Jiang Que didn’t know what kind of storm his actions had stirred up in the hearts of the two people present.
The reason he wanted to have a private class with Du Lulu was simple: there were some things he didn’t want Shen Tazhi to hear, so he wanted to ask Du Lulu alone.
Therefore, although reluctant to temporarily part ways with Shen Tazhi, Jiang Que still reluctantly loosened his small tentacles and followed Du Lulu into the study room.
The round-faced girl was inexplicably nervous for a moment, but quickly calmed down and took out a round red alarm clock from her canvas bag, placing it on the desk, smiling at Jiang Que:
“Good afternoon, Jiang Que. How was lunch?”
Jiang Que didn’t particularly like this kind of useless small talk, but since Du Lulu asked about food, he cooperatively replied, “The food was good, Shen Tazhi cooks very well.”
“Really?” Du Lulu’s face showed surprise, “Mr. Shen cooks?!”
Her surprise perfectly satisfied Jiang Que’s faint sense of pride. Originally not planning to say more, Jiang Que couldn’t help but add, “It’s always Shen Tazhi who cooks, he’s very good at it.”
After a moment’s thought, he added, “I will start learning to cook tomorrow too.”
One reason was because human food was really delicious, and the other was that he wanted to help Shen Tazhi. Always asking for things without giving back would quickly become annoying, he had seen many humans argue for this reason.
“Very talented.” Du Lulu smiled and praised, “Let’s start our lesson, you don’t have to call me teacher, just call me Du Lulu.”
“Okay.” Jiang Que agreed, looking seriously at the alarm clock on the table, “Are we going to learn how to tell time?”
“Yes.” Du Lulu showed the alarm clock to Jiang Que, “Because Mr. Shen said you don’t know how to tell time, so…”
“I do know, I recognize the alarm clock.” Jiang Que interrupted Du Lulu, “I can read the time on a clock, I just find it difficult to match the time numbers with specific times of the day.”
Whether he was underground or after coming out, he had always been in a dark environment.
According to Shen Tazhi, he could slowly deduce that twelve o’clock was the middle of a day, at noon, but he couldn’t immediately understand what two o’clock, three o’clock, etc., meant, which gave Shen Tazhi the impression that he didn’t know how to tell time.
“Huh? Mr. Shen taught you?” Du Lulu exclaimed.
“No, I saw humans telling time in the abyss, it’s simple, just adding up the numbers.” Jiang Que calmly stated, “I’m not very familiar with numbers, but I can slowly figure it out.”
“Very clever.” Du Lulu sighed, skipping the original lesson on telling time and starting to figure out a way to explain the corresponding times of the day to Jiang Que.
This strange question might have stumped others, but Du Lulu, who used to work as a kindergarten teacher, clearly handled it with ease. She took out her phone and showed Jiang Que pictures of different time periods, explaining to him clearly what time really meant in just a few words.
Ten minutes later, Jiang Que said thoughtfully, “I understand now, thank you.”
“No need to thank me, it’s what I should do.” Du Lulu smiled and took out a small box from her canvas bag, handing it to Jiang Que.
Confused, Jiang Que took it and asked, “What is this?”
“It’s a watch, there are two inside, a pair.” Du Lulu winked at him.
“It’s not a very expensive brand, I bought it with half of the reward for completing the surveillance mission to observe you up close.”
“I know that with my abilities, I probably couldn’t complete this mission, so Mr. Shen also sent me the recruitment message. I was surprised when you agreed to let me be a tutor, and I’m grateful for your help, even though you know my motives for coming here are not pure.”
Jiang Que silently swallowed the words, “Actually, we were just worried that the Anomaly Investigation Department would send someone more troublesome.”
“Of course, there’s another reason.” Du Lulu awkwardly scratched her head, “I thought you might learn slowly and get impatient, so I thought preparing a small gift might help pacify you, but I didn’t expect…”
She didn’t expect Jiang Que to learn so quickly.
Jiang Que calmly said, “I just don’t know much about some human things, I’m not stupid.”
Shen Tazhi had said something similar before, but he could act a bit spoiled with Shen Tazhi. With Du Lulu, Jiang Que just explained a little more because of her good attitude earlier.
