His powerful kick struck something hard. Zhou Heng could feel how solid the impact was—the full force of the blow should’ve landed on the insect’s body. Against an ordinary person, a kick like that would’ve sent them flying backward. But the insect didn’t even twitch.

Zhou Heng felt a chill in his heart.

Could the guy playing the monster really be wearing an expensive costume and built like a heavyweight, too?

No. To shrug off a kick carrying seventy percent of Zhou Heng’s strength, sheer size couldn’t be enough. The guy would need to be skilled in hand-to-hand combat, too.

So the person inside that costume was not only strong, but also had above-average fighting skills?

Zhou Heng murmured, at a loss.

“Are bit players really this professional these days? Come on, man, you’re just wearing a costume and you don’t even show your face. Do you have to go this all out?”

The insect’s face split into four, its cheeks opening as wide as they could. In the middle of the petal-like sections, a pink passageway as wide as a fist kept writhing. Something was being pushed out from deep within, where the darkness was too black to make out anything clearly.

Only then did the insect speak.

“Swallow it.”

Zhou Heng didn’t understand what the insect meant.

“What the hell?”

The passageway in the center of the four-part face writhed, pushing out a milky-white ball about the size of a thumb.

The insect repeated itself.

“Swallow it, and you’ll become the finest host.”

Zhou Heng blinked.

“What if I don’t?”

The insect’s four-part face snapped shut, and a human face appeared again.

Zhou Heng felt inexplicably relieved. That face had looked wrong no matter how he’d seen it before. But after getting used to the insect’s face splitting open, revealing its strange interior lined with teeth, this one looked as cute as the girl sitting next to him in class.

“Hey, that’s better. The way you looked before was just… I couldn’t stand looking at—”

“Mmm…”

The insect’s face pressed down. Its black mouth covered Zhou Heng’s lips.

Zhou Heng never would’ve expected this. For a moment, he was completely stunned.

Once he came to his senses, he began struggling violently. But the insect let go of Zhou Heng’s shoulder, placing one hand behind his head and the other against his back, pinning down every attempt to fight back.

Their lips pressed closer and closer together. The insect seemed to think kissing Zhou Heng wasn’t enough. Something strange kept prodding at his tightly shut teeth, from inside and out.

Zhou Heng was about to lose his mind. This was his first kiss.

A teenage boy’s first kiss—and it hadn’t gone to a pretty girl his own age or a gorgeous older girl at school. It had gone to an actor whose gender he didn’t even know.

And a simple kiss would’ve been bad enough, but the insect was giving him a full-on French kiss.

How could anyone in this world be so shameless?

The boy clenched his teeth with all the strength he had. After trying several times and failing to pry Zhou Heng’s mouth open, the insect had to try another way.

The hand around Zhou Heng’s back slid down to his waist. The insect’s hand, which had only three fingers, began tickling him.

Held in the insect’s arms, Zhou Heng shuddered violently. As the insect’s tickling grew more casual and bold, his body shook harder and harder, until tears welled in his eyes.

Zhou Heng could endure pain, but being tickled…

That was on a whole different level.

In less than three seconds, Zhou Heng’s clenched teeth suddenly parted. A slippery, foul-smelling lump was shoved into his mouth. The insect’s lips immediately pulled away, and Zhou Heng coughed and laughed at the same time.

Of course, he had something to say about it—and he said it furiously.

“Y-you’re with which TV station? I’m reporting you for molesting a minor! Just you wait—you’ll be hearing from my lawyer!”

Scaring people or having a laugh at their panic might be acceptable as part of a show, but molesting a minor was another matter entirely.

That was a criminal offense.

Zhou Heng was sure that if he made a big enough fuss about the molestation, the TV station’s organizers would face enormous public pressure.

They’d dared to take his first kiss. Zhou Heng was going to make that TV station pay dearly.

Having made his position clear, Zhou Heng waited furiously for the TV station staff to come out and apologize. He was already preparing what to say next.

But the staff didn’t come out as Zhou Heng had expected. Instead, the insect that had just kissed him suddenly swelled to twice its size.

The swelling was clearly fatal. In an instant, cracks spread across the insect’s face, and fluid began oozing from them. Once enough cracks had appeared, the insect’s head went pop.

It exploded.

Zhou Heng stared blankly at the insect’s flesh and fragments of its exoskeleton stuck to his skin.

Honestly, this was nothing like Zhou Heng had expected.

He couldn’t understand why, even now, the TV station staff still thought they could sweep this under the rug.

Was it really so hard to come out and admit they were in the wrong?