Chapter 58: New rules of the Game

Over the next few days, Feng Ling’s attitude toward Ling Yue began to shift subtly.

So subtle that even Ling Yue’s Perception Field couldn’t immediately distinguish it.

She neither obeyed her every whim like in the previous cycle, nor secretly plotted a large-scale escape plan like in the first cycle…

She folded those two bloody lessons together and pressed them into a new shape.

When given an order, she delayed her response by a beat.

When fed, she left half a cup of blood untouched.

When her hair was being tousled, she tilted her head half an inch away.

No big moves, but not total compliance either.

In short, she was testing Ling Yue’s reaction baseline—like dipping an extremely thin chopstick 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.

When Ling Yue came over after her bath to comb her hair that time, her hand touched the back of Feng Ling’s head, and the girl shifted slightly to the side.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?” Ling Yue asked, a little puzzled.

“Nothing much… just my scalp itches a little.”

Fortunately, Ling Yue didn’t press further and continued combing.

Feng Ling made a mental note: ‘Minor physical avoidance passes without triggering any alert.’

That evening, when Ling Yue brought over a cup of blood to Xiao Fengling, she took only half, set the cup down, and didn’t touch it again.

Ling Yue glanced at the cup, then looked at her and asked, “Hey, not in the mood today?”

“Mm… I ate a bit too much at lunch. Stomach’s a little off.”

“Vampires don’t get bloated, you know?”

“Then I guess it’s psychological stomach discomfort.”

Her answer made Ling Yue chuckle softly, but she didn’t press further.

Feng Ling noted another point: ‘Not fully accepting feeding passes, but needs a plausible excuse. If I’d just said “I’m not drinking,” the result might have been different.’

What that result would be… she wasn’t ready to test yet.

Late at night, Ling Yue hugged her from behind, ready to sleep.

Her arms encircled her, and she pressed the back of her hand against Feng Ling’s stomach.

Though she still stiffened tonight, she didn’t endure it until Ling Yue withdrew on her own like before, nor did she gently lift Ling Yue’s hand away from her stomach and turn her back to her.

After turning over, about five seconds later, Feng Ling reached back and pulled Ling Yue’s arm around her waist again.

But this time, she didn’t place it back in the original spot.

Instead, she set it at her side, slightly higher than before…

To put it more plainly, it was a position where she could feel the weight without being too oppressed.

Sister Ling Yue in the darkness said nothing.

However, Feng Ling felt the body behind her pause for a beat.

That was Ling Yue’s habitual reaction when processing information.

The next moment, her arm tightened.

Feng Ling stared at the curtain, eyes wide open.

This test result: ‘Passive acceptance can be actively adjusted. Not all contact has to be fully received. She can partially reject, then reset the contact range—as long as she actively rebuilds the contact after rejection, letting the other person confirm it’s adjustment, not escape. That’s fine.’

Every interaction had a purpose, and every response carried weight.

Over the following days, Feng Ling lived far more awake than before.

She fine-tuned her persona from “a golden canary kept in a cage” to “a golden canary still in the cage, but one that occasionally pecks its owner’s finger.”

The force wasn’t enough to get her neck grabbed, but it was enough to earn her comfort every time she resisted her instincts and defied Ling Yue’s touch.

She no longer had to play the obedient puppet.

This shell was still hers.

Well… at least part of it was, for now.

But this morning, when Ling Yue walked into the bedroom carrying breakfast, Feng Ling noticed her expression was different from usual.

It wasn’t an angry look, nor the satisfied expression of watching prey bite the hook.

It was somewhere between “a little amused” and “a little surprised,” with a hint of unexplained smugness at the corners of her eyes.

In short, it was a very complex expression.

The first thing Feng Ling did upon seeing it was to check if she’d talked in her sleep last night.

She vaguely remembered dreaming about something, but couldn’t recall the content—only a vague impression of having muttered a curse word in her dream.

“I’ve got good news for you today~” Ling Yue walked over with a smile.

“What good news?”

“Well… these past few days—”

Ling Yue placed the tray on the nightstand, sat 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 didn’t notice, but I noticed everything.”

The moment those words landed, the blood in Feng Ling’s body rushed to her brain.

But her facial expression management actually worked in that critical moment.

