CH 18.3

It was an old man with a hunched back. His blood-red eyes and sharp teeth could prove that he was a Blood, but this Blood looked so old.

Bai Lixin glanced down; the old man had lost an arm and a leg. In their place was a wooden support brace and an inverted hook arm, commonly used by pirates.

The old man looked Bai Lixin up and down and nodded in satisfaction, “A good one this time. You are frightened by my curse, aren’t you? Come on in; I’ll have you freed in a minute.”

Bai Lixin stood at the door and did not go in.

The old man seemed to be used to such disobedient guests and did not say anything, only shaking his head regretfully, “It seems we have to use force after all.”

The old man knocked on the door of the room with his hooked arm.

In the next second, the bandaged men who were piled up like rubbish in the corner suddenly stood up.

They jumped and ran up to Bai Lixin, their blood-covered pupils staring at him fiercely, and they hissed under their breath.

The bloodied mouths opened wide and foul-smelling mucus dripped from them.

Bai Lixin’s stretched out his hands with folded palms, and the joints made a crisp crack.

The old man let out an unpleasant duck-like “quack” laugh, “My good boys, entertain this little friend for me.”

Before he had finished laughing, his laughter came to a screeching halt and his blood-red eyes, which were already drooping with age, opened forcefully.

Bai Lixin had finished bringing down the last of the bandaged men with quick precision, and he quickly pulled a bandage and tied them all together, making sure none of them could move before walking to the door once more.

The old man’s heart thudded as he grabbed the door and tried to close it.

The old man was quick, but Bai Lixin was quicker.

He directly kicked the door, blocking it just when it was about to be closed.

The old man put all his strength into the door, using it to push at the door.

Suddenly, a slender hand poked through the crack in the door.

The old man shook the hook in his hand in fright and let go in a trance. He stumbled back several steps and fell to the ground on his crooked buttocks.

As the old man stared in shock, the handsome young man pulled a cruel smile as he slowly stepped forward and looked down at him from above.

“You’ve failed to entertain. Why don’t I entertain you instead?”

The old man, “What?”

Entertain me, how?

He was puzzled for only a few seconds before he quickly understood how Bai Lixin was going to entertain him.

The young man in front of him was incredibly strong and carried him like a chicken to the chair.

In two clicks, he had him secured to the chair in shackles.

The old man, “You.. What the hell are you?”

Bai Lixin was in no hurry and he circled the room, “What do you usually use most?”

He picked up the steel awl at his feet and said, “Is it this one? It’s still got blood on it. I think it’s been used just now?”

The old man trembled in fear.

Bai Lixin unhurriedly put down the steel awl and picked up the barbed hook hanging on the wall, “Or is it this one?”

The old man’s eyelids jumped wildly and his body began to struggle desperately in the chair, “Let go of me! What the hell are you trying to do?!”

Bai Lixin looked around the wall and finally took a barbed whip into his hand. The barbs still had a lot of broken flesh curled around them, and there was no telling how many people had been whipped.

He brought the whip in front of the old man, and the barbed area slowly fell in front of the old man’s face.

The old man was stunned and was too frightened to move.

He knew very well what these things looked like when used on the body!

Bai Lixin, “Is this what you use to torture the living, so that they die with resentment?”

The old man swallowed, “Yes.”

Bai Lixin, “Why do you do this? Why curse Lady Rose?”

The old man glared at Bai Lixin fiercely, despite his fear. “Did Lady Rose send you?”

Bai Lixin, “No, I am investigating Lady Rose’s death.”

The old man froze for a second, then suddenly threw back his head and laughed out loud, “Dead? Haha, Lady Rose is dead?! Well deserved, well deserved!”

He looked at Bai Lixin excitedly and said, “Tell me quickly, how did she die? Who killed her?”

Bai Lixin, “I don’t know, I’m investigating her death. Why do you hate her so much?”

The old man said, “It is not her I hate, but that Count Mr. Mo! It was he who slaughtered my master, and I will avenge my master!”

Bai Lixin withdrew the whip and threw it in the corner, “Who is your master?”

The old man said, “My master was once also Mr. Mo’s master, Lord of the Third Bloods. His lordship gave Mr. Mo his first embrace, gave him his name, and made him an immensely powerful Blood, and he turned against his master with a vengeance and killed him!”

Bai Lixin subconsciously touched the bat at his neck as the words “Third Bloods” suddenly entered his ears.

The bat obediently stood in Bai Lixin’s palm, and he cupped it while the other hand unconsciously stroked the bat’s fur.

Dijia said that the Third generation of Bloods were the only ones who could know Mr. Mo’s origin name, but Mr. Mo had killed them all.

Although the portrait in the drawing room was signed with Mr. Mo’s surname, Henry, that must be a fake surname.

I thought that the trail to the origin name was broken and the hidden quest could not be completed. Because of the unexpected curse, I never expected to find the loyal family members of the Third generation of Bloods.

