The Embrace of a Monster

Bai Tian rubbed his single, colossal eye as he ambled toward the bathroom. Just as he reached for his toothbrush, the phone on the table behind him suddenly rang.

A quick glance revealed Zhuo’s name on the caller ID.

“Hello? Is something urgent happening?” Bai Tian answered swiftly.

Zhuo, on the other end, was speaking cautiously in a hushed, airy whisper, yet his displeasure and anger were palpable in his urgent tone: “You guys are pushing him too far!”

Given his hushed tone, Bai Tian concluded that there probably wasn’t an immediate, life-threatening crisis. However, Zhuo’s next sentence immediately sent a jolt of pure anxiety through Bai Tian’s spine.

“Do you know Yuan Anqing almost jumped?”

“What?!” Bai Tian couldn’t help but raise his voice.

“I’m the one who pulled him back! If not for me, he would have stepped right out the window.” Zhuo grew angrier with each word. “Do you bureaucrats even care about his mental health?!”

“You pulled him back?” Bai Tian asked, stunned.

“What else was I supposed to do?!”

“Well… if Mr. Yuan genuinely sought death, there wouldn’t be any backlash to you through the contract. You know that, don’t you?” Yuan Anqing possessed the ring that could inflict pain on Zhuo, but he rarely used it. If Yuan Anqing truly wished to die, it was highly unlikely he would actively use the ring on the way down. Zhuo could have simply let him fall and gained his freedom.

“Do you think I’m a fool?” Zhuo, of course, knew that. “I won’t accept him dying on his own terms without my permission! Do you understand me?!”

Yuan Anqing was like his personal, gourmet delicacy. He hadn’t even started eating yet; Yuan Anqing wasn’t allowed to just ‘spoil’ himself. Zhuo absolutely wouldn’t accept it.

“I understand,” Bai Tian said softly. Indeed, Zhuo and Yuan Anqing’s relationship was growing remarkably complex.

Zhuo briefly explained the psychic hangover from the Vortex. “I don’t know how long this mental interference will last, but he’s finally asleep now.”

“It shouldn’t be a genuine emotional collapse; his suppressed feelings are just leaking out due to the psychic strain.” Bai Tian scratched his smooth blue scalp. “How did you manage to soothe him to sleep? Logically, he should be highly agitated and erratic.”

“I told him if he didn’t hurry up and sleep now, he wouldn’t be able to stay awake during work tomorrow,” Zhuo said. He recalled that when he first met Yuan Anqing, the man was so chronically exhausted he was capable of falling asleep mid-sentence.

Bai Tian silently covered his face, deeply depressed by this logic. After a moment of composure, he asked, “Why are you speaking so softly, then?”

Despite the clear anger in his tone, Zhuo was still shouting in an aggressive whisper.

“Because Yuan Anqing is sleeping right next to me. If I’m too loud, I’ll wake him up,” Zhuo explained impatiently.

“You could temporarily get up and move a little further away,” Bai Tian suggested. “As long as you can physically see Mr. Yuan, it should be fine.”

“No. He’s holding my tail.” Zhuo couldn’t move an inch; he was confined to sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed while holding the phone.

Yuan Anqing’s earlier display—looking ready to casually step off a ledge right in front of Zhuo—had thoroughly rattled the monster. Zhuo couldn’t shake the feeling that if Yuan Anqing closed his eyes, he might simply decide never to wake up again.

With no other options to keep him anchored to reality, Zhuo had awkwardly offered his thick tail to Yuan Anqing as a makeshift body pillow, gently patting the man’s back to comfort him.

Yuan Anqing had found it incredibly difficult to fall asleep. He lay there with a blank expression, staring into space for so long that Zhuo began to wonder if humans could sleep with their eyes open.

Bai Tian understood the situation. “You two don’t need to rush back to the city for now. Observe Mr. Yuan’s condition today and see if he recovers after waking up.”

“Me? Observing? I’m not one of your employees, you know,” Zhuo sounded slightly displeased.

“But right now, you’re the only one by Mr. Yuan’s side.” Bai Tian honestly believed Zhuo would handle the task better than any of their own medical staff.

