A Fishing-Type Omega Always Wants to Possess Me - Chapter 8

This was the first time Yu Mianzhou had received messages from the stalker twice in a single day.

Even through the screen, she could sense the other person’s furious frustration.

Yu Mianzhou frowned at the photograph and examined it coldly.

When her gaze reached the woman’s collarbone, it lingered for two seconds, and her breathing inexplicably grew heavier.

Just then, a message from Joyce appeared, asking whether Yu Mianzhou could accompany her tomorrow to meet the person in charge of a design studio.

Yu Mianzhou switched screens and replied with a simple, “All right.”

Afterward, she casually sent a message in the group chat shared by Tianji Technology’s founding members:

【When outsiders are present, don’t call me Elowen anymore.】

Everyone in the group had been her companion for years. Without asking any questions, they quickly replied one after another:

【Understood.】

Only after finishing all that did Yu Mianzhou return to the text-message screen.

Her fingertip hovered over the display.

Without the slightest hesitation, she deleted both the messages and the photograph completely, just as she had done at noon.

Early the next morning, Yu Shu was the only person in the dining room.

“Good morning, Xiaozhou.”

Watching Yu Mianzhou sit down, Yu Shu suddenly spoke in a gentle voice.

“By the way, when exactly are you bringing your girlfriend home for Mommy to meet?”

Yu Mianzhou’s hand paused as she spread jam across her toast.

“I’ll ask her today. As it happens, I’m going out with her today—”

The moment she finished speaking, she sensed a cold, shadowy gaze slowly rising from the depths of a bottomless well.

It crawled upward from the tips of her shoes, sticky and unhurried, carrying the damp chill of aquatic weeds winding around her ankles.

Finally, it clung to the side of her neck as though considering where to bite for a single fatal strike.

When Yu Shu saw Jiang Zhi approaching, she immediately forgot what her daughter had just said. She hurriedly stood and greeted her with a smile.

“Zhizhi, you’re awake so early today. Come have breakfast.”

She attentively poured Jiang Zhi a cup of black coffee.

Jiang Zhi sat down, her gaze fixed on some indeterminate point.

“Add sugar.”

Yu Shu froze.

Jiang Zhi had always ignored her in the past. Although she had never shown Yu Shu a pleasant expression, she had never been as cold as she was today.

Her entire body radiated an inaccessible, gloomy chill.

Besides, hadn’t Jiang Zhi always drunk her coffee without sugar?

Yu Shu’s gaze swept around the dining table.

The jar of sugar cubes happened to be beside Yu Mianzhou’s hand.

Yu Mianzhou also raised her eyes and noticed the sugar jar in front of her.

Yu Shu instantly became uncomfortable.

Asking Yu Mianzhou to pass it seemed inappropriate.

Yet deliberately refusing to ask her seemed… strange.

Whenever something like this happened, she could not help resenting Yu Mianzhou slightly.

Why had she insisted on making everything so awkward all those years ago?

Just as Yu Shu prepared to summon a servant, Yu Mianzhou swallowed the last mouthful of milk.

She clasped the lid of the sugar jar, stood, and walked over to Jiang Zhi before setting it down beside her.

It struck the table with a sharp clunk that sounded especially grating in the silent dining room.

Yu Mianzhou did not even glance at Jiang Zhi.

She turned toward Yu Shu instead.

“Mom, I’m going to work.”

Yu Mianzhou met Joyce at the agreed-upon intersection.

The moment Joyce saw her, she smiled brilliantly and handed over the iced tea in her hand.

“Your favorite brand. Sugar-free.”

They entered the office building together.

Yu Mianzhou said helplessly, “Just tell me what you want. Stop trying to flatter me.”

Sure enough, Joyce could no longer hold back. Her eyes sparkled as she asked:

“Didn’t you say you were going to take me home to meet your mother? When are we going?”

Yu Mianzhou saw straight through her.

“You want to see Jiang Zhi.”

“Oh, you caught me.”

