Chapter 53: This useless body!

“Xiao Fengling, what do you think of this color?”

Ling Yue spread a deep red ribbon in front of Feng Ling.

Under the light of the red orbs, the ribbon shimmered with a dark glow that was hard to say whether it was beautiful or unsettling.

Feng Ling stared at it for two seconds, and in her mind, images from the previous cycle of herself being tied to the bedpost with this ribbon automatically popped up.

“It’s… it’s fine…”

She quickly shifted her gaze back to the Switch screen, her fingers clicking the buttons rapidly.

At that moment, Link in the screen was galloping across Hyrule on horseback.

She didn’t know where she was going; as long as the horse was running, it was fine.

“Then this one it is.”

Ling Yue put the ribbon into her bag that always seemed to contain who-knows-what, then sat down beside Feng Ling again, sitting so close that Feng Ling could smell the faint fragrance on her.

This made Feng Ling’s fingers pause on the buttons for a beat.

After that scent invaded, her body reacted before her brain…

The muscles on the inside of her thighs unconsciously tensed.

She raised the Switch a bit higher, using the screen to cover the lower half of her face, pretending to be studying the map in the game intently.

‘Damn… damn damn damn… damn…’

‘She’s already been through two cycles, died twice, killed by the same woman in two different ways!’

‘And now this woman is sitting beside her, smiling as she watches her play games, putting on the act of a gentle older sister.’

‘And her body… this damned disobedient body of hers is actually reacting to this woman’s scent… it’s just too…’

“Xiao Fengling, your performance today doesn’t seem so good~ You’ve fallen off the same cliff three times now.”

Ling Yue suddenly said at that moment.

Feng Ling looked down.

Indeed, Link was lying at the bottom of a cliff on the screen… and the “GAME OVER” text beside it was flashing.

She hadn’t noticed any of that at all!

“I, I’m testing the game’s fall damage mechanics,” Feng Ling said without changing her expression.

“Tested it three times?”

“Gotta take more samples for accuracy~”

Ling Yue chuckled softly, then reached out and ruffled her hair.

That hand slid from the top of her head to the back, and lightly tapped her nape with a fingertip before withdrawing.

At that single touch, a fine layer of goosebumps rose on Feng Ling’s back.

Actually, she was a bit scared… the feeling of Ling Yue snapping her cervical vertebrae in the previous cycle was still etched into her bones, but when that same spot was touched, the signal sent from her skin to her brain wasn’t just fear.

She clenched her back teeth and quickly reloaded the save.

“By the way, Xiao Fengling, want to try a new magic today?” Ling Yue asked.

“What new magic?”

“Sensory Amplification. Simply put, it temporarily increases the sensitivity of your senses several times over. A light touch that would normally feel like nothing will become… hmm, how to put it… extremely stimulating.”

Upon hearing this, Feng Ling almost dropped her controller.

“W-what use is learning something like that?” She was trying very hard to keep her voice normal.

“It’s not for you to learn—I’ll cast it on you. After all, it’s a support spell that only high-level vampires can use. You can’t learn it yet, but you can experience the effects first~ Right?”

Ling Yue said with a smile.

“Can I choose not to experience it?”

“Of course you can~”

‘What? Sister Ling Yue just said what? There’s no way she’s being this easygoing, right?’

Feng Ling waited for over ten seconds, but nothing happened.

“…And then?”

“No ‘and then’~ Xiao Fengling said she doesn’t want to experience it, so we won’t. When has Big Sister ever forced you?”

Ling Yue tilted her head and asked.

Feng Ling stared at Ling Yue’s face for a long time.

That face wore a gentle smile she was all too familiar with, eyes curved like crescent moons, looking exactly like a loving older sister doting on her younger sister.

But Feng Ling knew what lay behind that smile… the madwoman who had stabbed her heart with her finger and the monster who had bitten her to pieces alive.

“Then I won’t experience it,” Feng Ling said.

“Okay.”

Ling Yue agreed so readily that it only made Feng Ling more uneasy.

She lowered her head and continued playing, but all her attention was on Ling Yue.

Sure enough, after about five minutes, Ling Yue stood up and walked toward the kitchen.

When she passed by Feng Ling, she bent down and lightly bit her ear.

“Ah! What are you doing!”

Feng Ling covered her ear and shrank into the corner of the sofa.

“This is a bite, not forcing you to experience magic~ Biting an ear isn’t within the ‘forbidden’ scope, is it?”

Ling Yue asked with a laugh.

“You…”

“What’s wrong? Is Xiao Fengling going to forbid Big Sister from biting ears?”

Feng Ling opened her mouth, then closed it again.

If she said “forbidden,” Ling Yue would definitely find another way.

And that woman’s “other ways” were always harder to bear than ear biting… that was the experience she had earned with two lives.

“Whatever,” she finally said, turning her head away.

Then Ling Yue walked into the kitchen with a smile.

Feng Ling curled up on the sofa, put down the controller, and touched the ear that had been bitten.

