Chapter 57: Aftermath of the Night of Blood

With this thought, Damonte forcefully flapped his wings and soared into the air, quickly flying out of the manor. Lin Xiao wanted to stop him, but without any skills to fly or traverse the skies, he could only watch helplessly as Damonte vanished into the night.

Stefan showed no intention of helping either. He walked over to help Jessie, who had collapsed to the ground, and spoke to her gently in an attempt to comfort her. Unexpectedly, Jessie scrambled up and ran to Lin Xiao, hiding behind him.

Lin Xiao put away his Galactic Destruction Battle Axe and turned to look at Jessie. The pampered heiress looked like a frightened kitten, tears streaming down her face, trembling in terror.

She was not deaf; she understood perfectly well that this handsome Stefan was also a vampire. Although he claimed he no longer drank human blood, who could guarantee his word?

By comparison, it was far safer to trust Byers, a fellow human and vampire slayer.

“So, does a rough, uncultured guy like me, with my lowly status, have the right to be your shield?” Lin Xiao joked. This accidental attendance at the party had, against all odds, netted him eighty points of source energy—a tidy little profit.

However, a legendary vampire had just appeared. As the werewolves’ old nemesis, he wondered what the current relationship between the two races was. Was it a cold war like the old days of the US and the Soviets, or had they achieved peaceful coexistence?

“Young master, all the students who tried to escape have been apprehended by the bodyguards. How shall we deal with them?” An elderly white man dressed in a tailcoat, looking every inch the butler, emerged from the shadows and addressed Stefan.

He glanced at Lin Xiao, his eyes full of wariness. Someone who could repel the eldest young master was surely strong enough to kill the second young master as well.

Stefan gave Lin Xiao a look and waved his hand. “Take them to the drawing room and have them drink Memory-Fading Water to erase their memories of this period. Also, send someone to handle the three corpses—stage it as a car accident on the road. I don’t want this matter to escalate.”

Hearing this, Lin Xiao quipped, “Should we also have some of that Memory-Fading Water and pretend we accidentally fell into a river?”

Stefan couldn’t help but laugh and quickly assured him it wasn’t necessary. He turned his gaze to Jessie, who said at once, “I don’t want any of that water. I promise not to tell a soul about tonight, nor reveal your secret. I swear to God.”

She raised her hand to the heavens. Lin Xiao knew that true Christians would never swear lightly by God’s name; once a vow was made, it was sacred.

“Very well, as you wish. Esteemed guests, why not come inside? This is hardly the place for conversation. Allow me to apologize properly.”

Stefan spoke with impeccable courtesy, making a welcoming gesture. With courage born of strength, Lin Xiao led Will into the castle, Jessie hurrying behind, clutching his sleeve tightly, terrified of being left behind.

The heiress was well and truly frightened. Every time she thought of her friends’ throats being ripped out, blood pouring everywhere, she couldn’t hold back her tears.

She bitterly regretted accepting Stefan’s invitation to the party. Two of her best friends were dead for no reason, and Conrad, who’d always admired her, had been bitten to death—the cost was simply too great.

Following Stefan into the drawing room, the butler brought three glasses of red wine to steady their nerves.

Jessie drained her glass in one gulp. Will reached for his, but Lin Xiao batted his hand away and asked the butler for some juice instead.

Will acquitted himself admirably this time—no panic, no fear. Perhaps last night’s supernatural experience had toughened him up.

“I am truly sorry for what happened tonight, especially to Miss Kardashian and Master Will. You’ve suffered a terrible shock, and I will find a way to compensate you for your loss,” Stefan apologized again, his tone gentle and far more humble than Damonte’s. The two brothers were cut from the same cloth, yet their personalities couldn’t be more different.

“No need for all that. We’re all ordinary folk—let’s not get bogged down in formalities. I’m fine, but Will really did get a scare. Just give him seven or eight hundred dollars as a wellness fee. I can’t just work for free, can I?”

“As for Miss Kardashian, well, I did save your life. But don’t offer yourself to me—I’m not interested. Just give me a few thousand dollars as a ‘hero saves beauty’ fee, and we’ll call it even.”

A “hero saves beauty” fee!?

Both Jessie and Stefan stared at Lin Xiao in shock, speechless at his words.

“Hey, what can I say? My family isn’t well-off and we all have to eat. Unlike you rich young things, we don’t have money to burn.”

Lin Xiao shrugged. The last eighteen thousand dollars he’d made had all gone into the haunted house. Now, he was flat broke again—he couldn’t even afford a drink.

Stefan waved a hand. The butler exited the drawing room and soon returned, whispering into Stefan’s ear.

“Jonathan, your brother’s wellness fee has been placed in your car. It’s a small token—please don’t take offense,” Stefan said to Lin Xiao, confirming that he’d just been arranging this. The wealthy truly did things with style.

“That’ll do. As long as the money’s right, I don’t mind. Stefan, what exactly happened tonight? Can you give us an explanation?”

After offending the werewolf leader Lucien and now a vampire count, Lin Xiao himself wasn’t worried, but he couldn’t risk danger to Joey, Will, or Sheriff Hope.

Jessie perked up, her mood stabilizing after the wine, and feeling a newfound sense of security sitting beside Byers. She was curious, too. Vampires from legend—these were the stories she’d grown up hearing. Immortal, impossibly beautiful, able to fly and use magic, and of course, they drank human blood. She never imagined she’d encounter one and live to tell the tale.

She was also intensely curious about Lin Xiao. They called him an “Extraordinary”—clearly, he was a human with mysterious powers, especially that thunder-summoning ability. It was just too cool.

“Where should I start?” Stefan leaned back on the sofa, his eyes clouded, as if unsure where to begin. “Perhaps with our origins, my family, and the so-called Council of Elders my brother mentioned. But let me be clear: I don’t care if he’s your brother or if your relatives come after me in the future. Anyone who dares harm my family will meet a swift end, no matter who they are.”

Lin Xiao’s tone was cold, making his position clear. Stefan might claim he wouldn’t harm humans, but that didn’t apply to his relatives—Damonte, for example, who had just fled.

Jessie gazed at Lin Xiao with starry eyes, realizing for the first time that this boy was every bit as handsome as Stefan, perhaps even more so, with a masculine strength Stefan lacked. And his fierce protectiveness was deeply touching—the kind of man truly worth a lifetime’s trust.

Then, recalling Lin Xiao’s earlier words about not wanting her as a reward, her spirits fell again.

Stefan glanced at Jessie, seemingly aware of her shifting mood. He lifted his glass and began his tale.

“It’s a very long story—so long that even I don’t know the true origin of our kind. I’ll start with my own transformation, the makeup of my family, and the Council of Elders you’re most curious about.”