Chapter 37: Jian Tang Felt He Couldn’t Do Human Romance
Rewind to five minutes prior.
After hanging up the call, Feng Xun did not immediately get out of the car.
Just a second ago, the youth’s clear, lively voice had been echoing in his ears, and the sudden return to silence left a distinct contrast. For the time being, he didn’t want to step outside; it felt as though lingering a bit longer in this cramped vehicle cabin would allow him to savor the moment just a little more.
The man leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes slightly.
With a practiced movement, he placed the silver-thread mask he had pulled off earlier back onto his face. Jian Tang had mentioned he was about to get busy, which meant he would continue accompanying those three clients. In a moment, he would have to follow them and keep watch from a distance.
Sensing that the adjustments to his face were complete, Feng Xun opened his eyes. His gaze happened to fall directly on his phone screen.
The current interface was frozen on the contact details page. In the row for the contact’s name, it read [Jian Tang].
He looked down at it for a moment, then edited the contact name.
[Little Tang]
After a brief thought, he added another character.
[Little Tangxin]
Even that trashy blond guy knew that a more unique form of address was required to show off an intimate relationship. Although Feng Xun lacked the thick skin to say it to his face, saving it in the phone’s contact list… amounted to the same thing.
He stared at the new name on his phone, the corners of his mouth lightly curving up into a small arc.
Suddenly, he felt a powerful gaze fixed upon him.
The man’s expression turned cold. He looked toward the source of the gaze guardedly—
Separated by a single car window, he locked eyes with the person outside, staring blankly at each other.
Feng Xun: “…”
Jian Tang: “…”
When Jian Tang spotted his wife’s car just now, he had been thoroughly shocked. He quickly ran over to the vehicle and peeked inside: Huh? There’s actually someone sitting in the driver’s seat?
Taking a closer look, his face turned completely green—
Damn it! It’s actually that annoying Mr. Sui!
Why on earth is this despicable villain who backstabbed my wife inside my wife’s car?!
Feng Xun watched as Jian Tang’s expression shifted from initial shock, to bewilderment, and then to a visible, burning rage.
…Not good.
Feng Xun instinctively felt a sense of crisis, but it was already too late to abandon the car and flee. Just as Jian Tang rushed over to yank the door handle, his reflexes kicked in and he hit the central locking button.
“Why are you inside my wife’s car?!”
Jian Tang failed to pull the door open. Seeing the other party’s guilt-ridden, shifty demeanor, the deduction in his heart became completely rock-solid.
“Did you steal my wife’s car keys?” He glared at the person inside the car, stamping his feet in pure fury. “You stole the keys, snuck into my garage, and drove the car away? You car thief!!”
“No,” Feng Xun immediately explained. “It was… borrowed.”
“You have the nerve to borrow from my wife?!” Jian Tang had never met anyone so brazenly shameless. “My wife is spending his day off all alone at home, and not only did you not bring him out to play, you even drove his car all the way here to enjoy yourself! Y-You’re using his car, yet you slander him behind his back. You’re despicable! You’re vulgar! You’re shameless!”
The more Jian Tang spoke, the more his anger soared to the skies. But he couldn’t get inside, and he was so furious he wanted to smash the window. Just as his fist extended, he pulled it back.
No, no, no. This is my wife’s car, I can’t smash it.
If I’m going to smash anything, it has to be this bastard’s head!
The youth resembled a volatile little hound, pacing around in a furious frenzy outside while barking non-stop, making the heavily built man sitting in the driver’s seat look rather isolated, helpless, and pitiful by contrast.
…This was the first time Feng Xun had ever been cornered at his own door.
In the past, he was always the one cornering others inside a room, leaving them shivering in terror, crying out to heaven and earth to no avail. Who would have thought that the tables would turn one day, and he would experience the exact same treatment himself.
Suddenly, he saw Jian Tang come to a halt and fish his phone out of his pocket.
The moment the other party dialed the number, the phone in his hand began to ring as well.
