Wen Huaiyue wore a dazed expression, as if she had not processed it yet.
Ji Hua tapped the steering wheel. “Did you not hear me?”
Wen Huaiyue came back to her senses, shook her head, and stammered, “Though someone came to pick me up.”
“Who?”
“Uncle Chen.”
Ji Hua clicked her tongue and said in an unrefusable tone, “Go tell him you are not going home for lunch today.”
“Ah?”
“Ah what?” Ji Hua was quite authoritative, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going or not?”
To be honest, seeing Ji Hua instantly made Wen Huaiyue feel a flutter of joy, mixed with a bittersweet, thrilling excitement. Since she was not one to easily refuse Ji Hua anyway, she obediently went over and told Uncle Chen.
Uncle Chen was very worried, but seeing that Wen Huaiyue insisted, there was nothing he could say, so he drove away.
Wen Huaiyue climbed into the back seat. Ji Hua watched her through the rearview mirror. Today the child was wearing her school uniform, an English-style tailored blazer and a plaid skirt, with her hair tied into twin ponytails. Her face had grown a little fuller, carrying a meaty, endearing cuteness.
Planting both hands on the seat, Wen Huaiyue tilted her head and stared directly at Ji Hua, finally asking the question she had been holding back, “Sister, why did you never come to find me?”
Ji Hua curled the corners of her lips and replied in that nonchalant tone, “Why? Were you not the one who hated me?”
Wen Huaiyue was not good at hiding her emotions. Her face clearly displayed pure joy as she let out a huff, “Who said I hate you?”
Ji Hua let out a soft huff of laughter and said nothing.
The reason she had not gone to find Wen Huaiyue for over a month was because she had discovered that if she went more than a week without feeding on Wen Huaiyue’s blood, adverse physical reactions would begin to set in.
Dizziness, chills, and lethargy.
Her entire body would lose all strength. If vampires lacked blood to replenish a certain level of physical stamina, they would fall into a deep stupor. Unlike ordinary unconsciousness, they remained fully conscious inside, completely devoid of the physical strength to crawl back up.
It was equivalent to a self-preservation mechanism.
She had remained unconscious for nearly half a month before slowly recovering. It wasn’t as if she had never encountered this situation before, but those instances had occurred in the past when she lacked a suitable blood source, going decades or even longer without feeding before such a state manifested.
During the periods when she did find a suitable blood source, a mere few drops of blood could sustain her for decades. Throughout that span, even without feeding, no abnormalities would arise.
Yet with Wen Huaiyue, mere days, barely a week without blood, had triggered these adverse reactions. Ji Hua felt a hint of unease. Finding a suitable blood source was a good thing, but if she became overly dependent on it and turned into a slave to blood, that good thing would lose its meaning.
However, Ji Hua’s worries were fleeting. She had always been someone who lived in the moment, taking each day as it came.
Even if some accident were to happen…
Having lived for hundreds of years, she had long since seen through the mundane affairs of the mortal world. Wherever her gaze fell, the human world was nothing more than an expanse of blank whiteness.
Living and dying were both matters of a single instant, and in the end, they amounted to nothing more than a falling blossom, everyone ended up the same. Ji Hua had always maintained an indifferent attitude toward it all.
Therefore, even knowing it was arsenic, Ji Hua could still nonchalantly turn it into sugar and swallow it down.
Along the way, Wen Huaiyue grew much more talkative, chattering nonstop. Ji Hua frowned slightly; she was clearly growing impatient, yet there was no real malice in it. She let Wen Huaiyue chatter away endlessly, occasionally chiming in with a response.
Halfway through the drive, Ji Hua’s phone rang, and she connected it to the Bluetooth system.
Wen Yao’s furious voice blasted through the speaker, “Ji Hua! Where the hell did you take my sister?”
Feeling as though her eardrums were about to shatter, Ji Hua tilted her head away in a vain attempt to dodge the noise. Once Wen Yao finally quieted down, Ji Hua said leisurely, “Relax, she is completely safe.”
“Ji Hua! What on earth are you trying to do? What game are you playing with my sister?” Wen Yao sounded on the verge of exploding.
