NOVEL NEXT Chapter 7 | Stupid Little Romantic
No matter how drunk Eathan was on joy, and no matter how warm Emily's arms felt against his body, eventually he could no longer ignore the screaming alarms rattling inside his skull.
[CALAMITY RADAR β]
Status: Auto-online
Hostile intent detected!
The urgent mechanical voice cracked across his senses like a whip.
Eathan's mind cleared with terrifying speed. All the fantasies—wedding vows, baby names, slow dances at their tenth anniversary—popped like soap bubbles. He instinctively jerked a step backward—and not a moment too soon, and the girl's smile shifted. It was no longer shy, but not exactly bashful.
It was a smile that belonged to a predator.
A burning, unnatural pink flashed across her once-soft brown eyes, and two needle-like fangs gleamed in her open mouth.
Eathan broke out into a full-body sweat.
What the fuck?!
His head filled with question marks, including but not limited to:
Why was Emily Lutin trying to bite him?
Why were her eyes neon pink like some cheap nightclub sign?
Why, why, why did the world refuse to give him a single moment of peace since this damn [SYSTEM] showed up?!
The confusion, exhaustion, and adrenaline of the past two days hit him all at once, and Eathan almost wanted to cry. However, he couldn't even afford that luxury, because right now, survival trumped emotional processing.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION
[Emergency Quest] triggered!
Survive the Unfair Encounter!
Reward: +300 Karma, +30 Qi Tokens, 5% Integrity
The [SYSTEM] flared red across his field of vision.
Eathan didn't hesitate. He dumped every last Qi Token he had earned from side quests into [Agility] without thinking twice.
35 Qi Tokens have been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (35 → 0)
[Primary Attributes Updated!]
[Agility]: Lv. 2 → Lv. 5
A sharp jolt ran through his body, and his muscles seemed to loosen and sharpen all at once. It felt as if someone had tuned every fiber of his being to maximum responsiveness.
He turned on his heel and sprinted for the rooftop door, but he didn't make it far. Halfway to the exit, a cold ripple of air hit him. The world lurched sideways, the concrete under his feet blurring like wet paint.
And then—horror sinking into his gut—Eathan felt his body stop against his will.
Mei Nü.
The single word floated faintly across his mind, from the memory of a half-read Mythology PDF from CHN 104:
Mei Nü—a seductive spirit that enslaves mortals by charm and devours their life force.
It was an absurd deduction, yet not unreasonable enough for the situation at hand. Eathan couldn't move, couldn't even twitch a finger. His mind was screaming at him to run as fast as he can, but his legs were no longer his own.
In his frozen horror, he realized he was walking back toward her—like a fish being reeled on a rod.
The not-Emily curled a finger at him, her smile widening. The soft spring breeze ruffled her hair as she waited, patient, predator's satisfaction gleaming in her glowing eyes.
Eathan's panic boiled over.
No, no, no.
He had to stop. He had to resist. Eathan focused every ounce of willpower into slamming the brakes on his traitorous body. A pulsing vein throbbed at his temple from the effort. However, it was futile. Whatever spell she cast had locked him tighter than chains.
They stood now mere inches apart.
Eathan, trapped inside his own body, stared at her flawless face. There was no innocence left there, no familiarity…
Only hunger.
The woman lifted a hand and trailed her nail along his jawline, and with a sudden flick, raked her claw down his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. The sting barely registered over the haze clouding his mind.
[HP] has decreased by 15%! (100% → 85%)
Pain lanced up the side of his face, sharp and ringing. His vision pulsed, and Eathan wondered, albeit only for a brief second, how his body was so depressingly brittle.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Somewhere, absurdly, he tried to stall for time. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"I like you," he said, voice cracking.
Maybe—just maybe—some buried humanity could stop her. Maybe the memory of the real Emily, or at least the idea of her, could reach through whatever monster had taken root.
For a fleeting second, the woman did falter, her eyes softening slightly as the pink glow dimmed by a fraction. At her reaction, Eathan's heart surged with desperate hope.
But then—she laughed. It was a sharp, cruel sound that cracked across the empty rooftop.
"How cute," she purred, leaning closer until he could see every razor-fine detail of her sharpened fangs.
"A stupid little romantic."
The [SYSTEM] blared in his head, warning after warning flooding in, but Eathan could only stand there, helpless. He realised, bitterly and absurdly, that for the third time in the past twenty-four hours, he was probably going to die.
And worst of all?
It was going to be at the hands of the girl he once thought he loved.
The next second, the world detonated around him.
A sharp noise like steel against steel tore through the rooftop air. Eathan flinched just as something blurred between him and the woman—no, the thing—posing as Emily.
A glint of cold metal flashed past his eyes. The next thing he knew, a blast like compressed thunder roared through the air. Emily's—no, the creature's—head burst open like a ruptured water balloon. A fist-sized hole bloomed cleanly through her forehead, the force snapping her head backward with a sickening jolt.
Standing between them, blade still humming faintly in the spring air, was Mister White's daughter.
Or rather, as Eathan had come to mentally categorise her: a small weaponised disaster disguised as Mister White's daughter.
Chewie Jiang.
