What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 464: Chapter 464: I’m Not the One Who Scared You

A Volkswagen CC was driving on a small gravel road without any street lights, bumping and shaking, its speed slowing down.

The driver was a rather skinny young man, and his passenger, a man of similar age with a deep nasolabial folds and an earring in his left ear, was sitting in the co-driver’s seat.

The man with the earrings was half turned around, chattering non-stop to the two girls sitting in the backseat:

“…That place is definitely a thrilling adventure spot, especially eerie, particularly mysterious, and a lot of things have happened there. It would be fabulous for shooting videos or live streaming!”

The pretty girl with chestnut-colored hair in the back seat asked, “Seriously, Brother Hua, is that place you’re talking about up ahead? It looks secluded though not far from the city. What is it, an old house? A haunted mansion?”

“It’s not just a haunted mansion, it’s a whole apartment block!” said the skinny driver in a hushed, conspiratorial whisper.

“A whole building there? Where did this building come from? It’s pitch black…” the chestnut-haired girl asked curiously.

“It’s pitch black, of course, because no one has ever lived there!” co-driver Brother Hua laughed.

“An uninhabited building?” asked the chestnut-haired girl, startled.

“Yes, no one has ever lived there!” affirmed the skinny driver, nodding mysteriously.

The other young girl in the back seat, who was equally stylish with short curled hair but curvier, glanced at the navigation app on her phone and asked, “Is it that unfinished building with the name ‘Jin’ mentioned?”

“Exactly, that’s the place.” Brother Hua confirmed without hesitation.

“I can’t imagine what interesting stories an unfinished building might have…” The chestnut-haired girl said disappointingly, “I thought you were taking us on an adventure to some interesting haunted house or old mansion, and I brought along a bunch of recording equipment.”

“Hey! That’s not just any unfinished building! Let me tell you, lots of things have happened at that building…” Brother Hua lowered his voice, intentionally speaking in a more breathy tone, “Before they started building, it was a chaotic graveyard. People often heard strange sounds and saw weird apparitions at night. After the developers took over the land and started construction, the workers started to have frequent accidents, either falling from scaffoldings or getting hit by sand trucks. But the most significant event that led to the complete halt of construction and left it unfinished, was a murder case where a girl was killed inside the building…”

The chestnut-haired girl was visibly shocked and excited, her face a mixture of fear, curiosity, and anticipation. She instinctively covered her mouth.

Brother Hua continued, “Although the case was solved quickly, the construction site started to experience problems. Almost every night, workers reported sightings of a red-dressed woman and heard crying, shouting, and screaming. Many workers were so affected they couldn’t work effectively, and the construction site was forced to shut down.”

As he spoke, the curvy girl in the back seat, who was still looking at her phone, frowned, “That’s not right. I searched online, and there was no murder case here. And this place wasn’t a graveyard before. It seems like the developer stopped due to financial issues and other violations…”

“Of course you can’t find it online!” Brother Hua immediately said. “If people knew it was a chaotic graveyard before, and knew such mysterious things and a murder case had happened, who would buy the house or invest in the store? They must have blocked the information—you can’t search everything online. As long as they shell out enough money, they can hide such news!”

“So where did you get your information?” asked the curly-haired girl suspiciously.

“How do you know?” Brother Hua was momentarily taken aback, then quickly pointed at the skinny driver, “The developer had a business partnership with Young Master Qi’s family, so he knows all these insider stories.”

“Yes, yes, just like that bar you guys visited before, this building was also developed by my brother and his friends. Ah, you can only hear these secrets from me. You can’t find this information on the media or the internet, it’s all blocked!” Young Master Qi quickly added.

“Will there really be…such things appearing there? Do you have any tools with you? Like amulets…crosses and stuff…” said the chestnut-haired girl in a low voice.

“Don’t worry, we’re here, nothing will happen. It’s still early, and the Yin energy isn’t at its peak until after midnight. It’ll only be dangerous there after midnight. We will leave there before twelve, and nothing will go wrong. After we’re done ‘adventuring’, we’ll go to my brother’s bar and have a few drinks, alcohol is Yang in nature, it’ll neutralize it, and dispense the Yin energy,” reassured Young Master Qi.

The curly-haired girl shook her head slightly, took out her camera from the bag next to her, and said, “As long as I can shoot a good video, that’d be all I need.”

She and the chestnut-haired girl had set up a studio together, specially filming various ‘adventure’-themed long videos, short clips, and live streams, of course, most of the videos were shot in preset and arranged environments, no real supernatural events, mainly focusing on creating an atmosphere, adding filters and sound effects in post-production, then leveraging the chestnut-haired girl’s acting skills.

Listening to “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua,” she felt they were unreliable, she only hoped that the place these two found for shooting could generate the right atmosphere. As for the background story, she certainly couldn’t follow their version, she probably had to come up with her own.

