“Xiao Fengling.”
At that moment, Feng Ling suddenly heard Sister Ling Yue’s voice right beside her ear.
“Ah!”
Startled, she shot straight off the sofa, launching her controller into the air.
It tumbled several times before landing on the carpet.
Sister Ling Yue was crouched behind the back of the sofa, resting her chin on the cushion.
Her blood-red eyes, free from contact lenses, smiled at Feng Ling.
“You looked so lost in thought. The ‘Delete Save File?’ prompt has been sitting on the Switch screen for ages.”
“I was thinking… whether I should delete it and start over.”
Feng Ling quickly picked up the controller and pressed Cancel.
“Oh, really? I thought you were thinking about where that drop of Primordial Blood inside you is.”
Feng Ling’s finger froze over the button.
But only for half a beat… then she resumed pressing keys.
Yet that momentary pause had already been recorded by some madly spinning gear inside her heart.
Feng Ling decided not to respond to Ling Yue’s remark.
Instead, she closed the on-screen menu, turned sideways to look at the always-calm lunatic behind her, switched to her most practiced pitiful expression, and said, “Sister Ling Yue, next time could you please make some noise when you walk? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Vampires don’t get heart attacks, so rest assured, Xiao Fengling~”
Ling Yue came around to the front of the sofa, nudged Feng Ling over a little, and sat sideways on the armrest.
“By the way, Xiao Fengling, do you want to know how to use that drop of blood in reverse?”
Ling Yue pinched a strand of Feng Ling’s silver-white hair between her fingers and gently rubbed it.
“Reverse use?”
“That means you can sense me back through this Blood Mark. Because that drop of blood is my blood that you drank… it recorded all my information at the time. Most Descendants of a vampire need several hundred years to master this Reverse Perception technique, but Xiao Fengling might be much faster.”
Feng Ling blinked twice, then absorbed the words and processed them several times.
“You… teaching me this, aren’t you afraid I’ll use it to track your movements?”
“Why should I be afraid? Knowing where I am will make you feel safer, won’t it?”
Ling Yue twirled her finger through Feng Ling’s hair again.
“And even if you know where I am, what can you do?”
Hearing this, Feng Ling was silent for a few seconds.
“Teach me.”
She squeezed these three words out through her teeth, suppressing the turbulent contradictions surging in her heart under the root of her tongue.
“Alright. Now close your eyes, and place your hand over your left chest to feel your own heartbeat. With every beat, blood passes through that drop of Primordial Blood once. That’s right, now. Don’t think about the location of the Primordial Blood; your body has already memorized it. Let it find itself.”
Feng Ling did as Ling Yue said and slowed her breathing…
At first, she could feel nothing, only the pulse thumping beneath her palm.
Then, gradually, that drop of Primordial Blood gently detached from the aortic wall, like an extremely thin, small fluff drifting with the blood flow.
It floated all the way to her chest and stopped right below the heel of her hand.
At the same time, a faint red glow lit up under her palm… but it spread less than a millimeter before disappearing.
“Found it?” Ling Yue asked softly.
“Mm.”
“Now imagine that drop of blood is a drop of mercury, and slowly spread it out into a mirror. Make sure the mirror surface faces outward, not toward yourself. Let it reflect the direction outside your body.”
In her mind, Feng Ling struggled to flatten the Primordial Blood from a fluff into a plane.
How to describe it…
It felt more like directly pressing warm wax onto glass with her finger and flattening it into a thin sheet.
At first, it was opaque.
Gradually, it began to reflect shadows, and then grew clearer until she could recognize Ling Yue.
That Blood Mirror sent the image directly into her cerebral cortex.
Ling Yue was sitting very close to her, her body outline wrapped in a faint red mist.
As for that mist, it must be the Perception Field… the shape of the system Ling Yue used to monitor her.
“Can you see me?” Ling Yue asked softly.
“I can see you. You have a mist.”
“That’s my Blood Web. Every vampire has one… but the Progenitor’s is generally larger. The fact that you can directly see the mist form means your talent is higher than I anticipated. Most vampires can only see a blurry light.”
After that, Feng Ling slowly opened her eyes… but the exact same image she had seen in her mind still lingered, not fading.
Too clear… so clear it was almost nauseating.
Because in that pale red mist, she saw herself.
Her entire body was wrapped in that mist… no blind spots… every direction… every breath, every minute, every second.
