I always felt that any words, whether lies, exaggerations, or jokes, when Li Duidui stared at me and said them, they were the truth.
He was like a hunting lion, having eaten his fill, giving me some warnings in his spare time. So when he spat out the words "prey," goosebumps popped up on my skin in cooperation.
I was successfully scared by him.
In the reflection of his glasses, I looked like a panicked little deer—lips pressed together, holding my breath, eyes wide, watching him with unblinking eyes.
He lowered his eyes and turned to walk into the dangerous building. Standing behind him, I had the intuition that he was smiling, at least he thought I was very funny… but when he turned his head to look at me, there was no trace of a smile in his eyes. He was still as arrogant as usual.
"What are you standing there for?"
His words confused me. I was stunned for a moment, and answered, "Waiting for the doctor to come back with me to treat Li Peipei."
He frowned, typical landlord-style impatience. "Did you go to swat mosquitoes with your ears when I was talking just now? Are you expecting two doctors to protect you on the way back?"
I looked at him for a long time. "What else?"
"Wait for me."
So I quietly waited for him to finish the second half of the sentence, but after staring at him for ten seconds, he didn't say the next sentence. I kindly reminded him, "Wait for you to do what?"
He narrowed his eyes slightly, turned around, crossed his arms, leaned against the dilapidated wooden door, pushed his glasses, and looked at me with a look of looking at an idiot, saying slowly, "Besides waiting for me to get off work, what else do you think you and I can do here?"
Around me were bluestone stairs and dangerous buildings. Below in the distance was the river, and not far uphill was the crowded scenic spot. If it were my boyfriend, with all the scenes I’ve stored in my brain from years of watching dramas, I could think of a thousand things to do here. Sweet things. Wild things. Whatever your heart desires…
But Li Duidui, I could only stare at him blankly, and after a long time, I asked, "You want me to wait for you to go home together?"
"Did you let Li Peipei shake your brain out yesterday? Are you so stupid that you can't understand Chinese?" He turned on the roasting mode, but I didn't roast him back in time because I was a little confused.
I'm not stupid, nor am I unable to understand what Li Duidui said to me. I just don't understand him.
I knew how much Li Duidui hated the word "together."
He didn’t just hate being “together” with others himself, he also hated me being “together” with Peipei, Xiao Lang, or Meimei. He called our mahjong games illegal gambling, our barbecues illegal gatherings. Every time he caught us, he had something to roast us, so much that our hangouts dwindled sharply. Only Peipei and I kept in regular contact because we lived on the same floor.
Li Duidui seemed to want each of us to keep our distance from each other... or rather...
He wanted me to keep my distance from everyone.
Yes, like I said before, I think Li Duidui hates me in his heart because I broke his rules.
So, from the very beginning, my mind didn't even consider the possibility that he would "stoop" to go back with me to protect me.
"Come in," Li Duidui said these two words, leaving the confused me behind and walking into the dangerous building.
I looked up at the wall above, which was already cracked, and looked left and right at the deserted path. I felt a little weak in my heart and took a small step into the door. Almost the next moment, the door closed with a "creak," and the entire space was immediately plunged into darkness.
There was no way back, and I couldn't see Li Duidui walking in front.
"Li..."
I had just started to speak when I heard a soft "snap," and a flame sprang out. In the corner, Li Duidui lit a candle. The firelight trembled and flickered on his face, making his features more defined. For a moment, I vaguely felt that this was not a dilapidated ancient town dangerous building in Ciqikou, but a castle in distant Europe, inhabited by an unpredictable vampire count...
"Come here." The count ordered me, successfully breaking my daydream.
"Do you know that every time you call me, your expression and tone are just like when Li Peipei calls Mangzi?"
I expressed my dissatisfaction, which earned me a light glance from Li Duidui.
"Oh, then I'm pretty good to you."
"..."
While we were talking, I walked to his side. The moment I stepped next to him, suddenly, the candlelight in his hand shone brightly, and a brilliant light appeared under my feet. I looked down and saw a perfect circular magic circle shining with golden light. Although I had lived in the old apartment building for some time, this was the first time I had stood in such a magic circle. I was very excited.
