Chapter 96

Chapter 96

Wagner’s Blood Contract Partner… had lived to be 119.

Li Tang said that even when the human was just past a hundred, he still had snowy hair and a youthful face. His posture was straight, and he could walk as briskly as a young man. Standing beside Wagner, he still looked like a perfect match. The two of them had loved each other deeply. Even later, when the human’s bodily functions declined and he aged into a tiny, frail thing, Wagner would always carefully lift him into his wheelchair and take him everywhere, insisting on seeing the outside world with him. When he finally passed peacefully at 119, the human had closed his eyes in Wagner’s arms, smiling.

Wagner had collected many of the things he had used.

The strange objects Ning Qiuyan had seen displayed throughout the manor on Camellia Night, each marked with a date-things like toothbrushes, notebooks, clothing, rings, and so on-were kept where Wagner could see them at any time because every single one was a memorial to his Blood Contract Partner.

That person had been dead for nearly two hundred years now, and Wagner had never formed a Blood Contract with anyone else.

Ning Qiuyan was stunned when he heard the story.

He had never imagined that Wagner, who was as cold as a venomous snake, could be so devoted.

“Age really isn’t the issue.” Li Tang’s eyes, a shade darker than his skin, held both the openness of someone foreign and the bone-deep romantic loyalty of a Chinese person. For once, he looked unusually serious. “Xiao Ning, do you think that after living in this world for so long, we would still care only about a human’s appearance?”

“Even Wagner doesn’t. Let alone Mr. Guan.”

“After all these years, what kind of person hasn’t Mr. Guan met? Since he chose you, he will definitely remain faithful to you from beginning to end.”

But Ning Qiuyan didn’t want to become an old man who could only sit in a wheelchair, carried around by Guan Heng. He didn’t want to watch the years slip away with his own eyes, and then exit Guan Heng’s life completely.

He was nineteen now, a sensory creature who loved all things beautiful. No matter what, he could not accept an ending like that.

After wasting away an entire day at Li Tang’s studio, Ning Qiuyan felt for the first time that the road back to the Black House was very long.

He pushed his bicycle along on foot, walking very slowly.

Passing through the streets and alleys, looking at the scenes around him, he remembered the fantasies he had once had when he passed by these places-what things might be like after Guan Heng came to Sujing.

They would go to the cinema, go to concerts, wait for admission beneath the lushest tree. Or perhaps they would stop in front of that little shop, and Guan Heng would ignore the gazes of passersby, elegantly teasing the pigeons at the entrance while he waited for Ning Qiuyan to buy a cup of coffee.

Guan Heng would bite him and drink a little of his blood. Then perhaps they would walk into the school together during the day, passing that beautiful stretch of redwoods. Ning Qiuyan would go to class, while Guan Heng would go catch up with Professor Yu. Occasionally, Ning Qiuyan would go to his senior’s studio, and after night fell, he would stand at the mouth of the alley, waiting wholeheartedly for Guan Heng to come pick him up.

Every possible scene ran through both day and night, adapting perfectly to their identities as human and Vampires.

It was the most perfect way of being together that Ning Qiuyan could imagine.

Those fantasies were still very likely to come true.

But… what about much, much later?

Ten years later? Fifty years later?

Ning Qiuyan at seventy, and Guan Heng in his twenties.

Ning Qiuyan at one hundred, and Guan Heng in his twenties.

A dead Ning Qiuyan, and Guan Heng, alone, setting foot on the land of Du Island; in the middle of the vast sea, amid white snow and the Forest, quietly falling into slumber.

He would be nothing more than a passerby in Guan Heng’s life.

Someone who had once been special, but who would eventually be submerged in the long river of time. After hundreds, thousands of years, even his face would grow indistinct.

That was all.

Night had fallen. Lights glowed in the garden, and shadows of trees swayed in layers.

