13 Mink Street

Night fell. A black coffin rested quietly on the mourning table. Inside it lay Elisa, her face composed and her hands folded over her lower abdomen. An exquisite red jewelry box lay pressed between them.

In the mourning hall, all of the lightbulbs had been replaced with ones that gave off warmer light. They were all lit, and radiated soft light. Limited by the space, the service could not be made lavish, yet every detail showed care.

Karon sat on a chair in the corner. Behind him were several rows of chairs prepared for mourners, and on the table in front were wine and other beverages, along with some snacks. There was nothing expensive, but there was quite a bit of variety.

The time had come. Pike took a pen and went outside. On the guidance sign, he wrote: Miss Elisa’s Mourning Hall.

Dinkom held a jar of clean water and began to sprinkle it along the path from outside to the mourning table.

Alfred walked to the sound system. After two adjustments, a song played rose from the speakers: My Earl.

It was the theme song of a vampire film released two years ago. The protagonist was a vampire earl, but the film did not tell of his experiences in war, but of his love and hatred. It was a tragic story of how he would sell his soul to the devil for the one he loved.

However, Karon knew the truth. The prototype of the protagonist, or more precisely, the prototype of the character represented by him, were actually ordinary people, not Bloodfiends. However, none of that mattered. This song was simply chosen for this particular occasion.

Karon turned slightly and looked outside. He was waiting for tonight’s guests. Would Captain Nio come?

A blue sedan appeared and stopped at the curb road close to the funeral home. The man who had wept the other night stepped out. Today, he wore a tuxedo, and looked quite refined.

After entering the funeral home, he went up to the mourning table and stood by the coffin, looking at the woman lying inside.

From Karon’s angle, he could clearly see the affection in the man’s eyes. Such an expression was not fake.

Time passed, perhaps another quarter of an hour, and an extended black Piersa executive sedan pulled up to the curb. A young woman stepped out. Her features were seven parts similar to Elisa’s, which suggested she was a sister. Two male servants got out with the woman.

As she approached the door to the funeral home, her eyes swept the area. A trace of displeasure flickered in her eyes. Karon caught that detail, and the corner of his mouth curved faintly upwards. There was something familiar about this woman. The emotional detachment that was so common among great families was plainly written across her features.

Dinkom, who had been sprinkling water, stepped aside, yet when the woman drew near, one of the guards behind her stepped forward and raised a hand to block Dinkom. The man was shoved off balance and he fell to the ground.

“What are you doing!” Seeing Dinkom pushed down, Pike ran over to help him back up. He was about to demand an explanation when Dinkom grabbed him hard.

Dinkom’s eyes then shifted over to Karon, who was still sitting in the corner. Seeing that Karon remained seated, Dinkom picked himself up on his own and pulled Pike back a step.

The woman stopped and looked at Karon in the corner. Then, she turned around.

Smack! A slap struck on a bodyguard’s face. A bright red handprint immediately appeared on his cheek.

The woman proceeded to enter the building and she walked directly over to the mourning table. When the man standing there saw the woman arrive, he prostrated himself before her.

The woman did not even look at the man, but looked at Elisa lying in the coffin.

After a long time, she reached into the coffin and took out the box from beneath Elisa’s hands. She opened it. Inside were Elisa’s fangs and nails.

“Heh heh...” The woman laughed.

“Heh heh...” She kept laughing, covering her face.

Karon quietly took a piece of sesame candy from the table in front of him. He peeled the wrapper off and placed it in his mouth. It was not a sweet candy, but it was fragrant when he chewed.

The woman put the box back, then walked down the steps to approach Karon. Her two bodyguards subconsciously tried to follow, but Alfred stepped in front of them, blocking their path.

The woman raised a hand, and the two bodyguards quietly retreated.

Right after that, Karon caught a whiff of her perfume. It was heavy. Eunice would not use such a strong scent.

