The Tentacle Monster I Brought Home Always Says It Wants to Fix My Bones at Night - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

There are two things I hate most in life: one is others making decisions for me, and the other is people leaving under the guise of doing it for my own good.

So when I saw those words, my first reaction wasn’t to be moved.

It was fury.

I slammed the phone face down on the table and glared at it. “Pei Yuming, are you out of your mind?”

Motiao was clearly stunned by my shout; its tentacles even shrank back a little.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

“You think leaving is protecting me? You think if you carry everything alone, I’ll be eternally grateful?”

“Let me tell you, what I despise most in this world is people trying to arrange my fate for me.”

“My mother did it, Xu Yichuan did it, and Su Jingyao did it. Now even you’re trying to do it?”

My voice was trembling.

“Do you think I’m that easy to brush off? A few sweet words, a couple of protective gestures, and a line about it being ‘for my own good,’ and I’m supposed to just stand there like a good little girl while everyone leaves me behind?”

The room fell silent, save for the sound of my ragged breathing.

Motiao didn’t move.

After a long time, it tentatively extended a single tentacle and tapped the back of my hand.

It was like a test.

I didn’t pull away.

It slowly pushed the phone back toward me.

A short message appeared on the screen.

“I can’t bear to leave you.”

My tears fell instantly.

It continued to write.

“I never learned how to live with another person.”

“When I did research, I only knew how to calculate risks, probabilities, and optimal solutions.”

“But you aren’t a project, and you aren’t a parameter.”

“Every time I wanted to keep you away from danger, it ended up turning into a desire to hide you away.”

“I know that’s wrong.”

“But when I see your eyes turning red and you’re still pretending everything is fine, I really want to hold you.”

“That was me.”

I crouched down to look at it at eye level.

That little thing was so quiet it didn’t seem like a monster; it seemed like a hopelessly clumsy human.

I sniffled and reached out to scoop it up in my hands.

“Listen to me, Pei Yuming.”

“I don’t need you to choose safety for me, and I don’t need you to choose sacrifice for me.”

“If you want to stay, then face it with me.”

“If you ever dare to disappear without a word again, I’ll dunk you into a pot of spicy hotpot broth.”

It froze for a full three seconds.

Then, the color of its entire body slowly turned a shade of red, as if it were blushing.

The next second, I felt a weight in my palms.

The palm-sized Tentacle Monster began to elongate and restructure itself before my eyes.

The pitch-black surface receded like a tide, revealing the pale, slender silhouette of a human form beneath.

A man appeared, bare-chested with damp hair hanging down, black patterns still lingering on his shoulders and back as they finished retracting.

That face was exactly the same as the one in the news photos, only paler and more serene.

Pei Yuming knelt on one knee, looking as if he had just been pulled from the depths of the ocean. When he looked up at me, his Adam’s apple bobbed visibly.

He spoke, his voice incredibly raspy.

“Hotpot broth… is too spicy.”

I froze for two seconds, then suddenly burst into a mix of tears and laughter, punching him in the shoulder.

“Oh, so now you’re picky?”

His head tilted from the blow, but he didn’t dodge.

He simply reached out and hugged me, his movements careful and restrained.

His embrace was still slightly cool, but it no longer felt as boundless as it once did.

Yet the moment he held me, I still heard my own heart racing out of control.

He whispered, “Han Shuwan, this time, I’m applying.”

“Can I stay?”

I buried my face in the crook of his neck, my voice thick with emotion.

“Application approved.”

“If you want to kiss me, apply first.”

“If you want to hold me longer, you have to apply for that, too.”

Pei Yuming and I moved to a new place, renting a small two-bedroom apartment facing south.

For most of the day, he still couldn’t maintain a full human form. Often, while we were talking, his arm would turn back into a tentacle first.

Once, while I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen, I turned around to see a black tentacle wrapped around a spatula, helping me flip the fish. The scene was so bizarre I burst out laughing.

He explained expressionlessly, “In high-temperature environments, localized transformation is more stable.”

I said, “You’re like an octopus spirit.”

He fell silent for two seconds, the tips of his ears slowly turning red.

Later, I formed a small team with several other victims to help people facing workplace exploitation, unethical experiments, and data abuse collect evidence and connect with lawyers.

He would wait until I had worked for four consecutive hours and then simply snatch away the computer’s power cord with a tentacle.

Sometimes I would wake up from a nightmare at night, and he-half-human, half-tentacle-would pull me into his arms and whisper, “It’s over.”

I’m very glad that the thing I brought home when I was at my lowest was Pei Yuming.

Last night, I was lying on my stomach on the bed editing materials when my neck and shoulders started to stiffen up again.

Pei Yuming hugged me from behind, first kissing the crown of my head, then whispering, “Han Shuwan, need a bone adjustment?”

I teased him on purpose. “Only from the waist up?”

He reddened instantly at the tips of his ears, but the hand holding me tightened noticeably.

Laughing, I pushed the computer aside and turned to hug him. I tilted my head up to rub against his chin, intentionally letting my breath linger near his lips.

“I can make an exception today.”

His Adam’s apple rolled heavily, but his hand remained still on my lower back, as if afraid that using even an ounce more strength would be crossing a line.

But I could clearly feel that even his breathing had become erratic.

Looking at his display of forced restraint, I was the one who leaned in to kiss him first.

The moment our lips met, it was as if he had been holding back for an eternity; his palm suddenly tightened around my waist.

Outside the window, the night was deep, and the light inside the room was perfectly warm.

When he looked down at me, his pupils were still tinged with a deep, dark black.

I wasn’t afraid.

(The End)