Over the next few days, Feng Ling’s attitude toward Ling Yue began to show subtle changes—so subtle that even Ling Yue’s perception field might not have been able to distinguish them immediately.
She didn’t act completely obedient like in the previous cycle, nor did she secretly plan a large-scale escape like in the first cycle.
Instead, she folded those two bloody lessons together and pressed them into a brand-new shape.
When commanded, she delayed her response by a beat.
When fed, she drank half a cup less.
When her hair was ruffled, she tilted her head half an inch to the side.
No big moves, but not complete compliance either.
In short, she was testing Ling Yue’s baseline reaction.
It was like using an extremely thin chopstick to dip into solutions of different concentrations, each time with a different amount, then holding the test strip up to the light to observe the color change.
This time, when Ling Yue came over to comb her hair after bathing, her hand touched the back of Feng Ling’s head.
Feng Ling shifted slightly to the side.
“Hmm? What’s wrong?”
Ling Yue asked, a little puzzled.
“Nothing… Just my scalp itches a bit.”
Fortunately, Ling Yue didn’t press further and continued combing her hair.
Feng Ling made a mental note: ‘Minor physical avoidance: passable, won’t trigger any alert.’
That evening, when Ling Yue brought over the blood cup for Xiao Fengling, Feng Ling took it but only drank half, then set it down on the table without touching it again.
Ling Yue glanced at the cup, then looked at her and asked, “Hey, not hungry today?”
“Yeah, I ate a bit too much at lunch. My stomach’s a little off.”
“Vampires don’t get bloating, you know~”
“Then it’s psychological stomach discomfort.”
This answer made Ling Yue smile lightly, but she didn’t ask any further.
Feng Ling noted again: ‘Partial refusal of feeding is passable, but needs a reasonable excuse. If I’d just said “I don’t want to drink,” the result might have been different. As for what that result would be… I’m not planning to test it for now.’
Late at night, Ling Yue hugged her from behind, preparing to sleep.
Her arms wrapped around, and she pressed the back of her hand against Feng Ling’s lower stomach.
In the past two cycles, this move would have made Feng Ling’s entire body stiffen.
Although she still stiffened tonight, she didn’t endure it stiffly until Ling Yue retracted her hand.
Instead, she gently moved Ling Yue’s hand away from her stomach, then turned over to face away from her.
After turning over, about five seconds later, Feng Ling reached back and pulled Ling Yue’s arm back, resting it on her waist again.
But this time, it wasn’t placed in its original spot—it was positioned at her side, slightly higher…
To put it more plainly, it was a spot where she could feel the weight without it being too oppressive.
In the darkness, Ling Yue didn’t say a word.
However, Feng Ling felt the body behind her pause for a brief moment.
That was Ling Yue’s habitual reaction when processing information.
The next moment, her arm tightened.
Feng Ling kept her eyes open, staring in the direction of the curtains.
This test result: ‘Passive acceptance can be actively adjusted. Meaning, I don’t have to accept all contact completely… I can partially refuse and then redefine the scope of contact. As long as I actively rebuild the contact after refusing, letting the other person confirm it’s just an adjustment rather than an escape, it works.’
Over the next nine days, she was far more alert than before.
Every interaction had a purpose, and every response carried weight.
Feng Ling fine-tuned her persona from “golden canary kept in a cage” to “a canary still in the cage, but one that occasionally pecks at its owner’s finger.”
The force wasn’t strong enough to get her neck snapped, but it was enough to give her comfort each time she defied her instincts and resisted Ling Yue’s touch.
She no longer had to act like the completely obedient puppet.
This shell was still hers—at least part of it, for now.
But that morning, when Ling Yue entered the room carrying breakfast, Feng Ling noticed that her expression was different from usual.
It wasn’t anger, nor the satisfaction of watching a prey take the bait…
It was somewhere between “a bit amused” and “a bit surprised,” with a hint of indescribable smugness at the corners of her eyes.
Overall, it was a very complex expression.
The first thing Feng Ling did upon seeing it was check whether she had talked in her sleep last night.
She remembered… she seemed to have dreamed of something, but she couldn’t recall the content at all—only a vague impression that she had cursed in her dream.
“Xiao Fengling, I have good news for you today~” Ling Yue said with a smile.
“What good news?”
“It’s that you, over the past few days—”
Ling Yue placed the tray on the nightstand, sat down on the edge of the bed, and tapped Feng Ling’s nose with her index finger.
“—you’ve been testing me, haven’t you? You thought I hadn’t noticed, but I noticed everything.”
Hearing this, Feng Ling’s hand, which had been rubbing her eyes, froze in midair.
All the blood in her body rushed to her head the instant those words landed.
But her facial expression management actually worked at the critical moment.
She forcibly swallowed the heartbeat that had risen to her throat, then continued the eye-rubbing motion, and said in a hoarse, just-woke-up voice, “Huh? I was just… naturally uncomfortable.”
“Of course you’re uncomfortable.”
