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Ch43 - I do have my suspicions on someone
Past midday, the dark clouds that hung densely turned even darker, sinking even lower.
It was like someone had dipped a brush in black ink, sweeping a broad stroke across the sky. Instantly, that churning mass of clouds clumped together thickly, and with it, their hearts sunk.
The weather was unsettling for others, but Anthony conversely found it the most pleasant.
He was a half-vampire.
Legend had it that there were many things that vampires disliked. For example, garlic, holy water, crosses, sunlight… and so on, so forth.
In actuality, the only thing that vampires disliked was sunlight. Unless the holy water was blessed by a cathedral, it was hardly harmful to them.
But for half-vampires in particular, this weakness was especially severe.
Half-vampires were actually humans who weren’t fully transformed. The amplification of their abilities by the vampiric heritage was capped by the upper reaches of their humanity, unable to break past the constraints of nature. This was the foremost law cast in iron laid down by the system.
It was for this reason that half-vampires would hate sunlight with a vengeance, even more so than real vampires.
In the infinite loop, the castles of the Night Clan’s base used thick curtains to block outside light. At best, the only illumination provided would be from the candelabras when guests were present. As vampires had superior night vision, they could easily see in the pitch black darkness.
“Where to now?” Lin Guoxing asked.
Of the A-ranks, he was one with a more honest and simple personality. He was normally able to get along with anyone, even daring to speak to the Barbarian, Anthony, who was famous for his explosive temper. The other B and C-rank veterans docily followed behind them.
“What’s the hurry? Look around first for any information that we missed.”
Anthony stopped in his steps, commanding other veterans to scout the area nearby. He himself, however, remained standing where he was.
It was apparent that he wasn’t really taking this instance seriously.
Although two S-ranks were in this instance with them, Anthony’s abilities stood at the upper tiers of the A-ranks. In the infinite loop, he also followed Van Zhuo into S-rank instances. The instance that they were facing now was not yet at S-rank difficulty. Naturally, then, he also kicked back more.
Of course, there was another reason as well—that was, his greatest adversary, Vincent, had died.
No one had expected that a right-hand man of Van Zhuo would actually be unable to get through even the first instance of the Thriller Trainee. Anthony had almost died of laughter upon hearing the news. That very night, he opened a few bottles of whisky, celebrating with his close confidants that a many-year adversary had been abruptly disposed of without him needing to even waste any resources or exert any effort.
As such, Anthony now took a very laid-back attitude, even folding his arms behind his head, leisurely enjoying the scenery around him.
In this instance, there were only three people that he actually had to pay attention to.
The first two were the two S-ranks of this instance, Zhuge An and Black-Robed Azan.
Well, Anthony didn’t have to worry when it came to Black-Robed Azan. Although No. 4 practiced the despicable art of rearing ghosts, he was a dignified and principled man by nature. He seldom played any of those more underhanded tricks and often even gave free intel without any strings attached, just like how he had told everyone that Grandma Yin was a Yin walker in the temple earlier.
As for Zhuge An, that was a guy that even Anthony dared not to provoke.
Although he was often said to be barbaric and direct in the way that he handled issues, it wasn’t that he was really all brawn and no brain, or he wouldn’t have been able to claim such high standing in the Night Clan. Anthony knew clearly the people that he could or couldn’t afford to offend. No. 3 was the sort that he would make a huge detour around.
Van Zhuo, along with Anthony, headed one of the three forces that were deceived by Zhuge An in the Cursed Mask, leaving them with deep psychological shadows. To this day, even the sight of that face would make his balls ache. He firmly adhered to the idea that even if he couldn’t establish good relations with this man, he mustn’t let them fall foul of each other.
However, in truth, the first two weren’t that important. The most important was the third.
It was that white-haired C-rank trainee who was more beautiful than a woman and allegedly with unlimited potential. Zong Jiu.
This was the primary candidate that Anthony had to pay attention to.
As for the reason why—
After the altercation at the gambling table, Anthony was severely punished by Van Zhuo.
“I detest people who disobey my orders.”
Under the dim candlelight, the man’s handsome visage was stately and handsome.
The double-headed eagle emblem on the black and gold-trimmed military uniform flashed faintly under the dim light of the flickering candles. His long sabre was set aside on the conference table.
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No. 2’s room was more than luxurious, even with its own attached garden. Blooming tulip fields could be seen from beyond the crimson tapestry.
“Watch out for him.”
