The unexpected question completely caught Shen Tazhi off guard.
Initially, he thought Jiang Que might have come across some negative comments online related to him, but last night had already proven that wasn’t the case.
He had just been trying to gently probe and ask again, but he didn’t expect Jiang Que to directly cover his face and blurt out that question… of all questions.
Unable to contain his laughter, Shen Tazhi first merged the documents in his hand with the ones Jiang Que had organized, placed them on the table, and then casually picked up Jiang Que, who was curled up on the floor, and placed him on the bed.
Jiang Que continued to curl up on the bed, his originally huge tentacles tightly wrapping around himself, forming a ball, almost turning himself into a tentacle ball. Even the tips of his tentacles blushed with shyness.
Squatting by the bedside, Shen Tazhi gently peeled open his tentacles and calmly said:
“Well, yes, that’s why I asked you to tone it down a bit in public.”
Jiang Que: ?!!
He suddenly lifted his head from the tentacles, “I didn’t know that was what you meant at the time. You could have been clearer about it.”
If he had been clearer earlier, he wouldn’t have gone so far. At most, he would have just clung to him a bit, and he wouldn’t have done such things in front of others.
This was already considered an intimate act among humans, and he certainly didn’t want to showcase his and Shen Tazhi’s intimacy to others with such broad-mindedness and a sense of humor.
“If I had been clearer, you would react just like you are now,” Shen Tazhi said.
React like now?
Jiang Que didn’t understand and asked directly, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if I had been clearer, you would react just like you are now, unwilling to touch me with your tentacles, right?”
Shen Tazhi actively hooked one of Jiang Que’s tentacles with his hand and provocatively slipped his fingertip into the white suction cup that was repeatedly opening and closing.
The little suction cup continued to function as usual, completely unaware that it had taken in a finger and softly sucked on it.
Lustful.
Though it was just a normal action, Jiang Que felt that the scene before his eyes was much more stimulating than any manga he had seen.
His brain had almost crashed.
Almost subconsciously, he wrapped his tentacle around the waist of the prey who had fallen into his trap, layering the other’s dishonest hand, and then poked Shen Tazhi’s involuntarily rolling Adam’s apple.
The tentacles exerted force suddenly, and Shen Tazhi, who was originally half crouched under the bed, was tightly bound and lifted onto the bed. The instigator of all this blushed red while holding his small tentacle that Shen Tazhi had just teased, trembling all over.
Jiang Que’s mind was filled with the image of Shen Tazhi’s clearly defined fingers being sucked by the small suction cups. He could barely distinguish his thoughts to speak to Shen Tazhi.
“Uh… Que Que, can you loosen up a bit? I can’t breathe.”
As the tentacles continued to play, they directly entangled his throat, encircling Shen Tazhi’s neck. He could only awkwardly raise his head, struggling to speak.
Jiang Que was snapped back to reality by this, he quickly retracted all the tentacles he had unintentionally wrapped around Shen Tazhi earlier. The redness on his cheeks still hadn’t faded.
“How… how could you…”
Jiang Que’s words were incoherent.
Shen Tazhi, now released, sat up on the bed. His ears were slightly red due to Jiang Que’s shyness, but compared to the already confused Jiang Que, he seemed much more composed:
“I’ve told you before, Que Que, I like you, so I don’t mind the things you do to me.”
Shen Tazhi sighed lightly:
“It’s actually my fault. I always thought you didn’t understand, so I never explained clearly, I just thought I’d wait for you to understand before explaining.”
He initially just wanted to take advantage of Jiang Que while he didn’t understand anything, but it ended up creating the current situation.
“What exactly do I not understand? Like?” Jiang Que asked.
That was all he could think of, because Shen Tazhi had mentioned in the abyss that there were many types of liking, but he didn’t understand the specifics.
“Right.” Shen Tazhi said.
He sat up completely, looked at Jiang Que, and asked, “After you came out, you also met many humans. What do you think of Xi Jing, Duan Yansu, or Du Lulu? They’ve been good to you, you should like them too, right?”
“Why should I like them?” Jiang Que asked in confusion, “They have never been as good to me as you, I only like you.”
Shen Tazhi fell silent.
He had wanted to use others as a contrast to make Jiang Que realize that liking comes in different forms, but he hadn’t expected Jiang Que to not pay any attention to other humans at all.
What does Jiang Que like? Shen Tazhi thought for a while before finally coming up with an example.
“Do you like yesterday’s strawberry milkshake?”
Jiang Que answered decisively this time, “I like it.”
Shen Tazhi gently coaxed, “Do you think your liking for me is the same as your liking for the strawberry milkshake?”
“Isn’t it different?” Jiang Que said uncertainly.
He analyzed seriously, “The strawberry milkshake is delicious, but I can do without it. But you are a human, there’s only one of you, and I can’t do without you.”
