Early the next morning.
When the first rays of sunlight shone into the room, the massive shadow that had enveloped the room disappeared.
Jiu Shu woke up from his deep sleep, opened his eyes, sat up from the bed, and saw only an empty room.
There didn’t seem to be anything unusual.
However, as if he sensed something, he reached out his hand and touched his somewhat moist cheeks, and his eyes became a little softer.
No wonder he slept deeply last night, and even had a dream where his entire body was submerged in water, but he wasn’t suffocating.
“……”
Jiu Shu’s gaze swept over the damp walls in the room, then he got up and washed up as if nothing had happened.
Following his usual habit of sitting at the table to study the literature.
He would have to continue to deepen his research regarding the alienation of the object of discipline.
Flipping through the heavy sacrificial codex, Jiu Shu looked up the information about the nameless god in it.
In this book, which had been passed down from generation to generation of the Augustus family, this god was praised as a unique being in the universe, claiming to control time and space, and was the supreme god of wisdom and knowledge.
In the original books, the children of the god were not so powerful.
The old count who died with a lot of resentment took a long time to grow up to the point where the fog enveloped the city and even the whole world.
That was to say that the object of punishment was still in the primary stage of its current state, not having experienced death baptism, and was in a much better situation than the old count who died tragically in the original.
There was still salvation.
Jiu Shu looked through the novels, carefully searching for the details that he had left behind.
This reading took all morning.
The blonde young man sitting at the table didn’t seem the least bit tired, and had no intention of taking a meal break even at midday.
Splat–
While the youth was concentrating on flipping through the pages of the book, he didn’t seem to notice that the wall behind him was becoming more and more humid, with black mold spreading continuously.
A large, bloated shadow slowly approached.
Hiding in the shadows of the sun, he gently touched the youth’s shadow on the ground with his damp limbs, his careful movements seeming to be full of attachment.
But he didn’t dare to make a sound, as if just touching the shadow was enough to make it satisfied, quietly huddled in the shadows.
Just looking at the back of the blonde youth, He didn’t move for a long time.
The four walls began to condense water droplets, as if someone was crying silently.
Until the lunch time passed, the servants brought lunch that was placed outside the door, it gradually became cold, He was a little anxious.
Rustling-
In a sound frequency inaudible to humans, He let out a thin sound.
It was as if He was trying to remind His beloved to eat on time, but He was nothing more than a monster huddled in the shadows out of sight.
Even this simple reminder seemed incredibly difficult.
Looking at Jiu Shu’s slightly pale cheeks due to excessive exhaustion, He seemed to be distressed, and His bloated body expanded slightly under the floor, fearing that it would affect His beloved’s room, and then carefully contracted back.
After a few moments, the ache for His beloved caused Him to muster up a little courage.
Under the cover of the heavy sash of the window, He reached out with His becoming slender tentacles and gently tugged at a corner of the sash.
The piercing sunlight outside the estate fell through the gaps in the window screen on Jiu Shu’s desk, illuminating his pale profile.
Jiu Shu, who had been flashed in the eyes, blinked and looked at the daylight outside the window, finally stopping the pen in his hand that kept recording notes.
He glanced thoughtfully at the damp wall beside the table for a moment before withdrawing his gaze.
Then, as if he hadn’t noticed anything, he got up and retrieved the lunch that had been left outside the door.
Because of the long delay, the food was already cold.
But Jiu Shu didn’t care.
He didn’t have a big appetite and was busy doing research, so he didn’t eat much before putting down his knife and fork.
He returned to the table to study the literature.
In the shadows, there seemed to be a ghastly shadow that became even darker.
He looked at his young lover who was not eating properly and was a bit overwhelmed.
Wanting to hold his lover in his arms like before to comfort him to take care of his health, but at this point his ugly monster body had long since lost the qualification to do so.
If he was to be embraced by such a filthy and loathsome body, his beloved would surely be in immense pain.
Even He Himself felt that it was a blasphemy against His beloved.
Because He was now ugly to the extreme and disgusting.
Tick-
The sound of water drops falling came from within the room, and Jiu Shu’s azure pupils seemed hold a bit of helplessness as he looked at the droplets of water that slid down the walls and soaked his work space.
After turning into another form, the object of punishment became more and more prone to mood swings.
And after the room became more and more humid, the monster hidden in the walls seemed to have discovered this as well.