Because besides Shen Tazhi, no human should have any doubts about a non-human.
As expected, although Du Lulu agreed on the surface with a “okay”, Jiang Que could still see the doubt in her heart at a glance.
He lowered his eyes, feeling too lazy to continue explaining, and just said, “Let’s continue.”
Communicating with humans other than Shen Tazhi was so tiring.
Just hold on a little longer, he still had something to ask Du Lulu.
Du Lulu was giving Jiang Que a lesson on recognizing Pinyin.
Although he was learning how to tell time faster than she expected, Pinyin wasn’t the easiest thing to learn. In case Jiang Que didn’t learn it, it would be troublesome, so she needed to make good use of her time.
Half an hour later.
Jiang Que looked at Du Lulu’s dumbfounded expression and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you not going to continue teaching?”
Next should be numerical calculations in Pinyin, right? This was something he really wasn’t good at.
However…
Jiang Que glanced at Du Lulu’s expression and felt that today’s lesson should come to an end.
As expected, Du Lulu slowly said, “I’m sorry… I didn’t know you would learn so quickly. I didn’t prepare anything else, I’ll be more prepared next time.”
“It’s okay.”
With almost the entire afternoon now free, this suited Jiang Que just fine.
He took out his phone, which he had taken from the sofa when he had arrived, found the original poster of that post again, scrolled to the long string of words left by the original poster, showed it to Du Lulu, and asked eagerly, “Can you help me see what she’s talking about? What is magic? I can’t find anything through my searches.”
Du Lulu thought Jiang Que was showing her some fantasy novel and leaned over to look without any suspicion. Then, with an even more bewildered expression, she lifted her head and asked, “What… have you been looking at?”
Innocently, Jiang Que said, “I just searched for tentacles, wanting to know if there’s anything similar in the human world, and then I found this post.”
Du Lulu:…
Upon returning, she had to submit the proposal for the “Cleanse the Internet Campaign”. Even if it wasn’t managed by the Anomaly Investigation Department, she still had to submit it.
What kind of association was this? Wasn’t this just corrupting children?!
“So, what is it exactly?” Jiang Que asked again.
Maintaining her bewildered expression, Du Lulu took out her phone and began to explain to Jiang Que, “What she means is…”
This kind of insider jargon was not something Jiang Que could easily ask others about.
Coincidentally, she had recently been reading a non-CP novel from abroad. Because the circle was small, there was no official Chinese version or physical book in Chinese. She needed to provide proof of purchase records to a kind translation teacher to exchange for the text file. She really knew what this was.
“…I see.”
Jiang Que thoughtfully responded after listening to Du Lulu’s explanation.
In truth, he wasn’t very interested in the content of the manga sequel. He had no interest in how other humans **. He had seen plenty, he was just worried that the original poster had mentioned something very important.
Since it wasn’t anything particularly important, Jiang Que didn’t pay it much mind and continued to ask, “Du Lulu, I suppose not many humans have seen creatures like me, right? Then why are there so many similar comics?”
Du Lulu: “…Maybe, they imagined them.”
“No wonder,” Jiang Que muttered softly, “It’s completely unfeasible to draw.”
If he really did that, Shen Tazhi would die.
Du Lulu discreetly glanced at Jiang Que’s terrifying tentacles and the densely-packed white suckers on his abdomen, felt a tingling on her scalp, shifted her gaze away, and silently thought to herself:
They can only be drawn in imagination. If they were to see the real thing, they would probably be scared unconscious.
Wait, does Shen Tazhi not know about Jiang Que seeing these things?
Du Lulu suddenly realized the reason why Jiang Que had approached her for lessons alone. She was just hesitating about whether to tell Shen Tazhi, when she lifted her head and met Jiang Que’s smiling eyes.
“Don’t tell gege.”
Jiang Que’s emotionless black eyes, devoid of any human feelings, smiled at her, but they were filled with chilling indifference.
Du Lulu trembled slightly, then began nodding repeatedly like a chicken pecking at grains.
