Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 892: Chapter 136: Bonds of the Immortals (3)

Neither he nor she disclosed their names or surnames, yet there seemed to be a magical understanding between them.

A glance, or an expression.

But she seldom showed emotions, while his expressions were quite vivid.

The young man didn’t fulfill his boastful words of buying that building in one night.

He merely went to a bar later, one filled with smoke, where people gambled, and played poker all night with a group seeking amusement.

Of course, the young man brought along the woman who had withheld the last of his fortune for him.

They still didn’t tell each other their names or surnames.

Among the crowd, the woman watched the young man’s face, composed, confident, with a charming smile. There was a sense of recklessness about him.

His eyes were sensual, a nearly lethal weapon for most women.

Now and then, the young man would chuckle and his gaze would traverse the crowd, settling on the woman sitting in front of the bar, leaning on her hand, lost in thought.

She didn’t touch the drink he had prepared for her. She simply twirled the cherry stem with her fingers, slowly stirring the drink, passing the time.

Besides being beautiful, she might be a boring woman.

Or perhaps lonely.

Suddenly, the young man didn’t want to continue playing. He flung the cards in his hand away, taking only a small portion of his winnings, and pushing the rest out, thus easily finding an end, and getting up from his seat.

He glanced at the bar, then asked the bartender for a bottle of red wine, and before long, he sat next to the beautiful woman.

“Let’s play a little game.” The young man gently shook the wineglass in his hand, “Guess what I do for a living.”

The woman didn’t speak, just turned her head, still leaning on her hand, slightly tilting her head, watching him. After a while, she said, “What do you do?”

“Isn’t knowing the answer directly boring?” He rotated the chair directly to face the woman, staring at her.

She shook her head, calmly saying, “Not knowing the answer is the most boring; the wait is not.”

“Alright.” He said softly, then took a sip from the glass on the table, smiled, and said, “My side job is a gambler, you should know that, right.”

“And then?” She nodded.

“I am a winemaker.”

The young man said slowly, “I am an orphan, grew up in an orphanage. But when I was six, a foreign couple adopted me. After that, I became the adopted child of this family. My foster father had a vineyard, he was a winemaker, he taught me how to make the best wine and how to taste wine. But in the end, I didn’t inherit it.”

“Why.” The woman grew curious.

The young man motioned to her, then leaned a little closer, with a mysterious look as if about to reveal a big secret. The woman leaned in closer as well.

Face to face, only a wineglass between them.

“I have no sense of taste now.” The young man blinked, “One day, suddenly everything I ate or drank lacked any taste for me. So, I could never be an outstanding winemaker.”

She didn’t ask why he lost his sense of taste, just suddenly smiled and said, “What a coincidence, no matter what I eat, it only has one taste.”

With their eyes hazy, they gazed at each other, probing one another, like stars in the sky corresponding with the star reflections on a calm lake.

“Only one taste? What taste?”

“The taste of blood.”

…

The taste of blood.

She laughed, the kind of smile that moved the young man more than any he had ever seen before.

Suddenly, he remembered a saying, beautiful eyes can speak, and her eyes seemed to be telling a story.

“Give me your hand,” the young man suddenly said.

She extended her hand, cold, and when the young man lightly grasped it, he felt the chill in her palm, looking at her in surprise.

The young man then placed a 1 mark coin in her palm and said, “Merry Christmas.”

The woman replied playfully, “A 1 mark Christmas gift, this is the simplest gift I’ve ever received.”

He said, “But you should know, this 1 mark coin was once my last wealth. Also, it can let me have the whole world. It’s you who stopped it from falling into the sewer, and now, it’s in your hand.”

Her eyelashes quivered slightly, gazing at the coin in her palm, and suddenly said, “Do you say such words to every woman?”

The young man smiled slightly, “Not every woman is willing to stop the coin about to fall into the sewer for me.”

Very wondrous.

Perhaps you’d call it love at first sight, or just the impulse of hormones.

When the clock’s hand pointed to midnight, and when the chimes sounded outside, the whole world was quiet, and after the silence, the bar began to cheer, singing and dancing.

Streamers and confetti spiraled down from above, like a colorful snow, and under this ‘snow,’ they lightly bit each other’s lips.

Late in the night, the young man used his winnings to find a unique hotel. From the moment they entered, the flames of desire blazed fiercely.

From the hallway to the sofa, from the sofa to the fireplace, the wildly kissing man and woman knocked over the lamp beside the coffee table and also the coat rack.

They fell onto the chiffon-soft bed.

“Why is your body so cold?”

“Then make it hot.”

“I will.”

The young man fervently kissed her neck, the heat generated by their skin contact seemed to make her gradually heat up as well.

They still didn’t reveal their names or surnames to each other.

…

“Did I wake you?”

The young man’s hand was on the nightstand, playing with the 1 mark coin, spinning it, watching it pause, then spinning it again.

The woman adjusted her pillow higher for more comfort, “I’m just more alert at night.”

He smiled slightly, leaned in for a kiss, after a brief intimacy, they lay entwined, her head resting on his chest.

Her fingers lightly traced over his chest, using her nails, she said, “I like the sound of your heartbeat, strong, powerful, lively.”

“What exactly does the taste of blood resemble?” the young man suddenly asked curiously.

She lifted her head and looked at him with an equally curious gaze.

The young man continued, “I’m just curious, as you said, about the taste of blood.”

