The TV

Hao Ren and Vivian spent quite some time discussing whether that "Mr. Nangong" was a Demon Hunter, a charlatan, or perhaps merely some passerby who had gone too far down the chuuni path (the last possibility seemed unlikely), but they reached no conclusion.

Vivian claimed that her past injuries had left her with a special sensitivity to Demon Hunters, but she admitted that this gift worked only sporadically and could hardly be treated as reliable evidence. Lily was even less worth considering. The dimwit had never seen a Demon Hunter before, and in Vivian's eyes, she was even worse than a child. If a Demon Hunter beat her right to the doorstep, she probably wouldn't even notice.

According to Vivian, Demon Hunters were "half human, half monster." When fighting, they could unleash all kinds of powers beyond human limits, and in some cases, even their bodies would mutate. Normally, however, they were exactly like ordinary people, without any special aura or other obvious identifying trait. This "secrecy" was also one of the Demon Hunters' trump cards in dealing with Others. In Vivian's eyes, the words and actions of that "Mr. Nangong" didn't resemble those of a Demon Hunter. His habit of striking up conversations and openly announcing his identity as though he were showing off was especially different from the mortal enemies in Vivian's memories. Still, that alone couldn't rule out the possibility that he was the real thing. After all, the vampire girl hadn't seen a Demon Hunter in many years, and even the ones she had encountered represented only a small fraction of the broader Demon Hunter group. Her knowledge was limited, her memories were muddled, and more importantly, she was a born jinx—even Hao Ren couldn't be sure he wouldn't get dragged into Vivian's bad luck and run into a "real one" on his very first day out.

So Hao Ren still felt rather uneasy.

The three of them didn't fare much better in this unfamiliar place. Although the language problem had been solved, the journey had exhausted them. Even Lily couldn't be bothered to move, so after eating, they all returned to their room. Lily was currently sprawled across the sofa in the middle of the living room, clicking through the TV channels. She couldn't understand a word, but she was watching with great enthusiasm. Vivian, meanwhile, was doing something extremely meaningful: she had taken out all the cash they had prepared for the trip and was repeatedly counting it for fun...

Hao Ren sat beside Vivian with extreme vigilance, trying to keep as close to her as possible. His eyes never left Vivian's slender, pale hands, afraid that if he looked away for even a moment, the God of Misfortune's aura surrounding this vampire would activate and make that entire pile of banknotes vanish into thin air. He had now realized that Vivian's terrible luck was far beyond what the simple word "unlucky" could describe. It was practically the will of the greater universe, a Law-level passive effect. Letting Vivian touch money was absolutely a form of psychological extreme sports.

Vivian counted the money with great enthusiasm, sighing from time to time. "Ah... This really is a luxury I've rarely enjoyed in my entire life... So this is what counting money feels like... Life really is good when you follow the Landlord... Hey, Landlord, could you not be so nervous?"

"I told you, call me Hao Ren when we're outside," Hao Ren said with a mirthless smile. "And I have every reason to be nervous. I swear to heaven, if I stop watching you for even a moment, you'll squander all our funds. Also, could you show some ambition? You made me empty out my wallet, and I thought you had something important to do. In the end, you're just playing with the money?"

"Can you understand this battered heart of mine after being poor for several thousand years?" Vivian let out a highly poetic sigh. "Sigh, the last time counting money felt this good was during the Republic of China era. I carried a sack to buy rice and spent half an hour counting silver yuan notes outside the grain shop... But even that time wasn't as satisfying as this. Those things were practically wastepaper. How could they compare to pounds? Hee hee, I've finished counting this stack. Let me count it again... Hey, Hao Ren, don't be like that. Let me count it one more time!"

Hao Ren firmly gathered up the money and tucked it securely against his body before saying earnestly, "My dear Bloodkin lady, if you want to count money, we can go to Zimbabwe in a while and let you count to your heart's content. But for now, have some dignity and do something normal. We were discussing Demon Hunters just now. How did you suddenly stop being nervous?"

"I've been through plenty of storms in my time. How long am I supposed to stay nervous over such a minor matter?" Vivian gazed reluctantly at the place where Hao Ren had put away his wallet, then turned her head away disdainfully. "Do you know what a real Demon Hunter should be like?"

