The Blood Chart Ritual

*Northern Club*

The club's cellar was lined with row upon row of wine racks. Most of the slots stood empty; a handful of expensive-looking bottles occupied the rest, wiped so clean that not a speck of dust clung to them.

The cellar was tidy. Silent. Every sound from the bar overhead was swallowed completely by the walls.

Out of the darkness came a rhythmic dripping — steady, measured, like a slow-ticking clock.

In the very center of the cellar stood a round table, its top half-latticed. A slender young woman was bound to it, posed like the subject of some ancient sacrificial rite.

Her wrists had been slit open. That was the source of the dripping: blood seeping steadily from her arteries, falling in even intervals.

The blood pooled on the floor and spread along carved channels, tracing a circuit — a strange, unsettling pattern that formed a complete loop. The more blood flowed, the thicker the malevolent energy rising from the blood chart grew. It poured into Liu Ru's body in relentless waves, corroding, reshaping. Through her barely parted lips, her upper canines could be seen slowly lengthening.

A person's life is in danger once they've lost more than forty percent of their blood. Liu Ru had no way of knowing how much she had lost — but she could feel it. Every drop that fell into the pattern below returned to her changed, transformed into something twisted, a foul blood-energy that crawled back into her veins.

Perhaps her blood had already been corrupted beyond recovery. Either way, the agony of it — as if every inch of her body had been submerged in poisonous fog — was beyond endurance.

Only two sounds existed in the dark: her ragged breathing and the dripping of blood. Time stretched impossibly long. She felt like someone abandoned in a lightless corner, left there to die.

*Tap. Tap. Tap.*

Footsteps rang out — crisp and deliberate, echoing through the hollow cellar.

Liu Ru surfaced slightly from her haze. Immediately, revulsion washed over her.

She knew exactly who would be coming here. Nie Dong. That vampire. He wanted to turn her into one of his kind, and he kept telling her that vampires lived far longer than humans — and, most importantly, never aged.

*If I became something like that, I wouldn't want to live for another moment.*

"Liu Ru?"

A male voice drifted toward her — one she half-recognized.

Liu Ru went still. Then a rush of joy broke through the fog.

"I... I'm here. Mo Fan — is that you?" Her voice came out weak.

"It's me, it's me!" Mo Fan sprinted toward her.

The moment he saw what they'd done to her, he moved fast — releasing her bonds, pressing the wounds shut. He had Blood Serum on him, which could replenish what she'd lost. As the pallor slowly faded from Liu Ru's face and color crept back in, Mo Fan finally let out a breath.

*Lingling was right to handle it this way.* She hadn't alerted Nie Dong at the police station — she'd sent Mo Fan to search the club instead. And sure enough, Liu Ru was here. Mo Fan's Shadow Element ability made him sensitive to places dense with dark elemental energy; the moment he'd detected the cellar beneath the club, he'd slipped inside.

Whatever it took, he'd found her. If a vampire had actually killed her, he would never have stopped blaming himself.

"I'll get you out first. That vampire should be on his way back..." Mo Fan lifted the weakened Liu Ru into his arms.

She had probably been brought straight here after Nie Dong took her. Fortunately, this vampire's ritual required the blood to seep in and reshape her one drop at a time — precisely what had given Mo Fan and Lingling the window they needed to mount a rescue.

"Thank you... thank you, Mo Fan." Liu Ru's voice trembled on the edge of tears. She was usually so composed, but right now her defenses crumbled entirely, and she buried her face against the shoulder of this man she'd known for barely half a month.

"I'm a Hunter-mage. Saving you is part of what I do." Mo Fan kept his voice gentle.

He moved toward the exit with extreme caution. According to Lingling, this place apparently served as a gathering point for vampire families — there could easily be others lurking inside. If they ran into any of them, getting out would become a far more complicated problem.

Liu Ru continued to stifle soft, shuddering sobs — though for some reason, no tears came.

She clung to Mo Fan with both arms, as if the mere fact of being held had become something she couldn't release. Surrounded by the fierce warmth radiating from his body, the ice-cold Liu Ru pressed unconsciously closer.

She had kept her distance from him before all of this, afraid of intruding on the life that was rightfully his. Protecting her was nothing more than the goodness of a Hunter-mage who happened to care — nothing she could claim for herself. But when a man chooses to help you in your most helpless hour, that is a gift. For any woman.

Being held in his arms right now was the most at peace she had felt in all the months Nie Dong had been hunting her. Even if it was a little selfish. Even if it couldn't last long.

She wasn't sure why, but she found herself desperately wanting to kiss him.

She was freezing — cold all the way through — while Mo Fan's body burned warm. His shoulder. His neck. The side of his face, just inches from hers.

Exhausted, she quietly shifted a little closer. She only meant to let her lips drift near him, to steal one small kiss...

But then a scent reached her from Mo Fan's neck. Like a fatal poison — or perhaps a fatal antidote. Something deep inside her surged: a vast, consuming hunger.

Not just a hunger to be wrapped in his arms, to kiss him recklessly, to throw every last boundary aside — but a hunger to drink his blood. That blazing, wholehearted, vital blood.

...

A soft, cold pair of lips pressed deep into Mo Fan's neck.

Mid-sprint toward the exit, Mo Fan shuddered as something pierced the vein in his neck.

Almost on reflex, flames erupted across his body — ready to incinerate whatever had dared to breach him. But when he turned and saw Liu Ru's pale, hauntingly beautiful face, the Rose Flame that had already climbed to his waist went out.

He stared at her, struck silent.

He could feel it clearly — his blood being drawn from his body with each pull. But as he sensed Liu Ru's life force slowly recovering with every swallow, her presence steadying like a dying ember catching warmth, the flames across his skin gradually faded.

A storm churned inside him — guilt, pity, and anger, all tangled together.

But he could not burn her. Whatever she was now, he could not bring himself to reduce that life to ash.