Chapter 40 – He’s not a pervert

Jiang Que took the strawberry milkshake, thinking, it was more terrifying than the end of the world.

If what he guessed was true, then he had been harassing Shen Tazhi since their first meeting…

Thinking this, Jiang Que took a big sip of the strawberry milkshake.

The taste of strawberry yogurt spread in his mouth, richer than the plain water or honey water he had drunk before, making Jiang Que go “Mm,” just as he was about to say it was delicious, he remembered the question Shen Tazhi had asked earlier, so he continued to lower his head and drink his milkshake.

He really didn’t know that his tentacles could also bring pleasure to humans. If he had known, he wouldn’t have done this from the beginning… No, he probably would have.

Expressionless, Jiang Que suppressed the tentacles that wanted to rise again, thinking, he had no choice. He thought this was a way of showing goodwill or threat, who knew humans would assign other meanings to tentacles.

Seeing Jiang Que just holding the strawberry milkshake without speaking, Shen Tazhi’s expression gradually softened.

He also sat down, resting his chin on his hand, and asked again, “What did you see? Que Que.”

Jiang Que’s sucking of the milkshake stopped.

How should he tell Shen Tazhi?

His hesitations and pauses were extremely annoying in Shen Tazhi’s eyes. Shen Tazhi suppressed his impatience and said persuasively, “Didn’t we just agree that you would tell me anything?”

“That’s true…” Jiang Que admitted, “but I don’t know how to tell you.”

Even though he didn’t have human shame and didn’t think that what he did was indecent, asking directly was still too strange.

How should he ask? Will my tentacles make you comfortable? Is it as comfortable as with humans?

He wasn’t a pervert.

“I see.” Shen Tazhi lowered his eyes quietly, sent a message to his assistant to thoroughly clean up the news about himself, then raised his head with a smile, “Shall we eat first? We can talk after eating.”

“Okay.” Jiang Que was completely unaware of the danger, mechanically picking up a piece of food and chewing, trying to suppress his tentacles while thinking about what he had seen on the forum, and how to delicately approach Shen Tazhi later. With such multitasking, not biting his tongue was already considered his special talent.

The dinner tonight was steamed bass, braised pork with potatoes, stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, corn rib soup, and a few leftover Chinese mitten crabs from the crab roe noodle lunch, along with the strawberry milkshake takeout ordered by Shen Tazhi. Under normal circumstances, Jiang Que would have happily eaten while satisfyingly wrapping his tentacles around Shen Tazhi, praising how delicious everything was.

But today, both individuals at the dining table were lost in their thoughts, turning what should have been a satisfying meal into a tasteless affair.

Although Jiang Que was actually enjoying his meal, he dared not speak now, afraid that if he did, Shen Tazhi would start questioning him again about what happened earlier.

He hastily finished his meal, swallowed the blood-activating and stasis-dispelling medicine Shen Tazhi had prepared for him with the last sip of strawberry milkshake, proactively put away the dishes and utensils, stood up, and said, “I’m going to take a shower,” before escaping upstairs.

Shen Tazhi completely stopped eating.

He put down his utensils and looked at Jiang Que’s phone left on the couch.

The lock screen password on Jiang Que’s phone was definitely still six ones, and it was even possible he had forgotten to set a password at all. If Shen Tazhi opened it and checked Jiang Que’s browsing history, he could find out what Jiang Que had seen that made him act so strangely.

But Shen Tazhi didn’t make a move. He just picked up his chopsticks again and resumed eating.

No need.

Apart from not being able to directly delete what Jiang Que had seen from his mind, Shen Tazhi felt that resorting to such improper means to resolve even a simple misunderstanding with Jiang Que would be a sign of incompetence.

There had always been a communication gap between them, and there would be more misunderstandings in the future. Regardless of what rumors Jiang Que had come across online about him, Shen Tazhi could explain everything clearly.

Shen Tazhi put away his utensils, stored the remaining food in the fridge, then turned and headed upstairs.

Upstairs.

Jiang Que was reprimanding his little tentacles in the bathroom.

“Haven’t I told you all already? Don’t you know what tentacles mean to humans? If you keep sticking to Shen Tazhi like this, what if it causes another misunderstanding?”

Jiang Que paced back and forth, scolding his thickest tentacle, while it lay still in his hand, seemingly powerless.

Isn’t it normal to stick to someone you like? It’s a tentacle, not a person; it doesn’t care about human conventions.

Sigh, if it can’t stick to Shen Tazhi, it will be sad.

After realizing the thoughts of the tentacles, Jiang Que became even more furious. He turned on the shower and poured cold water directly onto the tentacles, saying, “But now you are in the human world, you must follow human rules!!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the sound of the door opening, followed by Shen Tazhi’s puzzled voice, “Que Que, what are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Jiang Que quickly put down his tentacles and said, “I’m taking a shower.”

