ADMPT: 1

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Chapter 1

In the spacious bathroom, the phone's ringtone vibrated incessantly, yet no one answered it.

A beautiful white-haired youth lay in the bathtub, his cheeks flushed red. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead, his eyelashes were damp, his thin lips slightly parted as he panted heavily, as if he had just gone through an intense bout of exercise.

But only Chu Li himself knew it wasn't an exercise at all. It was because his heat had just ended.

The restlessness in his body had yet to fade. His open clothes were soaked through with sweat, clinging to him uncomfortably.

In the most hidden part of his body was a female organ that set him apart from normal men. At his tailbone, a slender black tail lifted between his legs, its tip ending in a small heart-shaped hook.

This was the secret Chu Li had hidden for many years. He was an intersex succubus.

His slender ankle lifted, toes tinged with pale pink, gently nudging the faucet at the end of the tub. Icy water rushed out at once, gradually enveloping his overheated body.

It was already late autumn, and the temperature wasn't high to begin with. One could easily imagine how easy it would be to catch a cold while soaking in such cold water.

However, Chu Li didn't care at the moment. He was desperate to lower the temperature his heat had ignited, even if the price was having it rise again in the coming days due to a fever.

The phone was still vibrating.

As the temperature dropped, his panting finally subsided. The tail vanished instantly, and his reddened eyes returned to an inky black.

With a splash, Chu Li sat up in the tub and answered the call at the very last second before the ringtone stopped.

He didn't speak first, only coughed a few times to signal that someone was listening.

He was afraid his voice would be too hoarse and invite questions, creating unnecessary trouble.

The caller was his uncle, Chu Enguang.

The man seemed to think Chu Li wouldn't answer. Hearing the coughing from the phone, he paused briefly, then spoke quickly, "Little Li, didn't you say your sketching trip ended today? Why haven't you come back yet?"

Chu Li ran a hand through his dripping hair. His body belatedly shivered from the cold. He tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible. "I'll be back tonight."

Chu Enguang had no mind to notice the slight oddness on Chu Li's end and continued on his own. "Hurry back. The day after tomorrow is the meeting with the Jiang family. The assistant and the lawyer will both be there. I'll go with you. If nothing unexpected happens, you'll sign the contract and register the marriage right after. There can't be the slightest mistake, understood?"

Chu Li responded with a few perfunctory mm-hmms. He turned on the loudspeaker, placed the phone on the sink, grabbed a towel from the side, and wrapped it around himself. He finally felt a bit warmer.

"Your parents raised you for so many years, invested so much in you, paid for you to study art and open a studio. Your grandfather treated you like his own grandson when he was alive, always thinking of you whenever there was anything good. Now that the family company has run into trouble, it's all leaning on you marrying into the Jiang family to pull us through…"

Here it came again.

His uncle's guilt card.

Chu Li had heard it so much lately that his ears were tired of hearing it.

After he finally finished, Chu Li, who hadn't really listened, replied flatly, "Mm. I'm heading to the station. I'll hang up first."

"Alright, hurry back."

Chu Li cut the call directly and walked toward the bedroom, still wrapped in the towel.

The bedroom was also a mess.

Sketch papers lay scattered across the floor, the images on them blunt and explicit, without exception, stimulating the viewer's visual nerves.

This was one of Chu Li's little, unknown quirks as a succubus.

Recently, he had developed a liking for tentacle themes. The sketch paper attached to the easel depicted several pink tentacles smeared with semen. Besides that, he had also bought a tentacle-shaped toy in preparation for this heat. The experience was good. It was able to satisfy multiple spots at once.

They were all adults. Sex wasn't something shameful. What's more, he was an intersex succubus, with especially strong needs in that regard.

Chu Li lowered his head and unlocked his phone. Besides the call from his uncle, there was also a WeChat message from his mother.

[Little Li, if you don't want to go through with the marriage alliance, then don't. You don't need to worry about family matters. There isn't only this one solution. The adults will handle it. You just focus on your studio.]

Chu Li's heart softened, and his expression relaxed.

He was already 22, a college graduate, yet they still treated him like a child.

He was a child Mr. and Mrs. Chu had picked up and raised, doted on from a young age.

Mrs. Chu had a weak constitution and was unable to conceive. The two of them had been unable to have a child of their own and originally planned to adopt, only to find the abandoned Chu Li by the roadside.