In an instant, His translucent body became more and more obscure, almost dark gray in color.
With a somewhat panicked gesture, it gradually merged into the wall and disappeared.
Jiu Shu raised his head, his gaze looking towards the wall that was still rippling, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he fell silent.
For the time being, it was better to pretend not to see it, otherwise He was going to be frightened.
And so Jiu Shu began to read the information again.
It wasn’t until the sky outside the window darkened and the setting sun sank in the west that he tiredly rubbed his brow.
Just as he wanted to get up and go wash his face, he realized that there was an extra cup of warm tea drink by his table.
It was the black tea that the noble youths of this world loved to drink.
“……”
Looking at the cup of black tea that suddenly appeared, Jiu Shu paused, his gaze tracelessly glancing at the light gray tentacles that flickered on the wall next to him.
Hiding the smile in his eyes, he lifted the tea cup, and took a light sip.
The sweetness was just right, a flavor he liked.
The blonde-haired, blue-eyed youth swallowed the tea in his mouth, and the corners of his rosy lips seemed to gently turn upwards, revealing a beautiful smile.
He was clearly satisfied with this cup of tea.
Rustling-
In the shadows, the monster’s bloated and bulky body became softer, as if dazzled by this smile of His lover, but it returned to its original state after a few moments.
For He knew the smile was not for Him.
Perhaps it would have been assumed to have been delivered by one of the maids when He wasn’t looking.
The intimacy that was once taken for granted had become something that could never happen again.
Inside the room, Jiu Shu set down his emptied teacup, finally relieving some of his exhaustion.
But there was a momentary pause in his movements when he raised his eyes to the wall and realized that it had become even more damp than before.
He had a slight headache.
After some thought, he paused his research for the day.
Getting up, he prepared to take a stroll around the manor, just as a way to accompany the object of his punishment for a break.
Otherwise, if he kept on harboring his thoughts in the room, he didn’t know when he would be able to accept reality.
Thinking like this, Jiu Shu left the room.
Walking in the quiet corridor, the occasional passing maid stared at Jiu Shu’s snow-white face with burning eyes.
After realizing that the old count didn’t follow him around as usual, they even revealed a look of surprise.
But immediately afterward, an inexplicable chill would penetrate the bone marrow, causing them to involuntarily cower, and they could only watch an excellent opportunity to strike up a conversation slip away.
“Why, it’s so cold ……”
“Me too, so cold ……”
It was obviously only early fall, but it was so freezing that the several maids could only shrink their necks and turn pale.
Therefore, they didn’t notice that on the damp wall beside them, there was some kind of horrible figure with no name that swam and followed the youth that had gone far away.
It wasn’t willing to take a step away from him.
The passing butler seemed to have discovered something, his horrified gaze swept past the wall behind Jiu Shu, and in an instant, his legs went limp and he fell to the ground.
Jiu Shu’s faint gaze swept over him but did not linger.
Only the butler was left to watch in stupefaction as the bloated and ghastly huge figure followed behind that blonde-haired youth.
He trembled and lay on the ground with his head in his hands, so fearful that he could only let out a disembodied exhalation.
It was too terrifying!
That shadow, that shadow was …… The butler swallowed the name that came to his mouth, his face as white as death.
The nearby maids were startled by his face and let out exclamations of shock.
And Jiu Shu didn’t seem to pay attention to everything behind him as he walked towards the room of the object of discipline.
On the way, his expression was calm, as if the disappearance of his former lover, who had been ear to ear with him, hadn’t affected him in the slightest.
Or perhaps, in the heart of this extremely beautiful young man, He who had turned into a monster was not his lover.
Tick-
The walls of the corridors within the manor became even more damp, and a cold breath mixed with the smell of the sea filled the manor as if the entire castle had been immersed in seawater.
“……”
After coming out for a break it seemed to be even more thought out.
Jiu Shu’s clear blue eyes slightly swept over the wall at his side, reaching out his hand, seemingly just unintentionally, to caress over the ever-growing mold spots on the wall.
The touch of his fingertips against the mossy, slippery surface was so gentle that it felt as if a feather had passed over it, bringing about an unspeakable stirring.
The dripping of the walls slowed a bit, as if someone had been drawn a little closer by His lover’s approaching fingertips.
Carefully, the pale gray touching limbs met the slender, elongated palm.
