Zhou Jiao tried every possible way to coax Jiang Lian out of the connection.
Ah, her head finally felt clear!
Zhou Jiao let out a long sigh, still feeling a lingering sense of dread from the sensation of Jiang Lian being in her mind.
She couldn't quite describe the feeling.
Talking face to face, yet communicating through each other's minds, every word he spoke would send a violent chill through her body, accompanied by a tingling, almost painful sensation, like she had caught a feverish illness.
It made her feel like she was in danger.
The alarm bells in her mind rang loudly.
What made her feel even more uneasy was the way Jiang Lian looked at her.
Although he had withdrawn from the connection as she wished, his gaze was still fixated on her.
Cold, greedy, his presence overwhelming.
Like thousands of delicate silken threads, trying to wrap around her, over and over, until they had her cocooned, a bundle he could carry around with him.
Zhou Jiao didn't understand what he wanted.
This had happened several times today.
Every time she thought he was looking at her like he wanted to kill her, there was no murderous intent in his presence.
So why did he look like he wanted to kill her?
Zhou Jiao pondered, pushing Jiang Lian aside for now, and reopened the map the seller had sent. She decided to focus on cracking the credit chip first.
If this were a horror movie, she would be trying to shake Jiang Lian off, going to a small shop alone to crack the chip, only to turn around and find Jiang Lian waiting for her.
But Zhou Jiao had no interest in doing that.
Not only because she knew she couldn't escape Jiang Lian's gaze, but also because this small shop likely contained a lot of goods from the black market—guns were nothing, but she was more concerned about landmines or turret traps.
She couldn't go to a dangerous place like that alone, not without Jiang Lian.
With that thought, Zhou Jiao sat up from the bed.
She originally wanted to just ask Jiang Lian to come with her, but when her eyes met his unwavering gaze, she hesitated. She slowly lay back down, propping her face on one hand, extending a foot to gently tap his pant leg.
He continued to stare at her, but slightly tilted his head, almost as if asking her what she meant.
Zhou Jiao blinked twice, looking up at him from below. "Will you go with me to a place later?"
After several encounters, Zhou Jiao had figured out that he really liked it when she looked up at him like that.
Actually, she didn't need to ask, but after what had just happened, she wanted to test him, to see if it had affected him in any strange way.
Jiang Lian's gaze shifted downward, stopping at her foot.
Zhou Jiao saw his pupils contract and expand, as if some intense emotion was fighting inside of him.
"You…" he started to speak.
Zhou Jiao suddenly became nervous.
What if he hadn't been affected by what had just happened and now, because of this gesture, he had developed all sorts of strange thoughts?
Was her charm really that... overwhelming?
Considering his obsessive fascination with her scent, she wasn't sure anymore.
For a moment, she forgot all about weighing the pros and cons, her mind consumed by a strange excitement.
The fact that Jiang Lian was so obsessed with her made her feel thrilled.
— Even though his obsession was mixed with malice, murderous intent, and a dangerous hunger.
Perhaps, she could try entering his mind, stimulating his neurons, and maybe she could find a weakness…
Just as this thought crossed her mind, she heard Jiang Lian ask, "Why did you tap me with your foot?"
"…." Zhou Jiao said coldly, "...Just answer me, will you go with me or not?"
Jiang Lian nodded.
Zhou Jiao immediately got up from the bed and walked toward the bathroom. After kicking out all the tentacles inside, she closed the frosted glass door and turned on the shower.
The sound of water began.
Jiang Lian still watched her.
His expression gave nothing away, but if you looked closely, his head and neck had twisted into an unusual angle, almost like a doll that had its head twisted this way.
Jiang Lian had done this instinctively.
— His gaze was still fixed on Zhou Jiao.
Especially after she had tapped him with her foot, he couldn't look away.
He didn't understand why she did that, nor did he understand the allure of the gesture.
But he just couldn't take his eyes off her.
The steam from the shower soon fogged up the frosted glass, making the figure within barely visible, with only the wet, dripping light casting shadows.
The sound of water, the heat, the light.
All of it kept his gaze glued to her.