Joyce was not embarrassed in the slightest. Instead, her smile grew even wider.

“Jiang Zhi is practically one of my idols. What’s wrong with wanting to see her? Besides, isn’t liking Jiang Zhi simply human nature? You have no idea how incredible her performance videos are. That figure, that face, and those hands…”

“It’s such a shame she already has a fiancée. If I were an Alpha, I would get on my knees and beg her to marry me. Having such a wonderful older sister means you must have accumulated enormous virtue in your previous life…”

Yu Mianzhou’s awareness drifted again as a memory violently forced its way into her mind.

Three years ago, Songcheng had experienced its hottest summer in nearly a decade. The sun had been vicious enough to evaporate a person alive.

She and Jiang Zhi had hidden inside a suffocating attic, tangled tightly together like two trapped beasts that had lost all sensation.

Jiang Zhi’s entire body had been drenched in sweat. Various fluids blended together, sticky and slick, yet she had still guided Yu Mianzhou’s hand slowly over her waist and abdomen, then across her chest, before finally pressing it against her slender throat.

Those hands, born to play the cello and praised by countless people for their beauty, had tightly clasped Yu Mianzhou’s wrist and urged her to use more strength.

Yu Mianzhou could feel the scorching temperature beneath her palm, hot enough to melt her entire body.

Never before had she wanted so desperately to tear someone apart and devour them.

Sunlight streamed through the window and cast sharp silhouettes, completely exposing the sight of Jiang Zhi’s parted lips and faint panting.

The slight suffocation made her eyes resemble glass veiled in mist.

How could Yu Mianzhou not know?

No one knew better than she did.

Pulling herself from the memory, Yu Mianzhou said to Joyce:

“You truly want to meet my mother? The place where I’m living right now is dangerous.”

Joyce’s mind was filled entirely with excitement over seeing Jiang Zhi. She had no energy to consider why Yu Mianzhou had said “the place where I’m living” rather than simply calling it her home.

She assumed Yu Mianzhou merely feared her family would disapprove.

With the proud self-confidence of a young heiress, Joyce said:

“You’re afraid your mother won’t approve of me? Relax. I only have to pretend to be your girlfriend. Haven’t I done plenty of things like that over the years? You know you can trust my acting skills.”

“My mother isn’t the dangerous one,” Yu Mianzhou said.

Joyce froze.

She was about to ask what else could possibly be dangerous when the elevator doors opened with a chime.

The design company’s manager was already waiting outside and enthusiastically welcomed them inside.

Yu Mianzhou and Joyce had come today to commission a personal appearance for their company’s artificial intelligence, Lingxi.

Tianji Technology had extremely demanding standards for Lingxi’s image.

Not only did they require a unique visual design, they also intended to hire a professional model for full holographic motion capture, striving to make Lingxi appear as close to a real person as possible whenever projected holographically.

Both parties repeatedly discussed and revised the proposal.

Before they realized it, noon had arrived.

The designer handed the final plan to Joyce.

Joyce was still not entirely fluent in the Imperial language. When she encountered several awkward technical terms, she turned to ask Yu Mianzhou for help.

Before she could speak, the phone on the table suddenly began vibrating.

It was an unfamiliar number.

Yu Mianzhou glanced at it and immediately rejected the call.

She took the proposal from Joyce, but before she could read more than two lines, the number called again.

She rejected it a second time.

On the third attempt, the phone rang with stubborn persistence.

Joyce could not help saying, “Maybe you should answer it.”

Yu Mianzhou pursed her lips and accepted the call.

A gentle yet unfamiliar female voice came through the receiver.

“Second Young Miss, the Eldest Young Miss has been punished by Madam and sent to the isolation room again.”

“She has been kneeling inside all morning. Her punishment is over now, but the door to the isolation room won’t open.”

At those words, Yu Mianzhou’s brow twitched heavily.

Her eyes went blank for an instant before her voice turned cold.

“You shouldn’t be telling me about this.”

The voice on the other end remained unhurried.

