A Red Waterbed: Winning the Aloof Catgirl That Very Night
Night fell, and Suotuo City grew even more bustling than it had been during the day. Soul-tool streetlights lit up one after another along both sides of the streets, casting the entire Rose Hotel in the likeness of a crimson flower blooming in the darkness.
In the east suite on the third floor, Ning Rongrong had eaten too much rose mille-feuille with Paimon that afternoon. She had washed up early, crawled under the covers, and fallen fast asleep.
The door to the central master suite stood half open. Qian Renxue, back in her crown prince's attire, sat by the window leafing through the Balak Kingdom's tax records. Yet her fingers had not turned a page for quite some time, and her attention kept drifting toward any sounds from the west side of the corridor.
Lin Feng pushed open the carved glass door leading from the main hall to the rooftop viewing terrace. The evening breeze swept over him, carrying the lively scents of the night market in the south of the city.
At the edge of the spacious, curved white marble terrace, Zhu Zhuqing still wore the black leather outfit that clung to her skin from earlier that day. The evening breeze gently stirred her ear-length hair.
She looked down at the pure gold room tag for the third-floor west suite in her palm. In her other hand, she clutched a white jade waist pendant carved with an intertwined white tiger and spirit cat. A deathly, desolate loneliness surrounded her.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Zhu Zhuqing did not turn around. Her cool voice carried on the night breeze:
"The person who drove Dai Mubai away with their pressure at the entrance to the second-floor corridor this afternoon was a Titled Douluo."
Lin Feng stopped by the railing three paces away from her and looked down at the brightly lit street below. "You have a good eye. What, did you feel sorry for that fiancé of yours?"
"I was only wondering why someone like you, who can call upon a Titled Douluo so casually, knows about the Star Luo Imperial Family and the Zhu Family."
Zhu Zhuqing turned her head, her clear, dark eyes fixed on Lin Feng. "Today in the lobby, the moment Dai Mubai saw me, he didn't think about explaining himself or feel guilty. He thought about running away."
Lin Feng leaned against the white marble railing and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone:
"Because Dai Weisi had already broken his spine on the day he abandoned you and fled the Star Luo Empire alone, years ago."
Zhu Zhuqing clutched the white jade pendant, her breath catching for an instant.
"Dai Weisi is six years older than him and has the upper hand over him in Soul Power at every turn. Your sister, Zhu Zhuyun, joined forces with Dai Weisi long ago. They can't wait to get rid of you before the twenty-five-year deadline arrives."
Looking at her exquisite, bloodless profile, Lin Feng peeled away the final fig leaf without the slightest mercy:
"You fled all the way to the Balak Kingdom with your family's watchers hunting you down. You probably still clung to one last shred of hope, thinking Dai Mubai had gone far from home to bide his time and hide his strength. You thought that as long as you found him and pushed him to cultivate, the two of you could turn the tables with the Hell White Tiger?"
"Stop fooling yourself. Someone truly willing to fight for his life wouldn't hide in a third-rate city in a little kingdom, much less numb himself with wine and women while holding a different pair of twins every day. He's afraid of dying, and even more afraid of facing the certainty of Dai Weisi's victory. So he left you alone in the Star Luo Empire's quagmire to take the blades for him, while he hid in Suotuo City's land of tender pleasures like a turtle with its head tucked in. A coward whose first reaction to a desperate situation is to abandon his fiancée and vent his fear on women-how is betting your life on him any different from suicide?"
The evening breeze swept across the rooftop terrace, and Zhu Zhuqing closed her eyes. The shackles of fate placed on her at her childhood betrothal surfaced in her mind, followed by the cold, murderous sneer Zhu Zhuyun had worn when she left home. Finally, her thoughts settled on Dai Mubai at noon today, falling into the muddy water with two disheveled women in his arms, then cutting a sorry figure as he fled at the sight of her.
The obsession and grievances she had accumulated over the years crumbled to dust at that moment.
When Zhu Zhuqing opened her eyes again, the last trace of hesitation in them had vanished. She raised her left hand, and Soul Power burst from her five fingers!
Crack!
The white jade waist pendant, which she had worn close to her body for six full years and which symbolized the fated marriage between the Star Luo Imperial Family and the Zhu Family, was crushed to pieces in her palm! Fine jade powder trickled between her slender, pale fingers and scattered on the night breeze, three stories above the ground.
