In winter, the days were short and the nights came quickly. By seven o'clock, darkness had already swallowed the sky.
One by one, neon lights blinked to life, flickering in the dark like schools of colorful tropical fish.
In the shifting glow of the lights, Zhou Jiao raised her arm and hooked it around Jiang Lian's neck. She blinked at him, mischievously fluttering her lashes.
Jiang Lian's expression remained frozen and cold, as if he hadn't even heard her question. He didn't speak for a long while.
Zhou Jiao glanced down at the dagger on the ground, a trace of regret in her eyes.
She knew the dagger couldn't hurt him.
Even if he willingly tore open his body and offered up his heart to her blade, the result would still be the same—her weapon corroded, melted into a pool of viscous slime.
He was just that powerful.
A higher life form—more than just long-lived or strong—his body contained elements that far exceeded human understanding of the microscopic world.
Sometimes, what we call a "god" is merely a being from another dimension.
She had already understood this. His contempt for humanity wasn't rooted in emotion—it was simply the result of ancient, unchanging natural law.
Put plainly, it was like the relationship between humans and ants.
You can tell others that you don't look down on ants, but do you truly care about an ant's life?
Do you think like an ant, try to understand what it's thinking?
Except for entomologists, who really would go that far?
And even entomologists don't concern themselves with the fate of a single ant. They care about species, colonies, ecosystems—not individuals.
But Jiang Lian's attention toward her… had begun to cross those boundaries.
Zhou Jiao remembered it well. Even when he first fixated on her with that unnatural hunger, there had been nothing human in his gaze.
—He had sniffed her obsessively, tasted her saliva with crazed devotion—but he hadn't seen her.
Which made sense. After all, you don't stop to examine every single grain of rice while you eat. You don't care if they're round, full, or cracked.
But at some point, his eyes had glued themselves to her—and never looked away.
Maybe it started when she barely escaped being consumed by him.
Maybe it was the times she slipped from his killing intent.
Maybe it was the three days she went missing—and he experienced a kind of uncontrollable withdrawal.
After all, withdrawal doesn't only come from addictive drugs. If you grow used to someone's presence—really used to them—their absence can trigger a reaction just as intense.
Zhou Jiao didn't know how long that reaction would last in someone like Jiang Lian. She didn't know if he even could feel affection. But she could blur the lines between instinct and emotion.
At night, Yucheng glowed brighter than at any time during the day—like a glass ornament lit from within by a thousand colored lights.
The neon signs flickered in the puddles on the street.
Zhou Jiao tilted her head up and smiled at Jiang Lian. Her smile had never been sweeter—never more seductive.
She could almost see the rope tightening, inch by inch, around the beast's throat.
As if sensing danger, the beast glared at her with cold, terrifying eyes. It began to thrash—fierce, feral—ready to pounce at any moment.
But in the end, the beast stilled.
It let the rope coil around its throat.
This was the moment she should've stopped.
She should have remembered—Jiang Lian was dangerous. Unknowable. Untameable.
She had remembered. Up until now, she had avoided letting things go too far, avoided anything too strange between them.
But the thought of pulling that rope tighter… it stirred something in her. It made her restless. And she cast aside every last shred of caution.
She smiled, meeting Jiang Lian's gaze without fear, her eyes glittering with unveiled malice.
—Why do you care so much about me?
—Aren't I nothing but an ant in your eyes?
Why would someone like him be so desperate to protect an ant?
When Jiang Lian remained silent, she asked again, softly:
"Jiang Lian… don't tell me you've fallen for me?"
His face grew even colder.
His first instinct was confusion—what does 'falling for someone' even mean? Why would he like her?
But almost immediately, Jiang Lian's internal knowledge system supplied the answer:
"Love" is a complex phenomenon influenced by social factors, combining physiological, psychological, and subjective emotional experiences.¹
Biologically speaking, emotions like affection resemble chemical reactions, driven by hormones and neurotransmitters—primarily adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.²
Recent studies suggest neural chips can simulate love-like emotions in the human brain by modulating neural activity.
But beyond hormones and neurotransmitters, love also depends on specific social contexts—thus, its definition remains contested.
Jiang Lian looked at Zhou Jiao and gave a cold, mirthless twist of his lips, as if trying to smile.
