Chapter 77: The Devil’s Sacrifice (27)
“Please lie down on the examination table, Madam.”
Helan Duo’s voice, coming through the speaker, had lost its usual gentleness and composure. As if tainted by the static, it sounded a little cold and hoarse.
He sounded reluctant.
Yu Jiao didn’t think much of it, just assuming he was being awkward.
Awkward about his uncontrollable physiological reaction, awkward about his “betrayal” of his white moonlight, awkward about his calm heart being disturbed.
In fact, all his awkwardness stemmed from a deep-seated fear.
A fear of losing control.
Yu Jiao was a patient hunter. To avoid scaring away the alert prey completely, it was fine to cede a little initiative.
She did as he said and lay down on the examination table.
The moment she lay flat, a few mechanical arms shot out from the sides and clamped her tightly to the table. Her eyes were also covered by a restraining strap.
Now, Yu Jiao was completely passive.
Her movements were restricted, her vision was taken away… Why did Helan Duo’s awkwardness feel a little unusual this time?
Her ears twitched. She heard a ding from in front of her. It seemed a secret door in the lab had opened. Then, a rustling sound, accompanied by footsteps, approached directly, so faint it was creepy. It made Yu Jiao think of some kind of venomous snake.
It was the sound of wheels rolling on the ground. Yu Jiao didn’t realize anything was wrong, but she was instinctively uneasy.
“Helan Duo?” she called out softly.
As if she had thrown a stone into a vast, dark void, there was no response.
The rustling sound stopped beside Yu Jiao. A cool, short breath brushed past her bare skin, moving up her hand, as if some living thing were panting silently and violently.
“What is it?” Yu Jiao frowned.
Where she couldn’t see, Nie Hongshen shot Helan Duo a sidelong glance. Helan Duo pressed his lips together.
“…The Holy Sound Fish.”
The keyword opened the floodgates of her memory.
—The time she had met Nie Hongshen at the Holy Spring.
The fine fish eyes, the long, pointed fish mouth, and the dense, small teeth immediately appeared in Yu Jiao’s mind.
“…”
A feeling of disgust and a shiver ran over her skin.
Yu Jiao really couldn’t figure it out. This strange fish clearly looked similar to the fallen creatures in the turbid sea. How could their statuses be so different?
But now she had no time to think deeply. Her mind was filled with: “Take it away! Stay away from me.”
A muffled laugh.
Like the buzzing of a low-pitched instrument, it seemed to vibrate deep in her eardrum.
At this moment, Yu Jiao still hadn’t heard anything wrong. Her feelings of resistance occupied most of her mind.
“Helan Duo!” she said angrily.
Even though her vision was blocked and she couldn’t see anything, she turned her face away, trying to get away. Her pale white cheeks were flushed with a faint red from her anger, and her body was powerlessly bound to the examination table, like a vibrant, dripping flower, inviting one to crush it.
Nie Hongshen propped his chin on his hand, his mood excellent.
His long, thin pincer-like legs extended from his trouser legs and, through the Holy Sound Fish’s tail, he held it up. With a wicked intent, he let the fish’s mouth vaguely brush against her skin, back and forth, as if Yu Jiao were a fire for a roasted fish.
After a while, her angry voice subsided, and her face was abnormally calm.
“…”
Nie Hongshen’s eyebrow arched slightly. Like a greedy, naughty child, he pushed his advantage, trying to get her attention.
Swoosh—
A sharp afterimage flashed, and the fish that was suspended before Yu Jiao was torn apart, its blood splattering her all over.
Her delicate brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed.
A few crimson blood flowers landed on her snowy white yet indifferent cheek, giving her a deep, unfathomable beauty.
Helan Duo’s eyelashes twitched slightly.
At this moment, the triumphant pincer-like leg was slowly and deliberately using its sharp tip to lift the wide hem of her clothes. Like a predator at a meal, peeling away the outer skin of its prey, revealing the most tender and delicious flesh.
Smooth, delicate, and soft, mouth-wateringly tempting flesh.
Some places were stained with the blood that had soaked through the thin clothes, like a painting of red plums in the snow.
The long, thin wound from Yu Fenghe, from her chest to her abdomen, had almost healed, leaving only a faint red mark.
The only flaw on the scroll, the displeasure of being touched by someone.