Although the person wasn’t identified by name, Anthony, head pressed against the ground, tacitly understood.
“If need be… protect him.”
Anthony reached the end of his flashback.
The expression on his face was foul.
This was the first and only time that Van Zhuo had given him a protective order, and the person he had to protect was even a run-of-the-mill C-rank.
So what if he shot into the limelight at Las Vegas and amassed a million chips? At the end of the day, he was still no more than a fledgling newcomer.
Leaving his status as a newcomer, even powerful veterans had never received such attention from Van Zhuo. What right did a newcomer have to receive this honor?
Despite thinking this, Anthony didn’t intend to experience the consequence of disobedience ever again.
So even though he was annoyed by the C-rank who had set him up and made him lose face in the casino, he still didn’t dare to act out after entering the instance.
“Senior Anthony!”
As Anthony lowered his eyes, a veteran from the group hurriedly sprinted over from a distance. “We could feel Yin energy when scouting several of the villager houses.”
Yin energy?
Anthony frowned. “Is it the bodhisattva soil?”
As a highly experienced veteran, he naturally knew what the emergence of Yin energy signified.
Right from the early morning, a low-level shaman from their group had whispered to them that the “bodhisattva soil”, that the villagers living in famine said had been blessed by the bodhisattva, was in reality deeply entrenched with a chill from Yin.
When giving it further thought, that did make sense. If it wasn’t entrenched with Yin, why else would no plant survive transplantation as the villagers had claimed? From a certain perspective, the only plant that could survive in such harsh conditions would probably only be those imbued with Yang energy, thus impervious to the cold—the Sacred Herb.
The veteran delivering the information shook his head. “What I could sense was limited. I only know that the large house at the far north of the village has unusually dense Yin energy.”
The far north of the village?
Lin Guoxing thought deeply. “Isn’t that the village head’s house?”
While the other group was collecting firewood by the old locust tree, Anthony’s side wasn’t idle either.
They could act boldly because of their strength, going straight to explore and identifying each villager’s location and residence to near completion. Naturally hence, they would know that the large mud house to the north with the woodshed belonged to the village head. Aside from the village head, Wang Shou and his son lived there too.
In addition to this, they also excavated a lot of information.
For example, Wang Shou’s first wife died in childbirth when giving birth to a son. The wife who had fled back to her parent’s house was a widow that he had later married from a neighboring village. When the widow married over, she even had a daughter, the girl they saw Wang Shou sell to a human trafficker in the plot introduction.
“We checked out the woodshed too. Wang Shou had caught his wife back and locked her in the woodshed. The newcomers from the other group had gotten into a scuffle with them and were making a huge ruckus over there.”
“Don’t mind them. They’re just a group of newcomers who don’t know how to read the situation.”
Anthony sneered. He waved a hand, motioning for them to follow him.
Seeing the A-rank taking the lead, the other veterans, who were naturally desperate to try for the dangerous challenges, hastily followed behind him.
On the way there, Lin Guoxing suddenly asked, “Oh, right. Did anyone see Black-Robed Azan?”
“Yeah, he was even with us searching the houses from door to door earlier.”
Another veteran shrugged. “But we are checking for Yin energy. He was instead rummaging through the cupboards and chests like he was looking for something. We didn’t pay attention to him afterward, and when we looked again, he was gone.”
During this conversation, they reached the perimeter of the mud house on the northern end.
The house was pindrop silent. Most likely, Wang Shou and the village head had yet to return.
Anthony made a hand gesture. The several A and B-ranked trainees deftly scaled the wall.
Rural houses typically had wooden planks across its windows. It wasn’t possible to get past them; the only way was through the main door.
Skills like lockpicking were practically skills that the veteran contenders would max out their skill points on. Barely after a moment, several people nodded. One stood guard behind the tree by the entrance, vigilantly monitoring the situation outside. The other went to the back of the house, alert for any unexpected changes that could pop up.
Anthony and Lin Guoxing stepped inside the house.
The house was dimly lit. Everything was shrouded in gloomy darkness.
The village head’s residence was certainly much nicer than the ordinary villager’s. Not only was it fully furnished, there was also a thick quilt on the heatable brick bed. Apart from these, at a glance, nothing looked suspicious.
However… there was Yin energy.
The two of them exchanged a look.
Lin Guoxing took out his human skin drum. Anthony’s nails began to stain black from its tips. Both of them assumed defensive postures.
‘I’ll check out the bedroom.’
