The Villainess A Marked the Seductive Movie Queen - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Bite Inhibitor

When Liu Yitong first returned to the hotel, the city view outside was still brightly lit by the setting sun. By the time she finished practicing, the night had completely devoured the horizon.

She clicked on the latest recording on her phone to check her voice as she recited the lines. Compared to her initial attempts, her enunciation had improved at a lightning pace.

Still uneasy, she specifically played a scene from one of Ruan Minxue’s movies for comparison. The woman’s clear, gentle voice flowed out; even without subtitles, one could instantly be immersed in the scene just by the sound of her speaking. Once Liu Yitong confirmed that her final recording achieved a similar level of clarity, she finally granted herself a “pass.”

Then, a low-battery notification popped up on her screen. Her full battery had been drained to nothing by the recordings. She swiped through the list; even dragging the progress bar quickly, it took a long time to reach the end.

As she cleaned the sink, Liu Yitong was startled to see red streaks on the surface of the pebbles she had spat out. She stuck out her tongue in the mirror and realized it was swollen from the grinding, with a slight crimson hue along the edges where the skin had broken.

She closed her mouth, nursing the stinging heat on her tongue, and stared at her expressionless face in the mirror. After a moment, she simply whispered:

“The swelling needs to go down. Don’t let it affect tomorrow’s filming.”

Her pronunciation, now relaxed, was slightly “thick-tongued,” making her sound a bit clumsy.

Before going out to buy ice, she had to wait for her phone to charge. Liu Yitong decided to finish her diary entry first. The moment her body touched the chair, the tension she had held all day snapped, and a numbing sensation wrapped around her limbs, making it hard to move.

What should she write?

Liu Yitong stared at the ceiling blankly, searching for a veiled, encrypted image to record Ruan Minxue’s unintentional rescue today.

Sharing an umbrella by chance; finding an oasis in the desert.

Once again, these were vague words that, if seen by anyone else, would seem like nonsensical fragments.

The most direct entry in the entire diary was from the night of the temporary marking, where she wrote: “The champagne rose bloomed for me for the first time.” It referred directly to Ruan Minxue’s pheromone scent; only the person involved, equipped with the date and the specific fragrance, could possibly decipher the clues.

But how could Ruan Minxue ever see this diary? How could she ever detect her feelings?

Liu Yitong was never the type to force closeness or bridge the chasm that lay between them.

Just another day of safe, secret longing.

Satisfied, Liu Yitong closed the diary and pressed it against her chest. The slight pressure gave her a sense of peace. As drowsiness clouded her mind, she closed her eyes for a brief rest.

Exhausted from the day, she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When she woke up, her body felt doubly fatigued. But she had no time to investigate the muscle aches because the scene before her was utterly baffling—

A hallway with plush velvet carpets, bright golden picture frames, and a saint in an Italian oil painting staring back at her with a gaze so piercing it seemed to see through her burgeoning secrets.

Liu Yitong turned her head in a daze and realized that right behind her was the door to her own room.

She looked down blankly. The diary in her hands was open, its pages exposed for anyone passing by to see.

Snap.

She clenched her fingers, slamming the diary shut.

Her heart hammered against her ribs as she scrambled to organize her thoughts: Why did she walk out of the room after falling asleep? And why did she carry this diary full of secrets with her?

The girl felt a flash of terror, then confusion, and finally, a cold resolve:

I might… be sick.

When she reached this conclusion, she thought of many people and many things: her mother in the nursing home, the film crew she had to face tomorrow, Shu Ran waiting for good news in the distance, and the innocent woman whose secrets might be entangled in her diary.

She thought of everyone but herself.

With a plan in mind, Liu Yitong acted with extreme efficiency. She contacted the front desk to open her door, went back to fetch her phone, donned a simple disguise, and left immediately.

With her hood pulled low and her back slightly hunched, she walked into the deep night with an urgent momentum. She took a taxi several blocks away and got out at a secluded, 24-hour adult store.

The shop owner, still energetic in the dead of night, was playing a mobile game, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he cursed at his teammates. He looked up to see a tall figure standing at the counter, then glanced back at his phone, asking casually what she wanted.

Liu Yitong scanned the room and replied calmly, “What I want isn’t on your counter.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Restraints.”

Hearing this, the owner finally put down his phone and sat up straight. His counter was filled with common products—pheromone-related or contraceptive. The person before him spoke with the raspy voice of a young girl, yet skillfully requested “under-the-table” goods. A sense of worry rose within him:

“Are you of age?”

Liu Yitong covered the sensitive information on her ID and showed him her birthdate.

Though he saw her age, the owner was even more uneasy, worried the young girl was being coerced by an older “player.” He pressed her with several more questions.

Liu Yitong remained unruffled, showing no hint of embarrassment or panic. She stated plainly that it was for urgent private use, which was why she hadn’t opted for online shopping.

The girl’s openness made the owner feel like he was overreacting. Since she had answered everything she needed to, and it wasn’t his place to ask for specifics, he complied and brought out the items she requested.

The night grew thicker. The neon signs had automatically shut off for the early morning hours, leaving the city streets pitch black.

A Lexus LC500, gleaming with a deep obsidian luster, pulled up outside the Ti Amo Hotel. Schumann’s Träumerei played softly through the Mark Levinson speakers.

A delicate white Maltese puppy was curled up on the woman’s lap, obediently enjoying the caress of her fingertips.

In the driver’s seat, Lin Mengqi turned to Ruan Minxue, who was teasing the dog, and said helplessly:

“The specific suppressant you ordered is from a country currently at war. The factory supply is cut off. The boxes I just gave you are the last of my stock.”

