[V6C99 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
“Why is that?” Qianye was puzzled. As he saw it, it wasn’t easy to find a creature more harmless than this clumsy fellow.
“I picked up the scent of an ancient vampire in her blood. Although very faint, she definitely has an ancient vampire bloodline.”
“What? Really?” Qianye was shocked.
“I couldn’t have been wrong.” Nighteye was serious.
Qianye’s expression sank as he fell into silence.
Nangong Xiaoniao was born in the Nangong family, and her ancestors were also lineal descendants. How could a vampire bloodline have appeared? It was fine if her bloodline was thin, but that wasn’t the case—there was, after all, a chance she could awaken. By that time, Nangong Xiaoniao would gradually turn into a vampire. After all, human bloodlines were inherently weaker and would usually face defeat in such a struggle.
Qianye had been fighting with the vampires for ten-odd years. It had also been several years since he himself had obtained blood energy—it could be said that he was extremely clear about its power. At the thought of this, his heart was once again thrown into turmoil. A human with mixed vampire blood like Nangong Xiaoniao would be put to death immediately after being discovered.
But the girl had always been giving her all for Blackflow City. If not for her, Song Zining might not have had such an easy time defending the city. In addition, it was more than likely that she was ignorant of her own condition. Under such circumstances, how would Qianye treat her according to the law?
From a different perspective, Qianye himself possessed blood energy and had even formed a blood core. Moreover, he had a vampire primo beside him and the princess of the Monroe clan at that.
Nighteye watched him in silence. No one knew what she was thinking.
Qianye sighed. “Who else knows about this?”
Nighteye shook her head. “Probably no one else.”
Qianye sighed in relief and nodded. “That’s good. Don’t tell anyone else.”
A wisp of delight appeared in the primo’s eyes. However, she didn’t allow Qianye to notice it and merely nodded in response.
But Qianye’s eyes remained locked in a frown. A vampire bloodline was a lethal danger regardless of its thickness. Fortunately, it seemed her bloodline was extremely thin, else Qianye should’ve sensed it during their long period of interaction.
Nighteye hesitated for a while and said, “Qianye, Xiaoniao’s matter isn’t that simple. I sensed a little bit of primogenitor aura from her.”
“What?” Qianye was shocked. This astonishment was even greater than when he was informed of Xiaoniao’s vampire bloodline. Any matter or person related to a primogenitor could only mean great trouble.
Qianye calmed himself down and asked, “Do you know which primogenitor?”
Nighteye nodded. “It’s our Monroe clan primogenitor, Black-Winged Monarch Andruil. Although the aura in Xiaoniao’s blood is extremely thin, I’m sure that I’m not mistaken.”
“Andruil? Nangong?” A flash of lightning tore through Qianye’s mind. He suddenly recalled how Andruil had wanted him to find Nangong Yuqing’s descendant back when he had obtained the monarch’s inheritance.
Back then, Qianye had investigated the Nangong family’s history but found no one by the name of Nangong Yuqing. Afterward, Qianye asked Song Zining for help, but the latter also returned empty-handed. Hence, Qianye came to the conclusion that this person wasn’t related to the Nangong family or that she was someone from a very distant branch. The Nangong family had existed for many generations and had hundreds of thousands of branch descendants. How was he to find her among them?
As such, Qianye paid this matter little heed later on; he would naturally find traces of her if he was destined to. But he had never ever expected that she would be related to Nangong Xiaoniao.
Qianye pondered for a long while. In the end, he felt that he needed to talk to Nangong Xiaoniao about this matter. As such, he explained his intentions to Nighteye and left to call upon the young girl.
Nangong Xiaoniao was in her workshop when Qianye found her, fully focused on installing an intricate piece of machinery. There were dozens of parts lying around her despite the assembled component being even smaller than a thumb.
Qianye brought Nangong Xiaoniao out of her working trance with a cough.
“Qianye, y-you’re back…” Nangong Xiaoniao stammered. She was already anxious after seeing Qianye.
“What are you working on?” Qianye wasn’t in a rush to get down to business since this matter was simply too significant. He was afraid the girl wouldn’t be able to accept it all of a sudden.
“I’m installing a control core. It can integrate many operations, and will sharply decrease preparation time for the stronghold cannons.” Nangong Xiaoniao quickly regained normalcy at the mention of her profession.
Even Qianye, who only had a superficial knowledge of these things, could tell just how intricate the component in her hand was.
“Not bad!” Qianye offered his heartfelt praise.
“Ah, t-thank you.” Nangong Xiaoniao was, again, at a loss for words.
Qianye sat down across Nangong Xiaoniao and said slowly, “Xiaoniao, I have something important to tell you.”
“Is it about you and Sister Nighteye? I already know. You don’t need to tell me anymore!” Nangong Xiaoniao cried out, almost as if she were venting her feelings. She then lowered her head and refused to look at Qianye.
Qianye was startled. He then said with a sigh, “It’s not about that. It’s about you.”
“Me? What’s up with me?” Nangong Xiaoniao was surprised.
