At the beginning of the Chinese Lantern Festival, on the festive streets, there were two figures hovering in the dense night, looking for prey.
"How about him?"
"He smells like wine."
"What about him?"
"He smells like smoke."
"What about that person?"
"There is body odor."
Shu Ran glanced at the girl next to him silently: "Miss, why are you so picky? If you choose to go on like this, when will you complete the hunting mission?"
The girl's light green eyes were glowing with innocence, and her cherry lips were rosy. When she showed this look, she could easily capture the other person, "But he's really smelly."
Shu Ran surrendered in an instant: "Well, change the target." He explored the terrain and called the girl to move quietly in the night breeze and came near the trunk of a towering tree.
Beside the tree was a small park.
There was a seven or eight-year-old girl swinging in the park. Shu Ran pointed to the little girl: "The blood of the child is very fragrant. Are you okay with her?"
The girl stared at the little girl who was swinging happily, a little hesitant: "Will she be too young?"
Shu Ran almost fainted: "Miss, do you remember that you are a vampire? Humans are born to be our blood bank, and their scientists have always emphasized natural selection and survival of the fittest. What's more, she can become your rite of passage. It's her honor to be your hunting target!"
The girl still hesitated.
She had lived in the castle since she was born. As the earl's youngest daughter, she only stretched out her hand and opened her mouth for food. The human blood she drank was drawn by the servants from the living blood bank kept by the vampire clan, put in a thermos cup, with a straw plugged and then delivered to her.
She had never hunted prey by herself.
But now she was an adult.
The clan stipulated that at the bar mitzvah which was the coming-of-age ceremony, a vampire must go out to hunt for food to prove their noble lineage. Her father worried about her and sent her cousin Shu Ran secretly to follow her to help her complete the coming-of-age ceremony ritual.
They had been out for several days. Shu Ran was getting very anxious.
Shu Ran threatened her with a stern face: "If you don't do anything, the people in the Presbyterian Church will find that you couldn't complete the hunting mission, and you will be nailed in a coffin and buried in the ice cellar for a hundred years!"
The girl shivered suddenly.
She gritted her teeth, cruelly, took out a blindfold from her pocket, clenched her small fist and said, "I'm ready to go!"
Shu Ran: "Come on! You can do it! You can!"
The girl put on her blindfold and followed the smell of blood in the night breeze. Her figure flashed, and she was behind the target in a blink of an eye. She covered her mouth with one hand and pinched her neck with the other. Her fangs were cold, and her lips and teeth were soft.
She maintained this position, without moving for five seconds.
Standing on the tree, Shu Ran slapped his forehead, and couldn't help but say: "You bite! You bite!"
The little girl in her arms was struggling in her arms, and warm tears ran down her palms.
The blindfolded girl raised her head slightly, her fangs left her neck, and even her fingers were loosened.
Shu Ran was about to speak, but he suddenly felt a dangerous breath coming from the night breeze. He suddenly felt fear, and immediately flashed to the woman's side: "Yingying! The blood hunters are here! Go!"
Just about to run, a man in a black suit appeared in front of them and raised his hands.
Shu Ran hid Qi Ying behind him, and the black-clothed man glanced at them coldly, his thin lips evoking a dangerous smile: "You dare to attack on my turf, you're so courageous."
This was a life and death battle, needless to say, Shu Ran's fangs were exposed, and he quickly started fighting with the other party.
Qi Ying pulled off the blindfold, but she hadn't even killed anyone, and she was not an opponent of the blood hunter. Apart from staying hidden, she couldn't help.
Later, Shu Ran took a shot from the man, so taking advantage of the gap where the man fell to the ground, he pulled Qi Ying to flee quickly.
The black-clothed man stood up from the ground, squinted at the dense night, and carried the scared little girl who had passed out to the door of the police station and left quietly.
The blood-hunting clan specialized in dealing with vampires. Shu Ran had been injured. His blood continued to flow, and the wound had begun to rot. In such a situation, he had to return to the vampire clan to heal his wounds.
So, she had to signal to the clan, and soon someone came to pick up Shu Ran. The Presbyterian Church members also came, and Shu Ran's secret help was exposed. Qi Ying was scolded bloody. The elders gave her an ultimatum that she must complete the hunting mission alone, otherwise the family rules would await her!
As soon as Shu Ran left, Qi Ying could only act alone.
After drinking the stored food she had brought out, the girl who still did not find a suitable target to hunt, started to feel her belly growl.
She squatted on the side of the street, watching the passing crowd, gulping.
In fact, when she left the castle, she had a hunch that she would probably become the only member of the vampire race that failed the blood hunt after thousands of years.
The little girl squatted on the street for three nights, and she was really hungry and almost fainted.
Finally, she planned to go to the hospital to steal some blood bags to drink.
The hospital at night was exceptionally quiet. Smelling the night wind, she quickly found the blood bank where the blood bags were stored.
The room was filled with the delicious smell of blood.
She swallowed hard, quickly took out the blindfold and put it on, then reached out and touched the blood bags.
But what she touched instead was a cold barrel.