"It's like in an animation!" As soon as I shouted this sentence, the light around me suddenly disappeared. What was in front of me was no longer the dark interior of the dangerous building, but a dark passage built of stacked stones. The passage was damp, and dim yellow candles were lit on both sides. But the dim environment didn't kill my high spirits. My eyes kept scanning around.
This is simply a goldmine of inspiration!
While I was looking around, I asked, "Where are we now? Are we still in Ciqikou? Is this underground? How deep did you dig? I knew that your Vampire Association, with such an interesting name, wouldn't be working in a dangerous building. Should I wait for you here? Can I walk around? I promise I won't touch anything!"
I babbled on and on, not even pausing for air. When I finally stopped to breathe, I realized I’d broken the stillness of this underground world like a square dancer barging into a library. But Li Duidui didn't stop me or tell me to be quiet.
I turned to look at him, only to see that he was also looking at me.
Our eyes met, separated by a candle with a flickering flame.
His stare lingered, deep and strange, like he was seeing something of the other time and space through me. But after I sensibly reached out and covered my mouth, he blinked and that hazy look in his eyes vanished. Back came the usual arrogance.
"Reign in the light in your eyes. Don't blind the vampires who aren’t used to it down here." As he said this, he handed me the candle in his hand. "Take this to light the way and wait for me in the room with the third candle in front."
I suppressed my voice. "I just have one question."
"Hmm?"
"Can I walk around on my own?"
Then Li Duidui smiled with a fake smile. "What do you think? Prey."
I swallowed.
He turned around and walked into the darkness behind him where there were no candles. The voice was like it was floating from the void, echoing eerily through the dark passage, empty and terrifying. "If you're brave enough, go wander around. The Vampire Association's underground office building is very big. It has everything. Hold onto that candle. It's your pass." He paused. I saw him turn his head to look at me before his figure was about to be submerged in darkness. "Just don't let it go out."
It felt like I’d just been cursed. My scalp tingled, and I instantly cradled the candle in both hands like it was my lifeline. Cautiously, I crept into the room Li Duidui had pointed out. There was a simple desk and chair inside. I sat down with the candle in my arms, staring at the flame without moving.
All my curiosity died at the moment Li Duidui threatened me just now.
Protecting my life and not courting death, I think this is the main reason why I, an ordinary person, can survive in this dangerous world.
I sat staring at the flame for a long time. I was so bored that I took out my phone, but there was no signal. So I opened a game and started popping stars. After playing two games, I heard a soft "click." The white light above flickered twice. I looked up and saw that the light bulb hanging overhead had turned on. Instantly, the room was bright white, as bright as a normal government office. That dark and terrifying atmosphere instantly disappeared.
"Oh, you scared me to death. Why are you sitting here alone without turning on the light?" At the door stood a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen asking me with a puzzled expression.
I replied with a twitching corner of my mouth. "No... no one told me there was a light here..." I said, "I thought you guys just liked to light candles here..."
"Who likes to light candles? It's smoky and stuffy. The light in the corridor broke last week. I asked someone to fix it, but they haven't fixed it yet. We had no choice but to light candles." She walked in, threw the noodles in her hand on the table. The aroma of the noodles immediately filled the room. The spicy smell stimulated my taste buds, making me a little hungry. "Move over. That's my office chair. You go sit over there."
"Oh..." I moved away with the candle in my arms.
"What are you doing holding the candle? You can't see even with the light on?" She asked me.
"Didn't you say... the candle is a pass?"
The little girl was stunned for a moment, then pushed aside the documents on the table, found a landline in the corner, and made a call:
"Hello? Is this the General Secretariat? Can you communicate with the Director? Can you ask him to stop scaring the newcomers? Every time I have to explain to people that we are a modern, law-abiding work unit. It's really tiring! I'm very busy, okay! ...You won't say anything? If you won't say anything, do you want me to go and talk to the Director? What's the point of having your Secretariat Office?"