Qianye hesitated for a while but finally decided to get to the point. “Xiaoniao, do you have a vampire bloodline?”
Nangong Xiaoniao trembled all over before gradually looking up to meet Qianye’s gaze. At this moment, she was unexpectedly calm. “So you already know? Is that why you don’t like me?”
“This has nothing to do with liking you or not. So it seems you already know about it.”
Nangong Xiaoniaon nodded. “Actually, this matter is no secret in the Nangong family. My family wouldn’t have deteriorated to such a state if it wasn’t for this.”
At this point, Nangong Xiaoniao revealed a dismal smile and said, “Since you already know, are you planning to kill me or drive me away?”
“Neither.” Qianye shook his head. “Is there a woman called Nangong Yuqing in your ancestry?”
Nangong Xiaoniao gasped. “How did you know?”
Qianye knew he had guessed correctly after seeing Xiaoniao’s reaction. It was just that Nangong Xiaoniao was also born of the Nangong family’s main branch. Why then couldn’t he search for Nangong Yuqing’s data?
Nangong Xiaoniao managed to calm down moments later. Thereafter, she hid nothing from Qianye and told him everything he asked.
Nangong Yuqing was a genius of the younger generation during her childhood. The Nangong family, during that period, was only a middle-ranked aristocratic family. Their power and influence back then were far from today’s, but Clan Lord Nangong Canghai—Nangong Yuqing’s grandfather—was a man of great ambitions.
Despite her young age, Nangong Yuqing was not only talented in the martial path but also extremely beautiful. As such, Nangong Canghai had the thought of marrying her into the imperial family. It was just that Nangong Yuqing went out to experience the world when she was fifteen and vanished thereafter—even the clan experts accompanying her were nowhere to be found.
The Nangong family had used everything at their disposal to search for her but produced no results in the end.
Nangong Yuqing made no contact for many years. When she returned to the family many years later, there were already two children at her side.
This matter was a great humiliation to the Nangong family, but Nangong Yuqing refused to reveal the father no matter how she was interrogated. Nangong Canghai, in his anger, was prepared to put the two children to death. Just as he was about to take action, he found that the two children were of great talent and possessed powerful vampire bloodlines.
This put Nangong Canghai in a difficult position. In the end, though, he decided to let them live. He imprisoned them in a forbidden ground and studied them. Nangong Yuqing was also captured, and a gag order was issued throughout the clan. No one was allowed to talk about matters relating to her.
Ten years passed by in the blink of an eye. Nangong Yuqing had more or less been forgotten, and her children had grown up. Eventually, they began to produce offspring under the control of the family. However, the vampire bloodline grew thinner and thinner with each generation until it almost disappeared by the third.
Nangong Canghai had reached the end of his life at that point. As such, he released the offspring of the two children and placed them under the care of a distant branch family—up until present times.
“My ancestor is the elder brother of the two children. I’m the only one left of my generation.”
Only at this point did Qianye understand why he couldn’t find any information about Nangong Yuqing in the Nangong family’s documents. It turned out that they had erased all traces of her since a long time ago and treated her as deceased.
However, something in Nangong Xiaoniao’s words caught Qianye’s attention. “What research was Nangong Canghai doing?”
Nangong Xiaoniao clenched her teeth and said, “He wanted to find a way to combine humans and vampires!”
Qianye was astonished.
Blood thralls were the most common type of combination, while the other was to receive the embrace. The vampire bloodline had the advantage in both of them and would eventually assimilate the human one. Just as Andruil had told Qianye back then, the growing primogenitor bloodline would, sooner or later, devour his human genealogy.
Presently, Qianye had a rough understanding of the reason behind this. It was because the vampire bloodline’s power was far above the human counterpart. A human might be able to maintain his intelligence after obtaining a drop of essence blood via the embrace, but he would still turn into a vampire in the end.
“He’s mad!”
Nangong Xiaoniao shook her head. “No, he’s not. What he wanted wasn’t powerful warriors but the vampires’ life.”
Qianye’s expression turned odd. “He wanted immortality?”
Even dukes couldn’t remain immortal. The latter part of a vampire’s long life was spent mostly in hibernation. If they didn’t count the years spent in hibernation, their lifespan wasn’t that much longer than that of the arachne and werewolves.
There was no shortage of people looking to extend their life by utilizing vampire bloodlines. Nangong Canghai definitely wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last. Looking back at history, it would seem that his gambit inevitably failed in the end.
Nangong Yuqing’s two children were able to retain their ego despite possessing a vampire bloodline. At a glance, it looked like a perfect bloodline fusion, but unfortunately, these children didn’t live any longer than ordinary humans, and their vampire bloodline also grew thinner and thinner in their descendants. All signs indicated the fact that their father’s bloodline power wasn’t strong. Perhaps he was just a low-ranking vampire?
But Qianye felt inexplicably odd after listening to this. If the Black-Winged Monarch Andruil’s bloodline wasn’t powerful, then how many other powerful bloodlines were there?