You Look Delicious Today Too

[S-rank monster octopus profiler x eccentric, telepathic, naturally clueless police officer] Xia Yubing is an octopus who has cultivated for a thousand years. She’s a graceful pacifist who never eats people, living off spilled emotions. She’s gone more than a thousand years without breaking that rule. Until two years ago, when she was badly wounded and weakened, able to maintain only the form of a palm-sized little octopus. A human found her and took her home. Li Xiaochuan hugged her and rubbed against her, begging her to give it to her, eyes red and tears of pleasure streaming down her face Then she released Xia Yubing back into the sea, dusted off her hands, and left. Xia Yubing spent two years sulking on the ocean floor before finally realizing that a human had treated her like a toy, using her and throwing her away. Two years later, Xia Yubing shows up out of nowhere at Li Xiaochuan’s police station, unspent hatred burning in her amber eyes. She’s going to eat Li Xiaochuan. Literally: swallow her whole and digest her completely. Where should she start? The spot Li Xiaochuan rubbed against two years ago seems like a good place. Li Xiaochuan, a new trainee officer, tilts her head at Xia Yubing, the profiler who’s just appeared out of nowhere. “Teacher Xia, are you hungry?” Xia Yubing’s pupils contract. No human has ever seen through her before. Eight tentacles writhe inside her. She’s gone more than a thousand years without eating a human. Li Xiaochuan would be honored to become the first. But Li Xiaochuan doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that her new female colleague is the little octopus. She doesn’t know whether her nightly dreams of tangling with eight tentacles are real. She doesn’t know that the sighing tree beside the station and the fortune-telling owl on the roof aren’t figments of her imagination. All she knows is Teacher Xia seems to be hungry all the time. She needs to feed her. “Here, have some takoyaki. I made it myself.” Xia Yubing: “...” Later, Li Xiaochuan finally realizes that the two boats she’s been straddling are actually one and the same. Overjoyed, she wipes away her tears with one of Xia Yubing’s tentacles. “Thank goodness, I didn’t cheat.” Xia Yubing watches her, slowly loosening the tentacles around Li Xiaochuan’s waist. Never mind. If you can’t bear to eat someone, you might as well keep her. Xia Yubing: a thousand-year-old octopus, an S-rank monster, and a criminal profiler. Li Xiaochuan: a trainee officer, eccentric and telepathic, with an overloaded mind and a star addiction. One wants to eat the other; the other wants to feed her. “Teacher Xia, are you hungry again?” “...Mm.” “Should I make you seafood congee?” “No, I’m tired of it.” “Oh.” Li Xiaochuan thinks carefully. “Then you can eat me.” [Nonhuman romance | unconventional crime investigation | one-on-one happy ending | the octopus really does go wild and has a genuine appetite] Theme: You’re adorable no matter what.