The little girl started tearing someone apart on the phone. I observed a battle in a non-human public institution up close.
Then I realized...
Damn it, Li Duidui! I didn't expect you to be such a childish vampire! You're actually bullying me because I'm new here and don't understand your Vampire Association's rules!
"You son of b*tch, pissing me off." The little girl cursed in dialect after slamming down the phone. "If it wasn't for the fact that the noodles are about to get soggy, I wouldn't have stopped myself from cursing him to death today." As she said this, she opened a pair of disposable chopsticks and slurped two mouthfuls of noodles. The noodles warmed her stomach and seemed to calm her heart. Only then did she look up at me, her emotions no longer as intense as they were on the phone.
"What kind of business are you here to do? Don't be afraid. We haven't drank human blood in a long time."
I know that vampires don't drink human blood much anymore. In modern society, they have long created a high-nutrition, high-value blood powder that can be produced efficiently, just like milk powder. One bag is a bag of blood when mixed, clean and pollution-free. The prices are high and low, and the tastes are sweet and fishy. Some can even add sugar and salt to drink. There was even an ongoing “sweet vs. salty” blood powder debate among vampires.
Of course, as a daily necessity, blood powder occasionally has some fake and shoddy products mixed in the market, endangering the health of vampires. Therefore, an important responsibility of their Vampire Association is to combat fake and shoddy products.
I heard some time ago that Li Duidui and his team seized a ton of fake and shoddy blood powder and arrested several criminals to lock them up.
"I'm not here to do business. I, uh... I'm here to wait for your Director Li to get off work."
When the little girl heard this, her eyes lit up. "Waiting for the Director to go home together?"
"Yeah, I'm his neighbor. Today is a bit of a special situation, so... uh..."
The less I explained, the brighter the little girl's eyes became. I couldn't explain it clearly, so I simply shut up and let her look me up and down, and then said to me while eating noodles:
"Oh, our Director is good in every way, but he just likes to scare people. It's happened so many times. He scares the people who come to do business so much that they don't dare to say a few more words to us, afraid that we'll eat them. The Director says that this will make them cause less trouble, but he doesn’t realize it increases our workload so much. There's no way to gain their trust. No one trusts us. Hey, Neighbor Lady, if you get a chance, talk to him for us."
It would be better for you to say it yourself than for me to say it...
I smiled, noncommittal, and quietly listened to her other complaints.
It's amazing. I'm a comic artist who has been drawing at home since graduation. I've never been to any company. I never thought that one day, I would be listening to a vampire complain about her work troubles in a place I don't know how many meters underground.
The little girl was super talkative. I don't know how long she babbled. Perhaps it was time for me to sleep at night. I closed my eyes in the chair, and all I could hear was her rambling voice. Slowly, the rambling female voice turned into another voice.
This voice was obviously much more panicked. A woman seemed to be in a hot and stuffy space. She kept walking, shuttling through the crowded people. Every face she passed was full of sorrow and despair. She asked everyone, "Where's my child? Have you seen my child? He's a little boy, wearing a blue tunic. Have you seen him?"
The world was silent. Only she was constantly searching.
Suddenly, with a "boom," the sky fell apart. Rocks fell from overhead, and the crowd began to scream, in a state of chaos. She could only scream desperately in the chaos. "Yao'er! Yao'er!"
She shouted louder and louder, more and more shrilly. Every sound was tearing at my eardrums. But after an extremely high-pitched wail, the world suddenly returned to darkness.
"Su Xiaoxin."
I heard someone calling my name.
I opened my eyes. Li Duidui was standing in front of me. He was looking at me calmly, so calm that it formed a stark contrast to the panic in my dream.
"I... had a nightmare." I said, sitting up. Only then did I realize that my hands were clenched into fists aching, and my back was full of cold sweat.
He pulled over a chair and sat down next to me, with arms folded and legs crossed, looking at me. "Tell me." His confident expression was as if no matter how terrible things were, they were not worth mentioning in front of him.
So, by his side, I felt inexplicably confident that this nightmare was really not worth mentioning.