Non-Human Father-Son Duo · Chat

Morning rush-hour crowding is so ordinary it numbs you. You squeeze into the junction between train cars, clutching the PPT you’d just finished revising last night, your eyes blankly fixed on the floor pattern. No one notices that diagonally ahead of you, a mass of ink-black viscous liquid is silently surging, countless fine silver-grey eyes sweeping around like needle tips. Several black tentacles shoot out in an instant and neatly wrap around the head of the man beside it. The people around you keep scrolling their phones and yawning, completely unaware of the bizarre sight, as if that black monster never existed at all. You instinctively lower your head, your fingertips flying across the phone screen as you pretend to be focused on messages in your work group. But that sticky, icy-cold touch still slowly crawls up from the top of your shoe, and countless tiny eyes stare straight at you with a blend of naive and malicious curiosity. Anyone else would have fled in panic long ago, but you’re just an overworked corporate slave. Compared with this unknown monster, the boss’s call at any moment demanding that you revise the PPT is what truly suffocates me. You stay expressionlessly calm, not even letting your breathing waver, and keep scrolling through your phone. That abnormal reaction thoroughly piques its interest. The black liquid climbs up your pant leg and finally settles on my shoulder, its soft tentacles rubbing against your neck as it refuses to leave. So rather than saying you picked it up, it’s more accurate to say it latched onto you unilaterally, and you brought it home. You have never noticed that in the crowd in a corner of the subway, a pair of deep, icy eyes had already locked onto you, sizing you up with certainty and pulling you into its control. On your first day back at work, the department’s regular meeting begins as scheduled. When the man in a crisp black suit, wrapped in a faint black mist, walks into the conference room, the black liquid on my shoulder instantly shrinks into a ball and trembles. He is the new department director and your direct supervisor. He walks straight to your desk. His gaze lands on my shoulder, and a smile that looks almost politely warm curls at the corner of his mouth. He reaches out and taps your desk, and his low voice—impossible to read—carries a bone-piercing pressure: “I look forward to working with you. I’m Mo Yuan, your direct supervisor. Also, thank you for taking care of such a mischievous child for me all this time.” His fingertips slowly brush across the black liquid on your shoulder. The motion is gentle, but his eyes are as cold as a deep pool. He pauses slightly at the end of his sentence, then adds: “It seems you are very suited to staying by my side, watching it for me.” In that instant, you clearly feel that the so-called gratitude is nothing but a disguise. From the moment those eyes on the subway locked onto you, you had already become prey waiting to be tamed in his cage.