Chapter 3

She actually dared to hurt her.

Ming Siyu couldn’t remember the last time someone had defied her like this. It had probably been that way since her birth—aside from that insolent brat Ming Siwei, no one had ever dared to treat her this way.

And she wouldn’t even let her touch the ears.

Those wolf ears and tail had been created to be touched, just like chopsticks were made for eating and beds for sleeping. Being petted was their fluffy utility, their basic commodity attribute.

Disobedient.

For the moment, Ming Siyu ignored the pain in the back of her foot. She tightened her grip. In her long-held belief, disobedience stemmed from not enough pain.

For instance, if she pressed a gun to Liu Ran’s head and made her choose between being shot or letting go to expose her ears, Ming Siyu didn’t believe Liu Ran wouldn’t comply.

Unfortunately, gun control was strict in the Empire, so she had no chance to point a gun at Liu Ran.

Liu Ran’s face turned pale from the choking, but her hands stayed firmly over her head. A thick wave of irritation surged in Ming Siyu’s chest. One hand continued to throttle Liu Ran’s neck while the other reached down to grab her tail.

She remembered Liu Ran had an injury on her tail. Originally, she’d planned to pet the ears first and wait until the tail healed before stroking it—Ming Siyu thought she was already being kind by giving Liu Ran time to recover her tail.

But Liu Ran didn’t appreciate it. Since she wouldn’t let her touch the ears, she couldn’t blame her for going after the tail early.

She didn’t touch the tail. She touched something else.

The instant their skin made contact, Liu Ran felt all the blood rush to her head. Her mind went blank, and tears of shame burst from her eyes.

Ming Siyu—a name that fit her perfectly: a refined degenerate, wielding life and death… Dressed in the gleaming coat of the Ming Group heir, but inside, an utter pervert. Taking advantage of the muscle relaxant leaving her powerless, she went straight for the ears right away. Ears weren’t something to touch casually… When she wouldn’t let her, she choked her, and now she was touching there…

Ming Siyu froze for a second before realizing what her hand had landed on.

Her gaze shifted downward to Liu Ran’s tightly clenched legs. The nightgown’s hem had already ridden up past her lower abdomen.

She slowly withdrew her hand.

The earlier anger turned into amused mockery: “Liu Ran, Little Wolf… Little dog… Is this how the lab taught you to please your owner?”

The same trick had been pulled on her more than once by the celebrities and artists in the Group who wanted to climb the ladder using her.

But the visual impact Liu Ran gave her was different from all those before. As an S-Level Alpha, she was curled up by the door like an abused puppy, tears rolling down one after another. The lower half of her face was red and raw from the Bite Inhibitor, her exposed skin bore wounds both deep and shallow, and the tail hidden behind her trembled faintly…

As if she’d done something terrible to her just now.

Liu Ran shook her head through her tears.

Bullshit. Perverted narcissist.

She’d have to be insane to seduce Ming Siyu.

It was clearly Ming Siyu who hadn’t provided her with properly fitting clothes. And now she was turning the tables. Why didn’t Ming Siyu just drop dead?

If not for the Bite Inhibitor, she really would have bitten her to death.

She desperately tried to hold back her tears. Crying in front of Ming Siyu made her feel an unprecedented level of humiliation.

But she had this damn tear incontinence constitution—the more she told herself not to cry, the harder the tears flowed.

Ming Siyu released the hand that had deprived Liu Ran of breath. She pulled a small, shiny silver key from the pocket of her suit jacket and dangled it in front of Liu Ran.

Liu Ran recognized it as the key to unlock the Bite Inhibitor. If she wanted to eat, speak, or bite someone, she needed that little key first.

“Liu Ran, take your hands off your ears.” Ming Siyu commanded in an tone that brooked no refusal.

Liu Ran hesitated between protecting her ears and getting the Bite Inhibitor removed. She was so thirsty her body was in a state of extreme dehydration; she even licked the tears at the corner of her mouth to moisten her parched throat.

Ming Siyu added, “Liu Ran, take your hands down. I can’t unlock the Bite Inhibitor like this.”

“Be good. I won’t touch your ears before unlocking the Bite Inhibitor.”

Liu Ran tried to judge the truth of those words from Ming Siyu’s expression.

But Ming Siyu’s face showed no expression at all. She managed her facial muscles as perfectly as an artist controlled their weight. Even her breathing had steadied.

Liu Ran suddenly recalled what Ming Siyu had said to that lab tech earlier that day—

I don’t like repeating myself.

She had already made Ming Siyu repeat once.

What would happen if she made her repeat a second time?

Letting go wouldn’t hurt. Worst case, if she sensed Ming Siyu reaching for her ears, she could cover them as fast as possible.

With that thought, Liu Ran slowly lowered her hands. Her ears instantly perked up, then flattened back down in the next second. The fur on them was mussed, giving a disheveled beauty—cute and pitiful.

She kept a wary eye on Ming Siyu’s every move while quickly yanking down the nightgown’s hem. She dipped her head slightly to make it easier for Ming Siyu to unlock it.

Ming Siyu leaned in to unlock it. Her breath brushed the soft fur at the tip of Liu Ran’s ear, making it twitch uncontrollably to shake off the itch. At the same time, Liu Ran tensed like a drawn bow, terrified Ming Siyu would go back on her word and take advantage of the moment to do something to her ears.

The tempting wolf ears were right there. Ming Siyu’s resolve wavered.

