After the Early-Deceased White Moonlight of a Wealthy Family Returns (GL) - Chapter 41

Su Wu rested both hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead but occasionally casting a sideways glance. The girl sat obediently in the passenger seat, the seatbelt fastened across her chest and her hands resting on her lap—looking no different from a toddler in kindergarten following a teacher’s command to “put your little hands on the table.”

The villa wasn’t far. After driving for another ten minutes, Su Wu slowed the car as they entered a seaside residential cluster. The area was quite remote and the occupancy rate was low; it only saw crowds during peak tourist seasons or when local drama festivals were being held nearby.

The car pulled into the garage.

Hearing the engine stop, the girl turned her head toward Su Wu.

“Get out.”

The girl followed one command with one action. She unfastened her seatbelt, pulled the car door open, and stepped out. Unsure of where to go, she looked around in all directions.

In her current state, she looked very much like a puppet, yet she possessed slightly more capacity for thought and autonomous movement than a puppet would. Ninety-nine percent of Shen You’an was in a deep sleep in a void; the remaining one percent moved entirely by instinct.

Su Wu stepped forward, carrying both her and Shen You’an’s small bags in one hand while taking Shen You’an’s hand with the other.

No matter the time, Shen You’an’s palm was always warm, radiating heat. Then again, Su Wu thought, it might just be that her own hands were exceptionally cold, so any slight temperature difference felt like warmth.

Su Wu led Shen You’an inside. The girl followed her dutifully, step for step.

Until her thumb pressed the fingerprint scanner, a beep released the lock, and Su Wu pushed the handle to open the door. She looked back at the girl, who stood outside the threshold, making no move to follow her in.

“We’re home.”

Shen You’an blinked and tilted her head.

Su Wu stood inside the doorway, her features still carrying the traces of unthawed snow—cold and indifferent—but her movements were like fire. Pulling her collar open, she tilted her head slightly to stretch the elegant line of her neck. With pale pink fingertips, she touched the faint blue veins beneath the skin, tracing them downward until she stopped at her collarbone.

“Weren’t you hungry?” The woman lifted her gaze, the questioning tone at the end of her sentence acting like a small hook. A flickering flame danced within her usually unruffled pupils. Shen You’an didn’t understand; even if she were conscious, she wouldn’t have grasped the meaning.

The girl swallowed hard.

“Come here.”

It was as if an invisible chain connected them, one end wrapped around the woman’s hand and the other fixed to the girl’s neck. The words “come here” felt like a force, a sudden tug on that chain that made Shen You’an approach step by step.

Until the woman spoke: “I said it was okay at home.”

She tapped her neck twice with her fingertip.

The girl pounced. Though Su Wu was prepared, she still stumbled back two steps, her back hitting the foyer cabinet. They hadn’t even made it far into the house.

The girl leaned in, sniffing at her neck with the tip of her nose, her warm breath fanning across Su Wu’s skin with every inhale. She happily rubbed her fluffy head against the woman’s cheek—a gesture of both appeasement and gratitude.

Su Wu smiled faintly, her thoughts drifting for a fleeting second: It would be nice if you were this good at acting spoiled normally.

Hiss—

Three times again. But these three times were more earnest than any before.

Perhaps it was because the girl realized this was a precious opportunity to feed. Or perhaps, including the wrist, Shen You’an had already licked her six to nine times; Su Wu couldn’t remember clearly. Her prideful judgment and memory had become blurred. Perhaps she was indulging too much in the feeling her actions provoked.

The tip of the tongue circled first, then pressed closer, then circled again, and finally gave a suck—no biting yet, just suction. Su Wu felt as if her nerves were being sucked away along with that movement.

She suddenly grabbed the back of the girl’s neck and pulled her back slightly.

“You’ve learned to be bad,” she warned. “If you’re going to eat, eat. No unnecessary business.”

The girl let out a wronged whimper and rubbed against her like an obedient pet before baring her sharp, snowy-white fangs, which looked even more eerie and terrifying under the cool-toned recessed lights of the room. The fangs brushed against her skin twice first, as if a beast were choosing the perfect angle to strike its prey.

Su Wu’s patience was beginning to fray. “What are you looking for?”

The outcome she had envisioned was the girl simply taking a few bites to fill her belly and being done with it. She hadn’t expected the situation to become this ambiguous. Or rather, it was an ambiguity she was perceiving unilaterally. The girl before her knew nothing. Even if the person standing here wasn’t Su Wu, but anyone else, she would be doing the same.

A trace of displeasure touched Su Wu’s features, followed by self-mockery.

Before her thoughts could drift further, the sharp pain of fangs piercing her skin transmitted to her nerves like a bolt of lightning. With the dense network of blood vessels and fragile skin there, the reaction was far more severe than on her wrist.

The pain felt like an electric shock; the distinct sensation of her blood being sucked away made Su Wu’s toes curl instinctively. Her fingertips, braced against the cabinet surface behind her, tapped hard, making the lines and joints of her hand exceptionally prominent.

