Chapter 115

Chapter 115

At first, Ning Qiuyan had only been running a low-grade fever, but after Guan Heng arrived, his temperature suddenly shot up close to forty degrees Celsius. He broke out in sweat and kept murmuring that he was hot. Even Guan Heng did not dare give him blood recklessly, so he simply lifted him into his arms and held him there.

The body temperature of Vampires happened to complement that of humans at a time like this. Soon, Ning Qiuyan felt much more comfortable. His eyelids were so heavy with sleep that they kept drooping, but he stubbornly refused to close them.

This embrace had been gone for far too long. Ning Qiuyan couldn’t bear to sleep through it.

He asked Guan Heng, “Did you get all the messages I sent?”

“I did.” Guan Heng’s long hair fell loose around him as he lowered his head to look at him. “You said you would send one every day, but you missed eighty-six days.”

Ning Qiuyan felt guilty. “…That many?”

Guan Heng had read them every day.

But after coming here, he was often in remote places and rarely passed through cities, so sometimes several days would go by before he received them. Ning Qiuyan had already figured that out over the past few days on the road.

“How did you know we were here?”

Even now, Ning Qiuyan still felt as if he were dreaming.

“I received a call a few days ago, so I turned back to look for you.” Guan Heng said, “Today, I managed to get in touch with Lu Qianque again.”

Once Ning Qiuyan confirmed this wasn’t a dream, he nestled his face against Guan Heng’s neck.

Like a puppy, he had to press close to the person he liked.

“I didn’t miss sending messages on purpose,” Ning Qiuyan said, picking up the earlier topic again. “Sometimes I was just too busy. There were so many things to do every day that I wished I could split one day into two.”

He wanted to accumulate knowledge faster. He wanted to become capable of working independently sooner.

Then he would be able to return to Du Island earlier and spend every day with Guan Heng. After all, in the age of the internet, work didn’t have to be limited by location.

Guan Heng knew all of this, but he still asked, “And the other times?”

When he wasn’t busy, why hadn’t he sent messages?

Ning Qiuyan: “…”

Because Guan Heng hadn’t replied.

Guan Heng did not need to wait for Ning Qiuyan’s answer. He lowered his head and kissed Ning Qiuyan’s forehead.

Even so, Ning Qiuyan still answered in a small voice, “I didn’t know you had made this kind of plan. When you didn’t reply, I just missed you even more.”

Guan Heng said, “I decided in December.”

Ning Qiuyan asked, “Then in the months before that, you were waiting for me?”

Guan Heng’s silence was answer enough, and Ning Qiuyan was filled with regret.

Guan Heng had never said why he had made that decision.

But thinking back carefully now, perhaps it had been the day Ning Qiuyan was bitten by Qin Weizhi.

Perhaps it had been driven by instinctive hunger, or perhaps by an overwhelming possessiveness.

The fatal wound on a human’s neck had struck Guan Heng’s nerves. He bit into Ning Qiuyan’s neck and injected his venom, forcefully covering the bite mark, and at the same time, he tasted what lay deep within Ning Qiuyan’s blood.

It was the fear inside Ning Qiuyan, a fear several times stronger than Guan Heng’s own-a profound, all-consuming terror that he was about to lose him.

Even though he knew Vampires could not be killed, that Guan Heng would never truly face mortal danger, the extreme pain Ning Qiuyan had felt after witnessing his wounds had shaken him deeply.

That blazing love burned fiercely, stirring even greater waves in a heart on the verge of death.

After that, whenever Guan Heng thought back to that moment, he could feel that he was alive.

“I missed you too.”

Guan Heng said.

His tone was very mild. The words expressed less than one ten-thousandth of what he had actually given, but they were already the sentence that came closest to describing what was in his heart.

Ning Qiuyan’s body trembled. His burning lips and nose brushed against the cold side of Guan Heng’s neck, and something wet spilled from his eyes.

Guan Heng lowered his lashes and said in a deep voice, “Before you put on the earring, what did you agree to in the Blood Contract? Recite it for me. Although you have already broken our agreement, we will discuss that later. Right now, recite the contents of the contract.”

The agreement was like an oath, carved into Ning Qiuyan’s very bones.

He sniffed and began speaking instinctively. “Everything of mine, including my thoughts, actions, body, and emotions, belongs only to you, and will belong to you forever.”

After reciting this part of the Blood Contract, Ning Qiuyan froze.

It was as if only now did he finally understand what this agreement meant.

Handing everything over to Guan Heng did not mean he had become a kept possession without self-awareness or the right to choose, because Guan Heng had never exerted any control over him that went against his will. Ning Qiuyan had known that for a long time.

But only at this moment did he deeply understand that the contents of the agreement meant Guan Heng would forever be his unbreakable support, the harbor that accepted everything about him.

If what he wanted was absolute possession, then in the end, Guan Heng would give it to him.

Ning Qiuyan had only just recited to this point when Guan Heng kissed him.

