“Okay?”
Feng Ling stood in front of Ye Lingyue and poured out all the pain, all the thoughts, and all the words she’d been holding in for so long.
Her heart was pounding wildly, just like the first time she confessed on the rooftop.
Ling Yue sat on the edge of the bed without saying a word.
Her expression hadn’t changed from start to finish.
Her black eyes, hidden behind contact lenses, gazed at Feng Ling as calmly as a stagnant pool.
The silence stretched on for a very long time.
Just as Feng Ling was about to speak again, Sister Ling Yue finally called out softly, “Little Fengling.”
The sound made Feng Ling’s whole body tremble.
Because that voice… that voice was no longer the emotionless tone of the cold violence from before.
It had returned to the gentle voice she used to have.
“Are you done?” Ling Yue tilted her head.
“I… I’m done…”
“Then it’s my turn now~”
Ling Yue stood up from the bed and looked down at Feng Ling.
The height difference forced Feng Ling to tilt her head back to see her expression… and on that face was a smile… the exact same smile as before.
“Little Fengling said a lot just now… You said I was wrong, that I shouldn’t keep you locked up, that I shouldn’t lie to you, that I shouldn’t choke you, and that I shouldn’t ignore you… Mm, I heard it all.”
She reached out and gently wiped away the tears on Feng Ling’s face with her fingertips.
“But Little Fengling, you got one thing wrong…”
“What thing?”
“You said imprisonment isn’t love, control isn’t love, and hurting isn’t love.”
Ling Yue’s fingertips slid from her cheek to her chin, then lifted her face directly.
“But Little Fengling, what right do you have to define what ‘love’ is?”
Feng Ling opened her mouth but couldn’t say a word.
“How long have you lived? Seventeen years? Eighteen years? And I’ve lived for thousands of years. Do you really think the love you’ve learned in these mere dozen years is more correct than what I’ve learned over millennia?”
“No… that’s not what I meant…”
“Then what did you mean?”
With that, Ling Yue let go of her chin and began pacing slowly around the room.
Her high heels clicked crisply against the floor, each step landing squarely on Feng Ling’s heartbeat.
“Little Fengling, you said you want a normal romance… going out together? shopping together? watching the sun together? Human couples can do those things because they only have a few decades to live. They waste time on those activities because they have no choice—they’ll die soon anyway… but we’re different.”
Ling Yue turned to face her.
“We are vampires. We have infinite time. I don’t need to go shopping with you to prove I love you. I don’t need to watch the sun with you to prove I’m with you… because I will always be by your side… forever and ever, until the day this world is destroyed.”
“And that is my love… the love that belongs only to me~”
She cupped Feng Ling’s face in both hands.
“Little Feng Ling, the ‘normal love’ you talk about is too shallow for me. I don’t want something that fades with time. I want to take all of you—your body, your blood, every beat of your heart, every single thought—and make them mine.”
“Now that’s what love is, you understand?”
At this moment, Feng Ling’s lips were trembling violently.
Every word Ling Yue said sounded logical, but she knew it was wrong… it had to be wrong.
Yet she didn’t know how to argue anymore… They were fundamentally on different tracks from the start.
The “love” Ling Yue spoke of and the “love” she wanted were two completely different things.
“Sister Ling Yue…”
Feng Ling managed to speak with difficulty.
“But… but did you ever ask me? Did you ever ask what kind of love I wanted?”
“Aren’t you telling me right now?”
“Yes! I am telling you! But you won’t listen! You go on and on about your reasoning, saying your love is the right one. But have you ever considered that maybe I don’t want this kind of love? What if I can’t stand being locked in a cage? What if I’d rather live only a few decades but be free to see the sun?!”
Finally, Feng Ling broke down completely and shouted at the top of her lungs.
For an instant, Ling Yue’s gaze changed, but her voice remained gentle.
“Little Fengling, you just said you’d rather live only a few decades?”
Feng Ling felt the hands cupping her face tighten slightly.
“I… I…”
“Are you saying you’d rather die than stay by my side?”
“I didn’t say I want to die! I just meant…”
“You said it. You said you’d rather live only a few decades… and now you’re a vampire. You could live forever. So those words mean you’d rather turn back into a human and die than be with me forever.”
Hearing this, Feng Ling’s mind buzzed.
She quickly tried to explain, “That’s not what I meant! I was just making an analogy! I was just trying to say…”
“An analogy? Little Fengling, you know what? The words people say when they’re emotional are often the truth~”
“No! That’s really not true!”
“Then what did you mean? Explain it to me.”
Feng Ling opened her mouth but found she couldn’t explain anything.
Because when she said that sentence, a thought really had flashed through her mind… if she was going to be trapped here forever, she might as well be dead… and Sister Ling Yue had clearly noticed.
“See, you can’t even explain yourself.”
Ling Yue sighed and let go of her face.
“Little Fengling… I’m very disappointed in you…”
Those words stabbed into Feng Ling’s chest like a knife.
Disappointed again… that word again…
“Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed! Can’t you say anything other than disappointed?!”
Feng Ling didn’t know where she got the courage—maybe from being locked up too long, maybe her mind was truly breaking, maybe Ling Yue’s “disappointed” snapped the last thread of her sanity—and she shouted again.
“You’re disappointed in me? Well, I’m disappointed in you! You turned me from a human into a vampire loli, then locked me up in this castle and won’t let me out. Every day you drink my blood, cut my skin, choke my neck, and then you say you’re disappointed in me?!”
“I mean, Ye Lingyue, do you have any idea what you’re doing? Huh?”
Ling Yue just watched her quietly.
“Do you think you’ve been good to me? You think cooking for me and buying me a game console is being good to me? I don’t need those things! What I want is freedom! I want you to treat me like a person, not your pet!”
“You keep saying you love me, but you don’t love me at all! You love the idea of ‘having me’! You love the feeling of having someone completely belong to you! You’d do the same with anyone else! You just need something that will never leave you!”
“And I happened to show up, happened to be chosen—that’s all!”
These words poured out of her mouth, and she didn’t even know what she was saying anymore.
She only knew she had to throw all the grievances, all the anger, and all the resentment she’d been holding in right in Ling Yue’s face.
“You’ve lived so long, you say you’ve seen so many people, but you can’t even love someone properly! All you know how to do is lock people up, drink their blood, and choke their necks! Is that what you learned in thousands of years? Then your life has been a huge failure! And if I had known it would turn out like this, I never should have confessed to you on that rooftop!”
“I… I wish I had never met you!”
When that last sentence was shouted, the entire room fell silent.
Feng Ling was gasping for air, tears blurring her vision… After a few seconds, she realized what she had just said.
“No… no… Sister Ling Yue, I didn’t mean that…”
She wanted to explain, but words once spoken are like water spilled.
“So that’s how it is… Little Fengling really thinks that way. You think I don’t understand love, you think my life is a failure, you think you shouldn’t have confessed to me… and you think you wish you’d never met me.”
Every soft repetition of Ling Yue’s words made Feng Ling’s heart sink deeper.
“No, Sister Ling Yue, I really didn’t mean it. I was just talking in anger…”
“Anger? Little Fengling, I’ve told you many times. What people say when they’re emotional is usually what’s true in their hearts.”
“No! It’s really not!”
“Then tell me, was there a single thing you said that you’ve never thought about?”
Feng Ling was choked into silence again.
When she was going crazy from being locked up, when she was sucked dry of blood and passed out in the middle of the night, or when she was choked until her vision went black… those thoughts had indeed flashed through her mind.
But she had never truly believed them.
It really was just words said in anger.
“Little Fengling…” Ling Yue gently closed her eyes.
The next second, she laughed.