I Slept with the Snake-Man for a Night, But He Said I Came to Take His Life - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I stayed at Kang Shiyu’s house for three days.

To be precise, I was forced into temporary residence.

He said the Lure Agent on me would take seventy-two hours to fully dissipate. During this time, if I left the perimeter he had set, I would likely be targeted again by the people from the Underground Auction House.

I asked him why he didn’t just wipe them all out.

He placed some medicine in front of me, his voice very flat.

“Because they’re waiting for me to lose control.”

“And after you lose control?”

“They’ll skin me, drain my blood, slice through my scales, and send my bones to a laboratory.”

I fell silent for a moment.

When Kang Shiyu said these things, his expression was calm to the point of indifference.

It was as if he were reading a financial report.

Meanwhile, listening to him sent a chill down my spine.

He lived in an old mansion halfway up a mountain overlooking the sea. The decor was old-fashioned European style, featuring dark wood floors, a fireplace, arched windows, and an abstract oil painting hanging at the turn of the stairs.

The entire house was so quiet it felt uninhabited.

Aside from him and me, there was only an assistant named Lin Ce.

The first time Lin Ce brought me breakfast, he stole three glances at me.

The third glance was particularly complex.

I couldn’t help but ask, “Does your boss usually bring women back here?”

Lin Ce nearly knocked over the coffee.

“Ms. Zou, you are the first.”

After he spoke, his gaze subconsciously swept toward my neck before quickly darting away, his ears turning red.

I looked down.

The pajamas Kang Shiyu had given me after my shower last night had a neckline that was too wide, clearly revealing a small red mark near my collarbone.

It looked like something scandalous had just happened.

I looked up at the culprit.

Kang Shiyu was sitting at the far end of the dining table flipping through documents. Hearing the commotion, he didn’t even look up.

“Why are you looking at me?”

“Aren’t you going to explain?”

“Explain what?”

“For example, the thing on my neck.”

He finally looked up, his gaze sweeping over and lingering for two seconds.

Then he said slowly, “You had a fever last night and wouldn’t stop clinging to me. To keep you quiet, I had to bite that spot to help suppress your Pheromone reaction.”

“…”

Lin Ce tactfully retreated.

I was stunned.

“Do you snakes even come with that kind of function?”

“Only I do.”

“Are you actually proud of that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He closed the file, his expression lazy.

“Do you want me to apologize?”

“No need.”

Despite my stubborn reply, my ears began to burn.

Kang Shiyu was truly dangerous.

He was also truly annoying.

He acted as if he didn’t care about anything, yet he was exceptionally good at pushing people’s buttons.

I told him I wanted to interview him.

He leaned back into the sofa and watched me. His tail wound out from behind the armrest, slowly coiling around my ankle.

“An interview about Aberrant physiology?”

“An interview about the Harbor District Disappearance Case.”

“Then stop staring at my tail.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

I was left speechless by his rebuttal and could only lift my foot to kick at that restless tail.

However, the moment I touched it, the tip of the tail took the opportunity to wrap around the arch of my foot.

It was cold, firm, and carried a subtle sense of constriction.

A tingling sensation shot up my spine, and I immediately pulled my leg back.

Kang Shiyu saw this and gave a light laugh.

“Reporter Zou.”

“When you’re blushing, you’re much more honest than you were last night.”

I couldn’t stand him like this.

He was clearly a dangerous species.

Yet, he always spoke as if he were flirting.
The most annoying part was that his flirting was actually working on me.

On the third night, I finally managed to pry some serious information out of him.

The disappearances were linked to a biotech company called Blue Crown.

On the surface, they were a marine research firm, but behind the scenes, they were conducting live experiments on Aberrants for the Underground Auction House.

They weren’t chasing me because of anything I’d photographed.

It was because I had knocked over a vial of chemicals in that private booth.

That specific chemical was designed to lure and trap serpentine Aberrants.

Once it touched me, the effects mutated within my system.

I had become “Live Bait.”

“Why did it mutate?”

“I don’t know.”

Kang Shiyu sat by the window, a cigarette between his fingers that he never bothered to light.

“It might have something to do with that high fever you had as a child.”

I froze.

“How do you know I had a high fever as a kid?”

He looked at me.

In that moment, the night was so dark that the look in his eyes resembled the churning tide of the deep sea.

“Because when you were burning up and close to death, I was the one who dragged you out of the lake.”

The glass in my hand slipped, shattering on the floor.

I didn’t even notice the shards.

When I was sixteen, I had fallen into the old lake near the orphanage.

It was a thunderstorm that night, and it felt like something slick and smooth had wrapped around me in the water.

I thought I was going to die.

When I finally woke up, I was in the hospital.

The director told me a passerby had saved me.

I had always assumed that person left long ago.

“That person… was you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“If I had, would you have believed me?”

Of course I wouldn’t have.

If it were me from three days ago, I would have just called him a lunatic.

But now, his tail was right there in front of me.

If I still didn’t believe him, then I was the one with the problem.

“So when you said you’d been looking for me for years…”

“That was true, too.”

Silence suddenly filled the room.

The wind blew in through the half-open window, making the curtains sway gently.

My throat felt tight.

“Kang Shiyu, what exactly was our relationship in the past?”

He watched me for a long time.

So long that I thought he wouldn’t answer.

Finally, he said, “You saved me.”

I laughed instinctively.

“Me? A sixteen-year-old girl saving a snake like you?”

“I wasn’t a snake.”

“Then what were you?”

“A dying man.”

I didn’t push any further that night.

But I knew that something had already started to shift.

I dreamed of vast amounts of water.

I dreamed of a massive, silver-black tail coiled at the bottom of the old lake.

I dreamed of a teenage Kang Shiyu, covered in blood, leaning against the shore and asking me in a low voice:

“Are you afraid of me?”

In the dream, I knelt down and touched his face.

“You’re so handsome, what is there to be afraid of?”

When I woke up, the sun wasn’t out yet.

Kang Shiyu was sitting by the bed, his fingers pressed against his brow as if he were in intense pain.

The moment I moved, he opened his eyes.

His pupils weren’t their usual black.

They were thin, cold slits of gold.

“Did you watch over me all night again?”

“Yes.”

“Afraid I’ll run away?”

“Afraid I’ll lose control.”

He spoke with such blunt honesty.

My heart gave an unbidden tremor.

In that moment, it suddenly occurred to me that Kang Shiyu probably wasn’t teasing me at all.

He was simply forcing all the danger down, keeping it as far away from me as possible.