Hao Ren immediately became interested. "What are they like?"

"Going by the ones I'm familiar with, they like to wear black when they're on the move. They used to wear hunting outfits, and later they switched to tight suits. Demon Hunters on the eastern side sometimes wear kung fu outfits too. In any case, the more stiff and old-fashioned, the better. In ordinary times, though, they dress like normal people. They're also somewhat gloomy, difficult to talk to, and extremely low-key. They usually do everything they can to conceal their identities, afraid of attracting our attention and alerting us. Forget about revealing their identities to people—in some cases, if ordinary people learned of their movements, they would kill them too in order to silence them. That was the practice of a few extreme individuals, but it said a lot about the Demon Hunter group. Besides being low-key, Demon Hunters had another characteristic: they were 'ordinary.' Extremely, incredibly ordinary. They were very good at making their words and actions seem normal, which was another way of hiding themselves. When everyone around them discussed witches, they discussed witches too. When everyone around them discussed Napoleon's triumphant return, they discussed Napoleon too. When everyone around them discussed atheism and denied the existence of ghosts and gods, they would also declare that they believed in science. Do you understand now? That's how they hid themselves completely. Whatever the person you saw most often on the street looked like, that was what a Demon Hunter looked like, inside and out, layer upon layer of disguise. So the more I think about it, the less suspicious that 'Mr. Nangong' seems. What kind of Demon Hunter would brazenly announce his ghost-exorcising business to people? Even if a Demon Hunter had no business, he wouldn't become this high-profile. It goes completely against the creed they rely on to survive."

When she finished, Vivian nodded firmly. "So I think we were simply too nervous. I was nervous about Demon Hunters, while you were nervous because this was your first time 'carrying out a mission.' We were probably scared by some common ghost-exorcising fraud."

Hao Ren nodded repeatedly. "Makes sense. But are we really going to let our guard down completely?"

"We should still maintain the necessary vigilance," Vivian said, shaking her head. "He doesn't seem like a genuine Demon Hunter, but he's almost certainly had some contact with that field. He knows the origins of Demon Hunter history, and he speaks knowledgeably about certain aspects of the 'job.' So I suspect he may be an underling of some genuine Demon Hunter. Those cunning fellows occasionally do this too. We need to be careful not to let that 'Mr. Nangong' notice anything too unusual about us. Other than that, he shouldn't pose much of a threat. Our purpose is only to find someone, not to start a fight."

Hao Ren nodded, and the discussion about "Mr. Nangong" came to an end.

By then, Lily had cycled through the TV channels again and again without understanding what any of them were showing. The Werewolf girl looked a little bored. She casually tossed the remote aside and scratched Hao Ren's back with her claws. "Landlord, talk to Raven 12345 and ask her to prepare a Data Terminal for each of us. You might have to receive people from all over the place in the future, and some of them could be foreigners. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if you couldn't understand them?"

Hao Ren chuckled to himself. This dimwit of a Werewolf actually knows how to think now. Look at how convincing she made that excuse just to watch a foreign-language program. However, just as he was about to explain the organization's system to Lily, an exceptionally familiar word suddenly came from the TV beside them: "...Yuefu'erde Castle, located near Brusar, has recently attracted many enthusiasts of paranormal events..."

Hao Ren immediately pricked up his ears and turned his head. A news interview was playing on the TV. A blond, blue-eyed foreign woman stood beside a broadcast van with a microphone in hand. Behind her was a barren wilderness covered in jagged rubble. In the distance, they could see the ruins of what had once been a nearly completely collapsed castle. Beside the female host stood a short, chubby middle-aged man wearing a white T-shirt. He was clearly not a member of the television crew. His face was covered in stubble, his hair was thinning slightly, and his clothes were somewhat worn. He looked like an utterly ordinary local farmer, presumably there to be interviewed.

"...What you're seeing now is Yuefu'erde Castle. Clearly, it has completely collapsed, and none of its former scale remains. Since there's no road leading here, the broadcast van had to stop at this point. In a moment, I'll walk to the castle so everyone can see what it looks like up close," the female host explained. She then gestured toward the short, chubby man beside her. "This is Mr. Angus, the first person to discover the paranormal incidents surrounding the ancient castle..."