“Miss Gu is busy with work and cannot be reached. If the Second Young Miss has time, could I trouble you to come home? If you return, the Eldest Young Miss might be willing to come out.”

After speaking, the woman hung up without waiting for an answer.

Yu Mianzhou gripped her phone, her brows drawing even more tightly together.

She did not know whether she was angrier that she was merely the backup option when Gu Wanlan could not be reached, or that Jiang Zhi knew perfectly well what would happen if Yu Mianzhou returned.

She hated this feeling of being forced.

Perhaps her expression after the call was too grave, because Joyce leaned closer and asked quietly:

“What happened? Is there an emergency at home?”

“It’s nothing.”

Yu Mianzhou lowered her phone.

As the screen went dark, it reflected her bloodless face.

After speaking, she remained silent for several seconds.

In the end, she lowered her eyes and opened Gu Wanlan’s contact.

The night before, while they waited for Jiang Zhi to arrive after dinner, Gu Wanlan had taken the initiative to exchange contact information with her.

After sending Gu Wanlan a message, Yu Mianzhou turned her phone face down on the table and picked up the proposal again, as though nothing had happened.

The plan still needed to be brought back to the company for further revisions.

The person in charge warmly invited them to stay for lunch and selected a Hong Kong–style café downstairs from the office.

The moment they sat down, a server poured everyone a cup of hot tea.

Rumble—

A dull clap of thunder suddenly sounded outside.

The manager raised her head and looked at the gloomy sky.

“My, June weather changes without warning. Why does it suddenly look like rain?”

Hearing that it was going to rain, Yu Mianzhou’s hand stopped around her teacup.

She thought of Jiang Zhi again.

Yu Mianzhou did not know what had happened before she entered the Jiang family, but from the moment she arrived, Jiang Zhi had spent nearly as much time in the isolation room as she did in her own bedroom.

Yu Mianzhou had seen that room before.

It was dark, damp, and cold, without a single window. Once the door closed, not even the faintest ray of light could enter.

Under such restraint and Jiang Yingqiu’s severe scrutiny, Jiang Zhi had grown into an elegant, flawless young lady of a prestigious family.

The perfect heir.

But after spending years kneeling on the freezing floor, her knees were in poor condition.

Especially when it rained.

Yu Mianzhou watched the tea leaves drifting and sinking in her cup.

Against her will, she recalled the sight of Jiang Zhi in the past, her face pale as she curled up inside Yu Mianzhou’s arms and softly asked her to massage her knees.

She had clearly hated that isolation room so much.

“Why…”

Yu Mianzhou murmured unconsciously.

“Pardon?”

The server beside her had not heard clearly and smiled politely.

“Miss, what did you say? I was asking what you would like to order.”

Yu Mianzhou returned to her senses and casually pointed to two dishes on the menu.

The phone on the table vibrated again.

It was a message from Gu Wanlan.

【I’m sorry, Mianzhou. I saw your message, but I have a very important meeting today and truly can’t leave. Could I… trouble you to go back and check on her first?】

Trouble her?

Yu Mianzhou immediately typed a line into the conversation box:

【That’s your fiancée. You can’t even spare this much time for her?】

After finishing, she found the entire situation absurd and deleted the sentence one character at a time.

She typed another response:

【Are you certain?】

Then deleted that as well.

Suddenly, she let out a cold laugh and turned the phone face down on the table.

Everyone present sensed that something was clearly wrong with her.

Joyce wanted to ask, but after seeing Yu Mianzhou’s face, cold as ice, she swallowed her question.

Rumble!

Another clap of thunder exploded across the sky.

A flash of deathly white lightning instantly illuminated Yu Mianzhou’s face.

Something spread through her eyes in widening circles.

Her emotions were like a spring compressed to its absolute limit by an outside force. At last, they rebounded beyond her control.

Yu Mianzhou seized the car keys from the table and abruptly stood.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t be staying for lunch.”

No emotion could be heard in her voice.

She left only one final sentence:

“Something urgent came up. I need to go home.”