Chu Li was born with white hair and was intersex. Mr. and Mrs. Chu thought he had been abandoned because of albinism and his intersex body. Seeing how pitiful he was and feeling a sense of fate, they took him to the best hospital for examination.

Unexpectedly, nothing abnormal was found. After traveling to several more cities, the results were still the same. All the tests showed Chu Li to be in perfect health. With no way to find his biological parents, they simply adopted him.

Based on Chu Li's physical condition, personality, and preferences, as well as his own later choice, Mr. and Mrs. Chu raised him as a boy.

For all these years, Chu Li had remained healthy and free from illness or mishap. Only then did Mr. and Mrs. Chu completely put their minds at ease.

But only Chu Li himself knew. He wasn't an ordinary person. He was a succubus, hatched from an egg.

He possessed the inherited memories of the succubus race, experienced heat after reaching adulthood, and even possessed some basic powers of seduction.

Yet he had never used such special powers, hiding himself very well.

He only wanted to live an ordinary life, stay with his current family, and do what he loved.

After coming of age, whenever he went through heat, he would secretly hide away and wait for it to pass, telling others he had gone on a sketching trip. No one had ever suspected anything.

This time was no exception.

Chu Li typed a quick reply: [It's okay, Mom. A marriage alliance is fine. With my kind of body, I wasn't planning to look for a partner anyway. Whoever I marry is the same. It won't affect my life at all.]

What's more… According to rumors, the Jiang family's young master, Jiang Ciyu, was ascetic, never close to desire. Since taking over the Jiang Group, he had devoted himself entirely to his career. If not for Old Master Jiang's critical illness and his sole wish to see his most beloved grandson married, Young Master Jiang probably wouldn't have bothered marrying anyone at all.

Even the meeting was handled by sending an assistant and a lawyer in a completely businesslike manner.

Chu Li had already imagined what life would be like after the marriage alliance. Mutual non-interference.

Putting down his phone, Chu Li blow-dried his hair, changed into clean, thick clothes, tidied up the room and bathroom, then pulled his luggage and called a car.

Behind him was a single-story self-built flat in the countryside. His secret base, where he spent every heat.

The small flat had originally been his great-grandfather's old, dilapidated house. Later, his grandfather, who had built his fortune from nothing, had it rebuilt, intending to use it for retirement. Unexpectedly, he passed away before ever moving in.

In his grandfather's will, this house was left to him. It really was a good place for sketching and painting.

However, while the countryside environment was nice, hardly anyone lived here. Over the years, youngsters had gradually moved to the city to develop, leaving almost no one behind. Transportation wasn't convenient, and the house wasn't worth much. Only a nearby resort had continued operating, though its business was never booming. It belonged to the Jiang Group, which was why it hadn't closed down.

As for that, although those relatives on this uncle’s side had always harbored some misgivings toward him as an outsider, they chose to overlook it.

And… this was also where his parents had found him back then.

When they found him, morning mist filled the air, and dawn was just breaking, hence the Li in his name.

With two beeps, Chu Li's thoughts were pulled back by the headlights. A taxi stopped steadily in front of him.

Seeing the luggage in his hand, the driver kindly got out to help load it into the trunk.

After getting into the car, Chu Li noticed his mother had replied, asking when he would be home.

He sent a voice message back. "I'm already in the car. I'll be home tonight."

After replying to the message and with nothing else to do, Chu Li opened a shopping app and gave a five-star review to the tentacle-shaped toy he had bought this time.

Very realistic, and the texture was great.

…

Inside a black business car passing by.

"Ciyu, it's already been twenty-two years. When that egg was lost, the little succubus inside hadn't even hatched yet. After all these years with no trace, maybe it already… met with some accident."

"The old man also hopes you can let go as soon as possible."

The woman with heavy makeup, a body-hugging skirt, and big wavy curls spoke in a male voice.

All succubi are intersex. Some have stronger female hormones, others stronger male hormones, but which gender they present as depends entirely on personal preference.

Like the speaker, surname Ren, given name Yao. Everything about him leaned masculine, yet he preferred women's clothing.

The handsome man in a black suit sitting beside him remained cold-faced and silent.

Ren Yao sighed.

The year the egg was lost, Jiang Ciyu had only been six. An age where one could remember things, yet forget them quickly. Who would have thought such a small child could hold onto an obsession so strongly? Searching for twenty-two years, keeping himself pure for twenty-two years, never even having a relationship.

