This… creature, with whom she had shared her most intimate moments, this man who had asked her to marry him nearly every single day, was scrutinizing her in a way that made her feel as if he were demanding a pound of flesh.

Her pound of flesh.

The same sense of hopelessness consumed her again. She didn't want to cry anymore, but she was so frustrated that her eyes burned with unshed tears.

Nothing made sense at all. It was like a horrible, neverending nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

This Zhu Qingyue was someone she couldn't recognize. The monster before her looked at her as though she were a tender morsel just waiting to be devoured.

Worse yet, she was immobilized to the spot, unable to fight him, and unable to retreat.

Everything around them was pitch black. Only she and this monstrous version of Zhu Qingyue existed in this endless abyss.

She tried to keep her calm mask, hiding the terror she felt inside. She stared unblinkingly, at Zhu Qingyue instead of showing her fear, her breath coming out ragged and shallow.

"What do you want from me?" she pressed. "Just tell me!"

Zhu Qingyue's bestial head dipped down and forward until his lipless mouth grazed hers, and then exhaled. His breath felt scorchingly hot. His sharp teeth sliced through tender flesh, cutting her lip.

"You offered anything," he said. "What you offered, I shall take."

"I thought you cared about me." She choked out as a trail of blood spilled down from the cut on her lip to her chin, dripping onto her neck.

"You are a foolish human, so easily deceived... " Zhu Qingyue whispered almost lovingly, his sharp teeth grinding in a sound frightfully similar to bones crushing.

Li Meirong let out a bitter laugh. She slowly reached out to cup each side of Zhu Qingyue's unrecognizable face with the palm of her hands, questioning her own sanity as she caressed the harsh lines beneath her fingers.

Zhu Qingyue flicked a long, slippery tongue and hissed. He pushed her to the ground and dug his claws deep into her.

Unable to move, Li Meirong could do nothing but cry out as she felt him tear right into her stomach.

"Everything you told me before… was it all fake? Did your words ever mean anything at all?" Li Meirong's stomach twisted and churned with pain, but her voice came out as a soft whimper.

She suspected she knew the answer to that question, but her stubbornness led her to ask it all the same. She hoped for a different answer than the one she dreaded was coming.

"All lies."

A pain filled laugh escaped her lips as she felt her insides being crushed.

Worse than the physical torture was the pain in her heart.

She felt as if her heart had just been crushed into pieces.

At one point she had been so sure that Zhu Qingyue was the man she would devote herself to, and that they might actually work things out despite their ups and downs.

Third time's the charm, they say, but still, she repeated the same mistake over and over, giving her heart to those who would ruthlessly trample upon it.

A small part of her had always suspected that Zhu Qingyue was lying to her, but she had never thought the deception would extend this far, or be this thorough.

'Why go through all this trouble, and why me of all people?' she wanted to ask. But at this point, it didn't really matter to her anymore.

Her expression cooled, and she schooled her features into as cold a mask as she could manage.

"Let us part ways then, never to meet again."

She tried to gather every ounce of strength she could muster to crawl away from his excruciating grip, intending to distance herself from him even if just a little bit. Yet, just as she managed to stumble one step backward, she suddenly felt his long fingers leaving her midsection and wrapping around her neck, squeezing so hard that she couldn't even choke out a single breath.

The force of his grip was such that she felt like even a fraction tighter would snap her bones.

Zhu Qingyue cackled menacingly, his tone plummeting down into a monstrous growl.

"Oh, no, wife," he said mockingly, "After I am done with you, we will be forever entwined."

Li Meirong suffocated under his grip, her feet dangling helplessly beneath her as he lifted her high into the air.

During their conversation, she had tried to maintain her composure and prevent herself from panicking. She attempted, time and time again, to summon her powers, but it was as if she was rendered useless. Not even a speck of blue flame materialized.

She felt as weak as she had the first time she'd opened her eyes in this world, sold to the highest bidder in a brothel. As wretched as she had the moment she had almost been choked to death by the Bestiary Division's Grandmaster. She wondered, briefly, if her circumstances from then to now had ever truly changed.

In her heart, she was still the same, still the scared little girl from several years ago. Still the same helpless girl who had first arrived in this world.

Zhu Qingyue's jaw dislocated and stretched further, abnormally wide. His face sprouted fur, and his nose gradually elongated into the shape of a beast.

Li Meirong's eyes remained wide open. She was struggling to breathe as she witnessed the entire transformation.

"Since you are mine, then I will take everything from you." Zhu Qingyue's demonic eyes curved in wicked amusement.

With that final statement, the bestial creature wrapped one hand around Li Meirong's neck, and moved the other back into the wound he had previously pierced into her stomach. His claws sliced into her flesh, tearing and digging inside her gut, like he was searching for something.

Finally, after an excruciatingly painful time, Li Meirong stifled a scream as she felt a piece of her being torn out. She saw what she could only assume was her liver getting crunched between Zhu Qingyue's sharp fangs.

Blood splattered across Zhu Qingyue's white snout, his appearance becoming even more gruesome with the splash of red.

Suffocating on her own bodily fluids. Li Meirong's eyes pooled with bloody tears. She attempted to gurgle out some kind of response, but it was too incomprehensible to be understood.

Her lips curled into a subtle, hopeless, smile. She traced her thumb across Zhu Qingyue's furred cheek once again.

She felt like she had nothing left to lose in the face of death. Her dark irises filled with momentary tenderness as she realized that she really must be stupid, just like Chou kept saying. Even when she was being betrayed, even when she was about to be killed by this man, the feelings she had for him did not waver.

Li Meirong closed her eyes, let her lips part, and whispered three words under her breath.

"I love you."