Countless tentacles clung to the bathroom, stretching and wriggling, growing as thin as spider silk, trying to slip inside, wiping away the mist on the glass, only to retreat due to some unseen force, instead nervously sniffing at the air escaping from inside.
They wanted to look at her.
— You won't let us eat her, won't let us smell her, won't let us touch her for long.
— Now, we can't even look at her?
Jiang Lian said nothing.
He stood up, took his coat from the hanger, and put it on, carefully buttoning the cuffs.
There was a full-length mirror on the wall, covered with sticky tape, surrounded by neon lights in deep reds and soft greens.
The cracked mirror reflected his tall, cold, and handsome figure.
— Yet his gaze was like the dirty sticky tape on the wall, glued tightly to the frosted glass door.
Jiang Lian buttoned his cuffs without raising his eyes, snapped his fingers, and crushed the consciousness of several tentacles closest to the bathroom, signaling — not allowed.
--
Zhou Jiao felt much more comfortable after her shower.
She tied her hair up, put on her clothes, and came out of the bathroom. To her surprise, all the tentacles inside had disappeared, as if they had never been there.
Jiang Lian was standing by the door, waiting for her.
She couldn't shake the feeling that his gaze had become even stranger, like some thick, sticky liquid was flowing over her skin.
Zhou Jiao was so creeped out that she instinctively stood as far away from him as possible in the elevator.
Of course, part of it was because of his gaze, and also because of habit. After all, in the last six months, whenever she met Jiang Lian in special operations, she tried to keep as much distance as possible.
She thought that Jiang Lian only liked her scent, and that it didn't matter where she stood. However, before the elevator doors could even close, a tentacle reached out and yanked her toward him, pulling her to the side.
Jiang Lian's voice came from above her head: "Don't stay too far away from me."
His tone was calm, but the force of the tentacle almost cut her in half.
Zhou Jiao broke into a cold sweat as she felt her brows twitch slightly. The elevator was so small, barely a meter square. No matter how close she stood to the wall, it was impossible to be far from him. Was it really necessary to use so much force?
She almost wanted to fry that tentacle alive but weakly muttered, "...You're hurting me."
As soon as the words left her mouth, the tentacle disappeared, its speed so fast that it seemed to be fleeing in a panic.
Jiang Lian looked down at her for a moment, then said slowly, "I didn't use much force."
Zhou Jiao weakly waved her hand: Fine, we carbon-based beings are just too fragile.
The shop to crack the chip was at the bottom of a viaduct, in an area with a distinctive landscape: on one side, lush plants, unceasing traffic, and tall, grey buildings; on the other side, a pile of garbage, chaotic shacks, and a sewage ditch shining with rainbow-like colors under the sunlight.
Zhou Jiao found the doorbell to the shack and pressed it.
A voice quickly sounded from the speaker: "Who is it?"
"A customer."
"What business?"
"Cracking a credit chip."
"5%," the voice replied. "After the chip is cracked, 5% of the money in the account goes to us. Agree, and come in. Otherwise, leave."
Zhou Jiao cursed under her breath.
What a scam.
She had 30,000 yuan in her card, a mix of dollars and new yen. Right now, the yen was worth more than the dollar, which meant she'd have to pay them 2,000 USD. Why not just rob her?
"What's your decision?" the voice asked.
"Fine," Zhou Jiao gritted her teeth. "Open the door."
At that moment, Jiang Lian's voice sounded in her ear: "If you don't like it, I can kill them."
"..."
Zhou Jiao thought to herself: don't put the blame on me, I can tell you just want to kill people.
"...Don't do anything rash," she said.
Zhou Jiao feared he'd really kill everyone, so she reached out and grabbed his hand.
Jiang Lian stared at her hand for a while, seemingly setting aside his murderous intent for the moment. But when she walked in and shook hands with the person inside, that cold, chilling killing intent once again enveloped the hut, causing the temperature around them to drop suddenly.
Zhou Jiao shuddered and turned around, only to find that he was indeed staring at the two hands she was shaking, his eyes burning with a vicious rage, almost overflowing.
Zhou Jiao quickly let go of the other person's hand and clasped Jiang Lian's five fingers with her own, gently shaking them to signal him not to act impulsively.