“So I should like you more,” Jiang Que concluded.
In Jiang Que’s mind, Shen Tazhi’s position surpassed that of the strawberry milkshake. Shen Tazhi didn’t know whether he should feel happy or find it laughable at this moment, but he couldn’t compare the two. He had to change his approach and continued to ask:
“Really? What if there is another person who treats you as well as I do, gives you plenty to eat, takes you to a beautiful house, teaches you about the human world, shows you novels, and even treats you better than I do, would you like that person too?”
As Shen Tazhi spoke, his palms began to sweat slightly.
In fact, he wasn’t sure what kind of liking Jiang Que had for him, let alone if Jiang Que would feel the same way about another person if they treated him similarly. That’s why he didn’t pose this question from the beginning.
From the start, what he was vaguely worried about, always feeling uneasy, was this very question.
As expected, after answering the first two questions promptly, Jiang Que fell into silence this time.
He furrowed his brows in thought, repeating Shen Tazhi’s words in his mind, then lifted his head to ask, “Besides you, are there other humans like this?”
“I don’t know, but let’s assume, what if such humans exist?” Shen Tazhi said.
Assuming if such humans exist…
Jiang Que’s brows furrowed tighter.
He imagined another indistinct face of a human doing the things Shen Tazhi did to him, hugging him, patting his head, praising him…
Jiang Que suddenly shivered with disgust, unable to continue his imagination. It was too disgusting.
“No, I don’t like it, don’t mention it.”
He clung to Shen Tazhi like a spoiled child, skillfully immersing himself in Shen Tazhi’s warm embrace, murmuring softly:
“When others call me Que Que, I can’t help but want to throw them out.”
The reason he didn’t directly kill them was that killing someone in human society would cause trouble for Shen Tazhi.
Shen Tazhi caught Jiang Que in bewilderment. Jiang Que was facing him directly, resting his head on Shen Tazhi’s shoulder, so he couldn’t see the fleeting murderous intent on Jiang Que’s face. He could only pat Jiang Que’s back soothingly:
“Would you be willing to use your tentacles to entangle them?”
In response, Jiang Que’s retaliatory tentacles tightly wrapped around him, with one tentacle moving towards his mouth.
Disgusted by the possibility, Jiang Que hesitated to speak for a while. He wrapped Shen Tazhi in his tentacles, with one directly covering the other’s mouth until Shen Tazhi, who was beginning to retch physiologically from the tentacles being stuffed into his throat, started gagging. Only then did Jiang Que loosen his grip:
“Stop talking! It’s disgusting.”
His tentacles were wet and slippery as they were pulled out of Shen Tazhi’s mouth. Shen Tazhi coughed a few times while wanting to say something, but seeing Jiang Que’s tentacle threateningly close to his lips, he wisely shut his mouth.
“My tentacles are very clean and nice looking, humans are dirty, you are not allowed to speak of it again.”
After calming down, Jiang Que began to feel angry in retrospect. He grabbed Shen Tazhi’s collar, his face full of anger as he approached:
“What do you take me for? A monster who needs to cling to humans all the time? I said not to mention it, but you still insist on talking about it. I hate you.”
This was the first time he had shown such anger and openly said he hated him in front of Shen Tazhi. Previously, he had only quietly complained in his heart. Therefore, Jiang Que could clearly see the calm expression on Shen Tazhi’s face shatter, revealing a bewildered inner turmoil.
It was a completely unmasked kind of confusion, looking even more vulnerable than when Shen Tazhi’s eyes were red. Jiang Que even felt that no matter what excessive demands he made at this moment, Shen Tazhi would tremble and agree.
But Jiang Que didn’t. In fact, as soon as the words slipped out, he regretted seeing Shen Tazhi beginning to feel upset. He softened his voice slightly, hugged Shen Tazhi again, and whispered:
“Gege, I don’t like it when you say that, please don’t say it again.”
“Except for the situation where I need to use my tentacles to throw humans out, I only like to treat you this way, because my tentacles also like you very much. They are very happy to stay on you.”
Jiang Que honestly described his tentacles’ emotions, then remembered the content of that comic book and whispered even softer:
“Even giving birth to little tentacles, I only want them to be with you.”
Shen Tazhi is the most special existence to him. Every coincidence or deliberate arrangement since their meeting has led to the current situation between him and Shen Tazhi. Even the slightest change in expression could lead to completely different outcomes. This is not a situation where another human could simply replicate and achieve the same result.
Shen Tazhi still didn’t move. Jiang Que could clearly sense that the other person was about to raise his hand to hug him back, but the movement stopped nervously halfway.
He turned his head to look at Shen Tazhi’s expression, a rare display of unease on Shen Tazhi’s face.
Others might not know how to handle Shen Tazhi in this state, but Jiang Que finally saw through the rare display of negative emotions from Shen Tazhi that belonged to humans.