Ning Qiuyan pushed the door open and entered. After leaning his bicycle against the wall, he did not stride upstairs as he used to. Instead, he stayed where he was for a while. He was troubled by this matter, but he also knew that now was not a good time to talk about it. Lu Qianque’s whereabouts were still unknown. He shouldn’t cling to this issue at a time like this.

“Ning Qiuyan.”

In the silence, a familiar voice suddenly sounded.

From above.

He raised his head and saw Guan Heng standing on the small balcony on the second floor, silent and soundless. No one knew how long he had been there, gazing down at him in the dimness as he came through the door.

The night breeze drifted by.

Guan Heng was a tall shadow, almost merged with the night. His pale skin seemed to give off a gentle, luminous glow, and his gaze rested softly on Ning Qiuyan. He did not blame him for the childish way he had stormed out that morning, nor did he ask why he had come home late.

“Sir.” Something soft swept through Ning Qiuyan’s heart, and he yielded first. “I… went to Li Tang’s today.”

“Mm.” Guan Heng naturally already knew. He only answered faintly, “Come up.”

There were only the two of them in the Black House.

Ning Qiuyan went up to the second floor, but Guan Heng remained on the small balcony without turning around.

In the distance, Sujing Tower shone brilliantly, and the city’s nightscape stretched before them in full view. Guan Heng’s back stood amid all that prosperity, his long hair falling loose, blending with it in a strangely seamless way. Ning Qiuyan approached step by step. When the wind blew, the first thing he smelled was the tobacco scent on his own body.

Should he change clothes?

Ning Qiuyan, who cared about beautiful things, could not help noticing the details when they were together.

But Guan Heng’s pull was simply too strong. As if bewitched, he walked closer to him, even though Guan Heng had only left him with the view of his back.

“That photo was taken here.” Ning Qiuyan stood beside Guan Heng and said to him, “The one you used as your wallpaper.”

It had been taken the first time Ning Qiuyan entered this house. Later, Ning Qiuyan had taken a few more pictures, but Guan Heng had never changed it.
Back then, Ning Qiuyan had said to Guan Heng, “The view here is amazing. The scenery is beautiful.”

“It faces north, so it would be perfect for hydrangeas. Once the weather warms up a little more, I plan to go to the flower market and buy some. Then I’ll get a little table and chairs. In the future, we can admire the flowers while enjoying the night view.”

As Ning Qiuyan spoke, he gestured to Guan Heng where he planned to place the flowerpots and the table and chairs.

“What do you think?”

Guan Heng turned his head to look at him, his eyes like cold stars. He did not answer the question. Instead, he raised a hand, gripped the back of Ning Qiuyan’s neck, and pushed him forward, all the way to the edge of the small balcony.

His body pressed tightly against the railing. Four or five meters below was the quiet garden, as if one more step forward would send him into empty air. The height was not enough to make a person’s legs tremble, but it was enough to make the heart seize. Ning Qiuyan instinctively grabbed the cold railing and heard Guan Heng ask from very close to his ear, “How does it feel?”

Ning Qiuyan did not understand what he meant. “Huh?”

Guan Heng said, “If this railing suddenly disappeared, how would it feel to stand here and look down?”

Ning Qiuyan looked down and answered honestly, “I’d be scared.”

Guan Heng’s cool fingers left the back of his neck, and his arm instead wrapped tightly around Ning Qiuyan’s waist. “Scared of what?”

“Scared I’d step into nothing,” Ning Qiuyan said. “Scared I’d fall.”

Although with Guan Heng there, he would never be put in that kind of situation.

But Guan Heng pressed on, determined to ask it more clearly. “Why would you be scared of falling?”

Ning Qiuyan said, “Because I’d get injured, or die. My life would be in danger.”

For a while, they stood in silence amid the night wind. After standing in that position for long enough, it became an intimate embrace. In the distance, the sky was a hallucinatory black-blue, and several beams of light projected by Sujing Tower swept from time to time across the heart of the city.

