Even someone as oblivious as him could grasp Agamemnon’s intent from that brazen declaration.
Luo Li lowered his gaze, his small hands clenched into tight fists. “I don’t… like it at all. It’s clearly disgusting.”
Back then, he must have been scared out of his wits. How could he possibly have liked it?
The memory of that moment made the boy sob softly. “It was so… big and ugly, and it was right there so close to me. I hate it, okay?”
Was he complimenting Andrei or cursing him?
Agamemnon bent down, his fingertip gently pressing against Luo Li’s plump lower lip. “I let you get bullied out there. That was my fault.”
Luo Li sniffled and wiped at his cheeks. “But you bullied me just like they did.”
“I didn’t. Lili, every word I just said was from the heart.”
This man had countless excuses he could have used to brush it off, yet he chose to be so direct—saying it all specifically for Luo Li to hear.
Maybe he hadn’t destroyed that towel on purpose, just to leave it for him to find.
Luo Li bit his lip, his voice trembling as he demanded, “I’ve always seen you as an elder. I respect you so much. How could you… how could you…”
He fought back his shame, his voice dropping lower. “How could you do something like that?”
“Not even imagine it, Lili?”
Agamemnon’s brows furrowed, a chilling storm spreading across his handsome features. “I only imagined it. I never did anything else to you. Are you going to deny me even that?”
Luo Li never cared what others thought of him.
But Agamemnon… He had truly seen Agamemnon as family, relying on him like an uncle.
And now, Agamemnon was admitting outright that even his feelings weren’t pure.
After all the worry he’d felt…
“No!” Luo Li yanked his hand free. “You’re Dean Sir. You can’t…”
“Who am I?”
Agamemnon repeated the question, and Luo Li saw it again in his eyes—that dark gleam of suppressed longing and desire.
“Lili, say it again. Who am I?”
He seemed lost in some obsessive fervor, his grip tightening on the boy’s slender arm.
Luo Li finally snapped, shouting furiously at him. “How dare you call yourself a foster father like this? If I’d known you had those kinds of thoughts, I never would have followed you up to the top floor!”
“You really don’t know, Lili? Everyone in the hospital knows about the scandal between Dean Agamemnon and Lori. You’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you?”
Agamemnon pinned him against the corner of the bathroom, his words deliberate and heavy. “I know you see me as a father.”
“Isn’t becoming your father’s lover exactly what you want, Lili?”
That was the talk going around. On the surface, everyone condemned the dean for laying hands on his foster son. But behind closed doors, who didn’t suspect that Luo Li had seductive designs on his wealthy, powerful foster father?
Anyone else could speculate about him like that.
Just not Agamemnon.
Smack!
A sharp slap landed cleanly across his face, the palm grazing the man’s straight nose and leaving a vivid handprint.
The faint red marks faded quickly, leaving only Luo Li’s angry, heartbroken sobs breaking the air. “What right do you have to say that about me? You’re the real monster—the pervert!”
Agamemnon’s brow creased. He touched the spot on his face where Luo Li had struck, curling his lips into a smile devoid of any warmth. “What monster? Have you seen one, Lili?”
Visibly, Agamemnon’s body began to change.
Black, hardened shells spread along his arms and neck, eventually covering his entire jawline. The whites of his eyes were swallowed by darkness, leaving only eerie green pupils glowing in the shadows.
Luo Li heard the boy’s muscles ripping through his shirt as they expanded, and the large hands gripping him grew unnaturally hot.
“This is a monster.”
In the next instant, Luo Li’s feet left the ground as Agamemnon scooped him up, cradling him in powerful arms.
A massive tentacle smashed open the bathroom door. Luo Li squeezed his eyes shut in terror. The man’s cold lips brushed his cheek. Even with both hands occupied, something slithered around Luo Li’s calf.
“Get away—get away!”
He trembled, trying to shake off the revolting tentacles.
Agamemnon’s voice was low and gentle. “Call me daddy, and I’ll let go. Okay?”
…
Fu Shiyue crawled out from the rubble, twisting his nearly broken arm as he pushed himself to his feet.
A tentacle had pierced right through his chest, but a Points Prop had saved his life. Otherwise, the game would have been over for him.
What kind of freak Boss was this…
Its attacks were too fast; he hadn’t managed to record any of its traits. He only remembered it leaving the laboratory, heading upward through the building.
Fu Shiyue gripped his rifle and parted the weeds in front of him, spotting the staircase winding upward.
He climbed a few steps and caught sight of the terrace’s edge.
Someone had set up a barrier here—Ling Yu hadn’t even noticed it. But Fu Shiyue was different. With his Space Distortion ability, he was intimately familiar with such illusions.
His instincts told him the top floor held the instance’s biggest secret.
It wasn’t for nothing that he’d played dead in front of that monster.
Scratches marked the door, with pencil numbers beside them—likely height measurements, from toddling child to lanky teen.
A photo of Agamemnon and Luo Li hung below the door, the colors warm, the boy beaming with happiness.
An odd pang twisted in Fu Shiyue’s chest.
Almost as if compelled, he began to doubt himself. Had he ever really been Luo Li’s boyfriend?
With a man like that around, was there really room in his eyes for anyone else?
The terrace felt so cozy, red camellias blooming quietly—a stark contrast to the desolation and chill outside.
