Chapter 13

I pinched her nose.

“All you think about is eating.”

“Obviously. What’s the point of being alive if you don’t eat?”

“Aren’t you eating right now?”

“It isn’t just your energy I want anymore.”

She lowered her head and lightly bit my ear.

“Mo Jinghong, you need to give me something better.”

“Then behave.”

“Tsk.”

She lifted her head and snorted.

“Don’t think I’ll really become your dog.”

“What do you mean? Am I truly your owner?”

I tilted my head.

“Have you ever really treated me as one, Yin Hai? You only see me as a dish of food. You don’t even consider me a person.”

“So now you’re complaining I eat too much.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Mo Jinghong, I’ll eat you whenever I want, however I want. You have no right to refuse.”

“No right? Then why don’t you drag me home to eat right now?”

She stared, violet eyes gleaming.

“I just find your crying annoying. Then I have to comfort you.”

“Don’t you like seeing me cry best?”

She had no answer.

“Listen to yourself. You can’t even make your own excuse hold up.”

She smiled fiercely and gripped my waist hard.

“Anyway, I’m not your dog,” she whispered through her teeth.

I hugged her and kissed her cheek softly.

“All right. You aren’t. When we’re done, we’ll go home and I’ll give you something delicious. However you want it.”

She stayed silent for a long time.

Then one sound emerged from her throat.

“Hmph.”

**End of the Main Story**

**Bonus Story**

An idiot picked me up.

She was so foolish I almost couldn’t bear to bully her.

Before we had even formed a contract, she had poured all her spirit energy into me, risking her life just to keep me fed.

I couldn’t help wondering: if I drained her without bothering to bind myself to her, and she died for nothing, would she regret it even a little?

In the end, I couldn’t do it.

Idiots like her weren’t easy to find.

Since she wanted to feed me, I would let her.

In truth, the Heart-Bond Contract didn’t work on me.

The gulf between our levels was too vast.

It could bind her. It couldn’t bind me.

She didn’t know.

I had heard of people deliberately using that contract to torment their beasts.

I waited to see her expression when she activated it and discovered she couldn’t affect me at all.

I waited.
And waited.
And kept waiting.

Again and again, I drained her to the brink of death.

She never activated the contract.

Not once did she try to hurt me to protect herself.

Did she not know how?

No. Impossible. When the bond formed, the knowledge of how to activate it would have engraved itself in her mind.

She had to know.

One thought was enough to make a bonded beast’s heart twist in agony, bringing it to the ground.

Yet my heart had never hurt.

All she did was beg me to drink more slowly.

I bit her neck until it bled. I drank her blood. She indulged me.

How could anyone be that foolish?

I understood her less and less.

* * *

The teleportation gate separated us.

I knew it!

Exactly as I had said! We were separated!

She wanted to starve me!

Furious, I returned to my true form and unleashed my mountain-swallowing, sea-drinking power.

Everything around me vanished into my mouth. Even the spiritual soil sank by three layers.

Still not enough.

Hungry.

I was so hungry.

Why, after eating so much, was I still starving?

Mo Jinghong.

I wanted Mo Jinghong.

Panicking, I swept through the realm and ate everything along my path.

The demon beasts that couldn’t escape all went into my stomach.

So hungry…

Hungry enough to want to tear myself apart and swallow myself.

Mo Jinghong, where were you?

Mo Jinghong! Mo Jinghong!

Come out!

I was starving to death!

* * *

At last, I found her.

I rushed over and held her tightly.

Her energy poured into me. The screaming hunger eased a little.

Then her energy ran out.

I was so angry I thought my head would burst.

I couldn’t hear what she was saying anymore.

I sank my teeth into her neck.

Her blood flowed, bringing concentrated energy into me again.

Nearly drained to death, she asked weakly whether I had found any herbs.

With the little reason I had left, I thought.

I did have plenty.

While eating, I hadn’t intended to save any for her.

Yet I had.

I didn’t understand why.

I took one out at random and pushed it into her mouth.

Her energy immediately returned.

I was surprised and delighted.

Keeping those herbs had been the right choice!

If only I had saved the demon beasts too. Perhaps eating them would also restore her energy.

But now wasn’t the time for that.

I needed to eat!

When Mo Jinghong offered me the Yin-Yang Twin Lotus’s energy, I realized something.

However much of anything else I ate, it was useless.

Only her energy could satisfy me.

Seeing my refusal, she had to draw it into herself and transform it before letting me drink.

That painful process lasted ten days.

For ten days, enormous energy surged through her meridians, and I drank as much as I pleased.

I knew she was in pain.

The agony of meridians swelling and splitting was more than an ordinary person could bear.

But she never cried out.

She gritted her teeth until I was full and collapsed over her.

Only then did she finally breathe out.

Her body had been pushed to its limit.

She begged me to find somewhere to rest.

And the reason she gave was that her backside hurt.

At that moment, I really wanted to spank her.

It was her meridians that hurt. Why not say so?

She dared lie right in front of me.

After we had already formed a Heart-Bond Contract!

* * *

The pills we took from the Serpent-Vine King were excellent.

Mo Jinghong’s injuries healed quickly. She grew lively again.

Soon, I was hungry.

So I clung to her and drank without stopping.

I didn’t understand why she could always make me hungry.

Whenever I saw her, I wanted to eat her.

I had thought her spirit energy was the most delicious thing in the world.

Then I tasted her tears.

That flavor made my very soul tremble.

I licked her eyes like someone possessed.

But why? Why was it gone?

Why didn’t the new tears have that overwhelming taste?

I couldn’t understand.

Yet my body remembered perfectly: Mo Jinghong’s tears were delicious.

Whenever I had nothing to do, I licked her eyes.

I wanted to taste it again.

That moment of satisfaction.

How badly I wanted it one more time.