Li Duidui’s question was short, and his posture was incredibly cool. I was leaning against the wall, holding my stomach, mouth full of sourness and still, I was hit square in the face by his handsomeness.
"There's a son of a bitch!" Li Peipei recovered her strength and cursed so loudly it snapped me right out of my daze.
"Damn it! Scared the hell out of me! If I hadn't run fast, something would have happened today! Mangzi is still lying there! I'm going to bring him back! Come with me, I'll take you to find him! Damn it, how frustrating! Let's beat him to death!"
Li Peipei usually argues with Li Duidui, but when it comes to calling people to fight, she immediately stood on Li Duidui's side and became his sister.
Li Duidui looked at the emotionally agitated Li Peipei with a calm expression. He grabbed his somewhat messy hair. His slender, clean white fingers seemed to have magic, instantly restoring his hair to its original neat style. He didn't pay much attention to Li Peipei. He only turned his gaze to me, looking me up and down. His gaze paused on the vomit at my feet, and then he frowned.
"Your stomach was injured?"
I weakly pointed to Li Peipei. "I was jostled by being carried on her shoulder."
"It's better to be jostled a few times than to lose your life. You know how fragile humans are." Li Peipei directly brushed me off. “Where’s Xiao Lang? Call him too. That guy’s not easy to deal with.”
"What's his background?" Li Duidui asked casually as he returned to his room. When he came out again, he was wearing a golden ring with a thorny rose-vine design wrapped around his unusually pale index finger.
This is Li Duidui's magic artifact. When used, it turns into a golden chain. The first time I saw Li Duidui, he used this thing to deal with Xiao Lang, who had transformed into a wolf.
"I can't tell. He was wearing a big black robe, wrapped tightly. I didn't see his face."
Li Duidui was turning the ring on his index finger. Hearing her words, he suddenly stopped. "Oh? A black robe?"
"Yes! Black..." Li Peipei also suddenly stopped, then stared at me. "Su Xiaoxin, you said that the person you met on the night you met the zombie, the person you fell in love with at first sight, was also wearing a black robe?"
Li Duidui also gave me a meaningful look. I swallowed a mouthful of sourness. "Yes, but, I don't know if this is him. It was too fast, I didn't see anything. And, that person saved me that day. Although I didn't see his face, I know it's different. He's very gentle, and..." Even in this situation, when I recalled the events of that day, I still felt the warmth of his palm lingering on my hair. “I can’t explain it, but it's not the same person."
"You're just horny."
Rarely, it was Li Peipei who was complaining about me, and Li Duidui didn't say a word.
After a moment of silence, he only whistled. After a while, a figure jumped down from a balcony on the seventh floor. With a heavy "thud," Xiao Lang landed steadily with his knees bent. He straightened his body and took a step forward, leaving two shallow footprints in the cement behind him.
"How many times have I told you, you can't jump out of the window?" Li Duidui scolded. Xiao Lang immediately replied weakly, "I... I don't pay the rent on time, but if Landlord calls me, I still have to come immediately."
"Hmm." Li Duidui was satisfied with this answer. "Let's go."
Xiao Lang looked confused. "Do what?"
"People."
Li Duidui still spoke very handsomely, although I didn't know if what they were going to deal with was really a person. As a weak human, I didn't want to drag them down, so I could only watch and support them in taking revenge and retrieving Mangzi. Li Duidui, wearing pajamas, looked very cool as he walked in front, leading his sister, his subordinate, and his eunuch cat to the battlefield in the park ahead.
“What are they doing?” Yu Meimei poked her head out from the third-floor balcony, toothbrush still in her mouth.
"Going to fight."
"Huh?" Yu Meimei asked me, “Wearing pajamas and slippers? The landlord’s gotten so arrogant he doesn’t even dress for battle anymore? I mean, it’s daytime!”
I watched their figures for a long time, and then clapped my hands together. "This scene is so cool! I'm going back to draw it!"
"Huh? Cool? Pajamas and slippers? Have you also underestimated the readers to such a casual degree?"
I ignored Meimei and ran back to my room in a puff of smoke, enduring the nausea and working hard to draw the update. However, before I could finish drawing two pictures, Li Duidui came back wearing pajamas and slippers again. Xiao Lang walked next to him, yawning, with the sleeping Black Dog perched on his shoulder. The sleeping Li Mangzi was like a dog mountain, held in Li Peipei's arms, burying her upper body.
The result of Li Peipei calling people to fight that day was that when they went back to find him, the person was gone, leaving only Li Mangzi lying in place with his four feet facing the sky.
I originally thought that this matter was probably over. Who the man in black was and why he attacked us didn't seem important, because... anyway, Li Duidui was investigating it, but Li Peipei and I didn't expect that the next day, Li Peipei started having shoulder pain.
She came to me to massage her. When she took off her clothes, I looked at her right shoulder and didn't dare to touch it.
"What's wrong?"
"Peipei, you didn't take a shower yesterday, did you?"