The woman suddenly kissed the young man’s collarbone, lightly and fleetingly, like a dragonfly skimming the water, slowly moving up to his neck, and said, “It is rich, sweet, or viscous like milk and honey. Sometimes delicate, sometimes spicy like a strong liquor, yet not bitter, and it gives your throat a slight burning sensation, warming it…”

Lips gently suckled on the neck, and the young man quietly listened to the woman’s description of the taste of blood, as if she intended to use every beautiful word in the world.

But he continuously savored the softness of those lips.

He suddenly spoke, interrupting the woman’s description, and laughed, “If I could ever regain my sense of taste, even if it took the rest of my life, I’d like to brew such a bottle of wine, rich, sweet, or viscous like milk and honey…”

He almost repeated her description of the taste of blood.

What he didn’t know was that at that moment, the woman quietly retracted her fangs and gazed deeply into his eyes.

So the young man gently caressed the woman’s cheek, “…then, present it to you, a wine like beautiful blood.”

She stared at him blankly and then asked, “What is your name?”

“Tu Shenyi, that’s my name before I was adopted.”

“Kiss me.”

She opened her arms to him.

…

…

A palm suddenly covered a coin with Mr. Markem’s image, grasping it, and Karen Yisheer felt a slight resurgence of strength. Leaning on the wall, she stood up.

Many times, she felt that immortality might not be such a wonderful thing.

Short-lived species envy the eternity of the long-lived, while the long-lived yearn for the brief brilliance of the short-lived, the excitement in every moment.

Different races have differing perspectives on things.

“Creatures never content…”

She mocked herself and began to move forward again, leaning on the wall. She needed to go back and retrieve the ‘Forget Worry’ series, though she doubted in her current state if she could also reclaim the true ‘Naihe’ from Takizawa.

Actually, if Viscount Fernandis could kill her, she would prefer it. But he let her go, did not strike… since she couldn’t die, she must at least retrieve them.

Suddenly, a stream of air surged forward from the passage, causing her hair to lift slightly. Following this, another stream came, once again raising her hair.

It was as if something massive was breathing… Karen Yisheer instinctively frowned.

Then came a third gust accompanied by a long, non-human howl, like a sound of lament, filled with pain and hatred.

Karen Yisheer even felt her scalp tingle… the sound was coming from the direction of the underground laboratory.

She had to quicken her pace, listening to the continuous roars as she went, realizing the severity of the situation… Vaguely, she sensed something ominous quietly appearing unawares.

Her intuition was correct; it was Karen Yisheer’s first reaction when she reached the laboratory doors and saw what lay before her.

Even with every ugly word exhausted, it seemed impossible to fully describe the ‘thing’ inside the lab, perhaps only ‘ugly monster’ could depict it.

Karen Yisheer had never seen such a creature.

Like clusters of cells forming something huge… resembling enlarged cancerous tumors—yet it was not merely a biological form, as it contained various instruments originally meant only for the laboratory.

Organic or inorganic, this ‘ugly monster’ devoured all, merging them into itself.

Sprouting from this ‘ugly monster’ were limbs like giant tree roots, contracting and expanding endlessly.

Karen Yisheer discerned many different traits on this ‘ugly monster’—traits that should exist only in those with special races.

This monster… had devoured even the specimens housed in the massive containers within the lab!

Karen Yisheer immediately realized this and deduced that the monster had the ability to consume species, then exhibit the traits of these unique races.

“Jin Wucheng!”

Within that ugly body, she suddenly found the face of Uncle Jin, Jin Wucheng—it’s the only recognizable part of the monster.

“What on earth… have you done?” Karen Yisheer looked at the monster before her in horror, faintly feeling the presence of Takizawa in it.

It had also devoured Takizawa!

On the monster’s body, Jin Wucheng’s face remained perpetually open-eyed, unblinking, with an open mouth that hadn’t closed, like someone frightened to death, with a permanently despairing expression etched on his face.

Its body continued to swell, nearly pressing against the lab’s ceiling, as those massive limbs extending from below suddenly exerted, lifting its great body upwards.

It seemed to have noticed Karen Yisheer’s presence—its next target for consumption was likely the only living person present, Karen Yisheer.

Suddenly, the monster’s body split open into a huge fissure, a vertically positioned mouth packed with sharp, dense teeth, and from that terrifying abyssal mouth, a thick, long tongue shot forth.

Karen Yisheer could even see another terrifying prehensile mouth at the tip of the tongue—this was Takizawa’s ability.

Karen Yisheer gasped, facing the sudden onslaught, and instinctively chopped with her hand—though her hand’s edge was not sharp, it easily severed the monstrous long tongue.

The severed piece of the tongue writhed on the ground, while the monster’s wounded tongue instantly regenerated, fully restored in the blink of an eye.

Boom—!

Karen couldn’t evade in time; her injuries hadn’t healed, and the tongue struck her like a massive steel whip, fiercely lashing her body.

Karen flew backward, hitting the wall and spitting blood… the monster’s power was far more terrifying than an enraged werewolf.

“Help… me…”

“Help… me…”

“Help… me…”

Hoarse, painful… that was the face of Jin Wucheng on the monster, his mouth moving slightly then, “Help… me…”

Karen looked at Jin Wucheng’s pained face and stood up, “I can’t save you… I can’t even save myself… cough, cough…”

Suddenly, she reached to tear open her vest, wearing only a thin shirt beneath, and from the palm of her hand, a blood-patterned longsword slowly extended.

“You can kill me… but if you want to eat me, dream on.”

She instantly swung her sword to meet it.