Bai Lixin, “Why did Mr. Mo kill his master?”

The old man looked at Bai Lixin in a daze. He had lived underground for too long, so long that he could only talk to the captured experimentalists and the bandaged men.

Now that he was seeing a living person for the first time who could communicate normally, he couldn’t help but spill everything.

The old man said, “Because my master was the only one who knew his origin name. He killed my master in order to eliminate his weakness. Then he was afraid that the master’s family would take revenge, so he slaughtered the entire family as well! A whole family of over thirty Bloods, all slaughtered!”

Bai Lixin frowned, “You can only kill the Bloods if you know their origin names. It can be explained if Mr. Mo went to the trouble of finding your master’s name, but how could he easily kill so many other Bloods as well?”

“Because his ability is perverted!” The old man roared, and the chains bound to his body made a clattering sound. “Just by looking into his eyes, you can fall under his control and become his puppet. He can easily gain everyone’s name!”

“Why do you think so many people fear him?! It’s all because he plunders away everyone’s names!”

Bai Lixin, “And do you know Mr. Mo’s original name?”

The old man looked warily at Bai Lixin, “Why are you asking?”

His eyes swept over Bai Lixin’s overly beautiful face and landed on the strap around his neck, a look of dawning realization on his face, “You’re food in this old castle?”

“I see, you want to kill Mr. Mo so you can get out of the old castle, don’t you?”

“I didn’t think you’d have the guts for a tiny human.”

“Well, there are no eternal friends, but there can be common enemies, and since our enemy is Mr. Mo, I’ll give you a clue to his name.”

Bai Lixin: “.…”

You’ve finished the conversation by yourself. What else can I add?

Old man, “All Bloods’ real names follow their master’s surname, and my master’s surname was ‘Van’. In terms of the name’s origin, the master preferred names from the Holy Book. But the Holy Book is so thick that I have studied it for a long time without finding a clue.”

The Holy Book?

Bai Lixin’s heart moved slightly, “There is a sentence in the Holy Book, ‘When all things are silent, the Holy will come in person’. Does it sound familiar to you?”

Old man, “Of course, it’s from the 12th chapter of the New Testament. It’s about the desolation of the earth and the believers going through the darkest hours before the dawn and finally waiting for the Holy. Why are you asking?”

Bai Lixin, “Nothing, just asking.”

Bai Lixin, “One more question, if we know the name, what weapon can we use to kill Mr. Mo?”

Old man, “Anything as long as you can pierce his heart! His heart is the only thing that matters to him! You have to call out his name while piercing his heart so that he can’t make a comeback!”

Bai Lixin released the old man from the shackles. Although the old man was under his control, his eyes were still raging with treachery.

Bai Lixin, “Did you kill all those people out there?”

“Yes,” the old man said after two seconds of silence.

“I saw that there were not only Bloods in there, but also humans,” says Bai Lixin.

There was another silence from the old man. He understood what Bai Lixin meant.

“I can kill myself to atone for my sins, and the curse placed on you will also disappear. But I have one condition: help me kill Mr. Mo!”

Bai Lixin gently stroked Dijia’s fluffy fur and said, “You are in no position to negotiate terms with me now.”

He paused for two seconds, then said, “But I will try to kill Mr. Mo.”

As if remembering something, the old man suddenly got up and walked to a nearby cupboard. He rummaged through the cupboard for a long time before finding a thick copy of the Holy Book.

“This is my master’s book. My master would look through it when naming us. You might need this to find Mr. Mo’s real name.”

Bai Lixin, “By the way, I have one last question, is the stone statue out there the evil god you believe in?”

Old man, “No, that’s our True Ancestor.”

Dijia, who was enjoying Bai Lixin’s touch, stumbled, “????”

Who? Whom did you say that was?!

—

Bai Lixin came out of the tunnel.

The players were still shoveling the soil one after another to plant flowers, and everyone was used to the skeleton-laden ground by now.

Bai Lixin knelt down and took the seeds out of his pocket. He dug a few holes and planted the seeds in them.

He had barely planted a few when a bandaged skeleton emerged from the ground.

“The master killed himself just now, so we have been freed. There is no curse to sustain us, so we shall be reduced to a handful of yellow earth in a short time. I will not hunt you down again. Thank you. I shall go now.”

With that, the curse didn’t wait for Bai Lixin’s response and slipped back into the earth, leaving a trail as if some ghost was chasing it from behind.

In the distance, the Bloods began to check the results, and when they reached Bai Lixin, the Bloods asked, “You, how many seeds have you planted?”

Bai Lixin counted the pits he had just picked out, “Eight.”

The Bloods stared, “Everyone else has planted over a hundred!”

Bai Lixin was silent for two seconds, then said, “One shouldn’t be too competitive.”

The Bloods: “….”