Just as Fang Xingzhou reached the entrance of the porridge shop, Lu Jianchuan’s phone call came through. It had been less than three minutes since Fang Xingzhou left home.
Fang Xingzhou stared at the name flashing on the screen, looking at it for a long time before answering in the last second before it would have hung up automatically.
“Hey, honey, did you get the porridge?” Lu Jianchuan’s voice carried a hint of worry. “I see it’s about 300 meters away, and you didn’t drive. Can you carry it? Do you want me to come pick you up?”
“….” Fang Xingzhou took the packed millet porridge, “I can carry it. Want some hot dogs? There’s a very fragrant hot dog stand next to the porridge shop, with quite a queue.”
At the mention of food, Lu Jianchuan fell silent for half a second, as if his thoughts short-circuited and he forgot what he was going to say. Through the phone, Fang Xingzhou could clearly hear the sound of Lu Jianchuan swallowing.
“…Yes.” Lu Jianchuan lacked confidence.
Fang Xingzhou chuckled, “Okay, I’ll be back soon.”
He bought porridge and fever medicine for himself and then went to the next stall to order twenty hot dogs.
While waiting for the hot dogs, he hid among the queuing crowd, confirming that there were no creatures nearby that might be watching him. Then, nonchalantly, he took out the diagnosis slip again and stared at it intently.
…It turned out to be the diagnosis slip from when Lu Jianchuan accompanied him to see the psychiatrist.
The date was April 12th, and the attending doctor was his friend, Director Li. The diagnosis was that he had mild paranoia and anxiety, requiring medication. If there was no improvement after a course of treatment, it was recommended to revisit and consider hospitalization.
On the surface, everything seemed fine, with both the timing and the people perfectly matching his memories.
Yet Fang Xingzhou felt as if he had been inspired, staring intently at the crumpled paper, his forehead throbbing, rereading the diagnosis over and over, trying to uncover any secrets hidden within the otherwise ordinary black-and-white words.
It wasn’t until he reached the front of the hot dog queue, standing right beside a streetlamp, that the thin paper was illuminated by the light…
There were words on the back.
Fang Xingzhou’s pupils dilated.
He quickly flipped the paper over and saw the familiar handwriting.
The writing was elegant and steady, with several lines crossed out in frustration, still revealing the owner’s exquisite penmanship that could serve as a model.
…It was his own handwriting.
Yet he had no memory of writing the note, as if that memory had been shielded by some unknown force and deleted with a single click.
He stared at the words written by himself half a month ago, his shoulders tensing gradually, his breathing growing more rapid. The hot dog vendor called out to him several times, but he didn’t hear.
“Hey, your hot dogs! Hey, do you want them or not? I’ll give them to someone else if you don’t!”
The hot dog vendor approached him and shouted at the top of his lungs.
Fang Xingzhou finally came to his senses, quickly stuffing the paper into his pocket, and awkwardly smiling at the vendor, saying, “Sorry, please wrap them up for me.”
Twenty hot dogs were packed into five boxes, which were surprisingly heavy when held in his hands. Fang Xingzhou carried the porridge and medicine in his left hand and his lover’s midnight snack in his right, walking slowly back home, staring at his long shadow cast by the streetlight and counting his heavy breaths.
The contents he had just seen were floating back to his mind one by one, stirring up a tempest in his brain…
[April 12th, Consultation with Psychiatrist Director Li]
[Diagnosis Keywords: Sociopathic Personality]
[If you see this note, remember to discuss today’s diagnosis with Director Li. If Director Li has also forgotten]…
[It means that Xiaolu can manipulate people’s thoughts and memories. He]…
[It means he has been pretending to be human]…
“Pretending to be human.”
Sweat beaded on Fang Xingzhou’s forehead, the heat in his head intensifying, his temples throbbing.
He never remembered Director Li giving a diagnosis of “sociopathic personality.” That day… He simply entered the consulting room, chatted with Doctor Li for about ten minutes, then went next door to complete a questionnaire. The final results were nothing serious, and he didn’t even pick up any medication after self-assessment.
What else? …Think harder, there must be something missing.
Fang Xingzhou tightly gripped the plastic bag, his nails digging into his flesh.
