Chapter 108

Chapter 108

In the end, they left separately.

Deshan and Joshua took Guan Heng with them, while Ning Qiuyan was sent back to the Black House by Lu Qianque. He vomited until the world spun around him, and Qu Shu took care of him.

Physical, psychological-all kinds of factors piled together and knocked him down. When he was woken again, his fever had made him delirious, and he could no longer tell what day it was.

Li Tang was actually there too. Like Qu Shu, the way he looked at Ning Qiuyan was full of worry.

The first thing Ning Qiuyan did after opening his eyes was look around the room. His cracked lips parted and closed. “…Where’s Guan Heng?”

He had even forgotten to use an honorific.

He couldn’t remember whether he got an answer before he slipped back into unconsciousness.

In his dreams, he kept running.

One moment, he was in the woods behind the gas station, the wounds on the soles of his feet hurting with terrifying realism. The next, he was beneath the propellers, Qin Weizhi’s heart lying on the gray concrete beside him.

The scenes changed rapidly, without any logic.

He saw Guan Heng standing at the foot of the hotel steps, then getting into a car. Barefoot, he ran forward with all his strength, calling Guan Heng’s name at the top of his lungs.

But Guan Heng still got into the car.

The car drove away.

It vanished into the endless darkness ahead.

Behind him, however, came the sound of wet footsteps. Guan Heng stood there, dripping blood from head to toe, nothing left of him but a withered skeleton.

As if he had stepped into thin air, Ning Qiuyan jolted awake. What filled his vision was the bedroom ceiling and the black accent wall.

He looked as though someone had dumped a bucket of water over him. His clothes and sheets were soaked through, and because he was so drained, his entire body kept trembling. Even so, he felt much lighter than before.

He had experienced this once before, and vaguely knew he had already recovered.

Sure enough, when he went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, the bruises on his cheeks and the bite marks on his neck had vanished without a trace.

The house was quiet. Ning Qiuyan thought no one was there, only to find Li Tang in the living room.

Li Tang was plating the food on the table, bustling back and forth. With his pinky raised, his men’s heels clicked sharply against the floor.

“Qu Shu went out to handle something. I don’t know how to order takeout, so I made a few things myself.”

Li Tang turned back and threw him a flirtatious wink.

“Let me say this first: I haven’t made human food in ages. If it doesn’t taste good, you’re not allowed to say it out loud.”

Ning Qiuyan stood there in white pajamas, looking very slight, his expression still a little dazed.

“Where is sir?” he asked.

Li Tang came over and pushed him along. “Where is sir, where is sir. All you know is to ask about Mr. Guan. You were attacked by two kinds of toxins and took a trip through death’s door, do you know that?”

Ning Qiuyan was pushed to the table and sat down.

Li Tang scolded fondly, “I really don’t understand what Lu Qianque was doing. Mr. Guan was at his weakest, and he sent a human in there-did he think you were living too long? Thank goodness Mr. Guan has enough self-control to restrain himself even under those circumstances. Otherwise, I think you would’ve dropped dead right there, no rescue needed.”

Although his memories were hazy, Ning Qiuyan didn’t dare blame Lu Qianque unfairly. He said honestly, “I was the one who insisted on going.”

Li Tang had already heard what happened, and could no longer bring himself to scold him. He could only stamp his foot. “Forget it. Even if you want to find Mr. Guan now, you should at least fill your stomach first.”

Ning Qiuyan was indeed terribly hungry, but he still didn’t forget to ask, “Where is he?”

“At the hotel.” As Li Tang handed him a pair of chopsticks, he nagged, “It was better for the two of you to be apart at that time. We kept him updated about your condition these past two days. That way, while he was resting over there, he wouldn’t worry too much about you.”

So Ning Qiuyan’s collapse had already been two days ago.

Li Tang said that at the time, Ning Qiuyan had frightened them all badly. It hadn’t just been him and Qu Shu taking care of him-Sheng Huan had come too. Only by taking shifts among the three of them had they managed to look after Ning Qiuyan properly.

Ning Qiuyan ate a little.

Li Tang had not been modest. As a Vampire, his skill at cooking human food was worlds apart from his skill at tailoring. There probably wasn’t anyone who would willingly eat Li Tang’s cooking a second time.

However, Li Tang was a very good person to chat with, and also a very suitable person to pry information from.

Ning Qiuyan had only a vague understanding of the whole incident, so Li Tang told him the entire sequence of events.

This contest, originally planned to last a full century, had indeed ended early because of him.

Wagner had not lied to Qin Weizhi. Guan Heng had truly given up his status as a founder of the Blood Supervision Council forever, and had also permanently given up the exercise of his voting rights.

This struggle, which had seemed so grand in scale, had only just begun before it ended in a way no one could have imagined-with Guan Heng’s withdrawal.

The society of the Vampires was in an uproar.

No one had expected Guan Heng to make such a choice.

Although the reason had never been stated explicitly, everyone understood there was only one reason Guan Heng had done this-his Blood Contract Partner.

A human life was too short.

The Vampires could afford to wait. Humans could not.