It was a video call request from [Little Tangxin].
Feng Xun was incredibly thankful that the car windows had decent soundproofing. Before the ringtone could sound a second time, he swiftly rejected the call.
A few seconds later, it rang once more.
He rejected it again.
Jian Tang looked at his phone in XML-like bewilderment.
What is my wife busy with?
Why isn’t he answering the phone at all.
He had originally wanted to start a video call to let his wife see the ugly, malicious face of this colleague so his wife wouldn’t be kept in the dark, but if his wife was busy, then forget it.
Taking a video would work just as well.
Then, Feng Xun watched as the youth raised his phone, circling the exterior of the vehicle while filming him relentlessly, gathering evidence from a full 360-degree range.
Feng Xun: “…”
This face really can’t be used anymore.
Jian Tang had already done everything he could. The other party was thick-skinned enough to lounge inside the car without coming out, so there was nothing he could do.
But if he just left without giving this guy a proper lesson, he truly couldn’t settle the grievance in his heart.
The youth rolled his eyes, suddenly hitting upon an excellent idea.
“Just you wait,” he barked fiercely, dropping a harsh threat toward the person inside the car. “You’re illegally occupying my household property. I’m going to call the police right now! Let them handle you!”
With that, he took a few steps away, turned his back, and began to put on an act of making a call.
“Hello? Is this the police? I’d like to report a crime…”
Naturally, it was impossible for Jian Tang to actually call the police.
He had always avoided human law enforcement whenever possible. Right now, “making a call” was merely a strategy to lure the enemy out.
Sure enough, he caught the faint click of the car door unlocking. After waiting a couple of seconds, he whipped his head around—
That bastard had indeed abandoned the vehicle and fled!
Jian Tang was overjoyed. He immediately bolted in pursuit: Hmph, I was just waiting for you to run. When it comes to running speed, this Tang has never lost!
He thought he had this race in the bag, but to Jian Tang’s surprise, although the gap between the two of them was slowly shrinking, the speed was far lower than his expectations.
Holy crap, how can this human run so fast!
While Jian Tang was astonished, Feng Xun was silently startled in his heart as well.
He had originally planned to shake the boy off and change into a new mask once he reached a safe area, but he hadn’t expected Jian Tang to pursue him so relentlessly. Even though he was utilizing eighty percent of his true strength, he still couldn’t leave the youth behind.
This child’s speed is insane!
One chasing and the other fleeing, the two tore through the underground parking lot at full tilt.
At a certain intersection, Feng Xun ducked around a corner and immediately hid behind a vehicle. Completely oblivious, Jian Tang continued rushing straight ahead.
He chased all the way to the absolute end of the lane, where a fire wall stood. A row of cars was parked in front of the wall, but there wasn’t a single sign of a human figure left.
I lost him?
Jian Tang found it unbelievable. With his speed and eyesight, how could he possibly lose track of an ordinary human?
…The other party must be too cunning.
Huffing in annoyance, he looked left and right, searching along the span of the wall. As it turned out, he truly made a new discovery—in the right corner of the fire wall, obscured by a large cargo truck, lay an inconspicuous small door.
He gave the door a push, and it actually swung open smoothly.
A current of cool wind blew out from inside, mixed with a slightly briny scent. Listening closely, he could even vaguely catch the crashing sound of ocean waves.
Huh?
Jian Tang froze, subconsciously poking his head through the doorway to see exactly where this place led.
The interior was pitch-black, but the sound of the ocean waves grew increasingly distinct. Just as Jian Tang sensed something was amiss, a massive force of suction locked onto his body, dragging him entirely through the door.
“!”
Jian Tang panicked for a split second, but the familiar sensation of teleportation quickly allowed him to calm back down.
A conclusion formed in his mind instantly.
—It’s a spatial entrance.
He seemed to have accidentally stumbled into the entrance of another monster town.
