“Thanks for the meal.”

A minute later, Saya’s tail slipped away from Lin Jianxue’s arm.

Even the edges at the tip of her tail, covered in blue-green scales, had shifted from pale blue-green to pale red.

It looked funny, like the core of a stalk of celery.

Lin Jianxue watched the tail withdraw and, for some reason, felt a little regret that she hadn’t touched it.

Watching the tail sway behind her, Lin Jianxue couldn’t help wanting to give it a pet.

That tail was just so cute!

“By the way, how was my blood? Did it taste okay, Miss Monster?”

Lin Jianxue looked at her arm. There was only a small red mark where the tail had touched the faintly visible veins, but it hadn’t drawn blood.

“It was delicious.”

Saya thought for a moment, then said this.

“Huh, really?”

Lin Jianxue lowered her sleeve. Hearing the other girl praise her blood like that, she suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

Saya nodded seriously.

“Your blood is clean and fresh. It has a lingering sweetness to it. Nothing like those two men from before. Their blood was full of impurities, and they’d taken and injected huge amounts of drugs.

“Mm… It also seemed to contain trace amounts of toxic and harmful substances. Anyway, it tasted awful. Even rat blood tastes hundreds of times better.

“I usually use blood like that as an ingredient for the poison and hallucinogens I smear on my tail. I often wonder if that’s really the kind of blood humans are supposed to have.”

For some reason, Lin Jianxue felt both awkward and a little happy.

At least her blood had been called delicious.

Wait, something’s not right. Why do I feel like I’ve become emergency rations?

The thing was, she’d even started thinking of herself that way—and it felt completely natural.

Just as Lin Jianxue was puzzling over this, Saya’s voice came again.

“Since you’ve paid your stake, I’ll allow you to follow me for now.”

There was no denying that Miss Monster had a lovely voice. That cool, deadpan tone paired with her eternally expressionless face gave her the unmistakable air of an emotionless anime girl.

“Ah, o-okay.”

“You have two choices. You can walk back to my place with me. It’s quite a long way from here, so it might take a while. I don’t know if you’re in any condition to make it.

“The other option is for me to tie you up with my tail and take a shorter route. I should be able to take the shortest route if I’m only carrying one extra passenger. Which do you choose?”

“I’ll take the second option.”

Lin Jianxue thought it over briefly before answering.

After all, Miss Monster had said it was a long way. In her current state, if she insisted on walking, she’d probably just make things more troublesome for Miss Monster.

Hearing Lin Jianxue’s answer, Saya nodded. Then she wrapped her tail around Lin Jianxue’s waist several times and around her shoulders twice.

“I haven’t tried this before. Let me know if it feels uncomfortable.”

“Mm.”

Feeling the chill seep through her clothes and touch her skin, Lin Jianxue answered. Then she couldn’t resist giving the tail wrapped around her waist a little squeeze.

It was smooth and cool beneath its scales, and felt very nice to touch.

Saya’s tail was extremely sensitive. Caught off guard by the touch, her body stiffened.

“Please don’t touch my tail while I’m trying to move. It’s a sensitive area.”

“Ah, sorry!”

Hearing Saya, Lin Jianxue gave an awkward, sheepish smile and gave up on trying to sneakily touch her with her hands.

Saya looked at the other girl’s awkward, apologetic expression. She probably wouldn’t cause any more trouble, right?

Never mind. Better stay alert, just in case.

Saya closed her eyes and began sensing something.

Then, under Lin Jianxue’s astonished gaze, a pair of wings with green gradients sprouted from Saya’s smooth, fair back, where her white dress left it bare.

They flapped, and Saya rose into the air as lightly as a drifting dandelion.

That’s right—not flying, but floating.

Her wings spread beneath the moonlit sky, as if veiled in silver radiance. She looked like a dreamlike forest elf from a myth.

“Miss Monster.”

“What is it?”

Saya darted swiftly and lightly between the buildings in the moonlight. Hearing the girl behind her, she asked,

“May I know your name?”

Silence stretched on. Lin Jianxue felt a little disappointed. Maybe she’d asked something she shouldn’t have. She was just about to apologize when Miss Monster’s calm voice reached her.

“Saya.”

Lin Jianxue froze for a moment. Then she realized what Saya had said and smiled happily.

“My name’s Lin Jianxue. It’s nice to meet you, Miss Saya.”

“I really saw a demon! I couldn’t mistake that shadow for anything else—the demon’s horns and tail! The demon did this to me!”

“All right, all right. I believe you, sir. Please calm down.”

At T Hospital, Xu Heng saw a young man who looked like a delinquent, with deep gashes on his face and arms. He was saying something strange to the staff at the reception desk, worked up into a frenzy.

Puzzled, Xu Heng stopped a young doctor passing by and asked,

“What’s going on?”

Upon seeing that it was Xu Heng, the doctor said,

“This man’s been like this ever since he got here, Dr. Xu. It’s like something set him off. He’s extremely agitated and keeps saying weird things about seeing a demon from hell.

“The staff are trying to calm him down and get his injuries treated first. They look pretty serious. If he keeps going like this, he could pass out from blood loss—or even go into hypovolemic shock.”

Not long after the young doctor finished speaking, the commotion behind them abruptly stopped.

“Sir! Sir!”

As Sheng Shizhu was talking, he suddenly felt dizzy and short of breath. His vision went black, and he collapsed.

Luckily, it was the middle of the night and there weren’t many people at the hospital. Otherwise, things probably would’ve descended into chaos.

How many times had this happened now?

Demons, monsters…

Watching the young doctor rush over to help, Xu Heng thought about it with a knowing look.

Inside the police station.

“Speaking of which, the patrol team just found another guy who’d lost his mind.”

“What happened?”

With nothing to do on the night shift, a few police officers started chatting.

“Some small-time thug, apparently. He said he saw a monster eat his boss. Funny, right? The patrol team even went to check the alley, and there wasn’t a damn thing there.

“He’s probably been doing too many drugs and started hallucinating. He was saying the monster had a really long tail and came out of a shadow. Can you believe that? He’s in jail now, waiting for someone to bail him out.”

Another officer took a sip of coffee and laughed.

“Come to think of it, there’ve been a lot of people taking urban legends seriously lately. We’ve already had two cases where people claimed they’d run into monsters or demons or something.

“A few of them had injuries, too. Those cuts could’ve been made with a reasonably sharp knife. Probably got into an internal feud and started hacking at each other. The nerve of them, claiming they ran into monsters.”