Maybe it was because she had a dirty mind, but she found his voice was tinged with a sexy hoarseness!
Her heart beat even faster.
Her heart was pounding—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
The sound was so loud it was deafening.
Cheng Xi’s face burned uncontrollably.
In a flurry, she pushed away the hand on her abdomen.
“I’m fine, I’m all better now! It doesn’t hurt anywhere!”
With slightly trembling hands, she gestured to show she was alright.
She was like a frightened fawn.
The sight made Hotte’s gaze darken.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and the very air seemed to crackle with tension.
Cheng Xi scrambled off the bed and hopped on her bare feet a few times to show that she wasn’t feeling any discomfort at all.
Only she knew how heavily she was bleeding…
Inside, Cheng Xi was crying a river.
‘This is just too much!’
Watching his female pet’s panicked and avoidant display, Hotte took a nearly imperceptible deep breath.
‘I can almost still feel her frantic heartbeat.
What… was she thinking just now?’
His rational mind told him it was time to leave.
He rose calmly from the floor and said in a deep voice, “It seems you’re fine now.
Good night, then.
Sweet dreams.”
Cheng Xi nodded vigorously and waved at the male, saying eagerly, “Goodbye, goodbye.”
‘Please don’t let me dream,’ she thought.
‘What would I do if it’s a dirty one?!’
After watching her master leave, she finally let out a heavy sigh of relief.
‘Oh my god, that was so embarrassing!’
‘To think I was actually swooning over an Alien.
For a moment, I completely forgot how cruel and terrifying he is.
I even had this crazy urge to touch his collarbones?’
She lightly patted her cheeks and hurried to splash some water on her face, trying to clear her head.
To her dismay, it was useless.
The image was seared into her mind, impossible to shake.
‘Even if I get the chance to go back to Earth one day,’ she thought, ‘I’m afraid I’ll never be able to forget this…’
For anyone else, it was just an ordinary night.
But for Cheng Xi, it was destined to be a sleepless one, spent questioning her life and, while she was at it, herself.
What she didn’t know was that someone else was sharing her sleepless night.
Perhaps it was some tacit understanding between master and servant, but after that strange night, the two, who had yet to build any real connection, grew even more distant.
Cheng Xi, for her part, spent most of her time with Mary Mani.
Even when the master and servant saw each other in the castle, their eyes would never meet for more than two seconds before they both went back to their own business.
Mary Mani, the butler, and the other servants could sense that something was slightly off, yet at the same time, it felt like nothing was wrong at all.
This continued until Cheng Xi’s period was over.
One day, she woke up feeling refreshed in her three-meter-long bed.
Just as she finished washing up, she saw her master—who hadn’t spoken to her in days—had come to her room.
He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed and chin tilted up.
The sharp lines of his face stood out, and his powerful body, practically radiating strength, was clad in a black and gold aristocratic uniform that made him look both noble and imperious.
His deep, aloof eyes rested on the tips of her hair, which were damp from washing her face.
His voice was crisp as he said, “Cheng Xi, I promised you a few days ago that I’d take you to the Pet Plaza. Get ready, and we’ll go.”
Cheng Xi paused, then pointed to her mouth.
“I haven’t eaten yet…”
The male raised an eyebrow.
“Hungry?”
“We won’t be eating at home today.
They sell food at the Pet Plaza.
I think you’ll like it.
Let’s go.”
“Oh.” Cheng Xi was, in fact, quite interested in this Pet Plaza.
She followed obediently behind him.
Though she had been at the castle for half a month, this was her first time stepping outside its main gate.
Outside the main gate, a vehicle hovered more than two meters off the ground.
Its shape was similar to an airplane, but it was far more elegant and compact.
The warship’s hatch opened and a metal ladder descended.
At a nod from Hotte, Cheng Xi climbed the ladder and boarded the craft.
This time, she wasn’t chained or masked, so she could see her surroundings clearly.
The sky was a brilliant blue, stretching over a vast and boundless city.
After the warship took off, she stood by a window and looked down.
The massive city seemed to be constructed from black and silver metal.
Buildings of varying heights stood in orderly rows like technological behemoths, their gaping maws instilling a strange sense of oppression in any human seeing them for the first time.
Cheng Xi stared down in astonishment.
With her limited knowledge, she wasn’t even sure if this endless expanse could still be defined as a “city.”
‘There’s no escape,’ she thought.
‘Once a human ends up here, their fate is no longer their own to control.’
It was too much to take in, simply overwhelming.
Cheng Xi’s eyes were glued to the scene, her gaze fixed on the world outside.
She watched as the buildings below zipped past, replaced by new ones in an endless stream. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Her look of wonder amused Hotte, who stood behind her.
‘Looks like I’ll have to take my little pet out more often,’ he thought.
‘Just look at how curious she is.’
After about fifteen minutes in the air, the warship’s speed began to decrease, and it finally came to a stop on a rooftop platform.
A little dizzy, Cheng Xi followed Hotte out.
As her feet touched solid ground, she craned her slender neck to look around.
She realized they were on a landing port where many other flying warships were parked.
The platform was high up, at least a hundred meters above the ground.
Below the landing port was an enormous, nest-like structure.
Its sides were made of a metal mesh, and its top was covered by some kind of transparent material.
Although it was transparent, it was impossible to see anything inside the building.
The material was beyond anything Cheng Xi had ever known.
From the moment she’d left the castle, she had felt like a complete country bumpkin, amazed by everything she saw.
Suddenly, she felt a weight on her head as Hotte patted her hair.
“Let’s go.
This is the Pet Plaza.
I’ll take you down.”
“Curious?
I’ll bring you out more often when I have time.”
“…” Cheng Xi said nothing, merely shooting him a look of protest.
‘Stop patting my head all the time,’ she wanted to say.
‘It’ll stunt my growth!’
‘I’m already not considered tall here, and he keeps patting my head.’
Her protesting little glare, however, was completely ignored by the beast.
A playful smirk tugged at Hotte’s lips as he took her hand.
“The wind is strong up here.
I was afraid you’d get blown away.”
Cheng Xi, who was trying to fix her wind-blown hair: “…”
‘Makes sense!’
‘Is it because we’re so high up?
The wind really is strong up here!’
Her body, which had been swaying in the strong wind, suddenly felt anchored as his large hand enveloped hers, as if a gravitational force was holding her firmly to the ground.
It was a very grounding sensation.
Cheng Xi subconsciously stole a glance at him.
The heart that had just calmed down over the past few days began to flutter once more.
‘Maybe it’s just an attraction to the strong.
It’s only natural to be drawn to an outstanding and powerful member of the opposite sex, right?’
‘The problem is, this is the wrong direction, and he’s the wrong person.’