Above Her Lips (GL) - Chapter 2

September, Western Calendar Year 3052

The moment he pushed open the door, the man’s brow furrowed. The pervasive scent of blood invaded his senses along with the rushing air. The once-pristine white bedding was now stained a crusty, reddish-brown. Navigating carefully around the mess on the floor, the man walked softly, stopping exactly two meters from the edge of the bed.

He stood there respectfully, waiting in silence.

After an indeterminate amount of time, a faint murmur broke the quiet, followed by the rustling sound of a woman rising from the bed. The man remained slightly bowed, maintaining a respectful and distant stance, not daring to make direct eye contact.

“What time is it?”

“Answering the Master: it is nine in the morning.”

The woman gave no reaction. Instead, she tossed aside the thin quilt and reached out a finger to gently stroke the lifeless face beside her. The pupils of her crimson eyes were narrow vertical slits, like those of a wild beast.

Hemorrhagic shock.

“Humans truly are fragile,” the woman remarked, her voice pitying but her expression cold as frost. She twirled a lock of the dark hair belonging to the person beside her and turned to her most loyal servant. “Daolei, wouldn’t you say that once a human becomes greedy, their end is usually quite miserable?”

“Indeed. Humans are inherently greedy,” the man named Daolei answered with reverence.

She blinked slightly, and in an instant, her eyes returned to a beautiful golden-brown. “The likes of her, thinking she could be my mistress… truly, she didn’t know her place.”

Having said her piece, the woman dropped the hair she had been playing with in slight disgust. Her tone carried a hint of feigned regret. “If you must blame someone, blame yourself for choosing the wrong family to serve. And for being so foolish.”

Daolei glanced at the human woman on the bed. Her blood vessels had already stiffened. In about three minutes, the single drop of blood the Head of the House had left in her heart would cause her weak human constitution to fail, unable to withstand the invasion of foreign blood.

There were only two ways to save her: Mu Fei’s “First Embrace,” or extracting that drop of blood.

Clearly, no one was worthy of the Master’s First Embrace. Thus, this ignorant woman could only pay the price for her post-pleasure consequences.

Mu Fei stared fixedly at the woman’s chest, then pricked the area over her heart with a fingertip. A human heart would lose all signs of life with just a light touch from her. However, she didn’t intend to take the woman’s life today.

The next second, she withdrew her hand. The woman in shock immediately regained a heartbeat. Blood began to flow through her body, and her breathing and pulse stabilized. However, her body underwent a visible chronic change: her eye sockets sunken, her skin sagged, and she appeared to age many years in a single instant.

Mu Fei watched the fading beauty with cold indifference, then looked toward her loyal old butler. “When she wakes up, send her back to the Rong family as a warning. Tell them to show proper respect. In the future, they shouldn’t bother sending such unpresentable people to me; it’s not fresh at all.”

“Yes.”

Daolei looked at the no-longer-young human woman on the bed. He carefully took a clean, thin blanket from the cabinet, draped it over her with gentlemanly grace, and signaled his subordinates to handle the rest. To be honest, even after all these years, he still wasn’t used to the cold and impulsive way his Master handled affairs.

The woman’s golden-brown eyes fixed on the weak sunlight filtering through the window, her brow twitching in displeasure. She hated the sun; it made her feel inexplicably irritable.

She stood up, exposing skin as cold and white as blank paper. Daolei stepped forward to offer her a clean silk robe.

“I don’t particularly like the scent of this laundry detergent,” she said with a faint smile. She reached out, unfastened the robe, and let it drop to the floor without putting it on. With a cold face, she walked into the bathroom.

That face, as exquisite as a statue of Venus, often wore the most saintly of smiles—even as she had just pierced a chest to extract blood. This was the terrifying nature of Mu Fei, the Master Daolei had served for over seven hundred years.

The old servant sighed helplessly. It looked like he would have to have the hotel replace all the toiletries again.

After her bath, Mu Fei wrapped herself casually in a towel and walked out. The room was now bright and tidy; every item was perfectly in place, and the bed had been completely reset with new linens. One could hardly imagine the gruesome scene that had just unfolded here.

Mu Fei stood to the side, watching a maid finish smoothing out the fresh sheets. The maid bowed her head and reported respectfully to Daolei: “Everything is ready.”

Daolei nodded for her to leave. As the girl turned, she caught a glimpse of the beautiful woman in the towel. Just one look made her blush, and she quickly lowered her eyes, not daring to look again.

The manager had sternly warned her to work with extreme caution; the guest in this suite was the owner of the hotel. She was told to remain silent regardless of what she saw or heard, and under no circumstances was she to look the guest in the eye.

When she had first entered the room to see the mess, she had been paralyzed with fear. She had to suppress her panic and the urge to bolt as she cleaned the room at top speed. She hadn’t expected the guest to be a woman—and such a stunning one at that.

