The knocking was not urgent. In the cold, dead of night, accompanied by the continuous faint crying, it made one’s heart feel chilled.

Yu Sen huddled, burying his head in Si Xuanyang’s neck, mumbling: “It’s so cold…”

“Get off me!” Si Xuanyang growled softly.

This position was no longer a question of intimacy. If Yu Sen’s leg could behave, it would almost be described as ‘clinging together’!

Si Xuanyang didn’t feel cold at all. He was so hot he was almost burning up.

“Yu Sen, don’t you have any sense of propriety? Do you remember where this place is?”

His neck was tickled a bit by Yu Sen’s hair, and the fingers resting by his side were trembling slightly, with his heartbeat racing faster than usual.

“But I really feel cold…” Yu Sen sighed, his arm relaxing a bit, but after his muscles loosened, he couldn’t help but shiver.

Si Xuanyang felt something was off. He wrapped the arm that Yu Sen was pressing down with his own, and used his other hand to pull him out from his neck, his heart skipping a beat.

— Yu Sen’s complexion had visibly paled, and now that he was calm, Si Xuanyang also noticed that his body temperature had dropped quite a bit.

He felt the room’s temperature seemed to have dropped as well; he hadn’t realized it earlier because he had been in a hot state.

“Yu Sen? Are you feeling unwell?” Si Xuanyang asked calmly, touching his forehead, which felt as cold as a piece of jade.

“…I’m just cold and sleepy, with my nerves twitching,” Yu Sen murmured, pressing his body against Si Xuanyang’s, “Don’t worry, it should be because of that thing outside.”

Si Xuanyang glanced at the door. White mist-like gas was seeping in through the gap under the door, like the cold air from a refrigerator.

The knocking and crying continued. Si Xuanyang carefully placed Yu Sen’s head on the pillow and whispered, “I’ll go take a look.”

“Don’t go!” Yu Sen pressed him down, “If you leave my body for five seconds, I’ll freeze to death.”

Si Xuanyang’s heart skipped a beat: “…What nonsense are you talking about?”

He didn’t want to hear Yu Sen talk like this, even if it was a joke, especially in his current state.

A rare feeling of fear rose in Si Xuanyang’s heart, and he regretted even more the day he injured Yu Sen at the bar.

“Are you very uncomfortable?”

“Mm… If you forgive me, it won’t be uncomfortable.” Yu Sen pressed his upper body against Si Xuanyang, his lips almost touching Si Xuanyang’s ear, the cool breath making one side of Si Xuanyang’s face flush with warmth.

“Will you forgive me?” Yu Sen pressed on.

“…No, I won’t.” Si Xuanyang replied firmly, “Your discomfort has nothing to do with my forgiveness, it’s the cold air that’s drifting in.”

“Hmph, you’re so tough with your words, but your body is quite honest. Why are you holding me?” Yu Sen scoffed, “Trying to take advantage?”

“…Damn it! Aren’t you cold!” Si Xuanyang was so angry he almost spat blood, but he didn’t let go.

At this moment, the person outside seemed annoyed by being ignored. The knocking started out gentle but gradually became more agitated, eventually sounding like a madman pounding on the door.

Yu Sen tightened his hold around Si Xuanyang’s waist and whispered, “Don’t go.”

Although he was feeling unwell, his senses seemed heightened, and he instinctively felt that the cold air was problematic. It was best not to respond or get out of bed.

He hugged Si Xuanyang like he was a large plush toy from home, his nose filled with the same shower gel scent, warm and comforting, almost like a sleep aid.

Ah, he should have noticed this earlier; it was a real loss!

Si Xuanyang sighed, not struggling. He turned his head, glanced at the white mist spreading to the foot of the bed, and wrapped the blanket around Yu Sen more tightly.

The frantic knocking lasted nearly half an hour before finally giving up reluctantly, followed by the disappearance of the ghostly crying in the corridor.

The late night finally returned to silence, and Si Xuanyang’s tensed nerves slowly relaxed as he fell into a deep sleep.

---

“Ahhhhh—!”

A day in the castle began with a piercing scream in the morning.

Yu Sen suddenly woke up, overwhelmed by a suffocating feeling, his heart racing as if it might leap out of his throat, and his vision going black intermittently.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… Relax, breathe slowly…” A gentle, steady voice seemed to float from a distance.

He felt his head being lifted, cold sweat on his forehead being gently wiped away. Yu Sen gasped for breath, clutching the edge of the person’s clothes as if it were a lifeline.

He blinked slowly, and the white light gradually brought the blurry image into focus. Si Xuanyang was looking at him with concern, gently wiping the corner of his eyes: “Are you still feeling unwell?”

With his eyes slightly moist, Yu Sen realized he had been crying without noticing. He moved his cracked lips: “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

The consequences of entering the world of the clock with an injury were worse than he imagined. Being woken up like this was a new experience for him. Yu Sen sighed and, with Si Xuanyang’s help, propped himself up and buried his head in his shoulder, mumbling: “Don’t push me away, let me recover first.”