The instant the Bite Inhibitor came off, Liu Ran felt something warm and wet envelop one of her ears. Then the tip was nipped by something hard.

Realizing Ming Siyu was biting her with her teeth, the fur on Liu Ran’s tail exploded outward.

She shoved Ming Siyu away.

“You said you wouldn’t touch my ears!”

Her mouth muscles, bound by the Bite Inhibitor for too long, hadn’t recovered fully. Her tongue felt numb and stiff, making her words slur a bit. As soon as she finished speaking, she felt something dribble from the corner of her mouth.

She wiped it—saliva.

Drooling while speaking in front of someone was even more humiliating than crying. Liu Ran was mortified.

Ming Siyu quickly steadied herself against the doorframe without falling. But her patience was gone.

One or two acts of resistance could pass as flirtation; three or four meant she was getting too cocky.

What was Liu Ran? A half-human, half-wolf mongrel. If not for her fluffiness suiting her tastes, Ming Siyu wouldn’t waste a single word on her. She’d bought her with money—she was the owner. Did she have to put up with the moods of some sold pet?

Liu Ran was tired of living.

The last trace of warmth faded from Ming Siyu’s eyes, leaving a desolate night like a snowy wasteland.

“I didn’t touch. I bit.”

Her voice was cool too, like it held ice cubes.

Liu Ran was choked by that retort, swallowing the words she’d meant to say.

Right, no touching—but wasn’t biting even worse?

Her eyes flashed with ferocity as she wrinkled her nose viciously, her canine teeth baring unintentionally.

“You’re twisting words. No integrity at all. Liar.”

To Ming Siyu, Liu Ran’s humiliated fury held no threat—it even sounded naïvely stupid.

She had clearly only promised not to touch the ears, and she’d kept her word. She was almost moved to tears by her own honesty.

Even if she’d lied to Liu Ran, so what? Life was built on all sorts of lies. If she always told the truth, the Ming Entertainment Group under her watch would have been devoured down to the bones long ago.

“You’re the liar, Liu Ran. A liar with your actions.”

Ming Siyu always spoke unhurriedly, in that infuriatingly leisurely drawl. “You don’t wear underwear and lie at my bedroom door to seduce me, but no touching the tail, no touching the ears—haven’t you deceived me?”

Liu Ran shot back indignantly: “That’s because they couldn’t find underwear that fits me. And I’ll never seduce you in this lifetime.”

“Liu Ran, Little Wolf can’t speak to her owner like that.”

Ming Siyu’s lips twitched in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a faint curved line appearing at the corner of her mouth.

She pushed up her glasses.

Then raised her hand and swung.

With no Bite Inhibitor to block, the slap landed fully on Liu Ran’s left cheek with a crisp smack.

“Baring your teeth again? Forgot the first rule from earlier today? An owner’s patience isn’t infinite. Disobedience brings punishment, so Little Wolf must learn to read the room. Look at you.” Ming Siyu stood, nudging Liu Ran’s inner thigh with her toe. “Only dogs get chained by the door drooling. You don’t still think you’re a normal, ordinary person, do you?”

If Ming Siyu’s earlier bites and chokes had been a moderate wind, these words were a typhoon, shattering Liu Ran’s already fragile self-esteem into pieces.

Liu Ran’s voice came out hoarse: “I’ve never acknowledged you as my owner. You bought me against my will, so I won’t grovel to please you as you want.”

Ming Siyu didn’t care whether Liu Ran pleased her or not. She just wanted to pet the ears.

Cold sarcasm: “Are your ears made of cacti? Untouchable?”

Liu Ran blurted: “Ears are only for—”

Only lovers to touch.

Tails too. Whether stroking, licking, or gentle nibbling, those were intimacies reserved for lovers.

In wolf packs, ears and tails were key ways members expressed affection, allowed only for those close. When manifested in humans, it narrowed further to lovers’ exclusive privilege.

Moreover, touching ears and tails brought not just emotional satisfaction but physiological reactions. Liu Ran didn’t know how the researchers had tested it, but the nerves in wolf ears and tails were hypersensitive—a little teasing could make her uncontrollably excited, tearful, in heat. Though she hated admitting it, that instant Ming Siyu had nipped her ear, she’d shuddered despite herself.

So she absolutely couldn’t let Ming Siyu mess around.

Ming Siyu clearly knew all this.

Liu Ran had seen the researchers hand her the Liu Ran Exclusive Taming Manual. Ming Siyu had taken it along with the purchase agreement when she left the company.

Liu Ran had seen that taming manual at her previous owner’s place. The first page detailed the sensitive spots of wolf ears and tails, even teaching owners where and how to touch to plunge her into agonizing heat as quickly as possible.

How could Ming Siyu not know the special meaning of touching ears? She was just used to being above it all and didn’t care.

After all, the one going into heat from the petting would be her, the one suffering would be her, the one developing attachment would be her.

All the downsides had nothing to do with Ming Siyu, so of course she wouldn’t care.

Saying more was pointless. Liu Ran shut her mouth.

Whether from anger at Liu Ran or the effect of that ear bite, Ming Siyu’s craving for fluff had eased. With no demand, Liu Ran was useless to her now.

She untied the leather leash from the door handle and roughly dragged Liu Ran to the room at the end of the second-floor hallway. She opened the door and kicked Liu Ran inside.

“Sleep well.”

Her tone dripped undisguised malice.

The door slammed shut with a bang. Darkness swallowed Liu Ran instantly.