It was as if they were still walking through the corridors of the castle with their fingers interlocked like before.
Looking at the walls that seemed to ripple, Jiu Shu’s eyes softened as he didn’t withdraw his hand and just kept walking.
Like an extremely bored teenager, he scratched across the walls as he walked, leaving a shallow trail, and only stopped moving when he reached the door to the room of the object of punishment.
Within the walls, the slowly swimming, swollen, hulking shadow stopped as well.
He seemed to have just realized that his lover’s destination was here, and his movements gave a slight lurch.
His skin, which was still grey, gradually became a bit brighter as He finally realized something.
His lover had not forgotten Him, and was even still thinking of Him.
Jiu Shu opened the door to the room and walked in, deliberately pausing for a moment before stepping into the room, and the expression on his face became a little bleaker.
The room of the object of discipline remained as it had been the night before, only slightly cleaned by the servants.
He walked over to the desk and seemed to sigh as he looked at the increasingly thick stack of official papers.
Sitting down on the large bed in the center of the room, he picked up a picture frame placed on the nightstand.
The black and white photo was a leftover picture of him and the object of punishment, the picture having been developed just a while ago.
“Norman ……”
“Where are you ……”
Jiu Shu hung his head low, his loose blonde hair covering the top half of his face, revealing only his pale jaw, his rose-soft bottom lip had a deep self inflicted mark.
“Why did you run away? Don’t you love me anymore?”
Jiu Shu’s despondent and helpless voice seemed to agitate the massive shadow within the walls a little, and He was tempted to reply that of course He was in love with him, and that his love had never wavered for a moment.
To Him, Jiu Shu was all He had to live for, how could He not love him.
“…… I missed you so much, Norman.”
Jiu Shu’s soft voice took on a slight huskiness, as if he were about to cry.
His heart broke as He listened, but there wasn’t even a heart in this twisted, hideous body right now.
He couldn’t embrace His beloved, nor could He tell Him that He had always loved Him and had always been there for Him.
The sad reality was that He could only just stay here and watch His beloved in tears.
He was an incompetent lover.
“…… I love you, Norman, and I will always love you no matter what you become.”
Jiu Shu repeated the words he himself had said when the object of discipline had become younger, only hoping that He, who was now caught in an extreme inferiority complex, would become slightly more confident.
Inside the room, the monster who heard Jiu Shu’s words seemed to freeze.
Seemingly recalling the old days, His originally pale gray body kept changing colors as His emotions fluctuated violently.
But in the end, it returned to the dead black color.
After having a young body and spending time walking under the sun with Jiu Shu, he couldn’t accept a more unpleasant version of himself.
He was no longer worthy to stand with Jiu Shu.
Even though he was still deeply loved, it was impossible for a monster to bring happiness to Jiu Shu.
The monster within the walls shuddered and curled up, slowly disappearing into the room in agonizing pain.
And Jiu Shu, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, raised his head and looked at the empty room, sighing slightly.
He had still underestimated the object of discipline’s inferiority complex.
His current mood was too unstable.
Even if those reverse spells took effect they could only curb His further physical alienation, but there was nothing that could be done about the psychological cowardice and inferiority complex.
It could only be done slowly.
Putting the picture frame in his hand back to its original place, Jiu Shu left the room, gazing at the darkening sky outside the corridor, remembering the details of the object of discipline he had seen earlier.
This world’s target had the same unfortunate childhood compared to the previous world.
This inferiority complex of the target was thus doomed from the time he was very young.
As he grew older and his face aged, the degree of inferiority became deeper and deeper.
As a member of a family that believed in the nameless god, his parents were devout believers, and from a young age, he was taught to be respectful to the god and to maintain the honor of the family.
The severity of their teachings was so deep that it was far beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
They would lock the young, rebellious Norman in a pitch-black cage, constantly whispering in his ear that they were the descendants of a pure god, different from all other mortals.
So don’t go near the vulgar and filthy servants, and don’t sympathize with the living sacrifices that are split up and offered to god.
For that is their honor.
For as long as Norman could remember, his parents would take him to the altars in the ground and make him witness the miserable howling humans being thrown into the altar well holes.
He would also be forced to touch the slimy flesh and blood.
The parents would even be so happy that they would laugh at the sight of Norman’s face, which had retched and vomited until it was pale.
It was as if this skinny child was not their biological son, but a meat animal that could also be a sacrifice.