Sometimes Ji Hua found it quite surprising that the female protagonist possessed such a fiery personality.
“Miss Wen,” Ji Hua spoke unhurriedly. “Do you not still owe me a favor?”
The other end of the line fell silent for a moment before asking uneasily, “Therefore?”
Ji Hua smiled, casting a sidelong glance at Wen Huaiyue through her eyelashes, and slowly said, “I want your sister’s time.”
The silence on the other end stretched on much longer this time, before Wen Yao completely blew up. Her voice practically pierced right through the Bluetooth connection, “What did you say?! Say that again!”
“I do not have the habit of repeating myself,” Ji Hua said in her slow, unhurried cadence. “Well then, that is that. Goodbye.”
With that, she hung up.
“Was that Yao Sister?” Wen Huaiyue asked.
“Mhm,” Ji Hua replied, belatedly clicking her tongue. “Your sister sure knows how to roar. Make sure you never learn that from her.”
“If I do not learn it from her, am I supposed to learn it from you?” Wen Huaiyue murmured softly. Ordinarily, Ji Hua would have heard that whisper crystal clear, but the prolonged lack of feeding had dulled her sensory faculties considerably, and she failed to catch the words.
Ji Hua drove the car into an upscale residential compound. She had to admit, the original owner certainly had plenty of money.
“Get out,” Ji Hua instructed.
With her school backpack slung over her shoulders, Wen Huaiyue followed closely behind. Having never set foot in a place like this before, she could not suppress her curiosity, looking around at everything along the way.
Ji Hua collapsed onto the sofa in a defeated heap, breathing slightly heavily and clearly exhausted. That was how it was without feeding; sometimes her physical stamina was even worse than a human’s.
Wen Huaiyue approached her. “What is wrong with you…” Before she could finish, Ji Hua’s eyes darkened like a cunning fox refusing to be hidden. Pulling down the collar of the girl’s top, she bit straight down onto the scabbed scar, drawing fresh blood from the wound.
The initial shock faded from Wen Huaiyue, replaced by a habitual submissiveness. She tightly clutched the cuff of Ji Hua’s sleeve and remained entirely silent.
The familiar pain washed over her once more, yet Wen Huaiyue felt no real fear.
This time lasted even longer than before, a full two minutes passed before Ji Hua finally released her grip. Her eyes and brows were filled with a satiated, lazy languor. Licking the blood from her lips with her finger, she smiled with curved lips.
It felt as though she had been brought back to life.
With a tranquil expression, Wen Huaiyue waited until the bite was finished, quietly took a tissue to wipe the area, and pulled her sweater back up.
Ji Hua raised an eyebrow in satisfaction. “You are catching on fast.” Leaning back against the sofa, she asked, “Did your sister see that?”
Knowing what she meant, Wen Huaiyue replied, “No.”
Ji Hua reached out and gave a rough tug at the girl’s hair, messing up both of her twin ponytails completely, a smile dancing in her eyes. “You did very well.”
Resigned to her fate, Wen Huaiyue helplessly reached up and straightened her twin ponytails back into place.
Stretching lazily, Ji Hua reached into the cabinet beneath the television, pulled out a floral wreath, and tossed it to her. “Your wreath.”
Catching it, Wen Huaiyue’s eyes lit up as she immediately placed it on her head. Then, remembering something, she crept closer to Ji Hua, lowered her gaze to inspect the woman’s wrists, and darted her eyes around furtively.
Ji Hua pressed down on the girl’s bobbing head. “What are you looking at?”
“Where is your bracelet?” Wen Huaiyue asked unhappily, looking up.
Ji Hua shrugged indifferently. “Put it away.”
Pouting in dissatisfaction, Wen Huaiyue grabbed and shook her wrist. “No way, you have to wear yours too.”
Ji Hua looked at her as if she were a complete fool. “Are you bored out of your mind?”
Having grown much bolder lately, Wen Huaiyue lacked the restraint she had shown back in the ancient town. She stubbornly shook Ji Hua’s arm, refusing to let up. “No, you have to wear it too. We bought them together.”