The woman sat down beside him, and asked, “Are you the Inquisitor here?”

“No,” Karon answered honestly.

“Where is the Inquisitor?”

“He isn’t here.”

“Alright.” The woman pointed toward the morgue table and said, “The one lying there is my older sister.”

Karon nodded and said, “That’s obvious.”

“Do we look alike?”

“Mhmm.”

“No. In fact we don’t look anything alike. I’m not as stupid as her, to end up like this for a man.”

“For him?” Karon pointed toward the man still prostrated by the coffin.

“Heh... him?” The woman laughed, shook her head, and said, “Not even she was that stupid.”

Karon took another piece of sesame candy. He peeled the wrapper and put it in his mouth. Seeing this, the woman frowned slightly. She reached out, took one as well, but hesitated over whether or not to open it.

“It’s pretty good,” Karon recommended.

“Oh? Is that so?” She peeled the wrapper and placed the candy in her mouth. “It’s passable.”

“Will you take the coffin and the remains with you?” Karon asked.

“I will.”

“Alright.”

“No matter what, thank you for holding a funeral for her.”

“Our boss made these arrangements. We only carried things out. You don’t need to thank us.”

The woman leaned back slightly. She continued chewing the sesame candy as her eyes roamed outside.

At that moment, a figure appeared in the night. It was a middle aged man with sharply defined features, who wore a black overcoat. When he appeared, the woman’s two bodyguards immediately dropped to one knee before the man.

“Father...” The woman stood and went to greet the middle aged man. “I thought you wouldn’t come, Father.”

The man did not respond to his daughter, but walked straight over to the mourning table. The male servant still knelt there, but his body was now trembling. Clearly, he feared this man.

“Earl, I- I- I didn’t take good care of Miss! I, Gros, am guilty! Guilty!”

The man addressed as earl merely stared at the woman in the coffin. He also picked up the small box and opened it. “Removing one’s ancestral fangs is extremely disrespectful to our kind.”

Karon stood and answered, “No one came to inform us of the exact procedures in advance. We could only apply mortuary makeup according to local customs. Please forgive us.”

The earl’s gaze swept over to Karon, and he asked the same question as the woman earlier, “Are you the Inquisitor here?”

“No. Our boss isn’t here. I’m a Divine Servant here.”

“Are there only Divine Servants here?”

“Yes, sir.”

The earl stepped down from the mourning table. He went to a chair and sat down.

The woman took a piece of sesame candy, opened the wrapper, and offered it to the earl. “Father, Sister is gone, but you still have me.”

The earl did not open his mouth to eat the candy. Instead, he slapped his daughter across the face.

Smack! The woman was knocked to the floor.

Karon, seated beside them, watched it happen. Hm, it seems this family all shares a tradition of slapping people.

“Father?”

“This is your sister’s mourning hall. You should show proper respect, Edith.”

Edith did not dare argue. She stood and tried to sit near her father.

“Go kneel beside your sister’s coffin.”

“Father?”

“Go.”

Edith pursed her lips tightly, yet she eventually still walked over to the mourning table and knelt down.

The earl then looked at Karon. “How long until the mourning service ends?”

“It ends at two in the morning,” Karon answered.

“Alright. The funeral fee, has it been paid?”

“It has.”

The earl nodded, then straightened his posture and closed his eyes. What followed was a long stretch of stifling monotony. Those who knelt continued to kneel. Those who sat remained seated. The one who lay there lay still.

Alfred poured Karon a cup of ice water and also brought him today’s newspaper. He knew his young master needed those things at this moment.

Karon gave a signal, and Alfred understood. He poured the earl a cup of hot tea. The man offered a slight nod in thanks.

After that, Alfred poured tea for the other two guests as well, and placed the cups before them. Edith lifted her head slightly, staring at the cup placed in front of her. She gritted her teeth, but did not dare flare up. She was upset because with how both she and the male servant, Gros, were kneeling with their hands stretched forward on the tiles and their hips raised, placing the cups in front of them made it appear, from a distance, like they were two dogs lapping water.