As for whether these two would take them to a deserted place and do something nefarious, from her observation, these two didn’t have the guts. If they really dared, she wouldn’t mind going live in a second to demo the wolf spray and stun gun she carried on her.

However, seeing the chestnut-haired girl with her wide eyes intently listening to what “Brother Hua” said, it seemed like she was genuinely spooked. The curly-haired girl felt helpless in her heart but consoled herself that it would help her performance in front of the camera; call it early ‘getting into character’.

Soon, the car stopped next to the abandoned construction site. Although it wasn’t far from the city, since it was surrounded by underdeveloped areas and there were no large residential districts, there were no lights around, a pitch-black scene. Only a lonely, unfinished high-rise stood there, creating a genuinely eerie atmosphere.

After getting off the car, the curly-haired girl looked around quite contentedly and nodded. The environment had a desolate and rundown feel to it. With good angles and lighting, she could probably shoot a nice video clip. She could even consider setting up a scene for a live stream in the future.

After “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua” got out of the car, they started fervently introducing horror stories about the place to the chestnut-haired girl. The girl was so freaked out that she was thinking of running back to the car.

Clearly, the two men were primarily trying to impress and please the more attractive and cute chestnut-haired girl. The curly-haired girl just happened to tag along.

The perimeter fence of the construction site was already full of gaps and almost dismantled. The two boys led the way with flashlights, and the chestnut-haired girl and the curly-haired girl followed with their own equipment.

“Atchoo!~”

But before they could get close to the building, a crisp sneeze was heard from not too far away.

All four of them were startled and instinctively looked towards the source of the sound, with two beams of flashlight sweeping over.

The flashlight beam halfway through, astonishingly caught a glimpse of a beautiful little girl appearing no older than five or six, wearing a princess dress and black leather shoes, with pale skin. She held a knife in her hand, her large eyes looking at them lifelessly.

The chestnut-haired girl screamed out immediately, “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua” were also so scared that they shook their flashlights.

But in that instant, the little girl vanished!

She just disappeared from their sight, right ‘under broad daylight’!?

The little princess was no more than five or six meters away from them just now. They could even clearly see the pattern on the little girl’s hair accessory, and then she just vanished before their very eyes?

Although their flashlights shook, the light didn’t move much, and the area where the little girl stood was always within the light range.

Was it an illusion?

Or something else?

A chill rose in each of the four people’s hearts. The chestnut-haired girl was screaming and clinging tightly to the curly-haired girl next to her. “Brother Hua” subconsciously asked the “Young Master Qi” next to him: “Did you see it…”

But he didn’t get a response, “Young Master Qi,” after realizing what had happened, turned around and ran towards the car.

The remaining three quickly reacted and hurriedly followed.

However, the poor curly-haired girl was suffering. No one was guiding her route, she was carrying a bag full of camera equipment, along with a chestnut-haired girl clinging to her arm, shivering with fear, stumbling and hardly able to move an inch.

Seeing the two men get in the car and shut the door, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear, worried that the two men, frightened out of their wits, would simply drive away, leaving them behind.

Fortunately, even after she and the chestnut-haired girl got into the back seat, the car did not move.

But once they were in the car, she realized that they hadn’t left because the car could not be started.

And it wasn’t just the car that wasn’t starting, even the equipment in the car, be it the headlights or the dashboard, none could be lit. The flashlight and phone they brought, even the camera and other electronic devices, all seem to have gone into a “paralysis state”.

For a moment, if it weren’t for the fact that they could still see the lights of the distant city, the curly-haired girl would have doubted whether they had entered another space.

Then she found that her hands and legs were trembling badly and she couldn’t control them at all.

Though she often made videos with this kind of eerie atmosphere, flirting with the supernatural, in reality, she didn’t believe in any of these things and was a staunch materialist and atheist.

Before coming to this construction site, she had judged from the words of “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua”, as well as the information she had looked up online, that the so-called supernatural events and urban legends associated with the unfinished building were all deceits.

But in that instant, the little girl who suddenly appeared and disappeared, the psychological shock it caused was just too great.

She began to doubt whether her earlier judgment was wrong. Were “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua” not deceiving her? Were the stories they told true?

However, she immediately heard “Young Master Qi” whispering with a cry in his voice while his head was buried in the steering wheel: “We didn’t mean to do this, those stories were all made up by us… we didn’t know you were here, we’ll go right away and never come back, promise we’ll never come here again, we’ll offer paper money to you tomorrow, please let us go…”

The supernatural stories that “Young Master Qi” and “Brother Hua” told previously in the car, as well as about various accidents and murders related to the construction site, were naturally all made up. “Young Master Qi” had nothing to do with the developer of this site, they just happened to find such a place near the city where there were not many people and shrouded in darkness.

