Chapter 41: The Vampire’s Prey (41)
Yu Jiao was in a difficult position.
Her brief hesitation was made into a big deal.
“What?” Director Lin sneered. “Is Miss Yu still carrying a torch for that vampire hunter? Still want to collude with him?”
Yu Jiao looked at him coldly. She decided to deal with the current predicament first.
The array on the electric chair had been destroyed by Wei Changlin. The control was now in his hands. She believed that no matter how angry he was, he wouldn’t be so irrational as to sabotage her at this critical moment… She would coax him later.
“…”
After a brief silence, the slender young woman lifted her pale face. Her sorrowful gaze swept over the members of the council. She pressed her lips together and said:
“I was indeed coerced by him before. After being fed a pill, I could only do as he said. It wasn’t until I awakened and the strange symbol on my chest suddenly disappeared that I was temporarily freed from his control… Mmph!”
She suddenly trembled slightly and widened her beautiful, cat-like eyes, the rims of which quickly turned red.
Her on-the-verge-of-tears expression was particularly pitiable. Someone had already sighed, “So that’s how it is. It seems Miss Yu has really had it tough.”
Listening to their sighs, she didn’t feel the least bit relieved. Instead, her spine tensed.
—Only she knew that the moment her words fell, she had felt a faint electric current shoot through her, a punishment-like sting on her delicate skin.
The interrogation chair had been activated, but she had been telling the truth!
The current was not as strong as before. After a very weak lash, it disappeared, leaving only a tingling numbness on her skin. No one had noticed.
As if sensing something, she looked up and saw Wei Changlin, not far away, nonchalantly crossing his arms. Meeting her gaze, he curled his lips into a smile, but his eyes were dark. His long fingers tapped down—
Another current suddenly appeared, slowly coiling around her thigh from the back of her knee, like a nimble little snake.
The dangerous, thrilling sensation made her instinctively press her knees together, but she couldn’t stop the snake’s movement. Unlike the first time, it crawled very slowly, but it advanced, deeper, unstoppably.
The skin it passed over felt as if it had been stung by many small scorpions, the poison spreading.
A mist rose in her eyes. Her long, falling hair hid her expression. Outsiders could only see her slightly trembling shoulders.
Xie Yanchuan asked sharply, “Jiao Jiao? What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing…”
She shook her head, a very faint sob escaping her. The next moment, she bit her lip.
This slight anomaly attracted attention.
Xie Zhenye said slowly, “Are you thinking about what happened at the engagement banquet?” His fierce gaze swept over the members of the council, and he said meaningfully, “At that time, most people didn’t know the situation and said a lot of nasty things.”
She nodded randomly in response.
Plip.
A tear fell, wetting her skirt.
Wei Changlin’s actions were very subtle. He had deliberately controlled the force, so it didn’t hurt at all, only a numbing, pleasurable sensation. Even Xue Zhu, who shared her pain, didn’t notice anything wrong.
He just thought she was acting to escape the interrogation.
Xue Zhu naturally cooperated, saying gently, “My dear, don’t cry. I’m sure these people will apologize after the truth comes out.”
As he spoke, his dark gaze flicked over.
“This…”
Most of the council members were middle-aged men and women. Seeing the silently crying Yu Jiao was like seeing their own daughters. Coupled with Xue Zhu’s prodding, they now swallowed their pride and awkwardly apologized, offering words of comfort.
“Are we just going to let her off like that?” a sharp question sounded.
Director Lin was relentless. “Can she get away with just crying a little? She still hasn’t said she’ll make a clean break with that vampire hunter!”
The young woman kept her head down, silent, from time to time letting out a small, weak, suppressed sob.
Over there, Wei Changlin was controlling the current with his bent finger, taking in her every reaction, a darkness rising in his peach-blossom eyes.
At first, he had only wanted to express a little dissatisfaction with her. But now, he didn’t care at all about these people forcing her to draw a line with him. Instead, his playful mood was growing.
Someone said, “Since the young lady regrets her involvement with that hunter so much, then let her make an oath in the witness of the interrogation chair. Don’t just pretend to cry…”
Like a snake, about to hibernate, searching for fruit to fill its belly, and then, after eating its fill, finding a cave to coil up in.
The young woman’s slender, pale fingers tightened on the armrests of the chair.
She suddenly looked up, revealing a rich, beautiful face. She frowned, her eyes and the tip of her nose flushed with a stunning crimson. A teardrop clung to her snowy cheek, like a white peony petal, beaten by the rain.
She was breathing a little rapidly, as if she were out of breath from crying.
