Chapter 8: The Hickeys on the Ankle

Chi Yun’s face was slapped to the side. Stunned by the sudden turn of events, he stood frozen in place.

His mind went blank.

A few seconds later, a burning sensation flared across his cheek, and rage began to roar in his chest.

Clutching his face, Chi Yun shrieked in disbelief, "You hit me?!"

Jiang Qingli actually hit him!

She actually hit him?!

How dare she?!

"So what if I hit you?"

Jiang Qingli sneered. Walking forward without a hint of fear, she raised her hand again and slapped his other cheek.

This time, she used all her strength.

Chi Yun grabbed her shoulders, flames burning in his dark red eyes. "Jiang Qingli! Are you sick? I was concerned about your injury! How can you return kindness with malice?"

"If I was injured, wasn't it because you pushed me?" Jiang Qingli said calmly. "You didn't come to find me out of concern; you wanted to use a small favor to ease your own guilt."

These words were like a needle, piercing straight into Chi Yun’s heart.

He widened his eyes, his hands gripping Jiang Qingli’s shoulders trembling.

He wanted to refute, but he couldn't.

Just moments ago, when Jiang Qingli fell and was targeted by Zhu Que, Chi Yun’s heart had indeed skipped a beat. An image from a competition half a year ago had flashed through his mind.

That time, the opponent had been brutal. He had been knocked to the ground, and Jiang Qingli had rushed onto the field, forcibly ordering them to stop the match, only to be blown over by the wind.

The overlapping images of her frail figure made his chest feel tight.

While Bai Yiyi was busy with the check-up, Chi Yun had grabbed the ointment and followed Jiang Qingli.

He thought, Jiang Qingli is just a sycophant.

In the past, even when she was scolded or hated, she would come running back with a crook of his finger. If he gave her medicine, she would surely be overjoyed, forgetting her scars just like before.

But he hadn't expected Jiang Qingli to lay a hand on him.

The disparity in strength between male and female meant Jiang Qingli’s slap only caused a slight sting, but the burning pain on his face and the heavy, aching sensation in his heart felt as if they were being squeezed by a giant hand.

Chi Yun suddenly grew anxious and explained, "I didn't know it was you..."

Jiang Qingli didn't speak. When the red light at the intersection behind them turned on, she raised her hand and pushed Chi Yun.

Caught off guard, Chi Yun stumbled backward, brushing against a vehicle that had just started moving. He hit his arm and fell to the ground.

The sound of horns and the driver’s cursing rang out incessantly, but Chi Yun ignored them all.

"Jiang! Qing! Li!"

Chi Yun’s gaze lingered on her ankles for a few seconds before he snapped his head up to glare at her, gritting his teeth. "Are you trying to kill me?!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to..." Jiang Qingli stood by the roadside, bending over with a look of feigned guilt as she tossed the ointment into Chi Yun’s lap. "This ointment is compensation for you."

She had mirrored every word and action Chi Yun had just performed.

Chi Yun’s expression turned incredibly grim.

Jiang Qingli looked down at him from above, her crimson lips curling slightly before she turned and walked away.

The wind caught the hem of Jiang Qingli’s skirt, creating beautiful waves.

She did not look back.

Her palm felt a sharp sting—the same spot where she had been injured when she fell earlier.

Chi Yun stared at his own palm, but in his mind, he saw what he had inadvertently glimpsed when she fell to the ground: the tooth marks and hickeys on Jiang Qingli’s snow-white ankles.

They were left by a male.

And a male with a very strong sense of possessiveness.

Chi Yun suddenly realized.

So, the reason Jiang Qingli was treating him this way was because she had found a new target!

Logically, this should be a good thing.

Just a few days ago, he had been thinking about introducing someone else to Jiang Qingli to stop her from pestering him.

But now that Jiang Qingli had actually found another male, Chi Yun felt an endless sense of irritation!

Rubbing her hand, which was sore from the slap, Jiang Qingli followed the map toward their agreed-upon location.

It wasn't a remote area; it was a club that the Jiang family had gifted to Jiang Qingli.

Along the way, Jiang Qingli felt as if someone was watching her.

But when she turned her head, she only saw a hurried crowd, with no suspicious figures in sight.

Jiang Qingli frowned and quickened her pace into the club.

As soon as she opened the door to the top-floor suite, a cold, slimy snake tail lashed out, wrapped around her calf, and forcefully dragged her inside.

Her vision blurred, and by the time she regained her senses, Jiang Qingli was already pinned to the wool carpet.

Ye Linyuan panted, his snake tail coiled around Jiang Qingli’s waist and legs as one hand slipped inside the hem of her clothes.

