After a long silence, Ye Xingmian closed her eyes. Faced with this situation, she still wanted to struggle a bit.
“Can I refuse…”
Qin Haiyue raised an eyebrow, leaned in close, and stated bluntly:
“No, you can’t~”
With that, she stopped considering Ye Xingmian’s opinion, crouched down, unfastened the collar, and moved to put it around Ye Xingmian’s neck.
Almost instinctively, Ye Xingmian twisted her body away, putting distance between them. Even though she knew it was a meaningless gesture, she did it anyway.
However, her action somewhat angered Qin Haiyue. Qin Haiyue reached out, grabbed Ye Xingmian’s wrist, and then yanked her back with such force that she nearly sent Ye Xingmian tumbling to the floor.
Ye Xingmian instinctively threw out her hands to catch herself, avoiding a face-first fall. She had just lifted her head when a powerful pressure clamped around her neck. Qin Haiyue was choking her, pinning her against the wall behind her.
It was that familiar feeling of suffocation, that familiar pain. She looked up and met Qin Haiyue’s icy, bloodshot blue eyes, which held not a trace of their earlier amusement.
“I told you, didn’t I? Don’t defy me. Did you forget?”
The strength in her body was rapidly draining away with the suffocating pain. Unlike the last time she was choked, Qin Haiyue was using much more force this time.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t catch even a sliver of breath. Her hands slapped desperately at Qin Haiyue’s arm, but she didn’t dare scratch or grab, fearing even worse consequences.
All she could do was nod frantically, begging Qin Haiyue to let her go.
Perhaps her submission quelled Qin Haiyue’s anger, as she soon released her grip. Ye Xingmian gasped for air like a drowning person, staring up at the white ceiling, her body still weak, filled with an indescribable sense of powerlessness.
“What are you to me? Hmm?”
Out of a shred of pitiful pride, and some other emotion, she didn’t answer. She knew the answer, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Qin Haiyue asked again. She was forced to lower her head, turning her gaze to the side.
This time, however, Qin Haiyue didn’t press her to say it. She changed the question.
“Don’t want to say it? Fine. Then, what am I to you?”
Ye Xingmian lowered her head. The bluish-purple bruise on her neck stood out starkly against her porcelain-white skin.
“Master…” she said, her voice exceptionally small and weak.
Qin Haiyue smiled and patted the girl’s head. Ye Xingmian had been patted by Liu Yinuo before, but the feeling was completely different now. All she felt was fear, terror, and disgust.
‘I hate this… I hate this… Why doesn’t someone like her just die? Why is she still alive? Why does she have to bully me?’
Such thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, but she didn’t dare express them at all. She could only keep her head down and obediently endure the touch.
That gentle, cool sensation was chilling and repulsive. She didn’t dare say a word, her whole body trembling.
“Heh, so you do know. Then why did you resist me?”
Qin Haiyue stroked her head, then crouched down to meet her eye to eye. Ye Xingmian glanced at her once, then couldn’t help but lower her gaze again.
“Now, I’ll give you another chance, okay? Consider it making up for your mistake.”
Qin Haiyue said with a playful laugh, taking out the collar again. The cold leather pressed against Ye Xingmian’s soft cheek. Confused, Ye Xingmian looked up. Qin Haiyue took her hand and placed the collar in it.
“Put it on yourself, and I’ll forgive you.”
The moment she took the collar, Ye Xingmian jerked her hand away as if shocked by electricity. But she quickly came to her senses and picked it up from the floor.
She kept her head down, her eyes wide open. The lower part of the collar had touched the ground, but the upper leather was almost warmed by her hand.
‘Making up for my mistake…’ She didn’t know what to say, so in the end, she said nothing.
Perhaps knowing she had no room to resist, she pressed her lips together and, as if resigning herself to fate, placed the collar around her own neck.
The cold leather touched the freshly bruised skin, sending a confusing mix of pain and chill into her mind, making her tremble slightly.
She had put the collar on herself. She thought that would be enough for Qin Haiyue to let her go. Kneeling on the floor, she didn’t look up, her gaze somewhat vacant.
However, Qin Haiyue was not satisfied. Instead, she frowned.
“Tell me, have you ever seen a master put a collar on a pet this loosely? Tsk, you didn’t think you could cut corners just because I wasn’t the one putting it on, did you?”
Saying this, she crouched down and leaned closer to the girl.
Qin Haiyue slid a finger into the gap between the collar and Ye Xingmian’s neck. Still uneasy, Ye Xingmian looked up at her with trembling eyes.
She thought Qin Haiyue was going to lift her up by the collar and almost subconsciously adjusted her sitting posture to prepare for the discomfort.
But things didn’t go as she expected. Qin Haiyue seemed to really just be there to adjust the collar’s tightness.
Only, the adjustment was a bit too extreme.
She pulled on the white cat-paw-shaped fastener of the collar, found the strap threaded beneath it, released the buckle, and then yanked it tight.
“Mmgh!”
In an instant, an intense feeling of constriction and suffocation overwhelmed her mind. A few clear, reflexive tears slid down her cheeks. The girl struggled, her hands going to the collar, instinctively trying to pull it off.
She couldn’t breathe.
Seeing this, Qin Haiyue loosened the collar just a tiny bit.
But Ye Xingmian’s struggling didn’t change much; the feeling of suffocation remained. Qin Haiyue loosened it a little more. This time, Ye Xingmian could breathe, but only just barely.
The final result was that the collar around Ye Xingmian’s neck was fastened to a degree that seemed to want to dig into her flesh, slightly constricting her breathing but not enough to be fatal.
She still felt terrible. The sensation of labored breathing constantly reminded her of the collar’s presence. But Qin Haiyue was losing her patience. She yawned and let go of Ye Xingmian.
“Don’t move. Leave it like that. If you mess with it again, I’ll hit you.”
As soon as she said this, Ye Xingmian’s struggling movements instantly slowed considerably. Because of the collar, lowering her head made the constriction tighter, so she could only tilt her head back slightly. She looked at Qin Haiyue, her eyes somewhat dull.
“And don’t breathe so loudly!”
Qin Haiyue pointed at her mouth and warned.
Ye Xingmian had no choice but to try to slow her breathing. But the feeling of suffocation quickly surged again. The sensation of her airway being compressed was extremely uncomfortable, not something she could adapt to in a short time.
Her hand moved uncontrollably toward the collar again, wanting to loosen it a little, but then she remembered Qin Haiyue’s warning.
Her movements stalled again. She was almost on the verge of tears.