Chapter One: The First Encounter
The gray sky drizzled with a fine, persistent rain, reminiscent of spring weather. Yet, I walked hand in hand with my father down a street that didn’t belong to this season. The street was sparsely populated, and the most striking sight was a young woman lying by the roadside, her clothes tattered and her condition critical. Her lifeless gray eyes stared directly at us, devoid of anything but the scent of death. My father halted, standing before the woman with a sorrowful expression, shaking his head without saying a word. He led me onward, and the gray wind swept discarded papers and withered leaves past my eyes.
"Dad, I need to step out for a moment. I'll be right back," I said hastily as soon as we got home and settled down.
"It's not a good day outside. Put on a jacket," Dad replied, heading straight to the kitchen to busy himself with washing the vegetables and meat we had just bought. Since he had received a bonus today, he planned to prepare a sumptuous dinner to celebrate.
"Got it!" I replied, heading to the bedroom to fetch a black cloak from the wardrobe. The cloak was my favorite garment; it shielded me from both wind and rain. As for the black color, I felt it represented the night, stillness, and beauty.
I draped the floor-length cloak over myself, removed the gold and silver rings from my arms, and left the bedroom and the house.
On the dimly lit street, a shadow darted past and stopped before the nearly lifeless woman. It was a girl clad in a dark, night-colored cloak. She knelt down before the woman and said, "I can offer you an immortal life, but in return, you must give up your soul." The woman blinked slowly at the girl, and the girl then leaned in, exposing her sharp fangs, and bit into the woman's neck. Despite the pain, a look of happiness spread across the woman's face. After a moment, the girl retracted her fangs and used her sharp, long nails to cut a deep gash in her own arm. The vile liquid flowed from the wound and dripped into her mouth. As she drank, death seemed to recede further from her. This strange scene was fully witnessed by a figure in the shadows, who watched as the woman recovered and the girl departed. As the girl's silhouette faded, a faint voice echoed, "Value others' lives as your own." The woman then got up and walked away, leaving only the wind, still stirring the fallen leaves and dust, adding a hint of color to the otherwise gray street.
"Jing'er, come down for breakfast. It's getting late," Dad called from downstairs.
"Okay, I'll be right there," I replied, finishing up and grabbing my schoolbag as I dashed downstairs. For me, having someone call me to breakfast was the happiest part of the morning. I almost looked forward to this moment every day.
"Today we have fried dough sticks and soy milk—your favorite," Dad said while reading the newspaper.
“Dad, why aren’t you eating?” I asked, noticing him staring blankly at the newspaper.
“There’s a strange report here,” Dad said, still focused on the upper left corner of the paper.
“What’s so strange about it?” I asked between bites.
“It’s about a murder in a village called Weicun,” Dad described.
“Murder happens everywhere every day. What’s so unusual about that?” I said dismissively.
“But this report says the victim seemed to have died from being drained of blood by some animal,” Dad said, increasingly puzzled.
“Did anyone see it?” I suddenly recalled something.
“No,” Dad shook his head in frustration.
“How would they know it was some animal draining blood?” I asked.
“The report mentioned four neat little holes on the victim’s neck, and experts suspect they were made by an animal’s teeth,” Dad kept repeating the newspaper’s details.
“Sounds like a vampire!” I took a sip of my soy milk and said.
“A vampire? Jing’er, you’ve been watching too many movies. There are no such things as vampires in this world,” Dad said, adopting a parental tone.
“Oh, I understand,” I said, not bothering to argue. I didn’t need to.
“Still, such an animal would be truly terrifying, no different from a vampire. I can’t imagine what happened,” Dad lamented, but I could. I could vividly imagine every scene that unfolded in that village and clearly hear every sound that emerged from there.
As night fell, in a remote village, in a dimly lit room, the sounds of decadent, indulgent laughter from men and women filled the air. Suddenly, a piercing scream cut through the silence, and the village fell into an eerie stillness, a terrifying quiet that didn’t belong to this world, much like the silence of a graveyard at midnight. Yet, it was a type of silence I liked; it made me feel comfortable, safe, and aware of my existence.
Villagers poured out of their homes, heading towards the source of the scream.
“Ah...” Another scream echoed, but this time from the crowd of villagers themselves, countless screams of terror. What had they seen that frightened them so? Some called the police, who arrived, dispersed the crowd, took away the bodies, and sealed off the scene, leaving as silently as they had come. Everyone had gone, leaving only the silence I liked, a pure, undisturbed stillness.