"You're right. I was too stupid before."
Zhu Zhuqing brushed the remaining jade fragments from her palm and turned to meet Lin Feng's gaze. "For generations, the Hell Spirit Cat Clan has been reduced to a vassal of the White Tiger Imperial Family, as though without the Hell White Tiger Martial Soul Fusion Skill, the Zhu Family's daughters can only wait for death. You said this afternoon that you could help me escape my fate. How can I become stronger than Dai Weisi and Zhu Zhuyun?"
Lin Feng wasted no words. He stirred a thought.
Hum-!
Two deep, dazzling purple Soul Rings rose silently from beneath Lin Feng's feet, radiating dense, substantial waves of thousand-year Soul Power into the night on the terrace!
The First Soul Ring was a thousand-year purple ring! The Second Soul Ring was another incomparably deep purple thousand-year ring!
"The Star Luo Imperial Family's rules come from gazing at the sky from the bottom of a well. In my eyes, they don't even count as shackles."
Lin Feng withdrew the Soul Rings beneath his feet and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass door on the west side of the terrace, which led directly into the rooftop Red Ocean VIP suite. He pushed one side of the door open and looked at her:
"If you want to escape your fate as an accessory to the white tiger, I can personally teach you what true speed and the principles of fighting above your level are. But I never make a losing deal. Once you walk through this door, you, my little cat, will belong to me alone from now on. Think carefully before you come in."
Just then, Paimon, who had been lying on the terrace canopy and eavesdropping, suddenly sniffed hard and poked her head out from beneath the eaves:
"Wow! The Suotuo night market two streets south is open! I can smell grilled squid, honey-glazed crispy chicken, and chilled fresh fruit!"
Paimon glanced down at Lin Feng and Zhu Zhuqing by the glass door, where the atmosphere was delicate. Sensibly, she clasped her little hands behind her back in midair and winked her big eyes at Lin Feng:
"Hmm... Looks like Lin Feng has serious business to discuss alone with this icy black cat lady tonight! Paimon's going to sweep through the night market with the spending money big sis little angel reimbursed her for. I'm not coming back until I've eaten at ten stalls!"
Before she had even finished speaking, starlight flashed around Paimon and concealed her from sight. Carrying a bag full of Gold Soul Coins, she flew off cheerfully on the night breeze toward the market in the south of the city.
Quiet returned to the terrace, leaving only the warm red light from inside shining beside the door.
Zhu Zhuqing stood silent for only three seconds.
Rather than return to her family and die at her sister's hands, or give herself to a wretch like Dai Mubai who made her sick, this mysterious young man, whom even a Titled Douluo willingly guarded, was the only chance she could seize to break free.
Without the slightest hesitation or retreat, the cool beauty, always decisive in her actions, strode across the terrace on her long legs and walked straight through the warm red doorway of the suite.
This top-class VIP suite on the west side of the third floor was several times more luxurious than the one downstairs. Everywhere the eye fell was a rich, passionate rose crimson. Thick velvet carpeting swallowed every footstep, and the air was suffused with the faint, intoxicating fragrance of Bulgarian red rose essential oil. In the very center of the room stood a red silk waterbed, more than two meters wide and shaped like a full heart.
"Turn around."
Lin Feng's voice sounded in the quiet room.
Zhu Zhuqing stopped at the edge of the waterbed and turned as he asked. Beneath her aloof, icy exterior, she was, after all, a girl who had never experienced intimacy with a man.
Now that she was truly alone with him in the red suite, so full of suggestive hints, her hands, clenched at her sides, trembled slightly despite herself as she watched Lin Feng approach.
To prove her resolve, Zhu Zhuqing bit her lower lip and raised her slender, pale fingers to the concealed metal clasp of the tight black leather outfit beneath her neck.
But her fingertips, usually as quick as lightning in combat, were so tense now that she tried twice and still could not undo the taut clasp.
Lin Feng stepped in front of her, took her cold, trembling fingertips, and gently moved them aside. "Your hands are shaking this badly. What happened to the accuracy you trained as an agility-attack type?"
