Chapter 44: This Isn’t the Time to Show Off Your Love, Okay?

“Want to eat me?” 

Qin Hongyi casually picked up a steel rebar, weighed it in her hand, and sneered coldly. 

“That depends on whether your teeth are hard enough.”

Two terrifying killing intents clashed in the air.

Gu Chen, caught in the middle, felt like a tattered kite in the eye of a typhoon.

If they kept fighting, one of them would definitely die.

Gu Chen knew very clearly that it would be Qin Hongyi who died.

Su Rou had devoured 002 and was further stimulated by his blood. 

She was currently at the peak of her evolution.

Once the effects of Qin Hongyi’s injection wore off, she would be nothing but meat on the chopping block.

He had to find a way.

“Su Rou.” Gu Chen’s voice softened with a sweetness he would never normally use in front of her, carrying a hint of grievance.

He made full use of the advantages of his current feminine voice.

I’m cold.

Su Rou’s forward charge came to an abrupt halt.

She looked down at Gu Chen.

The heavy rain poured down relentlessly. Gu Chen was soaked through, his face pale, lips almost bloodless.

That fragile yet stubborn appearance instantly shattered Su Rou’s remaining human defenses.

“Cold… right, it’s raining. You’ll catch a cold.”

Su Rou panicked. She flailed about trying to shield him from the rain, nearly stabbing him with her bone spikes in the process.

“Let’s go home.”

Su Rou scooped Gu Chen up in her arms with surprising gentleness, completely unlike the monster who had been tearing things apart moments ago.

“It’s too dirty here. And there’s that evil woman.”

Su Rou stared warily at Qin Hongyi and issued a logically confused warning from her throat. “Don’t follow us! Or else… I’ll bite his neck off!”

One second she wanted to protect him, the next she threatened to kill him.

But Qin Hongyi didn’t dare take the gamble.

She stared at Gu Chen being held in Su Rou’s arms. The steel rebar in her hand twisted and deformed under her grip.

“If you hurt even a single hair on his head…”

Qin Hongyi’s mouth twitched. “I won’t leave a single member of the Su family alive.”

“Hee hee.”

Su Rou made an extremely provocative grimace—a victor’s taunt.

“He’s mine now.”

With that, Su Rou crouched down, then launched herself forward with inhuman power. 

Carrying Gu Chen, she scurried up the walls of the shipping containers and abandoned factory like a spider, vanishing into the vast rainy night in just a few eerie leaps.

“Ah!”

Qin Hongyi slammed the rebar into the ground with all her strength, sending sparks flying.

The backlash from the drug hit her like a tidal wave.

A dizzying vertigo seized her. Sharp pain exploded in the back of her head, making her stagger. She dropped to one knee.

“Boss!”

Several black SUVs burst through the curtain of rain and screeched to a halt nearby.

Buddha and his subordinates scrambled over in a panic.

“Boss, are you okay? Where’s Young Master Gu?”

Qin Hongyi lifted her head, her face radiating murderous intent. 

Her blood-red eyes made Buddha’s heart tremble.

“Search.”

She forced the words out through gritted teeth, each one dripping with bloodlust.

“Dig up the entire city if you have to. Find that little bitch from the Su family.”

“Prepare heavy weapons.” Qin Hongyi shoved away the bodyguard trying to help her up.

“Whether she’s human or ghost, if she dares steal what’s mine…”

“I’ll blow her into pieces.”

***

Northern suburbs of Beijing, inside a secluded private sanatorium.

This place used to be where the Su family housed patients.

Bang.

Gu Chen was thrown onto a large circular bed.

The sheets were pink with lace trim, full of girlish charm.

“We’re home.”

Su Rou closed the door and dragged several tables over to block it completely.

When she turned around, the bone spikes on her back had already retracted, leaving only a few hideous scars.

Her white dress had long since become tattered rags. She was now almost completely naked, her skin a deathly pale white.

“Brother Gu Chen.”

Su Rou crawled onto the bed on all fours, moving toward him.

Gu Chen tried to move but found his limbs weak.

He had been carried at high speed by Su Rou the entire way. 

The supersonic jolting had nearly shaken his organs out of place.

Combined with everything that happened earlier, his energy bar had been flashing red for a while.

“What do you want?” Gu Chen asked warily, shrinking back.

“I’m hungry.”

Su Rou rubbed her sunken stomach with an innocent expression.

“I ran too fast earlier and didn’t get to finish eating that lizard monster.” 

Her eyes fixed on Gu Chen’s neck as she swallowed hard. “And you smell really, really good.”

Gu Chen’s scalp went numb.

This girl seriously saw him as a full family bucket meal?

“Su Rou, I’m a person, not takeout.”