Everything occurred in a flash. After a brief wave of dizziness, Jian Tang opened his eyes again to find a completely different world before him.
He was standing inside a massive chamber. In front of him was a blue oil painting the size of a cinema screen. The graphic featured a brilliant azure sky dotted with floating white clouds, alongside a deep blue ocean that stretched out endlessly.
[…You’re here… you’ve come…]
[…Happy… so happy…]
The monster soundwaves he had heard earlier in the deep water pool resonated in his mind once more. Surprised, Jian Tang scanned his surroundings, finally locking onto the source of the voice.
—It was coming from that oil painting.
This massive oil painting wasn’t a static image. A gentle sea breeze rippled across the water’s surface, and small waves constantly lapped playfully against the boundaries of the frame before slowly receding.
Far off in that deep ocean, a small figure swam over.
Jian Tang narrowed his eyes to watch for a bit: Oh, it looks like a pink dolphin. It’s swimming quite fast.
The little pink dolphin swam furiously through the water, thoroughly overjoyed and charging forward with great zeal. Only when it reached the shore did it steal a peek outside the oil painting the moment it breached the surface.
[????]
Jian Tang watched as the little dolphin executed a violent emergency brake. The splash it kicked up sent several little starfish, which had poked their heads out to watch the spectacle, flying through the air.
[Ahhhhh, why did a strange human come here!!]
Jian Tang: “?”
The little dolphin dove into the ocean and refused to come back up, but Jian Tang knew it hadn’t left because he could still hear its inner monologue. It was likely circling frantically beneath the surface of the water.
[It’s over, it’s over, why is the person who came a different human?]
[That shouldn’t be possible. Aside from Ah Cheng, how could any other human possibly get inside…]
[This is terrible, this place was actually discovered by a strange human. Everyone is going to be in danger!]
[Wuu, but if the entrance is shut down, Ah Cheng won’t be able to come in anymore either…]
“I’m not human,” Jian Tang said with a smile. “Rest assured.”
This little dolphin was clearly a very young monster; it hadn’t even learned how to restrain its inner voice yet. Unlike himself—he had stopped making such rookie mistakes hundreds of years ago.
[Huh?]
The voice vanished.
Minutes later, a pair of guarded, large eyes breached the surface. The little dolphin exposed a fraction of its head, nervously sizing up the youth standing outside the oil painting.
He’s not human? But… no matter how I look at him, he looks exactly like a human, and there isn’t a single shred of monster aura on his body.
Jian Tang shook his head, and the ahoge on his crown snapped into a pair of green rabbit ears with a pop.
The little dolphin: “!”
Wow, it really is one of my own kind!
Reassured, the little dolphin floated completely out of the water. It swam to the edge of the oil painting, peering at Jian Tang curiously across an invisible barrier of space.
“Are you a new miner who just arrived at our town?” it asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
“I’m an employee from Weiwu Town,” Jian Tang said. “What is this place?”
“Oh? So you’re a monster from Weiwu Town.” The little dolphin had heard of that town. Word was that several trash recycling factories had been opened there, and because they shared a competitive relationship with Jingba Town, the two sides frequently fought tooth and nail, making the headlines of the local monster news from time to time. “I’m a resident of Weijiu Town.”
The underground monster circle in City A was only so big. Although they rarely met face-to-face, basic information was generally understood. Jian Tang’s eyes instantly filled with longing: “Wow, so you’re from Weijiu Town.”
He had heard that Weijiu Town was incredibly wealthy because its spatial location partially overlapped with the eerie world’s famous “Sea of Healing.” It possessed immensely rich deep-sea resources. They recruited external miners year-round to harvest resources, and selling those resources to the system yielded incredibly handsome returns.
Jian Tang had once thought about jumping ship to work at Weijiu Town, but he had been brutally eliminated at the very first stage—they only recruited marine-type monsters, so a terrestrial plant-type like himself wouldn’t cut it.
