The sky outside was bright red, as though stained with blood. It hung heavily over the city, pressing down on everything and making it hard to breathe.
The crimson light filtered through the branches of the green trees and entered through the Moroccan-style white windows, casting a faint glow over Xia Niannian’s baby-soft, snow-white cheeks.
Perhaps affected by the light, Xia Niannian turned over in her sleep.
She pulled her soft, fragrant green French-style quilt over her face, leaving only half of her head exposed. Her naturally curly black hair spilled down as her phone screen, half-hidden beneath it, repeatedly lit up with incoming messages. It displayed more than a hundred missed calls and a screen full of 99+ unread messages.
However, Xia Niannian had a habit of putting her phone on silent when she slept in on weekends. She had not only missed every call, but had also completely missed all the messages in her group chats.
“Mmm…”
Perhaps she was half-awake. A pair of snow-white hands like lotus roots stretched out from beneath the soft quilt, obediently giving a cute little stretch.
“It’s so noisy outside…”
She pursed her rosy lips and mumbled twice before reaching one hand out with her eyes still closed, feeling around for her phone.
Even after searching for quite a while without finding it, she refused to open her eyes. She had even knocked over her favorite Jellycat toys, an ugly-cute turtle and a fluffy penguin.
In the end, she simply gave up. She pulled the white gauze curtains shut to block the not-so-strong red light and prepared to go back to sleep.
Bang, bang, bang! Bang bang bang bang!
But suddenly, urgent knocking sounded from outside. No, more accurately, it should have been called scratching. Xia Niannian could clearly tell that someone was frantically raking their long fingernails across the door. Whoever was doing it had to be crazy. It was Sunday, and she did not even have an early class today. She was only sleeping in. Was there really any need to act this insane?
If her door had been made of glass, she could not even imagine how maddening that sound would have been.
“What an annoying person.”
Xia Niannian pouted unhappily and reluctantly climbed out of her warm, sweet-smelling bed, her naturally curly hair a complete mess.
Her snow-white bare feet searched around on the plush grass-like carpet for a while, but she could not find her slippers.
They had probably been kicked under the bed sometime last night. That only made her even angrier.
Her cheeks puffed up as she stomped angrily into the living room barefoot, opened the door, and said irritably to whoever was outside,
“Who is knocking? Stop knocking.”
This single dorm room had been decorated by Xia Niannian herself. The theme was a combination of French green and Moroccan countryside style, so the living room was filled with greenery and flowers. There were her favorite Florentina roses, red Leonardo da Vinci roses, fragrant Sacred Heart lilies, white lisianthus, and many others. That was why the carpet was also a plush green imitation-grass lawn.
She stood barefoot among the flowers and plants in a French court-style nightgown. The faint red light fell over her as she clutched the door, her cheeks puffed up in an adorably angry expression. She looked like a mischievous yet lovable blood elf from the writings of a medieval female author, inspiring an overwhelming urge to cherish her.
So the ‘person’ outside instantly froze, standing there in a daze.
When Xia Niannian saw that it was Pei Xun, her anger flared even more.
“I knew it was you, you bad guy!”
Xia Niannian and Pei Xun had been mortal enemies since the very first day of their freshman year.
Although they had met a few times when they were children, their first formal meeting was on the day they started university.
That day, her three older brothers had accompanied her to school. Pei Xun happened to hear her calling them ‘Brother’ several times. This mischievous troublemaker then laughed at her for being a child who had never grown up. Later, he even tricked her, trying to get her to call him ‘Brother’ too.
Xia Niannian refused. She would never call anyone else ‘Brother.’
From then on, she had thoroughly offended Pei Xun.
For the past two years, Pei Xun had racked his brains to bully her. Sometimes he deliberately pulled off her hair tie, leaving her with no choice but to wear her hair loose during military training. Other times, he would hide around a corner and pretend to be a ghost to scare her, nearly making her fall into his arms. Even an elementary school student was not as childish as him.