Lin Guoxing gestured wordlessly to one of the pitch-dark rooms. Anthony went along with it, picking a door on the other side. He hid himself in the darkness, plastering low against the wall, slowly moving.
He reached the kitchen.
The kitchen didn’t even have windows, only a chimney. It was so dark that people wouldn’t be able to see their fingers if they held their hand before them.
A huge black iron pot sat in the middle of the kitchen. Beneath it was a pit that was burnt black.
Staring at it with his red eyes, Anthony stepped forward, running a hand over the base of the pot. He felt some grease stain his palm.
For there to be grease, there must have been meat. The family of the village head must have recently cooked meat for there to be such traces left behind.
However, what was peculiar was that in times of famine, without even rice to eat and not having seen a single pig in the village, where did this meat come from?
The half-vampire crouched down. He closed his eyes and expanded his senses, searching for the scent of blood in the air.
Meat and blood came hand in hand. Vampires had an extremely acute sense of smell; they could easily distinguish even the slightest hint of blood.
After pausing for about ten seconds, Anthony finally picked up the faintly discernible scent of blood.
He followed the scent of blood to the foot of the wall and uncovered the lid of the water tank.
It was very dark inside, filled with water that had a black, murky top layer.
Anthony lowered his head. With his half-vampiric night vision, he could clearly see the blood floating on top of the tank, and what was submerged beneath.
His pupils contracted slightly.
Putting this together with those fragments of information earlier, a shocking lead flashed across his mind.
Right then, all of a sudden, an icy cold hand gently rested on his shoulder.
Anthony reacted swiftly, grabbing the hand as soon as he felt his shoulder sink at a speed that was difficult for the human eye to catch. His sharp black nails sliced at the other like a razor-sharp blade, and he bent his knee, kicking towards his opponent.
However, before this set of motions connected, the half-vampire stopped in place.
Shocked, Anthony wavered. “It’s you?”
That man gave a faint smile. “It’s me.”
Lin Guoxing shrugged. “I didn’t find anything in the bedroom, but heard something from over here. I saw that you were taking a while so I just came over.”
There wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with this explanation. Yet, inexplicably, a string was pulled taut deep in Anthony’s mind. It was perhaps for this reason that he was hesitant to drop his guarded stance, taking half a step back instead.
“You finished exploring so early and didn’t say a thing when you came over. I almost thought that you were a ghost.”
Lin Guoxing didn’t have much combat ability. He was usually only a person who supported from the rear, and was not an opponent that he should fear.
Thinking this, Anthony gradually relaxed his stance.
No, wait, hang on!
The hand on his shoulder still rested there, yet the chill seemed to seep through the thick clothing, piercing into the marrow of his bones.
The half-vampire snapped his head up. He looked at the other’s face through the darkness and instinctively wanted to put him in a tight grip.
How was it possible that Lin Guoxing’s hand was bitingly cold?
Could it be that… he was a mole in this instance?
Only, pity—it was too late for Anthony.
The hand on the half-vampire’s shoulder suddenly exerted force. Crimson red blood trickled out from where the fingers dug into, suddenly disappearing without a trace.
In a trance, Anthony saw the man across him give a contemptuous smile.
The next moment, something sharp and icy slowly fell from an unending void above, puncturing into his cerebral cortex and nailing into the deeper layers of his consciousness.
The first puppet string pertained to memory. The second puppet string pertained to the subconscious.
This indescribable pain only sustained for a fleeting moment, and even the wound was microscopic, too small to be detected by human vision.
In the blink of an eye, the string stabilized. Let alone pain, even what just happened turned vague and distant.
Anthony was in a trance for a fleeting moment.
And after that moment, he gathered his wits, breaking out of the delirious state he was just in.
Standing right in front of him, Lin Guoxing waved his hand before his eyes with a worried look. “Anthony, Anthony?”
“Ah.”
The half-vampire opened his mouth.
He felt as if he had forgotten something, but he couldn’t say what it was, nor could he form his thoughts. So, all he could do was make a monotonous sound.
The man in front of him smiled.
Just that, bafflingly, this smile was strange and cheerful. It was a pity that Anthony didn’t find it odd. He subconsciously felt that it was apt for the occasion and didn’t probe further.
“What makes you think that I’m the mole? If I’m the mole, wouldn’t I have taken advantage of whilst you were daydreaming earlier to finish you off?”
As Lin Guoxing smiled, he lowered his voice.
“However… I do have my suspicions on someone.”