Amused by her persistence, Ji Hua chuckled, half-threatening and half-teasing, “Little kid, are you acting coquettishly with me right now?”
Wen Huaiyue looked up, blinking her bright, crystalline eyes without stopping, nearly dazzling Ji Hua’s sight.
Finding it rather comical, the corners of Ji Hua’s mouth twitched. “Your courage has grown quite a bit.”
With Ji Hua currently in a good mood and a trace of a smile lingering in her tone, Wen Huaiyue pushed her luck. “Sister, wear it, please wear it. Won’t you?”
Ji Hua gave her ponytail another yank and stated with a deadpan expression, “You talk too much.”
Wen Huaiyue let out an exclamation of surprise, then flashed a silly grin, her dimples faintly revealing themselves.
“You look so stupid when you smile,” Ji Hua remarked with disdain.
She hadn’t seen the girl for a month, and she was only getting dumber.
Ji Hua worriedly thought to herself.
During dinner, Ji Hua wore the floral wreath on her wrist, the braided flowers encircling her slender bone and setting off her fair skin.
Wen Huaiyue ate with great relish. Ji Hua had little appetite and simply watched the girl eat, the more she looked, the more she felt that this school uniform looked exceptionally good on Wen Huaiyue.
Noble and pretty.
With time to spare out of sheer boredom, she finally asked how Wen Huaiyue had ended up falling into the river, something she hadn’t bothered to ask about until now, though she had grown somewhat curious.
Startled for a moment, Wen Huaiyue recounted the events to her.
She had been dragged into a car right after finishing her private piano lesson. That particular private piano studio was located in a remote area with hardly anyone around outside.
After that, she lost consciousness. When she woke up, she found herself locked inside a pitch-black room with her hands and feet bound.
Someone brought her food and water at regular intervals, and a man would occasionally come in to beat her. Wen Huaiyue only found out later that this man who beat her was the chairman of Guangmao Group, who had attempted to use her as leverage to threaten Wen Yao into financing him.
He had given Wen Yao three days, but before Wen Yao could even respond, the chairman was reported by people within his own company, drawing an investigation from the regulatory authorities.
Due to years of tax evasion, fraudulent bookkeeping, stock manipulation, and multiple legal disputes tied to his projects, his empire collapsed rapidly, and prison time was unavoidable.
Like a mad dog biting anyone in sight, he ordered his subordinates to take Wen Huaiyue to a deserted place and kill her. The subordinates drove her to Nanshan Ancient Town, where Wen Huaiyue cleverly tricked them by saying she needed to use the restroom.
The two subordinates waited for her outside. Since it was the middle of the night, one of them stood nearby smoking while they whispered back and forth, apparently getting into a dispute and starting to argue.
Leveraging her small stature and using the darkness as cover, Wen Huaiyue bolted. The two men quickly noticed and rushed after her.
How could a young child ever outrun two adult men? Seeing them closing in fast, Wen Huaiyue panicked and ran for her life. As she dashed across a bridge, exhausted and reaching out to steady herself against the railing, she never expected that section of the railing to be broken. Her hand grasped empty air, and she plunged straight into the river.
Following that, she lost consciousness, and when she finally woke up, she discovered she had been rescued by Ji Hua.
After listening to the tale, Ji Hua rested her chin in her hand and delivered a solemn critique. “Not bad. Not entirely stupid.”
Biting down on her chopsticks, Wen Huaiyue looked thoroughly pleased with the praise.
“However,” Ji Hua shifted the topic abruptly. “Your physical stamina is truly subpar. Have you skipped your running routine this past month?”
Feeling a wave of guilt, Wen Huaiyue silently continued eating her meal.
Ji Hua let out a scoff. “I am enrolling you in taekwondo first. Once you get a bit bigger, you are going to learn boxing from me.”
Wen Huaiyue’s eyes widened. “Ah?”
“Do not even think about saying no,” Ji Hua said in an unnegotiable tone. “You are going.”
Pouting and letting her face droop into a miserable expression, Wen Huaiyue whispered a quiet complaint. “I am so pitiful.”
Ji Hua flicked her sharply on the forehead with a smirk. “Useless human.”