Chapter 10: - Vampire Awakening

Liang Cheng walked in front, Zheng Fan behind him. The second floor had quite a few rooms, most of them used by the “aunties” working under Fourth Lady.

According to local custom, many red cloth wraps hung outside the doors. The effect was rather like those modern roadside “barbershops” with a salon sign hanging outside despite not having a single pair of hair clippers within.

Fourth Lady’s room was at the far end.

She actually lived in one of the side rooms in the rear courtyard and never received customers herself. Tonight, for the sake of the operation, she had deliberately chosen the innermost room in the northwest corner of the second floor.

The room itself was divided into two sections: an inner chamber and an outer chamber.

When Liang Cheng pushed open the door, Zheng Fan saw the guard sitting there with both arms wrapped around his sword.

His clothing looked no different from that of the caravan men, but his back was perfectly straight and his eyes were half closed.

His master was in the inner chamber at this very moment, yet he still maintained such discipline. A’Ming’s earlier assessment of him had clearly been correct.

When Liang Cheng and Zheng Fan entered, the guard opened his eyes and swept his gaze toward them.

“What is it?”

“On the proprietor’s instructions, we’ve brought some wine. Our inn’s wine is famous throughout Tiger Head City, so...”

“I don’t drink.”

The guard refused without hesitation.

Liang Cheng had seen great scenes before. Even reduced to an ordinary person, a Demon King still possessed courage far beyond that of ordinary men.

So after being rejected directly, Liang Cheng merely pointed toward the inner door.

“Guest, you misunderstand. Our proprietor ordered this wine sent in for herself and your honored master. It isn’t for you.”

The guard paused.

He himself did not drink. That was one thing.

But if his master needed it...

Truthfully, he did not understand much about this sort of thing. From childhood, his family had trained him to become a deathsworn protector for its younger generation.

His master, on the other hand, seemed very familiar with such pleasures. At home he had still shown some restraint. Once outside, freed from the family’s restrictions, he had completely lost control. After traveling through several places, he had already played several prostitutes to death.

Zheng Fan stood behind Liang Cheng the whole time, searching for an opportunity.

From the instant the door opened, he had felt as though some invisible presence was watching him continuously.

Then, suddenly, that pressure disappeared.

The guard had been distracted.

Zheng Fan did not hesitate.

He had no experience with this sort of thing, and Liang Cheng had not arranged any hand signal for him to act on. But Zheng Fan felt this was the chance.

“Ah!”

With a low roar, Zheng Fan raised the wine jar and hurled it directly at the seated guard.

...

Zheng Fan did not know how developed the pleasure districts of inner Yan might be.

But Fourth Lady had run brothels in every age and every place across her comic stories. She was a veteran madam through and through.

A little atmosphere.

A little flirtation.

Add stockings in a modern style.

That alone was enough to hook the soul of this apparently well-born young master.

“How about these?”

“Beautiful.”

“And these?”

“Beautiful too.”

“What about these?”

“Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.”

Fourth Lady changed one pair after another, hanging each pair she removed around the young master’s neck.

Then, without warning, she clenched both hands.

The stockings looped around his neck instantly became a strangling cord.

“Urgh...”

Fourth Lady pulled with all her strength, but the young master struggled violently.

At that moment, a figure climbed in through the window.

Seeing what was happening in the inner chamber, A’Ming showed neither nervousness nor alarm.

If anything, he seemed entertained.

But when he saw that Fourth Lady appeared unable to overpower the man, A’Ming frowned slightly in puzzlement.

This was not the time to think about it.

He walked toward the bed, casually taking a hairpin from the dressing table as he passed.

Once he reached the young master’s back, A’Ming raised the hairpin.

Pshk!

It drove into the back of the man’s neck.

The young master convulsed once, lost all resistance, and collapsed unconscious.

Feng Siniang released him and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, gasping. Sweat had soaked through the thin clothes she wore tonight.

“He... he isn’t dead, is he?”

A’Ming shook his head.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Crash!

The sound of a wine jar shattering came from the outer chamber.

...

Zheng Fan’s jar came smashing down.

The best possible outcome would have been knocking the guard unconscious with a single blow.

Clearly, things did not develop in the best possible way.

The guard might indeed have relaxed his vigilance for an instant, but his reactions were astonishing.

Humm!

The sword cradled in his arms flashed free in an instant and split the flying wine jar apart.

Crash!

The jar shattered.

The incense ash inside still burst all over him.

The guard could never have imagined that inside a brothel he would encounter an ambush this calculated and this shameless. Caught off guard, ash splashed into both eyes.

He shut them instantly, pain flashing across his face.

Liang Cheng did not hesitate.

He dropped both arms. Two iron awls slid into his hands.

Then he lunged forward like a tiger descending a mountain, stabbing both weapons toward the guard.