Her short, jet-black hair was clipped messily backwards, oversized jacket sleeves of her elementary school uniform rolled back to her elbows. In one hand, she held a blade nearly double her size—a matte-black weapon faintly glowing with anime pins and archaic vendor stickers
Three years ago, Chewie had simply shown up one rainy afternoon at COZMART, dragging a broken smart-suitcase and an even more broken temper. She'd marched into the store, looked Mister White dead in the eye, and said she was sick of living with her mom. She wanted to live with him instead.
It still ranked among the Top Five Most Shocking Things Eathan had ever witnessed in his fifteen years of knowing Taeril White—right up there with finding out the man had been married once, and was somehow divorced without fanfare.
He could still remember the scene vividly: his under-eighteen self standing there, utterly dumbstruck, as Taeril simply tilted his head, studied the angry little gremlin in front of him, and smiled that lazy, nonchalant smile of his.
"Sure," he'd said. "Then you can stay with me from now on."
No questions. No hesitation. Like she was asking for a candy bar and not a permanent relocation.
It was insane.
It was pure, stupid Taeril White.
And somehow, it had worked.
Now, that same eleven-year-old—who lived off convenience store dumplings and glared at tax collectors—was standing calmly over the corpse of a creature that had almost killed him.
Chewie flicked the sword once, spraying pink mist across the tiles. With her free hand, she produced a jade vial from her jacket and held it under the dissolving spirit. "One registered Succubus-Fey," she reported flatly to no one in particular. "Rift-Class C. Commander Li wants the core."
Her voice was calm, almost bored, as she blew a strand of hair out of her face.
Eathan's mouth opened, but no sound came out. His crush's body sagged forward like a marionette with its strings sliced. Emily's once-sparkling eyes were empty now, drained of whatever soul or spirit had been clinging to the flesh. Only silver motes floated where the succubus had been anchored, drifting lazily toward Chewie's outstretched hand.
The scene imprinted itself into Eathan's brain like a scar.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION
You have completed [Hidden Quest]:
Find out "Emily Lutin"'s secret!
You have been rewarded: +100 Karma, +25 Qi Tokens
Host [Level]: Lv. 3 → Lv. 5
The [SYSTEM] panels floated before him, but they barely registered. His brain was locked somewhere between shock and a slow, creeping numbness.
He just stood there, shivering faintly, as Chewie tucked the jade vial away into a hidden pocket of her jacket. Her obsidian-black eyes glanced at him briefly—measuring, clinical.
Then she clicked her tongue.
"Useless."
It wasn't said cruelly, but more like an evaluation, with all the sympathy one might offer a broken vending machine. But the single word still lodged itself in Eathan's chest like a splinter.
Eathan slumped against the rooftop fence, breath shallow. His hands trembled. His entire understanding of the world felt like it had cracked along the same lines as Emily's skull.
Eleven-year-olds aren't supposed to headshot succubus spirits with blades the size of street signs.
Exploded corner shops aren't supposed to reset overnight.
Classmates aren't supposed to sprout fangs and drain your life force on a school rooftop.
He didn't move when Chewie turned, nor when she effortlessly slung the heavy blade across her back with one hand. He didn't even react when she left him there, standing in the slow-drifting ash.
Eathan clutched the side of his head, waiting for his mind to reboot while reality slipped sideways little by little. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could handle.
But of course, in 2044, even full-blown breakdowns had to run on someone else's schedule.
And the world was already moving on.
***
Across campus, another disturbance was stirring.
In Lecture Hall 309, Professor Quine Long—also known, in slightly older circles, as Azure Dragon Qing Long—stretched languidly behind the podium. Sunlight filtered through the adjustable glass wall, catching on the ink-dark strands of hair that cascaded well past his waist.
Students swarmed around him—some genuinely curious, most just pretending to take notes while angling for better lighting in their InterGram stories. His emerald eyes glittered with mild amusement as he twirled a black pen between his fingers, effortlessly deflecting a dozen flirtatious questions with a smile sharper than a jewel-etched guillotine.
It was chaos. Comfortable, curated chaos.
Until it wasn't.
A sharp note rang out—not sound, but something older. Karmic. The thread of causality tugged against his perception like a sudden disharmony in an ancient guqin melody.
And then, without warning—
One thread snapped.
Quine blinked once.
He tilted his head slightly, like a cat detecting a shift in the atmosphere. The amusement in his expression didn't fade, but something beneath it sharpened.
Without hurry, he snapped his fingers.
A single, crisp sound.
And the world shifted in response.
The ambient chatter died. Laughter dissolved mid-syllable. Wristpad displays flickered off. Smart contacts dimmed.
And the students—having been chatting, giggling, sneaking selfies—all froze mid-breath, their eyes glazed over like frosted glass. One by one, as if some unseen puppeteer had cut their strings, they slumped over their desks, heads resting on folded arms.
Dozens of bodies sank into immediate, engineered sleep.
Overhead, the smart-lighting system began to shut off in perfect sync. Each step Quine took down the aisle marked another light extinguished.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The hum of suspended projectors flickered out.
Even the air vents quieted. Each step he took was accompanied by the dying breath of another cascading light.
Quine Long moved like mist over water, his footsteps utterly silent. The hem of his dark coat whispered against the marble tiles. As he passed through the exit archway, the biometric lock re-engaged behind him with a soft click, sealing the lecture hall in its dream state.
He didn't glance back, didn't even break stride. But his voice—smooth and unhurried—still echoed faintly through the abandoned hall.
"Class dismissed."