The Old Bartender trembled as he drank, unable to pry open the bottle several times. In the end, Donnie opened it for him and urged him to continue.
During that time, the Old Bartender's father had truly gone mad. He secretly captured Vampires for experiments, hiding by day and emerging at night, trying to uncover the secret of their immortality and assess the possibility of transferring that ability to himself.
Following the deciphered contents of the Human Skin Parchment, he captured large numbers of Vampires and ordinary people for experimentation. He had already fallen into a hysterical state, abandoning everything in his pursuit of godhood.
"Back then, I was only a few years old. By rights, I should have been branded and become a member of the Ha-Ghost Clan, but no one cared about a little child who knew nothing. Everyone was focused on my father," the Old Bartender said.
The Vampires eventually noticed something unusual about the Old Bartender's family and secretly dispatched people to investigate. In the end, they found the answer. To obtain the truly deciphered contents, they still pretended to know nothing. They even engineered all kinds of coincidences, providing the Old Bartender's father with convenient hunting grounds and sending him more test subjects.
Finally, once he deciphered the last words, the Vampires made their move. Under cover of night, they stormed into the Old Bartender's family estate and carried out a massacre, wiping out the entire family overnight.
Only the Old Bartender survived, having been sent through an escape tunnel by his father in advance.
"That old man knew long ago that he was being watched. He knew everything," the Old Bartender said. "He deliberately conducted that research, deliberately showed the Vampires his results, baiting them in and using them to help his research. He knew what the Vampires were going to do. Otherwise, he would never have sent me away before the attack that night. The timing was far too perfect."
"But you just said your father had gone mad in his pursuit of godhood. There was no reason for him to put himself in danger," Donnie said. He felt the Old Bartender was hiding something.
The Old Bartender shook his head, looking bewildered. "I've spent all these years unable to understand it either. He knew everything. He clearly wanted everything, so why did he act as though he had given everything up?"
Donnie glanced at him and remained silent. A great many possibilities came to mind.
Someone had plotted against him, making him fight the Vampires. At first, he had assumed they merely wanted to use the Vampires to eliminate him, or use him to weaken the Vampires. Donnie had even suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra, but now that he thought about it, the implications ran much deeper.
Donnie had been guided to the Vampire stronghold to find the Old Bartender, then made to abduct him, allowing him to learn about the Vampire race's God-Making Plan.
The Vampires had captured the Old Bartender and thrown him into that stronghold because they needed him. Yet the Old Bartender was now in Donnie's hands, and unless absolutely necessary, Donnie would never hand him over.
Thus, two perfectly opposed sides had formed, with the Old Bartender as the lever between them.
Donnie asked the Old Bartender what the important figure from the Thompson Family had taken from him.
"It was the final piece of Human Skin Parchment. It was hidden inside my necklace. I wore it all the time when I was little, but I only learned there was something so important inside it when they found me," the Old Bartender said. He had suffered greatly over the years, hiding everywhere and living under false names, terrified that the Vampires would find him. Yet in the end, they had.
Donnie's expression turned extremely grim. From beginning to end, he had been completely controlled and placed in an utterly passive position.
That mysterious person knew his abilities. From only a few brief battles, they had analyzed a great deal and understood what he needed. At the same time, that person also knew about the Vampires' internal God-Making Plan—such classified information could not possibly be common knowledge.
That was terrifying. The mysterious person possessed an overwhelming intelligence advantage. They could even obtain information known only to the Vampire higher-ups, allowing them to calmly devise a plan and manipulate both Donnie and the Vampires into becoming irreconcilable enemies.
"If you're so important, why didn't the Thompson Family secretly imprison you? Why throw you into a stronghold instead?" Donnie was full of doubts and growing agitated. He had never been so thoroughly controlled or so completely outmatched.
He had never encountered anything like this before and had no experience dealing with it. It was troublesome.
The Old Bartender said he did not know. That important figure had sent subordinates to search him and take his necklace, then left him at that bar. He had said he would return for him after some time and warned him not to try escaping, or he would die horribly.
"To trade for food and alcohol, I started working as a bartender there. For decades, I hid everywhere. Most of my time was spent in little bars and illegal factories, so I got very good at mixing drinks," the Old Bartender explained. He opened a third bottle of beer. It had been a long time since he had been able to drink so freely. It was nothing like being with the Vampires, where he had to stay on edge and sleep with one eye open, afraid a Vampire would come in the middle of the night and treat him as food.
Donnie paced with his hands behind his back, deeply agitated. Sweat had even begun to form on his forehead. The more he considered certain details, the more terrifying they became.
The key was that murdered caretaker. New York was far too vast, and there was more than one scrapyard nearby. So the question was: were all the caretakers compromised or replaced, or was only the murdered one a problem?
Fine, even if that person had used psychology and behavioral models to estimate the scrapyard Donnie was most likely to visit based on his usual habits—which was nothing remarkable in modern psychology—and the murdered caretaker had waited specifically for Donnie just to give him that address and direct him to find the Old Bartender, what made them certain Donnie would go?
Donnie could have chosen the simplest method: bought wrecked cars and assembled and upgraded them himself instead of seeking out some modification master. Or after arriving at that little bar, Donnie might have cautiously observed it for a few days and spotted the problem.
The reality was that he had not. Donnie had done none of that. He had simply swaggered right in.
Donnie was drenched in sweat. He gave a bitter smile, opened a bottle of beer, and drank by himself.
The choice had been simple. Who knew how many bars there were in all of New York? And that only counted those with business licenses or opened by people with connections. How many little private bars and gang-run bars were there?
Donnie had driven there in Optimus Prime. His phone and watch had all been carefully modified with the AllSpark; assembled together, they could withstand a Rocket Launcher attack. Would Donnie really become hesitant and nervous over some tiny bar?
Impossible. There were countless bars throughout New York. Could Donnie, a high-level Mutant who carried an army of Mutants with him, spend several days observing every bar he entered for the rest of his life? Would he have to hesitate and tremble every single time?
If bars were like that, then what about karaoke lounges, shops, and restaurants? Should he stop going to those too? He might as well never leave the house again and hide in some remote mountain forest. Not to mention that Donnie was young, hot-blooded, and impatient. Once his temper flared, he would roll up his sleeves and charge in.
"I finally understand why so many master's and doctoral students get scammed out of money and kill themselves every year. Scammers specifically prey on people who lack relevant experience and are easily carried away," Donnie said angrily. Across both his lives, he had never been so passive, never been used as a weapon to this extent.
The worst part was that he had no fucking idea who was plotting against him.
The Old Bartender was slumped in the corner, already snoring soundly. A pile of bottles lay beside him, some only half-empty, toppled over on the floor as beer gurgled out.
Donnie looked at the Old Bartender, his expression shifting unpredictably.
He and the Vampires were like two ends of a scale, both with reasons to obtain the Old Bartender. The Vampires needed to interrogate him for certain details and information, while Donnie had already become enemies with them. He would be even less willing to let the Old Bartender go and allow him to reveal his intelligence. He also needed to keep the Old Bartender as leverage to threaten the Vampires.
The Old Bartender was the balance beam itself, making it impossible for either side to reach a deal through him.
Now Donnie had another option.
Kill the Old Bartender and break the beam completely.
Before you continue