Chapter 73.1
(I’m here to save you, how could I kill you?)
At 4 in the afternoon, Yang Ye and Gu Liang went to the Eastern Magician’s room again after leaving the piano room on the fourth floor.
After being searched for evidence yesterday, its disorderly state remained unchanged.
The wooden shelves, bed, and floorboards, were littered with pigments, paint brushes, and various spell books.
When Gu Liang flipped through the spell books yesterday, he noted that most of them concerned various kinds of spells and arrays.
And because Gu Liang had been considering the relations.h.i.+p between the Eastern Magician and the murals specifically, he focused on the paint brushes and the pigments, which also meant that he did not skim through the books with particular care.
This time around, Gu Liang and Yang Ye picked up those spell books and started to read through them one by one.
He discovered that one of the books was devoted to the concept of illusionary spells.
As Gu Liang opened the book and flipped through each page, he realised that the illusionary spells covered inside the book mostly belonged to a single type— a rabbit popping out of a hat, materialising b.u.t.terflies in gla.s.s bottles, turning a stone into a watermelon…
The book specifically mentioned that: your eyes were not perceiving the real when the so-called illusionary spell was being cast.
For example, if they ate the stone that was turned into a watermelon, it would knock against their teeth, and it did not state that it would really turn the rock into a watermelon.
The illusionary spells could only create a certain kind of false appearance.
As Gu Liang was looking through the book, Yang Ye sat beside him on the ground to read with him.
Yang Ye’s following remark was: “In fact, these spells share some similarities with performed magic tricks, but it’s a more sophisticated version with magical properties.”
“Exactly. That’s what it is.” Gu Liang said, “When I saw this yesterday, I didn’t have a brain hole that could link the illusionary spells to the story, but now I get the sense that… Yang Ye, look at this, this page has been folded.”
Yang Ye directed his eyes towards the illusionary spell book in Gu Liang’s hands. Sure enough, there was a page in the book that was specifically folded, which was probably a marking that the Eastern Magician made for himself.
This indicated that this page of content was extremely crucial.
The pair scrutinised the page carefully, and the spell that this page taught was— how do you make a paper b.u.t.terfly take flight to give everyone the impression that the paper b.u.t.terfly had truly come alive.
Yang Ye looked at Gu Liang: “What do you think is the use of this spell?”
A moment later, Gu Liang met Yang Ye’s eyes and said: “Dupe. Maybe the Eastern Magician used the illusionary spell to dupe Duke Dahl.”
* * *
The Eastern Magician was a roving brave character who roamed everywhere and was learned and versatile.
When he was pa.s.sing through a village, he met Aimeili and taught Aimeili some foreign language.
Perhaps under the consideration that Aimeili was young, or perhaps the Magician always had a wanderl.u.s.t heart, he did not halt in his footsteps then. After he rested in the village for a short period of time, he continued to roam the lands.
Several years later, Duke Dahl arrived.
The villagers wors.h.i.+pped him as a deity, and they willingly listened to his commands.
Gradually, however, everyone discovered his true appearance.
— He was a vampire.
Duke Dahl had killed too many people; his actions were hackle raising and they struck terror in people.
His cruel and ferocious deeds slowly travelled outwards, and everyone condemned it.
The ancient castle’s owner Duke Dahl was a powerful vampire.
Countless capable people attempted to kill him but all of them returned without any achievements.
This matter also travelled to the Eastern Magician’s ears later.
He rushed back to the village without stopping to rest, but he discovered that the people here were close to dying off completely.
This included Aimeili, who was kidnapped by the ancient castle’s master.
He stayed behind to make inquiries and learnt that Duke Dahl had fallen in love with Aimeili.
The pair were not officially married, but everyone was already addressing her as the matriarch.
The Eastern Magician also managed to learn that Duke Dahl wanted to paint his ancient castle to make his wife and Princess live happily and be able to see beautiful paintings everyday.
In spite of that, the Duke could not find the artist he wanted.
Hence, the Eastern Magician pretended to be a villager and he was brought into the castle as a captive.
During one instance where the Duke was about to drink his blood, he knelt down and begged for mercy, saying that he was a painter and he knew many spells, which meant that he was useful to the Duke so he pleaded the Duke not to kill him.
When the Duke heard that he knew how to paint oil paintings, he allowed him to draw a few paintings first.
The Duke ordered him to draw sunflowers first, and the sunflowers he drew were vivid and realistic, like they could truly attract sunlight.
