How to Keep a Vampire - Chapter 3

The surrounding lighting was dim, and the atmosphere felt eerie throughout.

Shi Yu obediently followed behind the maid. His pace did not falter, and he made no attempt to hide his scrutiny of the castle’s furnishings, attempting to recall his lost memories.

“I still haven’t remembered anything, but these arrangements are indeed to my taste.”

[To allow people to experience a sense of winding, complex magnificence, you ordered famous craftsmen to build a circular staircase. Because looking down from a high point in circles allows you to better appreciate the rare treasures placed around.]

[The strange thing is that after so many years, the stairs should have deteriorated, but the steps under your feet are clearly newly built, and they remain identical to the structure from back then.]

Shi Yu was thoughtful. “Then Wen Si has truly preserved the castle very well.”

On the high wall built of blue-gray stone bricks, a row of dense oil candles was embedded. The pedestals beneath the candles reflected a flickering, bright color under the lamplight; they were made of crystal stone.

The dots of orange-yellow ghostly light shone down, just enough to ensure guests could see the stairs beneath their feet.

Shi Yu seemed to notice something and widened his eyes. “Wait…”

The maid was hypnotized, so when he called for a halt, she stopped like a puppet without asking questions.

Shi Yu walked forward slowly, carefully browsing the oil paintings hanging on the wall, earnest and profound.

Lan Yin said indignantly: [Baby, the oil paintings here are your only dark history.]

[At the time, the people in the Vampire race knew you liked collecting paintings, so they sent over a few. As it turned out, a fake was mixed in—this one. You had only just begun collecting paintings back then; where would you have had such advanced appraisal skills…]

Shi Yu’s appraisal skills were insufficient, but in Lan Yin’s view, there was absolutely no problem; expecting the Prince, who had just started to learn, to immediately have super-high appraisal skills was simply demanding the impossible.

“Does this matter have a sequel?” Shi Yu could tell Lan Yin hadn’t finished. He thought for a moment. “It wouldn’t be that I even invited people to come and enjoy them together, would it?”

[Your Highness, you are so smart ]

[You would occasionally invite people to come and appreciate your collection. That time, you gathered the paintings you had collected and sent out invitations to several people. Actually, even if they were fakes, many of those who came wouldn’t have been able to tell.]

Lan Yin became angry as he spoke: [It just so happens that the High Priest of the Merman race came that time. He rarely leaves the Merman race. Who knew he would come suddenly and tell you this painting was a fake, and that you should properly improve your appraisal skills.]

“Ah… is that so.” Shi Yu frowned. “That was very rude of him.”

Lan Yin felt a tiny bit of guilty conscience. Although the meaning of the words he repeated was roughly the same, the High Priest’s tone when speaking had been very gentle, and his gaze had almost been glued to the Prince.

Never mind, those vampires who sent the fakes were bad.

The Merman High Priest who pointed out the fake was bad.

Shi Yu sharing paintings with others—the baby was good!

“However, why do I feel that the one in front of me isn’t a fake?” Shi Yu looked carefully and drew a conclusion.

[After that incident with the fake, you learned appraisal. With your extremely high talent, it didn’t take long for you to master it.] Lan Yin puffed out his invisible chest and said proudly: [Perhaps you only lost your past memories, but still retained your instinct for paintings.]

“An authentic one…”

Shi Yu couldn’t help but say softly. He licked his lips and touched it subconsciously, his movements cautious and gentle.

His legs felt as if they couldn’t move.

The value of these famous paintings could not be measured in money, especially the exquisite carved frames embedded with gemstones. The colors were bright and vivid; they were gemstones he had never seen before.

Gemstones even more dazzling than before, authentic famous paintings…

Wen Si had maintained the castle’s appearance but had added many treasures.

All the way down, Shi Yu’s eyes shimmered ever more brightly.

Every step was more eye-catching than the last—bright in the physical sense.

“We have arrived.”

The maid’s voice disrupted his thoughts.

Outside the restaurant, well-trained servants moved to and fro, each division of labor orderly.

Their common trait was likely that they had all been hypnotized.

The servant in front of the door pushed it open for him, and the maid followed him inside and gently pulled out a chair.

“Please enjoy,” she said respectfully.

Shi Yu looked back at the gemstones embedded in the back of the chair.

[Baby, this is also the one you liked most before. To be precise, this chair is your dedicated seat for meals from back then.]

[Wen Si is quite on the ball.]

Shi Yu curled his lips, noncommittal.