Karon used the excuse of reading the newspaper to cover his face.

A Bloodfiend is dead, and her younger sister and father just happen to be in York City? And from the looks of it, they didn’t secretly sneak in, so they should be here for some other purpose, and have arrived in a semi public manner.

Karon guessed that the two were present as family envoys to speak with some of the orthodox churches in York City about some sort of cooperation, which had granted them some degree of recognition and protection.

It was even very possible that they were speaking with the Church of Order. Otherwise, there was no way to explain how they could swagger into the funeral home so openly. Before the two’s arrival, they had not known that Inquisitor Pavaro was not present. They dared to openly face an Inquisitor, which showed that they were not afraid of inciting a conflict or being reported.

But was it really so coincidental? The two had recently arrived, and yet Elisa had fallen into losing herself and had committed suicide?

Karon checked the time. It had just passed midnight. The truth was that the mourning time was scheduled to be long to make it convenient for those who had to travel a great distance to arrive in time to mourn and see the deceased one last time. If no one else was coming, the people who had already mourned did not need to keep waiting.

At last, the earl stood. “Edith, take your sister home.”

“Yes, Father.” Edith was finally allowed to climb up from the ground. She signaled for her two bodyguards to step forward and collect the coffin.

Yet at that moment, a group of figures suddenly appeared outside of the funeral home. They stood at the curb some distance away, yet their presence caused the atmosphere in the mourning hall to instantly congeal.

The two bodyguards instantly moved to stand at the doorway. Edith looked outside with a tense expression.

“Heh heh... heh heh heh...” The laughter came from Gros, the servant who had been kneeling on the floor. He slowly stood, and then looked at Edith and the earl. He shouted, his features contorting, “People from House Bocarte and House Magna are already here! Second Miss, Master, you can’t leave today!”

Together with Anavas, Bocarte and Magna formed the three great Bloodfiend families. When the Bloodfiends had been at their peak during the last epoch, the three families had each controlled a country.

Edith turned and glared at Gros, furious. “Gros, you betrayed us!”

“No, I didn’t!” Gros roared in fury. “I’m doing this to avenge the miss I love most! I’m doing this to avenge the miss I love most! You- you- you are the executioners who killed the miss!”

Gros stepped down from the mourning table as he continued, “Why are you all so vicious? I really don’t understand why you treated miss like this. When I hid from her that I went to seek you out, hoping you would grant a bottle of Dormancy Serum, you gave it to me. I was so happy I went crazy, because I knew that with that, the miss I love most would be able to temporarily avoid becoming lost.

“When I delivered it to the miss, she immediately cried. After so many years of being away from home, she finally felt the warmth of her family. She even said that she would go to the alley across from the hotel where you were staying, Earl, and kneel there to pray for you.

“Yet after miss drank it, the process of losing herself suddenly accelerated! I approached faster and earlier than expected. She didn’t even get to see that person one last time before she had to use a silver nail to stab herself to death! Why! How could you be so ruthless?”

The earl looked at Gros. “So you contacted people from Bocarte and Magna?”

“Yes, that’s right! They’re sensitive and furious that you are representing Anavas here in York City to discuss cooperation with the church. They didn’t expect Anavas would choose to betray the Bloodfiends, so they are desperate to stop it. I contacted them. I guessed you would come here tonight. I guessed that both of you would definitely be here! Because you personally killed the miss, and as her murderers, you would definitely come to admire your own handiwork! I guessed right, so I had people from those two families who are in York City wait here. Now, we’ve waited for you.

“Here in the miss’s mourning hall, you will be buried with her!”

“Madman, madman, madman! You traitor, Gros! I’ll tear you apart first!” Edith bared two fangs at the corners of her mouth, yet just as she was about to pounce on Gros, a whistle was heard outside. Right after the whistle, the figures who had been concealed in the shadows gradually grew clear. They wore black priest’s robes and black masks, looking like a group of ghosts that suddenly surfacing.

