557 Chapter 557: Family Reunion

Nan Gong Zhao Yan was running through the smoky remnants of the wrecked castle. She had just barely left the entrance, which had been melted through by my Serpenta's acid, when she caught sight of her sister.

Nan Gong Ji Yan was currently sitting at the back of a medical vehicle, which had been customized into a military ambulance, a towel wrapped around her filthy body. Clearly she had ben sedated, for her eyes were blank and she was silent as hell. She looked up to stare at her approaching sister hollowly, not a hint of recognition in her eyes.

"Careful," the medic warned Zhao Yan. "She is in terrible psychological shape. We have treated her physical injuries – they were mostly minor, though there are signs of lesions and abrasions in her groin area."

In other words, she had been raped. Xu Wu Cheng, that bastard…I was so glad that I had killed him. Death was the least he deserved.

"But her spirit is broken," the medic continued grimly. "Her mind…her sanity has snapped. I have cast a sedative spell on her to calm her down for now, but…honestly, it's not looking good."

Healing spells, though near miraculous, did not have any effect on the mind. Magic wasn't some kind of cure-all – it did not cure insanity or heal mental damage. Nothing could. There was no sanity magic or whatever. Yeah, there was mind control magic and hypnotism, but those did not help somebody regain their sanity. That just transformed the targets into tools that you controlled and manipulated, not restore their individual self.

Zhao Yan sobbed as she embraced her deeply traumatized sister.

"Ji Yan…I'm sorry."

I felt a flare of anger inside me. Call me callous, but none of this was Zhao Yan's fault. She shouldn't be apologizing. Even though I felt sorry for Ji Yan and did not think she deserved this tragic fate, it did not excuse her from her betrayal. She should be the one apologizing to Zhao Yan, not the other way around. She brought this upon herself. She betrayed Zhao Yan and the Guang Zhi Yi Sect, causing the deaths of her seniors.

Hell, she was directly responsible for the deaths of so many students in Saint Teresa Academy. All because she was jealous of her sister…all because she wanted to preserve her…I don't know her reputation or because she didn't want to get into trouble. Yeah, Xu Wu Cheng was a bastard for blackmailing her, but to think she put her own self-interests above the lives of so many people. Was sacrificing her schoolmates worth staying out of trouble?

But she chose to be raped, abused and tortured by Xu Wu Cheng instead of snitching on him. That made no sense whatsoever. I guess she would rather be tormented by a bishounen vampire than get into trouble with the authorities. It was all right if the other party doing the abuse was a handsome and powerful vampire, huh?

I honestly didn't understand what went on the minds of these shoujo manhua artists and authors.

Hell, Ji Yan would have happily sacrificed her own sister, even to the extent of drugging her and allowing her to be killed alongside with the other students. If it weren't for Zhao Yan's own Mary Sue plot armor, which came in the form of Fan Le Lao's keen interest in her, she would have died with the rest. And I had a feeling that Ji Yan couldn't care less.

Zhao Yan's sisterly affection was wasted on her.

"Zhao Yan! Ji Yan!"

To my surprise, Professor Nan Gong Jiao Shou appeared. He sprinted across the mass of military vehicles that were parked around the exterior of the vampire castle. There were no tanks or armored assault vehicles, in case you were wondering. When you had human mages capable of casting spells that were way more powerful than a tank shell (just look at me firing off nuke spells) and defensive barriers sturdier than any physical armor, tanks were pretty much obsolete.

So the majority of the military vehicles were transports. Hovercrafts that had skimmed over the canopy of trees in the wake of the soldiers, arriving right after the attack. They had been held back, the military mages and mercenaries moving through the forest on foot, so that the enemy wouldn't be alerted of the attack. After all, there was no better way to tip them off than to have an armada of hovercrafts flying toward their base in full sight. Even if we had invisible spells that could cloak them visually, the vampires would probably still hear the noise of their engines.

Nan Gong Jiao Shou must have arrived aboard one of these hovercrafts. Ignoring stunned soldiers and astonished mercenaries, he rushed toward Zhao Yan and Ji Yan.

"Dad! What are you doing here?!" Zhao Yan's eyes widened and she rose to her feet to allow herself to be embraced. Her father lowered into a crouch to sweep the still catatnonic Ji Yan into a family hug.

"Why wouldn't I be? Of course I would be participating in the operation to save my daughters!"

Oh, right. I remembered Yue Jian informing me that her father had left the apartment that she and her mother currently resided in, supposedly to find out more information on the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan and rescue his daughters, who had been taken hostage.

"Dad…"

"What happened to Ji Yan?" Nan Gong Jiao Shou stared at her, trying to take in her blank stare. The medic briefly explained to him what had happened and he grew furious. "Who raped her?! Who hurt her?!"

"Xu Wu Cheng," I replied. He jumped and turned to me. I shook my head. "I already killed him."

"…I see." Nan Gong Jiao Shou's shoulders sagged. "I suppose I should convey my gratitude."

"You should." Teresa Taylor sidled toward us. She was almost silent, gliding through the throng of running soldiers like a phantom. "Richard, Rossetti and Kufa are the ones who tracked the vampires all the way back to their base, and called us in. If it weren't for the coordinates they had provided, we would never have located their base."

Nan Gong Jiao Shou turned back to Rossetti and me. Kufa and Saya was also nearby, having run out of vampires to kill, and Teresa Taylor gestured for them to join us. As they did, the professor lowered his head humbly.

