The Tempting Visitor

Standing outside the door were two unfamiliar women.

But Jiang Qian had another reason to be on guard.

On the white surveillance monitor, a brightly colored spider was feeling its way down along the edge.

Its eight eyes watched the surroundings from every angle, while the pattern on its abdomen resembled the face of someone poisoned beyond saving.

Jiang Qian recognized it.

Though the little thing was less than a centimeter long, it carried deadly venom.

A Peacock Spider? How could a species unique to Australia have appeared here... Jiang Qian's gaze followed the spider as he drew a miniature telescopic insect catcher from the hidden compartment in his watchband.

"Since you came right to my door, don't blame me for adding you to my collection..."

The Peacock Spider moved quickly. It had already jumped through the crack beneath the door onto the floor and was crawling into the house.

Jiang Qian held his breath and knelt down.

The spider catcher opened between his fingers, extending a cluster of flexible "furry claws."

Holding the catcher level behind the spider, Jiang Qian relied on his experience catching spiders in the laboratory. When the moment was right, he pressed the button at the end.

With a soft hiss, the catcher adhered to its prey! At the same time, its furry claws closed, completing the capture without harming the target.

"Ding-dong."

The doorbell rang again.

Subjected to the double stimulus, the captured Peacock Spider thrashed its eight slender legs wildly within the furry claws!

The silk it sprayed out in stress stuck to the claws instead, binding it even tighter.

Jiang Qian found a small transparent bottle Yu Xuan had used up in the bathroom. After considerable effort, he sealed the dangerous little creature inside and slipped it into his pocket.

Once he had dealt with it, he returned to the door.

As he reexamined the visitors through the monitor, he asked politely, "Hello. Who are you looking for?"

A middle-aged woman answered from outside. "Ah, I'm Teacher Tang's student, Li Fang. I arranged to visit Teacher Tang today, and I brought my daughter along to ask her a few math questions... You're Jiang Qian, right?"

Jiang Qian remembered hearing about her. His grandmother had mentioned her over lunch that day.

She had said Li Fang was a former student who also worked in education. She had been transferred to the nearby Experimental Middle School and had specifically come to visit her former teacher.

So he opened the door.

A mother and daughter stood outside.

The woman was plainly dressed, with shoulder-length hair and thick black-rimmed glasses. Her expression was somewhat reserved, her hands clasped together as she carried a brown handbag and gifts.

Her daughter stood beside her.

The fair-skinned girl wore a simple purple dress that outlined her youthful waist and not-yet-developed breasts.

The girl kept her head slightly lowered, her bangs obscuring her eyes. Yet they could not hide her pale, tender skin or her small, rosy lips.

"You must be Teacher Li. Please, come in." Jiang Qian returned his gaze to the woman.

"Ah Qian? My, you've grown so tall... Come, Xiao Lin, say hello to your brother." Li Fang did not rush inside, instead having her daughter greet Jiang Qian first.

"Brother Jiang." The girl named Xiao Lin slowly raised her head, revealing a pair of beautiful eyes bright as stars.

Jiang Qian's gaze shifted slightly.

The way the girl looked at him was filled with intense curiosity and anticipation, unlike the shyness conveyed by her body language.

"Please, come in." Jiang Qian nodded and calmly led the mother and daughter inside.

Perhaps having heard the noise, the old lady was just coming out of the study as well.

She stood straight, wearing reading glasses as she warmly exchanged pleasantries with the visitors.

There were not many people in their seventies who remained so vigorous. Jiang Qian's grandmother, Tang Hongmei, was certainly exceptional.

"Ah Qian, take Little Lin to your room to study." The old lady headed toward the living room with Li Fang supporting her arm, leaving Li Fang's daughter with Jiang Qian on the way.

"Okay."

So Little Lin followed Jiang Qian to his room.

"Have a seat anywhere you like." Jiang Qian brought over an extra chair and casually stuffed a cosmetic bottle into a drawer.

"Thank you, Brother."

"Which questions can't you solve? Let me see."

Little Lin quickly set down her backpack, pulled out her workbook, and searched through its folded pages.

Jiang Qian took the opportunity to observe the girl: the lingering ink marks on her arm, the callus on the middle finger of her right hand from holding a pen, and the slightly tanned skin around her ankles beneath the elastic cuffs of her school uniform...

Those were indeed traces of an ordinary student's life.

Yet this girl alone had a pair of seductively enchanting eyes.

From Jiang Qian's years of experience observing people, those eyes seemed to hold a sophistication no female middle school student should possess.

In the living room, his grandmother and the girl's mother were still chatting happily.

"Look, Brother," Little Lin obediently pointed out the questions to Jiang Qian. "This one, and this one..."

Whenever Little Lin's eyes were not on Jiang Qian, everything about her seemed normal again.

Jiang Qian simply set aside his distractions and focused on the math problems.

"Oh, this geometry problem is actually very simple. First, erase that incorrect auxiliary line. Let's try a different approach. Look..."

He redrew the figure on scratch paper, explaining as he marked the diagram.

Explaining math problems required patience and skill. A good teacher controlled the pace of instruction according to how well the listener understood and absorbed the material, advancing the process appropriately to avoid the awkwardness of making someone feel as though they were listening to a foreign language.