As Wagner had said, human time was precious. No matter the reason-whether it was some trivial matter or a feud written in blood-before a life span that could shatter at a touch, none of it was worth mentioning. Every minute, every second of a human life could not be squandered.
On the day Guan Heng let Ning Qiuyan leave, he made an exchange with the forces behind the scenes.

Experience was part of growing up. He was willing to let Ning Qiuyan try, and he was capable of giving Ning Qiuyan room to make mistakes.

It was a pity to bring years of hidden maneuvering to such a hasty close, but Guan Heng acted with speed, precision, and ruthlessness. Without the slightest hesitation, he cleanly withdrew from the power-entangled world of the Vampires.

He could take things up and let them go. He could win, and he could afford to lose.

It left his opponents gnashing their teeth in regret.

They had only known that Guan Heng had always been cold-faced and impartial, with a heart as hard as iron. They had never known that they had placed their bets wrong from the very beginning, that they had misjudged Guan Heng, and that he, too, could harbor such tender feelings.

If they had gone against Vampire thinking from the start, abandoned their stereotypes, and replaced Lu Qianque with Ning Qiuyan, perhaps they would have reaped a faster, more satisfactory reward.

But now, this was all the result could amount to.

Fortunately, the sacrifices were all within the range Guan Heng could accept. He had already gone into seclusion on Du Island and had never desired power in the first place.

As for the revolution the Vampires fantasized about, even if the Vampires truly did stand above humanity one day, that would be a matter of the far, distant future. Guan Heng was not the only Vampire who hoped for world peace. Even without him, there were other Vampires on the same side who would carry on. When Guan Heng made a move, he had never relied solely on the Blood Supervision Council.

“All those incomplete Newborns have been dealt with,” Li Tang said. “Wagner did it himself. He threw the whole batch into the deep sea.”

With that, the supply chain for Huanle was still completely severed by Guan Heng.

The only troublesome part was that Qin Weizhi had hidden Lu Qianque away.

Qin Weizhi had dealings with Wagner, but he was not part of the Blood Supervision Council, and his purpose was different. In order to find the gray-robed figure, Qin Weizhi would never care about the bigger picture. There was nothing he would not do.

So Guan Heng was looking for Lu Qianque, and the opponents who had reached a conditional exchange with Guan Heng were also looking for Lu Qianque. To avoid alerting the enemy, both sides kept everything extremely low-key.

That Camellia Night had only been a feint.

The people Qin Weizhi sent out were completely wiped out, bait was left behind, and an inescapable net was quietly laid around his residence.

Who would have thought Qin Weizhi would not take the bait?

The moment he received the news that Lu Qianque had been rescued, his first reaction was to confirm that he had been betrayed. He made a decisive call, abandoned every lead on the gray-robed figure, and chose to take Ning Qiuyan hostage in preparation for leaving Sujing.

It was a very good move.

Not only did he lure Guan Heng to a remote place and restrain him, he also left Guan Heng with dozens of greedy incomplete Newborns.

Fortunately, Wagner discovered it in time.

At the time, Wagner, who had been waiting on the helipad to see them off, had actually also been waiting for Lu Qianque, who was supposed to sneak in deep at night to pick up Ning Qiuyan.

Ning Qiuyan listened with his heart pounding in fear.

So undercurrents had already been surging in places he knew nothing about. He alone had charged headlong into his own delusions, fantasizing about saving Lu Qianque with his own strength, in the most naive way possible.

“Don’t blame yourself. You actually helped a lot.” Li Tang patted his shoulder. “Really. If you hadn’t been so brave and brought over the misleading information Mr. Guan provided, Qin Weizhi’s attention wouldn’t have been focused entirely on finding the gray-robed figure. Whether he bought it or not, he still exposed the arrangement of his people. Those bastards at the Blood Supervision Council are the best at spotting tiny clues. Lu Qianque being found like this was partly thanks to you.”

Ning Qiuyan: “…”

He did not feel comforted at all.

After he finished eating, he sat there quietly for a while, and to his surprise, Deshan and Joshua arrived.

Now that everything was over, they had come especially to say goodbye to Ning Qiuyan.

Just like when they arrived, Deshan and Joshua had returned to their backpacker outfits. They were going to continue traveling around the world.

“It’s a bit of a shame that we weren’t of much help this time. But we’re very glad to have met Mr. Guan’s Blood Contract Partner,” Deshan said. “We’ll be returning to Longyearbyen in December. You and Mr. Guan are welcome to come stay for a while.”

“My hometown has many unique folk customs and many ancient legends. It’s very worth a visit.” Joshua winked mysteriously at Ning Qiuyan. “Trust me, you won’t want to miss the polar night. When the time comes, you’ll have twice as much of Mr. Guan, because you’ll be with him twenty-four hours a day.”

Ning Qiuyan thanked them.

The two of them hugged Ning Qiuyan one after the other.

When it was Joshua’s turn, he deliberately said by Ning Qiuyan’s ear, “Mr. Guan loves you very much.”

Ning Qiuyan froze.

He and Guan Heng had never mentioned that word between them. Even he himself seemed a little too shy to confess it.

Let alone Guan Heng, who had always been so reserved.

“It’s true,” Joshua said. “Turning is love. But sometimes, not turning someone is love too.”