Steady footsteps approached from the distance, step by step crushing Ye Ning’s chaotic and shattered consciousness, sounding exceptionally clear in the silent alley.
She was curled up on the cold bluestone pavement, her entire body unbearably hot and feverish.
Her skin glowed with an abnormal flush, and fine beads of sweat from her temples slid down her cheeks, soaking her collar.
Ye Ning opened her mouth, her voice hoarse and raspy, carrying an unmistakable tremor.
“Who… who is it…?”
“Who else could it be but me?”
Hua Niao’s voice came with a hint of lazy amusement, light-hearted yet laced with a subtle playfulness.
Her figure slowly emerged from the shadows at the mouth of the alley.
“If I hadn’t long since figured out your little temper and left a backup plan on you ahead of time, you really might have managed to run a few steps away today.”
She walked slowly up to Ye Ning, stopped, and looked down at the girl curled up on the ground, her body gone soft.
The dim, yellowish light fell on her face, illuminating the faint smile in her eyes.
“Come to think of it, you were much more obedient and well-behaved after you lost your memory. Not like now, with your memories back, your head full of nothing but thoughts of escaping from my side. What a troublesome little thing.”
Ye Ning bit her lower lip hard, trying to use the pain to awaken her remaining reason.
The sweat on her temples seeped out more and more, dripping down her jawline and splashing onto the cold stone, blooming into tiny wet marks.
Yet even so, she forced herself to lift her head, glaring fiercely at Hua Niao, letting out a weak, breathy snort.
“You… what exactly did you do to me? Why am I like this…?”
A strange, somewhat bewitching smile curled on Hua Niao’s lips.
Her gaze slowly drifted downward, sweeping ambiguously over Ye Ning’s heaving abdomen.
Her fingertip lightly stroked her own lip corner, her tone flippant.
“Nothing too special. Just left a little… interesting gift on your belly. I originally planned to tell you when you were being obedient, but you’re so impatient, forcing me to reveal the answer early.”
A sense of foreboding instantly seized Ye Ning.
She frantically raised a hand, trembling as she lifted the hem of her clothes, her gaze urgently dropping down—the skin of her abdomen was pale and delicate, glowing faintly under the dim light. Upon it, a mark was clearly imprinted.
The mark was pink, winding in shape, its lines seductive and intricate.
It spread slowly from her waist to the center of her abdomen.
The tail end was adorned with tiny, fang-like barbed patterns.
The edges of the patterns glowed with a faint purple halo.
They intertwined seductively like living things, possessing an absurd, glaring beauty.
The lines of the mark gently overlapped at the center of her abdomen, with a faint, shimmering light circulating within.
What! And the Hundred Power Mark…
“Wait, no! What is this thing! You bastard! Witch of H!”
Ye Ning’s mind cleared somewhat instantly.
The internal feverishness was even suppressed a little by this sudden shock.
Blushing furiously, she pointed at her own abdomen.
She had only seen this kind of mark in certain little comics before…
Hua Niao watched her panicked, crimson-faced appearance, the amusement in her eyes deepening.
She tilted her head slightly, giving Ye Ning a wink.
Her long eyelashes cast fragmented shadows beneath her eyelids.
Her tone was light yet tinged with teasing.
“What? Don’t you like it? I specially chose this mark for you. It both declares your status and constantly reminds you that you’re my toy. Isn’t that nice?”
“You… you evil, nasty villain!”
Ye Ning trembled with anger, her cheeks so red they seemed about to drip blood.
Completely disregarding the still-churning feverishness inside her and the weakness throughout her body, she abruptly pushed herself up from the ground.
Her eyes were full of rage, like an angry little beast, and she lunged at Hua Niao with a momentum that suggested mutual destruction.
Faced with her feeble, powerless lunge, Hua Niao merely shook her head lightly, then gently snapped her fingers.
The next second, the mark on Ye Ning’s abdomen instantly glowed with a faint light.
A wave of warmth, stronger than before, suddenly erupted, sweeping through her entire body along her bloodstream in an instant, draining all the strength from her limbs.
“Eek!”
Ye Ning let out a small, broken whimper.
Her body went limp, collapsing straight forward, right into Hua Niao’s arms.
She instinctively raised her hands, grabbing Hua Niao’s sleeves.
Looking up, she met Hua Niao’s frost-filled eyes—those eyes that had held laughter now contained only icy coldness.
It made her heart clench tightly, a nameless fear instantly flooding her mind.
Hua Niao’s fingers suddenly pinched her chin.
The force wasn’t great but carried an irresistible pressure.
The icy coolness of her fingertips contrasted sharply with the feverish heat of Ye Ning’s cheeks.
Her voice was low and cold.
“Ning Ning, repeatedly disobeying my orders warrants punishment, you know. Did you think I would indulge you forever?”
Her fingertips pressed slightly harder, forcing Ye Ning to look up at her.
“You clearly signed the contract back then, stating plainly that you would become mine, that you would obediently listen to me. Yet now you keep thinking about running away from me, challenging my bottom line again and again. Ning Ning, you really are a disobedient bad child.”
Ye Ning was frightened by her icy gaze and tone, her heart tightening, an intense sense of crisis inexplicably rising.
She subconsciously swallowed, her throat painfully dry and sore.
But the stubbornness in her bones still refused to let her bow her head.
Her mouth remained defiant, her voice trembling yet still carrying a hint of unwillingness to concede.
“Al… although running away was my fault, I admit it was all my problem… but aren’t you at least a little bit in the wrong too?”
Hua Niao raised an eyebrow, the pressure from her fingertips increasing slightly.
“I’ll give you one more chance. Think carefully about how you should speak to me.”
Ye Ning desperately tried to organize her words, but the warm current inside her kept swirling and flowing, churning her mind into a tangled mess, making calm thought utterly impossible.
Tangled between desire and panic, her reason went completely offline.
The most wrong possible sentence blurted out of her mouth.
“So what?”
“…”
The aura around Hua Niao instantly dropped to freezing point.
The air itself seemed to freeze. She remained silent for a moment.
“I’ll make sure you understand.”
She bent down and, without hesitation, scooped up the completely limp, powerless-to-resist Ye Ning in a princess carry.
Ye Ning instinctively wrapped her arms around Hua Niao’s neck, her cheek pressed against her chest, where she could clearly hear her steady, powerful heartbeat.
A faint, strange spatial distortion rippled around Hua Niao.
The light and shadows twisted for an instant.
The next moment, the two of them vanished from the dim alley, appearing in a meticulously decorated, luxurious bedroom.
The bedroom had soft lighting, and the air was filled with a faint fragrance.
Hua Niao gently placed Ye Ning on the soft, large bed, looking down at the pink-and-white lump on the bed—flushed face, eyes hazy with desire, body utterly limp.
Her tone was flat and even, yet carried an irresistible pressure.
“Now, is there anything else you’d like to say?”
Lying on the bed, the soft bedding allowed Ye Ning to relax slightly.
But looking at Hua Niao’s icy eyes, she had a rather bad feeling.
She swallowed, her voice trembling, her tone now carrying a hint of appeasement and pleading, none of the earlier stubbornness remaining.
“Um… Hua Niao, can we make peace?”
“Heh…”
Hua Niao gave her a cold smile.
—
The internal feverishness and the stubbornness in her heart fiercely intertwined, tormenting Ye Ning.
But finally, a voice choked with sobs managed to rise, haltingly.
“I’m sorry… I was wrong…”
“Mhm, good girl.”
Hua Niao made her move.
“I did everything you said, didn’t I? Why is there still punishment?!”
“Silly Ning Ning, this is a reward.”