“I’ll see if there are other supply channels,” Ruan Minxue replied calmly, continuing to play with the dog.

“…As a doctor and an old classmate, I’m warning you,” Lin Mengqi said seriously, “AOs need high-compatibility partners. It’s a law of nature; you can’t go against it. Modern tech has created gentle drugs, but all medicine has some level of toxicity. There will be side effects. If you suppress it too much, it will backfire. Sooner or later, you’ll lose control!”

“Mm.”

“‘Mm’?!” Lin Mengqi frowned. “That’s it? Don’t be so dismissive!”

“How am I being dismissive?” Ruan Minxue smiled. “I think you make a lot of sense.”

Faced with that unfathomable, gentle smile, Lin Mengqi gave up. Though they were old friends, she never felt she truly knew her. She always felt that while Ruan Minxue appeared soft and inviting, once you got close, you realized she was like a castle in the air, a mirage. No matter how much effort one spent, there would always be a constant, unreachable distance.

Even if someone gifted enough managed to break through and reach her side, they wouldn’t dare ask about the core hidden beneath that gentle shell. They feared she would reject them with a smile, or worse—fear that if she actually opened her heart, they would be consumed by the unwatchable chaos within.

Like right now.

“Seems like Lumi really likes you.” Lin Mengqi looked at the Maltese on her lap. “It took days for this little guy to get used to me, yet he’s so close to you on the first day. Traitor.”

Ruan Minxue was dismissive. “It’s because you made him trust humans first. I’m just riding your coattails.”

“Well, do you like him? I have a friend who breeds show-grade Maltese; they’re all beautiful. That’s where I got this one.”

The woman, who had been holding the puppy as if she couldn’t let go, suddenly handed it back to its owner with one hand, as if bored. She simply said, “Playing for a moment is fine. I’m not interested in this sort of thing.”

She didn’t specify the “scope” of her lack of interest. Lin Mengqi pressed, “Do you prefer large dogs?”

Ruan Minxue glanced out the window, her fingers tapping idly on her knee. After a moment, she gave a cryptic answer:

“The type I’m interested in… can’t be kept in the city.”

“…” Lin Mengqi’s mouth twitched. It took her a long time to process that before she managed a comment: “That’s a lethal hobby.”

Ruan Minxue said nothing.

Lin Mengqi couldn’t help but add: “I’m truly afraid you’ll end up losing yourself to it.”

That warning actually made Ruan Minxue laugh. And in that laugh, Lin Mengqi realized she had been worrying over nothing. Who was this person? She was aloof and self-contained; there was no way she would “lose herself.”

“It would be ‘lethal,'” Ruan Minxue finally said, “either because the owner couldn’t handle it in the first place, or because the owner didn’t train it well.”

“Oh, Great Philosopher, which one do you predict you would be?”

Ruan Minxue’s finger lifted and pressed the button on the car door. As it opened, she leaned out to bid her old friend farewell, adding one last answer:

“I told you at the start—it can’t be kept.”

The security around the Ti Amo Hotel was top-notch. Ruan Minxue walked slowly through the grounds without her bodyguards. It was just past 4:00 AM. The fountain in the central court had stopped, and the surroundings were silent. As she strolled, even the sound of her flat shoes and the occasional bird cry seemed loud.

She didn’t require much sleep and was used to the inverted schedule of filming. She pulled her velvet shawl tighter against the early summer night chill. She was wandering peacefully when she suddenly stopped, alert.

Under the green hedge of the flower corridor, a tall figure moved. She narrowed her eyes and saw someone sitting under the wisteria wall, their movements a bit sluggish.

It didn’t look like they were there for her.

Relieved, she assumed it was a passerby and prepared to walk past. But as she got closer, she realized it was an acquaintance—

Liu Yitong.

Is it? It looked like her, yet didn’t.

Liu Yitong’s current appearance was foreign to Ruan Minxue. The girl, dressed in all black, looked as lean and thin as a creature merging with the night.

On her face was a bite inhibitor. The leather straps traced the bridge of her nose, making her bone structure look even sharper. A silver steel frame cradled her chin, confining her slightly parted mouth within.

The metallic texture and the girl’s teeth glinted under the moon with a heart-stopping radiance. It was a state of restraint, yet it made her look infinitely more dangerous.

Ruan Minxue held her breath, speechless.

Then, the girl, who had been staring blankly at the moon, suddenly turned her head and noticed her. Ruan Minxue’s steady heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat in alarm.

She watched as the girl slowly stood up and walked toward her. Her dark eyes were backlit, seeming to lock onto her. Ruan felt an itch at the back of her neck, as if being watched by a beast hidden in the dark, yet she couldn’t tell where the beast truly was.

She instinctively took a step back. The girl noticed and stopped.

They stood at a distance in a standoff. Ruan Minxue then noticed that the girl’s wrists were also bound by restraint straps. Even so, she held a book-like object in both hands.

Ruan Minxue frowned. Who put her here? Who has the right to make her so submissive? Why is she wearing restraints? Can these measures actually suppress her dangerous instincts?

While Ruan was lost in doubt, the girl moved again.

She saw the girl lift her arms and offer the book in her hands toward her.

Ruan hesitated, pointing to herself. Liu Yitong nodded in confirmation.

Ruan’s fingers curled. After a long silence, she finally reached out and took the book.

The moment they connected through the object, Ruan Minxue caught a glimpse of the girl’s expression beneath the bite inhibitor. Framed by the hazy moonlight, her expression looked… devout.

As if she were offering up the key to her control with both hands.

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