And now, he had actually resorted to scratching at her door early in the morning. Xia Niannian was truly furious.
This time, she had to settle things with Pei Xun once and for all. Puffing out her cheeks, Xia Niannian threatened him,
“Pei Xun, if you bully me again, I’m really going to complain to Uncle Pei. I’ll have him punish you severely.”
The Xia and Pei families were old family friends. Xia Niannian had actually heard of the reputation of the Pei family’s little devil long ago. She had simply never expected him to be such a shameless troublemaker. In front of their elders, he acted perfectly proper, but behind their backs, he went out of his way to bully her.
What she did not know was how adorable and alluring she looked when she puffed out her cheeks in anger. The possessiveness the man had barely managed to suppress was stirred up once again.
With a sudden movement, Pei Xun knocked Xia Niannian onto the sofa. His scarlet eyes were filled with a frenzied, uncontrollable desire. He let out a low, hoarse growl like a beast and held Xia Niannian tightly in his arms, imprisoning her against him as though he desperately wanted to merge her into his own body. It seemed that only this could satisfy the extreme emptiness of his possessiveness.
But the little princess in his arms was too delicate and too adorable, soft as a doll. He was afraid that if he used too much force, he would crush her, and he knew he would regret that for the rest of his life.
So Pei Xun used every bit of his remaining rationality to restrain his wildly expanding desire, suffering intensely in the process.
“Pei Xun, what are you trying to do to me?”
Frightened, Xia Niannian’s soft voice immediately began to tremble. She tried to push Pei Xun away, only to discover that his embrace was as unyielding as steel. She could not move him even a fraction.
“Pei Xun, you bad guy, let me go.”
Xia Niannian became angry and raised her small pink-white fists to pound against Pei Xun’s shoulder.
But then she suddenly noticed that the white shirt of the normally fastidious Pei Xun was covered in mottled bloodstains. His body was frighteningly cold, like a corpse without any warmth. Even more terrifyingly, when Xia Niannian looked up at his face, she discovered that his eyes had turned an inhuman red. His slightly parted lips concealed sharp fangs like those of a wild beast.
Then she saw the corridor outside. The floor was covered in blood. No wonder the moment she had opened the door, a thick, pungent smell of blood had rushed inside. The doorknob had also been icy cold to the touch. She had thought she was simply still half-asleep and had imagined it.
Now that she looked carefully, there was not only fresh blood on the ground. Even in this short stretch of space outside her door, she could vaguely make out human remains.
“Ah…” Xia Niannian screamed. “Pei Xun, what have you done?”
She thought Pei Xun had already turned into a monster and gone on a killing spree outside. Now, he had come for her.
Terrified, she trembled in Pei Xun’s arms. The little princess who had been pampered and cherished since childhood had never experienced anything so bloody and horrifying. Large, crystal-clear tears immediately rolled down her cheeks. Her nose turned red and the corners of her eyes reddened, making her look unbearably captivating.
“Pei Xun, don’t kill me… Sob, sob…”
Pei Xun’s remaining rationality shattered completely.
“Ah, don’t…”
Xia Niannian was knocked down by him.
The man clamped one hand around her slender neck, his thumb rubbing against her throat as he tilted her chin upward, exposing the most vulnerable part of her body. Beneath her smooth, fair skin, her living pulse beat rapidly with each frightened breath, while crystal-clear tears slid down her cheeks, creating a devastatingly beautiful sight.
Feeling the fragile, slender neck in his palm, so delicate that it seemed it could break with the slightest pressure, Pei Xun swallowed. He could no longer restrain the desire within him. He opened his mouth, revealed his fangs, and bit down.
“Ah, don’t…”
“Pei Xun, don’t bite me. Sob, sob…”
“I’ll call you Brother. Don’t eat me, Pei Xun, Brother…”
Xia Niannian begged through her tears. Bright red blood flowed down from the girl’s snow-white collarbone. Beneath the blooming red roses, her white court-style nightgown was stained red, resembling a medieval oil painting of a girl surrounded by blood and roses.