Bai Tian wanted to have a symbolic, professional wrap-up chat to end the call, but Zhuo had already hung up.

“Turns out complaining to HR was useless,” Zhuo muttered, tossing his phone onto his own pillow.

“Hmm… Woah!” Zhuo was startled by a sudden, sharp intake of breath from Yuan Anqing.

Zhuo quickly jerked up from the bed. His massive tail instinctively flicked in surprise, yanking it out of Yuan Anqing’s grip and accidentally sending the man tumbling completely off the mattress.

A heavy thud echoed in the hotel room. Zhuo gasped sharply.

Yuan Anqing’s left side made intimate contact with the floorboards, leaving him somewhat dazed.

Zhuo immediately lunged to lift him up. It was an unconscious, panicked reaction; his massive hands tightly clasped around Yuan Anqing’s chest, hoisting him forcefully into the air.

Yuan Anqing had always considered himself a tall man, yet Zhuo had effortlessly hoisted him until his feet dangled helplessly off the ground.

“What are you doing?” Yuan Anqing mumbled. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. His black hair hung down, slightly obscuring his eyes, but the pupils hidden within the strands hadn’t returned to their normal black; they still glowed with a faint, molten golden light.

“Nothing,” Zhuo lied defensively. He had wanted to mock Bai Tian earlier, but the sudden accident derailed his train of thought. “It’ll be okay,” Zhuo blurted out, attempting to offer comfort.

He opened his arms wider and embraced the dangling Yuan Anqing tightly, pulling him against his chest. “It will definitely be okay.”

Yuan Anqing felt that Zhuo was acting too human; such a cliché ‘it will definitely be okay’ held zero credibility coming from a man-eating chimera.

Is this how humans comfort each other? Zhuo wondered.

Sure enough, this was something he had learned. All of Zhuo’s comforting gestures were mimicked, likely lifted straight from TV shows, movies, or even comics.

“Uh… no,” Yuan Anqing sighed. After all, he wasn’t genuinely suffering from deep psychological issues; he was merely suffering from a temporary, chemically-induced psychic hangover.

That’s not right. At this point, you’re supposed to hug me back… Zhuo thought, frustrated. You’re making my learned empathy look bad.

Despite the awkwardness, Yuan Anqing didn’t ask Zhuo to let go. This embrace was surprisingly comfortable. Zhuo was massive, and being fully enveloped by him provided a strange, heavy sense of security. Yuan Anqing wasn’t entirely sure why, but he knew he liked the physical pressure of this hug.

“I only ever needed to incite humans to depravity in the past! And besides, the staff switched handlers so fast, I never got a complete chance to explore positive reinforcement!” Zhuo began to complain, entirely forgetting that he was in the middle of comforting someone.

“So you’ve never truly made a psychologically healthy person fall into depravity?” Yuan Anqing hugged Zhuo back, resting his chin on the monster’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing slightly. He enjoyed the feeling of being tightly squeezed.

“Not a fully healthy one, no! But I can definitely do it. Even if verbal instigation isn’t enough, my passive aura can still tempt people into madness.” Zhuo was quite confident in himself. “What do you think?”

“I also think you could definitely do it,” Yuan Anqing murmured. He could hear Zhuo’s heartbeat thrumming deep within his chest. He was surprised that a monster like Zhuo even had a heart, yet at the same time, he found the deep, rhythmic thud incredibly hypnotic.

Zhuo indeed possessed the capital to tempt others; he was built like an oversized, perfectly heated, weighted blanket.

Yuan Anqing felt his exhausted consciousness begin to blur once more.

In his feverish haze, he felt Zhuo’s incessant chatter slowly transform into the howling of wind and snow. He dreamt he was walking on a desolate glacier when suddenly his foot slipped, and he tumbled into a massive ice cave, landing squarely on a gigantic, furry creature.

It was an exaggeratedly large polar bear.

The polar bear asked Yuan Anqing what he was doing there, and Yuan Anqing replied that he had stumbled in by mistake. The polar bear then asked why Yuan Anqing was walking outside in such terrible weather. Yuan Anqing stated that his boss had probably told him to.