“Enough!”
Her gaze swept over them, fiercely, a glare. The red at the corners of her eyes softened the coldness, making it look like the thorn of a vibrant, dripping rose.
“I hate that vampire hunter.”
Between her crimson lips, bitten by her pearly teeth, she spat out vicious words:
“That person is a bastard, a scoundrel, a beast! From now on, I will make a clean break with him and have nothing more to do with him! Are you satisfied?”
“…”
The interrogation chair did not move.
While the others were stunned, Wei Changlin, who had been cursed to his face, was now well-behaved. He controlled the current to hook around her little finger and shook it, as if in a spoiled manner.
Over there, Xue Zhu and the twins, who had sensed that something was wrong, followed her gaze and saw a strange yet familiar figure.
A flash of lightning in their minds, and all the previous strange things connected.
All three of their faces darkened.
Bang!
Xie Zhenye slammed his fist on the thick conference table, making it shake. The stunned crowd was as if woken from a dream. They sighed, “The interrogation chair didn’t punish her. It seems Miss Yu is indeed loyal to the blood race.”
Director Lin, his face ugly, had nothing more to say.
Although Xue Zhu and the twins wished they could grind Wei Changlin to dust, it was clearly not the time to expose his identity.
For her to be cleared of suspicion, they could only let him off for now…
Xie Yanchuan stood up and walked to her side. With a firm grip, he crushed the hated interrogation chair.
At the same time, Xie Zhenye’s eyes were fierce as he strode towards Wei Changlin, grabbed him by the collar, and gritted his teeth. “You look very familiar. I’d like to invite you to be a guest at the Xie Manor.”
Wei Changlin held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and smiled. “Of course, I’d be delighted.”
Over there, Xie Yanchuan helped the weak young woman up and said coolly, “Since it’s settled, we’ll be leaving.”
Xue Zhu smiled. “Wait…”
Just as he was about to stand up and follow, he suddenly froze. His heart contracted violently, and his vision blurred.
He braced one hand on the table and pressed the other to his left breast. His pale, demonic face was now expressionless, like a wrathful demon from hell.
The twins ignored him and were about to leave with her.
“Wait.”
An old, heavy voice sounded.
Hearing this voice, everyone on the council looked shocked, trembling as they all looked to a corner of the conference room.
“Old Master Xue…”
The twins’ hands, which were holding hers, tightened. She turned her head and looked over. There was clearly no one there—
She suddenly paused, her expression strange.
…There was only a huge, classical oil painting.
The colors were archaic, the brushwork delicate. It depicted an old man in lavish clothes, holding a longsword. He had white hair and red eyes, his gaze as sharp as a hawk’s, and it was slowly sweeping over them.
“What a bunch of wastes! A hunter has infiltrated our headquarters, and you didn’t even know.”
A voice, from an unknown source, echoed in the room.
“What!?” The council members looked at each other, then followed the old man’s gaze in the painting to the young man.
“It’s him!”
Wei Changlin sighed helplessly and whispered a “be careful” in her ear, then, under the attack of the crowd, he vanished.
She looked up. The old man’s sharp, red eyes in the painting were staring at her coldly, like a sharp blade, or an imposing mountain.
Under his gaze, she felt as if her mind had been seized, and she was falling into an endless hell.
Just as she was about to suffocate, a tall figure stood in front of her, blocking the oppressive gaze.
She was supported by the twins, feeling weak. She looked at the person in front of her.
Xue Zhu’s face was so pale it was almost transparent, his expression one of suppressed pain, his leisurely smile gone. He lowered his eyes and said in a low voice, “Grandfather.”
The old man in the painting stared at him and snorted. “Zhu’er, I never thought you would be so entangled in matters of the heart.”
Xue Zhu lowered his eyes, silent.
“It’s just a woman. After you’ve revived the blood race, there will be plenty of women for you to choose from.”
The old voice was filled with killing intent.
“Now, this woman, who is interfering with your decisions, must die.”
Her heart sank. This was the first time she had felt a real sense of life and death in the game.
But soon, the sense of danger faded, and an extreme disgust rose within her—tsk, this old man is so paternalistic.
It was obvious that after the paternalistic old man appeared, Xue Zhu was as if suppressed, his whole body tense, the blood drained from his crimson lips. Still, he opened his mouth to stop him. “Grandfather, you can’t…”
Before he could finish, he was cut off by a cold scoff.
Xie Yanchuan: “It seems Old Master Xue has been dead for too long. Do you still think this is the era when you controlled everyone’s lives and deaths?”