When a person had a fever, even the inside of their mouth was scorching hot. Guan Heng kissed him hard, prying open the seam of his teeth and tasting him thoroughly from inside to out before restraining himself and letting him go a little. His fangs had emerged, pressing against the side of Ning Qiuyan’s neck just beneath his ear.
Not only did Ning Qiuyan fail to dodge, he obediently leaned back, exposing his slender neck completely to Guan Heng. Then he heard Guan Heng ask, “Did I ever allow you to put piercings in your body on your own?”

A second later, a cool palm settled on his flat stomach.

A navel piercing adorned his belly button.

Both ends were dark-red gemstones, connected by a silver pin in the middle, modified from an earring.

The Mark that belonged to Guan Heng had never once left Ning Qiuyan’s body.

Ning Qiuyan was running a fever, so it was impossible to tell whether his face was flushed or not. He could only grit his teeth and admit his mistake. “No… I was wrong.”

The tips of Guan Heng’s teeth scraped inch by inch over the skin at the side of his neck.

Then moved lower.

At last, they stopped over the blood vessel in his throat.

The bite was heavy, like a punishment, but it left only a shallow imprint of teeth.
—
Once Ning Qiuyan had fallen asleep, Lu Qianque returned and stood respectfully at the doorway.

He had known Guan Heng would come at this hour, so he was not surprised to see him.

Guan Heng’s long hair spilled down his back. The night made him look radiant, and he seemed no different from before he left-still distant, still difficult to approach.

He held Ning Qiuyan loosely in his arms, and even when he saw Lu Qianque, he did not let go. He merely asked coolly, “When did you learn to make decisions on your own?”

Lu Qianque said, “If I hadn’t contacted him, he would have thought you were going to break up with him.”

That was clearly not what Guan Heng meant.

Before he left, he had given Lu Qianque authorization, enough for Lu Qianque to notice Ning Qiuyan’s movements at once, but he had never said Lu Qianque could bring anyone here.

“I felt simply saying you had gone out on business wouldn’t be convincing,” Lu Qianque said. “He’s so smart. How could he not understand what place he holds in your heart? So I told him the truth.”

Place?

He did hold one, in a way.

Guan Heng was not the type to silently give everything and then deliberately reveal it later to move the other person to tears. The reason he had not told Ning Qiuyan was that he had not yet been absolutely certain.

But now, it no longer mattered. They had arrived at just the right time.

How could Lu Qianque not understand what Guan Heng was thinking?

Looking at the two of them pressed intimately together beneath the lamplight, he fell into thought.

Guan Heng’s shoulders were broad. He had to bear the burden of an entire clan, had to become everyone’s pillar. He desired nothing and asked for nothing, as if he were indestructible, yet he always seemed lonely.

At last, someone like this had appeared-someone brave enough to run toward him, wanting to bring him release.

Perhaps immortality was not the curse. Loneliness was.

Lu Qianque came back to himself and set aside the demeanor a subordinate ought to have. He asked Guan Heng, “I heard a specially made bite restraint is needed to control the depth of penetration into the blood vessel. Is everything ready?”

Guan Heng had seen the model.

That specially made thing was less a bite restraint than an instrument of torture-a muzzle for a beast.

The muzzle’s opening angle was customized according to facial bone structure to keep the teeth from piercing too deeply. Above it was a hollowed-out face guard, with a steel spike on each side to brace against the temples. If the muzzle went out of control, the spikes would drive into the brain, fundamentally cutting off any possibility of drinking too much.

“More or less,” Guan Heng said. “I need to test it twice first. They will assist me.”

Generally speaking, it was sufficient for ordinary members of the Vampires.

But the subject was Guan Heng.

And Guan Heng would be facing the Golden Blood that held a fatal attraction for him-his partner.

So he also needed the tribe’s people to exert pressure on his brain.

“What happens if something goes wrong?” Lu Qianque asked.

“Will Xiao Ning die?”

Guan Heng said, “Nothing will go wrong.”

In truth, after analysis, they believed it was impossible for that special pressure combined with the bite restraint to fail, because the pressure and the steel needles were enough to crush and pulverize the brain of any member of the Vampires.

Even if Guan Heng collapsed, Ning Qiuyan would not die because of it.

If they were destined to be unable to share the same goal as the end of their lives,

then let it become the beginning.
—
Two weeks later.

Night shrouded the silver-white snowfield.

An aurora appeared on the horizon and lingered for a long time.

Several figures emerged on the snowfield, as if coming from every direction. They swept across the ice at astonishing speed, all heading without prior agreement toward the fortress hidden in the distance at the foot of the snowy mountains, leaving behind only several black afterimages.

The fortress was empty. Heavy snow had long since covered every trace.

At the other end of the world,

the temperature in Wutong plunged, and golden plane tree leaves carpeted the ground.

Du Island, neighboring Wutong, welcomed the first snow of winter.

The weather was fine, the years were quiet, and there was no wind.