“Are you afraid?” Mu Fei stepped forward, offering a friendly-sounding concern to the young maid.

The girl shook her head, but she felt a chill through her body, a bone-deep shiver like being stared down by a predator.

“Oh,” Mu Fei squinted at the girl’s neck, lingering there meaningfully before pulling her gaze away with a frown. “Then get out.”

Startled by the sudden shift to a flat, icy tone, the girl broke into a cold sweat. Overwhelmed by an instinctive terror, she nodded frantically, bowed, and scrambled out of the room.

“A body filled with various drugs… that kind of blood isn’t fresh at all,” Mu Fei muttered to herself. She dressed, tucked her long hair behind her ear, and asked the silent butler with a smile, “Were you just silently condoning my desire to feed?”

“I trust your judgment. Besides, you already enjoyed the dessert provided by Miss Rong Xian last night. I imagine you won’t need to feed again for a few days,” Daolei replied, placing her high heels by her feet.

“Oh, her name was Rong Xian.”

“Yes, the second daughter of the Rong family.”

Daolei mused inwardly that his Master was truly cold-blooded. To have a one-night stand that nearly killed the woman without even knowing her name was peak Mu Fei.

Mu Fei smiled. In her long life, she didn’t deal with carnal desires often. But last night at the banquet, she had been intoxicated enough to be lured to bed by this Rong Xian. Since the woman offered herself, Mu Fei had naturally accepted. However, the woman’s blood was laced with high-concentration alcohol. Mu Fei, a picky eater, had ended up drinking too much in her stupor and accidentally let some of her own blood flow back into the woman, which now made her feel nauseous.

A human cannot withstand the blood of a pureblood noble.

“Alcohol-tainted blood doesn’t suit me, Daolei. I’m a very picky eater.”

But you enjoyed it at the time, Daolei thought, though as a seasoned old fox, he wouldn’t dare say it out loud.

Snow began to fall outside. The morning light was swallowed by the gloomy, eerie atmosphere of the city, leaving only tiny, dark corners illuminated.

“It’s snowing,” Mu Fei remarked.

She put on purple silk gloves and pulled back all the curtains. Sure enough, the last trace of light vanished into the frozen city. She curled her lips into a smirk; she preferred this cold, damp weather. It was quiet and helped her feel calm.

She picked out a lipstick and applied it to her bloodless thin lips. Instantly, the red hue made her complexion appear even fairer and more glamorous.

“To someone who didn’t know better, they’d think you were a superstar from the Kendas District,” Daolei complimented.

Indeed, she looked radiant in the mirror. Beneath that beautiful skin, who would guess she had lived for over seven centuries?

“Daolei, I must say, your flattery is as outdated as ever, but I still enjoy it.” Mu Fei laughed, threw on a black overcoat, and walked out. Daolei followed close behind.

The elevator they took made no other stops; Daolei had arranged this beforehand, knowing Mu Fei’s germaphobia and her dislike of sharing elevators. Daolei was always cautious with his temperamental Master; one never knew when her mood might shift.

When she was in a good mood, she might hand out wealth and glory that ordinary people could only dream of—things some people wouldn’t earn in a lifetime. For instance—

“This piece isn’t bad,” Mu Fei noted as she stepped out of the elevator. The deep, melodious sound of a cello drifted from the hotel lobby. The melody was complex yet powerful, sounding like a soulful lament against the world’s injustices. Only a “Noblewoman of Music” could play such a piece. “Find out who the performer is.”

“Yes.” After whispering to a subordinate, Daolei reported back. “I’m told the performer is an intern who just joined the hotel. No special background.”

“Then see to it.” Mu Fei waved a hand, glancing with appreciation at the performer on the music stage in the lobby. Clearly, this young intern was about to receive a very generous bonus.

As she turned to leave through the main entrance, a woman holding a child suddenly rushed in. Mu Fei agilely stepped aside, perfectly avoiding a collision.

“Let me see your boss! Let me see your boss! Come out here!”

The voice was hoarse and desperate. The woman’s hair was a filthy mess, and her once-decent face was hollowed out by the side effects of “Fake” (a new type of hallucinogenic stimulant). She screamed incessantly at the hotel entrance.

Security guards pinned her to the ground, intending to drag her out, but a crowd began to gather. To protect the hotel’s image, the guards didn’t dare use excessive force and simply held her down to prevent her from lashing out.

“You heartless, trash corporation will go bankrupt sooner or later! My husband died a tragic death in this hotel, and you don’t care! Look everyone, a hotel where someone died—who would dare stay here? I curse you all to hell!” The woman kicked and hit the guards, even biting one until he bled.

Mu Fei caught the scent of human blood in the air. She watched the scene with cold, detached interest.

The hotel manager, Mr. Hong, came rushing from the meeting room in a panic. He knew the highest-ranking leader of the company was currently resting in the hotel and couldn’t afford for her to see such an unsightly mess.