Gu Chen tried to reason with her.

“If you’re hungry, I’ll order something for you. What do you want? Sashimi? Steak? Or do you want raw meat?”

“No.”

Su Rou shook her head and moved even closer, rubbing her nose against his cheek. 

“Those things have no energy. Only you… your blood makes me feel better.”

She grabbed Gu Chen’s hand and pressed it against her burning chest.

“Listen. It’s beating so fast. If I don’t eat something soon, it’s going to explode.”

Under his palm was a frantic, pounding rhythm that made his hand tingle.

It wasn’t a normal heartbeat.

The genes inside Su Rou were undergoing violent rejection.

If she didn’t consume high-grade mutant blood to neutralize it, she really would die from bursting apart.

Save her? Or not?

Saving her would mean raising a tiger that might bite him later.

Not saving her would cut off their only lead, and…

Gu Chen looked into those moist eyes. Even after turning into a monster, they still only reflected him.

Damn his soft heart.

“Just one bite.” 

Gu Chen kept his face cold as he offered his wrist. 

“If you drink too much, I’ll pull all your teeth out.”

Joy exploded in Su Rou’s eyes.

“Brother Gu Chen is the best!”

She cheered, but instead of biting his wrist, she pounced forward with lightning speed. 

Pinning his shoulders down, she kissed him directly on the lips.

Gu Chen’s body went rigid. His brain stopped working for a moment.

What the fuck? This was how she was going to suck blood?

Su Rou didn’t have fangs anymore—only soft, warm sensation.

She bit her own tongue, then his.

Their blood mixed inside their mouths.

Metallic, sweet, and scalding hot.

The exchange felt incredibly strange.

Like two cables being forcibly connected, the sudden overload of current numbed his entire body.

Countless fragments of Su Rou’s memories were forcibly poured into Gu Chen’s mind.

Stealing glances at his back from corners, collecting scraps of paper he had thrown away, filling her diary with his name in every possible stroke.

Their lips parted.

Su Rou remained on top of him, but her movements suddenly froze.

Within her pupils, completely overtaken by gray-white, a trace of human brown struggled desperately to the surface.

She tilted her head, staring blankly at the breathtakingly beautiful face beneath her. 

A meaningless gurgling sound came from her throat.

“Gu Chen?”

She reached out tentatively and gently touched his cheek with her fingertip.

Gu Chen didn’t speak. He simply watched her quietly.

He had bet correctly.

His blood was even more domineering than the T-9 Agent and was the only key capable of awakening that tiny bit of humanity left in Su Rou.

But that clarity lasted less than three seconds.

The monster’s instinct roared back in fury. The gray-white flooded over the brown once more.

Su Rou’s expression turned ferocious again as she greedily inhaled the high-grade mutant pheromones coming from Gu Chen.

“Hungry…”

She lowered her head. Her split mouth aimed once more for his neck.

Gu Chen didn’t dodge.

Just as those sharp teeth were about to pierce his skin, he spoke.

His voice was hoarse from the earlier oxygen deprivation.

“No manners.”

Su Rou’s movements stopped dead.

Like a paused animation, she remained frozen in her diving posture, completely motionless.

Gu Chen’s eyes were ice-cold. He didn’t even bother raising his hands. 

He simply lay there, scanning Su Rou from head to toe with the disdainful look one would give trash.

“Who taught you to speak to me looking like this ghost?”

“Can’t you speak like a human? All you know how to do is bark like a dog?”

Humiliation.

It was the one conditioned reflex deeply engraved into Su Rou’s bones when it came to Gu Chen.

The bone spikes on her body began trembling uncontrollably, scraping against each other.

On that inhuman face, an expression that looked almost… aggrieved appeared.

“I… I’m hungry…” she stammered in defense, most of the ferocity gone from her voice.

“And that means you get to eat your master?”

Gu Chen curled his lips. His smile was colder than the storm outside. 

“Su Rou, how did I teach you before? If you want to be a dog, you have to act like one.”

He slowly raised his hand—not to attack, but like someone petting a dog. He extended two fingers and tapped her forehead.

“Down.”

Su Rou’s body began shaking violently.

Deep in her genes, the monster’s instinct screamed wildly, urging her to tear apart the reckless food in front of her.

But in the brand on her soul, the little tail that had followed the Gu family’s young master for years was cowering in fear.

The thought of resistance couldn’t even fully form.

She released her claws that had been pinning Gu Chen and slowly, obediently lowered her body until she was lying flat on the bed. 

She only dared to lift her half-human, half-monster face to look up at him.

Success.

He had won the gamble.

Even after turning into a monster, this girl’s core was still the same silly girl he had psychologically conditioned for twenty years.