“Your human form is so perfect.” The little dolphin swam right out of the oil painting. Although there was no body of water outside, it still swam completely unhindered, resembling a nimble pink bird flying back and forth through the air.
“I’ve never seen such a perfect human form before.” The little dolphin swam several laps around Jian Tang, its voice thick with envy. “Can you teach me how you managed it?”
Jian Tang shook his head apologetically. “This is an innate talent of mine. Ordinary monsters can’t learn it.”
“Oh…” The little dolphin drooped its head in disappointment. “I’ve worked hard for so long, but I can only transform to this extent.”
It executed a spin in mid-air, landing gracefully back into the ocean of the oil painting. However, it was no longer in its fully pink dolphin form, having transformed into a merman—
Its lower body remained a pink dolphin tail, while its upper body had become a pure, innocent youth. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, with short pink hair and a pair of gorgeous, ruby-like eyes.
“Wow, this form of yours is already highly impressive.” Jian Tang marveled, evaluating with the eye of a veteran transformation expert. “The upper body is actually much harder to shape than the lower body. Since you’ve reached this level, you shouldn’t be too far off from a perfect transformation.”
The little merman cheered up for a brief moment, but his expression quickly turned downcast again.
“But it’s still too slow… Sigh, if only I had your talent for transformation, I could accompany Ah Cheng every single day. Wherever he goes, I could follow. How wonderful would that be.”
Jian Tang recalled the inner monologue the little dolphin had been spouting when they first met.
“That Ah Cheng you mentioned, is he human? Were you waiting for him earlier?”
“Hmm!” The little merman revealed a blissful smile. “He’s my lover.”
Lover?
Jian Tang knew that the evolved form of a lover was a wife, so he couldn’t help but feel a surge of delight at finding a kindred spirit. “Do you want to raise a human to be your wife too?”
The little merman flicked his tail in confusion. “To be my wife? No. Ah Cheng and I are just dating.”
Jian Tang: “?”
Jian Tang: “But isn’t dating specifically for the purpose of marrying a wife?”
“Eh? Is that how it works?” The little merman had never heard such a theory. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I just like him a lot, want to see him every day, and want to stay with him forever. Ah Cheng said he feels the same way, so we started dating.”
Jian Tang had purchased a customized wife directly, skipping the dating stage entirely—he had heard that dating carried immense risks; if it didn’t go well, you couldn’t get the lover to evolve into a wife, which was highly draining and stressful. If things went south, it could even leave both sides deeply scarred, harming everyone involved.
Jian Tang recognized that he couldn’t handle human romance; their minds and emotions were far too complex. It was much more convenient to purchase an ultimate-form “wife” directly—getting everything sorted in one single step!
However, seeing the blissful expression on the little merman’s face when mentioning his lover, Jian Tang still offered a smile.
“That’s wonderful,” he said, sincerely happy for the other party’s romance. “Do the two of you agree to meet here every day?”
The little merman shook his head. “No. The last time we met was three months ago.”
Jian Tang: “Ah?”
Didn’t you just say you wanted to see him every day?
“We used to be able to meet every day,” the little merman let out a sigh. “He’s a task-taker, so he had items that allowed him to traverse over here. But he can’t do that anymore.”
Jian Tang’s expression shifted.
A task-taker?!
He asked cautiously, “Regarding the fact that you’re dating a task-taker… do your friends and family know?”
The little merman nodded, his expression turning a bit melancholy. “They know, but none of them approve. They’re constantly urging me to break up quickly.”
Jian Tang sighed silently: As expected.
If it were him, if he knew a close friend was getting heavily involved with a task-taker, he would definitely be uneasy as well.
How should he put it? Although task-takers were all humans, and all humans were potential task-takers, in Jian Tang’s eyes, task-takers and humans couldn’t really be considered the same species anymore.
Especially those task-takers who had lingered in the eerie world for a very long time; to a certain degree, they were already closer to monsters.