“Oh, I see.” Shen Tazhi probably chuckled softly, “Then I’ll go back to my room to take a shower first, and I’ll come find you later.”

Then came the sound of the door closing again. Jiang Que let out a sigh of relief, not realizing that his attempt to cover up his actions only strengthened Shen Tazhi’s determination.

“But… it’s strange.” Jiang Que muttered to himself as he poked his fallen tentacles, “Why haven’t you spoken to me since you came out?”

When they were underground, the little tentacles often chatted with him. Since they came out, he hadn’t heard his tentacles speak again.

Although Shen Tazhi was there, and he didn’t feel lonely without the tentacles, Jiang Que still felt somewhat uncomfortable.

One of the little tentacles raised up, shaking to express its thoughts:

Que Que doesn’t need us now, we’ll come out to accompany Xiao Que when he needs us again!

Not needed?

Jiang Que thought for a moment. Indeed, he was very busy every day now and didn’t have time to continue chatting with the little tentacles.

He quickly dismissed this question and began to think about how to tell Shen Tazhi what he had just seen.

Before Jiang Que could come up with an answer, he heard a light sound from the bedroom door.

Shen Tazhi had returned from his shower.

There was no clock in the bathroom, and Jiang Que didn’t know the time. He didn’t know how long he had delayed, but to avoid Shen Tazhi noticing anything amiss, he hastened his shower, quickly turned off the water, and walked out of the bathroom.

“Shen…” Before he could finish his sentence, he was stunned by the scene before him.

Thick stacks of documents were placed on the bed in the bedroom, with various unfamiliar documents scattered around. There were many, many documents piled up together, looking very impactful, reminding Jiang Que of the stack of test papers Teacher Wu Yue had given him, sending shivers down his spine.

What is this for? Is he going to have night classes to tutor him?

Shen Tazhi sat on the chair by the bedside desk and stood up when Jiang Que came out, bending down to hand him the heavy stack of documents that were originally on the bed.

Feeling bewildered, Jiang Que took the weighty documents and hadn’t even opened them yet when he heard Shen Tazhi’s voice:

“Que Que.”

“Hmm?” Jiang Que asked perplexedly, dragging the documents with his tentacles.

Shen Tazhi sighed softly, “These are all my information, including everything from my childhood to now – school, career, friends, and all the rest. The ones on the bed are some other documents of mine. No matter what you saw this afternoon, promise me, believe what I say, not what others say, okay?”

“Ah…” Jiang Que was stunned.

What was all of this about?

Although he did want to fully understand Shen Tazhi, he never expected Shen Tazhi to directly give him all the detailed information like this.

Aren’t humans very concerned about their privacy? They wouldn’t easily tell others even their ID numbers. What was Shen Tazhi doing?

Jiang Que struggled to comprehend Shen Tazhi’s words, “Do you think I found information about your life online?”

“Isn’t that it?” Shen Tazhi asked back, “You’ve been distracted all evening.”

So, his distraction was so obvious?

Thinking this, Jiang Que pulled Shen Tazhi down to sit.

Just out of the bathroom, his hands still emanating warm steam, made Shen Tazhi slightly uncomfortable as he instinctively curled his fingers. Jiang Que noticed this subtle reaction and began to ponder.

Was Shen Tazhi having a similar reaction when Jiang Que touched him with his tentacles?

Jiang Que wasn’t sure, but he was planning to clarify things tonight, so he decided to ask directly, “Shen Tazhi, do you like Shen Liushi?”

This was the question he cared about the most apart from the tentacles, so it had to be asked first.

Shen Tazhi was completely caught off guard by Jiang Que jumping from his life story straight to whether he liked Shen Liushi. Even he was taken aback for a moment before continuing, “I don’t like him, so what?”

“Nothing,” Jiang Que whispered, “It seems those people were all talking nonsense…”

“Which people?” Shen Tazhi was confused.

Wasn’t Jiang Que looking at his life experiences? How did he suddenly bring up whether Shen Tazhi likes Shen Liushi?

“It’s those people online.”

Jiang Que wanted to take out his phone to show Shen Tazhi what he saw, but after realizing he left his phone downstairs on the sofa, he simply relayed:

“They are saying you’re like a male lead in a novel, like the main character in a romance novel, and also like a main character in BL novels. Some even say you and Shen Liushi are a good match.”

Shen Tazhi: ?

“Me and Shen Liushi?” His usually calm expression finally showed some emotion – shock. His voice raised a few degrees, “How is that possible?”

“Yeah, that’s why I said they are all talking nonsense.”

Shen Tazhi’s response undoubtedly put Jiang Que at ease.

With that issue resolved, the next thing was about the tentacles. Jiang Que tried to organize his thoughts:

“Also, about my tent…”

He stopped halfway.