Ren Yao still wouldn't give up, continuing to nag. "Look, didn't things fail between your brother and me? We just didn't click. Maybe after your little succubus hatches, it won't like you either."

The man finally reacted, glancing at him. "I've already agreed to the marriage alliance."

In other words. You can shut up.

Ren Yao mercilessly poked through it. "Are you sure you won't just toss the person aside after registering the marriage and not see them for a whole year?"

Jiang Ciyu: "..."

Ren Yao: "Grandpa doesn't have much time left. Can't you at least put on an act? He's most worried about you."

Outside the car, the sign of the resort gradually came into view.

After a few seconds of silence inside the car, "...Got it."

With Jiang Ciyu's promise, Ren Yao finally felt at ease.

Perhaps because he had accidentally lost that egg at the age of six, Jiang Ciyu had become an extremely responsible person over the years. Anything he agreed to, he would carry out seriously.

As they were about to arrive at the resort, Ren Yao stopped chatting idly with Jiang Ciyu. He tucked a lock of curls behind his ear, casually lowered his head to glance at his phone, discovering a new review on his online shop.

It was a review for the recently released tentacle-shaped toy.

A regular customer. A custom pink tentacle. Five-star review.

High quality.

After getting out of the car, Jiang Ciyu headed straight for the deepest area accessible only to the Jiang family.

It was a sea-salt hot spring.

Jiang Ciyu pushed open the door to his room. Ren Yao didn't follow. He was a succubus and didn't rely on seawater as much as those tentacle types.

Jiang Ciyu stripped off his clothes and sank into the warm, salty water, his gaze drifting to the smooth pile of stones arranged nearby as part of the scenery.

Among the piled rocks was a shallow hollow. Twenty-two years ago, he had brought his unhatched little succubus here to incubate it. A soft towel had been laid inside the hollow. The egg rested at the center, half submerged in the water, half above its surface.

When he woke up, the egg was gone.

They were, after all, non-human. To prevent their identities from being exposed, these private, exclusive areas had no surveillance installed. All the other cameras in the resort had been checked, yet nothing was found.

The world of a six-year-old was very small, small enough that every day he looked forward to his little succubus hatching. He waited for a year, and spent every day together for a year. Clearly… it was about to hatch.

The sudden loss of the egg meant the collapse of his world at that time.

All these years, he had kept looking, hoping the little succubus had survived by chance. It had almost become an illusory obsession. Coupled with his indifference toward romance, he had no desire at all to date or marry.

In others' eyes, perhaps he had never moved on.

He himself couldn't quite explain it. After all, he had only been six then. It had nothing to do with love. Just the simple feeling that a piece of his puzzle was missing.

Jiang Ciyu closed his eyes. Under the water, many pink tentacles emerged from his body, their suction cups opening and closing, displaying a gorgeous deep pink. Though this should have been a relaxed state, there was an inexplicable sense of tension.

Twenty-two years ago, on the day the succubus egg was lost, his grandfather searched for it for a full day and night. The surrounding area was nothing but rugged mountain paths. He was only an ordinary person, and it was during that time that he sustained the leg injury.

Recently, his condition had worsened. He could no longer walk and had to rely on a wheelchair.

Thinking of what Ren Yao had said earlier, one tentacle suddenly stretched up from the water, rubbed against the dry towel, nimbly wrapped around the phone on the shore, and dialed a number.

The contact showed Assistant Cheng.

The call was also answered quickly on the other end. "Chairman Jiang."

"Cancel all my appointments the day after tomorrow. Book a private room at Xianfeng, and contact…" Jiang Ciyu paused, as if searching his mind for a name. Finding none, he could only change the wording. "Contact my arranged marriage partner. Set up a meeting."

Assistant Cheng had no idea why his boss suddenly changed his mind. The meeting originally scheduled for the day after tomorrow had been meant for him and the lawyer to attend. It was nothing more than going through the formalities and signing the contract.

But you never guess the boss's thoughts. Just follow orders.

Assistant Cheng: "Understood."

After hanging up, Assistant Cheng dialed the number he had only recently saved under the contact name Mr. Chu Li.

It took a long time for the other side to answer.

"Hello…"

The voice was hoarse, carrying the nasal tone unique to illness.

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