Nie Hongshen narrowed his hawk eyes, and the hand that was propping his chin bent an index finger and, thoughtfully, tapped his lips.
He drove the pincer-like leg to dip into the gushing blood of the Holy Sound Fish and then, in front of Yu Jiao, as if writing an inscription, he wrote on the beautiful scroll, horizontally and vertically, one word at a time, slowly and deliberately:
—Little. Traitor.
The crimson characters were light and slender. Each stroke was deliberately applied with force, and as it was lightly hooked, it pressed a small dimple into her pale white skin, looking strangely magnificent and alluring.
He seemed to be enjoying himself, writing one after another. Like a dense, decadent spiderweb, full of silent resentment and cunning, it crawled over her body like a curse.
Anyone who saw this revenge would say: Extremely childish.
Helan Duo glanced at him again and again, wanting to say something but holding back.
“…”
Yu Jiao didn’t know who was writing, nor what was being written. She could only feel a numbing itch, like a strange, wicked tease.
“Dr. Helan,” she said darkly, “is this also part of the purification?”
Helan Duo: “…”
Under Nie Hongshen’s smiling gaze, he quietly looked at the bound, oblivious Yu Jiao.
Her white cult robe was half-off, piled in one place. The holy whiteness and the decadent, vibrant characters formed a stark contrast.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. The well-rehearsed lie was stuck in his throat. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to say.
—His brain might be diseased.
He should have been an indifferent, interested observer.
But now, he only felt as if he were standing on a swaying rope, a path that would surely lead to a fall. But to delay the fall, he could only brace himself and walk on.
Helan Duo had never felt such a subtle yet difficult fear. Even when he had watched Jiao Hongyue die in front of him, he had only felt a strong yet empty pain and anger.
…What was this feeling of falling that he was afraid of now?… Was it her disappointed, hurt gaze?
“Yes.”
—No.
Helan Duo curved his lips into a perfect smile, his voice tinged with an imperceptible dryness. In the end, he had spoken the well-rehearsed lie.
“Using the blood of the Holy Sound Fish to draw a talisman. This is part of the purification.”
He repeated.
It was unclear if he was trying to convince Yu Jiao or himself.
—It won’t happen. The fear she brings is just an illusion.
It is a diseased tissue that needs to be removed.
Helan Duo was like a cowardly hermit crab. He took out his perfect mask and showed a gentle, elegant, and refined expression—though he knew that the blindfolded Yu Jiao could not see.
“Madam, please rest assured. It will be over soon.”
His voice was warm and reliable.
As he spoke, he shot Nie Hongshen a warning look.
Receiving the hint, the deep purple eyes were filled with a thick smile, as if he were watching a drowning person struggle from the shore with great interest.
This was a rare moment of enjoyment in Nie Hongshen’s boring life.
He feigned a helpless tilt of his head, as if he were compromising. Alright, it’s over.
In contrast to his very easy-going expression, his pincer-like legs were exceptionally sharp—
It swiped the screen on the control panel.
The restraints that were binding Yu Jiao instantly disappeared, and she suddenly regained her freedom. Seeing that the blindfold was also about to be removed, Helan Duo no longer looked suave.
His pale green pupils constricted.
At this moment, he felt a strong sense of falling and drowning.
—If she found out about the writing on her body, and the smug Nie Hongshen on the side… with her intelligence, she would probably immediately realize: he had teamed up with Nie Hongshen to play a trick on her.
At that thought, Helan Duo’s whole body stiffened…
The moment the restraints were removed, his pale, long hair congealed into a scale-spine and shot out, covering her eyes.
She had regained her vision for less than half a second.
“…”
Yu Jiao: “?”
Nie Hongshen raised an eyebrow.
The air was filled with a strange, stagnant fragility.
“…Hmm.”
Helan Duo said dryly, “Though the purification is over, what I want to do is not over yet.”
He barely maintained his usual, unhurried pace.
Yu Jiao just thought he was playing some alluring little trick and laughed softly in cooperation. “Is that so?”
She was about to jump off the examination table, but because her vision was limited, she would have just happened to fall into Nie Hongshen’s arms—Helan Duo reacted quickly, and his long, bone tail shot out and wrapped around the disheveled, softly smiling woman.
She took the opportunity to wrap her long, slender, pale white arms around his neck, her voice light. “Then what is Lord Helan going to do to me?”