Maintaining his kneeling posture, Jiang Que stood up, looked into Shen Tazhi’s eyes, and smiled, “Gege, I’m not mad at you. I don’t really hate you. Why don’t you hug me?”
The hesitant hand finally came down, pulling him into a warm embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Shen Tazhi’s voice.
“No need to apologize, I’m not really that angry.” Jiang Que was finally hugged as he wished, smiling with lowered eyes, “Gege, you’re so cute when you’re uneasy.”
Jiang Que’s words were sincerely felt, but to Shen Tazhi’s ears, they sounded more like teasing. Just as Shen Tazhi was about to explain, Jiang Que seized the opportunity in the atmosphere and asked, “Gege, earlier you mentioned giving me little tentacles. Do you know how to handle them specifically?”
He asked this to confirm whether Shen Tazhi knew the true whereabouts of the eggs of his reproductive tentacles. However, Shen Tazhi seemed to think he was asking out of curiosity, blushing:
“I know.”
He quickly added, “The Anomaly Investigation Department said that your reproductive tentacles will only produce eggs when they reach maturity… They haven’t reached that stage yet, so we’ll see when they mature.”
Shen Tazhi breathed a sigh of relief quietly.
That night when he went to Chief Wu to inquire about Jiang Que’s performance in the tests, he deliberately asked a few extra questions about the reproductive tentacles.
According to Chief Wu, the information about the reproductive tentacles was only inferred based on their past experience with tentacle anomalies.
Jiang Que was their first humanoid tentacle anomaly encountered, and he possessed normal male human primary sexual characteristics. Therefore, whether his tentacles would reach maturity and whether they would produce eggs were all unknown.
As Jiang Que listened, he slightly narrowed his eyes.
Ahā so Gege already knew what was going on.
Back then, he was so scared and stuttered to agree. Was he really willing?
Satisfied with the unexpected answer, Jiang Que rubbed against Shen Tazhi’s chest, thinking that he wouldn’t treat Shen Tazhi as roughly as in the comics.
He wasn’t greedy. He didn’t need to lock Shen Tazhi up so he couldn’t resist throughout the entire period. As long as Shen Tazhi was willing to help him carry the eggs, it didn’t matter if he could freely move around while wearing clothes.
He was afraid that the tentacles might suddenly become uncontrollable due to excessive excitement.
It seemed that before the tentacles reached maturity, he needed to learn how to control them properly.
He agreed cheerfully. After resolving the long-standing question in his heart, Jiang Que finally had the mental space to think about other things:
“Shen Tazhi, what should we have for lunch?”
The address changed back again, Shen Tazhi pondered for a moment, still quite concerned. So, he changed his tone, seemingly casually asking, “Why are you calling me that again?”
“Because you like it when I call you gege.” Jiang Que, who was no longer angry, hugged Shen Tazhi’s waist, obediently explaining, “So, I call you that less often. It’s more effective when I really need to find you.”
He said it confidently, not feeling that he was doing anything wrong. Shen Tazhi sighed and agreed, “Okay.”
Just because of this reason, who taught Jiang Que to do this?
No, no one taught Jiang Que. The only one who could be considered a teacher, Du Lulu, hadn’t even started teaching yet. Was he really self-taught?
The topic of ālikingā ultimately couldn’t continue. With the lesson just learned, Shen Tazhi didn’t dare mention other humans in front of Jiang Que for the time being and had to give up.
Lunch was braised lion’s head1its a giant meatball. I like the ones my mom makes. IF SHE DIDNāT ADD CORIANDER, cold seaweed salad, and stir-fried pork with green beans. Although the house always had a constant temperature system on, Shen Tazhi still made a pot of mung bean soup, placed it near the vent to cool to room temperature, then froze it in the fridge for ten minutes, making chilled mung bean soup.
The cold dishes and chilled mung bean soup were highly favored by Jiang Que, who ate happily. His tentacles couldn’t help but move closer to Shen Tazhi.
The slightly thinner tentacle that had been in Shen Tazhi’s mouth before had been cleaned, now anxiously circling around Shen Tazhi but hesitating to touch him.
Since Jiang Que confirmed that his tentacles would bring pleasure to Shen Tazhi, he kept his tentacles away from Shen Tazhi altogether. Even though Shen Tazhi said he didn’t mind, he was still worried that Shen Tazhi was just indulging him as usual, so he deliberately suppressed his own dislikes.
Feeling the tentacles constantly watching him closely, Shen Tazhi stopped eating.
He sighed, helplessly reached out his hand, and poked the small tentacle that was almost smoking with impatience:
“Come up. Do I have to invite you?”
With permission granted, the small tentacle swiftly wrapped around Shen Tazhi’s wrist like lightning. A few slightly larger tentacles were a bit slower but also contentedly encircled Shen Tazhi’s waist or legs, harmoniously occupying their own āterritoryā.
