Nie Yinzhi didn't expect that "next time" would come so soon.
On the first day of filming, the shooting schedule wasn't heavy, so they wrapped up early. After the main crew had dinner together, everyone went their separate ways.
Nie Yinzhi returned to the hotel arranged for her, got ready for bed, and picked up her phone to browse Weibo. There were already photos from the opening ceremony leaked online, and after the official blog posted the costume photos, fans were in a frenzy.
Nie Yinzhi watched as the comments section was filled with Little Hua, and she happily rolled around on the bed with her phone.
The WeChat group for the crew was constantly popping up with new messages. Nie Yinzhi switched to WeChat, clicked on each red notification dot, and cleared the unread messages.
When she scrolled to "buffet" (self-service meal), she paused, her fingertip trembling slightly as she clicked on it.
The message interface only had one entry, a system message for adding a friend. Nie Yinzhi thought of the taste of Gu Jiang's blood, and her mouth began to water. She quickly closed the chat window, put down her phone, and got up to pour herself a glass of water.
Perhaps because she had just indulged in her newfound appetite, she was still craving more. Every time she thought of his blood, Nie Yinzhi struggled to control the dryness in her throat.
Gu Jiang's WeChat message came at a very opportune moment, asking where she was staying.
Nie Yinzhi couldn't help but swallow hard and quickly sent him her location.
She then dragged the small single sofa in the room to a spot where she could see the door, cuddled up with her script on the sofa, and waited anxiously in the room.
About an hour later, there was a knock on the door.
Nie Yinzhi immediately jumped up from the sofa, a gust of wind brushing past her ear. She paused, glanced back at the wide-open curtains, took a few steps back to close them tightly, and then hurried to open the door.
Outside stood Gu Jiang, fully disguised as the famous actor he was. Without a word, they moved with perfect coordination—he stepped aside, she moved in, and she closed the door, glancing around with her peripheral vision to ensure no one had seen them.
Gu Jiang didn't even take off his hat or mask, directly heading to the bathroom to wash his hands. After cleaning his hands, he extended them towards her.
The two stood in the hallway of the room, without any extra pleasantries. Nie Yinzhi obediently hugged his hand, licked the pad of his finger, and her sharp teeth emerged as she bit into his finger.
The pain subsided, and Gu Jiang's tense body relaxed. He pulled down his mask and spoke weakly, "Didn't I just feed you this afternoon?"
“Hmm?” Nie Yinzhi held his finger, looked up at him with eyes half-lidded, and spoke with a guilty, muffled voice, “Well, humans eat three meals a day, don’t they?”
Gu Jiang lowered his eyes and mercilessly exposed her, "According to my family's records, your ancestors, the vampires, would only feed once every seven days at most, or once a month at least, after their first feeding on a blood slave. Why are your needs so frequent?"
Nie Yinzhi exclaimed in surprise, "There's such a rule?"
Gu Jiang rubbed his forehead, "How do you know nothing?"
Nie Yinzhi opened her mouth to retract her teeth and quickly said before a blood droplet could form on his finger, "Sorry, I'm new to being a vampire. I was a perfectly normal human before my bloodline awakened."
After saying that, she licked off the blood on his finger.
"As long as you crave blood, the blood slave feels pain until you bite through their skin and your saliva seeps into the wound, relieving the pain." With the wound on his fingertip healed, Gu Jiang went back to the bathroom to rinse his hands again. He yawned and said, "Miss Nie, please try to control your desires."
Coming to see her once meant losing a lot of rest time.
Nie Yinzhi swallowed hard, looking troubled, "I can't help it when I see your name. It's like when people are hungry, they want to eat. It's uncontrollable."
When she craved blood, it was unbearable. Her throat burned, and no matter how much water she drank, it didn't help. Her mind was full of blood, itching to be satisfied.
Gu Jiang was silent for a moment, then turned to see the script she had thrown on the bed. "Read your script more, go to bed early, and don't keep thinking about me."
Nie Yinzhi: "..."