Lord Helan’s body was stiff.
The two bodies were pressed tightly together. It should have been a very intimate, passionate situation. It was just a pity that there was an unignorable gaze, staring at them, like a basin of cold water, poured over their heads.
Nie Hongshen was propping his chin on his hand, watching with great interest.
Meeting Helan Duo’s threatening gaze, he narrowed his eyes and, with a wicked intent, held a fist to his lips, feigning a cough.
A wisp of a scale-spine quickly covered Yu Jiao’s ears.
She was completely unaware of their confrontation. Her outstretched hand touched his high ponytail, and with a hook of her slender fingers, she pulled off his hair tie.
His long scale-spines and pale hair all fell loose.
Yu Jiao blinked curiously, and her long eyelashes brushed against the grey-white scale-spine.
The flesh-spine, which was covered in fine scales, was carefully placed on her face. The cold, biological organ and her beautiful face formed a non-human, strange, and seductive beauty.
She deliberately turned her head and rubbed her soft cheek against the cold, rough scale-spine.
Helan Duo’s jaw tightened slightly.
“Lord Helan, I want to see you with your hair down.”
She said softly.
With a spoiled, arrogant tone.
Perhaps because of his complex guilt, Helan Duo did not refuse her spoiled-like request. He hesitantly glanced at Nie Hongshen, who was not far away, and nonchalantly adjusted his angle to ensure that he was in Yu Jiao’s blind spot, and then, he slowly withdrew a few scale-spines.
Her cunning, bright grey eyes were revealed, and she looked up at him without blinking, a pure, almost admiring look.
Helan Duo lowered his eyelids, and his green eyes glanced to the side, uncomfortably.
On his usually composed face, a rare hint of a shy blush appeared.
—A person who had always had his hair neatly tied up, suddenly letting it down, the visual impact was no less than being disheveled.
His soft, light beige long hair fell on both sides of his jade-like cheeks, like a fairy in a painting, with green feathers and a bright, rosy skirt.
His round lips were pressed into a small, soft pout.
He was like a delicious pastry.
Yu Jiao smiled and cupped his face.
She ate him up in one bite.
“…”
Their lips and teeth were entangled.
Yu Jiao finally bit his alluring lips.
His round lips were hesitant. After she had attacked and taken over, they surrendered and also ground and entangled her.
The deadly, fierce bone tail turned into a soft, coiling finger, and it wrapped around her waist, over and over, as if to press her into his very bones. The other scattered long hair also congealed into clusters of long, thin scale-spines, and, like countless small snakes, they coiled and twisted around her body.
Her neck, earlobes, fingers, waist, back, and legs.
All-pervasive, with a spoiled, willful desire.
Helan Duo’s jade-like, golden face was flushed with a faint pink.
The holy statue had fallen and had become a beautiful Medusa of desire.
As if he were moved by passion, he supported her waist, his tense fingertips sinking into her soft, warm flesh.
Though his movements were implicitly forceful, his pale eyelashes trembled fragily, barely covering his green eyes, which had softened into water.
“…”
Realizing something, Yu Jiao blinked and slightly pushed him away.
Helan Duo was panting slightly, and he looked at her with a pair of cloudy, hazy green eyes. His tail and scale-spines were still uncontrollably rubbing against Yu Jiao.
This face, which was as exquisite as a scale, had now shed its mask, leaving only a hint of unfulfilled emptiness.
—It reminded her of the young Helan Duo from the virtual world.
“Helan,”
Yu Jiao cupped his face and quietly changed her address, pushing her advantage. “Let me see your tongue.”
“…”
A hint of hesitation flashed in his watery green eyes. He cautiously extended the tip of his tongue.
So obedient it was a little pitiful.
The pale pink tip of his tongue was not like a normal person’s, round and soft. It was actually forked into a few abnormal strands, like a softer, flatter scale-spine, or a mutated snake’s tongue.
—No wonder it felt strange to kiss him.
Like a startled snail, he retracted it in the blink of an eye.
He pressed his lips together and said awkwardly, “It’s ugly, isn’t it?… It’s the result of… biological modification.”
His gaze was lowered, and his voice was also low.
He seemed to know very well how to use this face to its full potential.