Clang!

Yet the guard’s ability was genuinely astonishing.

Even after being ambushed, even unable to see, his other senses remained keen.

His longsword swept upward.

Liang Cheng’s two iron awls failed to touch his body and were blocked against the flat of the blade.

Liang Cheng’s gaze sharpened.

He dragged both hands downward, deliberately opening his own defense, and stabbed again.

The guard’s longsword changed with the motion and slashed horizontally toward him.

He expected Liang Cheng to retreat.

Unless the man attacking him was also deathsworn.

Liang Cheng did not retreat.

Pshk!

The front of the sword sliced into Liang Cheng’s lower abdomen.

At the same time, Liang Cheng’s twin awls punched into the guard’s shoulders.

The guard froze in shock.

Pain and the other man’s suicidal ferocity threw him off balance.

And he could feel unmistakable resistance after his sword entered Liang Cheng’s body.

The attacker had to be wearing concealed armor.

Naturally, he could never have imagined that the man attacking him was someone who normally performed “breaking a boulder on the chest” in this very inn.

And though he was an ordinary person now, he was, after all, a zombie.

Just as Liang Cheng felt he had seized the advantage and prepared to deepen the guard’s injuries, an extremely faint blue glow suddenly flashed across the man’s body.

Zheng Fan remained standing nearby after throwing the jar.

It was not that he had forgotten the agreement to run the moment he acted.

Everything had simply happened too quickly.

From the jar leaving his hands to Liang Cheng lunging in, only two or three breaths had passed.

He had not even had time to flee.

So Zheng Fan saw the light on the guard’s body.

Inner power?

Battle qi?

Something else?

He had no idea what it was.

But combined with the strange mount he had seen outside the inn that morning, he could at least confirm one fact.

This was absolutely not an ordinary ancient world.

Liang Cheng, locked in combat with the guard, felt the change most clearly.

The instant that blue light flickered across the man’s body, his strength seemed to double.

Not only did he wrench Liang Cheng’s iron awls completely aside with his sword, he raised one leg and kicked him squarely.

Bang!

Zheng Fan watched Liang Cheng fly backward and smash through the wooden door.

His heart immediately sank.

They really had hooked a big fish tonight.

The problem was that this fish seemed capable of eating people.

The guard, however, did not choose to kill Zheng Fan after kicking Liang Cheng away.

He charged toward the inner chamber instead.

To him, his master’s safety mattered above everything else.

Creak!

Just as the guard reached the inner doorway, the door opened from within.

A’Ming stood directly in the entrance, still holding the jade hairpin in one hand.

The guard let out a low shout.

That blue glow appeared again, though noticeably weaker than before.

His eyes still could not open because of the incense ash.

But his sword remained viciously precise.

“Careful!”

Zheng Fan had time to shout only that one word.

There was nothing else he could do.

He was not Duan Yu.

Since the instant he threw the wine jar, the situation had changed far too quickly for him to simply point one finger after another and go pew-pew-pew.

A’Ming seemed to freeze.

Perhaps he had not expected that the moment he opened the door, intending to ambush someone else, the other man would stab him head-on instead.

So A’Ming failed to dodge in time.

At least, that was how it looked to Zheng Fan.

Pshk!

The guard’s sword plunged into A’Ming’s abdomen.

The brutal force behind it drove the blade straight through his body and buried its tip in the wooden door behind him.

A’Ming’s body began trembling faintly.

His head tipped backward.

His hair fell loose around him.

“Who sent you? Speak!”

The guard was furious.

He had merely accompanied his master out to visit a brothel.

Who could have imagined they would be ambushed inside the damn place?

A’Ming slowly lowered his head again.

His body was still trembling.

Shuddering.

But a mad smile had appeared on his face.

This feeling.

Had it returned?

Had it finally returned?!

“Hehehe...”

Laughter crawled from A’Ming’s throat.

“Deathsworn?”

The guard was confused.

These attackers were deathsworn?

Damn it.

Why were there so many deathsworn inside a brothel who did not fear death?

The one he had stabbed earlier had kept attacking as though his life meant nothing.

Now this man, already skewered straight through by his sword, was the same.

Who?

Who the hell had arranged so many precious deathsworn here to assassinate his master and himself?

A’Ming’s laughter enraged the guard.

His hand tightened around the sword.

Then he twisted the blade inside A’Ming’s body.

Yes.

A’Ming’s trembling became even more violent.

Because the guard could not open his eyes, he assumed the man was convulsing from greater pain.

But Zheng Fan, standing nearby, could see.

He saw the horrifying delight on A’Ming’s face grow stronger and stronger.

Then, A’Ming opened his mouth.

Two fangs slowly emerged.

And then, toward the guard’s neck, he bit down.

“AAAAAAAAAAAH!”

[End of Chapter 10]