Even though Jiang Que now only had eight tentacles left, even the thinnest one was as thick as three adult fingers, not to mention the thickest one that was thicker than Shen Tazhi’s arm by a whole circle.
The tentacles were four meters long by default, and when they were all wrapped around Shen Tazhi, the almost two-meter tall Shen Tazhi seemed a bit small. He appeared like prey being watched by a monster, with tentacles that were eerie and seemed like they could engulf him in the next second.
However, Shen Tazhi was clear that Jiang Que’s actions had become much more restrained. The tentacles simply wrapped around him and didn’t dare to move, even the speed at which the suckers on the tentacles opened and closed had slowed down significantly.
So, it looked terrifying, but in reality, it didn’t have much impact on his actions.
He continued to calmly eat with this group of tentacles on him.
Shen Tazhi really didn’t mind his tentacles, nor did he mind his usual closeness.
Realizing this, Jiang Que also became happy, especially when he saw Shen Tazhi wrapped up by him, a sense of satisfaction followed.
Looks good, he really wanted to keep wrapping around Shen Tazhi like this forever.
Hmm…
Jiang Que frowned, quickly finished the remaining bites in his bowl, set aside the mung bean soup for now, and used a tentacle to pull Shen Tazhi’s arm:
“Gege, the roots of the tentacles are itchy, rub them.”
—
So when Du Lulu finally got herself together, mentally prepared, carrying a canvas bag filled with teaching tools and holding the necessary teaching materials, finally walking into Shen Tazhi’s villa, this was the scene she saw:
In the dimly lit room, on the sofa, Jiang Que was sitting on Shen Tazhi’s lap, tentacles raised high, some even resting on Shen Tazhi’s body, exposing his back, like a cuddly cat letting Shen Tazhi stroke his back back and forth, completely soft in Shen Tazhi’s embrace.
Meanwhile, Shen Tazhi in his home clothes was half-encircled by tentacles, with suspicious red marks around his neck. Du Lulu didn’t want to dwell on how those marks came about.
She quietly closed the door, left the villa, under the scorching sun reflected for three minutes on why she just entered without knocking or ringing the doorbell just because Shen Tazhi had given her an access card, then took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door.
“*Dong dong.*”
As the electronic doorbell at the entrance sounded with Shen Tazhi’s “Please enter.” Du Lulu took out her access card again, swiped it to open the door, and entered.
Jiang Que lazily nestled in Shen Tazhi’s arms, but what surprised her was that the Jiang Que, who usually liked to tease and bully Shen Tazhi with his tentacles in front of the entire Anomaly Investigation Department, had actually retracted his tentacles at this moment, leaving only a small, inconspicuous one wrapped around Shen Tazhi’s wrist.
Could it be… he was actually respecting her?
Du Lulu was momentarily unsure whether she should feel moved. She fumbled with the things in her hands and smiled, “Mr. Shen, Jiang Que, I’m here for the class, how should we proceed?”
The beautiful non-human youth finally got up from Shen Tazhi’s embrace. He stood up and, incidentally, released Shen Tazhi with his tentacles, smilingly saying, “Let’s go to the study room.”
Huh? How come the tentacles loosened? Not taking Shen Tazhi along?
Du Lulu blinked in confusion, made eye contact with the equally bewildered Shen Tazhi, and then understood that the current situation was also beyond Shen Tazhi’s expectations.
Had they just quarreled? But they were just sticking together a moment ago, which didn’t seem like they could start arguing in just three minutes.
Du Lulu certainly didn’t dare look at Jiang Que. Though she wasn’t afraid of Jiang Que, she was still a bit wary of his cold eyes. Even though the comprehensive tests of the Anomaly Investigation Department proved that Jiang Que had emotions, when facing him, she always felt as if Jiang Que actually didn’t have emotions, just a monster watching other humans coldly.
It was as if, besides Shen Tazhi, the rest of the humans couldn’t be considered as such in his eyes.
In the end, she could only continue to make eye contact with Shen Tazhi. When she saw him nod slightly in her direction, she turned to Jiang Que and said with a smile, “Alright, let’s go to the study room.”
Shen Tazhi also stood up, calmly saying, “I’ll be working downstairs. If you need me, just let Que Que come and find me directly.”
Hmm, he was still using a nickname now, so they probably didn’t have a falling out.
Du Lulu silently analyzed the current situation in her mind, followed Jiang Que into the study room, and by the time she stepped into the room, she had completely calmed down, leaving the little episode behind.
Her teaching task today was very important; she needed to teach Jiang Que about time first, then start with phonetics. If she didn’t manage her time well, let alone try to observe Jiang Que, she was afraid she wouldn’t even be able to complete her teaching tasks.