The world was so quiet.

No sea breeze, no tide, no distant bonfires or fireworks lighting the sky. She could almost hear her own blood being seized, flowing from the wound and into the girl’s mouth, swallowed greedily with a gulp. She felt like a cake—though that description was a bit shameless—but cake was what Shen You’an loved most. Given the circumstances, using the title of “favorite” shouldn’t do much harm. Because she loved it so much, she would be earnest when eating cake, licking the cream away bit by bit.

Will I be picked apart and eaten like this?

Will I die like this?

Drained of everything, with not a drop of blood left in her body.

Death.

Su Wu looked blankly at a nearby painting, Paul Delaroche’s The Young Martyr—an original she’d bought on a whim. The painting depicted a girl with bound hands lying peacefully in water. It portrayed Ophelia from Hamlet, daughter of Polonius and lover of Hamlet. After enduring the deaths of her father and her lover, she descended into madness and eventually drowned.

Delaroche had painted her expression as exceptionally peaceful. It was as if only in the waters of the underworld did she find true release from the pain that had entangled her life.

Where was her river? Perhaps it was right here, right in front of her.

The word “death” was never far from Su Wu. From the moment she was born, she had walked alongside it. For years, living was just a state; she would think, I can’t just die like this, but then ask herself, Why not? Her existence was one where she didn’t even have the energy to actively choose an ending.

Then one day, she met someone, and for the first time in her life, she had the thought of “wanting” something. Before the future she’d woven could take shape, it was shattered in an accident. Who was the one who truly died? The one who left, or the one who refused to believe they were gone?

She threw herself into work like a machine, a continuation of that “wanting,” as if through this method she could piece the future back together. Tang Lin told her that a regular routine and exercise could alleviate her symptoms. It was indeed a good, feasible method. Most of the time it worked. When it didn’t, it was usually in an inadvertent moment.

While eating, she would suddenly remember a dish was a favorite of hers; while walking, she would see a jewelry shop and think she would have loved to visit it; while in a car, the clouds outside the window looked like her smiling face. The pain had long since stopped being overwhelming; instead, it was a dense, constant needle-prick that never stopped.

On that rainy day, she finally found her again.

But what about now?

Su Wu looked down; the girl seemed so thirsty. If she didn’t call a stop to it, Su Wu felt she might drink her blood forever. Fate hadn’t been kind to either of them. She reached out and patted the girl’s head with uncontrollable tenderness.

The girl was simply “eating”—it was a verb, devoid of metaphor or subtext. Eating Su Wu was the same as eating a meal, or ice cream, or a snack.

But for Su Wu?

From the first bite the girl took, her world had changed entirely. She thought of a scientific fact she’d read: some predatory animals inject a neurotoxin into their prey. This neurotoxin triggers a hormonal response, intended to make the prey lose the ability to resist and willingly become food.

Was it a delusion? Su Wu asked herself.

Her tremors, her suppression, her hidden surges and dampness. Was it because of this hunting mechanism, or was it because she was just like this?

In the dim night, in the silent villa, the autumn osmanthus was in full bloom, its fragrance drifting for miles. Even the stray cats were quiet in this season, and the wind had the sense to become noiseless. Thus, those hidden feelings that had never seen the light began to grow crazily.

Su Wu gritted her teeth, not wanting the scene to become unsightly. She wondered if Shen You’an would remember any of this tomorrow. She didn’t want the girl to realize she possessed such a side. In the position of an older sister, she should only do sisterly things.

But—

Was having one’s blood sucked actually such a pleasurable thing? Or had she never distinguished between the difference of pain and being loved?

The warm, slightly metallic tip of a tongue suddenly left her neck and moved to the corner of her eye, gently licking away a tear that had fallen at some unknown moment.

The girl’s tail had also appeared at some point. It wound around Su Wu’s waist, rubbing against her in circles. The girl understood nothing; after licking away the tear, she lowered her head cautiously back to the previous spot, licking the bloody wound as gently as if she were tending to an injury.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Su Wu said, cupping her face, her voice as light as a veil. “Nothing you give me counts as pain.”

“Full yet?”

Clearly not. Su Wu still had that much judgment. She didn’t know how much blood had been taken—perhaps not much, as she hadn’t reached the point of dizziness. She should be rational; stopping now would be the right thing, as she had only done this as an emergency measure.

But perhaps because the tail’s movements were too affectionate, and the red in the girl’s pupils was like a form of bewitchment—or perhaps because she herself knew she wanted more and needed more.

Su Wu lowered her eyes, hiding her thoughts, and said to the girl: “Let’s change spots. Standing is uncomfortable.”

She prepared to move, but the girl’s tail blocked her. The girl picked her up with both hands, holding her like a child. Her expression was innocent, but Su Wu froze for a moment, her face rare with a blush.