Yu Sen shivered, his eyes narrowing slightly. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his flesh to focus his attention.

Accompanied by a chilling mist, he saw Lance walking in from the white fog outside the door, his footsteps echoing in the empty room.

In such a space, being in a room with a vampire of unpredictable mood and temper, even with prior mental preparation, Yu Sen still felt nervous.

Lance smiled pleasantly, his voice low. “Nervous? I can hear your pulse. The faster it beats, the richer the scent.”

Yu Sen lowered his eyelashes, expressionless. “Really? I don’t smell anything.”

“You smell it every day, so you don’t notice anything special,” Lance moved closer to him. “Just like I taste the same ordinary blood every day, it’s like drinking plain water.”

“Then you might as well just drink plain water every day. You might be able to save a few more lives that way,” Yu Sen said carelessly, licking the bead of blood that had seeped from his lower lip.

Lance looked at the trace of crimson, his gaze darkening as he curled his lips into a smile. “If every year someone as extraordinary as you appeared, I might consider drinking only plain water on other days.”

How disgusting, what’s with the act? Goosebumps ran all over Yu Sen, and he forced a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.”

Lance smiled without saying a word, walking slowly up to Yu Sen. He looked down at him, his gaze growing darker in the dim candlelight. His cold fingers grasped Yu Sen’s chin gently, holding it as his thumb slowly traced along the edge of Yu Sen’s lower lip.

The touch was so light it felt more like a feather brushing across, slightly ticklish and even more unsettling.

He couldn’t decide the right moment to make a move and felt that this close distance was too much. He wanted to shift his position.

But as soon as he moved his fingertips, which were resting on the mattress, Lance swiftly grabbed hold of him. The speed was so quick that Yu Sen’s pupils slightly contracted, completely at odds with Lance’s current slow and gentle actions.

If he made a move now, there was a 99% chance he would be killed instantly.

After securing Yu Sen’s hands, Lance somehow produced a dark red silk ribbon, looking at him like a predator eyeing prey that had wandered into his hunting ground—amused, greedy, and determined.

Yu Sen’s scalp tingled at the sight of the ribbon. He stiffened and struggled a bit, but his feverish body couldn’t muster the strength to resist Lance. In no time, his wrists were bound together by the ribbon.

He grasped the dangling ribbon with his palm, feeling slightly relieved. Though it might take some time, he estimated that breaking free from this knot wouldn’t be too difficult.

But the next moment, his heart and nerves were anything but at ease—Lance brought out another ribbon, gently covering his eyes with it, tying a slightly loose knot at the back of his head.

This pervert!

The cold silk completely blocked his vision, making his entire body hypersensitive.

Lance’s soft laughter echoed in his ear, followed by a cool breath blown into his ear canal. “Do you like it?”

Yu Sen sat rigidly, shrinking back slightly from the unexpected teasing. He angrily parted his lips. “Like hell I do!”

This situation was definitely not to his advantage. Yu Sen’s mind raced: The full moon night should weaken a vampire’s abilities, so why did he still feel completely overpowered? When Lance held his wrists, it was as easy as pie.

A low, husky, and sticky laugh sounded again near his ear. Perhaps knowing that nothing good would come from further conversation, Lance stopped talking. One hand held Yu Sen’s waist, while the other traced circles on his neck.

Yu Sen’s eyes were wide open, but all he saw was a dark red blur. His hands were trapped behind him, and he slowly and carefully struggled. The icy fingers that roamed over his skin sent a shiver through his body.

Sensing his trembling, Lance seemed even more excited. He grabbed a fistful of Yu Sen’s hair at the back of his head and yanked it back, his sharp fangs sinking into the still-bleeding lip.

Yu Sen’s body jolted violently as pain and tingling sensations swept through him, making him feel as if all the blood in his body was rushing to his lips. His rigid waist gave way, and he collapsed weakly.

After a few seconds of dizziness, he realized that Lance had pinned him down on the bed, the soft surroundings wrapping him in cold, smooth silk.

With his hands trapped behind him, it was easier to struggle without being noticed.

Lance’s sharp teeth began to ravage his lips, alternating between gentle and rough, as the taste of blood quickly filled his mouth. It seemed even his tender tongue was caught and bitten, making him choke and cough. The suffocating pain gradually spread through every muscle, and the blood he couldn’t swallow trickled down his jaw.

Yu Sen’s entire body trembled uncontrollably. Lance’s hands were like shackles around his pale neck, leaving him with no escape. Even the moans and gasps lodged at the base of his tongue were forcibly suppressed.

Lance’s kisses grew deeper and more violent, his breathing heavy as he began to lick and suck his way down Yu Sen’s jaw. His teeth scraped lightly across the tender skin, making Yu Sen feel alternately hot and cold. With his eyes covered, all his senses were focused on the skin being touched—like a wildfire spreading, both gentle and brutal, dominant and bloody.