After seeing Gu Jiang off, Nie Yinzhi revised her lines for tomorrow's shoot, climbed into bed, and fell asleep without even playing with her phone. She occupied her attention by counting sheep to avoid craving blood again.
The blood slave contract was accidentally triggered by her, and after all, she was the one who had caused trouble for Gu Jiang. He was an ordinary person, and if she kept sucking his blood so frequently, he might become anemic. If it was only once a month, or even less, that would be much better.
She drifted into a hazy sleep and began dreaming.
The knocking on the door startled her awake, and Nie Yinzhi jolted up, falling from her dream back into reality. The details of her dream quickly dissipated as she woke up, but she vaguely remembered that she had dreamed of Gu Jiang and had fed on him happily.
Nie Yinzhi's throat was parched, and she angrily covered her face, hitting her own head.
A ding sounded from WeChat. It was a message from Gu Jiang: "Open the door, I'm in pain."
Nie Yinzhi jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and rushed to open the door in her slippers, letting him in. Before he could speak, she placed her hands together in front of her mouth and admitted her mistake first, "I'm sorry, I had a dream and couldn't control my desires."
Gu Jiang's words were halted by her apology. He turned back to look at her, seeing her frustrated expression, and wearily smiled, "I knew it."
Nie Yinzhi looked up at him. In the brightly lit room, Gu Jiang was dressed in loose pajamas, his hair was messy, and his face still showed signs of sleepiness. It was clear he hadn't rushed over from outside. "Were you staying in this hotel all along?"
“Yes, I booked a room at the end of this floor.” Gu Jiang skillfully pinched open her mouth, broke the skin on his finger against her fangs, and pressed it to her tongue, stopping the pain in his body instantly.
His actions were so smooth and effortless that the only thing Nie Yinzhi needed to do was hold his finger and suck on it.
With the pain gone and the wound on his hand healed, Gu Jiang's interrupted sleepiness returned. He turned around and very naturally climbed into Nie Yinzhi's bed.
Nie Yinzhi followed behind him, stunned, "What are you doing? You… you're going to sleep here?"
Gu Jiang's voice was already sleepy, "Yeah, if you start craving blood again, just bite my finger. It's fine, don't hesitate, because that will hurt me. And don't wake me up, I want to sleep well."
Nie Yinzhi: "…And where will I sleep?"
"Anywhere, it doesn't matter." He said, his breathing gradually stabilizing. After a moment, he suddenly woke up again, "Don't leave this room."
Then he fell back asleep.
Nie Yinzhi was dumbfounded. She naturally understood why Gu Jiang didn't want her to leave. If she started craving blood again and couldn't relieve it in time by biting him, he would wake up in pain.
Didn't Gu Jiang fear that she might lose control and drain him dry?
He was truly a god of sleep.
Nie Yinzhi looked around the room. The hotel arranged by the crew was modestly equipped, with only a small single sofa and a hard coffee table. The only place to sleep was the bed, and she needed to stay in this hotel for several days.
She stood there for a while, picked up her phone to check the time, and found it was just past midnight.
Tomorrow there would be a full day of filming, and she needed to get up at five o'clock for makeup. Nie Yinzhi certainly wasn't going to put herself through discomfort, so she went to the bathroom to change into her pajama pants and climbed into bed.
Fortunately, this was a large bed, and there was plenty of space between her and Gu Jiang for a pillow.
The next morning, when the alarm went off, Nie Yinzhi jolted awake. The pillow between her and Gu Jiang was gone, and she was tightly held in his embrace. Her back was inexplicably pressed against his warm chest, his arm around her waist, and his moist breath blowing on her neck.
Nie Yinzhi immediately felt a wave of goosebumps on her neck and struggled out of his embrace, turning on the bedside lamp.
Gu Jiang rolled over but showed no signs of waking up. A few buttons of his pajamas were undone, revealing the clearly visible veins on his neck.
Nie Yinzhi's slow heartbeat suddenly raced, and her vampire instincts stirred. Her fangs emerged, and her eyes turned blood-red as if she were under a spell. She leaned down and licked the throbbing vein on his neck, piercing the thin layer of skin.