At the same time, a joking voice came from the darkness: "Other vampires wear masks, but you wear blindfolds. Why, do you have see-through eyes?"
Qi Ying: "!!!"
She remembered this voice; it was the blood hunter who hurt Shu Ran that night.
She was almost crying.
Carefully retracted her hand, she took off the blindfold, and stammered: "I… I'm not a vampire…"
Man: "You put your fangs away before you speak."
Qi Ying: "…"
The little girl felt so wronged, she retracted her fangs, raised her eyes little by little, and looked at the tall man in the shadows illuminated by a little light from the corridor.
And his gun was aimed at her.
The light green eyes were stained with a thin layer of mist, she sniffed, and whispered, "I haven't killed anyone. Let me go, okay?" She blinked, her eyes were wet, and she looked very pitiful: "Please."
In the darkness, Ji Rang's throat moved.
The muzzle was slowly lowered, Qi Ying heard his low voice: "Okay."
She glanced at him incredulously, for fear that he would repent, her figure flashed and she ran away.
There were few pedestrians in the streets at night, and there were many drunks who had the smell of alcohol that she hated. This time, the blood bag was not stolen, she even encountered the blood hunter, and she couldn't go back to the clan without having hunted a target successfully, but she didn't have the energy to rush to other places.
The little girl squatted at the entrance of the alley, hugging her knees, thinking sadly, was she really going to become the first vampire in history who starved to death?
Footsteps sounded from within the alley.
She kept squatting on the ground but moved her feet aside to make way for the person passing by. The footsteps stopped beside her, and then the other person squatted down.
It was the blood hunter again.
Qi Ying was about to cry again. She kept moving backwards away from him and he kept moving towards her until her back was against the wall, and then she cried and said, "Didn't you promise to let me go?"
Ji Rang raised his eyebrows and watched her silently.
Qi Ying felt extremely wronged: "I really didn't kill anyone." She squeezed her flat belly, "Look, I'm hungry and thin."
She hugged her knees and shrank into a ball. She looked very small and thin. Ji Rang looked at her for a long time, and asked slowly, "Why didn't you kill?"
The little girl sniffed, aggrieved: "I dare not."
Ji Rang almost suspected that he had heard her wrong.
He frowned and looked at her for a long time, then suddenly reached out and pulled out the silver short knife from under his trouser leg. Qi Ying's eyes widened in horror. When she thought she was about to be killed by a stab, he spread out his palm and slashed at it.
The blood came out.
He stretched his hand to her mouth: "Drink."
Then he saw the little girl's eyes open wider and wider, her face getting paler and paler, and she passed out with a scream.
Ji Rang: "???"
The blood dripped down from the palm of his hand.
He insisted on not spoiling or wasting it, so he pinched the little girl's chin to force her to open her mouth, he formed his palm into a fist, and dripped blood into her mouth.
Then he picked her up and went all the way back to his apartment.
The little girl was unconscious till the next morning.
The curtains were drawn such that no sunlight came in. When she was unconscious, she dreamed that she finally drank blood, so she was very satisfied. But when she woke up, her consciousness recovered, and she found that her hunger really subsided a lot.
She touched her belly incredulously, and a man's low voice came from a corner of the dim room: "Woke up?"
She turned her head abruptly and saw the blood hunter sitting in the corner on a rocking chair, and she pulled the quilt back up in fear.
Ji Rang smiled, got up and approached her, sat down by the bed, shook his gauze-wrapped palm, gestured to take it off, and asked with a smile, "Do you want to drink?"
Qi Ying stammered anxiously and waved her hands again and again: "Don't, don't..! I'll faint!"
Ji Rang: "???" His worldview was subverted again, "Why would you faint?"
The little girl wilted: "I get dizzy when I see blood, so I dare not kill."
Ji Rang: "I thought you didn't kill people because of your kindness."
Qi Ying immediately added: "There is also this reason! I am a kind-hearted vampire, really!"
Ji Rang couldn't help laughing. He got up and walked to the kitchen. When he came back, he held a black water glass with a straw and handed it to her.
Qi Ying smelled it and it was very fragrant.
Glancing at him, she couldn't help the temptation of food, and took it, holding the cup in both hands to drink.
Seeing her drinking so happily, Ji Rang's dark eyes became softer unconsciously.
Qi Ying drank enough, touched her bulging belly, licked her lips, and softly asked the blood hunter who was sitting in the rocking chair reading the newspaper, "Can I go now?"
His cold voice came from behind the newspaper: "No."
Qi Ying pursed her mouth, jumped off the bed, stepped barefoot on the soft carpet, ran to him and squatted down, and said seriously, "Thank you for not killing me, and giving me blood to drink. I'm full now and I have recovered my strength. I will leave here tonight. I promise you that I will never kill. I will return to bottled blood."
She paused, and her voice lowered: "Although… Although I haven't completed the hunting mission, I will be nailed in the coffin for a hundred years, alas, it's okay. I think I will be able to have a long, long sleep."
Ji Rang finally looked away from the newspaper and turned to look at her.
The girl's light green eyes were soft and beautiful, and at a glance, he felt like he had fallen into an endless galaxy.