Ling Yue pulled her blanket down to her waist, then leaned over her body, bracing herself on the mattress with her hands.
Long strands of hair fell from both sides of her shoulders, enclosing both their faces in a small space.
The distance was so close that Feng Ling could see the faint red glow beneath Ling Yue’s contact lenses.
“You’re uncomfortable because you’re fighting yourself. Your body wants to get close to me, but your mind won’t let it. So you’ve squeezed out a compromise… you come close to me, but every time you approach, you push away first.”
“So what you need now isn’t ‘how to please me’ or ‘how to escape.’ You just need to know what makes you comfortable.”
“You still want to give your mind a reason to think you haven’t completely given up resistance, even if the actual thing you’re doing is still getting closer to me.”
“Hey, am I right, my adorable little Feng Ling?”
Feng Ling looked at her calmly.
At this point, no answer was needed.
In this round of conversation, Ling Yue had flipped all her cards face-up on the sheets, neatly arranged.
“So the breakfast I’ve prepared for you today isn’t just breakfast—it comes with new game rules.”
Ling Yue traced a line along Feng Ling’s collarbone, leaving a trail of tingling sensation that spread from within on skin where the sensory amplification hadn’t fully faded.
“From today onward, you can refuse me once a day~
No matter what I ask you to do, you can say no.
Once a day…
I won’t ask for a reason, and I won’t get angry.
“But only once. If you refuse a second time, that won’t fly~ Got it?”
Feng Ling was completely stunned.
The entire plan repository in her mind crashed collectively in the face of this new information.
She had indeed been testing Ling Yue’s threshold for refusal these past few days, but she never expected the other party to upgrade one of the test results into an official policy.
It was like you secretly took a file from the boss’s office, and the next day the boss announced that the file could be self-service from now on, limited to two per day.
You thought you were operating in the shadows, but the other party had actually written your operation into the rulebook.
“Why?”
She finally managed to squeeze out just those three words.
“Because if you hold it in any longer, you’ll eventually break. And I don’t want to have to train a new canary from scratch every time. That’s a waste of time.”
Ling Yue buried the last sentence softly beside Feng Ling’s ear.
Feng Ling replayed that sentence in her mind twice, then nodded lightly and said, “Alright. Then I’ll use today’s quota.”
“Okay. What do you want to refuse?”
Feng Ling looked at Ling Yue’s hand resting on her collarbone.
She didn’t actually want to refuse that hand.
The sensation of Ling Yue touching her collarbone, even after the sensory amplification had faded, was still slightly more noticeable than ordinary contact—but it wasn’t painful.
She just needed to use up this first quota as quickly as possible.
Like getting a new weapon and firing it once to confirm it actually works.
Never mind whether the target is empty—at least you have to hear the bang.
“Take your hand away first.”
Finally, Feng Ling said seriously.
Hearing that, Ling Yue withdrew her hand, which had been about to do something mischievous, without any hesitation.
Feng Ling waited a moment and found that Ling Yue didn’t switch to any other method of contact, nor did her expression change.
She simply stood up, placed the tray on Feng Ling’s lap, and said, “Eat breakfast while it’s hot. The blood today arrived just last night.”
“Ha? That’s it?”
Feng Ling looked down at the breakfast on the plate, then up at Ling Yue’s back as she turned and headed for the door.
At this moment, she felt an indescribable sense of unreality inside.
It was like you had prepared an entire meticulous battle plan, fired the first shot, and the other party opened the fortress gate and told you, “Congratulations, you’ve cleared the level. Your prize is on the left; collect it yourself.”
And you just stood there, feeling like you had been shooting at thin air.
The next day, she didn’t use her quota during the daytime.
It wasn’t because there was nothing to refuse…
After all, Ling Yue had been creating opportunities for her all day.
That afternoon on the sofa, when Ling Yue slipped her fingers under the hem of her skirt and said, “You can tell me to stop now~”
Feng Ling gritted her teeth and endured the full touch without saying no.
And when Ling Yue saw that she didn’t refuse, she lingered a little longer, applied more pressure—more tormenting than usual.
Before her bath that night, Ling Yue came over carrying the roll of dark red silk ribbon.
Yes, the same kind of ribbon from the wedding chamber in the previous cycle.
Feng Ling stared at the ribbon for a moment, then shook her head.
“No ribbon.”
“Okay.”
Ling Yue quickly put the ribbon back in the room and came out holding a pair of pajamas Feng Ling had never seen before.
They were black, very thin, and the neckline was rather low…
But compared to the previous accessories, it was already a fairly mild choice.
Feng Ling breathed a sigh of relief as she took the pajamas.
At least now it was confirmed that the once-daily refusal had been honored.
From now on, when she refused, she no longer needed to be afraid.
But this only reduced some of the pressure—it didn’t eliminate it entirely.
In other words, there was still a small chance of being hit by the “chopping knife.”
So she had to be cautious, cautious, and even more cautious.