On the dining table were human foods several slices of bread on a white glazed plate with strawberry jam spread inside, and a small bowl of the same color beside it containing strawberries.

Pure-blooded vampires possess the ability to be resurrected from the dead; in other words, he could choose to possess the body of a dying person. This person generally has a high degree of compatibility with him.

His current body was indeed human, but as he recovered, it would gradually return to his former appearance.

Through the reflection of the tableware, Shi Yu discovered that his current appearance was very similar to when he was a teenager, only thinner, with a bit more sickly weakness on his face, and his lip color was very light.

Shi Yu picked up the bread and took a bite. The taste of strawberry jam burst onto the tip of his tongue, sweet and sour.

“Did I eat these before too?”

[Most vampires cannot eat human food, but you are of an atavistic bloodline; eating human food has no effect.]

[When you were very young, you loved eating human food, but the Vampire elders disapproved, and gradually you stopped eating it.]

“What a pity.” Shi Yu sighed with displeasure. “This body is too weak now, so I’ll eat a little bit more.”

There were footsteps behind him, different from the previous maid and others. Shi Yu slowly put down the bread in his hand.

“Come out.” He retracted the curve of his lips.

A woman dressed in the same attire as the maid approached him with wooden footsteps, holding a cup of brimming, crimson drink in her hand.

“Mr. Shi Yu, this is your wine.”

The drink was slowly placed on his left side.

He noticed that while the maid placed the wine, her hand was also tapping something, hidden under the goblet.

Shi Yu remained calm and thanked her very politely.

After the maid left, his eyes curved like crescent moons, but this arc was sharp.

The liquid in the goblet on the table was deep red. He picked it up and set it aside.

How could Shi Yu not smell that this was blood? It could not have been meant for him.

Underneath the goblet was a sealed packet of powder.

The surroundings were silent; it was as if the servants had agreed to avoid the restaurant.

It was simply a venue meticulously prepared for him.

Shi Yu did not act deliberately. He opened the powder packaging casually, gave it a light rub, and looked at the powder remaining on his fingers; he couldn’t help but sigh.

“Wow”

If Wen Si were here right now, he would definitely applaud. Someone was trying their hardest to assassinate him.

The opened sealed packaging contained text introducing how to use the drug, signed by Xie Shimuo.

[The Xie family is a well-known family among the Blood Hunters, with heads of the family succeeding through the generations. This person should be one of the Blood Hunters.]

[In the past, every race had its own exclusive script; this is the script of the Blood Hunters.]

“I can read these characters.”

Shi Yu understood. “This human is from the Blood Hunter side.”

Coincidentally, they even shared the same name as him.

[Blood Hunters were very popular in the past; they operated under the banner of protecting humans to let humans hold them up. They took the opportunity to amass wealth. Baby, you and the former leader once met; his appearance was wretched, and his beer belly was like a ball. He lived very comfortably.]

[He was simply a character at the level of pork head meat, which normally humans could only see during the New Year; yet, Blood Hunters could see it every day.]

Lan Yin’s words were full of sarcasm.

“They want Wen Si to die; sending a human like this, it seems they have already prepared to sacrifice him.”

Shi Yu chuckled coldly. “Someone really sent a pillow just when I was feeling sleepy. Should I properly play the role of a Blood Hunter spy now? Otherwise, it would be a disservice to their painstaking efforts.”

He generously repacked the powder and put it in his pocket.

Combining the conversation between Wen Si and the butler, this human was sent by the Vampire Prince. There was only one possibility: the Blood Hunters had fallen to the point of being in cahoots with the Vampire Prince.

Open betrayal is unforgivable among the Vampire race.

Far away at the royal palace, His Highness the Prince was holding a half-time celebration with champagne.

He was still very young, sitting on the Prince’s throne. His long, narrow eyes were full of ruthlessness, and there was a not-short scar under the corner of his eye. A vampire’s self-healing ability is very strong; the fact that such a mark remained was enough to show the force the other party had used when striking.

“Your Majesty, Wen Si has kept that human.”

Below the throne, several people knelt with joyful faces.

“It seems the Blood Hunters are still of some use.” Tang Yi laughed triumphantly.

Once upon a time, his grandfather had been suppressed by a pure-blooded vampire, but fortunately, that pure-blooded vampire later disappeared without a trace. Now, thousands of years later, he was being oppressed again by a lowly half-vampire.