So far, everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Though throughout the process, Little Lin's gaze kept drifting tenderly toward Jiang Qian's profile...

Jiang Qian had no complaints about that—what could he do? When a boy was too outstanding, he would inevitably distract other girls from their studies.

Only human nature.

"Which one next?"

After solving the two major questions on the folded pages, Jiang Qian let out a breath.

High school math these days really isn't that hard. Even a college student like me can handle it easily.

"Brother Jiang, can we take a break?" Little Lin's eyes were full of admiration, though her voice carried a touch of bashfulness. "You solve problems so quickly that my brain can barely keep up~"

She wants to flirt with me. But I only want to turn her into a specimen. Her eyes really are beautiful... Jiang Qian smiled lightly. "Sure."

Having received an affirmative answer, Little Lin stretched contentedly, seemingly by accident displaying a girl's slender, charming figure.

At the same time, her slightly excited gaze swept around Jiang Qian's room, as though searching for an opportunity to start a conversation.

"Eh? Brother Jiang, is this you when you were little?" Little Lin stared at the framed family photo on Jiang Qian's desk and asked in surprise.

"Mm."

"You were already so handsome as a child. That's not fair~" The girl pouted and acted adorably in front of Jiang Qian. "Then who is this?"

"My brother."

Jiang Qian's gaze swept over the photo. It also showed his parents and grandmother. Yu Xuan had not yet lived with them at the time, so she was not in this family portrait.

"Your brother looks so fierce! Oh, right, he isn't home, is he?" Little Lin whispered.

"He disappeared," Jiang Qian said calmly.

Little Lin was clearly startled by those words.

She covered her mouth instinctively. After taking a while to react, she softly apologized, "I'm sorry..."

"It's fine. It happened a long time ago."

As he spoke, Jiang Qian got up to fetch something to drink, using the chance to ease the heaviness of the topic.

When he returned, he found that Little Lin's attention had shifted elsewhere.

Jiang Qian handed the girl a lemon tea and followed her gaze to a long-yellowed copy of Human Anatomy, resting quietly at an angle between bookends.

"Interested?"

"Mm~"

Then the girl asked a rather abrupt question. "Brother Jiang, do you think there are gods above humanity?"

Jiang Qian was somewhat surprised inside when he did not hear a topic along the lines of differences between male and female body structures.

"Not necessarily." He answered steadily, revealing not the slightest trace of disappointment.

"Not necessarily? Why?" Little Lin's eyes lit up, as though she held a particular passion for the subject.

Her enthusiasm clearly stirred Jiang Qian's desire to talk. "It's a question that can neither be proven nor disproven."

"How can you be sure that above humanity, there are no higher life forms possessing absolute control over this world? Perhaps humans are merely model organisms as well, like laboratory mice, baboons, or ants—raised and observed."

"Perhaps there is a form of life around us that we cannot comprehend. Are they 'gods'? I don't know. Perhaps they cannot even accurately be described as 'life.'"

"Just because people have not discovered them does not mean they do not exist. Maybe they simply do not want us to notice their existence."

The conversation gradually drifted beyond established understanding.

Jiang Qian had not intended to show off. He only continued because the pretty girl looked so eager to learn.

"Of course, that's only an example. After all, I can't describe a world beyond my understanding. That's why I said: not necessarily."

Unexpectedly, that answer satisfied Little Lin.

Her cheeks flushed slightly, and her breathing became quick as she gazed at Jiang Qian with a face full of admiration.

"Can we continue?" Jiang Qian reopened the workbook.

"Wait!"

Little Lin hurriedly grabbed Jiang Qian's sleeve. "If there were an opportunity right now for you to come into contact with their existence, even to gain unimaginable, terrifying power! But you had to take a tiny bit of risk, would you be willing to try?"

The hypothetical sounded like a joke between children.

But Jiang Qian rested his chin on his hand and seriously considered it. "Then I'd need to assess the risks before deciding."

"What if the greater the risk, the greater the reward?"

"That would depend on the specific parameters. Your description can be used to describe it, but it can't serve as a basis for making a decision."

Little Lin parted her cherry-red lips. After a fierce internal struggle, she ultimately gave up arguing.

She discovered that her advantages were completely useless before this aloof older brother.

"Ah, leave questions like that to science fiction writers to worry about." Jiang Qian kindly offered her a way out. "Let's continue. Which question don't you understand?"

"Mm... the next page," Little Lin answered obediently, then added sweetly, "Thank you, Brother~"

"You're welcome."

Jiang Qian turned the workbook to the next page...

Without warning, a small, exquisite purple card slipped out of the workbook.

Jiang Qian instinctively reached out and caught it... The card landed between his thumb and index finger. The three gold-embossed words "Invitation Letter" on its purple background suddenly entered his view.

At that moment, it felt as though his body had been struck by a scorching current of air, abruptly losing weight.

Then, the purple card actually merged into Jiang Qian's fingers and palm like a living thing! A burning sensation spread inward from his fingers through his palm, reaching every limb and bone.

Through his blurred vision, Little Lin stepped forward and supported his body as it was about to collapse...

Beside his ear came fragmented words tinged with tears:

—"I'm sorry! If I didn't do this..."

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