Take the Bloody Butcher, for instance. Jian Tang recalled it being wildly rumored on the monster forums before that the Bloody Butcher had been invited by the system to take up residence in a public dungeon, highly likely becoming an immortal BOSS guarding the final floor. Although nothing ever came of that news later, it was enough to prove that certain task-takers with superlative abilities had long ceased to be normal humans.
Sensing Jian Tang’s daily anxiety, the little merman hurried to explain, “Ah Cheng is different from other task-takers. I’ve known him since a very long time ago. Back then, he was just an ordinary little child. His parents were employees at the water park, and he frequently came along with them. One time, he accidentally wandered into this room, and that’s how we met.”
“Later, when he grew up, he contracted a very rare, terminal illness that caused him immense agony. He said he didn’t want to die, so I… I gave him a ticket into the eerie world, and only then did he become a task-taker.”
Eerie creatures could invite ordinary humans to officially enter the eerie world; many task-takers were born exactly like this, so Jian Tang wasn’t particularly surprised by it.
“Then was his illness cured?” Jian Tang asked.
The little dolphin nodded: “Cured! Ah Cheng is amazing. He gathered enough points very quickly and exchanged them for a miracle drug that treated his illness. After he got better, he voluntarily withdrew from the eerie world and never entered a dungeon again. Right now, he is just an ordinary human.”
Oh? He withdrew voluntarily?
Jian Tang’s expression softened significantly. That sounded like a person who understood how to restrain their desires. If the other party hadn’t lingered in the eerie world for too long, then it truly wasn’t much of a problem.
“I know you guys don’t like task-takers, but Ah Cheng really is different… Besides, if he wasn’t a task-taker, I wouldn’t be able to be with him either.”
The little merman gently flicked his pink tail, the scales on his frame shimmering brilliantly within the clear ripples of water.
“Aside from ignorant little children, only task-takers won’t be terrified of eerie creatures. If it were an ordinary human, they would have been scared away by us long ago,” the little merman said. “Does your human wife know you’re an eerie monster?”
Jian Tang: “…Uh, no. And I won’t ever let him know.”
On this point, the little merman was entirely correct. Ordinary humans could never accept that the partner they lived with day and night was an eerie creature. If he didn’t possess the advantage of a “perfect transformation,” trying to find an ordinary human to be his wife would be pure daydreaming.
“Sigh, I really envy you so much.” The little merman stared longingly at Jian Tang’s perfect human form. “If I had your talent for transformation, I could go look for Ah Cheng right now. Maybe I could even sit in the audience and watch his magic performance.”
Magic performance?
Ah Cheng?
As the two clues converged, a flash of inspiration hit Jian Tang’s brain: “That Ah Cheng you mentioned… he wouldn’t happen to be called Yuan Cheng, would he?”
“Eh?” The little merman was surprised. “You know him?”
“We’ve met once, in a manner of speaking.”
Jian Tang described the minor interlude that had occurred over by the deep water pool. The little merman listened with rapt attention, nodding repeatedly.
“It’s him, it really is him.” Hearing about his lover, the sweet smile on the youth’s lips couldn’t be suppressed at all. “He’s always been like that—incredibly kind, filled with a sense of justice, and loves to help others. He really is a very good human.”
Jian Tang nodded. However, mentioning the deep water pool event made him inevitably think of that “Mr. Sui” again.
And then he remembered that he had actually lost track of the guy during the chase, failing to punch him a couple more times on behalf of his wife.
Genuinely frustrating.
“I saw on the promotional poster outside that Yuan Cheng’s performance starts at eleven o’clock. Once he finishes his show, he should be coming to see you,” Jian Tang said.
“Yeah.” The little merman smiled and nodded. “He mentioned before that he would come find me today. He’s never broken a promise he made, so I’ll just wait a bit longer with patience.”
Jian Tang glanced at the time on his phone and received a sudden fright: “Yikes, it’s already this late! There are people waiting for me outside, I have to go.”
“All right, I’ll send you out.”