It was indeed strange. He couldn’t bring himself to directly ask Shen Tazhi if his tentacles gave him pleasure or anything like that.

After waiting a while and not getting a continuation, Shen Tazhi asked, “What yours?”

Jiang Que, flustered, almost bit his tongue, “I mean, my, my tentacles said, not…”

Looking at the thick stack of information about Shen Tazhi on his tentacles, Jiang Que had a sudden realization:

“I mean, I already knew about your life, so I won’t form opinions about you because of what others say.”

He was answering Shen Tazhi’s previous question.

Shen Tazhi’s attention was indeed diverted by his response, asking, “When did you find out?”

“From what you told me, and what the driver told me.” Jiang Que threw the driver from the Anomaly Investigation Department under the bus, “They all said you are ruthless, cunning, and very shrewd. I don’t think they’re right.”

Jiang Que counted on his fingers, “You’ve been especially good to me, cooking for me, reading novels to me, you even promised to take me to see a volcano, take me to… that place to eat crabs. You bought me so many things. You’re the best human. I don’t listen to what they say, they’re bullying you.”

“Que Que…” Shen Tazhi sighed.

Later, the familiar sensation came again on the top of his head.

It was Shen Tazhi touching his head again.

“I’m glad you see me this way, but you’re also… ” Shen Tazhi took a while to find the right adjective, “You’re overestimating me.”

“I’m not, Shen Tazhi is the best,” Jiang Que insisted.

He could tell that the people from the Anomaly Investigation Department were kind to him out of fear and some out of utility. Among the few humans he had seen, only Shen Tazhi’s kindness was purely visible.

This was also one of the important reasons why he was willing to follow Shen Tazhi despite the layers of mystery surrounding him.

Shen Tazhi didn’t continue to argue about whether he was ‘good’ or not, but instead asked with a light smile, “So, were you thinking about what they said online about me and Shen Liushi while eating dinner?”

“Yeah,” Jiang Que admitted somewhat guiltily.

Rounding it off, it was somewhat like that. So, it wasn’t entirely wrong to say that.

“All of those are just rumors,” Shen Tazhi said as he started tidying up the things spread out on the bed, casually adding, “I should have told you, Shen Liushi was the ‘family member’ from the previous life who almost killed me. How could I keep such a backstabber by my side?”

Jiang Que widened his eyes, “When did you say that?”

Shen Tazhi only mentioned that he fell into the abyss because of Shen Liushi, but everything that followed proved that it was Shen Tazhi’s lie, he had come prepared for it.

“It was that night’s story, the family member in the apocalypse who killed the protagonist,” Shen Tazhi was also surprised, “I thought you had already figured it out from your attitude towards Shen Liushi that night.”

“That’s because you don’t like him, so I don’t like him either,” Jiang Que muttered softly.

How could he know that the “family member” in Shen Tazhi’s story was Shen Liushi? Each time, he needed a not-so-short amount of time to think about unfamiliar sentence structures and unfamiliar vocabulary. If things weren’t explained clearly, he found it hard to understand the implied meanings.

Negative human emotions were the easiest to understand, just a glance was enough to see through them.

Shen Tazhi laughed again because of his words, and Jiang Que realized that Shen Tazhi always couldn’t help but laugh in front of him.

He scolded, “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Shen Tazhi reluctantly stopped laughing, “I feel happy.”

Although he didn’t know why Shen Tazhi was happy, as long as he temporarily skipped the topic about the “tentacles” that he didn’t know how to bring up, everything was fine.

Let him think about it again, he really didn’t mean to hide it from Shen Tazhi, he just didn’t know how to say it.

If it doesn’t work out, he’ll search on his phone tomorrow, and if he can’t find it, then he’ll ask Shen Tazhi, right?

Jiang Que casually said, “Everything’s explained, anyway, that’s all I saw. Let’s go to sleep.”

Tomorrow, Du Lulu would come for class, and he still wanted to go check out the book ‘Rebirth of the Divine Doctor: Clumsy Miss is Too Arrogant’ that he took back to his room but hadn’t had time to open. He also needed to eat, and continue to think about the tentacle issue… he was very busy.

“Okay.” Shen Tazhi agreed, reaching out to try to take the thick stack of information about him that Jiang Que had rolled up in his tentacles.

Jiang Que controlled his tentacles, skillfully avoiding Shen Tazhi’s hand.

“No, you can’t have this.”

Jiang Que firmly protected the stack of information.

“I want to see this tomorrow.”

“Haven’t you already learned everything?” Shen Tazhi asked.

“It’s different.” Jiang Que emphasized, “What others say and what you gave me are different. The internet doesn’t have all your information, I want to see this.”

He really wanted to understand Shen Tazhi’s past, otherwise, it would be unfair if only Shen Tazhi knew everything about him.

