Chapter 33: Extra Story—The Nine Sins

Finding an infant in the snow...
Low blood sugar...
A daily need for medicine...
Dark brown liquid...
An amulet...
Qiao Nian laughed bitterly at himself; he had never once doubted any of it. He instinctively reached into his pocket to check for the amulet, only to discover it was gone. He stopped in his tracks and burst into hysterical laughter, his eyes reddening, tears blurring his vision. Drawing a deep breath, he walked forward step by step.

He first pushed open the priest’s study; apart from bookshelves and a desk, there was nothing else. Then he rushed to the priest’s bedroom; aside from a bed and a wardrobe, there were no other furnishings. Standing in the middle of the room, Qiao Nian was overwhelmed by a crushing sense of helplessness. There was nothing he could do, but it was already too late. Forcing himself to pull together, he considered confronting the priest directly in the chapel, but a painting hanging on the wall caught his attention.

A priest, hanging a woman's portrait in his bedroom.

The woman in the painting was beautiful, her features deep and striking, and a strange familiarity stirred in Qiao Nian's heart. He could not help but reach out with trembling fingers to gently trace her outline.

Suddenly, the sound of something heavy shifting echoed behind him. Qiao Nian turned sharply, alert, only to see the wardrobe door swing open of its own accord. He crept closer and was startled to find a tunnel inside, with a rough wooden staircase leading down into unknown darkness.

With no other choice, Qiao Nian descended.

The staircase was long, twisting several times. The deeper he went, the dimmer the light became, and the silence around him grew more terrifying. In the bottomless darkness, the dripping of water became ever more pronounced.

At last, after the endless descent, the air was thick with a sharp, sickly sweet scent of blood, so overwhelming it brought him to retching. Leaning against the wall, he groped for something like a switch and pressed it. Lights flickered on suddenly, and Qiao Nian slowly opened his eyes, struggling to suppress the waves of nausea.

He was standing in several centimeters of dark brown blood.
The dripping sound came from the blood slowly flowing into a narrow pipe, which led to a small window. Covering his mouth, Qiao Nian walked over. Through the tiny window, he could see the city’s ring river—the source of water for all its residents. Now, those thin streams of blackish blood were steadily flowing in.

It was as if he had been struck by lightning, paralyzed and unable to move.

He turned stiffly and saw, in the corner, a battered wooden chest with black paint peeling away in flakes. Weakly, he walked over, only to discover it was a coffin, just large enough for one person. It was wider at the head, narrower at the foot, and a huge cross adorned the lid.

A cross, meant to seal away vampires—who was imprisoned here?

Qiao Nian’s hands trembled uncontrollably. It took several attempts to move the heavy lid aside. His face had gone deathly pale, lips quivering, as if he were witnessing the most horrific sight imaginable.

Inside the coffin lay the corpse of a woman, cold and rigid. Her original appearance was no longer discernible; Qiao Nian could only identify her as a woman by the tangled black hair. Her body was torn apart, even her face mutilated beyond recognition. The fragmented remains had been crudely pieced together and piled in the coffin. Every wound oozed dark brown blood, which seeped out endlessly.

All this blood belonged to her.

Who was this woman? Why was she here? Why did his heart ache so terribly, and why did the tears not stop flowing...

No one could answer him.

The seemingly peaceful and serene Gospel Town was shrouded in filthy clouds, swallowing all light in a suffocating darkness.

Qiao Nian knelt on the ground, his muffled sobs sounding like a lament before death. Devastated, he failed to notice someone descending the stairs until the priest appeared behind him.

“So, you’ve found out.”

Qiao Nian raised his bloodshot eyes and stared fiercely at the man. “Did you kill her?”

The man smiled indifferently. “And if I did?”

Qiao Nian lunged at him, pinning him to the ground and choking him with all his strength. Yet the priest remained utterly unmoved, his lips twisting into a grotesque smile.

“You’d better not kill me. You’ve lost your mother. If you kill me, you’ll be an orphan for good.”

Qiao Nian’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What did you say?”

Seeing the grip on his neck loosen, the priest shoved Qiao Nian aside and stood up from the blood-soaked floor.

“Looking at you, I suppose Manjusha City is now an empty shell.”

Qiao Nian staggered to his feet, despair making his voice hoarse. “Why did you do it?”

“Vampires—such dark, filthy creatures—don’t deserve to live in this world. I want them wiped out!” His laughter turned manic, chilling to the bone. “I used her as a tool for revenge, yet she believed I loved her. Foolish woman…”

“Only in the throes of extreme hatred does a vampire’s blood turn black. To achieve that, I dismembered her alive.”

“You were just another tool for cleaning up the trash. But you should be grateful—I let you live for so long.”

As all the darkness and filth unearthed itself from the soil, Qiao Nian felt strangely calm. Deep in his chest, a monster was swelling, struggling, yearning to break free…

“Lowly as they are, their blood is a rare medicine…”

Hatred blazed in Qiao Nian’s reddened eyes. He seemed to understand at last, grinding out the words, “So all this time… what I drank was… her blood. Seventeen years…”

“Vampires were never meant for this world!” The priest’s face twisted in rage. “For revenge, for longevity, I forced myself to drink her blood. Yet humans surpass lowly vampires—I drank it and stayed young, but you… you must have become a monster by now…”

Qiao Nian was on the brink of collapse, his voice guttural and wild like a beast. “Enough!”

Vampire blood possesses a living spirit; it is as if it were alive. The blackening occurs when a dying vampire is consumed by hatred, activating the dark elements within their blood. Blackened blood becomes a frenzied virus, spreading wildly and robbing the bloodline of reason.

His biological father had killed his mother in the cruelest way, then fed him her blackened blood for seventeen years.

The beast trapped within Qiao Nian finally broke free.

A tempest of energy erupted from his body, whipping his hair into a frenzy. His black hair lengthened suddenly, piercing the priest’s throat, then wrapped around him like a cocoon. The immense pressure sent the priest’s blood surging, fresh blood spilling from his mouth, the sound of breaking bones echoing in the air.

Qiao Nian’s eyes had grown unfocused, like those of a demon from the coldest depths of hell, misted with a haze of blood.

Moments later, only a tattered human skin remained on the floor, two hollow eye sockets still oozing sticky blood.

Qiao Nian crouched down, covering his face, and wept—not with tears, but with dark, bloody sorrow.