He had never met another of his kind.
Human theories of society and evolution held no relevance to him.
If not for being forced into a human-compatible dimension, humans wouldn't even perceive him.
Because of his immortality, people once worshipped him as a god. Entire cults formed in his name.
But anyone who tried to understand him ended up descending into madness, delirium, and horror.
Just as ants cannot comprehend human existence.
A line of ants might struggle to carry a sugar cube—yet a single human finger can crush them all.
If ants ever knew of humans… would they find life meaningless? Would they think existence itself a cruel joke?
He was to humanity… what humanity was to ants.
And now this ant thought he could fall in love with her?
"I don't love anything," Jiang Lian said coldly.
He was incapable of affection.
Once he left this human vessel, he wouldn't even remember her scent.
"You're delusional," he said, voice glacial. "I could never love you."
Perhaps his words might've been more convincing… if his eyes weren't clinging to her like some cold, wet parasite.
Zhou Jiao had only meant to tease him. If it unsettled him a little, all the better.
But his reaction exceeded her expectations.
Could this monster really… like her?
A sharp alarm went off in Zhou Jiao's mind.
A monster's love wouldn't be protective or selfless.
If he truly liked her, his desire could become even more twisted, more deranged, more dangerous.
He might even start to see her as food.
Her brain fired at full speed, every nerve screaming at her to stop playing games with Jiang Lian.
She couldn't afford his affection.
Things were already bad enough—she didn't need to make it worse.
And yet, despite all her instincts warning her, she lifted her injured hand and quietly asked:
"You really don't like me?"
Jiang Lian's gaze dropped to her hand.
After a long pause, he said, icily, "I don't."
Zhou Jiao knew, rationally, this was where she needed to stop.
But the reckless part of her pushed forward—she pressed into the wound on her palm, hard, and let thick drops of blood fall freely.
She asked again: "Are you sure you don't?"
In that instant, the feverish hunger in Jiang Lian's eyes made her skin crawl.
For a moment, she thought those eyes might actually birth tentacles—writhing, starving, desperate to devour her.
This has gone too far.
She told herself to stop. But instead, like something possessed, she brought her wounded hand to her lips and licked it—right in front of him.
Warm blood flooded her mouth. A trail of white mist curled from her lips as hot blood met cold air.
Jiang Lian stared at her, motionless—but his nose twitched, sharply. He began to inhale, fast and deep, drawing in the breath she exhaled.
With each breath he took, blood-filled tentacles bloomed behind his eyes. His gaze filled with a grotesque, consuming hunger.
His eyes never left her. They seemed to gnaw at her with nothing but their stare.
And still, his voice came quiet and calm, as if dead to the world:
"I don't like you. I'll never like you."
Zhou Jiao tilted her head up and kissed him.
The metallic tang of blood swirled between their lips.
Even though he repeated over and over that he would never love her, the moment their lips touched, he began to gulp her down in great, desperate swallows.
Perhaps because of how powerful he was, he never bothered to hide his instincts or desires.
If he craved her scent, he inhaled her deeply.
If he wanted her saliva, he devoured it greedily.
If he wanted to look at her, his gaze never strayed from her face.
If he wanted her to live, he would leap from a rooftop with her in his arms—exposing his weaknesses without hesitation, just to shield her with his body.
His obsession with her was raw, unfiltered.
And yet, bound by some natural law he seemed to hold sacred, he insisted that he did not love her.
This contradiction made Zhou Jiao want to tease him—
Even if such teasing might cost her her life.
That long-forgotten impulse roared back to life inside her, boiling through her veins.
She wanted to see this "god," so untouchable and omnipotent, stripped of his lofty composure.
She wanted to see those indifferent eyes of his turn lustful, needy, restless.
Zhou Jiao ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him more deeply.
She kissed him with unnerving ease—every time he tried to press down on her lips, to frantically drink in her taste, she would grab his hair and forcefully pull him away.
But just as his eyes began to clear from the haze of obsession, she'd lean in again, capturing his tongue and feeding him her breath and warmth.
It was a kiss thick and sticky—
So wet it felt like threads of silk could stretch between their lips.
Time seemed to slow.
Jiang Lian was in agony.
Unnoticed, fine rain began to fall from the sky.
