Chapter 11: Yu Wei
If one could live a normal life, who would they choose otherwise? Yu Xian wasn't actually eager to live as a hermit in the deep mountains and wilderness. He simply had no other choice.
Curious about what kind of organization Qilin actually was, Yu Xian asked, "Do you have your phone with you?"
Nora took out her phone and handed it to him. "The password is six sixes. No looking at my photo album and no checking my browsing history. Otherwise, I'll shoot you."
Yu Xian smiled. "Don't worry. I'm just looking something up on the internet."
After unlocking the phone, he opened the browser and searched for "Qilin." The results were filled with various myths and legends about the mystical beast. Some individuals even claimed in forum posts that they had personally seen a Qilin in the wild.
Seeing his expression, Nora couldn't help but laugh. "Pfft, you didn't seriously think you'd find information about Qilin online, did you?"
Yu Xian returned the phone to her, keeping a completely straight face. "A quick search won't hurt anyone. Why not give it a shot?"
Nora took out a packet of blood from her bracelet and bit into it with her fangs. After thinking for a moment, she tossed another packet to Yu Xian, as if she were sharing snacks.
Yu Xian declined. "I'm good. I might be a vampire, but I don't do blood."
Although he had already become a vampire, he could survive on light; so, he felt it was better to avoid drinking blood if possible.
"Relax, I'm not one of those old-school types." Nora licked her small fangs with the tip of her tongue and coaxed him with a grin. "This is synthetic blood plasma. Give it a try."
After some back-and-forth, Yu Xian finally gave in and accepted the blood pack. Truthfully, he was a little curious himself about what drinking blood would actually taste like for a vampire.
He pierced the blood pack with his fangs. The next second, a surge of vitality flowed into his body, and warmth spread through his every cell. The sensation was incredible. It felt completely different from basking in sunlight.
Gradually, his consciousness drifted away into that warm, blissful sensation, and his mind went blank. By the time he came to his senses again, the entire school had been surrounded by large numbers of soldiers.
Yu Xian rose to his feet, glanced at the soldiers around them, then turned back to Nora. "What did you put in that blood?"
After drinking the blood pack, he had lost consciousness. If Nora or the soldiers had wanted to do anything to him while he was out, he wouldn't have had the slightest chance to resist.
Nora smiled. "It really was just ordinary synthetic blood plasma. I just didn't expect you to be blood-drunk like my cousin. Basically, drinking blood affects you the same way alcohol does."
Yu Xian was speechless. Apparently, some vampires could actually get drunk on blood. Fortunately, he had discovered this weakness of his early. If it happened at a critical moment in the future, it could spell serious trouble.
The cleanup that followed was entirely handled by the soldiers who had arrived on the scene. Under the surviving teachers' arrangements, Yu Xian and Nora joined Zhang Shou and the other students at the tents set up outside the school. With the entire Silver City placed under martial law, going home was out of the question.
Nothing eventful happened through the night. The next morning, Yu Xian woke up on a wooden bed inside the tent and stretched lazily. Perhaps because his battle against Zhou Tai had drained him too much, he had slept straight through until dawn.
It showed that vampires did, in fact, need sleep. The rumor that they never needed rest had spread because in normal circumstances, their rate of energy recovery far exceeded their expenditure.
Of course, it was also possible that regenerating an entire arm had consumed an enormous amount of energy. Yes, Yu Xian had woken up to find that his right arm had already fully regenerated. The newly regrown limb was almost indistinguishable from the original one. Almost, because it seemed even more perfect than before.
Due to being left-handed or right-handed, many people did not have perfectly symmetrical arms. For example, if one observed right-handed people, they would find that the dominant hand would often be slightly larger.
Yu Xian had always been right-handed, so his right arm had originally been slightly bigger than his left. But now, with both his arms being identical in size, whether it was throwing a punch or making a sudden move, his overall balance was much better.
As he stepped out of the tent and into the sunlight, he felt like a phone connected to a charger. A rush of energy cleared his head, his thoughts accelerated, and everything happening around him became crystal clear.
Not far away, Zhang Shou and the other students were sitting in a row, watching the school grounds. A group of soldiers in white hazmat suits was sanitizing the entire school, making sure the parasites hadn't left any hidden eggs or nasty surprises.
Yu Xian walked over and sat down beside Zhang Shou. "What are you looking at?"
Zhang Shou grimly said, "Word just reached us. There are barely a hundred survivors from the whole school, and the majority of them are left with permanent disabilities."
Among those survivors, half had been saved by Yu Xian and his classmates. If not for Yu Xian and Nora working together to kill the parasites in the academic building, the number of survivors would have been reduced to only thirty or forty.
Yu Xian fell silent after hearing this. So many students and teachers, yet only a handful had survived...
Before long, no one knew who started it, but several girls began to sob quietly. The atmosphere grew even heavier, and even Zhang Shou's eyes turned red.
He suddenly asked, "Salted Fish, do you think my parents are okay right now? Oh, right, where's my phone?"
Yu Xian forced an awkward smile. "Your phone...You know how it was back then. Everything happened so suddenly, so I accidentally broke it."
Zhang Shou recalled the previous day's events. "That's true. Things were chaotic at the time. Thank goodness you were there, or it would've ended terribly for us."
He knew that if it hadn't been for Yu Xian, he and the other students would have been killed. Yu Xian had literally saved his life. A mere phone was nothing compared to that.
At that moment, Chen Ling and a male teacher came over with several bowls in hand. She forced a small smile and said, "Everyone, come and have some breakfast."
Zhang Shou cheered up instantly, leaping to his feet and speaking loudly to break the tension. "Oh, awesome, I've been starving!"
Chen Ling walked over to Yu Xian with a bowl of noodles. Taking the bowl from her, Yu Xian smiled. "Thanks."
Even though eating normal food now gave him indigestion and tasted like literal cardboard, he didn't want to reject Chen Ling's kindness right now. He held the bowl in one hand and his chopsticks in the other.
Chen Ling finally noticed his left arm and gasped in pleasant surprise. "Yu Xian! Your arm...It's healed?"
"Yeah. One sleep later, and it just grew back," Yu Xian chuckled and took a bite of the noodles.
But as he chewed, he frowned. He instinctively looked up, his gaze landing on the male teacher who was still handing out breakfast nearby. Keeping his eyes on the man, he asked Chen Ling, "Who is that teacher?"
Chen Ling introduced him. "That's Mr Yu Wei. He's the Grade 9 PE teacher. He didn't have any classes yesterday, so he was sleeping in the dormitory, which is why he escaped the parasite attack.
"Ah, Mr. Yu must have been falling sick yesterday." Zhang Shou chuckled.
While Grade 9 probably was not comparable to Grade 12, its workload was no joke, and the PE teacher was prone to "falling ill."
Chen Ling shot Zhang Shou an annoyed glare, while Yu Xian kept his eyes on Yu Wei, a nagging sense of unease settling over him. Even though his sense of smell and vision, both heavily enhanced by Silver Blood, couldn't detect anything wrong, he was unable to shake the vague, underlying feeling that something was off about this teacher.
The problem was that the authorities should have already vetted everyone present. Ideally, no one could have slipped through the cracks.
Even while Yu Xian lowered his head and kept eating his noodles, a voice deep inside his heart seemed to be screaming a constant warning to him that Yu Wei was a problem.
Something's wrong!
Something's wrong!
Something's wrong!