Feng Ling waited until the door was completely closed before setting down the controller.
She slowly clenched her fist.
Rats…
Ling Yue said it was rats.
But something that kept Ling Yue busy for hours on the third floor in that “non-private area” couldn’t possibly be just rats.
Besides, when did Ling Yue set up that barrier? She said she already had…
Why hadn’t Feng Ling noticed it until after her perception was enhanced?
Setting up a large-scale barrier like that would definitely leave magic traces—unless Ling Yue deliberately hid everything that could be detected by outsiders.
Hmm, if she really did hide it, then that meant Ling Yue didn’t want outsiders to know what was still inside the castle.
Feng Ling shifted positions on the sofa, then picked up the half-empty glass of blood Ling Yue had left on the coffee table.
She tilted her head back and downed it all in one gulp.
After that one glass, her anxiety eased slightly… but the lingering premonition that something was about to go wrong still stuck somewhere in her chest.
She started making a mental list.
External threats: currently known ones included vampire factions and other forces.
And Ling Yue was shouldering all these threats alone.
The reason might be that she didn’t want the Golden Canary inside the castle to be discovered by outsiders.
For example, she could use these threats to leave the castle and embrace freedom again.
So how could she use them?
The most direct method: when an external threat actively attacked the castle, she could take advantage of the chaos to find a breakthrough point.
While Sister Ling Yue was battling the invaders at the front, she couldn’t possibly concentrate on monitoring every corner of the castle at the same time.
Her perception net would be temporarily compressed due to the intensity of the battle…
At the very least, its coverage would weaken for a while.
If she could time it right… even if she only had nine minutes, she might find a chance to open the castle’s main gate.
But the risk was that external threats could actually harm her.
Those unfamiliar vampires and otherworldly races wouldn’t show her any mercy like Ling Yue did.
Ling Yue would kill her out of a twisted, indefinable emotion, but those outsiders would likely kill her just on a whim.
If she fell into Ling Yue’s hands, she would just die once more.
If she fell into the hands of those outsiders, she might be used as leverage against the Progenitor.
So she couldn’t charge in headfirst—otherwise, things would get worse.
Her best strategy was to have Ling Yue and the external forces pin each other down at the castle’s perimeter.
She absolutely couldn’t have a direct confrontation with either side, but the friction had to be intense and prolonged enough to nail Ling Yue’s attention there.
During the gap in that friction, she could gain enough time and space to execute her real plan.
Which was to study and remove the drop of Primordial Blood Imprint inside her body.
As long as she could clear Ling Yue’s blood from her system, even if the main gate wasn’t open and the windows were still sealed, Ling Yue wouldn’t be able to track her.
The next time an external threat appeared, while Ling Yue went out to fight, she could exploit the slight loosening in the castle’s defense mechanisms caused by Ling Yue’s temporary absence.
Then she could leave directly.
But first, she had to find a way out… and figure out how to expel the Primordial Blood from her body without killing herself.
After going around in circles, Feng Ling placed the empty glass back on the coffee table and tapped her finger lightly on the rim.
Good.
She needed to confirm whether she could independently execute a complete escape operation in a very short time if necessary—and that required Ling Yue to be out of the castle.
The only chance for Ling Yue to be out of the castle was when she went to deal with things penetrating from outside.
So those external threats weren’t just her risk—they were also her opportunity.
“Sister Ling Yue!”
She called out toward the stairs.
After a moment, Ling Yue’s voice drifted down from the third floor: “What is it?”
“Can we not have pasta for lunch today? I want something light! My stomach has been spoiled by all the Blood Pasta lately. I think I’ll ascend if I eat it one more time!”
“Then what do you want to eat?”
“Anything! Just not pasta!”
After shouting that, Feng Ling picked up the controller again.
On the screen, Link was standing in front of a temple entrance.
She solved the stone slab mechanism at the temple entrance from start to finish, and the noisy thoughts in her mind finally quieted down a little.
Phew…
The jumble of thoughts in her head quieted down a little.
But without realizing it, she had grown from a foolish little girl into someone capable of calm, rational thinking.
Well, she had died twice already.
It was normal for a normal person to grow.
Besides, the Vampire Constitution seemed to have strengthened her mental fortitude, because she was sure she hadn’t possessed this level of mental strength before.
Ling Yue continued flipping through her ancient texts on the third floor, while Feng Ling kept playing her game on the first.
Between them were two floors of ceiling—and a lot of words left unsaid.
But at least for now, everything was fine.
However, that peaceful mood didn’t last long.
That same evening, while Feng Ling was enduring a new “game” in the wedding chamber, she suddenly caught a sharp signal in her Reverse Perception.
And it came from the outer barrier of the castle!
Someone was trying to forcibly infiltrate the outer layer of the barrier!
Moreover, they were using an energy type she had never sensed before, driving straight from the edge of her perception field toward the core of the barrier.
Feng Ling’s entire body tensed when Ling Yue’s fingers pressed a couple of inches above her tailbone.
It was mainly because the signal was so abrupt.
At the same time, Ling Yue stopped moving.
She quickly withdrew her fingers from Feng Ling’s body and sat up from the bed.
Clearly, she had sensed the same thing.
“That’s enough for today. Go back to your room and lock the door. No matter what sounds you hear, don’t come out, and don’t run around.”
Ling Yue put on her jacket and wiped the residual blood off her fingers with the back of her hand.
“Who’s outside?”
Feng Ling wrapped the blanket around herself and asked softly.
“Heh, just a few clowns.”
Ling Yue walked to the door of the wedding chamber, then glanced back at her, still wearing that familiar smile.
“I’m going out to have a look. I’ll be back soon… Stay in your room obediently, okay? Don’t go near the main door, and don’t run around?”
Feng Ling nodded obediently.
The moment Ling Yue turned and left, the wedding chamber door closed automatically behind her.
Feng Ling quickly ran back to her own room.
The first thing she did was jump onto the bed, sit cross-legged, and dim the lights.
Then she sank her consciousness into the drop of Primordial Blood inside her chest.
Taking a deep breath, she expanded her perception net as far as possible in the darkness.
Soon, she saw Ling Yue’s crimson mist silhouette moving rapidly out of the Mountain Cavern, stopping about three hundred meters outside the mountain.
And opposite Ling Yue, at the edge of her perception field, there was an energy silhouette that did not belong to Sister Ling Yue.
Was that an enemy?
That person’s magic structure was extremely refined.
Their entire magical flow was compressed into a highly dense network of veins, like armor worn under the skin.
At that moment, that mass of energy was hurtling toward Ling Yue at tremendous speed.
The next second, two waves of fluctuation collided in the perception field.
Suddenly, the perception signal turned into a blur, then was pushed back several hundred meters from the outside in by a powerful magic shockwave.
The whole picture spun like it had been thrown into a washing machine.
It took a moment before stabilizing again.
When the image finally restored, Ling Yue was still standing firmly in place.
And the blurry silhouette across from her had completely disappeared.
It was over?
How many seconds had passed?
Less than ten seconds!
Feng Ling’s eyes snapped open.
That energy that had rushed in matched exactly the second unfamiliar magic signature she had identified in the residual fragments from the perimeter earlier.
No good.
She had to act now!