The little merman swam to the other end of the oil painting. His long tail paddled a few circles in the water, and a small door just large enough for a single person to pass through swung open on the painting.
“You can just head out from here.” The little merman waved farewell to Jian Tang reluctantly. “Will you come back again in the future?”
“Do you want me to come?”
The little merman nodded: “Chatting with you was really fun.”
Because its lover was human, the little dolphin had always yearned for the human world. Unfortunately, their town lacked an eerie monster like Jian Tang who could frequently enter and exit human society, so their volume of information regarding human society was very small.
Jian Tang possessed the advantage of a transformation talent, understood human society extensively, and as an eerie monster, actually had a human wife. All of these factors aligned perfectly with the little merman, making it feel that the two of them could definitely become close friends.
“Sure thing.” Jian Tang smiled and waved his hand. “I’ll come find you when I’m free. My name is Little Tang.”
“My name is Little Yu,” the little merman flicked his tail happily. “You must come find me to play, okay?”
The two small monsters bid a friendly farewell. Jian Tang stepped through the small spatial door, and when he emerged, he was already standing inside the stairwell leading upstairs.
He quickly returned to the amusement zone of the water park. At this time, the park was broadcasting the latest performance announcement, the sweet voice of a woman reaching every corner—
[The “Water Magic Show” by renowned magician Mr. Yuan Cheng will commence in fifteen minutes in the performance hall. Guests who have not yet entered, please hold your tickets and proceed inside in an orderly fashion…]
Jian Tang saw a long queue already forming outside the aquarium in the northeast corner—the performance hall was located on the B1 floor of the aquarium.
Among the waiting crowd, Jian Tang spotted Heramis instantly. The tattooed older sister’s towering height stood there like a mobile lighthouse.
Beside Heramis, both Fila and A’nie were present. Evidently, the three of them planned to line up and enter the hall to watch the magic performance.
Magic was perhaps a novel concept in the eyes of humans, but to three Realm Lords, wasn’t it just a child’s game of playing house? To think they were actually interested?
Perplexed, Jian Tang hurried over to report back to Fila.
“What took you so long?” A’nie was a bit displeased. “You didn’t complete the task I assigned, and you vanished entirely. I thought you had fled out of fear of your crime.”
“How could I?” Jian Tang thought to himself: Weren’t you playing playground king quite happily? I thought you had thrown me to the back of your mind. “I went to handle a small personal matter.”
Heramis suddenly leaned down, catching a sniff near Jian Tang’s neck.
“There’s the scent of ocean waves.”
The water park was filled entirely with fresh water, with no seawater present. The scent of ocean waves on the youth naturally didn’t come from the human world; he had highly likely visited another space.
The three Realm Lords exchanged a glance but didn’t press further, merely gesturing for Jian Tang to join the line.
Jian Tang stepped into the queue, moving slowly along with the people ahead.
As the line advanced, he caught sight of the performance poster pasted outside the aquarium once more.
The man in the center of the graphic was young and handsome, his gaze gentle. Upon learning that the other party was actually the human lover of the little pink dolphin, Jian Tang felt entirely different looking at this poster now.
He was observing it seriously when he suddenly felt someone staring at him. He whipped his head around instantly.
He found absolutely nothing.
Jian Tang scanned the surroundings suspiciously, then withdrew his gaze.
Strange. Was it my imagination?
A few meters behind the youth, a man concealed within the queue straightened his posture slightly.
He had already swapped to a new face—thoroughly plain as always, the kind that vanished the moment he was dropped into a crowd. Jian Tang could never recognize it, so there was absolutely no need for him to hide.
Yet he had hidden anyway, just like a mouse spotting a cat.
A total first in his life.
Feng Xun reflected on it briefly, arriving at a conclusion—
It was likely because he had been pursued wildly by Jian Tang for ten minutes in the underground parking lot, almost getting caught in the process, leaving him with a bit of a psychological shadow.
The cohabiting cub of his household… well, could be rather terrifying at times.
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