"You're doing good."

"Endure just a little longer."

"You'll finally feel better."

Despite Tang Lian's vision being blurred and her senses dulled, she could still hear multiple voices saying words of encouragement. The only issue, unfortunately, was that they weren't saying these to her, but to someone else. Someone who was physically close to her, but able to move around unrestricted if they could; however, they couldn't.

The person next to her was a woman, who was completely unresponsive and inert. Even though Tang Lian was befuddled, she could still piece the voices to two men that she immediately recognized.

As the realization hit her, her heavy eyelids forced themselves open and her green eyes met with a pair of red ones. The red eyes shifted into astonishment. How strong was her will to resist their power of immobilizing?

"How is she conscious?" The silver-haired man asked, his red eyes—similar to his brother—flickering with annoyance. They needed her unconscious to stabilize her blood for the Silver Night, so their sister could finally be revived after hundreds of years. But if she was awake, like so, then it hindered their plans and possibly prevented their sister from waking up. This meant that they would go a couple more centuries before they found someone with the special bloodline to use on the Silver Night.

Tang Lian's throat was parched and her lips were chapped. She didn't have any strength to move around or to save herself. Plus, for extra security, they had strapped her down to the bed and the machines' beeps and other noises were like a hum in the background. The noises rung in her ears and gave her a headache. He pain of being betrayed gave her a headache. Being used like this gave her a headache.

All she had was the lingering pride and will from being treated like a substitute and manipulated by those whom she thought were good. Nonetheless, she gathered her entire energy to ask them merely one word: "Why?"

The brothers were stupefied.

How could they answer? Yes they were blood demons, but they were first and foremost human at dead heart. They felt guilty for betraying her after knowing her for four years. She was just ready to graduate and finally start a proper career, yet to them, she had served her purpose. They had wasted enough time on her and tonight was the Silver Night. If they missed this chance, then they would have to wait for another hundred years. Their beloved sister would continue to be comatose, so in exchange for one mortal life, a more relevant one would be saved.

The black haired one, Feng Weiyang, shook his head, his red eyes gleaming with a hint of danger. He bent down and softly murmured in her ear, "Just think of this as your fate. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten... Feng Xiuliang will live happy in your stead."

But I want to live for my own stead...What wretched fate was this cruel?

The silver haired one, Feng Lijun, scowled and waved his hand. "We're wasting too much time. Knock her unconscious again. By the time she wakes up, she'll be in the afterlife. We've already pampered her for four years, this is enough to repay us."

He waved his hand and Tang Lian felt her eyes grow heavy, feeling an urge to sleep. But no matter how much they tried to force her, she refused to yield. Until finally, they gave up and just continued the blood transfusion with her still conscious.

Since she had a special bloodline, taking blood out of her body felt like a thousand needles were piercing her skin. She wanted to open her mouth to scream in pain, but she didn't have the strength. Instead, she silently endured until her usual pale face began to look lifeless. Her dull green eyes shifted to her blood, which looked peculiar. It was like anything she had ever seen, glowing silver just like the silver moon outside.

Once they were sure they thoroughly emptied her, she could feel her final moments were nearby. But even then, Feng Lijun raised her wrist and his fangs pierced it, his red eyes glowing from the power that her blood supplied. She didn't have much left, but since she was dying, it was a shame to let the remainder be wasted. Hence his brother, Feng Weiyang, took the other wrist and bit her, finally and truly emptying her of any energy.

Tang Lian closed her eyes, a deep hatred brewing in her heart. They played with her then ended up killing her for their own selfish needs. She had never been more disappointed in her life. Even when her parents ruthlessly abandoned her for pursuing an art major, she wasn't as hurt as she was today.

No, she wasn't just hurt. She was traumatized. The they had meticulously broken her.

The resentment grew into a resolution. Tang Lian knew that even if she had to crawl her way back to the Earth from hell, then she would do it even if it took her years. The pain and humiliation she suffered today, she wanted to return tenfold. The vow that she conjured in her heart stirred something in her.

Moments later, she had finally left the world. The Feng brothers froze and looked at her, their feelings complicated. In the end, she was just an innocent human born with a curse. Had she not been the only way, they would've never wished upon her to be involved in the darker side of society.

