The Tentacle Monster I Brought Home Always Says It Wants to Fix My Bones at Night - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The first time it entangled me in the middle of the night, I nearly hit the ceiling in a panic.

I had worked overtime until one in the morning that day. When I got home, I didn’t even take off my makeup; I just collapsed onto the bed still clutching my laptop.

I work as a pitch designer at an advertising agency. If the client says a single phrase like “it doesn’t feel right,” our entire team has to start over from scratch.

Lately, the company has been fighting for a major medical technology client. Our team leader, Xu Yichuan, has been acting like he’s on a permanent adrenaline high.

During the day, he berates our proposals; at night, he screams about the layout.

Even at two in the morning, he’ll send forty-second voice notes to our group chat,

Saying things like, “Young people shouldn’t have such a strong sense of boundaries.”

It was during those days that I found that little thing in a cardboard box next to the trash cans in the alley behind our office.

It was huddled there, soaking wet, looking like a clump of shiny black seaweed.

I originally thought it was a discarded baby octopus. But after I brought it home, it learned how to use a food delivery app with its tentacles by the second day. By the third day, it could operate the TV remote for me. By the seventh day, it could even drag a half-bottle of milk out of the fridge and slowly nudge it toward my cup.

I named it Motiao, because whenever it got angry, its whole body would turn pitch black, like a splash of spilled ink.

Motiao was very well-behaved during the day.

It would curl up inside my bag at my workstation and wait for me to finish work.

When I was too busy to remember to eat, it would poke my wrist with a tentacle and push my phone in front of me, the screen displaying the porridge or hot soup it had selected for me.

I thought I had finally managed to raise something in this city that would actually look back at me with care.

But that night, as I drifted in a daze of sleep, I suddenly felt a chill on my collarbone.

I opened my eyes to see a black tentacle emerging from under the covers, pressing down along my chest.

I screamed on the spot and slapped it away.

It didn’t dodge. Instead, it used another, thinner tentacle to pick up my phone and quickly tapped out words in the notes app.

“Don’t move.”

“You spent twelve hours today with your head down. Your cervical spine is misaligned by 3.7 degrees.”

“I am helping you reset it.”

I was so angry I nearly had a stroke. “Then just reset it! Why are you sliding toward my waist?”

The screen was silent for two seconds.

Then it typed out a line: “Lumbar muscle strain. More serious than the cervical spine.”

I stared at those words, my face gradually heating up.

It seemed to have absolutely no concept of human shame. Its cool tentacles wrapped around my calves, slowly moving upward until they stopped at the back of my knees, applying pressure with the precision of a delicate instrument.

Yet with every touch, the muscles that had been tense all day relaxed a little more.

The most agonizing part was that even though its body was cold, wherever it touched my skin, I felt a numbing heat.

That dull ache actually began to dissipate.

I sat for so long during the day that my calves often cramped, but I was usually too tired to care.

It seemed to know where I hurt better than I did.

That night, I was stubborn to the end, calling it a rogue octopus, a perverted monster, and a midnight molester.

It didn’t talk back once. It simply pushed the phone to my pillow.

There was only one line on the screen.

“Han Shuwan, you’re falling apart.”

“I don’t want you to break.”

I froze.

It had been a long time since I’d heard words like that.

The last time someone said they felt sorry for me was right after I graduated from university, when my mother called to ask if I had enough money for living expenses.

Later, when she called, she only asked when I would be transferring money for my younger brother’s tuition.

As for the people at the company, they wanted nothing more than to wring out every last drop of my energy.

So that night, I didn’t throw Motiao out.

I even rolled over and shared a bit of the blanket with it.

It was quiet for a while, then suddenly typed another sentence.

“Also.”

“That man at your company, Xu Yichuan-do not approach him alone.”

My heart tightened. “How do you know about him?”

Motiao didn’t answer me again.

It simply retracted its tentacles slowly and curled up by my pillow like a sleeping shadow.

But from that day on, I realized for the first time that what I had picked up might not be a pet.

It was more like someone who had been watching me from the darkness for a very long time.