Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Guan Heng wouldn’t be staying in Sujing for long.

So he personally put that stud earring on Ning Qiuyan.

Ning Qiuyan had only ever tried tattoos. He’d also seen people get piercings in shops and admired their courage, but he’d never thought of doing it himself. He didn’t even have pierced ears. Sometimes he was rebellious; other times, he was very well behaved.

Guan Heng had room service send up ice, alcohol, and a fine needle.

Ning Qiuyan had gotten caught in the rain earlier, so he went to the bathroom first to take a shower. When he came out after drying his hair, the ice bucket was already on the coffee table.

Guan Heng held the needle over a flame, then disinfected it with alcohol, planning to use the old, simple, and rough method people used long ago and pierce Ning Qiuyan’s ear himself.

Soft music played in the room, the kind Guan Heng often listened to.

Whether on Du Island or in Sujing, whether in daylight or at night, the atmosphere around Guan Heng was always quiet, as though time itself had slowed.

To make it easier, Ning Qiuyan sat on the rug in front of the sofa, leaning obediently against Guan Heng, his head resting on Guan Heng’s lap.

“Will it hurt?” Ning Qiuyan asked.

“Maybe a little.” Guan Heng brushed aside his soft, slightly wavy black hair, exposing the pale earlobe.

When he was young, Guan Heng had once seen a nanny pierce a girl’s ears in a courtyard. The memory from a thousand years ago was long blurred, but he still remembered the scene: the younger one crying softly while the elder coaxed her in a gentle voice.

The light was warm now, like the sunlight in that courtyard from his memory, spilling over them and tinting them both a soft golden hue.

Ning Qiuyan’s earlobe was thin, a soft little piece of flesh. Guan Heng tore off a strip of cloth, wrapped the ice in it, and pressed it against the spot. The chill made Ning Qiuyan shiver. “So cold.”

“Don’t move.” Guan Heng’s other hand rested lightly on the top of Ning Qiuyan’s head-partly to keep him still, partly a gentle stroke.

“…Okay,” Ning Qiuyan answered quietly.

The cold turned the earlobe red, close in color to the pink heart behind his ear. Against his black hair, it looked cute. The question Guan Heng had wanted to ask earlier surfaced again.

“Why’d you start growing your hair out?”

Ning Qiuyan’s hair had just reached the length to cover the back of his neck, already past the point where it should have been trimmed.

He froze for a moment, then said, “I was working part time these past few months. I didn’t have time to get it cut.”

Guan Heng asked, “What were you doing?”

Ning Qiuyan understood. After they’d said goodbye last time, they had truly cut off contact. Even though Guan Heng still had people protecting him, he hadn’t specifically kept track of Ning Qiuyan’s situation the way he used to, down to whether he’d brought an umbrella.

Back then, for both Ning Qiuyan and Guan Heng, it had been a real ending.

“I was working in a hospital as a caregiver for patients,” Ning Qiuyan said. “I trained for half a month first, then found patients through a friend’s introduction.”

Guan Heng had once asked Lu Qianque to transfer Ning Qiuyan a very generous sum of money.

Yet when he heard this, Guan Heng didn’t seem surprised. He only asked, “Did you learn anything?”

“I learned a lot… I stayed in the hospital for a long time before, but I never understood things as deeply as I did this time.” Ning Qiuyan was talking about the period when he’d accompanied his mother. “My first patient died. I was the first to discover it, because I was the only one who stayed with him the whole time. That morning when they moved him out of the ward, I called his children. They never came, not even by the time he was cremated. The second patient was an athlete. After a car accident, he was paralyzed from a high spinal injury. He was always harsh with people, but I knew he cried in secret at night.”

The room fell quiet for a while.

Ning Qiuyan concluded, “Mr. Guan, life is bitter.”

Guan Heng had seen far too many farewells between the living and the dead. He knew Ning Qiuyan had only glimpsed the surface of the world’s suffering. He didn’t compare, didn’t lecture, didn’t say things like “you’re still young,” because growth like this belonged to the individual. He simply listened.

“It’s not all bitter,” Guan Heng said. “There are good times too. There are things worth holding onto.”

After a moment, Ning Qiuyan murmured, “You’re right.”

Once Guan Heng was sure the flesh had gradually numbed and lost sensation, he leaned forward slightly, as if taking something from the coffee table.

Ning Qiuyan immediately squeezed his eyes shut, fingers digging into the edge of the sofa so hard his fingertips turned white.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of pain,” Guan Heng said.

“I’ve never seen you cry because it hurt.”

While he’d been with Guan Heng, the only time Ning Qiuyan could truly feel pain was when he donated blood. Even if Guan Heng’s toxins quickly numbed the senses, making the pain vanish almost as soon as it surfaced, it still hurt when teeth tore through skin and sank into a vein.

“I’m afraid of pain,” Ning Qiuyan admitted honestly. “I just endure it because I don’t want you to laugh at me.”

Guan Heng said, “Next time, you don’t have to endure it. I won’t laugh at you.”

Ning Qiuyan didn’t speak, and he still didn’t open his eyes. Only after a long time did he give a low “Mm.”

He felt his ear being touched. Thinking it was the final disinfecting, he gathered his courage and said, “Go ahead.”

Guan Heng replied, “It’s already done.”

Ning Qiuyan froze, then slowly opened his eyes and sat up. “Already?”

He hadn’t felt anything at all, until he noticed an unfamiliar weight on his earlobe and raised a hand to touch it. The moment his fingers brushed the foreign object, pain came in waves, one after another, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Don’t touch the wound.”