Feng Lijun took the silver blood and poured it in the mouth of the comatose Feng Xiuliang. Her pale skin didn't change, but her frozen state began to loosen up. Her eyes that were closed for over three hundred years finally opened, no longer dark but a mixed hazel due to the new blood in her veins. The silver haired Feng Lijun hugged his sister fervently, relieved to see her moving and breathing again.

"How long have I been asleep for?" Her soft voice asked, confusion evident on her face.

"Over three hundred years." Feng Weiyang answered. He was the stoic brother, but that didn't mean that he didn't feel happy that his sister was alive again. He hugged her and then turned to the other girl who was lying on the bed. Feng Xiuliang lightly asked who she was, but when she noticed that her brothers didn't answer and the puncture wounds on her wrist and her complexion, she got the general idea. She felt that the girl was pitiful and wished that it didn't turn the way that it did, but she also was relieved. For her, it had been the blink of an eye since the incident. For the real world, it was more than three hundred years.

Anymore and she was sure that her brothers would go insane. They didn't have their parents, all they had was each other. So she closed her eyes and turned a blind eye, silently asking her forgiveness from the girl in her heart.

As she did that, Feng Weiyang unbuckled the straps holding her down and picked up her delicate and lifeless body in his arms in a princess carry. Outside, the roaring fire that had prepared beforehand using their abilities was ready to be used. With an absolute gaze, Feng Weiyang looked at the orange flames before tossing the body inside the fire, causing it to begin to incinerate. The other two hadn't dared to follow him, so he was left to watch her burn on his own.

This would've been the last option they would've done, but they couldn't risk it. With Tang Lian's bloodline, there was a possibly that someone could turn her into a vampire and she would be a danger to them...especially their sister.

Gradually, many hours past before he could move his feet. His red eyes had already turned to normal, which were his dark eyes.

Finally, he bid Tang Lian goodbye one last time and turned around to leave, not noticing a pair of golden eyes watching their interaction. The eyes had seen everything, including the way that the human girl resisted and was absolutely resolute. The eyes belonged to a man who was hidden in the shadows, so his features were not discernible.

The only thing visible was his amused smile.

And in the next moment, he decided to do something that would change his, hers, theirs...the fate of everyone forever. He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

For Tang Lian, she woke up drenched in sweat, her heart palpitating at a rapid speed. She looked around and realized that she was back in her college dorm, but her room wasn't decorated. Unopened and opened boxes were flung all over the room, very disorganized and it gave the sense that she had just moved it.

With trembling legs, Tang Lian stood up and looked at the date on her phone. Her hand shook and she dropped the phone, not noticing the screen crack from the impact.

The date read September 07, 20XX.

This was the year that she was finally accepted and moved into her college dorm.

She was nineteen again!?

"Tang Lian, are you there?" A sweet voice asked from the doorway, knocking gently.

Tang Lian turn her head towards the direction and ask "Bai Yun?"

Bai Yun confirmed that it was her and asked if she could come in, to which Tang Lian agreed. The door slowly opened and a girl with short, curly hair and chubby cheeks smiled shyly. She waved awkwardly, not sure if she was allowed inside completely. To Tang Lian, it was like she was seeing a bunny.

Tang Lian raised her hand and ushered her in, motioning for her to close the door behind her. With small steps, she came in and looked around, her curiosity reflected on her eyes. Tang Lian remembered that it had been a week since she moved in the college dorm yet the boxes were still everywhere. Or her original self had been lazy and didn't bother to pack until about a month of living there. Of course, she called it laziness but in reality, she was so busy with her multiple jobs and juggling her classes that she never had the chance to sit down and unpack properly.

"I'm...working on it." Tang Lian said smiling sheepishly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"If you want, I can help you." Tang Lian turned quiet. Bai Yun thought she had said something wrong, so she quickly added, "Or not. I understand if you value your privacy." In reality, Tang Lian was thinking about how this happened in her first life as well. Bai Yun has offered to help her, invited her, tried to befriend her...but she was so reserved and gloomy that she denied any sort of offer. Eventually, Bai Yun and everyone else had drifted completely apart from her and she was isolated.

And it was this isolation that was taken advantage of by the Feng brothers who wooed her and used her in her final moments. Her vulnerability was contributed by her loneliness that was manipulated against her.

"No, no..." Tang Lian grabbed Bai Yun's hands with hers and squeezed them gently. "I really appreciate it." Bai Yun was stunned. The usual response would've been a gloomy dismissal... Has she finally gotten to the girl? Were they friends now?

