When Song Nanxing came out, he saw Cheng Jianning sitting on the sofa with his shoulders hunched like a quail.
As soon as he saw him, Cheng Jianning suddenly turned his head to look at him, tears welling in his eyes, on the verge of crying.
Song Nanxing was baffled. “What’s wrong?”
Cheng Jianning looked at him accusingly. “Why are you still keeping that puppet, and the octopus in the fish tank…”
Song Nanxing glanced at the puppet resting on the armrest of the sofa. The puppet tilted its head, its black hollow eyes staring at him pitifully—kind of cute.
He patted the puppet’s head and said, “It helped me before, and it’s pretty obedient.”
The puppet’s black hollow eyes squinted happily, its whole body leaning over almost pressing against Song Nanxing’s leg, obedient like a little kitten.
Cheng Jianning was dumbfounded, pointing at the puppet, stammering “It, it, it…” for a long time without managing to say a word.
What the hell, how can a puppet have two faces?
The puppet seemed to know what he wanted to say and turned its head fiercely to bare its teeth at him.
Song Nanxing didn’t see this and asked, “What’s wrong with it? Don’t worry, it doesn’t bite people randomly.”
Cheng Jianning sensed a strong murderous aura and swallowed his complaints, insincerely saying, “It’s kind of cute.”
Song Nanxing looked at the puppet and smiled, “Yeah, it is.”
Cheng Jianning: “…This puppet doesn’t have some kind of mind-confusing ability, does it? Otherwise, I really don’t get how you could be so biased in favor of a puppet!”
Cheng Jianning raged silently in his heart but didn’t dare say it out loud.
He cautiously pointed towards the bedroom. “That octopus from before, it seems to have gone to your room.”
Song Nanxing went into the bedroom, pinched the small octopus’s tentacle between two fingers, lifted it, and tossed it into the fish tank. “Don’t run around.”
The little octopus slapped the water surface unhappily with its tentacles.
But Song Nanxing was determined and paid it no mind.
Seeing Cheng Jianning’s ghostly expression staring at him, Song Nanxing awkwardly explained, “I bought it off the street. Maybe the source wasn’t very legitimate, so…”
Cheng Jianning completed the sentence in his mind: So this little octopus isn’t exactly normal either.
He sulked, thinking no one else’s octopus would randomly change size.
Bro, your heart is really big.
But remembering the huge octopus from earlier, Cheng Jianning didn’t dare comment casually. He nodded like an old dog at peace and said, “I’m going to take a shower too.”
Song Nanxing went to the cabinet to get a blanket and a pillow, and through the door said, “I put the pillow and blanket on the sofa. If you need anything else, just tell me.”
After saying that, he waved at the puppet. “Time to sleep.”
The puppet’s black hollow eyes slightly enlarged, grabbing the corner of his clothes and following him to the bedroom obediently.
The little octopus, waiting for Song Nanxing to call it, looked at him in disbelief as he was about to close the door.
It suddenly jumped out of the water, floating angrily in front of Song Nanxing, its eight tentacles waving so fast they almost left afterimages.
“I want to sleep too, together!”
But Song Nanxing remained indifferent. He pushed the jelly-like head of the little octopus back with his fingers and coldly refused, “No. If I sleep with you, I’ll have nightmares.”
Although the puppet was stiff, it surprisingly felt good to hold while sleeping.
But in the middle of the night, he started having nightmares, dreaming of those tentacles chasing him. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t escape, and finally the tentacles caught him and dragged him into the unknown depths.
When he woke up in the morning, he saw the little octopus lying on his chest and immediately knew who the culprit behind his nightmares was.
So he decided to forbid the little octopus from appearing in the bedroom at night.
The little octopus floated there dazedly as Song Nanxing closed the door.
The puppet looked back once, arrogantly raised its head like a victor, then slowly climbed onto the bed and obediently sat on Song Nanxing’s usual side, waiting to sleep together.
When Cheng Jianning came out, he nearly tripped over the tentacles at the door.
He saw the blue tentacles crawling all over the floor, swallowed hard, and pressed his hands together apologetically, “Big bro, sorry, I didn’t mean to step on you.”
Luckily, the octopus didn’t seem to be in a bad mood and ignored him.
Cheng Jianning dashed into the living room, jumped on the sofa, and wrapped himself up in a blanket, trying to lull himself to sleep quickly.
The little octopus, unable to get into the bedroom, patted its tentacles unhappily but dared not make too much noise to disturb Song Nanxing’s sleep. After silently venting its anger for a while, it turned its gaze to Cheng Jianning.
The pillow Cheng Jianning was sleeping on was one that had been idle on Song Nanxing’s bed.
The little octopus crawled over stealthily and stared at the person wrapped in the blanket without moving.
Cheng Jianning was a blockhead. He couldn’t sleep with that murderous gaze fixed on him, so he took a deep breath, pulled down the blanket covering his head, revealing a pair of eyes. “Big bro, I really didn’t mean to step on you.”
One octopus can’t be so petty, right?!
The little octopus coldly stared at him, curled up its tentacles, and pointed at the pillow Cheng Jianning was using.
Cheng Jianning was incredulous. “You want this pillow?”