How could they possibly be Bloodfiends? They could not possibly be forces who had been sneaked into York City by Bocarte and Magna either. That was simply impossible, as these were members of the Whip of Order.

Karon had seen Tirsen and his squad members, and that squad of the Whip of Order had not had the same sort of temperament as the people before him now. This was a presence that caused fear in those who looked at them.

One glance made clear the gap between the two squads.

So the gap in strength between Whip of Order squads can actually be quite large?

“How? How is this possible!” Gros stared at the people outside in disbelief.

At that moment, a mass of black mist appeared in the center of the mourning hall. When the black mist dispersed, Nio appeared.

“The groups from Bocarte and Magna that entered this city illegally have already been cleaned up by Order,” Nio calmly reported.

“Nio!” Edith looked at Nio with an expression of delight appearing on her face. Her pleasure was not something as simple as learning that she was not actually surrounded.

When the earl looked at Nio, his expression grew complicated.

Gros pointed at Nio. “You, you, you! How could you do this? How could you do this!”

“I knew you wouldn’t be content with just arranging her funeral. I knew you would seek to avenge her. But you are also only an ordinary man, and you can’t take revenge yourself, so you reached out to other forces. When I was in Port Mulberry, I already knew that you had connections to the other two houses.”

“I forged those contacts just to obtain Dormancy Serum for the miss! It turned out the serum from those two houses was useless to her. You even calculated that? She misjudged you! She truly misjudged you, Nio! You are a beast!”

Nio calmly replied, “The earl has come to York City on behalf of House Avanas to negotiate cooperation with the Church of Order, and I must ensure his safety. This is for Order.”

“And the miss? What was she to you?” Gros shouted hoarsely.

Nio’s gaze fell upon the coffin on the slab.

The earl then spoke, “Our agreement was that this cooperation was to remain confidential. By bringing it into the open, you have left House Avanas with no path of retreat. That was the outcome you wanted, is it not?”

Nio shook his head. “My duty is only to ensure your safety, my lord.”

Edith stepped toward Gros. “Traitor! I will kill you first!”

A whip cut across her path, stopping her.

“Nio, let me kill him! He is a servant of my house! He betrayed his masters! He deserves death!”

“He is a commoner and he must undergo judgment,” Nio stated evenly.

“Don’t stop me! He is my family’s servant, and I have the right to deal with him. Do not stop me, Nio! It was obvious that Edith and Nio had known each other for some time.

He walked over to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Stand still.”

That contact seemed to momentarily unsettle Edith. A trace of shyness even flickered across her expression. “Fine. I’ll listen to you.”

Nio looked toward the earl. “My lord, was the Dormancy Serum you gave Gros a counterfeit?”

At that question, a flicker of fear appeared in Edith’s eyes.

The earl sternly replied, “If I had chosen not to give her the serum, I would have refused outright. If I gave her one, why would I give her something false? After she betrayed the family, I once allowed her to approach derangement, but as her father, I would never personally push her into the abyss.

“Now that we are cooperating with the Church of Order, giving her the serum and allowing her connection with you would facilitate ties between House Avanas and the Church of Order, and would not have drawn any objection from the elders.

“When I saw Elisa lying in the coffin, my first thought was that you wanted her dead, so that her identity would no longer burden your prospects. Because of Elisa, your squad was kept in Port Mulberry for years, not being promoted. Your current opportunity did not come easily.”

Nio murmured, “Then it wasn’t you.”

“Of course not,” the earl replied.

“Then it was her.” The hand resting on Edith’s shoulder suddenly produced a black dagger. In a single motion, Nio severed the woman’s head. He caught it by the hair and held it before him. “She never said it, but I knew she missed home. She missed her family. You may accompany her in death, that way, my Elisa will not be alone.”