Beautiful, like a dream that would never wake.
Fu Shiyue twisted the terrace lock with his ability and slipped inside the top floor. In front of the bedroom door, he felt an unnatural tremor beneath his feet.
Behind those vibrant red camellia flowers, black, thick tentacles crawled across the bedroom’s translucent window, their glowing green suckers clinging tight, blocking every view inside.
The camellia roots had rotted away, soaked in the tentacles’ toxic secretions, though the blooms still looked fresh on the surface.
Through a crack in the window, Fu Shiyue glimpsed the boy lying on the bed.
He sat astride a coiled, massive tentacle, wearing a very short red nightdress. More tentacles writhed beneath the hem, sliding along his thighs and waist, wrapping around him endlessly.
The boy’s lovely almond eyes cracked open, glistening with moisture, his cheeks flushed deep red, his lips swollen.
…It was Lili.
Fu Shiyue’s fingers tightened on his weapon. Strangely, he couldn’t spot the monster’s main body.
He only saw tentacle tips probing under Luo Li’s nightdress, others stroking his lower back rhythmically.
The oppressive aura from the monster was terrifying; Fu Shiyue found he couldn’t take a single step forward.
He didn’t even want to imagine how terrified Luo Li must be. The little guy was so timid.
The boy shifted uncomfortably, twisting at the waist as he straddled the tentacle’s end, his feet dangling, toes swinging.
Black mist thickened, and something emerged from the shadows.
A massive man, his arms and neck veined with the monster’s black markings, approached the small bed and encircled Luo Li with both arms.
He loomed like a predator over his prey.
Fu Shiyue raised his rifle, aiming squarely at the monster’s body.
He thought, if that thing touched Luo Li even once, he’d fire immediately.
But the scene he expected didn’t unfold.
The boy slowly opened his damp almond eyes, gazing up at the man without a trace of fear.
He even seemed annoyed, twisting around to pound at the tentacle between his legs with his small fists.
The man seized his wrists and placed them against his own chest.
Luo Li yanked his hands free in fury and even issued a command.
Reading his lips, Fu Shiyue guessed it was: “Get off my bed right now.”
He’d probably wanted to say “get the hell off,” but chickened out and softened it.
The monster held him close, its deep voice carrying through the window. “You get off daddy’s tentacle first.”
Luo Li grew even angrier.
He kneed at the tentacles probing under his nightdress. When that failed, he scowled, wriggled free from Agamemnon’s arms, and scooted to the bed’s edge.
Seeing the other still pursuing relentlessly, Luo Li lashed out with a kick.
His bare, soft sole connected squarely with the man’s solid chest, knees bending as he shoved hard.
Agamemnon knelt to the floor as if truly kicked off the bed.
But his hand caught the edge of the short nightdress, kindly preventing any exposure.
In Luo Li’s eyes, though, this guy was still ogling under his skirt even after being kicked down!
“You’re such a creep…!”
Luo Li kicked and flailed in humiliated rage, while Agamemnon stayed still, letting him vent his fury.
The soft, snowy-white toes pressed one by one against the military badge on his coat’s chest, as if eager to stomp his foster father’s proud honors into the dirt. With delicate pink nails, Luo Li pried up one corner of the badge and disdainfully pinched it between his toes, mischievously grinding the glittering stars against his sole.
Agamemnon grasped his slender ankle. Luo Li immediately raised his voice. “What’s so important about this thing? Do you care more about these than me?”
“How could I? Without you, no amount of honors would mean a thing.”
He carefully removed each badge and placed them into Luo Li’s palm. “I’m afraid they’ll scratch your foot.”
Luo Li clutched the hefty medals, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing slightly. A look of grievance and softness crept across his delicate face—the kind that Agamemnon adored—and his voice grew all the more tender.
“Lili, don’t be mad anymore, all right? I was too hasty. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Luo Li bit his lip. “Deep down, you still want me to be your lover, don’t you?”
Agamemnon didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“But I don’t want to. I don’t like you. I hate you.”
Luo Li just wanted to be willful in front of him, to hurl the cruelest words he could think of. He was certain Agamemnon would indulge him no matter what.
If this man were only his foster father, Luo Li would respect and fear him. But Agamemnon wanted to be his lover. He harbored indecent thoughts about him. That gave Luo Li leverage—he could act out however he pleased.
Luo Li believed he held the upper hand, oblivious to the fact that, in Fu Shiyue’s eyes, he had already tumbled step by step into the older man’s trap.
The boy was like a fool taunting a wild beast through the bars of its cage. The door stood wide open, yet he remained smugly pleased, utterly unaware.
Dark emotions swirled in Agamemnon’s deep green eyes. “So what does Lili want to do?”
Luo Li draped both his small feet across the man’s broad shoulders and thought lazily for a moment. “I haven’t decided yet. But you’re not allowed to touch me anymore. You’re not allowed to ask to sleep with me, and you’re not allowed to… um…”
A flush crept up to the tips of his ears. “You’re not allowed to get hard just looking at me.”
Agamemnon’s handsome face remained impassive—until the final words, which left him briefly stunned.
Luo Li grew impatient. “Are you listening or not?”
“Anything else is fine.”
Agamemnon lowered his gaze. “But the last one… I can’t do that.”
