The girl’s bare feet had been exposed for so long that the cold ground had turned them bright red.
The chill of the wall seeped through her back and spread throughout her body.
“Mrrr—”
It was a cat’s warning growl. At some point, the black cat Ye Zhuangyan had let go had come back, and without the slightest hesitation, it bit one of the wanderer’s legs.
“Hss—what the hell was that?!”
The wanderer winced in pain and realized a cat had bitten through the skin of his calf.
“Damn it—”
Furious at the cat for interrupting his devout baptism, the wanderer lifted the leg it was biting, swinging and kicking until he finally flung the black cat against the wall.
The black cat let out a miserable cry and fell to the ground. It didn’t get back up.
“Sorry. I scared you. It’s my fault.”
The wanderer continued his act as if nothing had happened.
As she watched him tremblingly approach, Ye Zhuangyan’s body felt no fear at all. She had no instinctive urge to struggle.
She remained just as calm.
His eyes were bloodshot, and a feeling called fanaticism shone in them.
Ye Zhuangyan lowered her head slightly and half-lowered her eyelids. She should have been angry.
“Please don’t do this.”
But her voice was so calm, without the slightest ripple, as if she were indulging him.
Her soul felt a trace of sorrow, because she couldn’t even express the emotion called disgust.
Clearly, the moment the wanderer heard the girl speak, desire overwhelmed everything.
Without warning, Ye Zhuangyan’s arm was suddenly seized!
Ye Zhuangyan tried to yank her arm back and break free, but she failed. Instead, his grip tightened around her.
He was very close to Ye Zhuangyan. He even crouched down so she could look him directly in the eyes. All she saw there was his desperate hunger for her.
There was no doubt about it: right now, he was a beast ruled by instinct alone.
His bloodshot eyes seemed ready to devour the girl before him. That ** instantly turned into greedy desire, and his crazed, bloodthirsty expression looked so much like a beast’s.
The wanderer’s hand clamped around the girl’s right hand like a pair of pincers. Then the hand holding her slammed it backward.
The sudden movement caught Ye Zhuangyan off guard.
Her body struck the wall, and her fair wrist instantly turned red.
Like a wolf that had spotted its prey, he breathed heavily and raggedly against the girl’s ear.
The wanderer gripped the girl’s right hand with one hand and clamped her left shoulder with the other, seemingly acting on instinct to keep her from struggling. Whatever reason he might once have had was long gone…
Feeling his breath draw closer and her left shoulder begin to tingle, the girl didn’t struggle.
She understood perfectly how weak her body was right now. Struggling would only waste her strength.
She felt nothing toward the wanderer’s actions.
Only calm.
Absolute calm and indifference filled her heart. That was all.
Only indifference and coldness remained in her eyes.
The wanderer noticed nothing amiss. He greedily breathed in the girl’s scent and swallowed involuntarily, his breathing growing rougher by the second.
His trembling hand reached for the strap over the girl’s left shoulder, intending to pull it down.
Just as he touched the white strap and was about to go further—
“Slash—”
Everything came to an abrupt halt!
Everything around them suddenly fell silent. It was as if every sound had vanished except the beating of their hearts…
Drip… drip. The sound of a drop of water hitting the ground reached the girl’s ears…
A few seconds later, the wanderer let out a scream of agony.
One of his hands had been cleanly severed.
Ye Zhuangyan watched everything with cold eyes. What came into view was no longer the wanderer’s face, but a tail covered in green scales and stained with bright red blood.
It was her tail…
“M-Monster!”
The wanderer stared in pain and terror at the once petite, fragile girl. A thin, long tail, like a bamboo viper or some kind of vine, had grown behind her and was swaying.
At the same time, green patterns like vines spread across the girl’s exposed skin.
Small, scale-like growths appeared on either side of her face.
They looked strangely bewitching in the dim world.
Fear and pain brought the mind, consumed by desire, back to reason in an instant.
Then a warm sensation trickled down the wanderer’s lower body.
The wanderer fled in a panic.
Agonizing pain tore through his left hand, but his will to survive consumed everything. Somehow, he didn’t make another sound.
“I’ll die—monster—if I don’t run—I’ll die!”
The wanderer scrambled away on his hands and knees, disappearing into the shadows.
One of the wanderer’s hands remained wedged in a corner of the wall.
Drip… drip…
The blood fell to the ground drop by drop, like rainwater dripping from the eaves or the ticking of a clock in an abandoned laboratory, each drop carrying a strange melody…
Time seemed to stand still. Nothing was as clear as the falling blood.
Suddenly, the girl raised her head slightly, and a drop of blood fell onto the corner of her lips…
Feeling the chill on her lips, the girl licked at it like a kitten lapping milk from a bowl.
She parted her lips slightly and extended the tip of her soft pink tongue, licking a drop of blood that had run from the pale hand down to its fingers.
A taste of blood and rust spread across her tongue—
It was intoxicating.
Then Ye Zhuangyan’s vision went black, and she collapsed to the ground.
—
Purr… purr…
She awoke again from a slumber of unknown length, feeling something damp and faintly tingling against her face.
Ye Zhuangyan opened her eyes and saw a pair of deep blue eyes.
When the black cat saw the girl wake, it stopped licking her. It rubbed its face against Ye Zhuangyan’s cheek and meowed.
It seemed to be comforting her—or perhaps grieving for her.
Ye Zhuangyan managed a faint smile, then raised her hand, now fair and unblemished again, and stroked the black cat’s back.
“It’s okay now…”
Ye Zhuangyan sat up and rubbed her slightly dizzy head.
Forcing the transformation to activate without taking in any energy was extremely draining.
“Too bad I didn’t kill him outright.”
Ye Zhuangyan stroked the black cat’s fur as she thought.
The situation at the time hadn’t given Ye Zhuangyan a chance to attack a second time.
She regretted spending energy to escape. If she’d been properly prepared, she would’ve had a much better chance of piercing straight through his chest with a single strike.
“Meow~”
The black cat meowed at Ye Zhuangyan.
“What is it?”
Ye Zhuangyan looked at the black cat, puzzled.
The black cat scratched at the dried blood with its paw.
Ye Zhuangyan followed the cat’s paw with her eyes and froze. The drops of blood had formed a line on the ground.
That line marked the route the wanderer had taken as he fled. Which meant…
“If I follow the blood trail, I can find the way out of the sewers sooner.”
Ye Zhuangyan murmured softly.
