Yu Wei

As long as one could live as a human, who would ever want to live as a ghost? Yu Xian didn't actually want to become a wild recluse out in the deep mountains; he simply had no other choice. "Do you have a phone?" Yu Xian asked Nora beside him, curious about what kind of organization Qilin really was. Nora pulled out her phone and handed it to him, warning uneasily, "Password is six sixes. Don't look at my photos, and don't check my browsing history, or I'll shoot you dead." "Relax, I'm just looking something up," Yu Xian smiled. After unlocking the screen, Yu Xian opened the browser and searched for "Qilin." The results were flooded with various mythical legends about the beast; someone on a forum even swore they had spotted a qilin out in the wild. "Pfft! Did you honestly think you'd find anything about Qilin on the internet?" Nora couldn't help snickering from the side. Yu Xian handed the phone back to her, his expression unchanged. "Doesn't hurt to check. Why not give it a shot?" Just then, Nora drew a packet of blood from her bracelet, tore it open with her fangs, and after a moment's hesitation, took out another and offered it to Yu Xian as if sharing a snack. "No thanks. Even though I'm a vampire, I don't drink blood," Yu Xian declined. Even if his body was now that of a vampire, as long as he could sustain himself on light, he felt it was best to avoid drinking blood if he didn't need to. "Come on, I'm not a traditionalist. This is all artificial plasma. Just give it a try," Nora urged with a smile, licking her fangs with the tip of her tongue. After some back-and-forth coaxing, Yu Xian couldn't wear Nora down and ultimately accepted the pouch. Well. In truth, he was a little curious about what drinking blood actually tasted like to a vampire. He punctured the pouch with his fangs. The very next second, he felt a surge of vitality pulled into his body, warming every cell from head to toe. The sensation was incredible. It was entirely different from basking in the sun. Gradually, his consciousness drifted off in that cozy warmth, and his mind went completely blank... By the time he came to his senses, the entire school was surrounded by scores of soldiers. "What did you put in that blood?" Yu Xian stood up, looking at the surrounding soldiers, and couldn't resist asking Nora. He had actually blacked out after drinking the blood! If Nora or these soldiers had wanted to do anything to him just now, he wouldn't have stood a chance of fighting back. Nora explained with an amused grin, "It really was just ordinary artificial plasma. I just didn't expect you to get blood-drunk like my cousin. Simply put, you act like you're wasted after drinking blood." "..." Yu Xian was left speechless. Vampires could actually suffer from blood drunkenness? Fortunately, he had discovered this weakness now. Otherwise, dropping the ball at a critical moment down the road could get him killed. The subsequent cleanup was handled entirely by the soldiers who had arrived on the scene. Under the direction of the surviving teachers, Yu Xian and Nora were escorted alongside Zhang Shou and the others to rest in tents pitched outside the school. Silver City had officially entered a state of wartime emergency, so going home was completely out of the question. The night passed without incident. The next morning. Yu Xian woke up on a wooden plank bed inside the tent and stretched his arms. Perhaps because his battle with Zhou Tai yesterday had been so draining, he had slept straight through until dawn. That proved vampires didn't truly go without sleep; rather, their energy usually replenished faster than it depleted, giving the illusion that rest was unnecessary. Of course, regrowing an arm had likely devoured a massive amount of energy as well. Upon waking, Yu Xian noticed his right arm had fully regenerated. The new limb was virtually identical to the original—"virtually," because it actually seemed even more flawless. In reality, because of handedness, most people's arms were never identical in size. Take right-handed people, for instance. If one looked closely, the right fist was usually slightly larger than the left. Yu Xian had been right-handed, so his right hand used to be slightly bigger. Now, however, both arms were precisely identical in size. Whether throwing a punch or performing any other movement, his sense of balance felt far superior. Stepping out of the tent, the morning sunlight washed over him. Yu Xian felt like a phone plugged into a rapid charger; his spirits soared, his mind sharpened, and every movement in his surroundings registered clearly in his perception. Not far off, Zhang Shou and several others sat side by side, staring back toward the school grounds. A contingent of soldiers in white protective suits was thoroughly decontaminating the entire campus, eliminating any risk of aberrant worms leaving behind hidden clutches of eggs. "What are you looking at?" Yu Xian walked over and sat down beside Zhang Shou. Zhang Shou said heavily, "I just heard... there were only a hundred or so survivors in the entire school. And most of them have been permanently crippled." Half of those survivors had been rescued by Yu Xian and Nora. Had they not teamed up to clear the academic building so quickly, the number of survivors might have been thirty or forty at best. Yu Xian fell silent at the words. Out of so many students and teachers, so few had made it... Then, without warning, several girls broke into quiet sobs, deepening the sorrow hanging over the group. Even Zhang Shou's eyes reddened. "Salty Fish, do you think my parents are all right? Oh, right, where's my phone?" Zhang Shou suddenly asked. Yu Xian offered an awkward, apologetic smile. "Your phone... well, you know how hectic things were back then. I accidentally broke it." "Figures. It was pure chaos, and thank goodness you were there, or we would've ended up just as bad," Zhang Shou said understandingly, recalling the nightmare of the previous day. If not for Yu Xian, he knew neither he nor his classmates would have survived intact. Yu Xian had saved his life; what did a measly phone matter? Just then, Chen Ling and a male teacher walked over carrying several bowls. She managed a strained smile. "Breakfast is ready, everyone." "Oh, I'm starving!" Zhang Shou pulled himself together, leaping to his feet and calling out. Chen Ling carried a bowl of noodles over to Yu Xian. Taking it, he smiled. "Thank you." Though he couldn't properly digest ordinary food and it tasted as bland as chewing wax, he didn't want to turn down Chen Ling's kindness. He held the bowl in one hand and the chopsticks in the other. Only then did Chen Ling notice his right arm had grown back. Her eyes widened in pleasant surprise. "Yu Xian, your hand is all better?" "Yeah, grew back after a night's sleep," Yu Xian took a bite of the noodles and smiled. Suddenly, his brow furrowed, and he instinctively looked up toward the male teacher handing out breakfast nearby. "Who is that teacher...?" he asked Chen Ling, keeping his eyes on the man. Chen Ling explained, "That's Teacher Yu Wei. He teaches PE for the third-year classes. Luckily, he didn't have any classes yesterday and was sleeping in the staff dormitory, which was how he escaped the aberrant worms' clutches." "Oh, Teacher Yu must have been 'sick' yesterday," Zhang Shou quipped with a grin. While the final year of middle school wasn't quite as grueling as senior year of high school, the academic pressure was still immense, and PE teachers were notorious for frequently falling "ill" to surrender their class time. Chen Ling shot Zhang Shou an exasperated glare, while Yu Xian continued to study Yu Wei, an uneasy feeling gnawing at him. Even though his sight and sense of smell—both heightened by Silver Blood—detected nothing out of the ordinary, he somehow had a lingering, intuitive sense that this teacher was not right. Still, the authorities should have screened everyone here. Could an enemy really have slipped through the net? Something was wrong! Something was wrong! Something was wrong! Yu Xian lowered his head to eat his noodles. Yet a voice deep within his mind seemed to warn him ceaselessly: there was something wrong with Yu Wei!