He put away the newspaper and enunciated every word: "I said it, no."
Qi Ying slowly realized what he meant, and stepped back a little bit, then hesitated and asked, "Then you, what do you want to keep me here for?"
Ji Rang glanced at her: "Don't your kinsmen like to keep humans in captivity as your blood bank? I also want to try, the feeling of having a captive vampire."
Qi Ying: "!!!"
Then the little vampire was imprisoned by the blood hunter in his apartment.
In fact, in general, life there was pretty good, at least she was not hungry.
Ji Rang used his own blood to feed her.
She was still young, she had just become an adult, she had a small appetite, and one hundred grams of blood a day was enough for her stomach. Sometimes Ji Rang didn't want to feed her, so he went to the hospital to buy blood bags for her. The taste was worse than blood from a living person, but she could at least drink enough.
Qi Ying felt that she had returned to the days when she stretched out her hands and opened her mouth in the castle.
After being raised by Ji Rang for a period of time, she developed a sense of dependence.
Although she also knew intellectually that it was terrible to be a vampire dependent on a blood hunter, but she couldn't help it, as his blood was in her body.
She was familiar with his taste and could smell the fragrance of his blood within a one kilometer radius.
She was young, and when she was in the castle, blood for her consumption was drawn randomly from the blood bank. No one had told her that vampires could not consume the blood of the same person for a long time. In the vampire clan, this behavior was called: blood embracing.
She would become obsessed with this person and would no longer be able to tolerate the smell of other people's blood, she would always want to stay with the other person all the time and would never leave him for life.
It wasn't until Ji Rang was out for a week because of an errand, when she looked at the blood bag he bought from the hospital in the refrigerator, but had no appetite, that she realized that something was wrong.
When Ji Rang returned to the apartment after completing the task, he saw the girl who was hungry and fainted on the carpet.
Not a single bag of blood in the refrigerator had moved.
He held her in his arms, pulled out the silver knife from the cabinet, cut his own finger, and put it in her mouth.
The girl was awakened by the familiar smell of blood, so she held his hand and sucked on his finger.
The tip of the tongue was so soft, it swept across his fingertip circling it, he felt a slight tingling sensation accompanied by itching, he couldn't help rubbing her neat teeth with his fingers.
She was full and opened her eyes in a daze, her light green eyes were hazy, her cherry lips were stained with red blood, and she smiled obediently at him.
Ji Rang lowered his head and kissed her lips.
The smell of blood blended between their lips and teeth.
Qi Ying almost suffocated when kissed by him, and she complained aggrievedly: "Why did you come back just now? I was so hungry."
He picked her up and put her on the bed and kissed her all the way from her lips to her ears: "I'm sorry, I won't go anymore."
…
When Shu Ran found the apartment, Qi Ying was holding a small cup, biting the straw and drinking blood while watching TV.
The little girl who used to be thin and slender was now white and fat. Shu Ran had imagined a picture of his cousin being tortured and hungry. Now he found that the gap between reality and imagination was so big that he couldn't accept it.
Qi Ying was also happy to see him, and ran over to hug him: "Shu Ran, how are you? How is everybody at home?"
As soon as he touched her body, Shu Ran smelled an unfamiliar smell of blood on her body.
His expression changed drastically: "Have you done blood embracing?"
Qi Ying blinked his eyes: "What is blood embracing?"
Shu Ran: "…"
Then he saw the tall man walking out of the kitchen, his muscles stiffened, and he jumped three steps away: "It's you!"
Ji Rang leaned against the door frame with a water glass and nodded slightly: "It's me."
Shu Ran found it unbelievable, staring at Qi Ying, "He is the immortal blood bank you looked for? This blood-hunting tribe who might cause you to have a bad stomach?"
The little girl bared her teeth and her claws: "I forbid you to say that about him!"
Shu Ran was very angry and pointed to Ji Rang: "She is still young and doesn't know the meaning of blood embracing. As the veteran of the blood hunter tribe, would you not know?!"
Ji Rang drank the water, while still looking sluggishly: "I know."
Shu Ran: "You did it on purpose!"
He deliberately raised her in captivity, deliberately fed her his blood, deliberately tied her to her side, and made her inseparable from him forever.
Shu Ran gritted his teeth, walked two or three steps over and pushed Ji Rang into the kitchen, slammed the door, pinched his neck and pressed him against the wall: "Do you know you will die? You can't accompany her for generations to come, you are just a humble human!"
Ji Rang easily pushed him away, brushed his neckline, and stretched out a finger: "Looking at her face, I have condoned your impoliteness once. I have let you in. You have already seen the person, and you can go."
Shu Ran's fangs were exposed: "You are just a human! What will she do if you die?!"
Ji Rang tilted his head to look at him for a while, and then smiled: "If she has not completed the blood hunting mission, she will be trapped for a hundred years, won't she?"
Shu Ran's face went pale.
Ji Rang opened the door: "A hundred years from now, she will find me. In every life, she will come to me."
Outside the door, the girl with soft eyes waited nervously.
Ji Rang smiled and reached out to touch her head.
As long as she appeared before his eyes, he would definitely fall in love with her again.
Forever.