Chapter 6: - Vampire

From after lunch until nightfall, Zheng Fan remained alone in his room.

The box sat on the dressing table before him.

The Demon Pill was sealed inside it.

Unfortunately, the little bastard had no intention of showing Zheng Fan any respect. Even though Zheng Fan was awake now, even though he was sitting right in front of the box, the Demon Pill still refused to emerge and meet him.

In truth, Zheng Fan should have expected that attitude.

The others’ real feelings toward him were probably similar to A’Ming’s. A’Ming was simply too proud to bother pretending otherwise.

And what, exactly, did Zheng Fan amount to in their eyes?

Even the Demon Pill, the character he himself had created, could not be bothered with him.

Still, there was one thing for which Zheng Fan genuinely had to thank them.

If he had arrived in this world alone, even if he had not been unconscious, he probably would have died long ago.

These Demon Kings might have lost their strength, but they had still managed to build a functioning livelihood in an unfamiliar world and live reasonably well. Zheng Fan had undoubtedly benefited from them.

The inn opened for business in the afternoon. Customers gradually began arriving, and once night fell, the noise from the front hall grew louder and louder.

Business was booming.

Not bad at all.

Zheng Fan simply had no interest in going out to look.

He had only just awakened and only just found himself facing this situation. He needed some quiet. Sitting alone here without bothering to think too deeply about anything felt perfectly fine.

Creak...

The door opened.

Zheng Fan turned and saw the same young girl who had been wiping his body when he first awakened. He remembered Feng Siniang calling her Little Yun.

Little Yun carried in a meal and set it before him.

“Mama said that Mas... Master needs some quiet by himself, so she wouldn’t disturb you by making you eat in the front.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

He still had to eat.

Especially after seeing a vampire and a zombie eating earlier today, he felt he had acquired a deeper understanding of the saying that food was the first necessity of man.

Just as Zheng Fan picked up his chopsticks, he suddenly heard a faint rustling sound.

He looked up.

Then froze.

Little Yun was taking off her clothes.

“What are you doing?”

Little Yun bit her lip. Her cheeks flushed, and a faint sob entered her voice.

“Mama said that starting today, I’m to attend you in bed.”

Zheng Fan smiled, shook his head, and waved a hand.

“No need. Put your clothes back on.”

Although waking up had revealed that his physical condition had recovered enormously, he had no such thoughts toward a little girl.

On this particular point, his tastes were actually quite similar to Qin Siyao’s.

Give everyone a little time to become familiar with one another and, if Feng Siniang came to seduce him one night, Zheng Fan genuinely could not guarantee he would resist.

But faced with a little slip of a girl like this, he truly felt nothing.

Yet the moment Zheng Fan refused, Little Yun burst into tears.

From the girl’s perspective, there was an obvious difference between serving one man as the concubine of someone Madam regarded so highly and being sent to the red tents to join those aunties in receiving customer after customer and selling her body.

Zheng Fan sighed.

This truly was Feng Siniang’s style.

Some aspects of a person’s character did not change easily.

He could only continue:

“Go out. I’ll speak with Siniang about your situation. It’ll be fine.”

“Master, please... Master...”

“Get out!”

Little Yun left.

Zheng Fan shook his head.

Sometimes, being too gentle only made things worse.

After dinner, Zheng Fan left the room to get some air.

When he entered the courtyard, he happened to see Fan Li coming out of the wine cellar carrying four jars of wine, one in each hand and another tucked beneath each arm.

“Your hand. Let me have Siniang bandage it for you,” Fan Li said to A’Ming with some concern.

Earlier, while taking wine from the cellar, Fan Li had been careless and knocked one jar loose. A’Ming had reached out and caught it, but a rough protrusion along the jar had cut his palm.

“It’s fine. I’m a vampire.”

“But none of us have our powers anymore. I still think you should have it treated...”

“Even without my powers, I heal faster than the rest of you. Three days should be enough for it to close.”

“All right.”

Fan Li stopped insisting.

As he continued forward, he noticed Zheng Fan.

“Master.”

Fan Li called out with his usual honest manner, then tried his very best to bend his massive body a little while his arms were full, which counted as a salute.

“Mm.”

Zheng Fan acknowledged him.

“Master, I’m taking the wine out front.”

“Go on.”

Fan Li carried the jars toward the front hall.

A man in a worn tailcoat emerged from the wine cellar behind him. He turned, locked the door, turned around again, and saw Zheng Fan standing beneath the loquat tree in the courtyard.

