Chapter 49: The Collapse After Awakening

Xu Fengling opened her eyes again.

At this moment, her mind was still replaying the unforgettable scenes from the previous cycle… especially the part where her body was bitten to pieces alive.

She lay there quietly, staring at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

About ten seconds later, she sat up abruptly, dug her fingers into her hair, yanked at the roots, and buried her face between her knees.

Then she opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

At that moment, she desperately wanted to scream, but all she could manage was a series of hoarse, breathy rasps.

At the same time, her body trembled violently, her teeth chattering audibly.

And the force with which she pulled at her hair increased, several strands of silver-white hair being yanked out, tangled between her fingers.

Ha… ha… ha… ha… ha…

After an unknown amount of time, she finally released her grip and gasped for air.

Before her eyes was still that familiar yet unfamiliar room.

The bed, the vanity, the bookshelf, the curtains… everything was exactly as she remembered, and the light outside the window told her it was early morning.

Next, Feng Ling touched her own neck.

Intact… the spine wasn’t broken, the trachea wasn’t crushed, and of course there were no finger marks on the skin.

“Heh… hehe…”

She let out a few dry laughs.

Back again… she had cycled once more…

Then Feng Ling threw off the covers and walked barefoot across the floor to the mirror.

In the mirror, that vampire girl wore a crumpled white nightgown, her hair messy like a bird’s nest, her eyes bloodshot, and the golden patterns in her red irises were more noticeable than before.

She stared intently at her reflection in the mirror.

Twice… she had died twice.

The first time, Ling Yue smiled and pierced her heart with a finger.

The second time, Ling Yue smiled and bit her entire body to pieces.

And now she stood here unharmed, as if none of that had ever happened…

“Ugh…”

Then a sob escaped her throat.

The next second, tears flowed down.

However, she didn’t dare to cry out loud.

She clamped one hand tightly over her mouth, while the other hand pressed against the mirror, her nails scratching four sharp marks on the surface.

At the same time, her shoulders shook violently, tears spilling through her fingers and running down her wrists into the sleeves of her nightgown.

That woman… that woman named Ye Lingyue!

She’s a lunatic!

A complete and utter lunatic!

Lunatic!

But… but…

Feng Ling cried even harder.

Because deep in those images was another layer of something that terrified her even more… and that thing was stuck together with fear, tied to pain—it was the unwanted tremor that surged in her body when Ling Yue bit through her collarbone… and the moment when, as her vision went black from being choked, her hands unconsciously wrapped around Ling Yue’s back.

She hated her… she feared her… she wanted to run away at the sight of her.

But her body… this body of hers would voluntarily cling to her.

“Ugh… ugh… ughhh…”

Feng Ling buried her face in the crook of her arm and cried for a long time.

Why didn’t she dare to cry loudly?

Because being too loud would summon Ling Yue.

That is, she could only suppress all sound in her throat, turning her cries into intermittent sobs, and curl her body into a small ball, as if she could hide herself from Ling Yue that way.

After who knows how long, the tears finally stopped.

Feng Ling stood up, wiped her face haphazardly with her nightgown sleeve, then looked at the mirror again.

The self in here… so ugly…

She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes to slowly calm her breathing.

‘No… I can’t cry… because crying is useless. Tears won’t make Ling Yue spare me, nor will they erase what happened.’

Then she opened her eyes.

Now she knew two things.

First, running away would get her killed… Second, submitting would also get her killed.

Both lessons were truly earned with her life.

“Then what should I do…”

She asked the person in the mirror.

But the person in the mirror didn’t answer.

Then, Feng Ling noticed her nails were sharper than last time.

So she licked her fangs with her tongue… sure enough, her teeth were longer than before, even protruding completely beyond the edge of her lips, so that even with her mouth closed, those two white tips could be seen.

But what was even more different was the feeling inside her body.

Before, every time she woke up from a cycle, there was a suppressed power surging in her blood, needing a while to fully release.

But now it was different.

Now she could clearly feel a strong force surging through her blood vessels, starting from the heart, flowing along the arteries into her limbs, then back through the veins… every drop of blood was like a miniature engine, rumbling and running in every corner of her body.

Then, she tried jumping, and directly leaped from in front of the mirror to the other side of the room, nearly crashing headfirst into the wall.

“What the hell?”

Feng Ling looked down at her legs, then at the spot where she had been standing.

Two steps?

No, this room was at least five meters long… she had only lightly jumped and covered the entire distance.

Next, Feng Ling tried again.

This time, she moved her body toward the door… but as soon as the thought popped up, by the time she realized it, she was already standing at the door… the doorknob right in front of her, and she nearly hit the door panel.

“What the hell? No…”

She turned to look at the window on the other side of the room.

From the window to the door was about seven or eight meters, and the time it took her to move there was only a fraction of a second.

It wasn’t running or jumping; simply, under the impulse of the thought ‘want to go there,’ her body completed the movement on its own.

Her feet didn’t even leave any friction marks on the floor, as if her entire body had been directly ‘sent’ to the destination by some force.

Feng Ling’s heart pounded.

What does this mean?

Does the cycle also increase power?

If so, if she keeps dying and dying, wouldn’t she become invincible?

No!

No way!

She didn’t want to experience the pain of death again!

The pain of being burned alive by the Flame of End… and the pain of having her body slowly bitten to pieces bit by bit… she was sure that if she died again, she would absolutely go mad!

She would go insane!

So she didn’t want to die!

Hey?

Speaking of which, aren’t the Vampire’s physical attack methods without weapons similar to Wolverine’s?

Then would her claws’ attack power have increased?

She raised her hand and looked at it carefully.

Then, forming her fingers into a claw, she lightly scratched the door panel, cutting four deep grooves into the wood.

Uh… she remembered Sister Ling Yue saying that the doors of the castle rooms were made of a magical material called Blood Prison Wood, and that stuff was about as hard as diamond… and she just damaged it like that?

“No… it’s over, over, over, over, over…”

Then Feng Ling quickly used her palm to wipe the scratches, trying to press the wood shavings back in.

Of course she couldn’t press them back.

The four marks on the door panel were as clear as could be.

If Ling Yue pushed the door open and saw this, how would she explain?

Was she going to say she was sharpening her claws?

Feng Ling slapped her forehead.

‘Need to calm down… calm down… Although the situation is indeed overwhelming, breaking down won’t solve anything! I need to calm down!’

She first took a deep breath, then another huge gulp.

‘Okay, it’s fine… Although my heart is still pounding, and my mind keeps replaying the image of Ling Yue looking up from her chest with a smile, at least my body has stopped trembling.’

‘Wait! I can… I can now hear the sounds outside the room very clearly!’

The wind at the end of the corridor, the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen downstairs, and footsteps coming from further away… footsteps…

Each step was very light, yet she could accurately distinguish that the person was walking from the study to the stairs, going upstairs, and heading toward her room.

It’s Ling Yue!

That lunatic is coming in!