So scary QAQ
Although she felt a bit sorry for Shen Tazhi, Du Lulu decided to keep quiet.
Touching her conscience, thinking about the salary Shen Tazhi paid her, she carefully said, “Most of the people who draw comics probably haven’t really seen someone like you, so what they draw is definitely not very feasible…”
“I know.” Jiang Que rested his chin on his hand, “I won’t let Shen Tazhi get hurt.”
It was already hard enough to be oviparous, it would be too much if he let Shen Tazhi get hurt.
There was still quite some time left before the end of class. Jiang Que, having resolved his doubts, couldn’t be bothered to continue speaking. He and Du Lulu sat in silence, with him responding to any topic she brought up with just an “Oh, okay.”
After an awkward moment, Du Lulu felt that something was off. She cautiously suggested, “Shall we stop here for today? I’ll prepare more teaching materials for tomorrow and come back. You should go find Mr. Shen first?”
“Is that okay?” Jiang Que asked.
“Huh?” Du Lulu was taken aback.
Jiang Que looked at Du Lulu, who appeared visibly at a loss, and straightforwardly said, “It seems like you’re worried about something. I can tell you’re anxious, but I don’t know the specifics of your anxiety.”
After some thought, he guessed, “Is it because the Anomaly Investigation Department has a minimum time limit for you to interact with me, but you didn’t expect the teaching to go so quickly, so you haven’t met the minimum time yet?”
So perceptive, truly worthy of being the one who drove Chief Xi Jing to a mental breakdown.
Du Lulu sincerely admired his insight in her heart and chose to tell the truth, “Yes, their requirement is at least two hours, and we’re still short of a little over an hour.”
“I see.” Jiang Que raised his hand to soothe his tentacles, which had become a bit impatient from not seeing Shen Tazhi for so long.
“In that case, just say whatever you want. Talk about the novels you’ve read, your upcoming teaching arrangements, or even Chief Xi Jing, whom you’re so obsessed with, otherwise it’ll be too boring.”
“Chief…”
As Du Lulu mentioned Xi Jing multiple times, her expression dimmed, and a worried and anxious look appeared on her round face:
“Team Leader has lost contact with everyone. I asked Chief Wu, and he only said they went to execute an important confidential mission. But Team Leader
Xi Jing and Team Leader Duan Yansu are clearly the strongest among us. They’ve never been out of contact for more than twenty-four hours before…”
“I’m the only one left in our team, and I’m really worried about everyone.”
That’s why she worked so hard to complete the task Team Leader Xi Jing hastily assigned to her before leaving because it was the only thing she could do well for her action team now.
Indeed.
Jiang Que thought to himself.
Lively, lazy, and sharp-minded; this was his first impression of Du Lulu. According to the emotions he saw in Du Lulu, she should be someone who dislikes trouble. Logically speaking, she shouldn’t have taken on the task of monitoring him just for the so-called “bonus”.
So there must be another reason. He could tell that Du Lulu had a strong sense of belonging and pride towards Team Leader Xi Jing and his team, so he guessed it was related to Team Leader Xi Jing’s team.
Judging by Du Lulu’s reaction, he probably guessed right.
He couldn’t empathize with Du Lulu, but that didn’t stop him from adjusting his rhetoric based on what Du Lulu said.
“Xi Jing and Duan Yasu are so powerful?”
“Of course!”Du Lulu praised them enthusiastically, nearly slamming the table, “Team Leader Xi Jing’s ability is time manipulation. Coupled with his martial arts skills, even with just three seconds, he can handle most opponents. And Team Leader Duan Yansu’s sharpshooting skills are unparalleled, hitting the mark every time!”
Three seconds of time manipulation, sharpshooting…
Even Jiang Que, who possessed extraordinary powers, was momentarily stunned upon hearing this.
Is this the kind of ability humans should have? Who are the real monsters here?
Without a doubt, if there had been even the slightest change in him when he had just emerged from the abyss, he would have been greeted with a bullet straight to the forehead from Duan Yansu and Xi Jing suddenly appearing before him.
Fortunately, he had always listened to Shen Tazhi.