So she had been living inside a line of sight all along.
Inside Ling Yue’s line of sight.
“Xiao Fengling? You don’t look too good.”
Ling Yue leaned closer.
“It’s nothing. Just a little tired. The first-time Perception consumes a lot, right?”
“Mm, using this skill for the first time does consume a lot of blood. So go rest for a while. I’ll call you for dinner.”
After saying that, Ling Yue reached out and ruffled her hair.
Feng Ling didn’t say another word.
She got up from the sofa and went back to her own bedroom.
Once she lay down on the bed, she quickly pressed one hand over her eyes, while the other hand grabbed the edge of the pillow and slowly tightened her fingers.
Got the Perception skill…
But at the same time, she had acquired an even worse piece of information.
Ling Yue had never been afraid of her learning this; she had even proactively opened it up to her.
This meant that every single one of Feng Ling’s movements was still within Ling Yue’s expectations.
She even began to suspect that this reincarnation’s “Escape Plan” hadn’t even taken shape yet, and that madwoman had already seen through it completely.
But at least she finally had a card she could play.
Forward Tracking was how Ling Yue monitored her, and Reverse Perception was how she could monitor Ling Yue.
Even though she could only see a blurry blood web for now… if she kept practicing, maybe one day she could pinpoint Ling Yue’s exact location.
By then, the timing for entering the “Private Area” on the third floor would no longer be a matter of pure luck, but a probability game that could be precisely calculated.
…
After dinner, Ling Yue dragged Feng Ling to take a bath again.
Our poor Xiao Fengling was scrubbed from head to toe in the bathtub, every inch of her body, without sparing those places.
Feng Ling blushed the whole time, playing dead.
Only when Ling Yue’s hand reached the scar left by the wound on her waist did she kick the water in protest, splashing Ling Yue’s face with bubbles and water.
In response, Ling Yue scratched a line on the inside of her thigh with her nail, then pulled her out of the tub, dried her off, carried her to the bed, and made her lie flat.
She said she needed to check the injuries from today’s training.
“Xiao Fengling’s self-healing ability is very strong now… The marks from hitting the wall this morning are completely gone. But…”
Ling Yue’s finger slid down from her ribs and stopped at the dimples of her lower back, “the muscle here is still a little tight. It seems your waist took too much strain during acceleration… Let me massage it for you.”
Without allowing Feng Ling to express her opinion, Ling Yue’s ice-cold hands pressed directly into the soft flesh at her waist.
At first, it was indeed a proper massage… pushing up along the lumbar spine one stroke at a time, with moderate pressure, loosening her tense back inch by inch…
Actually, it was quite comfortable.
But after a few rounds, the massage path shifted. Yes, it shifted.
“Ah… ah… mm… ah mm… no… ah…”
Feng Ling buried her small face deep into the pillow, her fingers nearly tearing the pillow filling apart.
This woman’s fingers were turning her sanity into a puddle of mush.
At that moment, she even wanted to pin this madwoman underneath her and sip that sweet, delicious blood… the Primogenitor Blood that made her addicted.
“Sister Ling Yue… you said it was just a massage…”
“It is just a massage~ I’m just incidentally checking the recovery of your other muscle groups.”
Ling Yue’s voice came close to the back of her neck, her warm breath brushing over the old tooth marks that hadn’t faded yet.
“You’re… checking way too thoroughly… mm!”
“Of course I have to be thorough. Didn’t you say before that you would never leave me again? Since you’re my thing, I have to take responsibility for every part of your body.”
The last sentence, Ling Yue bit into her ear, at a volume just enough for Feng Ling alone to hear.
Feng Ling buried her face into the pillow once more.
That feeling was back…
Uncomfortable, hot, a certain sense of emptiness mixed with fear.
Her own heartbeat pulsed in her ears, the pillow smelled of Ling Yue, and her body had gone completely out of control under the temperature of Ling Yue’s fingertips.
She didn’t dare to call a stop or move.
Mainly because she was afraid that if she called a stop, she would die again.
Also afraid that if she moved, she would be seen as resisting…
So this time, she chose the same as always: close her eyes and wait for it to pass.
When Ling Yue finished and left, she tucked Feng Ling’s blanket corners, dimmed the bedside lamp to the lowest setting, and said, “Goodnight, Xiao Fengling.”
“Goodnight… Sister Ling Yue…”