When his chin neared Jiang Qingli’s neck, he suddenly stopped.

From Jiang Qingli’s perspective, Ye Linyuan’s face looked terrifyingly cold.

He straightened up, his brows furrowed, his slit pupils filled with intense disgust and killing intent.

"What’s wrong?" Jiang Qingli was wary of this uncontrollable variable. "You seem off."

Ye Linyuan glanced at her coldly, his voice chilling. "Did you forget? I’m still in my rut."

After reaching adulthood, beastmen enter a rut based on their specific beast genes.

The rut is extremely difficult to endure.

Males without a female master must suffer through it alone, though it is technically survivable.

Once marked, only the female master can provide relief.

Generally, females awaken healing abilities at eighteen, allowing them to provide mental therapy to their beast husbands to prevent them from losing control.

Having experienced several events just now, Jiang Qingli had indeed... forgotten about this.

She looked away, feeling a bit guilty, and bluffed, "Uh, I remember."

"You remember?" Ye Linyuan’s voice was icy. "And yet you come to me smelling like a fox and a bird?"

He paused for a few seconds, his expression darkening further as he lifted the hand Jiang Qingli had used to slap Chi Yun. "You’re quite busy, seeing so many males in one day."

Jiang Qingli sniffed her own arm but couldn't smell anything.

"Didn't you say you wanted to remove the mark?" Jiang Qingli recalled last night and still felt sore. "Is there any way to do that?"

She looked completely resistant.

Ye Linyuan couldn't help but sneer.

Last night, on his turf, she had grabbed his hair to force him to serve her, then scratched and cursed him, only to fall into a deep sleep once she was satisfied.

If he weren't unable to harm her, Ye Linyuan would have wanted to skin her alive!

However, the moment he got close to Jiang Qingli, his snake tail instinctively coiled around her, desperate to have every inch of his skin pressed against her, to possess every breath she took.

Ye Linyuan didn't even want to admit that this pathetic behavior was his own.

But he couldn't resist.

Tormented as if by fire, Ye Linyuan tightly circled Jiang Qingli, his only sanctuary, his panting filled with clear desperation: "Give me... mental therapy."

Jiang Qingli was somewhat surprised by the speed at which they obtained information.

It had been barely over an hour since she sent Zhu Que away, and the captain of the guards had declared that the incident would be kept confidential. How did Ye Linyuan find out so quickly?

Jiang Qingli was honest: "I haven't learned that skill yet."

"I’ll teach you."

He looked exceptionally fragile.

"I can help you, but before that..." Jiang Qingli raised her hand to push his head away slightly, her expression clear. "Ye Linyuan, I’m asking you: did you have a hand in my beast husbands increasing from three to five?"

He was being tortured to the point of losing control, yet she remained perfectly clear-headed, using his vulnerability to squeeze out the information she wanted.

Ye Linyuan really wanted to bite her to death.

But when he opened his mouth, only an uncontrollable groan escaped.

Ye Linyuan bit his lip, using his remaining shred of sanity to negotiate with her: "Do it first."

Last night, although Jiang Qingli hadn't used her mental power, Ye Linyuan could feel that it was very strong—strong enough that even a beast like him, with innate mutations, could be pulled back from a state of madness.

So, he wasn't surprised to learn that Jiang Qingli had controlled the rampaging Zhu Que.

But Ye Linyuan also confirmed that only Jiang Qingli could heal him.

He needed her.

Seeing him relent, Jiang Qingli agreed.

Ye Linyuan pressed his forehead against hers, reciting instructions while pulling her into his mental realm.

In just a brief moment, when she opened her eyes again, Jiang Qingli was faced with a completely different scene.

Jiang Qingli had seen promotional videos at the Marriage and Childbearing Center about female masters soothing their males, so she roughly knew what various levels of mental pollution looked like.

However, Ye Linyuan’s mental realm was more severe than any image she had seen in those videos.

A blood-red moon hung low.

The forest was shrouded in black mist, and charred, broken trees twisted into distorted shapes under the red light. Occasionally, the hoarse screams of crows echoed from the darkness, mixed with gusts of chilling wind that made one tremble.

Something seemed to be slithering closer.

Jiang Qingli looked down and nearly screamed.

On the ground, dozens of pitch-black venomous snakes with blood-red scales were slithering toward her.

They stopped less than a meter away, raised their upper bodies, and locked their blood-red slit pupils onto her, hissing with scarlet tongues and sharp, blood-stained fangs.

Jiang Qingli wanted to run, but she remembered Ye Linyuan saying that these snakes were his mental manifestations and wouldn't hurt her.

Half-doubting, she crouched down and reached out a hand toward one of the snakes.