Wild Creatures

Chapter 104

16.30 pm Sunday

There was only cold, cruel laughter.

No answer to Wei Ying's question.

And just as suddenly as before, the showers began again, this time hot water soaked their clothes and they watched rivulets of water gushing down the drains, pink with blood.

Water, a deluge of it, bursting upon them like an unwanted waterfall, and it was everywhere, dripping from their hair into their eyes, and making their feet soggy.

The sprinklers stayed on, until the water ran clean. At least it was a bearable warmth, and Wei Ying felt so much better than being cold and wet, for however long this lasted.

"No offence, but I don't want a mess in here." Wen Zhong says, with a hearty chuckle, maybe in way of an explanation.

"How did you even get that much blood out of Wen Zhuliu? How is he still standing?" Wei Ying tries again, wanting answers.

Wen Zhong might be picky about which of their questions he would answer, but in the end, he was hoping persistence would win through.

Up until now, they had thought that Wen Chao had been the one to turn Lan Zhan into a vampire. True, their proof lay in believing the evidence of the buttons they had found in that dark alley, and finding Wen Chao's waistcoat open meant that he had at least been there at the time.

But then Baoshan Sanren and F4keSt0ries both had said that Lan Zhan was displaying curious traits, skilled powers only obtained from being sired by a powerful vampire, and let's be honest, he thinks, no one in their right mind would call Wen Chao powerful.

And his recovery time of only thirty three hours spent in a transition period supported this theory, because Mrs Lan had taken forty-eight, and she'd said as much when she had visited Wei Ying's apartment for the last time.

So all of these tiny little clues were like pebbles falling down a mountainside, signalling an imminent avalanche, because Wen Zhong was implying something that shouldn't make sense...but it did, when Wei Ying really thought about it.

That's why his first instinct was to hold onto his Lan Zhan.

If his own turmoil was this bad, what then must Lan Zhan be going through himself?

There was no point in giving away what Wei Ying was thinking, not when it was giving Wen Zhong advantage after advantage. Right now, he had sharp eyes and ears on them, while they were still at his mercy.

The faster they got out of this enclosed trap, the better.

Though what good it would do them remained to be seen, especially if all of these vampires were only as good as humans now, a shadow of their true potential.

"Do not worry. Our exposure to Wen Zhuliu's blood is only temporary. My own recovery time was a few hours after waking up. They drugged me." Lan Zhan says, softer at the end because Wei Ying looks appalled and then very quickly, anger replaces that feeling.

The fingers of his free hand ghost over Chenqing hidden in his pocket after Wen Qing had handed it back to him before. That was going to be their trump card now, but Wei Ying needed to bide his time, and wait for the most opportune moment before revealing their secret weapon.

He was beginning to understand more about the HeartStone, the more he played, and it didn't matter whether Wei Ying used Chenqing or not, even whistling the conduit notes would work; however Chenqing provided a deeper connection, an ability to control the amount of power Wei Ying had at his fingertips, literally.

His Grandfather had been a genius, someone with such a vast foresight, and the skills and ability to make his thoughts and ideas a reality. It was such a tragedy for both vampires and humans that his gifts had been nipped in the bud, that his Grandfather had been killed at the peak of his prime.