She forced the heartbeat that had climbed to her throat back down, finished the motion of rubbing her eyes, and said in a just-woken-up, hoarse voice, “Ah… I was just normally uncomfortable.”

“Of course you were uncomfortable.”

Ling Yue pulled her blanket down to her waist, propped herself up on the mattress with her hands, and leaned over her.

Long hair draped down from both shoulders, enclosing 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 allow it. So you’ve squeezed out a compromise—come close, but push first every time. What you really need now isn’t ‘how to please me’ or ‘how to escape.’ You just need to know what makes you feel comfortable. You need to give your mind a reason to think you haven’t completely given up resistance, even if what you’re actually doing is still moving closer to me. Hmm? Am I right, cute little Xiao Fengling?”

Feng Ling stared at her silently.

No reply was needed now.

In this round of conversation, Ling Yue had turned over all her cards and laid them face-up on the bedsheet, every one neatly arranged.

“So today’s breakfast isn’t just breakfast. There’s a new game rule.”

Ling Yue drew a line across Feng Ling’s collarbone, leaving a tingling sensation spreading from inside out on skin where the sensory amplification hadn’t fully faded.

“Starting today, 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. The second time you refuse, that won’t work. Got it? Hmm?”

Feng Ling was completely stunned.

Her mental plan database crashed collectively in the face of this new information.

She had indeed been testing Ling Yue’s rejection threshold 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 secretly taking documents from the boss’s office, only to have the boss announce the next day that those documents could be self-served—but limited to one per day.

You thought you were operating under the table, but they’d just written your operation into the rulebook.

“Why?” she finally squeezed out.

“Because if you keep bottling it up, you’ll eventually break. And I don’t want to have to train a new golden canary from scratch every time. That’s a waste of time.”

Ling Yue whispered the last words lightly beside Feng Ling’s ear.

Feng Ling replayed that sentence in her mind twice.

Then she nodded slightly.

“Mm… okay. Then I want to use today’s quota once.”

“What do you want to refuse?” Ling Yue asked.

Feng Ling looked at the hand Ling Yue had placed on her collarbone.

She didn’t actually want to refuse that hand.

The feeling of Ling Yue’s touch on her collarbone, even after the sensory amplification faded, was still slightly more noticeable than ordinary contact—but it wasn’t painful.

She just needed to use this quota.

The sooner, the better.

Like getting a new weapon and wanting to test-fire it to confirm it really works, even if the target is empty—you just need to hear the bang.

“Take your hand off first,” Feng Ling finally said seriously.

Hearing that, Ling Yue withdrew her hand, which was about to cause mischief, cleanly.

And after waiting a moment, Feng Ling found that Sister Ling Yue didn’t switch to another method, nor did her expression change.

She just stood up, placed the tray on Feng Ling’s legs, and said, “Eat your breakfast while it’s hot. The blood today just arrived last night.”

“Huh? That’s it?”

Feng Ling looked down at the food on the plate, then looked up at the back of the figure turning toward the door.

A hard-to-describe sense of unreality filled her heart.

It was like you had a full set of elaborate battle plans ready, but after you fired the first shot, the other party opened the fortress gates and told you, “Congratulations on clearing the level. Your prize is on the left—help yourself.”

And you just stood there, feeling like you’d been fighting thin air.

On the second day, she didn’t use her quota during the daytime.

Not because there was nothing to refuse…

After all, Sister Ling Yue had been creating opportunities for her all day.

In the afternoon on the sofa, when Ling Yue slipped her fingers under her skirt, she said, “You can say stop now.”

But Feng Ling gritted her teeth and endured the full contact, not saying no.

Seeing that she didn’t refuse, Ling Yue lingered a little longer, pressing harder than usual, more tormenting.

Before her bath that night, Ling Yue came over holding that roll of crimson ribbon.

Feng Ling stared at the ribbon for a moment, then shook her head.

Yes, that’s right—it was the same ribbon from the wedding chamber in the previous cycle!

“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, with a rather low neckline…

But compared to the previous accessories, that was already a much gentler choice.

Feng Ling breathed a sigh of relief as she took the pajamas.

At least now she had proof that the daily rejection was being honored.

From now on, when she refused, she wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.

But it only reduced the pressure, not eradicated it.

That meant there was still a small chance of being hit with the chopping knife.

So she had to be cautious—cautious, cautious, and even more cautious.