The young Norman also tried to go over and rescue the sacrifices that were tied up, but this was all part of the educational process that his parents had already arranged.
The freed sacrifice recognized him as the young master of the noble family, hated the nobleman who had sacrificed his entire family to a god, and without hesitation reached out and pushed Norman down the hole in the well in the center of the altar.
And the sacrifice, of course, ended up being executed on the spot.
After the execution scarlet pieces of limbs were thrown into the well hole, blood mixed with guts spilled all over Norman.
Filled with fear, he could barely sit up with his broken arm, and looked up the hole with a devastated expression at the bodies that were about to fill it.
For the first time he abandoned his dignity and prayed that his parents would pull him up.
But his parents, standing by the well-hole, just looked at him with a strange, mocking smile and told him that this was what every Augustus should go through.
He was to accompany god in this altar.
Until god forgave him for his disrespect.
With that, his parents left.
Only Norman was left to stay in this pitch-black well hole piled with corpses for three whole days.
During those three days, his parents would throw down spoiled leftovers, along with fresh roasted human flesh, and they let Norman make his choice.
And Norman just blanched and swallowed the scraps, not even touching the human flesh next to it.
He didn’t utter another prayer until he was taken back out of the well hole.
While looking at such a gloomy and cold-faced five-year-old, his parents smiled broadly as if they had seen the perfect heir.
From then on, a smile never appeared on Norman’s face again.
He grew up smoothly in this twisted family environment until he was ten years old.
By then, his father had reached the end of his life.
As he was dying, he cut his wife open alive at the underground altar as an offering to god.
At the same time, he forced Norman to watch the scene, asking him to make sure to pass on the family’s faith.
And Norman just watched the scene indifferently, with a somber frown as if the people who were about to die in front of him were not his parents, but strangers.
His father looked at Norman, who didn’t show a trace of fervor for god, and for the first time his expression became stunned.
It was as if he did not understand why his own child had not become as devout to god as he had been, due to the extreme pressure of his spirit.
He died with consternation, and fell with his wife into the deep cavern of the well, like the meat animals he had sacrificed.
Norman, on the other hand, left the underground altar with cold eyes and never went there again.
Growing up in such an environment, Norman’s character was predictable, and the world was always dark to him, and he hated all living people, including his parents.
And as a result, he hated the study of the occult so much that he banned it from his castle, even though it was revered throughout the empire.
Although he didn’t become a cultist with a twisted personality like his parents, Norman became particularly sensitive to the stares of others because of those experiences of captivity and abuse and his own sinful bloodline.
After being ridiculed by the upper class because of his old face, Norman never attended a banquet again, detested human interaction with any nobles, and used his haughty appearance to cover up his inner inferiority.
This was also why the old count in the original story went on a quest to find a way to return to his youth because of the words of the not-so-favorite heroine, and may have even tried the sacrifice of a god he had always loathed, and ultimately died a miserable death.
He cared too much about his appearance, which was actually a sign of extreme low self-esteem.
Until now it had reached a point where he suffered from a kind of disillusionment and couldn’t believe that his ugly and real self would be happy without his young skin.
If he didn’t feel Norman’s psychology, then even if he whispered in His ear ten thousand times that he didn’t care, He would only be like a shrunken head turtle not daring to venture out.
Jiu Shu could understand his agonizing inferiority complex to the extreme now that he had become a god’s heir.
But He couldn’t stay in such a mood and not come out, and Jiu Shu suspected that if He continued like this He would go to extremes, just like his bigoted parents.
He went back to his room and wrote a letter in the same manner as before.
And placed the letter in the most prominent place on his pillow.
He already had some experience in the matter of calming down a lover with extremely low self-esteem.
Lying on the bed, Jiu Shu glanced at the damp ceiling and closed his eyes.
And long after he fell asleep, there was finally movement in the quiet room.
The damp ceiling slowly rippled, like some kind of behemoth was about to appear under the calm water.
Tick-
There was the sound of water hitting the ground.
In the dimly lit room, countless slender tentacles hung down from the ceiling, and looking out the window, it was as if countless poisonous snakes were spying on the sleeping youth on the bed, the picture was eerie to the extreme.
In reality, these tentacles were all as soft as vines, extremely docile.
Each of them held a brightly colored paper rose, and the craftsmanship had reached a level that no human finger could achieve.