“When the tower was first built, people were always sneaking in to climb it bare-handed,” Guan Heng said. “Like many extreme sports, it posed an intense challenge. When the human body experiences an adrenaline rush, both the mind and the body undergo a powerful stimulus. Even knowing the danger, they still found endless pleasure in it. Back then, fatal falls happened often. The government banned it again and again to no effect, and even considered simply opening a high-altitude observation deck.”

Ning Qiuyan did not know much about extreme sports.

He simply did not understand why Guan Heng had suddenly brought this up.

“Among those climbers, every single one was human. There was not a single one of the Vampires,” Guan Heng said. “Do you know why?”

Ning Qiuyan leaned back slightly, but all he could see was Guan Heng’s sharp jawline.

Following his words, he asked, “Why?”

Guan Heng said, “Because, as you said, humans can step into empty air. They can fall. They can bleed, be injured, even die.”

“But Vampires can’t.”

“Climbing a tower is nothing but meaningless physical labor to any Vampire. Even if they step into nothing, even if they fall, they cannot possibly die. They are walking corpses, that’s all. Their sense of pain has long since gone numb, so it is even less possible for them to feel fear because of it.”

“They only stand beneath the tower and watch humans fall to the ground in a mangled mess.”

Ning Qiuyan seemed to understand a little of what Guan Heng was trying to say.

There was an essential difference between humans and Vampires.

No matter how human Vampires appeared, from the moment they were turned, they had completely bid farewell to their identity as human, whether that meant joy or pain.

Guan Heng knew Ning Qiuyan had gone to Li Tang. Of course he also knew what they had discussed, and where the scent of tobacco clinging to Ning Qiuyan had come from.

Their conflict had briefly come face-to-face.

Neither of them intended to simply cover it up and let it pass.

Ning Qiuyan turned around like that and hugged Guan Heng around the waist, leaning heavily against Guan Heng’s chest and shoulder. “I don’t want to live to over a hundred. I don’t want to become a little old man… You’re not Wagner, and I’m not his Blood Contract Partner. I don’t want to live like that.”

He said to Guan Heng, “You said immortality isn’t a reward, it’s a curse. I understand that. I know that after being turned, I’ll lose a lot, but I’ll also gain something, won’t I? As long as it’s worth it, maybe losing those things won’t matter.”

A sharp pain struck his chin.

Guan Heng gripped Ning Qiuyan’s jaw and lifted his face. His expression was more serious and cold than Ning Qiuyan had ever seen it. “Ning Qiuyan.”

Ning Qiuyan’s heart trembled faintly.

Guan Heng said, “You didn’t take in a word I said.”

The wind lifted Guan Heng’s hair, making even his voice seem blurred, yet when it fell into Ning Qiuyan’s ears, it was cruel and clear.

“Compared with immortality, any happiness or pleasure is too brief. So brief it isn’t even worth mentioning.”
The last thing Guan Heng said kept echoing through Ning Qiuyan’s mind.

At night, he curled up on the mattress, listening blankly to the occasional crackle from the fire. After Guan Heng finished handling a matter of business, he walked in from another room and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him for a while. Ning Qiuyan turned over as well and looked back at Guan Heng.

One sitting, one lying down, they both leaned toward each other and kissed amid the soft bedding.

Even though Ning Qiuyan’s body carried the Golden Blood that belonged to Guan Heng, they could not manage the same kind of platonic bond as Professor Yu and Sheng Huan.

Guan Heng put on the bite restraint.

When Ning Qiuyan was drenched in sweat, his face pressed against cold leather and his body pressed tight to that jade-cool form, scalding, dense breaths spilling from his mouth, the process felt especially long.

The Black House was filled with damp echoes.

He rose and fell.

His fingers, dug into the muscles of Guan Heng’s back, tightened in pain, the tips paling again and again.

If, compared with immortality, any happiness or pleasure was so brief it was not worth mentioning, then what about now?

What about them?

Ning Qiuyan could only make Guan Heng feel alive for a little while.