Xie Zhenye waved his hand in disgust. “You’d better jump out of the painting. Don’t try to kill people with your words.”
Their merciless taunts made the room fall into a horrified silence.
“Young people,” the old man in the painting chuckled. “I indeed have no physical body, but I don’t need to personally deal with a junior member of the blood race—”
As his words fell, a middle-aged man stepped out from the crowd, a friendly smile on his face. “Young Masters Xie, don’t forget who helped you take down the Xie family head. We still have the blood contract you signed.”
Hearing this, Xie Zhenye narrowed his eyes fiercely. “Are you threatening me?”
Xie Yanchuan’s cold gaze turned to him at the same time.
The middle-aged man smiled. “How could I dare? I’m just reminding you.”
The atmosphere was tense. In the silence—
“Grandfather, she can’t die.”
Xue Zhu lifted his deep phoenix eyes. “Yu Jiao and I have formed a contract of shared pain and shared life and death.”
His low voice was like water into a pot of hot oil, instantly causing an uproar.
“What!?”
“Has the young Master Xue gone mad!”
“Isn’t this just creating a weakness for himself…”
The old man in the painting was silent, his oppressive presence filling the conference room.
After a long moment, a sinister voice sounded:
“Zhu’er, you’ve disappointed me so much… Do you really think I wouldn’t dare to give up on you? You’re just a vessel for the heart. The Xue family still has plenty of good seedlings.”
Xue Zhu gave a soft smile. “But their aptitude is far from meeting your requirements, isn’t it?”
The old man looked at him heavily, about to speak, when he suddenly saw the woman fearlessly step out from behind him and meet his gaze.
“Hey, old man.”
Under the twins’ worried gazes, she lifted her chin slightly and looked the large oil painting up and down.
“Your red eyes and white hair were just painted on by the artist, weren’t they? It’s so fake. I can see you really yearn for the peak era of the blood race.”
As she spoke, she twirled a strand of her snow-white hair with her slender fingers, her blood-red eyes narrowing.
Extremely sarcastic.
The pressure in the room dropped.
“You don’t know what’s good for you,” the old man sneered. “What are you so proud of, little girl? Your aura is so mixed and chaotic. Having red hair and white eyes doesn’t mean anything.”
Her eyebrow arched. “A summer insect cannot speak of ice. You’ve never seen a vampire from the peak era. How can you be so sure that their aura wasn’t as mixed and chaotic as mine?”
“…”
The members of the council were all terrified, watching the slender young woman, who was like a newborn calf, unafraid of a tiger.
—Although Old Master Xue had been dead for many years, his influence remained. The older generation was especially afraid of him. Not to mention, a part of his soul still remained, and he was still controlling the blood race from the shadows.
The old man was silent for a moment, then suddenly let out a low laugh, like an old witch.
“Little girl, you have guts… How about this? If you can complete three trials, then I will acknowledge your strength and your loyalty to the blood race, and I will spare your life for now.”
His voice was sinister, the end of it still laced with killing intent.
She crossed her arms. “Old fool, don’t be so arrogant. Why is it that if I win, I only get to live?”
“…Then what else do you want?”
“If I win,” she tapped her lips and raised an eyebrow, “doesn’t that prove that I am the strongest of this generation of the blood race?”
The old man snorted. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play… I suppose so.”
“Then…”
She curled her lips. “It’s not too much to ask for the strongest, most promising descendant to take your place, is it?”
The old man shot her a heavy glance. “You’re quite ambitious, little girl.”
He paused, then gave a strange smile. “Alright.”
She stroked her chin. “If I win—” she glanced at Xue Zhu, who was staring at her heavily, “first, I want to break off my engagement with your grandson.”
“…Yu Jiao?”
Xue Zhu was stunned. Like a black cat, abandoned by its owner, his phoenix eyes widened.
The old man immediately said, “Alright.”
The proposal was exactly what he wanted.
—Zhu’er shoulders the future of the blood race. How can he be tied down by love? This little girl has some self-awareness. An engagement broken by her own hand is clearly more effective than one broken by force.
“Secondly…”
Her blood-red eyes were glistening with a cool light. She crossed her arms and said calmly, a string of nonsense:
“To inherit your will, to revive the glory of the blood race, to gather the power of the bloodline, to return the blood race to its peak, I have decided to marry all the talented young men of this generation of the blood race. As for your grandson—”
“—He can be a concubine.”
“…?”
“…Absurd!!”
—In that moment, Old Master Xue’s first reaction was actually: How can my dear grandson not be the main consort?!
Absurd! Simply absurd!