"...Yesterday I was so tired, I didn't even open my coffin, I just made do on the sofa for a day. What's wrong? Am I dirty?"
"No." I took her to the mirror. "If you took a shower, you would definitely see this."
Li Peipei turned her head and looked at her back in the mirror then froze. “What the hell is this?!”
On her right shoulder blade was a dark red mark, shaped like a child's bloody handprint. At the tips of the fingers, three bloody lines extended outward. I gathered all my courage, pulled out four or five tissues, balled them up, and gently tried wiping the lines…
"I can't wipe it off. It's not your blood, it's the mark." I felt my heart beating faster, like watching a horror movie. "Peipei, when you pushed me yesterday, were you hit by that man in black?"
Li Peipei's face, which was already white, turned green. "Was that a ghost? No wonder he wasn't there when we went back to find him. Did he possess me? Xiaoxin, quickly shine a light on me. Is my shadow still there?"
Without saying a word, I decisively dragged her down two floors and knocked on the old witch's door.
The old witch seemed to have gone out. I dragged Li Peipei, who was already frightened out of her wits, to the first floor and knocked on Li Duidui's door, but only Black Dog was licking his paws at the door. "Master went out all night yesterday and hasn't come back. He's probably busy."
"Busy where?"
"Why should I tell..."
I grabbed his neck and lifted him up. "Do I look like I'm joking with you? Tell me, where is he busy?"
Black Dog was frightened by me, staring at me with wide eyes. I shook him, and his voice immediately lowered a degree. "At the Vampire Association..."
"Peipei, let's go."
"No, no, no!" Li Peipei broke free from my hand and ran upstairs in a puff of smoke. "There's a barrier in this building. I'm not going out. What if a ghost steals my body as soon as I go out? I'm not going."
I saw that she was completely frightened and had lost her usual swagger, so I took out my phone to call Li Duidui. I made two calls, but they were both turned off. I picked up Black Dog and walked outside. "You lead the way to the Vampire Association."
"It's so far! My paws are very soft, I don't want to run..."
"You have to take me there, even if it's at the ends of the earth!"
Finally... we took a taxi. Sitting in the back seat, the cat paws pointed the direction, and I gave the driver directions. After many bumps and countless complaints from the driver, we finally drove to Ciqikou...
I never expected that such a mysterious underground organization, the Vampire Association, would set its office in such a bustling city tourist attraction...
I held Black Dog, listening to him give me directions, struggling forward among the shoulder-to-shoulder tourists in the ancient town. After walking through the two main streets, Black Dog pointed me to a small road next to it. Instantly, there were fewer people. He pointed up, down, left, and right. The mountainous terrain of Chongqing was already complex. After turning a few corners, I completely lost track of where I was. I thought Black Dog was playing with me and was about to beat him when he wagged his tail. "Here, it's this door."
The door in front of me was very old, and the house it guarded looked like it had been around for a long time. It was dilapidated, as if pushing it would knock the old house down. Next to the door on the gray wall was a notice that read "Dangerous building, do not enter."
"Is it really here? You’re not messing with me?”
I was confused. Was the Vampire Association really this down bad? I mean, don’t vampires abroad live in castles? Luxurious, extravagant, with barons and counts and all that? And yet, here in China, their local branch office looked like it was ready to collapse…
"Yes."
"Li Duidui wears a suit and tie every day, dressed so presentable, and works here?"
"Yes." The door in front of me opened with a "creak." A man in a suit and tie, dressed presentably, stood inside with his arms crossed, quietly looking at me. "Do you have any objections?"
When Black Dog saw his master, he immediately leaped up. He escaped from my arms like a loach and jumped onto Li Duidui's shoulder. "Master, this lowly servant was so presumptuous today! A mere human actually threatened me!"
I coughed. "Li Duidui, I have something serious to tell you. Peipei protected me yesterday and blocked an attack from that man in black for me. Now she has a blood-red handprint of a child on her scapula. I went to the old witch, but he wasn't there. Go back and take a look at her. I'm afraid something will happen..."
After hearing my words, Li Duidui was silent for a moment. "Black Dog, go in and call two doctors to go back and see Li Peipei."
"Yes, Master." Black Dog scurried into the small dilapidated house.
I couldn’t help but sneak a glance inside. From the outside, the place looked tiny and shabby, but based on what Li Duidui said, it sounded like there were a lot of people inside…
"You." Li Duidui called me.
"Me what?"
"Starting today, you have a curfew. You're not allowed to go out unless it's necessary."
"Why?"
"Why?" Li Duidui's tone was full of contempt for my intelligence. "Li Peipei helped you block an attack. You tell me, who did the person who left the mark on Li Peipei originally want to deal with?" He stared at me with his serious and cold eyes, making my heart tremble. "Our world is very dangerous. You, as a human, shouldn't be involved, but since you've already gotten involved, keep your little life safe."
Li Duidui said, "Remember, you are prey."