As he spoke, Lin Feng placed his fingers on the metal clasp and drew it gently down the center of the leather outfit.
The close-fitting black leather combat outfit slid down both sides of the girl's body and fell onto the crimson velvet carpet.
Immediately afterward, the Tenfold Sensory Extension barrier opened over the entire waterbed!
Warm red light poured from the wall lamps, illuminating the girl's dazzlingly fair skin and breathtaking curves in their entirety.
Years of intensive agility-attack training had left her waist slender and taut, without a trace of excess flesh, and her legs straight and long. Yet her breasts were exceptionally full and prominent, creating a breathtaking contrast with her exquisitely beautiful, youthful, and aloof oval face.
Lin Feng wrapped a hand around her smooth, taut waist and brought her down with him into the center of the enormous red heart-shaped waterbed.
The soft, springy surface sank sharply under their combined weight, sending rings of undulating waves through the temperature-controlled pure water inside!
Zhu Zhuqing was accustomed to controlling every shift of her body's weight precisely in battle. But when she suddenly sank into the swaying red waterbed, the warm, soft buoyancy pressing in from every direction left her with nothing to brace against.
In her alarm, she instinctively threw her arms around Lin Feng's neck.
The next instant, Lin Feng's warm palm slid upward along her bare waist.
"Mmh...!"
Her whole body bounced sharply on the swaying waterbed. A shimmering mist instantly veiled her once cold, lifeless dark eyes, and a lovely flush spread visibly across her jade-white skin.
Just then, two faint, exceptionally light footsteps sounded on the carpet in the third-floor corridor outside.
Qian Renxue, in the central suite, had finally been unable to resist coming out to check on the terrace. Finding it empty, she stopped a few paces from the tightly closed redwood door of the west suite!
The one-way soundproof barrier sealed every sound inside the room, but the distinct pause in the footsteps outside reached Zhu Zhuqing's ears clearly.
"There's... there's someone outside the door..."
Zhu Zhuqing's heart pounded. She instinctively tried to hold her breath and curl up, but the movement only made the waterbed sway more violently.
Lin Feng bent down. Rather than stopping, he pressed fully against her and covered her slightly parted red lips with his own.
In the corridor, Qian Renxue stared at the closed door of the west suite for a full five seconds, well aware of what was happening inside. Her fingers creaked around her folding fan. At last, she turned away with a cold face and a sweep of her sleeves, returned to her room, and slammed the door shut.
Amid the billowing red waves in the west suite, Zhu Zhuqing had long since ceased to pay attention to any sounds outside.
The icy, deathly aloofness with which the girl usually kept others a thousand miles away had been torn to shreds. Her ten slender fingers gripped the red silk sheets beneath her until, at last, she lost all strength and could only cling tightly to Lin Feng.
No one knew how many long moments, stretched tenfold, had passed. Only late into the night, as the clamor of Suotuo City's night market gradually died down, did the red waterbed at the center of the suite, which had rocked violently all night, finally begin to settle, leaving only faint ripples.
Beneath the warm red wall lamps, Zhu Zhuqing curled up in Lin Feng's arms without a shred of strength, her short black hair damp with sweat and plastered to her smooth cheeks.
The deathly stillness and frost that had lingered between her brows for years had vanished without a trace, replaced by the languid allure of someone who had tasted the marrow for the first time and learned its flavor, and by complete submission.
She gently moved her aching fingertips onto Lin Feng's chest, her voice husky and obedient:
"Tomorrow... where are we going?"
Lin Feng stroked her smooth, warm shoulder and back, dispersing the sensory extension barrier in the room.
"Tomorrow I'll take you to have a look around a little village south of the city called Shrek. Since Dai Mubai is hiding there playing the boss, how can you truly sever your past without going there and personally grinding his face into the dirt?"
At the name Dai Mubai, not the slightest ripple stirred in Zhu Zhuqing's eyes. She simply nestled closer into Lin Feng's arms and answered softly, "All right. I'll do as you say."
Outside in the night sky, Paimon flew back carrying three large bags of night-market skewers and candied and preserved fruit. She peeked through the terrace's glass window and, seeing the red gauze bed curtains hanging low inside, covered her mouth with a grin and flew quietly to the vacant little side hall next door to enjoy her late-night snack.