Blood flowed into her mouth, offering a completely different experience from biting his finger.
The man beneath her let out a muffled groan and, half-asleep, weakly pushed her away. Nie Yinzhi sat fully on his body, firmly pressing his shoulders to prevent him from struggling.
Gu Jiang, no matter how good he was at sleeping, finally woke up completely. Nie Yinzhi's bite wasn't actually painful; aside from the initial moment when her teeth broke the skin, the vampire's saliva that infiltrated the wound would immediately soothe the pain.
Her strength was too great, and Gu Jiang couldn't push her away at all. He could only feel the loss of his own blood. He used one hand to grab the back of Nie Yinzhi's neck and the other to trace down her jaw to her mouth, inserting his fingers into her mouth to press against her licking tongue.
“Nie Yinzhi, do you think the negative trending topic headline ‘Gu Jiang dies from excessive blood loss in Nie Yinzhi's hotel room bed’ would go viral?”
Upon hearing the words "Nie Yinzhi," "negative trending," and "viral," Nie Yinzhi was jolted awake like being struck by a hammer. Her intoxicated pupils suddenly tightened, and she snapped out of her trance. She quickly withdrew her sharp fangs.
Gu Jiang lifted his hand to cover his neck, but blood was still seeping through his fingers.
Nie Yinzhi's lips were smeared with blood, and she was in a panic. "Gu, Gu Jiang, I'll call an ambulance right away. You hold on..."
Gu Jiang was momentarily stunned by the tears falling from her eyes onto his face. He pressed his hand against her neck. "No need for an ambulance. Just lick the wound you bit and heal it quickly."
"Don't bite anymore," Gu Jiang said, releasing the pressure on the bite mark and forcefully pressing her head back to his neck. "Whether you're a blood clan or whatever, if you can't control yourself, you're just a monster."
These words deeply hurt Nie Yinzhi. Her fingers tightly gripped the bedsheet as she leaned into his force, stretching out her tongue to lick his wound.
After the bite mark healed and Nie Yinzhi cleaned all the bloodstains from his neck, she straightened up. Drinking too much blood made her feel light-headed, as if she was drunk but still retained a clear state of mind.
Gu Jiang's warm blood flowed into her cold body, making her feel warmer all over.
"I'm sorry," Nie Yinzhi apologized remorsefully.
"Consider it a blood donation," Gu Jiang said, lifting his hand. His fingers were still stained with blood from covering the wound. "Do you want the blood on my hand?"
Being frugal is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation, so Nie Yinzhi hesitated only for a moment before grabbing his wrist and licking the blood off his palm.
Gu Jiang gasped and quickly pulled his hand back, wiping it on the bedsheet.
Nie Yinzhi blurted out, gazing a tearful "Don't waste it..."
Suddenly, there were two beeps from the door, followed by the sound of the lock clicking open. Nie Yinzhi glanced at Gu Jiang, who was still beneath her, and her first reaction under duress was to hide him.
It's unclear what vampire strength she activated, but the person on the bed suddenly disappeared.
At the same moment, Little Hua, the assistant, snapped on the lights and walked into the room, startled by Nie Yinzhi sitting on the bed, only revealing a pair of wide, round eyes.
Little Hua held a spare room key in her hand. "Yinyin, you're already awake? I thought you were still asleep and came to wake you up."
Nie Yinzhi secretly wiped her mouth with the blanket and said, "Little Hua, go downstairs and buy me some breakfast. I don't want the hotel's breakfast; I want something from a small local eatery. Get several different flavors."
"Now?" Little Hua asked, puzzled.
Nie Yinzhi nodded. "Yes, now. Hurry up."
"Alright, but don't lie down and fall back asleep. Time is running out." Little Hua said, placing things down and heading out to buy breakfast.
Hearing the door close, Nie Yinzhi immediately jumped off the bed and softly called out, "Gu Jiang? Are you still here?"
A frustrated voice came from under the bed. "Under the bed. I can't get out."
