Chapter 14: The Blood Princess’s Sole Confidante and a Shocking Revelation

The term “best friend,” is defined by Baidu Encyclopedia as follows.

The character  ‘boudoir confidante,’ while ‘sweetheart’ or ‘mistress.’ Together,  has become a modern term for women to refer to their close female friends, broadly indicating an intimate relationship between girls.

In Tang Yue’s twenty years of life, unlike most girls who had multiple close friends, she was an anomaly.

She had only one confidante: Huangpu Pingqing. This wasn’t to say Tang Yue struggled to get along with other girls.

In fact, with her delicate features, mature and steady temperament, and an inexplicable ‘big sister’ aura, Tang Yue was quite popular among her female peers.

Some younger female students, experiencing their first crushes, even secretly harbored affections for her.

The significant reason why Huangpu Pingqing remained her sole best friend largely stemmed from Ye Yu, her child husband.

Following a traumatic incident at the police station in her childhood, where she cried inconsolably, Tang Yue, who had been living in an orphanage, was adopted at the age of five by the Tang family—the neighbors of the Ye family.

Compared to the stark environment of the orphanage, both the Tang and Ye families provided Tang Yue with a complete childhood.

Thus, having emerged from the orphanage at a young age, the sensible Tang Yue harbored immense gratitude toward Ye Yu, the child husband who had pulled her from the mire. It was the familial affection of an elder sister for her younger brother.

This sentiment of gratitude underwent a qualitative leap when she awakened her Blood Princess ability at the age of twelve.

In this world where demons and abilities coexisted, some abilities were inherently branded as ‘evil.’

Among these, the Blood Princess ability, which subsisted by consuming human blood, naturally ranked high on that list.

As for how a region would treat those who awakened an evil ability, the method was simple yet cruel.

They would directly cast the ‘wrongdoing’ awakened individual into an unsupervised, unsafe zone, euphemistically calling it a measure for urban development, future construction, panic prevention, and disaster containment.

However, the reality was often a grim fate of being left to fend for themselves.

After all, newly awakened evil ability users, even if naturally stronger than ordinary ability users, could hardly contend with the demons that required military garrisons in the wilderness!

At the age of twelve, upon awakening her Blood Princess ability, Tang Yue was consumed by fear.

She knew that if she were to feed on blood, she would not only expose her ability but also be treated as an ‘evil ability user.’

The thought of leaving the warm Tang family, of being separated from Ye Yu, and becoming a meal for demons, terrified her.

Though Tang Yue, having grown up in an orphanage, was precocious from a young age, she was still just a twelve-year-old girl. How could she not be afraid?

To conceal her ability, Tang Yue frantically suppressed her desire for blood in the initial awakening phase.

However, as a Blood Princess ability user, her body had, in a sense, fundamentally diverged from that of a human. Human food could no longer provide Tang Yue with adequate nutrition.

Consequently, a few days after awakening her ability, Tang Yue, deprived of energy intake, finally collapsed from weakness at home.

It was at this moment that ten-year-old Ye Yu happened to walk into the room.

She expected her normally timid child husband, Ye Yu, to scream and cry in terror upon seeing her pale face, sharp fangs, and vampiric transformation.

But she was mistaken. There was no trace of apprehension or fear in little Ye Yu’s eyes, only profound pity and a hesitant movement as he walked toward her, filled with concern.

Watching Ye Yu approach, Tang Yue, who had already despaired since awakening as a Blood Princess, felt as if a ray of redemptive sunlight had pierced her dim life.

As for what happened after that day, Tang Yue, being too famished during her first feeding, had forgotten.

She only remembered the delightful detail that her little husband, Ye Yu, was truly delicious.

From that day forward, Tang Yue’s feelings for Ye Yu, her child husband, were no longer solely based on gratitude; she had genuinely and irrevocably fallen in love with him!

Because Ye Yu had yet to awaken an ability and was somewhat smaller than other boys, he was easily met with disdain and criticism from girls who naturally gravitated toward strength in this era of coexisting abilities and demons.

Faced with girls who maligned her husband, Ye Yu, or whose eyes betrayed their condescension, Tang Yue, as Ye Yu’s wife, instinctively distanced herself. She understood the simple truth of who truly belonged to her side.

The result was that, at twenty years old, the only girl who met this requirement and whom she also liked was Huangpu Pingqing.

However, what surprised Tang Yue today was that when she answered the phone call from Huangpu Pingqing, her inseparable best friend, the first words out of her mouth were:

“Sister Yueyue, I’m so sorry!”

‘I’m sorry’—this phrase, unlike among boys where it often carried significant weight and was difficult to utter, was quite common between girls.

Even for something as trivial as secretly eating a small fruit, they would playfully apologize.

Tang Yue didn’t pay much attention to Huangpu Pingqing’s apology at first.

After all, as a neighbor, and from her years of knowing Huangpu Pingqing, she understood that while Pingqing sometimes had mischievous ideas, her true nature was not bad. She wasn’t a girl who would commit fundamental errors.

Tang Yue surmised her apology was likely for some endearing, inconsequential matter!

Just as Tang Yue, completely relaxed, was about to laugh and ask what had happened, a large, pink, heart-shaped phone suddenly appeared before her eyes.

In this demon-hunting squad, there was only one person who adored pink, girlish things: the loli girl, Xiao Ai.