Her lips and tongue were drenched in the cold droplets—yet scalded him like fire.
Jiang Lian could not drown. And yet now, he finally understood the pain of drowning—
Every time he sank into her kiss, she yanked him back by the hair.
And just as he caught his breath and regained control, she pulled him under again.
This constant back and forth, the push and pull, was driving him insane.
More than once, he wanted to bind her hands with his tentacles, to kiss her savagely and without restraint.
But every time he saw that teasing glint in her eyes, he forcefully suppressed the urge.
Her eyes said:
What, are you really going to kiss me?
Didn't you say you don't like me?
Can't hide it anymore, huh?
Jiang Lian stared at her coldly, killing intent flashing in his eyes—so sharp and deadly it seemed he might rip out her eyes and then kiss her senseless.
He could have.
But he didn't.
He remained perfectly still, letting her kiss him again and again, only to pull away once more.
But the last time, she didn't kiss him.
Instead, their eyes locked, noses brushing. She exhaled softly across his lips.
The rain misted around them. Her eyes seemed to glow with a sultry, honeyed haze.
His Adam's apple bobbed—he couldn't stop himself from inhaling that breath.
At this point, what more was there to say?
Even if he claimed a thousand times that he didn't love her,
One exhale from her lips was enough to make him swallow everything whole.
Zhou Jiao wrapped one arm around his neck.
With the other, she pressed lightly against his throat, feeling the tense motion of his swallow.
Her eyes and her touch said: You've fallen for me.
But what she said aloud was,
"Well, if you don't like me, then I guess you won't care if I kiss someone else."
Jiang Lian didn't hear a word she said.
Because the moment her voice fell, she kissed him again—just a brief brush this time.
With each round, her teasing had worn down his reason, pushing his craving to terrifying heights.
If you put his body under a medical scanner right now, you'd see his heart rate, body temperature, and neural activity had surpassed every human limit.
If she kissed him just once more, he would fall.
Completely and utterly.
But Zhou Jiao didn't kiss him again.
Instead, her gaze swept around. Not far off, she spotted a bar.
Behind it, crates of beer bottles and plastic garbage bags piled up in the alley.
A few men were "corpse hunting" there—waiting for drunk girls to stumble out, ready to drag them off.
Even though night had just fallen, some were already in position.
Just then, a girl staggered out the back door.
She was about to collapse when a man rushed up to catch her. He tried to drag her toward a hotel—
Only to be blocked by Zhou Jiao.
The man thought she was just another nosy do-gooder. He sneered, about to tell her to screw off,
When she suddenly smiled—charming, seductive:
"Excuse me… may I kiss you?"
Under the glaring neon signs, her cold, elegant features looked like a tea blossom—pure white but dangerously beautiful.
The man was dazed. He loosened his grip on the drunken girl and nodded dumbly.
Zhou Jiao tilted her head, crooked a finger at him.
He took a step forward—
And in the next instant, a tremendous force slammed into him.
Like being struck by a ten-ton truck, he was flung through the air and crashed against the brick wall at the end of the alley with a deafening bang.
A wave of icy cold washed through the air.
The temperature plummeted.
The drunk girl snapped awake in terror and fled.
Cars on the nearby street blared their horns.
Drivers were frozen in shock.
Police drones buzzed overhead, scanning the scene.
Zhou Jiao turned back, feigning surprise as she looked at Jiang Lian:
"What's wrong? I thought you didn't like me?"
But the moment their eyes met, she couldn't ignore the chill crawling up her spine.
His expression was dark, twisted.
Blood-red veins writhed violently in his eyes.
Two violently clashing emotions warred within him—so ferociously that his face twisted inhumanly.
Her skilled seduction had finally pushed him to the edge—
All that pressure collapsed in a flood.
For the first time, Zhou Jiao couldn't ignore the primal warning screaming in her bones.
She shivered. Took a step back.
It all happened in a split second.
Like a slow-motion scene from a film—
As she stepped back, a crack split open on Jiang Lian's body.
Tentacles erupted through the rain and shadows, shooting straight toward her.
He still didn't believe he loved her.
But he knew this:
To take. To possess.
This creature before him had to be his.
He didn't love her.
But he would have her—
At any cost.