The next second, her body stiffened slightly.
She felt a crack appear in the palm of Jiang Lian's hand, from which a damp, cold tongue slowly emerged, licking her fingers bit by bit.
It was as though he was trying to cover the unfamiliar scent from the other person's hand, but also like a warning — don't shake hands with anyone else.
The cold, eerie touch made her skin crawl.
Zhou Jiao's whole body stiffened, her back prickling, wanting to shake off his hand but not daring to.
Some people cast curious glances her way, so she could only force a polite smile and apologize, "...Sorry, I have..."
She racked her brain, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. After a long pause, she squeezed out a sentence from between her teeth, "I have skin hunger. I can't be apart from my boyfriend."
Before the surrounding people could respond, Jiang Lian was the first to react. A strange appendage, which seemed to have come from nowhere, excitedly wriggled and slithered its way into her sleeve.
Zhou Jiao didn't think he understood her words. He didn't even understand why she was extending her foot, so how could he get this? He was just eager to wriggle about!
She gritted her teeth, grabbed the appendage, and shoved it back into Jiang Lian's clothes.
The surrounding people, though puzzled, seemed to understand her peculiarities but insisted that only the patient could enter the operating room.
Zhou Jiao didn't dare to look at their expressions. From an outsider's perspective, the way she and Jiang Lian were holding hands — with an unimaginable force binding them together — would seem completely abnormal to any ordinary person.
Zhou Jiao struggled for a long time, drawing several big promises for Jiang Lian, and finally managed to coax him into releasing her hand temporarily.
Rubbing her hand, she walked into the operating room, wondering if it was just her illusion, but Jiang Lian's attitude had seemed very strange lately.
If before, his attitude toward her had been somewhere between killing intent and desire, now it seemed to have developed a sticky, glue-like quality, blending the two together into a new, dangerous, and thick impulse.
...The obsession with her scent had already placed her on the edge of life and death multiple times. Was he going to develop a craving to devour her now?
The thought made Zhou Jiao shudder even more.
At this moment, she paused in her steps, her eyelashes slightly narrowing.
She saw someone she hadn't expected to find in the "operating room."
— Xie Yueze.
He was sitting behind several monitors, playing Tetris.
Each block was falling three times faster than normal, yet his movements were still smooth, always keeping them at the lowest possible position.
Zhou Jiao thought that if she hadn't come in, the score in the top-left corner would probably have reached a terrifying number.
As if hearing her footsteps, Xie Yueze put down his mouse, letting the blocks fall, and turned to give Zhou Jiao a slight smile, saying, "Sorry, Jiao Jiao, I've caused you to lose your job."
Zhou Jiao didn't bother with pleasantries. "You didn't die?"
Xie Yueze smiled bitterly. "I can explain."
Zhou Jiao crossed her arms and made a cold, guarded "please" gesture.
Xie Yueze stood up, pulled on a pair of blue rubber gloves, and motioned for her to sit on a worn leather chair.
"Your credit chip's been frozen, right? Hand me your connection cable. I'll unlock it for you while I explain everything."
Zhou Jiao stared at him for a moment, then lifted her hand to brush aside her hair, revealing the interface behind her ear. She pulled out a connector cable.
Some people had theirs installed in the palm for convenience.
She chose the back of her ear precisely because it was inconvenient.
She didn't want to grow too dependent on tech. She didn't want to be swept away by corporate marketing and become just another gadget in a never-ending upgrade cycle.
"No tricks," Zhou Jiao said coolly. "You and I both know—I could kill you without even trying."
Xie Yueze took her cable and plugged it into the console, his voice low.
"…Of course I know."
He had always had some fondness for Zhou Jiao, but over the past couple of days, her actions had completely stunned him.
She had somehow survived the combined threat of Jiang Lian and BioTech.
When the AI ran the survival odds, the result had been 0.038%.
No one knew how she pulled it off.
She was strong, resilient, unbreakable—a miracle in this neon jungle.