Yu Jiao smiled and hooked her arms around his neck, pulling him down. She said, one word at a time, what he wanted to hear. “How could it be… I like it very much.”
Her voice was low and husky, her enunciation ambiguous and teasing, as if she were holding his equally round and beautiful earlobe in her mouth as she spoke:
“It’s very suitable for little dog Helan.”
“…”
His ears turned red.
“Use it… to do what a little dog should do.”
A cigarette was between his fingers, and it seemed it could burn without being lit.
—Because the air here was very hot.
Nie Hongshen: “…”
Faced with this passionate “good show,” at this moment, he seemed both redundant and self-tormenting.
His original, childish plan of revenge was to pretend to be Helan Duo and, when Yu Jiao was dazed and immersed in a gentle land, to suddenly reveal the truth—to give her a heavy, spiritual sense of humiliation.
He had not expected Helan Duo to go back on his word and to stop him.
But it was a small matter. He had no intention of breaking with this beast in human form. After all, the two of them still had a cooperation.
But he had not expected—
His partner had gotten together with the little traitor.
Nie Hongshen clicked his tongue and lit a cigarette, taking a long, sad drag.
The smoke drifted away.
Helan Duo looked up.
He was buried in Yu Jiao’s neck. When he looked over, his eyes were like sharp silk blades, and he looked at Nie Hongshen from a distance.
His green pupils were a thin line, and there was none of the softness and shyness he had had when he was facing the woman. There was only a coldness and a killing intent. He was like a cold-blooded animal, guarding its food.
Pretending.
Nie Hongshen sneered with disdain.
A beast in human form.
“…”
The beast in human form shot him a cold glance and, while holding the woman in his arms, he sent out a few strands of his scale-spines and, nonchalantly, tapped the screen.
He activated the air purification mode and sucked away the smoke Nie Hongshen had created.
Then, he used the same trick and covered Yu Jiao’s eyes with his scale-spines. He gently picked her up and walked to the secret inner room.
The moment the automatic door closed, he shot Nie Hongshen a petty, sidelong glance.
A look of a stingy person, guarding his treasure, afraid of it being stolen.
Nie Hongshen was disdainful.
He’s not happy to see it, and besides—
His dark purple eyes shifted slightly, and he glanced with great interest at the huge, glass water wall.
—He was not the only one in the audience.
In the sparkling, deep water, a half-human, half-beast aquatic monster was suspended. Its dense scales were glowing with a blue-purple light, as mysterious and magnificent as a glimpse of a god.
It was quietly swaying its long, dragon-snake-like tail. It slowly pressed its claws against the glass wall, and its face, which had been favored by the creator, was slightly tilted, as if in puzzlement.
Just now, it had been staring at the two, who were shamelessly entangled, without blinking.
Its dark blue, beast-like eyes were like burning ghost fires, moving inch by inch, closely following their disappearing backs.
…
When Helan Duo came out, Nie Hongshen had already finished three cigarettes.
“Tsk.”
Nie Hongshen was holding a cigarette and deliberately looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes. It seems experiment [A81] is not as miraculous as the legends say.”
Sarcastic.
Helan Duo: “…”
At this moment, he was neatly dressed, as pure as the moon and the wind. He did not look at all like he had been indulging in pleasure twenty minutes ago.
He curled his lips into a smile and retorted, “I can’t compare to the naturally heteromorphic Mr. Nie.”
Their gazes met, as if a silent, short-bladed battle were taking place.
Nie Hongshen let out a cold puff of smoke, his gaze like a cold, electric light. “Isn’t Lord Helan supposed to be deeply in love? How is it that in just a few short years, you’ve fallen for someone else?”
Helan Duo smiled and uttered four words, “A matter of convenience.”
Nie Hongshen flicked the ash from his cigarette and said coolly, “Your feelings, which are subservient to power, are really worthless.”
Helan Duo’s gaze shifted slightly, and he glanced at the two long, thin, coiled pincer-like legs on the ground—this guy had shed the pincer-like legs that had touched Yu Jiao.
He said, noncommittally, “It’s not as if you’re bowing and scraping, as devoted as if you were a widow.”
Nie Hongshen was not annoyed.
He had a huge secret in his heart that no one knew—the activity of the [sub-insect] in his body made him sure: Jiao Hongyue was back.