Furthermore, when the servants presented the painting to Aimeili, the feedback given to the Duke was— It has been a long time since the Lady smiled, she actually smiled.
The Duke felt elated in his heart so he spared the Magician’s life, allowing him to draw more paintings for his wife and Princess.
But in reality, perhaps Aimeili was happy not because the sunflowers were painted well.
Rather, it was because she understood the secret language embedded in the painting.
The artist of the painting would usually leave behind an inscription or symbol that was unique to them.
When Aimeili saw the painting, she comprehended that he had arrived, which was why she smiled.
After earning the Duke’s trust, the Eastern Magician looked for a chance to meet Aimeili.
The Magician said: “I have a way to kill the Duke, and the vampires inside this ancient castle. The Duke is fond of murals and I will be painting murals in various places in the ancient castle. The murals will secretly contain my array, and they will slowly gather the energy of the resentful souls. When the array activates, the vampires will die under the paintings as long as they are in the vicinity of the murals.
“The paintings will cover the entire ancient castle, all the vampires will die.
“The only difficult part about this arrangement is— the array requires the Duke’s blood to trigger.
“The dead souls in this ancient castle died in the Duke’s hands. Only the blood of the Duke can arouse their resentment and grievance to the greatest degree, thereby allowing the array to exert its greatest strength and manage to kill the Duke.
“I need to think of a way to trick him into putting his own blood into the wall paintings.”
When the Magician was saying these words, he happened to be standing in front of the window. Some of the sunlight trickled through the seam of the curtains, thus irradiating him.
AImeili looked in his direction.
In that moment, it felt like the first time she met him, where he had walked over to her as a youth underneath the light.
But in this moment, Aimeili had transformed into a vampire, through and through.
She hid beside the thick and obstructive curtains and within the dark shadows, robbed of her courage to get close to the light, and she did not dare to approach him either.
Their separation lasted for years.
Aimeili never expected that when they met again, it would be under these circ.u.mstances.
Aimeili said to him: “That’s simple. Kill me, and then lie to him by saying, the murals can help him travel through time and s.p.a.ce to find my reincarnation.”
Magician: “It’s impossible for me to kill you. Furthermore, how can you ensure that it will absolutely succeed?”
Aimeili: “Because I can confirm the fact that he truly loves me. No matter what it is, he will definitely try anything for me.”
As Aimeili said those words calmly, she did not notice the Eastern Magician’s complexion becoming hard for an instant.
Aimeili continued, “If you use any other method, you might expose yourself. When that time comes around, you would have painted for naught, and you will die as well, while bringing down numerous people with you.
“He is too powerful; he will only expose a burst seam when he loses all reason and collapses in his heartbreak over my death. Only then will you have an opportunity to exploit, and persuade him to put his blood into the murals.”
The Magician stared at her with trembling hands. “I came here to save you, how could I kill you?”
Aimeili stared back at him quietly, saying: “You came too late. I am already dead.
“With what I am right now, neither dead nor alive, reliant on human blood to exist… It is a state worse than death.
“I implore you to help set me free.
“Arrange it on the 7th of November. He plans to marry me the following day.
“I will not let him have his wish fulfilled.
“Before he gets to marry me, he will see my corpse. This will destroy him to the greatest extent, and bring his defences down to the lowest point. Everything that occurs afterwards will be left to you.”
* * *
The sunflowers that the Eastern Magician painted were extremely vivid, like they were genuinely immersed in sunlight.
After the Princess heard of this matter, as the rose-loving person she was, she asked her father to allow the Magician to paint dozens of roses for her.
That day, after he painted the roses for the Princess, the Eastern Magician used an illusionary spell to materialise a b.u.t.terfly for her to see.
The white paper transformed into a b.u.t.terfly and fluttered in front of the paintings. Truly, it made people gasp in admiration.
Towards all these, Princess Rose was extremely delighted because it made her feel like she had returned under the sunlight, where there were also b.u.t.terflies in front of her beyond the fresh flowers. It was like she had become human again.
She could not resist praising the Magician in front of the Duke the entire time.
In the beginning, the Duke did not believe it until he personally saw the scene where the paper b.u.t.terflies came alive.
Hence, he looked for the Magician to ask him what was going on.
The Magician replied: “The East pays particular attention to the yin and yang. Yang and Yin are engendered and interdependent; your centre has me, and my centre has you, just like in life and death. The living can die, and the dead can reincarnate into new life.”
The Duke asked: “If a person has no soul, can they reincarnate?”