…After seeing the psychologist, he accompanied Deer to the gynecology department for a physical examination. Lu Jianchuan disguised himself as a woman, but his exceptionally tall stature drew awes from colleagues. Fortunately, the pregnancy test results were normal… The next day he had a day off, and the day after that, he went to work as usual. Colleagues congratulated him on soon becoming a father…
Everything was smooth, steady, and unusually normal, as if orchestrated by fate, with him and his colleagues as mere puppets.
Fang Xingzhou tightened his grip on the paper, which was thoroughly soaked with sweat.
Not human…
Calm down, calm down, and think it through…
Fang Xingzhou bit his lower lip.
The clothes were his, the handwriting was his. During the recent severe morning sickness of Deer, he had cut off all social activities and rushed home as soon as he got off work. It was impossible for his friends or colleagues to have had the opportunity to play such a boring prank on him.
Obviously, there were two possibilities.
The first possibility was that on February 14th, after visiting the psychologist, for some reason, he began to suspect the species of his lover and foresaw that his memory would be erased, so he wrote a reminder, hiding it in a frequently worn coat pocket. Unfortunately, the weather had warmed up quickly over the past half-month, and he hadn’t had the chance to wear that coat again until tonight, when he grabbed a jacket on impulse to cover his work clothes, just happening to pick the one with the hidden note.
The second possibility was that his mental state was far from as optimistic as the diagnosis suggested, having developed severe hallucinations and memory confusion. In a mysterious hallucination, he wrote a reminder that his lover was not human and believed that his memory errors were due to Lu Jianchuan’s secret manipulation… As a result, within the half-month after writing the note, his mental state deteriorated, causing him to forget many things, leading to this seemingly bizarre outcome.
As he thought, Fang Xingzhou chuckled sarcastically.
Logically, he was still analyzing which of the two possibilities was true.
But intuitively, he had made a judgment the moment he saw the note.
Lu Jianchuan was not human. Without a doubt.
No normal human male (not even hermaphrodites) could become pregnant so easily and smoothly pass the implantation stage.
No pregnant person could empty an entire refrigerator, drink dozens of bottles of red wine, and consume hundreds of pounds of fresh meat within a day, still craving hot dogs across the street five minutes later.
No normal city house would be surrounded by animals and then disappear within a short period. Nor would anyone’s roses bloom for over ten days straight, only to wilt rapidly when their loved one was unwell.
Without a doubt.
Lu Jianchuan had almost written this secret on his face, and he had probably been implanted with something in his brain, preventing him from thinking deeply about it.
Fang Xingzhou gradually slowed his pace.
The 300-meter distance was too short, and he was almost home.
Perhaps, as soon as he stepped through that door and looked into those beautiful amber eyes, all these judgments would be reset with a single click, and his brain would return to chaos.
Fang Xingzhou stood there for a long time, unmoving.
He slipped the note into his inner pocket, opened his phone, and recorded what he had just seen, then wrote down everything that happened after work today, filling nearly five hundred words, ensuring every detail was accurate and detailed. Finally, he inserted this passage into his daily memo.
After doing all that, he walked to the door.
Before he could take out his keys, someone quickly pulled the door open from inside, hugging him tightly and sniffing all over his face and neck, like someone addicted, desperate to stick their nose to him.
“Why did it take so long?” Lu Jianchuan complained in a low voice, “Eighteen minutes and twenty-three seconds! I almost came out to look for you.”
All his anxiety melted away in the embrace, and Fang Xingzhou’s heart softened uncontrollably, but human instinct still made his fingers tremble slightly, as if he were a helpless, wing-broken bird caught in a snake’s mouth.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the roses on the shoe cabinet. The petals that had withered and fallen to the ground not long ago had flown back onto the stems. They were as beautiful, gorgeous, and fragrant as ever, like a magic trick of time.
He could be sure that soon he would forget the sight of the fallen petals, just as he had forgotten all the information about his antisocial personality disorder diagnosis. Lu Jianchuan was still sniffing his cheeks and hair, telling him how he had cleaned the house, ordered fresh food delivery, made some side dishes for porridge, and how much he had missed him during these 18 minutes. He even brought up the baby in his belly, showing him his stomach kicked by the baby, and accused him of leaving them for so long.
Fang Xingzhou felt creeped out instinctively, but couldn’t help smiling.
He could calmly judge that Lu Jianchuan was feeling guilty. Whenever he looked into his eyes, Lu would avert his gaze to the ceiling, probably calculating when to alter his memories.