"You didn't hide your identity online," Xie Yueze said as he worked. "There's a lot of hostility toward 'company people' out there. The moment your identity slipped, people started trying to doxx you. That website the seller gave you? It was tracking your location in real time. By the time I realized what was happening, they were already discussing how to lure you to an underground clinic…"
Of course Zhou Jiao knew how dangerous it was to browse black markets with an unencrypted identity. She'd only let her guard down because Jiang Lian had been with her.
She interrupted Xie Yueze, voice icy.
"Thanks for the warning. I'll be more careful next time. Now tell me—what confidential data of mine did you get your hands on?"
This time, Xie Yueze was silent for a long moment before replying,
"I'll tell you. But... I need to use a different method."
As he spoke, he initiated a chip-sharing request.
Zhou Jiao: "…"
She accepted it, though her expression was unreadable.
That expression didn't last long—Xie Yueze's next words wiped it right off her face.
"The chip situation is way worse than you think," Xie Yueze said quietly, enunciating each word. "Every single case of people going insane because of their chips—it's no accident. It's BioTech's design."
Zhou Jiao's expression shifted.
"Everyone knows BioTech is pushing the limits of the human body. They think it's about human trials, about merging humans with mutants. But no one realizes there's something even crueler, even more terrifying—and more efficient—than body experiments…"
Xie Yueze's voice dropped.
"Customer data."
Zhou Jiao felt a chill ripple through her.
"The intranet shows that BioTech isn't clueless about the 'chip lunatics'," Xie Yueze continued grimly. "On the contrary—ever since chip development began, they've kept meticulous records of every single case. It's as if there were 24/7 surveillance cameras recording those people's lives."
"And as far back as 2049, they already knew: the human body can handle at most two biotic chips. Any more, and you get complications—rejection, emotional instability, even violent behavior."
Zhou Jiao shut her eyes tightly.
"You're saying—they knew. BioTech knew that the human body couldn't handle more than two chips, and they still aggressively promoted and forced implantations, all while monitoring employees nonstop to extract the kind of data they can't get in a lab?"
"Yes," Xie Yueze said, and there was a flicker of admiration in his eyes. "Every bit of chip activity uploads directly into BioTech's central system—even this conversation. But 'it' doesn't care what we say. 'It' knows we can't threaten its control."
Zhou Jiao pressed her fingertips to her brow.
She recalled the explosion from her dream and couldn't help shivering.
For a moment, that deranged man in the dream didn't feel like a person anymore—just a tool. A cog. A matchstick burned to the end.
Alive, he was company data.
Dead, he was still company data.
—Everyone in that train car was company data.
Even her parents.
Maybe her face looked too shaken, because Xie Yueze reached out, gently took her hand, and brushed his nose against her fingers. His voice softened.
"Don't be afraid. I'll protect you. I don't know exactly where Jiang Lian came from, but I know you want to be free of him. I'll do everything I can—"
This time, Zhou Jiao's expression really changed. Grief forgotten, she yanked her hand away with alarm.
"Don't say that—!"
Jiang Lian is right outside! Stop talking like that!
The last thing she wanted was to be licked again by one of those freakish appendages!
Even if you do want to help me ditch Jiang Lian, could you at least not say it out loud?!
Her right eyelid started twitching violently.
Jiang Lian had definitely heard Xie Yueze.
She could already feel the air growing colder, the temperature slowly plummeting, the atmosphere turning to ice.
At this rate, Jiang Lian's tentacle was going to twist Xie Yueze's head off at any second.
Zhou Jiao summoned every ounce of strength she had and kicked Xie Yueze away, yanking her hand back coldly.
"Who said I want to get rid of him? He's my boyfriend. I love him so much I developed skin hunger—I need to cling to him to stay alive."
Xie Yueze: "..."
Zhou Jiao: "..."
They stared at each other in silence.
After a while, Xie Yueze muttered,
"…If I remember correctly, he can sprout those octopus-like limbs, right?"
Zhou Jiao hadn't expected him to remember that. Her face stiffened.
Looking at her frozen expression, Xie Yueze lowered his voice.
"If this is something you're being forced into—"
"I'm not being forced."
Zhou Jiao interrupted coldly, burying her shame as deep as possible.
"I like it like that."
Xie Yueze: "..."