Bai Yun's eyebrows furrowed, "By the way, you're looking really pale. Are you alright?"

Tang Lian's green eyes flashed with something that Bai Yun couldn't recognize and she shook her head. "I'm fine...I just woke up from a nightmare. A really long and terrible nightmare."

Bai Yun saw the melancholy in her eyes and swiftly changed the subject. "The official semester and classes start in two days, are you ready?"

"Actually," Tang Lian took a deep breath. "I'm going to drop out."

"What!? But you just got accepted!" And she just moved into the college dorms too!

"I know, it's unfortunate...but I have more important matters. Maybe one day, I'll be able to properly get an art degree and do what I love." Tang Lian knew that this wasn't possible until she got her revenge. In her last life, she had just graduated and ready to start her career, but disaster struck. Perhaps she wasn’t fated to be an artist. Her fate was cruel, once taken advantage of and another set for revenge. Never could she be at peace, especially as she’s cursed with the silver bloodline.

"I...I don't know what to say. But if that's what you want, then it's your decision." Bai Yun and Tang Lian chatted for a little bit longer before Bai Yun had to excuse herself. She had only visited just to check up on Tang Lian for being a new first year at the university, but they had ended up speaking for longer than intended. They bid each other adieu and Tang Lian was left alone in her room again. She sighed, exhausted, and fell back on her bed.

She massaged her temples and closed her eyes. Her fatigue was ignored as she grabbed a pen and paper to note down everything she remembered from her first life.

She had met the Feng brothers towards the end of her first year. She was still nineteen, so they had used that to their advantage and befriended her easily. She was gullible and lonely, so that didn't help her case. Two years later, when she was twenty-one, they had accidentally exposed their real nature. At that moment, Tang Lian found out that there were real vampires in the modern world and they were higher up ones too.

In the following two years, she gathered piece by piece of their identity and found out that there were four vampire kings who controlled major Asian countries. Neither of the vampire kings submitted to each other but they all submitted to the Vampire Emperor who lived in and ruled over the entirety of Europe. Or actually, he ruled over the entire vampire society but chose to do so from Europe. What part of Europe was unknown. In fact, everything about him was unknown. When she had gotten curious and asked Feng Weiyang about it, he brushed it off and said nothing. He told her that she shouldn’t worry about things like that for her own safety.

The Feng brothers were governing over China which was split into two territories for each of them. They governed half and half to make things fair. The other two vampire kings resided in South Korea and Japan.

Oddly enough, the Americas weren't governed at the moment. Or if it was, Tang Lian didn't know because her past memories didn't withhold such memories.

Tang Lian listed down a couple of notable people who grew influentially in the span of four years. She also wrote down specific events, both vampire and human ones, that she could remember and her pen froze when she wrote Silver Night. With trembling hands, she circled the day and noted it as four years from now. Her pen dropped and she felt like she had no strength remaining. The haunting night came back to her and the memory of the pain made her shudder. That night had left her traumatized.

Just the idea of the pain of losing her blood made her want to vomit and hide away. It wasn’t just making a donation, it was losing a special bloodline that had a connection with her. That bloodline wasn’t ordinary by any means, hence it had the ability to restore a comatose vampire back to life. What shocked Tang Lian was that she was an ordinary human girl without any special abilities or circumstances, but had somehow been born with the blood. As much as she had questions about it, she knew that she couldn’t ask anyone because there was a risk of exploitation and danger again. She had to figure things out on her own.

She had four years to save herself.

And the first thing she would do in order to save herself was sacrifice her own desires, hence why she was dropping out of college. With clear hesitation, she picked up her phone and dialed a number she hadn’t dialed for a while.

A female voice answered the phone, not recognizing the number. “Hello? Who is this?”

Tang Lian heaved a deep sigh and said, “Mother...”

In front of Tang Lian stood a tall, imposing and extravagant mansion. To outsiders, it was like a dream home and seemed perfect for someone of high society. For Tang Lian, it was the place she had grown up in for the past nineteen years.

It may have been rich and luxurious; however, it was actually a prison. This was the place that she grew up, under the strict supervision of her parents who never found anything she did good enough.