When Mr. Hong arrived, his heart sank. He recognized Vice Director Daolei. Though he’d only seen him once at a high-level meeting, Daolei’s appearance—a tall, thin man with a deep scar on his left cheek—was unforgettable.

“Notify PR to prepare, then have security take this madwoman away!” Manager Hong whispered to his subordinates. He then walked fearfully toward Daolei, bowing deeply. “Director Dao, this was a failure on my part. I will handle it properly. Please forgive me.”

The man was sweating so hard he didn’t dare look up. Daolei glanced at Mu Fei, who was standing ahead, then asked the sweating manager, “What is this woman’s story?”

“It’s like this: her husband was a hotel electrician who died of accidental electrocution. The hotel followed all procedures, offering condolences and a large sum of compensation. But this crazy woman keeps bringing her child here to cause a scene and demand more money. We will handle it; you won’t see this again!”

Mr. Hong whispered the details to Daolei, and Mu Fei, standing nearby, heard every word.

The madwoman had run out of strength to throw a tantrum and lay slumped by the lobby entrance, muttering nonsense. Her child stood behind her, dazed and hiding. Guards had dispersed the onlookers; those who stayed at this hotel were wealthy and powerful, and most chose to ignore the antics of “lower-class” people. Among them were a few vampires disguised as humans, their eyes narrowing at the scent of blood in the air.

Everyone understood the unspoken rule: you do not cause trouble here. The owner of this hotel was a Pureblood Noble. As for who it was, no one was foolish enough to peek. Daolei’s scent as a vampire already served as a screen for his Master; onlookers only saw a glamorous, aloof woman standing in the corner, unable to guess her identity.

Mu Fei assumed the manager would handle this low-level issue. She pulled her hat lower, preparing to leave, and cast one final glance at the greedy mother and daughter.

A pair of sincere, pitiful black eyes looked straight back at her. It was the girl hiding behind the mother.

Mu Fei went silent for a few seconds. In the end, she didn’t walk out the door. Normally, she wouldn’t deign to get involved in such trivialities. However, the wind and snow were raging outside, and she wasn’t in a hurry.

Mu Fei walked slowly up to the woman. “Do you want money that badly?”

“Want it…”

The woman looked up at Mu Fei, her eyes filled with a tangled craving for cash, her voice slurred.

Mu Fei grabbed the woman’s arm. The woman tried to struggle, but she was powerless; the bone-chilling cold of the touch struck fear into her heart. Mu Fei shoved the woman’s sleeve up, revealing countless horrifying needle marks.

“A body this filthy… even a dog wouldn’t want to eat you,” Mu Fei whispered, her voice low. “I understand the hotel has paid what was owed. But you want more? I can give it to you.”

“Re… really?!” Hearing this, the woman didn’t care who this well-dressed lady was. At the mention of money, her clouded pupils ignited with hope.

Mu Fei glanced at the ragged little girl behind the woman, a smirk playing on her lips. “However, you have to trade something for it. It seems you have nothing of value.”

“Something of value… something of value…” the woman muttered, looking around and frantically patting her pockets. Then, her eyes landed on the girl behind her. She let out a cackle of excited, manic laughter and yanked the girl forward. Her eyes were full of desperate pleading. “What about her? I raised her. She’ll do…”

The woman continued to mumble, clearly no longer lucid. She didn’t care how terrified the child she was shoving forward felt.

Mu Fei let out a soft, mocking laugh, as if she had expected this. Human greed truly knew no bounds, not even for one’s own flesh and blood. After all this time, her impression of humans remained the same: greedy and vile.

Suddenly bored, Mu Fei looked at Daolei. Daolei understood instantly. He stepped forward, whispered a warning to the woman, and then took a bag from a black-clad subordinate. He handed it to her. It was a bag full of money.

The woman was stunned. Even though they didn’t accept her “trade” and didn’t want the child, they gave her the money anyway. Although the man’s warning was a death threat, she promised herself she would never come back here as long as she had this money.

Clutching the bag to her chest, she pulled the girl out of the hotel in a state of wild ecstasy. As they walked, she looked at the child with nothing but loathing. Who would want this brat anyway? She was bad luck! This money was hers now. She wouldn’t have to drag this dead weight around anymore to play for sympathy.

The snow was heavy. After walking a bit further, the woman stopped. She looked at the high-speed train heading toward the North District—a place filled with “Heavenly” casinos. This money would be enough for her to enjoy herself there. The child was useless now; life would be easier without her.

“Wait for me here, you hear me!” The woman pointed to a streetlight and barked the order at the girl. She stuffed the money bag deeper into her coat.

The cold street was deserted. The girl was shivering uncontrollably. She didn’t understand why her mother wanted her to wait by this light; it was so cold.

She instinctively started to speak, “B-b-but—”

She was met with a heavy slap across the face.

So, she could only huddle silently beneath the streetlight, waiting until the swirling ice and snow began to bury her small, frail body.