Having just dealt with the rampaging White Demon Tiger, Tang Yue’s squad had completed their twelve-hour ‘Patrol An County Forest’ mission. Fearful of mosquito bites, Xiao Ai instinctively sought refuge by Tang Yue’s side.

With Lin Zhen, a competent scouting sentinel, on watch, Xiao Ai, after a night of work, felt secure enough to pull out her phone. Driven by a girl’s natural love for gossip, she clicked on a trending post with photos on the school forum.

The photos in this popular post were none other than the scene of Ye Yu and Huangpu Pingqing kissing in the library moments ago.

In the pictures, a ray of sunlight illuminated the clean, smooth faces of the two, their lips intertwined. Both wore expressions of intoxication, their cheeks flushed with passion, their bodies even pressed close together.

As one of only two female members of the demon-hunting squad, Xiao Ai naturally had some understanding of Tang Yue, and she was aware of the details surrounding Ye Yu, her child husband.

Looking at the photos in the post, and then at the glaring, attention-grabbing title written in vibrant orange-red: “Shocking! Huangpu Pingqing is actually Ye Yu’s Little Wife!”

Xiao Ai, flustered, thrust her phone directly into Tang Yue’s face.

The title was simply too shocking.

Xiao Ai, a loli girl who was usually more cute than clever, blinked her dark eyes wide, her cherry-like mouth seemingly wanting to express something, but she only managed a series of ‘ababa’ sounds for a long time, unable to form a complete sentence.

Seeing her teammate Xiao Ai’s agitated actions, Tang Yue couldn’t help but be drawn to her phone.

When she saw the eye-catching, sensational headline on the homepage, and the indeed stunning photos of her husband and her best friend intimately together, a flicker of anger and jealousy first crossed Tang Yue’s fair, delicate face.

However, this emotion quickly vanished without a trace from her elegant, clean features.

After all, Tang Yue had lived with Ye Yu for fifteen years, day in and day out.

Though it might not sound flattering, Tang Yue knew Ye Yu was the quintessential ‘honest man’ in a marriage. He was the type of perfect, good husband who would feel guilty even if he accidentally made eye contact with another girl on the street.

Tang Yue had 100% confidence that her honest little husband, Ye Yu, could not be unfaithful, much less with a best friend who was seemingly hostile to him.

As for her best friend, Huangpu Pingqing, Tang Yue was even more at ease. She knew Pingqing suffered from androphobia, and the boys who pursued her could circle Yunqi Academy once over.

Although her little husband, Ye Yu, was adorable, no matter how she thought about it, Pingqing had no reason to ‘graze on the grass near her own nest’!

Therefore, considering the ‘Ye Yu’s Little Wife’ in the title and the apology from her best friend over the phone, the emotionally stable Tang Yue quickly deduced that there must be some underlying reason.

Although, in every sense, her little husband had been kissed by her best friend, a degree of jealousy and resentment still lingered in her heart.

Yet, Tang Yue, possessing the temperament of a capable older sister, ultimately did not erupt in an emotional outburst like most girls would.

Xiao Ai, the gossip-loving girl, held up her phone with both hands, eagerly anticipating Tang Yue’s fury, ready to feast on the drama. Seeing Tang Yue completely unmoved after browsing the post, she unintelligently shook her twin pigtails and asked in confusion:

“Sister Yueyue, your best friend is your boyfriend’s little wife. Aren’t you angry?”

Because Tang Yue’s demeanor was too calm, Xiao Ai’s questioning voice was slightly louder, and Huangpu Pingqing on the other end of the line naturally heard it.

Huangpu Pingqing’s ‘chest’ might have been ample, but she was not brainless. She quickly extracted the relevant information from the loli’s voice and became flustered.

As best friends for many years, she knew how much Tang Yue cared about Ye Yu.

If Tang Yue were to misunderstand that something truly happened between her and Ye Yu, given Tang Yue’s personality, it would likely mean the end of their friendship.

Because she genuinely liked Tang Yue as a best friend, and the ‘human shield’ incident had indeed been her responsibility (though Ye Yu had taken advantage of her, he had ultimately only passively helped her).

Huangpu Pingqing immediately disregarded any girlish shame or embarrassment.

Afraid of the bizarre misunderstandings often seen in melodramatic romance dramas, she poured out the entire library incident, detailing everything over the phone.

To enhance credibility, Huangpu Pingqing spoke very slowly and meticulously, taking a full half-hour. She recounted everything from the initial ‘human shield’ to being provoked by Yang Wei, which led to Ye Yu turning his head to kiss her cheek, turning into a full kiss, and then her suggestion of Ye Yu being her ‘little wife’ as a cover-up. She even honestly admitted that she hadn’t experienced an androphobic reaction to Ye Yu.

Tang Yue silently listened to her best friend’s urgent explanation over the phone. When she heard that Pingqing’s androphobia didn’t react negatively to her little husband, Ye Yu, and then looked at the colossal headline on the phone Xiao Ai held high, “Shocking! Huangpu Pingqing is actually Ye Yu’s Little Wife!”

At that moment, a whimsical thought suddenly surfaced in her mind. ‘Perhaps,’ she mused, ‘it wouldn’t be so bad if my best friend wanted to be a ‘little wife’ or something similar!’

After all, as a Blood Princess, she herself was unable to bear children for Ye Yu!