There was still the coolness of Ling Yue’s teeth on it… and a small patch of moist sensation.

Her fingers paused on her ear for a few seconds, then she suddenly pulled them back and buried her face in the cushion, muttering, “Damn…”

But the cushion still smelled of Sister Ling Yue.

So she threw it to the other end of the sofa, quickly picked up the Switch, and continued playing.

Link was still standing at the edge of that cliff.

She moved Link in the opposite direction for about ten seconds, then exited the game and opened a racing game instead.

At least doing laps wouldn’t make her think of anything weird.

…

Meanwhile, Ling Yue was humming in the kitchen.

It sounded like a very old tune, with a somewhat melancholic melody… but when hummed by Ling Yue, it carried a strange tenderness.

Feng Ling listened to that intermittent humming, her fingers moving mechanically over the buttons, her eyes on the screen but not really seeing it.

Her mind was running through other things.

Running away would get her killed… submitting would also get her killed.

So the core of the problem wasn’t whether she ran or not, but Ling Yue herself.

Ling Yue was essentially a bomb.

The trigger wasn’t some specific action of Feng Ling’s, but something inside Ling Yue’s own heart.

Maybe it was possessiveness reaching a critical point… or some impulse she couldn’t understand… or something else entirely.

When Feng Ling was bitten to pieces in the previous cycle, she had thought about one thing.

Ling Yue said, “You didn’t even say ‘stop,'” meaning that if she had called out, Ling Yue would have stopped.

But she didn’t believe it.

Not even a little.

Because in the countless “games” before that, Ling Yue had also said she could call out at any time, but every time she actually did, the former only became more excited.

So this cycle, she had to learn to say “no.”

But not a flat-out refusal… she didn’t dare do that.

She still remembered the insane gleam in Ling Yue’s eyes when she said “You can call out” in the previous cycle.

That meant the way she said “no” had to be exactly within a range Ling Yue could accept… not too submissive, but not truly angering her either.

Like the whip the tamer holds outside the cage.

You don’t have to actually use it, but you need to let the beast know the whip is still in your hand.

Of course, at best, she was just a clever golden canary now.

The real beast was never her.

“Xiao Fengling, lunch is ready~”

Ling Yue came out carrying a tray.

Today’s lunch was a red dish that Feng Ling couldn’t identify but which smelled delicious.

Of course, there was also a glass of blood she was all too familiar with.

Feng Ling put down the Switch, walked to the table, and sat down.

First, she picked up the blood and sniffed it… yeah, it was human blood.

She took a small sip.

As the blood slid down her throat, that familiar sense of satisfaction spread from the tip of her tongue to her limbs.

Every cell felt as if it had been activated by a weak electric current…

Her pupils dilated slightly, and her fingers unconsciously tightened around the glass.

Not enough… not nearly enough…

Her body’s demand for blood was much greater than before.

One glass used to be enough, but now after finishing one, she only felt thirstier.

And it wasn’t just about quantity…

The urge to directly suck blood from a living creature was growing stronger.

Her gaze unconsciously drifted toward Ling Yue’s neck for a moment, then quickly looked away.

But the senior still caught her.

“Xiao Fengling, you peeked at my neck again~” Ling Yue said with a smile.

“I did not.”

“You looked for about half a second.”

“I was looking out the window… wait, there are no windows here… I was looking at the pattern on your clothes!”

Feng Ling said loudly.

“I’m wearing a solid-colored shirt today. No patterns.”

Feng Ling lowered her head and took a big bite of the red dish, using the chewing motion to cover her expression.

Ling Yue didn’t press further, just propped her chin on her hand and watched her eat with interest.

That gaze fell on her head like an invisible spiderweb.

Not heavy, but every strand clung to her skin, impossible to peel off.

…

After lunch, Feng Ling returned to the sofa and got angrier the more she thought about it.

And she was angry at herself.

After witnessing two horrific deaths at the hands of the same person, her body still tensed at the smell of Ling Yue’s scent, her teeth still itched at the sight of Ling Yue’s neck, and her mind still got scrambled into a paste by that smell at certain moments.

This was no longer Stockholm Syndrome…

This was purely physiological conditioning, like training a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell.

And her bell was attached to Ling Yue’s neck.

“Fuck,” she muttered quietly.

“Xiao Fengling cursed~”

Ling Yue’s voice floated out from the kitchen.

“I did not!”

“Vampire hearing is very good, you know.”

Feng Ling quickly slapped the cushion over her face

She had forgotten that Ling Yue’s hearing was so sharp she could hear her footsteps sneaking toward the main door through several walls, of course she could hear her muttering curses on the sofa.

So she didn’t even have the right to talk to herself.

There was nowhere in this castle that was truly “private”… including her own brain.

Because her body had been trained to react automatically whenever Ling Yue approached, without Ling Yue needing to actively perceive anything.

Every inch of her skin was Ling Yue’s message board, and every heartbeat was the drumbeat Ling Yue struck.

Thinking about this, she suddenly felt she needed to find some fun for herself.

Otherwise, she really would go completely crazy.