The Magician answered: “Of course. It is similar to how the paper b.u.t.terflies can come alive. Between body and soul, one is the Yang and the other is the Yin; in fact, they contain the basis of mutual metamorphosis to induce life. Therefore, if the soul exists, it can reconstruct a corporeal body; if the soul is dead while the body still exists, the soul can be reconstructed as well.
Hence, apart from painting the murals after his arrival at the ancient castle, the Magician also did something else, which was influencing the Duke imperceptibly as he told him about Eastern metaphysics.
Truth to be told, not everything he said was fake.
But when it came to the reconstruction of the soul, he could not do it, and he never heard of anyone succeeding in actuality.
Slowly, the Duke was influenced. It could not be said that he completely believed in this kind of metaphysics, but he did not deny its existence either.
That lasted until the night where Aimeili really died. No matter what it was, even if it was giving medicine to a dead horse, he still wanted to try the Eastern metaphysics from folklore. No matter what price he had to pay, he wanted to bring Aimeili back.
7 November, 7 at night.
The Eastern Magician borrowed the pretext of giving a painting to go to Aimeili’s room.
The reason he could impale a cross into her chest completely and thoroughly in ten short minutes was because Aimeili had pa.s.sively accepted it from the very beginning.
Furthermore, under the illusionary spell he added, no one would realise that there was a cross hiding in her body.
At 7:30, Servant A tried to kill Aimeili with a cross while she was changing her clothes, in the name of helping Aimeili dress up and prepare.
At that moment, she discovered that there was already a cross impaled into Aimeili’s chest.
Aimeili told her with a smile: “Help me do my make-up. Let me accompany him for one last meal. I will recommend to him to marry you in the future. Everything in this room will be yours. Do not be anxious. In fact… All of us were born humans in the past, why the need for hostilities?”
“After becoming a vampire, were you happy?
“Thinking about now… All of us are pitiful people.
“Both of us have a love we cannot acquire, and we can no longer return to our true native places either.”
Aimeili’s words made Servant A remember her dismal life— she was forcefully turned into a vampire, she had fled here to seek refuge, it was difficult for her to return back to her native lands…
Therefore, when she was leaving Aimeili’s room, she was a little sentimental and sorrowful.
It never crossed her mind that she would die tonight.
At 8:30 in the evening, Aimeili was exquisitely made up. She pretended that nothing had occurred as she partook in a meal with the Duke.
I have not seen her smile like this in a long time. The Duke was deeply intoxicated. In addition to the illusionary spell on her person, the Duke was not afraid of crosses in the slightest, so he did not realise anything odd about her from start to finish.
At 9:30 in the night, Aimeili returned to her room, laid in her coffin and closed her eyes peacefully, waiting for her complete death.
When the Duke saw her corpse that night, he nearly went insane.
He remembered the Eastern metaphysics that the Magician usually talked about and he went to find him immediately to ask if Aimeili’s soul could be reconstructed, and if he could find her reincarnation.
The Magician said, her scattered soul would roam the heaven and earth and slowly rea.s.semble.
But by the time she could reincarnate, 300 years would have pa.s.sed.
Finally, the Duke received the Magician’s suggestion and decided to rely on the murals to inhale and gather the resentful energy, thereby borrowing its powers to actualise the cross over.
Hence, the Magician pretended to make the so-called adjustments to the murals that night.
The next day, which was 8 November, he looked for the Duke, expressing that the adjustments to the murals were completed, and that the Duke could begin using his blood to trigger the array and allow the murals to absorb the resentful energy.
The Duke did not expect that when he cut his finger and smeared his blood on the mural, the magic array he opened was not a magic array that could absorb resentful energy which would help him cross over later.
The resentful energy in the murals had been condensing over the past month.
Hence, in the instant where the Duke’s blood touched the murals, the acc.u.mulated grievances were roused immediately, and the array was thus activated.
In that instant, light filtered out from the wall paintings, more intense than sunlight.
All the vampires that were illuminated by the paintings were killed in that split second.
Minutes before the array was triggered.
In the steward’s room on the fourth floor, the steward was currently making a record.
“Skies above, the Lady is actually dead.
“The Duke is excruciatingly heartbroken.
“I have an ominous hunch, like I will not live for long either…”
After penning those words, the steward sensed a light coming from the painting he hung on the wall.
— It was a portrait that the Eastern Magician gave him.
The reason he could not finish writing his record was because in the instant where he looked at the portrait, he became scattered ashes and dispersed smoke.