Shen Tazhi didn’t insist, saying, “Then can you put this stack of information on the side desk first? I won’t take it. You can’t sleep while holding onto them, right?”

“Well, it’s not that you can’t…” Jiang Que whispered.

He used to sleep while holding his dead little tentacles with his tentacles.

But he always listened to Shen Tazhi, so he put down the information, then returned to the bed, lifted the covers, and patted the bed:

“Shen Tazhi, sleep with me.”

It was quite a straightforward request.

Shen Tazhi casually stuffed all the documents he had taken out back into the wardrobe and got into bed.

Jiang Que’s arm once again wrapped around his waist, rubbing against his chest contentedly like a little cat, softly saying, “Sorry, I’ve been absent-minded all evening, didn’t even eat properly. Dinner tonight was delicious too.”

“And the strawberry milkshake was good too, I had it for the first time, I want to have it again next time…”

Jiang Que tidied up and his voice grew softer as he spoke. The next moment after his words fell, he fell asleep with even breathing.

The quality of sleep was really good.

But then again, Jiang Que had been busy since he got up today, with teaching classes and crying, then playing games on his phone after taking medicine. After showering, he had talked to him for such a long time. It was indeed time to be tired.

Shen Tazhi closed his eyes, forcing himself to ignore the warmth coming from Jiang Que’s waist, hoping that Jiang Que’s tentacles wouldn’t be too excessive tonight, allowing him to sleep well.

Ten minutes passed, and Jiang Que’s tentacles remained still.

Half an hour passed, still no movement.

An hour later, the person beside him suddenly moved, startling Shen Tazhi who was already in a half-dream state.

Late at night, in the quiet room, there was only the sound of Jiang Que’s breathing.

The tentacles didn’t wrap around him, there was no familiar feeling of suffocation, and even the hand that was holding onto his waist was nowhere to be found.

The room was pitch black, Shen Tazhi couldn’t see clearly, so he reached for his phone on the bedside table and turned it on. By the dim light of the phone screen, he searched for Jiang Que’s figure.

In the faint light, he finally saw the scene on the bed.

Jiang Que had rolled to the edge of the bed at some point, curled up into a ball, tightly hugging one of his tentacles, with the rest of the tentacles intertwined and pressed under him, looking like a little black ball wrapped up.

He didn’t even want the blanket, furrowing his brows and muttering something impatiently.

“Don’t touch…”

Shen Tazhi was stunned.

Considering Jiang Que’s strange behavior tonight, it was quite evident that Jiang Que was trying to keep his tentacles away from him.

But—why? What did Jiang Que see online after all?

Didn’t they agree to be more open with each other?

Shen Tazhi lowered his gaze.

He reached out, pulled Jiang Que, who was almost falling off the bed, back to the center of the bed, covered him with the blanket again, and gently pried open Jiang Que’s arm holding the tentacle.

The small tentacle eagerly wrapped around his waist as soon as it was released, happily rubbing against him, and the remaining tentacles struggled to come out from under Jiang Que’s body, reaching out again to Shen Tazhi.

Gotta stick close! Gotta stick close!

The tentacles silently protested.

Shen Tazhi’s body trembled slightly, then he looked at Jiang Que, who had finally relaxed his frowning brows after being covered with the blanket and adjusting his sleeping position, and asked to himself:

“What did you see after all?”

Of course, Jiang Que, who was already asleep, wouldn’t answer him. Only the small tentacles, after wrapping around him, obediently searched for a pillow and prepared to sleep together with Shen Tazhi.

They were Jiang Que’s conscious derivatives, representing his most primitive and essential thoughts, so everything they did was in accordance with their true nature.

It’s okay. Shen Tazhi looked at the tentacles lying on the pillow as if nothing had happened.

At least Jiang Que wasn’t hating him, just avoiding any contact with the tentacles for some unknown reason.

Since Jiang Que didn’t want to talk about it, he could wait. After all, the one thing a successful businessman never lacked was patience.

With these thoughts in mind, Shen Tazhi gently hugged Jiang Que and fell asleep too.

The next day.

Jiang Que slowly woke up in the warm cocoon.

Beside him was Shen Tazhi’s warm body temperature. The sun was blocked by the curtains, but the scorching heat still seeped in, making it the most comfortable summer morning.

Wait, Shen Tazhi’s body temperature?

Jiang Que suddenly woke up completely, sitting up abruptly and staring in disbelief at the tentacles, resembling an octopus, hugging Shen Tazhi, and Shen Tazhi’s hand wrapped around his waist.

Didn’t he intentionally wake up once last night, controlling all his protesting tentacles before sleeping? How did they wrap around again?

The tentacles, just waking up, spun around and directly burrowed into Shen Tazhi’s embrace, making their intentions crystal clear:

You don’t get Shen Tazhi’s hugs, I do.

Jiang Que’s fist clenched.