Eldritch Horror Theatre

This time, he finally refrained from calling them rambling roses.

Not because Fu Qian had suddenly learned respect, of course—it was purely a practical calculation.

Their brief exchange had already confirmed both the ”Aura of Fear” and the ”old acquaintances failing to recognize each other” effect.

After a moment’s thought, he flatly abandoned any hope of earning her trust through recognition.

This dreamscape carried the dual fragility of Serana and the Red Moon; trying to force his way through the rules of the Night Demon might stir up unnecessary turbulence.

So, just as he had decided earlier, playing the villain was the way to go.

Granted, his last question sounded less like a villain and more like a fool.

Because by all rights, where the roses pointed was obvious at a glance.

Compared to the outside, this one-to-one replica of the Church wasn’t just crowded and lively—it pulsed with a strange vitality of its own—

From the very apex of the building’s vaulted dome, three thick, thorny vines snaked downward, spreading across nearly the entire interior of the Church.Even down here among the audience pews below the high platform, flowers bloomed in full fury, shaped just like the starry roses on Serana’s body.

Looking up, he saw even more Seranas arranged all the way up along the trail of the vines. Along the ring gallery, the clerestory walkway, and right up beneath the dome... They made no sound, yet every one of them wore an expression of earnest inquiry.

Naturally, the uninvited guest’s arrival had disrupted that focus.

Countless gazes converged on him from high above, their weight compounded by gravitational potential energy until the pressure felt heavier still.

So that Blood Clan Demigod really had been honest—when she said three flowers, she meant three flowers?

Too bad that, as everyone knew, Professor Fu had always treated pressure as nothing at all.

Faced with a scene brimming with divinity—and even a touch of the sinister—inside this forsaken house of faith, Fu Qian’s very first thought went to the number of rose vines.

Given that the original Church held nothing of the sort, and that this dreamscape drew on local materials guided by the power of the Progenitor of the Blood Clan, calling these vines an invasive species seemed entirely fair.

As for how they had invaded?

Such a classic floral shape, identical to the ones on Excellency Serana herself, naturally made one wonder whether each vine corresponded to one of the blooms on her body.

And that lined right up with the answers Serana had given earlier.

Clearly, she hadn’t tried to be clever by holding one or two flowers back in secret as a trump card to control the situation.

At the same time, though none of them had grown particularly straight or neat, the three rose vines still shared plenty of similarities. Their thick roots all sprang from the very peak of the dome; they all clung to the walls as they crept downward from above; they bore only thorns and not a single leaf...

And some of their branches had grown to exaggerated lengths, stretching across nearly half the Church...

Something really was off about this.

Across from him, the Seranas weren’t in any hurry to answer his question.

Yet Fu Qian was already letting out a long inward sigh, having spotted the catch—’Hmph, and you still claim you’re not a rambling rose?’

’What kind of rose climbs on vines like this?’

...

’In that old residential complex where this seat lives, a simple trip downstairs for a pack of salt lets me admire the gardening of at least nine neighborhood grandpas and grandmas. How could I possibly miss a detail like that?’

’Besides, in all fairness, the symbolism you’re going for here is pretty mediocre.’

Beyond easily confirming that Excellency Annalise truly had a fondness for rambling roses, Fu Qian even went on to critique the setup from a feng shui perspective.

Three roses—bah, rambling roses—gathered together at the peak of the Church’s dome. Was that supposed to evoke Three Flowers Gathered at the Crown?

Used in Excellency Serana’s advancement ritual, it sounded passable enough at first. Yet as everyone knew, ”the Three Flowers Gathered at the Crown are inherently an illusion.”

In the end, he feared it would amount to nothing more than flowers in a mirror, moon on the water—impossible to grasp.

Still, as he had thought before, Serana’s good fortune was best left to fate.

From his own standpoint, these three flowers were well worth exploring a bit.

”Are you sure you won’t answer?”

Before wreaking havoc on the blooms, Fu Qian gave the person in question one last chance to confirm whether she intended to keep silent.

Hmm...

Unsurprisingly, after carefully taking the booklet, the Seranas hesitated briefly before holding firm under the pressure.

They neither shared the guidance they had received nor lost their composure and attacked first.

”Understood. Very good.”

Fu Qian was generous with his praise for their restraint.

Not only was his tone free of insincerity, he didn’t press her any further. Before the words had even faded, he leaped lightly into the air. The movement naturally drew every eye in the hall, yet under the watchful gazes of the Seranas, Fu Qian didn’t strike directly at the enemy’s heart to inspect the apex of the dome where the three flowers met.

Instead, he alighted on a connecting gallery just a few stories up.

”You...”

Such an understated move almost seemed to touch Excellency Serana a little.

Before Fu Qian could even speak, a figure who had been standing there quietly admiring the flowers let out an instinctive greeting.

”Lovely flowers.”

Fu Qian replied politely, stepping up beside her to join the flower-viewing crowd.

”Yes.”

Facing this unidentified ”villain,” Serana guarded her words like gold.

”Do you know how many have bloomed in total?”

Unbothered, Fu Qian leaned against the railing, gazed out across the hall, and posed a classic question.

”...I don’t know.”

With so many versions of herself for company, Serana clearly hadn’t been lonely enough to count the roses; after a brief hesitation, she shook her head.

”A lot.”

At first listen, the correct answer Fu Qian offered sounded utterly perfunctory.

”And there’s the exact same number on all three vines.”

...

Come to think of it, this wasn’t the first time he had discussed a math problem with Serana.

Back in the Moonlight Glade inside the very first Ancient Reminiscence, he had asked her how many beams of moonlight shone inside.

He still remembered that Serana hadn’t been able to answer back then either—though Fu Qian suspected this time was different, and she might not truly be ignorant of the answer.

”So not only are you a pureblood Blood Clan, you’re even a third-generation descendant? Forgive my disrespect.”

The Serana beside him remained silent, while Fu Qian went right on studying the flower before them.

”...Who are you, really?” This time, she finally lost her composure, her voice no longer hiding her hostility.

More than that, up at the very peak of the dome, the four Seranas who had been quietly guarding the Three Flowers Gathered at the Crown reacted as well.

Not only were they staring fixedly down at him, long wing membranes had already unfurled from their backs, making them look like Angels of judgment ready to plummet from the heavens at any second.

So that really was it...

Paying no mind to the minor threat, Fu Qian took her reaction as confirmation of what he had already suspected.

The reason he knew Serana was a pureblood Blood Clan was simple: the rose directly in front of them had been bred from two small twigs on the vine crossing together.

And if he traced them upward, it took only one more node to reach the root of the vine.

Yes, the branch before his eyes was one of those exaggeratedly long ones he had noticed earlier.

And this didn’t appear to be merely an inverted starry rose—it was the physical manifestation of the entire Blood Clan’s continuation.

A family tree of bloodlines.