After the meal, Feng Ling downed the glass of blood in one gulp.
But before she could even set the cup down, Wang Ling Yue’s voice came from the kitchen:
“Xiao Fengling, big sister has to go out again today.”
Hearing this, Feng Ling’s fingers paused on the rim of the cup.
She looked up and asked:
“Huh? You’re going out again? What are you buying this time? Clips, ribbons, or some new toy I don’t know about?”
“None of those.”
Ling Yue took off her apron, hung it on the hook by the door, and casually rolled her sleeves up past her wrists.
“Those rats from last night came back. There are even more of them this time. I need to go clean them up, or our castle is done for.”
‘Honestly… I kind of wish the castle would be done for…’
But Xiao Fengling absolutely didn’t dare say that in front of Ling Yue.
“Huh? Really? How many are there?”
Feng Ling asked, her mouth slightly open.
“About six or seven, and they’re all blocking the entrance to the mountain cavern.”
Ling Yue’s voice sounded casual and unconcerned.
Feng Ling set the cup on the coffee table and crossed her legs.
“So when will you be back?”
“Soon. About an hour.”
Ling Yue walked around behind the sofa and ruffled her hair.
“Stay put, and don’t go running off on your own.”
“Where would I go? You locked the main door.”
“True.”
Ling Yue let out a soft laugh, then straightened up and headed for the door.
After hearing the sound of the main door opening and closing, Feng Ling immediately closed her eyes and sank her consciousness down toward the original blood mark on her chest…
Then she detected Ling Yue’s red mist outline rapidly passing through the mountain cavern tunnel and stopping about two hundred meters outside the mountain body.
At the edge of her perception field, six or seven blurry energy outlines appeared, surrounding Ling Yue in a semicircle.
The next second, two powerful energies collided.
Feng Ling’s perception image shook twice from the shockwave.
By the time she stabilized the image, two of those outlines were already gone.
Five left.
No.
Four…
Three…
Then Feng Ling opened her eyes quickly.
Ling Yue’s cleanup speed was faster than she had imagined!
In less than twenty seconds, those six or seven seemingly strong ones that she thought could stall Ling Yue for at least ten minutes were down to three.
And now, it looked like lasting five minutes would be a miracle for them.
No!
No time to waste!
The remaining three seemed several times stronger than the previous ones, so they should buy her more time!
So she had to be quick.
She ran up the stairs barefoot.
This time she didn’t even stop at the second-floor landing; she rushed straight up to the third floor.
The locked door at the end of the corridor looked the same as always.
Feng Ling reached out and touched the door panel.
“Hmm… The glow of this rune is dimmer than last time. Is it because Ling Yue consumed mana to reinforce the outer barrier before leaving, causing the sealing on the door to weaken as well?”
Then she tried to push it, but the door didn’t budge.
She scratched a line with her fingernail at the dimmest part of the rune, leaving a mark on the blood prison wood door panel.
But the rune immediately lit up and repaired the mark.
“Damn… brute force really won’t work.”
Feng Ling turned and walked into the studio next door, whose door was always open.
The first thing she saw were the bottles and jars on the shelf, still in their original positions.
She crouched down and rummaged through the bottom shelf for the small bottle she had seen last time.
Primordial Blood Seal Remover.
Holding the item in her hand, her heartbeat quickened by half a beat.
“How do you even use this thing?”
Drink it?
Apply it to the skin?
Or does it need to be used with some kind of magic circle?
There was a line of small text on the back of the label, but it was written in Vampire Ancient Script.
She could only recognize the words “Blood Mark” and “Removal.”
As for the rest, she couldn’t understand it at all.
“So, can this thing come in a Simplified Chinese version or something…”
She muttered quietly, then stuffed the bottle into her sleeping dress pocket.
This time, she decided to take it first and worry about it later.
It was just gathering dust here anyway.
Might as well take it back and study it slowly…
Even if Ling Yue found out, she could say she saw her name on the bottle and took it.
‘Though, that excuse is so bad even I don’t believe it.’
Then she quickly scanned the other shelves.
Besides the black wooden box she had seen last time, there were a few extra rolls of parchment tied with red ribbons on the top shelf.
So she pulled out one roll and unrolled it.
It was densely written in Vampire Ancient Script, and next to it was a circular pattern resembling a magic circle, with a rune marked in the center.
“Wait a minute!”
“That’s the exact same rune as the one carved on the locked door!”
So this is the structure diagram for that door?
