"Tang Lian, are you there?" A sweet voice asked from the doorway, knocking gently.
Tang Lian turn her head towards the direction and ask "Bai Yun?"
Bai Yun confirmed that it was her and asked if she could come in, to which Tang Lian agreed. The door slowly opened and a girl with short, curly hair and chubby cheeks smiled shyly. She waved awkwardly, not sure if she was allowed inside completely. To Tang Lian, it was like she was seeing a bunny.
Tang Lian raised her hand and ushered her in, motioning for her to close the door behind her. With small steps, she came in and looked around, her curiosity reflected on her eyes. Tang Lian remembered that it had been a week since she moved in the college dorm yet the boxes were still everywhere. Or her original self had been lazy and didn't bother to pack until about a month of living there. Of course, she called it laziness but in reality, she was so busy with her multiple jobs and juggling her classes that she never had the chance to sit down and unpack properly.
"I'm...working on it." Tang Lian said smiling sheepishly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"If you want, I can help you." Tang Lian turned quiet. Bai Yun thought she had said something wrong, so she quickly added, "Or not. I understand if you value your privacy." In reality, Tang Lian was thinking about how this happened in her first life as well. Bai Yun has offered to help her, invited her, tried to befriend her...but she was so reserved and gloomy that she denied any sort of offer. Eventually, Bai Yun and everyone else had drifted completely apart from her and she was isolated.
And it was this isolation that was taken advantage of by the Feng brothers who wooed her and used her in her final moments. Her vulnerability was contributed by her loneliness that was manipulated against her.
"No, no..." Tang Lian grabbed Bai Yun's hands with hers and squeezed them gently. "I really appreciate it." Bai Yun was stunned. The usual response would've been a gloomy dismissal... Has she finally gotten to the girl? Were they friends now?
Bai Yun's eyebrows furrowed, "By the way, you're looking really pale. Are you alright?"
Tang Lian's green eyes flashed with something that Bai Yun couldn't recognize and she shook her head. "I'm fine...I just woke up from a nightmare. A really long and terrible nightmare."
Bai Yun saw the melancholy in her eyes and swiftly changed the subject. "The official semester and classes start in two days, are you ready?"
"Actually," Tang Lian took a deep breath. "I'm going to drop out."
"What!? But you just got accepted!" And she just moved into the college dorms too!
"I know, it's unfortunate...but I have more important matters. Maybe one day, I'll be able to properly get an art degree and do what I love." Tang Lian knew that this wasn't possible until she got her revenge. In her last life, she had just graduated and ready to start her career, but disaster struck. Perhaps she wasn't fated to be an artist. Her fate was cruel, once taken advantage of and another set for revenge. Never could she be at peace, especially as she's cursed with the silver bloodline.
"I...I don't know what to say. But if that's what you want, then it's your decision." Bai Yun and Tang Lian chatted for a little bit longer before Bai Yun had to excuse herself. She had only visited just to check up on Tang Lian for being a new first year at the university, but they had ended up speaking for longer than intended. They bid each other adieu and Tang Lian was left alone in her room again. She sighed, exhausted, and fell back on her bed.
She massaged her temples and closed her eyes. Her fatigue was ignored as she grabbed a pen and paper to note down everything she remembered from her first life.
She had met the Feng brothers towards the end of her first year. She was still nineteen, so they had used that to their advantage and befriended her easily. She was gullible and lonely, so that didn't help her case. Two years later, when she was twenty-one, they had accidentally exposed their real nature. At that moment, Tang Lian found out that there were real vampires in the modern world and they were higher up ones too.
In the following two years, she gathered piece by piece of their identity and found out that there were four vampire kings who controlled major Asian countries. Neither of the vampire kings submitted to each other but they all submitted to the Vampire Emperor who lived in and ruled over the entirety of Europe. Or actually, he ruled over the entire vampire society but chose to do so from Europe. What part of Europe was unknown. In fact, everything about him was unknown. When she had gotten curious and asked Feng Weiyang about it, he brushed it off and said nothing. He told her that she shouldn't worry about things like that for her own safety.
The Feng brothers were governing over China which was split into two territories for each of them. They governed half and half to make things fair. The other two vampire kings resided in South Korea and Japan.
Oddly enough, the Americas weren't governed at the moment. Or if it was, Tang Lian didn't know because her past memories didn't withhold such memories.
Tang Lian listed down a couple of notable people who grew influentially in the span of four years. She also wrote down specific events, both vampire and human ones, that she could remember and her pen froze when she wrote Silver Night. With trembling hands, she circled the day and noted it as four years from now. Her pen dropped and she felt like she had no strength remaining. The haunting night came back to her and the memory of the pain made her shudder. That night had left her traumatized.
Just the idea of the pain of losing her blood made her want to vomit and hide away. It wasn't just making a donation, it was losing a special bloodline that had a connection with her. That bloodline wasn't ordinary by any means, hence it had the ability to restore a comatose vampire back to life. What shocked Tang Lian was that she was an ordinary human girl without any special abilities or circumstances, but had somehow been born with the blood. As much as she had questions about it, she knew that she couldn't ask anyone because there was a risk of exploitation and danger again. She had to figure things out on her own.
She had four years to save herself.
And the first thing she would do in order to save herself was sacrifice her own desires, hence why she was dropping out of college. With clear hesitation, she picked up her phone and dialed a number she hadn't dialed for a while.
A female voice answered the phone, not recognizing the number. "Hello? Who is this?"
Tang Lian heaved a deep sigh and said, "Mother..."