With the real thing to be found, he naturally no longer looked at the “fake.”
And he also looked down on the fool who treated the “fake” as a treasure.
At this moment, he was filled with an unspeakable sense of superiority. He lowered his eyes and smiled frankly. “Who isn’t one of her begging, tail-wagging dogs?”
“Oh, no,” his well-defined fingers stubbed out the cigarette. He lifted his deep hawk eyes, his voice rich, his enunciation elegant. “You are a two-faced—despicable dog.”
Special Observation Room
Yu Jiao was naked, with only a thin blanket draped over her. Through the reflection of the glassware, she looked at the golden choker on her neck.
Her delicate brow slowly furrowed.
She had thought this was just a sign of protest, but she had not expected it to have a strange ability.
Just now, when she was kissing Helan Duo, Yu Jiao had felt a difficulty in breathing—at that time, she had not yet realized that it was the choker’s doing—and when the two of them were about to get more intimate, the choker had tightened even more. That was why she had had to stop.
…That dead ghost had actually thought of such a devious, vicious way to stop her from capturing him.
Just as she was thinking this, a familiar black gas rose, and a cold, cold voice sounded:
“I was just helping you to see the true face of that hypocrite.”
A hateful face gradually appeared in the black gas. Yu Fenghe raised his thick, black eyebrows and said coolly, “Look, without the attraction of the□□, how much of his feelings for you are left?”
Yu Jiao snorted. “Then you’ll be disappointed—he’s obsessed with my□□. He just said that he’ll find a way to take off this choker.”
Though she said that, Yu Jiao knew that without taking Helan Duo down when his mind was shaken, with his cautious, overthinking personality, he would probably hide from her for a while.
She sighed inwardly.
Yu Fenghe was holding his wide, complicated sleeves and was floating leisurely in front of Yu Jiao. “Then let’s see if he can take it off.”
His tone was like he was sure of victory, which was quite punchable.
Yu Jiao was so angry she turned her back.
He was like a kite being pulled, and with an unconscious punchability, he once again floated in front of Yu Jiao.
His pale, cold face was smug as he leaned in close. His downturned eyes, without warning, glanced at the mottled red marks on her body. His face darkened, and he flicked his sleeve and snorted.
“A male prostitute and a female thief.”
—It was a good thing that he used a different idiom every time he cursed.
“Old-fashioned,”
This time, she crossed her arms and leaned forward. “I’d like to see when you run out of words.”
She looked at him in a fierce, pressing way.
Her glistening grey gaze was cold, and her exposed skin was soft and warm.
Though Yu Fenghe’s face was filled with ‘unbearable to look at’, he had no intention of leaving. He just berated her, “Put on your clothes. What do you look like?”
“Anyway, it’s not like I’m a widow for you.”
Yu Jiao retorted, approaching his dodging gaze. Suddenly, her eyes caught a glimpse of something strange. She looked at the central pool.
A pair of dark blue, beast-like eyes were quietly staring at her, like a curious cat, or a child, peeking at their parents’ fight.
—[Z0]
Seeing Yu Jiao look over, though it had no expression, its drooping fins and spines were wagging happily.
The next moment, Yu Fenghe turned his gaze over, and the little monster immediately changed its attitude, glaring, wrinkling its face, and letting out a threatening, low roar.
…It was just a pity that its mouth was under the water, and when it made a sound, gurgling bubbles came out.
A little cute.
Faced with its hostility, Yu Fenghe was quite disdainful and only shot it a disdainful, cold glance.
Yu Jiao curled her lips and, in a good mood, walked towards the little guy who was on her side.
Seeing her approach, Z0 stopped making a sound and stared at her without blinking, as obedient as could be.
Yu Jiao squatted down, propped her chin on her hand, and seriously observed it for a long moment. Suddenly, she reached out a fingertip and touched its forehead, which was covered in fine scales.
A wet, cool, and sticky feeling.
[Z0]’s face was blank, and its long tail was wagging happily under the water. It looked very happy.
“…”
Yu Jiao looked back and stared at Yu Fenghe, who was sitting cross-legged, suspended in the air. Her upturned, cat-like eyes were shining with a mischievous light, and she said slowly:
“Your choker, is it only effective on those three, or does it include all male creatures?”
Her intention was quite obvious.
Yu Fenghe immediately darkened his face.