Zhou Jiao felt the tendrils tightening, growing colder, more violent and agitated. They inched closer—each fleshy limb pulsing, expanding and contracting, casting flickering bioluminescent blue flecks like a mesmerizing, terrifying starfield, washing over her mind with overwhelming force.
…Her rational mind couldn't hold out much longer. She had to trigger the deep coma—now. But she needed confirmation from the company, safety assurances.
She bit her tongue hard, pain snapping her back. With shaking fingers, she typed:
[All this depends on one condition: I need you to store the following items under "my name" in the HighTech Vault:]
HighTech was a Nordic mega‑company known for discreet, high‑security private vault services—customer identity never questioned. Nuclear warheads in the vault? No problem.
[The items are: 100,000 New Yen, a military‑grade disguise mask, scent suppressor spray, optical‑camouflage suit.]
The money was noise—what mattered were the last three.
Military disguise mask: a nano‑facial prosthetic that can reshape face contours, skin tone—even ear size or neck length.
Scent suppressor: to mask her personal odor—without it facial disguise meant nothing.
Camouflage suit: optical‑nano invisibility fabric to render her practically invisible.
With these, she might slip through the deadliest blockade.
Time bled by. Her rational resolve stretched thin under those buzzing limbs. She barely had the strength to wait.
Then finally, the company replied:
[No problem.]
Fuck. She whispered a curse.
She could—she did it.
Meanwhile, Jiang Lian—never appearing in person—kept watch through his tendrils. Thousands of them acted like ultramodern cameras, slicing her every microexpression into 10,000 frames per second.
Under that surveillance, she should have withered. But instead, he grew more and more enthralled. Surveillance wasn't satiating his obsession—it only fueled it.
He realized what he craved wasn't closer vision—it was her. But she was out of reach, barely a white blossom flapping in his dark, slimy mire.
He closed his eyes hard. All his vast, multidimensional intellect… could not parse the one emotion choking him: frustration.
Then she smiled—or something like a smile—with that familiar, mocking glance.
What was she trying now? He narrowed his eyes to slits.
But she did nothing. Within minutes, her breathing slowed, body relaxed—she had entered a coma.
Still, Jiang Lian remained motionless: a predator unsure who's still playing the game.
He knew her will. She wasn't a suicide. No tricks.
He moved—swift as thought—back to the nest he'd built for her.
BioTech Tower, downtown.
Staff drift in and out. A project in the top lab was halted. They'd cleared space to synthesize her scent.
All employees undergo biometric screening—samples taken at check‑ups is company policy. No privacy. If you work there, fine, they keep your skin, blood, tissue for data.
They'd already cloned her scent. A powerful aerosol could control Jiang Lian—sent out into the open air.
Stronger: they planned ultra‑high‑density pheromones, maybe even bio‑weapons.
They didn't want two "Zhou Jiaos"; just one thing: control of Jiang Lian. If scent spray failed, they intended citywide saturation—only then, they believed, could they subdue him.
But she—Zhou Jiao—knew better.
When the entire city reeked of her at levels hundreds of times stronger… Jiang Lian couldn't findher.
Inside the skyscraper, the laboratory was filled with a harmonious, celebratory mood.
Researchers high-fived each other, cheering the experiment's success as they shared slices of organic meat pizza.
Yet, not far from them—just two floors up on the rooftop terrace—an undetectable, writhing mass of cold, slimy, purple-black tendrils had already taken over.
By the time Jiang Lian arrived, the tendrils were in a frenzy. They squirmed violently, expanding and contracting with maddened intensity, emitting low-frequency pulses of rage and hysteria.
They didn't have Jiang Lian's self-control. They couldn't analyze Zhou Jiao's personality like he could.
They only knew one thing: Zhou Jiao wasn't waking up.
No matter how furiously they screamed her name, no matter how much energy they pumped into her body, no matter how carefully they mimicked a defibrillator's rhythm to jolt her heart with electric pulses—it was useless.
She wasn't waking up.
Was she dead?
She can't die.
She can't die.
She can't die.
A chilling, subsonic hum detonated across the city. For a moment, everyone in the skyscraper froze—their faces eerily blank, like they'd glimpsed a towering iceberg on the verge of collapse. The weaker ones blacked out completely.
The tendrils were so terrified that they forgot their place—forgot the supremacy of their host—and tried to command him:
"Wake her up."
"Wake her up."
"Wake her up."
Jiang Lian's nerves frayed to the edge. His voice turned to ice.
"Shut up."
"We are you."
"Our thoughts are your thoughts."
"She is yours. You have to wake her up."
"Wake her up…"
It wasn't the first time Jiang Lian found the tendrils noisy. But this was the first time he was tempted to slaughter them all.
He'd never felt such violent, bloodthirsty urges before.
Until now, he'd only ever snuffed out their consciousness, never destroyed them outright.
But killing tendrils was self-harm—they were part of him. Their death would wound him, too.
So where was this madness coming from?
Was it… Zhou Jiao?
Jiang Lian didn't know.
He only knew that the moment he saw her unconscious, a wave of raw, consuming panic engulfed him.
He could kill her. But he couldn't wake her up.
She'd almost died by his hand several times.
She was so fragile, so breakable. If he applied just a little more pressure, her throat would snap with a sickening crack.
He'd always stood above her—an all-powerful, godlike predator, sniffing her scent, feeding off her presence, towering over her like she was prey.
He'd even planted the idea in her head that he was something supreme—beyond human comprehension, beyond naming or language.
He had scorned her. Rejected her. Looked down on her.
Even when she drew his attention, he still saw her as inferior—tiny, weak, unworthy of notice.
Not even worthy of his irritation.
Yet now, lying there in a deep coma, she was unreachable.
He couldn't wake her up.
He could end her life with ease, but he couldn't bring her back.
Time stood still.
Rage. Restlessness. Terror. They all crashed against him in a flood.
And whether he wanted to admit it or not, the truth was unavoidable:
He was afraid.
He was terrified that she might never wake up.
The knowledge embedded in the "Jiang Lian" personality told him that she wasn't just in a coma anymore—she was nearing persistent vegetative state.
She had truly become a white camellia.
Fragile. Small. Wilting in his hands.
Jiang Lian squeezed his eyes shut.
A long silence passed before he realized—
All this fury, all this fear, even the poetic image of a dying flower—
Those were human emotions.
Without realizing it, he was becoming something filthy and human.
Then he heard it: a voice echoing deep inside him.
His original personality had reemerged.
Jiang Lian had been so overwhelmed, he'd lost control of the human consciousness inside him.
"It's the chip," said the human voice.
Their merging had advanced far enough that the voice no longer sounded calm and composed—it was colder now, sharper.
"She used a neural chip to force herself into a coma," the voice sneered.
"Take her to the company, you idiot. If you wait any longer, she'll develop cortical syndrome. She'll really become a vegetable. Only an idiot like you would push someone they 'like' to this point."
The voice paused, then twisted cruelly:
"If you don't know how to love her—let me do it."
Jiang Lian's face darkened.
He didn't even argue against the word love.
His mind had room for only one thought:
You? Love her? You're not even worthy.