The Vampire race values bloodline above all else; he had not inherited his father’s bloodline, and it was even worse than theirs. The viscounts under his seat were perhaps closer to their ancestors than he was.

How could he not be flustered?

The position of His Highness the Prince was one Wen Si had ceded to him; this saying had already spread to the ears of every vampire.

Even this long scar under his eye… was a gift from Wen Si.

“Your Majesty, please rest assured. It won’t be long before Wen Si will…”

The kneeling person’s tone was sycophantic. Before he could finish speaking, his face suddenly turned ferocious, and in the next second, he was thrown out like a ghost.

The person who made the move was exactly the subject of their discussion.

Wen Si appeared in the royal palace without anyone knowing when. He slowly took off his gloves; beneath the black leather were hands with clear bones, as white as jade.

He took the handkerchief handed over by the butler beside him and wiped his fingertips nonchalantly. “Greetings, Your Highness the Prince.”

To him, greeting seemed like a provocation.

The hatred in Tang Yi’s eyes could not be concealed. He asked: “Duke, why did you break in directly without having someone notify me?”

After hearing this, Wen Si raised his eyes to look at Tang Yi’s fingers, which were trembling until they turned white, and the corners of his mouth carried a smile.

“I originally wanted to report it, but I don’t know why I heard my own name before reaching the hall.” His words were filled with hidden meaning. “It surely wouldn’t be praise…”

“Then it must be slander.”

Wen Si drew a conclusion and sighed: “Your subject is perfectly loyal; Your Highness the Prince understands this.”

“That is natural.” Tang Yi’s smile could barely be maintained.

“Since that is the case, let us kill the chicken to warn the monkey with this malicious fellow, so as to avoid any more people in the Vampire race who don’t fear death.”

Wen Si said with satisfaction, his gaze fixed on the one on the throne, his words showing no mercy.

The person who had just been thrown out smashed into a pillar in the hall. After a loud bang, a lot of dust fell. The person was lying in front of the pillar, half-dead.

He saw someone approaching him; within his line of sight, he could only feel the other party’s pressure.

“Spare my life… spare me, Lord Duke…”

His internal organs were about to fall apart; the intense pain forced him to speak without thinking.

“It was all the Prince! It was the Prince…”

Wen Si’s expression was cold and indifferent. He watched the vampire flopping and begging for his life, as if he had actually listened. “So that’s how it is—”

“Yes, yes, my lord…” The man thought he was about to be saved, never expecting that the next second would welcome his total destruction.

Wen Si took off the half-finger glove covering his palm, and a spark of fire emerged from his palm.

Intense burning devoured him; in just a few seconds, the well-dressed vampire became a charred bat corpse.

Tang Yi looked at the charred bat corpse, somewhat lost in thought, a panicked emotion spreading through his body.

Wen Si couldn’t help but chuckle. He asked as if it were casual: “Presumably what this person said was all slander, right?”

“Of course.” Tang Yi’s voice was unnatural, carrying a slight tremor. “He slandered you and me; this is a crime deserved.”

Wen Si said with satisfaction: “I am deeply gratified that Your Majesty thinks so.”

“I heard that Your Majesty turned down Miss Yin Ge’s date. The Vampire race is very concerned about your spouse, and Miss Yin Ge’s father is also displeased after learning of it.”

Yin Ge was a Grand Elder’s granddaughter; Wen Si’s words were clearly putting pressure on Tang Yi.

When he finished speaking, Wen Si gave the person on the throne a deep look and turned to leave.

The butler, Ger, did not leave immediately but remained behind. “My Lord just damaged the decorations in your palace, so I hope Your Majesty will excuse him. If compensation is needed, please send someone to make a list and come find me.”

“No need.”

Tang Yi’s complexion was blue; he had reached the limit of his patience.

As Wen Si left the palace, a bat flew in front of him.

“Lord Duke.”

The bat turned into a human; looking closely, it was the maid who had led Shi Yu to dine in the morning.

She was still in a hypnotized state.

The maid stated slowly: “After Mr. Shi Yu arrived at the restaurant, a maid used by the Blood Hunters gave him a bag of powder. It is a drug newly developed by the Blood Hunters, specifically aimed at high-ranking vampires.”

Wen Si was not surprised; looking closely, one could even detect that he was in a good mood.

“Mr. Shi Yu took the powder and put it in his pocket.”

“He took it, huh…”

Wen Si was not angry. On the contrary, the curve of his mouth increased, as if he had been bored for a long time and finally had a new amusement.

“Truly a naive little running dog.”