Si Xuanyang’s worry did not fade, and his arms around Yu Sen’s back tightened slightly.

Yu Sen’s breathing gradually stabilized. From outside the room, Si Nan’s voice came: “Yang Yang, Yu Ge, are you awake? Something happened outside!”

Si Xuanyang replied in a deep voice: “Wait a moment. You go check first.”

Si Nan responded and left.

Yu Sen slowly sat up, feeling his heartbeat return to normal. He wiped his face with force: “I’m fine now. I’m going to wash up.”

“Be careful, don’t fall.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like I have a problem with my IQ.” Yu Sen waved his hand and went into the bathroom.

Si Xuanyang watched his retreating figure, exhaled deeply. Yu Sen’s near-death appearance had truly scared him. This was the first time he had experienced the phrase ‘frightened out of his wits’ so profoundly, and it was the first time he had felt his heart ache so intensely because of worrying about someone’s safety.

His fingertips brushed the crumpled edge of his shirt, and his eyes felt a bit warm.

---

Yu Sen finished tidying up quickly and left the room with Si Xuanyang.

The incident had occurred in a room occupied by only one person. The crowd had dispersed, and only two or three people who had arrived late were hesitating at the door, then retching and running down the stairs.

Yu Sen: “……”

“You wait here, I’ll go check it out.” Si Xuanyang grabbed him.

“Alright.” Yu Sen agreed readily.

Previously, he might have struggled with the fact that Si Xuanyang seemed to treat him like a weakling, but this time he didn’t have the energy to struggle. With his current condition being uncertain, he didn’t want to risk seeing something disgusting and possibly vomiting out his internal organs.

Seeing the blood spilling out from the door, he knew the death scene must be horrific.

“Blood?” Yu Sen frowned. “Yang Yang, don’t get any blood on you. Vampires are definitely sensitive to the smell of blood. Let’s be careful.”

Si Xuanyang responded, carefully avoiding the blood stains at the door, took a quick glance inside the room, and immediately furrowed his brow.

—Inside was essentially a large dismemberment scene.

The body was cut into dozens of pieces, scattered around. Intestines, heart, liver, and lungs were all strewn about, with some meat chunks broken into small pieces that took a long time to identify as parts of the body.

Si Xuanyang stared at a black-and-white-red object on the floor for several seconds before realizing it was a half-cut eyeball.

The room was filled with red, and the smell of blood was so strong it could be smelled from far away.

Yu Sen called out to him: “Did you see clearly?”

Si Xuanyang rubbed his nose, avoiding the spreading blood stains, and returned to his side: “Let’s go, it’s time to eat.”

“What’s the situation inside?” Yu Sen asked.

“A person is dead.”

“I know a person is dead!” With all that blood spilling out, who wouldn’t know it’s a dead person? Yu Sen rolled his eyes. “How did they die?”

It surely wasn’t a vampire, or there wouldn’t be so much wasted blood.

Si Xuanyang hesitated, looked at his face, and then said: “Dismembered.”

Yu Sen was taken aback: “…… Oh.”

He recalled the white mist from last night: “Could it be that getting out of bed would lead to being dismembered by the white mist?”

Si Xuanyang pondered: “It’s possible.”

“Tsk, see? If I hadn’t held you, your fate would have been just like that person’s.”

Si Xuanyang glanced at the smug expression on his face, and unusually didn’t retort.

……

During dinner, after discussing with Si Nan and the others, they learned that the crying and knocking sounds they heard last night weren’t unique to them but occurred in every room.

A man at the dining table started cursing: “The doors here don’t have peepholes. I originally wanted to open a crack in the door to see who was crying, but the white mist opened a hole right in my foot! Damn it! If I hadn’t endured the pain and run quickly, and if I had sat down on the spot, I’d have ended up like that unlucky bastard upstairs!”

Yu Sen glanced at his ankle, which indeed had a large cut, but it didn’t seem deep, and the bleeding had stopped.

While he was in a daze, Si Xuanyang gently tapped his plate: “Why aren’t you eating? Not to your taste?”

Yu Sen looked down at the bloodied steak on his plate, frowning in disgust: “It’s too raw.”

He usually didn’t like such bloody medium-rare steak.

Si Xuanyang didn’t say much, quickly cut the most cooked part of the steak from Yu Sen’s plate and kept it, while transferring the rest to his own plate. He then added carrots, baked snails, and a small portion of pasta from his plate to Yu Sen’s.

“Eat a bit, don’t be so fussy.”

Yu Sen immediately smiled brightly: “Mr. Si, you say not to be so fussy, but your actions are just indulging my fussiness!”

^[1]Author’s Note:

Yu Sen: Unknowingly becoming a frail character, what to do?