Fang Xingzhou pulled away from his embrace and said, “I’m hungry. Let me eat first.”
Upon hearing this, Lu Jianchuan immediately let go, took the things Fang was carrying, and said, “I made you scrambled eggs with tomatoes and sautéed asparagus. What would you like to drink? Freshly squeezed apple juice, okay?”
Fang Xingzhou: “Sure, no sugar.”
Lu Jianchuan was easily distracted and went to the kitchen to make juice for his wife. Fang Xingzhou put his things on the dining table and saw that the house was spotlessly clean, whereas just ten minutes ago, it had been in a mess as if robbed.
He couldn’t help but wonder… what kind of monster could do housework so efficiently?
A real-life version of a river snail[mfn]A myth in China about a demon? that will come to your house and do all the housework for u, usually to describe someone chaste.[/mfn]? Or a centipede with dozens of legs? Or perhaps a wizard from a Western story, who could restore all the furniture to its original state just by waving a magic wand?
Lu Jianchuan showed great interest in his blood, or maybe he was a vampire? He could teleport and handle multiple household chores simultaneously… but he didn’t seem afraid of sunlight or repelled by garlic either.
Fang Xingzhou took a bite of the scrambled eggs with tomatoes, which tasted delicious. It was hard to imagine that it was made by a non-human being.
He stared absent-mindedly at Lu Jianchuan’s back, his left hand slowly curling into a fist.
Soon, the freshly squeezed apple juice was poured into a cup and placed beside Fang Xingzhou. Lu Jianchuan sat down next to him, opened the hot dog his wife had brought back, and was so hungry that he wanted to devour all twenty at once, but he had to pretend to be restrained and eat them elegantly like a gentleman.
He enjoyed his food even more than Fang Xingzhou, even though he had just eaten over a hundred pounds of meat not long ago.
Fang Xingzhou looked at his clean, even teeth and imagined him growing sharp fangs and using them to pierce his neck. A part of his emotions was spinning out of control in the invisible dark corners, verging on madness.
Lu Jianchuan blushed at his gaze.
He ate more slowly, his ears slightly warm, feeling guilty yet tempted. His eyes fell on Fang Xingzhou’s lips, slightly red from the hot porridge, and suddenly the sausage in his hand lost its appeal.
After being hungry all day, he began to crave some extremely delicious…
Fang Xingzhou suddenly asked, “What are you thinking about?”
Lu Jianchuan’s eyes wandered: “Hmm?”
“Your eyes look like you want to devour me,” Fang Xingzhou commented. “Would I taste good?”
Lu Jianchuan: “…”
He was startled and almost dropped the sausage, his body instinctively recoiling, the chair scraping against the floor with a shrill sound.
“How could I? How could I bear to eat you? I was just… admiring your handsome face. Honey, did I scare you just now? It’s just that my appetite has increased because I’m pregnant. I haven’t mutated into some weird species, and I have no interest in eating people.” Lu Jianchuan was sweating and even started to hesitate whether to alter Fang Xingzhou’s memories right now.
Fang Xingzhou let out a complicated laugh.
“I’m not talking about that kind of eating,” he said hoarsely, then lifted his foot, stepping on the edge of Lu Jianchuan’s chair, his toes inadvertently pressing against his tail through the fabric. “Lu Jianchuan, you’re panicking like a fox with its tail exposed.”
Lu Jianchuan: “…”
He was completely stunned. Although he didn’t understand the meaning of these words, his tail quickly perked up, his heart pounding. As Fang Xingzhou got closer and closer, he blocked his lips.
One hand tightly grasped the end of his hair, pulling him forward. Fang Xingzhou’s tongue pried open his teeth but didn’t go any deeper as usual, just repeatedly licking his not-so-sharp canines.
Lu Jianchuan was both bewildered and excited. He held Fang Xingzhou on his lap, allowing him to inspect his teeth like a military parade. When they separated, he excitedly whispered, “What kind of eating is that?”
Fang Xingzhou said nothing.
Lu Jianchuan then realized that his lover was looking at him with an unprecedentedly profound gaze, slowly moving along the edge of his skull, as if using his gaze as a scalpel, trying to peel off the mask of human skin on his face, bit by bit…
___________
note from tranlslater:
Almost!! almost there!!!! to fxz know ljc’s real form!!!!
WE ARE SO CLOSE!!!! i cant WAIT anymore omgg
yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss
Super excited rn!