Afterward, Yuan Anqing was captured by the large polar bear. The bear wrapped its thick, massive paws around him, causing the man to sink completely into the warm fur. The polar bear declared it would eat Yuan Anqing once hibernation ended, so Yuan Anqing had to stay there until winter was over.

Yuan Anqing, bewildered, asked if adult male polar bears actually needed to hibernate.

“Whether we hibernate or not is our business as polar bears. As a human, can you even control that?” the bear retorted.

Well, the polar bear has a point, Yuan Anqing reasoned in his dream.

He gave up. He decided to stay there. He was currently the polar bear’s hostage, so not returning to the freezing wind and snow to work didn’t matter, did it? It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go back to the office; it was that he physically couldn’t.

Being reserve food was fine too; at least he could rest properly before he died.

And the polar bear was really… so comfortable.

“…That was the closest I ever got to success, but I was still discovered, and that guard was transferred away,” Zhuo was still rambling on about his glorious past to the hotel room. “They say he even got married afterward. Tsk.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit much for them to so wantonly destroy my hard work?” Zhuo asked Yuan Anqing.

He received no response.

“Yuan Anqing?” Zhuo called out again.

He gently loosened his arms around Yuan Anqing, just a fraction. When Yuan Anqing immediately started to slump backward limply, Zhuo instantly tightened his embrace again, catching him.

He’s actually asleep!

Zhuo was deeply shocked.

After all, judging from his previous attempts at sharing a bed, Yuan Anqing’s sleep quality was extremely poor; even the slightest movement could wake him. This sudden exhaustion was likely a result of being affected by the Vortex’s psychic drain.

But now Yuan Anqing was fast asleep. While standing up. In his arms.

I truly am a monster who induces desire! Zhuo thought proudly. Haven’t I successfully influenced the Savior to desire sleep?!

Zhuo, both excited and cautious, slowly shuffled toward the mattress to place Yuan Anqing down.

No matter how annoying a bastard could be, they always seemed docile when peacefully sleeping. Zhuo felt that Yuan Anqing perfectly fit this description; this normally lifeless, sarcastic Savior now appeared completely serene and obedient.

Zhuo felt a little curious. A normal person wouldn’t choose to fall asleep so peacefully in his arms. Yuan Anqing had witnessed Zhuo physically devouring Differentiated Beings just days ago. He clearly knew that Zhuo’s hunting method involved luring prey into his embrace and then slowly digesting them.

He was highly dangerous! But Yuan Anqing still fell asleep against his chest.

True, Yuan Anqing wasn’t a normal person, and they had slept in the same bed for days now. However, this particular standing embrace wasn’t part of Zhuo’s plan, which made the monster feel a profound sense of novelty.

Zhuo gently placed Yuan Anqing on the bed, leaning over him to stare at his relaxed face, looking left and right at his features.

Suddenly, Yuan Anqing’s golden eyes snapped open. He stared directly up at the hovering monster.

Zhuo: “…”

Zhuo felt like he was about to develop a nervous tic from the jumpscares.

Yuan Anqing rubbed his eyes, pursed his lips, and sat up slightly. “Aren’t you sleeping?”

“Eh?” Zhuo blinked.

“Let’s sleep together.” Yuan Anqing patted the empty mattress spot beside him.

Zhuo thought for a moment, then his ego suddenly understood. “You want a hug!”

Yuan Anqing was silent for two seconds, too tired to argue, then admitted, “Being held helps me sleep more comfortably.”

“Alright!” Zhuo enthusiastically crawled into the bed and embraced him again, holding him very tightly, but carefully avoiding causing Yuan Anqing any pain.

Yuan Anqing felt his entire body embed into Zhuo’s firm chest.

Zhuo sighed dramatically into the dark room. “You really love me an awful lot, don’t you?”

Yuan Anqing, whose face was currently half-swallowed by Zhuo’s pectoral muscles: “…”

Zhuo then mimicked the action of coaxing a child, gently patting Yuan Anqing’s back. “What would you do without me?” His sigh carried a hint of smugness. He was clearly very pleased with being ‘liked.’

Yuan Anqing: “…”

Forget it, Yuan Anqing thought. I’ll just sleep first, and correct his delusions tomorrow.