On the other side, Du Lulu seemed to have suddenly opened up and began incessantly recounting the heroic deeds of their team. Jiang Que listened absentmindedly, casually opening the watch that Du Lulu had given him.
Du Lulu had given him a pair of couple watches, with a sleek and simple silver design that wouldn’t look out of place even on Shen Tazhi’s wrist.
Come to think of it, Shen Tazhi had given him so much, and he hadn’t given Shen Tazhi any gifts in return.
But he had no money. What could he give Shen Tazhi?
Lost in thought, Jiang Que’s mind wandered aimlessly, at one moment drifting to the novels he hadn’t had a chance to read yet.
Novels. I’ll read novels tonight.
When the hands of the watch pointed to three o’clock, Jiang Que timely interjected, “It’s three o’clock, we can end the lesson now.”
Du Lulu, who was enthusiastically describing how Xi Jing had subdued the first tentacle-based anomaly in the Anomaly Investigation Department and how he had carried it into the cafeteria, finally stopped herself with a screeching halt.
She also checked her phone, glanced at the time, and embarrassedly stood up when she realized it was indeed three o’clock, “Sorry, I got a bit carried away.”
“Okay.” Jiang Que responded indifferently, also standing up from his chair, taking the watch Du Lulu had bought and pushing the door open.
The curtains at home were still closed. Even in the summer afternoon, it was dim inside. However, Shen Tazhi remembered that Jiang Que had wanted to adjust to the light, so today he had opened a small gap in the living room curtains, allowing some light to seep in, not making the room completely dark.
The sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains landed on the sofa, where Shen Tazhi was seated, with a laptop on his knees, likely working on company matters. On the coffee table in front of him sat a fruit platter that Jiang Que hadn’t managed to finish that morning.
Shen Tazhi could have worked in his study with the lights on, but he deliberately chose the sofa in the living room, a spot that he could see as soon as he walked out of his study.
Shen Tazhi was waiting for him on purpose.
This acquaintance made Jiang Que very happy. He jumped into Shen Tazhi’s arms with his watch and finally, his little tentacles could hug Shen Tazhi after a long separation.
“Gege, I’m done with class.”
Jiang Que put the watch on Shen Tazhi’s lap and said, “This was given to me by Du Lulu, but it’s also for you.”
“From Du Lulu?” Shen Tazhi caught Jiang Que, raised an eyebrow, opened the watch box, and was momentarily stunned upon seeing the clearly matching pair of watches inside.
Jiang Que had already taken the watch out and gestured on Shen Tazhi’s wrist, “Hmm, I want to wear it with you. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” Shen Tazhi wouldn’t refuse, he looked back at Du Lulu, who had just stepped out of the small study behind them, nodded at her, “Thank you, I’ll transfer you the money for the watches later.”
“No need, no need.”
Du Lulu, who had witnessed Jiang Que’s entire transformation from indifference to smiling, waved her hands repeatedly, finally remembered the question Jiang Que had asked her earlier.
Is it really better not to let Shen Tazhi know about this kind of thing…?
Forget it, she’d better not meddle in the affairs of this young couple. Maybe Shen Tazhi already knew about it… perhaps.
Du Lulu looked at Shen Tazhi with a gaze mingled with sympathy and helplessness, saying, “Mr. Shen, I won’t disturb you any longer. I’ll send you feedback on today’s lesson later in the form of an email. I’ll take my leave now.”
Du Lulu quickly left, leaving Shen Tazhi and Jiang Que happily snuggled up in his arms, admiring each other’s wrists adorned with a pair of watches.
“Did you scare her just now?” Shen Tazhi asked with a wry smile.
“No, I didn’t.” Jiang Que was quite indignant, “I’ve been studying seriously. I know how to tell time now and even type in Pinyin on my phone.”
“Very impressive,” Shen Tazhi patted Jiang Que’s head.
He didn’t ask Jiang Que why he insisted on spending time alone with Du Lulu. Instead, he skipped over the topic of the lesson and asked, “It’s still early, is there anything else you’d like to do today?”
