jiang, I suspect..."

"Whatever you suspect, you don't need to tell me," Jiang Lian said coldly. "I'm not one of you. I work for you because I have a certain fetish, and this is the only legal way to satisfy it. Besides autopsies, I don't want to have anything to do with you."

The corner of Zhou Jiao's mouth twitched slightly.

She knew it would turn out this way.

He seemed smart at ordinary times, but as soon as she spoke to him, regardless of how gentle her tone was or how normal the content was, he would immediately become indifferent and harsh, making it difficult to communicate.

Zhou Jiao really wanted to leave him alone, but her position was somewhat like a police officer -- though Jiang Lian was a potential serial killer, she had to protect him until he actually committed a heinous crime.

Zhou Jiao could only swallow her anger and try to reason with him. "Dr. Jiang, I know there's some misunderstanding between us..." even though she had no idea what that misunderstanding was, "but in the face of danger, could you put our past grudges aside for a moment and listen to what I have to say..."

Jiang Lian didn't respond.

He moved on to the next body, lowered his head, and began to dissect and categorize.

...Well, who hasn't encountered a few difficult colleagues in their career?

Zhou Jiao took a deep breath, opened a bottle of mineral water, and took a big gulp before placing it aside and going to help her difficult colleague with the autopsy.

Just then, the fluorescent light above her head suddenly started to make a faint buzzing sound. It was so subtle, almost as if a moth had bumped into it, so Zhou Jiao didn't notice the oddity.

At the same time, she also didn't notice that the shadow behind her was growing.

The shadow, like a wave, spread towards her, dissolving everything it touched -- including the half-drunk bottle of mineral water.

Very quickly, the shadow merged into her own, silent and unnoticed. The next second, it abruptly sprouted a dark purple tentacle, the tip of which shot out a chilling claw, and viciously stabbed towards the back of Zhou Jiao's head--

All this happened in the blink of an eye. Zhou Jiao was completely unaware of the danger behind her, and Jiang Lian's expression showed no sign of abnormality.

But just as the claw was about to pierce Zhou Jiao's skull, Zhou Jiao suddenly wrapped her arms around Jiang Lian's neck, while swiftly pressing a surgical scalpel against his throat.

Jiang Lian stiffened.

The menacing tentacle also froze mid-air.

Jiang Lian was extremely tall, almost 1.9 meters, while Zhou Jiao was 20 centimeters shorter than him, so it took a lot of effort for her to restrain him.

He might look thin and scholarly, but in reality, his arms, shoulders, abdomen, and legs were covered with firm and graceful muscles, each line filled with explosive power.

Zhou Jiao was worried that he would suddenly fight back, so she hooked one hand around his neck, and with the other hand on his shoulder, she lightly jumped up, her legs entwining around his neck like vines. At the same time, the scalpel pressed tightly against his throat, making a shallow cut in the process.

In fact, Zhou Jiao was completely overthinking -- the moment she embraced Jiang Lian, he lost the ability to think normally.

His malice and concerns receded like a departing tide, quickly leaving him.

Desire.

A wave of wild desire surged from the depths of his heart. It was so intense that his scalp, spine, root of his tongue, and even each sweat pore shuddered in anticipation.

He closed his eyes, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and with all his might, resisted the urge to lean forward and brush his nose against the sharp edge of her scalpel, all just to catch a whiff of her scent.

From this angle, Zhou Jiao couldn't see the look on Jiang Lian's face.

And she didn't want to.

Holding her scalpel, she looked down at him and said indifferently, "Let's put the work on hold for a moment, I've got something that I need to get off my chest—Doctor Jiang, do you think I'm a pushover?"

As she spoke, her voice broke off, not due to any interruption, but because her heart started pounding uncontrollably, making her chest numb.

Her fingers went weak, and she almost dropped her scalpel.

—That strange physical reaction was happening again. f**k, why now?

She couldn't possibly distance herself from Jiang Lian now. If she did, she might as well kiss her career goodbye!

Zhou Jiao took a deep breath and lightly tapped his cheek with two fingers, saying, "I'm talking to you."

Jiang Lian remained silent.

"Listen, Jiang, I know you don't like me, and frankly, I don't care. I just hope you can act like an adult and prioritize things—among these corpses, there could be a higher level mutant..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Zhou Jiao's expression changed, and her hand trembled, nearly splattering blood everywhere.

—Jiang Lian turned his head, and despite the evident disgust in his eyes, he licked her fingers.

Zhou Jiao: "........."

If he didn't want to talk to her, fine, but there was no need for such theatrics, right?!

A hint of anger flashed in Zhou Jiao's eyes: "Jiang Lian, I'm not joking with you! You've been infected by a higher level mutant before, I don't believe you don't know how dangerous they are..."

"Higher level mutant?" Jiang Lian echoed slowly.

While his expression seemed calm and focused, in reality, he hadn't heard a single word Zhou Jiao said. His mind was occupied by the buzzing of his tentacles.

If someone were to examine his body with an X-ray machine at this moment, they would see that his insides were not made of bones and organs, but horrifying, writhing tentacles.

They rolled and entwined, emitting terrifying low-frequency sounds: Smell her, smell her, smell her, now, inject her with neurotoxin so she can never leave our senses... Stare at her, stare at her, stare at her, sniff her, sniff her, sniff her...

But soon, these voices were suppressed—the host did not allow them to covet her.

