Mariko's lust had now become something lethal.
Wen Xishu said:
"Mariko, I'm very tired. Why don't we wait until I wake up?"
Mariko's hair had almost completely wrapped around Wen Xishu. It would hardly have been an exaggeration to call him a "mummy" wrapped in black hair.
Yet even then, he spoke very calmly, with a trace of weariness:
"Under these circumstances, I'd only be going through the motions. What's the point of that?"
"Let's wait until I'm full of energy."
Mariko looked at Wen Xishu, clearly not intending to let him off so easily, but he said:
"Although I promised you that our intimacy would progress, isn't this one-sided demand of yours a little disrespectful to me? I'm a little disappointed in you. Doesn't love involve any consideration at all?"
Wen Xishu was exactly like a husband unwilling to fulfill his marital duties, trying to use moral pressure:
"I thought our love still had a Platonic purity to it. I never imagined you were only after carnal pleasure."
"Perhaps you don't love me at all? You're not lovable in the slightest like this."
"If you still want to force yourself on me, you can, but you won't see any emotion from me. Do you still think we should continue, even so?"
"But you'll never experience love in its entirety."
Wen Xishu wasn't actually sure whether Mariko's obsession after becoming one of "them" was satisfying her lust or longing for true love.
In Wen Xishu's view, it was probably more the former, but the latter accounted for at least some of it.
Otherwise, there would have been no talk of escalating intimacy. The very first act would simply have been mating.
Wen Xishu had guessed correctly.
Seeing Mariko's hair unwind little by little and guilt gradually appear on her face,