Guan Heng took a wet wipe and cleaned his hands. A tiny smear of Ning Qiuyan’s blood stained his pale fingertips.
He ignored the vibration and looked down at Ning Qiuyan. “Disinfect it every day and apply the ointment. It will heal in a few days.”

Ning Qiuyan’s face flushed. “Yes.”

Guan Heng pressed a hand onto his head and instructed, “Go take a look.”

“Oh!”

Ning Qiuyan scrambled to his feet, eager to get to the bathroom.

Facing the bathroom mirror, he brushed aside his hair to reveal his ear and found that it looked good.

Two rubies were strikingly set into his bright red earlobe. The bottom one was fixed with a stud through the piercing, while the top one was clipped onto the cartilage. The piece connecting the two gems was hidden behind the auricle, making the two rubies look like small beads of blood left behind by a pair of fangs.

It was a Mark belonging to Guan Heng.

Wearing it was like being branded with a seal exclusive to Guan Heng.

All Vampires would know that he was Guan Heng’s person.

At this moment, Ning Qiuyan only had a superficial understanding of its meaning and hadn’t yet grasped exactly what it implied. However, it was enough to make his heart race, and he couldn’t tell if he felt more joy or more anticipation for the unknown.

When he walked out of the bathroom, Guan Heng was on the phone, so Ning Qiuyan didn’t go over to disturb him.

After the call ended, Guan Heng called Ning Qiuyan’s name and told him they would be attending a banquet together that evening.

Ning Qiuyan asked, “What kind of banquet?”

“A boring banquet hosted by some boring people. Most of the guests will be Vampires, though there will be some humans as well. You don’t need to take it too seriously.” Guan Heng’s gaze swept over his earlobe. “It’s just that the occasion is somewhat formal. They don’t have your measurements, so I’ll have Qu Shu take you out for a bit.”

The “they” Guan Heng referred to were the designers who custom-made his clothes.

Besides Guan Heng, Lu Qianque and several members of the Guan Family were regular clients of that designer. It was obviously too late to have clothes made to order now, but Qu Shu said they could have Ning Qiuyan try on ready-to-wear pieces and ask the designer to make appropriate alterations.

Ning Qiuyan had never attended a banquet before and had absolutely no experience with such occasions.

Previously, he had been immersed in the excitement of “being able to stay by Guan Heng’s side again.” It was only after he got into the car and headed toward the designer’s studio that he gradually came to his senses.

He had handed himself over to Guan Heng again.

Guan Heng had said that this time it was a completely different kind of surrender, and the terms were fairly clear, including his thoughts, actions, body, and all of his emotions. Yet, he still didn’t quite understand what kind of surrender that would actually be.

Guan Heng said he would make more excessive and stricter demands, but from the current perspective, aside from the ear piercing and the banquet, it didn’t seem any different from when they were in Wutong.

“Xiao Ning, do you have any requirements for the style or color?” Qu Shu asked. “I’ll let them know first so they can filter out what you don’t want in advance and save time.”

Ning Qiuyan shook his head. “No.”

“Then let’s go with black,” Qu Shu said. “You have fair skin; like Mr. Guan, black suits you very well.”

Ning Qiuyan said that was fine.

Qu Shu tapped on her phone for a while, likely sending a text, then said to Ning Qiuyan, “Since you’ll be staying in Sujing for a long time, we could have made several sets of formal wear based on your measurements. But I heard from Lu Qianque that Mr. Guan is returning to Du Island in a few days. He’s always hated social functions, so he probably won’t need them much anyway.”

Ning Qiuyan asked, “Does Mr. Guan hate social functions that much?”

“From what I know, yes,” Qu Shu said. “Everyone knows Mr. Guan has lived on Du Island for a long time. Over the decades, many people have tried to invite him, but he’s refused them all flatly. This time, as soon as he showed his face, it immediately spread across the Internal Network. Plus, with your situation… there’s no way to hide anymore.”

Ning Qiuyan was puzzled. “Internal Network?”

Qu Shu was a human, but she had been working under Lu Qianque for over a decade, from her early days until now, and knew quite a bit about the internal relations of the Vampires.

“Yes, technology is so advanced now. No matter who you are in this era, you live under the surveillance of big data,” Qu Shu explained. “Where you went in a day, what you did, and who you spoke to are all recorded clearly. In this environment, privacy isn’t so ‘private’ anymore. Especially for someone like Mr. Guan, who hasn’t appeared for over a hundred years. The moment his travel data entered the mainland, the news exploded and spread instantly.”

As silent nocturnal creatures, Vampires had always come and gone without a trace.

Hiding themselves was an important skill and rule for their survival in the human world. Guan Heng was very good at staying hidden; as long as he didn’t want to be found, he could perfectly avoid data capture even in such an environment.

This time, Guan Heng had exposed his whereabouts for a reason.

Ning Qiuyan knew it was to save him.

It had happened so suddenly that even with their immense power, they couldn’t have traveled from Du Island to Sujing overnight without using public transportation. Filling out data, booking night flights-even using a fake identity, it was easy to be noticed during such a long journey.

Leaving Du Island was far more than just stepping onto another piece of land for Guan Heng.

After one or two hundred years, his movements were no longer easy to conceal; this was the most direct realization Guan Heng had upon leaving Du Island.

Ning Qiuyan, who was born and raised in the human world, couldn’t feel this himself.

He asked Qu Shu nervously, “Will this have any bad impact on Mr. Guan? Will there be any danger?”

“Of course not.” Qu Shu smiled. “From what I know, most vampires have a very strong ‘might makes right’ mentality, or rather, a worship of the strong similar to animal packs. They’re just too desperate to see him.”