Chapter 3

Her small hand gripped the sheet.

“I really do eat a lot. Have you regretted it?”

“Regretted what?”

“We haven’t formed a contract. If I drain you now, you’ll die for nothing, without getting anything in return.”

I laughed.

“If I wanted a profit, I wouldn’t have chosen you.”

“So you really are an idiot? What are you after?”

“Nothing.” I sighed softly. “I just want to try one more time.”

“Try what?”

“Call me a fool.”

She said no more.

She was about to drain the last trace of my spirit energy.

Death closed in. My heart was so weak it hardly seemed willing to beat. My consciousness began to fade.

Suddenly, a tearing pain shot through my chest.

I gasped, my eyes flying open.

At some point, she had ripped open the front of my robe. Her sharp fangs were buried in my chest.

She was drinking blood from my heart.

I trembled violently, digging my fingers into the mattress.

Through my blurred vision, the little girl grew. She became a stunning woman, tall and slender, with white hair spilling like layers of snow and violet eyes shimmering with an almost dreamlike light.

Bent over my chest, she drank without stopping.

With each mouthful of heart’s blood she took, my body grew colder.

I parted my lips and whispered with what little breath remained. “Does… it taste… good?”

She lifted her head.

Proudly, she drew a seal on her forehead with fingers covered in my blood, then traced something on my chest.

She bent and pressed her forehead against me.

In an instant, a violent force bound us together. It felt as though someone had torn my heart out, dragging veins and meridians with it, and tied them around her.

The moment the bond formed, an immense surge of spirit energy roared back into me like a tidal wave.

I was far too depleted to withstand it. The force shattered what remained of my awareness.

Everything went black.

07

Memories of my three past lives tangled together in my dreams.

I had scoured every secret realm under heaven before finally finding the legendary Dragon-Breath Nightbloom. It cured the Black Dragon’s hidden injury, allowing him to command wind and rain without hindrance.

The very next day, he shattered the meridians around my heart and left me for my junior sister.

He called me dull and rigid, unworthy of him.

He looked at me as though I were some vile woman trying to bind him with a few favors and force him to repay me with himself.

He thought my painstaking care was something his excellence had earned—not kindness from me.

Before his injury healed, he loved discussing lofty ambitions with me. But I cared for practical matters, not empty talk.

When he dreamed about his future, I thought him unrealistic. He couldn’t cast the simplest wind-and-thunder spell, yet dreamed of becoming the supreme Dragon Lord. Wasn’t that absurd?

Still, I never laughed at him. I only devoted myself to finding a cure.

And because I wouldn’t indulge his fantasies, he called me rigid and stupid.

* * *

The Azure Phoenix loved beauty. Only beautiful people caught his eye.

Perhaps that was a bird’s nature. I couldn’t say.

What mattered most to him were his clothes and ornaments. He had to wear the most splendid robes and the most brilliant feathers.

He said I dressed too plainly and embarrassed him by standing beside him.

Often, he admired himself in a mirror, then glanced at me with the pained expression of a jewel dropped into mud.

I really wasn’t a breathtaking beauty. Nor did I care much about dressing up.

We quarreled over it often.

He accused me of tarnishing his beautiful reputation. He wanted me in lavish clothes every day, painted and powdered like a peacock.

But he never considered how difficult it was to obtain each robe he wore, or how outrageously expensive they were.

Money should be spent where it does the most good.

Because he was my contract beast, and because he made such a fuss, I gritted my teeth and bought him the clothes.

Everyone in the Beast-Taming Sect knew raising a contract beast burned through money. If I had to spend it anyway, what difference did it make where it went, so long as the beast was happy?

But he wanted me to replace my wardrobe with equally expensive finery every season.

I couldn’t do it.

So he changed sides too.

My junior sister was the most beautiful girl in the Beast-Taming Sect, and never wore the same outfit twice in a month. She put real effort into her appearance.

That was exactly the kind of beauty he adored.

* * *

After the Black Dragon and Azure Phoenix, the White Qilin had his own peculiar demands.

He wanted an owner whose strength matched his.

I thought there was something wrong with his head.

If an owner were stronger than her beast, why go to all the trouble of raising one?

We raised spirit beasts precisely to improve our fighting strength. Without their beasts, the people of our sect were terribly weak—like cavalry without horses.

Yet the White Qilin demanded I be as strong as he was. Stronger, even.

What ridiculous logic!

Did someone have to run faster than a horse before being worthy to ride it?

I tried earnestly to reason with him.

He wouldn’t listen.

He insisted that my junior sister, with her heavenly spiritual root, could match his strength. Why couldn’t I?

He made me so angry I laughed.

I hadn’t even confronted him about deliberately holding back when we fought her.

No, “holding back” was too mild.

He had practically handed her the victory.

Despite having such a powerful beast, I had been beaten senseless by my junior sister.

I lost every scrap of dignity in that fight.

Then he used the very result of his blatant refusal to fight properly as proof that I was too weak.

He abandoned me and joined her.

Absurd.

Why did I keep meeting lunatics?

08

When I woke, I was holding a white-haired woman.

Her fluffy head drew me out of the chaos of my dreams.

As though sensing I had woken, she rubbed her head against my chest a few times, then looked up.

Those clear violet eyes met mine again.

I watched her for a long time without speaking.

This was my fourth life.

The beast before me was even more outrageous than the other three—overbearing, unreasonable, impossible to argue with.

She ate more than all of them and treated me more ruthlessly. We had only just met, and she had already bitten several holes in my chest.

But…

She had never said anything disparaging about me.
She had never compared me to anyone else.
From the start, she had demanded a Heart-Bond Contract, as though terrified I would escape.

None of the other three had behaved like that.

Perhaps… perhaps she would stay with me longer in this life.

Perhaps she wouldn’t betray me.

My thoughts spun helplessly.

She raised an eyebrow. “What are you thinking? Are you comparing me to someone?”

I snapped back to myself.

“No.”

A guilty lie.

Even an idiot like me knew better than to tell the truth right now.

“Hmph.” She gave a cold laugh. “You’d better not be.”

I opened my robe and found a small pattern on my chest.

“You formed the Heart-Bond Contract.”

“What, do you regret it?”

“No.” I closed my robe. “I’m just surprised you knew how.”

“I’ve lived—” She coughed and swallowed the rest.

I stared at her.

“You’ve lived… what?”

“Nothing.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Apparently, she had a little secret too.