These were all gifts that he had long wanted to give to his loved one.
But now they could only be secretly placed in the room.
Inside the ceiling, the huge black shadow that had not yet appeared seemed to be in a low mood.
But His tentacles were still obedient, carefully arranging a large number of a thousand roses or perhaps even more, and as far as the eye could see, almost surrounding the bed into a sea of flowers.
It was just like what was expected before, as an apology gift for deceiving his lover.
In His eyes, these gaudy flowers were not half as good as the sleeping lover on the bed, but at this time He could only apologize to His lover in this humble way.
Whether it was the deception when he was once a pen pal, or the hasty escape on the day he turned into a monster.
Knowing that He had hurt Jiu Shu, He didn’t dare to get as close as He had yesterday, and His inferiority complex still made Him cower, daring only to hover beside His lover with His long, slender tentacles.
It seemed that being able to vainly gather around his beloved’s thin body was already satisfying.
In fact, He shouldn’t have come, this kind of disgusting monster should have gone as far away as possible, but He still couldn’t suppress the love in His heart.
Even if it was just a glance, He only wanted to look at His beloved.
The sadness made the color of His soft touching limbs darken even more, and He seemed to be looking sadly at His beloved who was gathered in His arms.
Then He saw the letter.
The addressee of the letter written on it was – My beloved Norman.
Looking at this line of designation, the monster seemed to freeze for a long time.
At the same time, the water stains on the wall were getting bigger and bigger.
It was as if the monster whose emotions were too chaotic was about to lose control of its huge figure and was about to fall out of the wall at any time.
Tick tock tick tock – in the sound of the increasingly damp water, the dark gray almost ink-black tentacles carefully picked up the envelope.
Looking at the familiar handwriting, the monster’s tentacles trembled a little as He slowly unwrapped the envelope, revealing a few lines of words in it.
[Norman was never a monster.
Whether old or young, beautiful or ugly, you are my lover.]
[If you don’t want to meet me in that posture, then come with me to find a way to change back to your original form.]
The letter detailed the research that Jiu Shu had done on the Augustus family, and it seemed that His beloved had long known the truth about how he had become young.
It wasn’t some genetic disease he falsely claimed to the outside world, but the curse in his bloodline and those weird psychic rituals.
And he didn’t care, even wanting to join him in his quest to find a way to be able to change back to human form again.
[I love studying the occult the most, you know that very well don’t you? I’ll help you, and then we’ll live happily ever after.]
[Don’t leave me, or I’ll die of sadness.]
All of these were sentences that would never appear in Norman’s most extravagant dreams of unreserved love from his lover.
Each sentence hit the most vulnerable corner of Norman’s heart.
He was afraid that his lover would fear him, that he would leave him, and that he would always be this ugly and horrible.
And all these, Jiu Shu didn’t care, and even had the same mood as He did, that it would hurt to leave his beloved.
“……”
Norman looked at the letter paper, and all of the tentacles that hung down from the ceiling seemed to tremble slightly as He tried to say something, but could only emit a strangely thin whisper.
Humans couldn’t hear it.
There was no way to tell what He was feeling at the moment.
One could only see those tentacles that were originally afraid to approach the body of Jiu Shu subconsciously entwining Jiu Shu’s body intimately due to the emotional changes of His body.
They even spread towards the thin pajamas.
The cold and wet surface of the touching limbs made Jiu Shu frown slightly, seemingly sleeping a bit uneasily.
Norman seemed to finally realize what his tentacles were doing, and blushing a bit, he hastily loosened them a bit.
But when His tentacles left Jiu Shu’s wrists, the movement suddenly couldn’t continue.
A snow-white palm gently gripped the hastily escaping tentacle, the one that had just been fidgeting within his clothes.
“!!!”
Inside the room, the increasingly humid air instantly came to a standstill.
Norman’s body, bloated and large enough to envelop the entire bedroom, spilled out of the wall, and the pink tentacle of his hand and foot wrapped itself even more completely around Jiu Shu.
Jiu Shu stifled a cough as the tentacles went between his lips and teeth.
TN:
Yay, I got it all uploaded, it was a day later than i thought, but I’m starting the new week on time.
See ya tomorrow.
Thanks for the update 😊 they are so good together
NOOOO ITS CENSORED????!!!
I started cackling to myself at that last line LMAO