A’Ming looked as though he were sighing, or helpless, or simply carrying out a formal procedure he could not be bothered with.

He placed his right hand over the left side of his chest and saluted Zheng Fan with an attitude that practically said: you know I’m insincere, and I know I’m insincere.

“Greetings, Master.”

“Finished for the day?” Zheng Fan asked, walking a few steps closer.

He ate their food, drank their wine, and lived under their roof.

Mm.

The least he could do was exchange a few words.

“Today’s supply of wine should be enough.”

A’Ming lightly adjusted his cuffs.

He clearly liked the tailcoat.

Unfortunately, having a new one custom-made here was both troublesome and expensive.

Feng Siniang controlled the accounts. She herself dressed far more plainly than she once had, so naturally she would never allow anyone else to spend extravagantly on clothing.

“Do you have time to talk?” Zheng Fan asked.

A’Ming looked at him seriously for a moment, then nodded.

Zheng Fan walked to the loquat tree and sat down beneath it. Then he beckoned for A’Ming to sit beside him.

A’Ming walked over.

He did not sit.

“Dirty.”

“...” Zheng Fan.

After taking two deep breaths, Zheng Fan asked:

“What kind of place is this?”

“A new world.”

“I know it’s a new world. We transmigrated, right? And it looks like ancient times. What dynasty is this?”

A’Ming shook his head.

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve been here half a year. None of you bothered finding out?”

“I only brew wine.”

“Uh... then who would know?”

“The Blind Man, probably. He should know a little. He sits outside every day.”

“No, wait. We arrived in a completely unfamiliar place, and none of you had any curiosity about this world or the environment around you?”

Zheng Fan genuinely could not understand it.

If you arrived somewhere unfamiliar, surely the first thing to do was collect information about the area and about the world itself.

Anyone who had played games knew how important it was to uncover the map.

For a transmigrator, that mattered even more.

“There was no need.”

“No need?”

“Because you were unconscious.”

Because you were unconscious, there was no need.

Zheng Fan found the logic difficult to understand.

So this was somehow his fault?

A’Ming’s expression suddenly became strange.

Until now, he had always looked cold and calm, as though almost nothing in the world interested him. But at this moment, he seemed deeply conflicted.

As though he were preparing to say things that, according to his personality, he normally would never say and perhaps should never say.

“Master, you don’t need to be afraid of us.”

“Afraid of what?”

A’Ming had struck directly at the thoughts Zheng Fan had been hiding.

Still, openly admitting he was afraid of them did not seem especially appropriate.

“It’s true. We look down on you. We look down on you quite a lot.”

“...” Zheng Fan.

“But we will not abandon you. We did not abandon you while you were unconscious. Now that you have awakened, we will not abandon you either.”

The words were becoming rather sentimental.

No wonder A’Ming had looked so conflicted.

If Feng Siniang or Xue San said something this emotional, it would fit perfectly.

Coming from A’Ming, however, it felt as though he had somehow been handed the wrong lines from the script.

“You won’t... abandon me?”

“No. We will not abandon you, because the people who created us eventually abandoned us.”

Zheng Fan’s heart trembled.

That sentence revealed something enormous.

They...

They...

They knew they were characters from comics!

“We were all abandoned.”

A’Ming raised his face slightly, as though looking toward the moonlight.

“They abandoned us. But you did not.”

For three years after the studio dissolved, everyone else changed careers.

Only Zheng Fan continued silently updating the unfinished comics his old companions had left behind, doing his best to add a few more chapters to each one so their stories could continue.

“So we will not abandon you.”

A’Ming’s expression grew serious.

Looking down on you was one thing.

They would still call him Master.

And they would never abandon him.

“Thank you.”

Zheng Fan felt those were the only two words he could say.

“Because Master remained unconscious, nothing else had any meaning to us. We earned enough money to survive here, and we waited for you to wake up. That was all.”

“I understand.”

Zheng Fan nodded solemnly.

“The Blind Man probably knows more about the surroundings. You can ask him.”

“All right. I’ll go now.”

Zheng Fan smiled at A’Ming, then turned and walked into the front hall.

A’Ming remained beneath the loquat tree.

He licked his lips.

He had not liked the tone he used just now.

He had not particularly liked the things he said either.

But after saying them aloud, he somehow felt much more comfortable.

Then he lowered his head and looked at his hand.

A strange light suddenly flashed through A’Ming’s eyes.

Because the wound in his palm had healed!

[End of Chapter 6]