Feng Ling rolled the parchment back up and stuffed it into her pocket, then pulled out a second roll.
“Hmm… this one has a floor plan of the castle, with the layout of every room on each floor clearly marked.”
And next to the room on the third floor, a line of small text was written in red ink:
— Barrier Core.
“Barrier Core…”
Feng Ling murmured softly.
“Huh? The control center of the castle’s outer barrier is inside that room?”
“That’s… a lot of information to take in…”
But the problem was how to get into that room.
Then Feng Ling stuffed the second roll of parchment into her pocket and quickly put everything else on the shelf back in place.
But just as she stepped out of the studio, a violent fluctuation came through her reverse perception…
Ling Yue’s battle was over!
“So fast? No, no, I have to get back!”
The red mist representing Ling Yue was rapidly moving back toward the castle.
She quickly dashed from the third floor to the second.
Enter the room, jump onto the bed, grab the Switch, turn it on, and load the save file.
On the screen, Link stood in front of a temple.
Then she made Link enter the temple.
Her breathing was as steady as if she had never left the room.
Right then, Ling Yue’s footsteps crossed the corridor, stopped in the living room, and then came toward her room.
When the door was pushed open, Feng Ling was frowning at the screen.
Her little face clearly read:
‘How the hell is this puzzle so crazy?’
“I’m back, Xiao Fengling.”
Ling Yue sat down next to Feng Ling.
“That was fast? Didn’t you say there were six or seven?”
“Seven, but they were all small fry… So what are you doing?”
“Playing a game, of course! Look, look, this temple puzzle is driving me crazy! There’s a mechanism I’ve been pushing forever and it won’t budge!”
Feng Ling turned the screen toward Ling Yue for a look, then quickly turned it back and continued to operate the controller.
“Are you… sure you’re pushing the right block?”
“Of course I’m sure! I checked the guide!”
“Then why won’t it move?”
“Because the guide is wrong!”
Feng Ling angrily pressed the pause button and said:
“The author of this guide must have just made it up without even beating the game. It says to push the third block to the top-left corner, but I’ve been pushing for half an hour, and that block won’t move at all!”
Ling Yue laughed softly, then withdrew her hand from Feng Ling’s hair.
“Hehe. So what do you want for dinner?”
“Anything’s fine, as long as it’s not too spicy… Last time’s spicy rice cakes almost killed me.”
“That’s because you said you could handle spicy food.”
“I can handle spicy food! But I didn’t say I could handle that level of spiciness! What kind of pepper is that? Were your bloodline special peppers watered with lava?”
Feng Ling quickly turned her head and retorted.
“Pretty much. I’ll make something light tonight. Blood tofu soup.”
Ling Yue finished speaking, then stood up and left Xiao Fengling’s room.
“Okay.”
And after Ling Yue’s footsteps disappeared at the staircase, Feng Ling pulled the three items out of her sleeping dress pocket and stuffed them into the bottom drawer of her bedside table.
Then she covered them with nine magazines.
After that, Feng Ling stared at the drawer for nine seconds.
Now she had three cards in her hand.
A bottle of remover that she didn’t know how to use.
A roll of door lock structure diagram.
And a roll of castle floor plan with the barrier core location marked.
Together, these three cards could theoretically allow her to open the door on the third floor and reach the barrier core when Ling Yue wasn’t around.
But the prerequisite was that she first figure out how to use that remover.
And there was an even more fundamental problem.
Even if she cleared the original blood mark, the castle’s main door was still locked!
Clearing the mark would only prevent Ling Yue from tracking her, but it wouldn’t let her get through that door carved with ridiculously advanced runes and various spells.
‘Ah… forget it, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it! First, I’ll study the remover.’
At that moment, Ling Yue’s voice came from the kitchen:
“Xiao Fengling, do you want cilantro in your blood tofu soup?”
“No! Absolutely not! Cilantro is heresy!”
“In our bloodline’s concept, there’s only ‘tasty’ and ‘not tasty.’”
“Then cilantro is not tasty! If you add cilantro, I’ll go on a hunger strike on the spot!”
“Alright, alright.”
Ling Yue laughed and agreed.
Feng Ling closed the drawer and picked up the Switch again.
Link was still standing in the temple on the screen.
This time she pushed the block again, and it actually moved.
“Huh? The guide was right?”
She stared at the stone door slowly sliding open on the screen and suddenly felt that her passionate rant about “the guide being wrong” was a bit embarrassing.
But since no one else heard her, she could just pretend nothing happened.