A Lover from the Cthulhu Mythos

After her parents died, Shi Yingqiu was locked up at home by her uncle, like livestock awaiting slaughter, until she could be married off. The old bachelor who had bought her for two oxen treated her like his property and harassed her again and again.

Shi Yingqiu cried out for help, but no one answered. One night, she took some matches, ready to burn down the house her parents had left her, her uncle and his family, the old bachelor, and herself along with them.

But in a basin of water reflecting the bright moon, she discovered a monster with a cavernous, blood-red maw.

The monster was easy to feed. It ate whatever Shi Yingqiu gave it: dried food, grasshoppers, and the chickens and lambs her uncle had raised with such effort...

As her uncle furiously searched for the missing lamb, Shi Yingqiu hid in a corner and asked the monster, "If I fed my uncle to you too, would you eat him?"

The monster swayed its slick tentacles and gently agreed.

But before Shi Yingqiu could feed her uncle and the old bachelor to the monster, the monster was discovered after stopping the old bachelor from harassing her in the middle of the night.

That night, flames soared into the sky, and Shi Yingqiu's old house burned to the ground. Every living creature was buried in the ashes, except for the monster, which was taken away by researchers in protective suits.

And Shi Yingqiu, who escaped disaster by hiding among the monster's tentacles.

Overcome with terror, Shi Yingqiu passed out.

When she woke up, the apocalypse had begun.

Exhausted, starving, and completely unaware of what was happening, Shi Yingqiu huddled beneath a bridge, trembling. Outside, zombies roamed everywhere, searching by the scent of humans.

Just as she was about to be bitten, a girl with fiery red twin tails, dressed in a frilly lolita outfit, appeared before her, standing atop a pile of zombie corpses as tall as a small hill. Their eyes met. The girl's eyes were bloodred, her gaze so viscous it seemed almost tangible. She grinned, and her mouthful of sharp teeth looked just like the monster's.

"Found you," she said.

The monster had found its keeper.

Unhinged, antisocial female lead X gloomy doglike monster

Younger love interest

Theme: Of all things in this world, only love endures