They met the chestnut-haired girl and the curly-haired girl at a friend’s party. After several unsuccessful invitations to hang out with them, they found out that these girls made videos and did live broadcasts, with many of them hinging on the supernatural, so they concocted a story and said they could take them to shoot great content.

Who would have thought that the nonsense they made up on the fly could actually come true?

“Brother Hua”, in the passenger seat, seemed a bit annoyed, and pushed “Young Master Qi” hard: “You get out of the way, let me see. Let me drive!”

But, both were unwilling to get out of the car, so they had to change their positions inside the car. Amid the tension, they became a tangled mess in the front row, and it took quite a while to switch positions.

Nevertheless, once “Brother Hua” was in the driver’s seat, it only took a while for him to successfully start the car.

He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and began to turn the car around. It seemed that he was worried that shining the car’s headlights on the construction site would anger the “little girl” they had just seen. When the car was facing the construction site, he manually turned off the lights, carefully maneuvered the car around in the dark. Only when the car was facing the road again, would he turn the lights on again.

All the way back, no one in the car spoke a word.

“Brother Hua” drove the car into the parking lot of a bar, and the four of them walked into the bar without speaking a word.

This was the time when the bar was the most crowded, the resident female singer was onstage singing an old rock n roll song, the atmosphere was very cheerful, but the four of them felt detached from their surroundings, it was as if they were in the heat of summer with their hearts in the depths of winter, they just walked silently to an empty booth and sat down. The two men, who had been scheming to impress the chestnut-haired beauty, were now somewhat absent-minded, “Young Master Qi” was even constantly rubbing his hands to cover the slight trembling.

“Young Master Qi, Ah Hua, where have you two been? Brother Dong is looking for you! Hey? What should I call these two ladies?” a bar waiter in a vest walked over and greeted them.

“Can I… have a hot lemon water, no… just give me a cup of warm water.” the chestnut-haired little girl said in a soft voice.

“I’ll have one too.” the curly-haired girl also said.

“We… we don’t serve warm water in our bar, I’ll bring you a bottle of mineral water…” the waiter said apologetically.

“Brother Hua” interrupted, “Give me a cup of warm water too.”

“Young Master Qi” immediately added, “And me too.”

…

Meanwhile, Xiang Kun and Old Xia had already walked home.

“They seem to have been scared by you.” Upon entering the house, Xia Libing said.

“It wasn’t me who scared them, it was your sneeze and the co-manifested Alice that scared them!” Xiang Kun corrected, “I only made their car temporarily undrivable so they would not drive into a ditch or hit someone due to shock, letting them cool down before leaving.”

When he had first detected a car approaching the abandoned construction site, Xiang Kun alerted Old Xia in advance and controlled dozens of the “Super-connected Objects” to scatter around the construction site, preparing for any potential situation that might arise.

However, when the car almost approached the site, through the conversation of the people in the car, Xiang Kun had roughly affirmed their purpose of coming here and the identities of the two of them.

Yes, it was really a coincidence that the two young men in this car were the ones who had had a minor conflict with him in the KTV corridor during Tang Baona’s birthday, and these two also had something to do with the bar owner “Brother Dong” Qin Dong, one of whom was Qin Dong’s cousin.

Xiang Kun’s original plan was to quietly leave with Old Xia after they went “exploring”, as they didn’t do anything illegal or criminal, he didn’t bother to interfere.

Unexpectedly, Old Xia sneezed just as they entered the site.

And, in the instant that the flashlight beam swept over, Old Xia instinctively co-manifested “Young Xia” on the path of the light, drawing their attention.

It was thanks to Alice still maintaining the previously prepared state that Old Xia was able to successfully co-manifest in that instant.

The fleeting “Young Xia” naturally caught the full attention of the four people, allowing Xiang Kun and Old Xia to calmly move away.

But, those four people were considerably frightened.

Through sensory information, judging that the emotional changes of the four people were too great, especially the driver “Young Qi”, who was very excited, for safety’s sake, Xiang Kun temporarily paralyzed the car to let them calm down before leaving.

In fact, from the beginning, he and Old Xia could have walked out openly and faced the four people without any problem, as they were not up to anything illegal here.

However, he did not tell Old Xia about his subsequent judgments about the purpose and identity of the four people in the car, so Old Xia, unable to determine their identities or motives fully, reacted first by trying not to reveal themselves, unconsciously made “Young Xia” appear as a distraction.

Upon entering the house, Xiang Kun turned on the living room light, but Xia Libing turned it off again as soon as it was on.

Then, in the next moment, through the light from the corridor, Xiang Kun saw “Young Xia” or Alice, standing in the middle of the living room holding a scalpel and tilting her head to look at them.

An instant later, Alice disappeared, and Xia Libing turned to ask: “What are the subsequent emotional changes after being frightened?”