"Thank you…I really can't thank you enough. You helped rescue my daughters…"

"Yes. Thank you for saving me and my sister." Beside him, Zhao Yan bowed her head as well. Rossetti, Kufa and I all waved our hands frantically.

"Don't worry about it!"

"We only did what anyone else would have done."

"We didn't really do anything, really!"

"Didn't really do anything?" Teresa Taylor barked out a laugh. "Not only did you help us locate the elusive location of the enemy's base, Richard, you and Rossetti defeated both Xu Wu Cheng and Fan Lee Lao – the two highest ranked vampires in the youngest generation. Fan Le Lao is the prince of the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan too. You have no idea how much of a blow you did to the Dark Church by helping to annihilate one of their most powerful allies."

"That was…luck."

"Luck? Defeating Xu Wu Cheng is one thing, and you seem to have beaten him three times. Tracking him back to his base is another feat worthy of praise. And then you even defeated the vampire prince himself…too many consecutive achievements to merely write off as luck, don't you think?"

"In any event, you have our gratitude." Nan Gong Jiao Shou sighed. "We still haven't thanked you for saving us from the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan the other time."

"Huh? What was that about?" Zhao Yan was confused. Her father briefly explained to her what happened the last time I visited their house. How they ended up being chased by vampires and we had gone on a wild car ride. Zhao Yan nodded and turned back to me. "So that all happened. Thank you. Really. You have been helping my family so much."

"Heh…" Rossetti was still smiling, but I could feel a chill when she glanced at me. "You really are close to the Nan Gong family, huh, Richard?"

"Not as close as most people," I muttered.

"I need to inform your mother and Yue Jian that you two are fine." He retrieved his smartphone, but grimaced when he saw that he didn't have a signal in this place. Well, unless he had specialized equipment like Kufa, he wouldn't be getting any reception.

"What do we tell them about Ji Yan?" Zhao Yan asked softly. Nan Gong Jiao Shou winced.

"The truth. We can't tell them anything other than the truth."

The two of them fell into a somber silence. It was common knowledge that most people did not simply recover from psychological trauma. They said time was the best cure, but the vast majority of people whose minds had been broken would never be mentally restored ever again.

Psychological damage might not be visible, but they were very real. Not that cyber-bullies or idiots cared. They thought that because emotional abuse did not show up physically, they could insult and verbally abuse others all they wanted, and it was the other party who should "toughen up" or "don't let 'mere' words affect them." what idiots. You wouldn't tell someone who was getting beaten up to ignore the punches. Just because you couldn't see the injuries didn't mean there was no damage being dealt. The effects were still as real as if the person was being physically beaten up. And they were often more lasting and unhealable.

"Speaking of the truth," the medic began somewhat uncertainly. "I will need to send Nan Gong Ji Yan to a more specialized medical facility or hospital to run more tests, but a preliminary diagnosis shows that she has been turned into a vampire."

"What?!"

"No way…!"

Both Nan Gong Jiao Shou and Zhao Yan spun around, horrified. The professor in particular clenched his fists.

"That vampire bastard…what the fuck was he trying to do to my daughter?!"

A lot of things. I didn't say that, though. I also didn't tell the father-daughter pair that Ji Yan had brought this upon herself.

"Please calm down. Like I said, I have yet to fully confirm this…we still need to run more tests. But I feel I should inform you beforehand so that you will be more prepared."

Teresa Taylor turned to me, her shoulders sagging.

"We should have listened to you," she said, her voice full of regret. Evidently, she remembered me telling her and her teachers what happened back in school, when Xu Wu Cheng began blackmailing Ji Yan. "You were right about everything."

I took no pleasure in the fact and couldn't bring myself to gloat. Sighing bitterly, I glanced at the night sky, the full moon seeming to mock us as it shone down on the ruins of the castle.

At that second, I felt as if I was forgetting something.

*

While there was a commotion that continued raging inside the castle that formerly served as the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan's base, Lin Xuan Chi silently watched from a distance. Dawn was about to break, but it wouldn't be due for a few more minutes.

That was fine. Lin Xuan Chi could sense someone creeping under the cover of darkness. Without turning around, he smirked.

"Fred Franklin, huh?"

"Are you sure about this Lin Xuan Chi?""

"…do you even need to ask?" Lin Xuan Chi scoffed. "I'll get my revenge on the Tang Sect…no matter the cost."

"That's not what I mean. If you want your revenge, why did you betray the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan?"

"Because they killed my parents?" Lin Xuan Chi smiled grimly as he turned toward the handsome ex-noble who shared the same bloodline as the current Sword Saint. "Of course I want them dead. And besides…they're useless. They're too weak to destroy the Tang Sect for me. That's why I'm leaving them and casting my lot with you instead."

"A wise choice." Fred Franklin grinned, his figure still hidden in the shadows. "The Dark Church will welcome you with wide arms. But why bother with this whole convoluted scheme regarding the Crimson Blood Demonic Night clan when you were going to leave them in the first place?"

"Because in the original manhua, the author forced me to work for those hateful vampires just so I can pull off some stupid plot twist, even though my motivations for doing so made no logical sense."

"Uh…okay. Don't worry. The Dark Church will teach you how to scheme much better than some amateur shoujo manhua author."

"I look forward to it."

Nodding, Lin Xuan Chi turned around with a smile, his perfect teeth flashing in the darkness.

"Then let's go…Senior Fred."