The taste of blood seemed like the most precious catalyst. Yu Sen belatedly realized that his body was succumbing to a bizarre, hazy sense of intoxication. Even his efforts to free his tied hands slowed considerably.

It was as if…his body was about to surrender to this blood-soaked entanglement.

Yu Sen’s heart tightened in fear, and he bit down hard, almost severing his tongue. The intense pain, unlike the numbing ache in other touched areas, cleared his clouded mind.

His body was trembling uncontrollably. Just as he finally freed his hands from the silk binding them, the lips licking his neck suddenly pulled away slightly. But before he could catch his breath, the sharp teeth piercing his artery made him whimper.

The silk covering his eyes had slipped a little during his earlier struggles, revealing one eye. Yu Sen stared up at the layers of dark red canopy above him, his heart gripped by overwhelming fear—Lance was holding him down, drinking the blood from his artery, and there was no way to escape.

The last person Lance had drained like this, Guo Xiang, was already a corpse, never to open his eyes again.

His remaining strength and energy were quickly draining away with the sound of sucking. The soft mattress beneath him made Yu Sen feel like he was sinking into a sea of blood in a dream.

He was about to go under.

His body temperature was dropping from feverish heat to a chilling cold. Lance held his neck with one hand and wrapped his other arm around his waist, pulling him tightly against his body. As Yu Sen grew weaker in the cold embrace, a sudden memory of something Si Xuanyang had said flashed through his mind. He wanted to shout, but the damage to his tongue left him unable to produce more than a faint, unclear whimper, which only served to excite Lance further. Like a wild beast, Lance’s fangs pierced even deeper.

It shouldn’t end like this…

　　Yu Sen thought, he hadn’t even gone to the Si family to propose yet, so how could he end up drained of blood, dying in a place like this?

　In his hazy consciousness, a gust of night wind suddenly blew through a window that hadn’t been tightly closed, lifting the heavy curtains slightly. A sliver of moonlight, just at full moon, streamed in and spilled onto the floor.

A dull sound echoed as the moonlit floor began to wriggle. Slowly, a pitch-black coffin rose from the ground.

The vampire holding Yu Sen captive suddenly shuddered, as if his vampiric powers had been drained away in an instant. The once-tight grip loosened for a moment.

Yu Sen’s eyes widened abruptly. The vampire was at the point where he should be falling asleep. Sensing that this was his last and only chance, he acted.

Without time to think, driven by pure instinct, Yu Sen pushed the still-dazed Lance slightly upward. Then, he quickly pulled out a crucifix hidden in his inner garment, raised it high, and stabbed down with force.

The sharp end of the silver crucifix pierced deeply into the back of Lance’s neck.

“Ahhh—!”

A piercing scream rang out next to his ear. The fangs withdrew from his neck, and the blood, no longer being sucked, immediately gushed out from the wound. A stronger sense of dizziness and weakness enveloped Yu Sen.

From the back of Lance’s neck, a dark red, nearly black liquid flowed, dripping onto Yu Sen’s neck as Lance struggled desperately. The liquid stained the pink gauze collar of Yu Sen’s shirt, already dyed by his own blood.

A beam of dark light shot out, lifting Yu Sen’s body away from Lance and throwing him heavily onto the carpet.

In his gradually blurring vision, Yu Sen saw the pink gauze hood shoot off his body like a gust of wind, floating in the air, glowing with a wave-like blood-red light, as if summoning something.

He closed his eyes.

---

Ever since Yu Sen was taken away by the butler, Si Xuanyang had been feeling uneasy, trapped in the hall with the others.

It wasn’t long before the vengeful spirits, bound to this castle and only appearing late at night, seemed to be released from their restraints, wandering out from all directions. They saw these humans, still carrying the scent of life, as targets and attacked them madly.

They were caught off guard and several of them were injured. Fortunately, Si Xuanyang, Si Nan, and Luo Yu stuck together, helping each other out, so they weren’t as overwhelmed.

But the number of these ferocious spirits seemed endless, tirelessly wearing down their strength little by little.

Si Xuanyang was worried about Yu Sen’s safety and was desperately trying to get upstairs, but these things kept holding him back, making it impossible to advance even a single step.

Then, a sudden change occurred. A beam of dark light penetrated the layers of the floor and spilled into the hall.

The crazed and terrifying spirits, as if sensing a call from their own blood, stopped attacking them and screamed as they swarmed upstairs.

Si Xuanyang’s face turned pale, a sharp pain in his heart threatening to tear him apart.

Suppressing his panic, he rushed upstairs.

When he barged into the room where the corpses were swarming, his first sight wasn’t the vampire’s body being torn apart by the corpses, but the lifeless form on the floor…

—his Yu Sen, seemingly devoid of life.