Since bringing Jiang Que out of the abyss, Shen Tazhi had already prepared himself for the day when Jiang Que would truly no longer need him to fly on his own. With an awareness of being alone, not being constantly entwined with him was just the beginning, and there would be more similar things happening in the future.
He needs to get used to it slowly. Jiang Que is an independent individual, not just a parasite that can only rely on him to live.
“I don’t want to do anything.” Whether it was studying or trying to probe Du Lulu, Jiang Que felt a bit tired.
He was leaning in Shen Tazhi’s arms, so he couldn’t see the other’s expression and didn’t know what Shen Tazhi was thinking. Finally being able to continue nestling by Shen Tazhi’s side, he just wanted to lazily sleep for a while wrapped up in Shen Tazhi’s tentacles.
Shen Tazhi’s embrace was warm, and his body carried the clean scent of shower gel, perfect for sleeping while being held.
Thinking like this, Jiang Que yawned, used his tentacles to firmly bind himself and Shen Tazhi together, and also raised two tentacles to serve as a platform to support Shen Tazhi’s computer.
“I want to sleep for a while. You continue working, I will sleep next to you, and you are not allowed to sneak away.”
Already tightly bound by Jiang Que, Shen Tazhi couldn’t escape: …
He looked up at the two tentacles obediently holding the computer and then at his own arms firmly tied up by Jiang Que. Struggling, he managed to reach for a blanket nearby, covering the sleeping Jiang Que with it.
Three o’clock in the afternoon in the summer was indeed perfect for a nap.
Since he couldn’t continue working anyway, Shen Tazhi simply put away the computer, allowing Jiang Que’s tentacles to rest comfortably and covering himself halfway with the blanket.
Wrapped up in Jiang Que’s tentacles, holding Jiang Que in his arms, they fell asleep together on the sofa under the same blanket.
Jiang Que dreamed again.
He dreamt that he had grown taller, to the point where he could hug Shen Tazhi, with tentacles intertwining and Shen Tazhi being firmly locked on the bed by his tentacles.
It was like a scene from a comic book, but he hadn’t started anything yet. He could only cling to Shen Tazhi like this, helplessly rubbing against him with his tentacles, trying to burrow in.
“Gege, the tentacles are too big.” He sought help from Shen Tazhi, “This way, the eggs won’t be delivered properly. Teach me, gege.”
The tentacles had already begun to riot uncontrollably, desperately trying to penetrate.
To conceive his own eggs.
Jiang Que lost control for a moment, and a few tentacles forcefully broke through Shen Tazhi’s last defense.
The smallest one followed suit and filled the gap.
He could almost tangibly feel the warmth enveloped tightly by his tentacles.
…
No, Shen Tazhi would get hurt like this.
Jiang Que was startled awake.
He sat up abruptly, realizing the sun had completely set, and the living room had become dark.
He had slept straight through until night, still in Shen Tazhi’s embrace, while two tentacles were mischievously trying to burrow into Shen Tazhi’s clothes.
Jiang Que angrily tied the most outrageous two tentacles in a knot.
“Que Que? What are you doing?”
Shen Tazhi’s voice, tinged with a smile, reached him, and Jiang Que then noticed that Shen Tazhi was actually awake.
Of course, with his tentacles like this, Shen Tazhi must have been awakened by them.
Feeling even more annoyed, Jiang Que glared fiercely at the tentacles, which were now shrinking back in guilt, and said angrily, “They are bullying you, and you didn’t even call me.”
“Aren’t they also you?” Shen Tazhi said matter-of-factly.
Since Jiang Que was already awake, there was no need to maintain his previous posture. He let Jiang Que down, stood up to stretch his body after napping all afternoon, and naturally said:
“By the way, I need to go to the company tomorrow to handle some things, just for the morning, and I’ll be back soon. You’ll be alone at home…”
Jiang Que: ?!?
He immediately grabbed Shen Tazhi, who had just stood up, with his tentacles, forcefully pressing him back onto the sofa, and with a stern attitude, he looked down at Shen Tazhi:
“No.”
After saying this, Jiang Que emphatically reiterated, “No, you said it yourself, I’m a little flower that needs emotional nourishment.”
“Gege, I’ll wither if I’m alone at home.”