This was the place that she would constantly be compared to her deceased sister, who was perfect in everything despite passing away years ago. She shuddered at the memory of her sister. Older, prettier, everything that her parents wanted their heiress to be. However, her fate was quite cruel and ended her life at the tender age of eighteen. If she was alive, she would've been twenty-four this year.

Her death threw Tang Lian in the fire, and her relationship with her parents had never been the same ever since. Even when her sister was alive, they had been moderate and didn't annoy  her as much as they did after her death. In her first life, she had taken the risk to do art like she always loved, causing them to disown her. Expecting for her to come back after a month, they were surprised to find her living her life, albeit with multiple jobs to sustain it. In this life, however, it had only been two months and she called them.

Tang Lian remembered the smug sound of her mother when she had spoken to her, not surprised that their daughter was useless enough to come back crawling to luxury after only two months.

Of course, if she really cared, her sliver of pride as a young miss of a rich household would've been hurt. In reality, she didn't care about how petty her parents were. Her pride was lost the moment that she lost to the brothers, lost her life and her blood to revive their sister. As for her parents, she needed their connections to get her revenge.

Tang Lian didn't care that her eyes were clouded by vengeance, she just yearned to make them feel the same pain that she did. She wasn't saintly nor did she feel sympathetic towards anybody, she was selfish and she was fine with being selfish. Her last bit of humanity was crushed along with her heart in her last life.

Tang Lian raised her hand and lightly pressed the doorbell, already envisioning the loud sound it would ring among the mansion as it did the thousands of times when she lived there. Her face was expressionless as she knew that her parents, especially her mother, was probably looking through the camera. She didn't want to show any sign of weakness nor needed her mother to pity her either.

Slowly, the gates opened and she walked inside. Her eyes didn't wander around and were looking straight ahead until they met a pair of dark eyes that belonged to a woman who looked like an older version of her. The woman was very elegant, in her forties and Tang Lian was nearly a carbon copy had it not been for her green eyes inherited from her father. Tang Lian was also a little more beautiful, as she had a foreign aspect to her beauty despite the obvious Asian features, incomparable to the fully oriental woman in front of her.

"Mother..." Tang Lian said, her face still expressionless. The woman's blank face shifted into humor. Her lips tilted upwards, clearly amused at seeing her daughter.

"Hmm, look who decided to visit."

"I told you over the phone—"

"Of course... Xiao Lian, I'm just a little surprised, that's all. I would've assumed you'd be a little more stubborn, considering your fiery words when you declared you'd rather do art than the family business. I guess that little passion of yours died out quickly during these two months." The more her mother spoke, the more Tang Lian clenched her fists. She told herself that she wasn't going to get affected, especially by the person she hadn't seen for four years, but hearing those words from her own mother...it did sting a bit.

"Mother, I was childish. Please..." Tang Lian took a deep breath, forcing the next words out of her mouth. "Please forgive me for thinking something so childish was my future."

Her mother stared at her in silence. Finally, she mused, "Alright, alright. No need to be so glum. I already predicted this. You were never stubborn about anything you did, so I didn't expect you to be stubborn about this either. Come in, your father will be home in a few hours. You have to tell me everything you did." Tang Lian followed her mother inside, not forgetting the indication that her mother's words gave.

Stubborn?

Who else but her sister was stubborn? Tang Lian smiled sardonically as she followed her mother. If only her mother really knew how stubborn she really was. Her sister was stubborn about minor things, yet here she was, stubborn enough to walk over her pride in order to achieve revenge. Revenge against people that didn't even do anything in this life yet.

Her mother didn't notice anything amiss and they continued to walk until they sat on the sofas in the living room, where tea was already prepared. Hmm, so much for being surprised. Clearly she knew that Tang Lian was coming, but acted surprised to embarrass her daughter even further. It looked like Tang Lian leaving two months ago had wounded her pride even more than she would've admitted. Even if she said two months was too little, it was actually too much.

Tang Lian was sure that her parents kept tab on her and knew about her jobs. She was sure that they couldn't believe that their failure of a daughter was actually managing well, albeit poor.

"Xiao Lian?" Tang Lian's train of thoughts were interrupted by her mother, who had already poured her some tea. "Tell me how the last two months had been."

As much as she wanted to tell them that she was fine and didn't want to be here, she needed to invoke pity. Hence, she opened her mouth and began speaking words that were foreign in her memories, but gullible enough to kindle emotion...