The little octopus’s tentacles nodded with a hint of urgency.
Cheng Jianning: “…”
An octopus wants a pillow to sleep on? That’s just unbelievable.
Not daring to offend it, he gritted his teeth and handed the pillow over, politely putting it on the coffee table. “Is it okay to put it here?”
The little octopus ignored him, shrank its body, crawled onto the pillow, and buried its head inside.
Cheng Jianning: “…”
Alright then.
It had rained all night outside.
Song Nanxing was woken up by violent raindrops pounding on the window. Half-asleep, he released the puppet, got up, and pulled open the drawn curtains to look outside.
The whole sky was dark and heavy, as if the black clouds were pressing down on his head, with rain pouring down relentlessly.
“Another heavy rain,” Song Nanxing muttered and pushed open the bedroom door.
He saw Cheng Jianning already up, the blanket neatly folded on the sofa, the pillow on the coffee table with a little blue octopus lying on top of it.
Seeing Song Nanxing come out, Cheng Jianning politely asked, “Want breakfast? I can cook some instant noodles and fry an egg.”
Song Nanxing asked, “You can cook?”
Cheng Jianning said, “I learned from my grandma.” His smile faltered slightly when mentioning her but quickly returned. “I only learned about half, but it tastes okay.”
“Alright, then I’ll trouble you,” Song Nanxing said and went to the bathroom to wash up.
Cheng Jianning took instant noodles and eggs from the fridge and went to the kitchen. When he turned around, he saw the puppet and the octopus standing outside the kitchen door, staring at him gloomily and intently.
The puppet’s black hollow eyes seemed to ripple with something, baring its teeth at him, even fiercer than yesterday.
Cheng Jianning: “?”
What did I do to offend you two, big bro?
The rain was too heavy. After breakfast, Cheng Jianning couldn’t leave immediately and had to stay until it stopped.
With nothing to do, they played games and watched the news on TV.
Then the doorbell rang.
Cheng Jianning jumped up to open the door, muttering, “Who would come in this heavy rain?”
He opened the door to see a tall man standing there. Upon seeing Cheng Jianning, the man’s expression instantly turned cold, his eyelids drooping as he swept over him. Although his tone was polite, Cheng Jianning felt the man’s displeasure even from his double eyelid crease.
Cheng Jianning thought, this is like seeing a ghost—no matter if it’s a person or not, they want to roll their eyes at me.
Why didn’t I know I was so annoying?
While Cheng Jianning was lost in thought, the tall man spoke first, asking, “Who are you?”
Cheng Jianning hurriedly said, “I’m a friend of Song Nanxing’s. Are you looking for him?”
At that moment, Song Nanxing heard the noise at the door and asked, “Is that Shen Du? Just come in.”
Upon hearing Song Nanxing, Shen Du nodded coldly at Cheng Jianning’s forehead, took off his shoes at the entrance shoe cabinet, slipped on his own slippers, and brushed past Cheng Jianning’s shoulder to enter the house.
Cheng Jianning: “?”
It really wasn’t his imagination; he felt targeted.
Confused, he followed inside and saw Shen Du putting things into the fridge while talking to Song Nanxing. “It’s raining heavily today. How about hot pot for lunch?”
Song Nanxing said, “Okay.” Then he remembered Shen Du always liked to buy groceries early in the morning and reminded him, “The morning news said quite a few people got infected with tree skin disease recently. You’d better avoid going out these days. Our instant noodles will be enough for us.”
“Were you not home all day yesterday because of that?”
Song Nanxing mumbled an “Mm” and didn’t want Shen Du to know about his connection with the Containment Center. Feeling a bit guilty, he scratched the tip of his nose and said, “We were there on the day of the stadium incident, helping out.”
Shen Du didn’t ask further and turned his gaze to Cheng Jianning.
“Is this your friend? I haven’t seen him before.”
Song Nanxing said, “He works at the Containment Center and is usually busy. I was helping out there yesterday, and it got late, so he stayed at my place overnight.”
Cheng Jianning listened to their casual chat, his gaze shifting between them. He felt like there was some atmosphere he couldn’t break into.
So he sat up straight and showed a standard smile with all eight teeth when Shen Du looked at him.
Shen Du scanned him and carried the groceries into the kitchen.
Cheng Jianning’s fake smile fell apart. He leaned over and whispered to Song Nanxing, “So this is your… friend?”
When he said “friend,” he hesitated, feeling the two didn’t look like ordinary friends.
Who else would brave the heavy rain to come cook for the other?
Song Nanxing didn’t notice his suspicion and lowered his voice, “He’s my neighbor, lives next door in 402. We’re basically meal partners. Since we both live alone, we decided to eat together. He cooks; I wash the dishes.”
Song Nanxing glanced at the tall figure in the kitchen and lowered his voice further. “He’s a professor at Tongcheng University, just a normal person. I haven’t told him I joined the Containment Center yet, so don’t let it slip.”
Cheng Jianning stared at him incredulously. “What’s wrong with telling him? It’s not like he’s your girlfriend. Are you worried he can’t accept that your job is too busy and dangerous?”
Song Nanxing looked at him expressionlessly. “People don’t talk just to say nonsense.”