"Yes," Zhou Jiao said, her expression grave, "higher level mutants. If it's a mammal, it's not a big deal. But if it's from the abyssal or hadal zones... We know too little about the ocean."

Compared to the 4.5 billion years of marine history, humanity's 6 million years is but a drop in the ocean.

What if there are creatures deep in the ocean that are as large as the arthropods of the Carboniferous period, or like killer whales, having established social rules, even developed language and culture... How would they cope?

After all, they hadn't even fully explored the mutants in the shallow sea zones.

Jiang Lian thought, she smelled even better when she was emotional.

Almost sickeningly sweet.

He took a deep breath of her scent, a hint of intoxicated bewilderment appearing on his cold face, his eyes gradually filling with red veins.

Did he really want to touch such a lowly creature?

He didn't understand why he was so resistant to getting close to her.

Humans were indeed filthy and corrupt, but she was clearly an exception—at least she smelled like one.

He had no tribe, no morals, no sense of shame, there was no need for him to hesitate so much on this matter.

However, when he salivated over her, with each swallow, he could hear the joyous laughter of Jiang Lian, as if saying:

—So, you're just like that.

What god, what high-dimensional being, nothing but a monster that can't even resist human and animal instincts.

"Go ahead and smell," the human said with a smile, his tone gentle but full of mockery, "I'm curious too... what she smells like, inside and out."

Jiang Lian's expression froze, almost twisted.

He couldn't tell if it was because of his raging desire, the human's provocation, or something else.

He couldn't possibly share Zhou Jiao with that human, not even a single molecule of her scent.

The tentacles inside Jiang Lian raged, yet his face showed no sign of it. After a while, he spat out a word:

"f**k off."

The human's voice disappeared.

Jiang Lian closed his eyes, about to ask Zhou Jiao to step down, but met her startled and angry gaze.

"......"

Only then did he realize that he had unintentionally told her to "f**k off."

Zhou Jiao was utterly confused.

She was emotionally detached, not emotionless, and certainly not immune to anger. This man had shown his disdain towards her again and again, disrespecting her without regard for the situation. She had long been seething with anger, itching to slap him across the face.

Strangely, she was gripped by a fierce pounding in her chest before she even made a move. A numbing sensation rushed up from the depths of her spine, causing her limbs to go weak. For a moment, she almost couldn't hold onto the scalpel.

Zhou Jiao pursed her lips, looking at her own fingers.

She knew her grip strength very well; there was no way she couldn't hold onto a scalpel. The bones she had severed with bone forceps could easily pile up to Jiang Lian's height, let alone going around the lab.

So... what on earth was going on?

Why did her body react so strangely every time she encountered him?

She had never been in love and had only had minimal intimate contact with the opposite s*x, but that didn't mean she was completely ignorant about s****l relations.

Rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, increased blood pressure... coupled with the dilation of the pupils, the contraction of the ciliary muscles, and an increased blinking rate.

Zhou Jiao took a deep breath.

From any angle, it looked like she had developed some unspeakable interest in Jiang Lian.

Now, Zhou Jiao really wanted to throw the scalpel away.

She leaned back and jumped off him, panting and retreating three steps away. She wanted to keep a distance from him until she figured out what the strange reaction was about. She didn't want to get close to him again for the time being.

But she couldn't.

Jiang Lian reached out and pulled her back.

Whether it was due to her irregular heart rate or not, she didn't see Jiang Lian's movement at all. It was as if he had grown a third hand out of nowhere and forcibly pulled her to him.

Zhou Jiao's pupils dilated slightly as she was about to struggle.

The next moment, her chin was lifted by two fingers.

Jiang Lian leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.

Zhou Jiao shivered involuntarily. Jiang Lian's lips were cold and sticky, reminiscent of a deep-sea creature lurking in the depths, cold and slimy.

But just like before, her heart didn't reject this wet feeling. On the contrary, it beat faster, the pounding echoed in her ears.

What was happening to her?

Zhou Jiao thought, even her temples were trembling, her heart pounding.

Jiang Lian's reaction was even stronger.

He pressed his lips against hers uncontrollably, almost frantically inhaling the scent from her mouth. It was this scent, sweet and cloying like overripe fruit, that could even induce a subtle sense of intoxication after a long whiff.

Unfortunately, this aroma was blocked by her teeth. He could only press his lips against hers, rubbing them hard and unyieldingly, trying to squeeze out a sweet fragrance from within.

Even Zhou Jiao couldn't believe that she was the one to break the deadlock.

She opened her mouth and bit Jiang Lian's lower lip.

As if a switch had been flipped.

Jiang Lian immediately gripped her chin tightly, not allowing her head to deviate even slightly. Like a deep-sea predator, his tongue darted into the gap between her teeth, forceful and swift.

In that brief moment, all sound and color disappeared.

He felt as if he had returned to the dark ocean floor, only able to hear the viscous sound of fish tails stirring the water.

It took him a while to realize that it wasn't the undulating sea water, but the sound of saliva wetting his lips and teeth.

Jiang Lian swallowed conspicuously, his expression cold.

Just as he had smelled.

Sickeningly sweet.

Just a taste made his tongue go numb.

Jiang Lian swallowed a few more times, his breathing gradually becoming erratic.

He had only intended to get a faint whiff of her scent, to prove that he could resist human and animal instincts, but he lost control at the first taste.

By the time he came to his senses, a monstrous rift had opened behind him. Purple-black tentacles dripping with mucus lunged at Zhou Jiao—