Chapter 1 A Vampire Reunion and a Frozen Dog

Hesperianna and Vivian stood in the living room, glaring at each other. One was ready to pounce at any moment, the other prepared to flee. The atmosphere of their long-awaited reunion resembled a banquet fraught with peril – a signature of their interactions.

Having confirmed that his house was not in imminent danger of being demolished, Hao Ren looked around the living room for Lily, but couldn't find her.

"Where's Lily?"

Vivian pointed towards the back door. "She got a little too enthusiastic during the fight and accidentally froze herself solid. She's defrosting in the backyard."

Hao Ren was stunned. He quickly headed towards the back door, waving at Hesperianna and the others. "Make yourselves at home. I'll go check on Lily."

Leaving the four vampires in the living room, Hao Ren practically fled the scene. But the sight in the backyard shocked him: a huge block of ice stood on the open ground, encasing Lily in a clawing posture. A ring of bonfires surrounded the ice, flames licking at it and producing wisps of steam.

The little imp Elizabeth was nearby, adding firewood to the blaze while chanting, "Medium heat, slow roast, medium heat, slow roast..."

Hao Ren audibly reset his jaw, walked over, and tapped the crystal-clear ice. "Looks like it was quite a fight."

Lily stared back at him from inside the ice, blinking after a long moment, a look of embarrassment on her face. She wanted to break free, but it wasn't ordinary ice, and she couldn't muster any strength inside. Now, she could only thaw slowly.

"Uncle Ren, hello!" Elizabeth looked up and greeted him, dutifully adding more wood to the fire, busy and cheerful.

Hao Ren nodded repeatedly, waiting to see when Lily would be freed. Before long, he heard a cracking sound. Small fissures rapidly spread across the ice encasing Lily. Once it had melted enough, the husky was finally able to shake the ice apart from the inside.

Seeing this, Hao Ren quickly grabbed Elizabeth's arm and pulled her aside. Almost as soon as they moved, the ice vibrated violently from the bottom up, followed by a shower of icy shards that exploded like celebratory fireworks. Because Elizabeth had been stoking the fire from below, the melting and cracking had started at the bottom. Lily had broken free, but her head was still encased in ice, making her look incredibly foolish.

With two "crack" sounds, Lily finally punched through the last of the ice shell on her head. She shook her head vigorously, took a deep breath, and then unleashed a thunderous sneeze: "A-choo!!"

Hao Ren brushed the ice off his clothes and cautiously approached. "Are you... alright?"

"Landlord, you're back!" Lily greeted Hao Ren with gusto, shaking her arms as if nothing had happened. Then, she glared at the door, took a step inside, and roared, loud enough for the sound to carry two blocks, "Bat!! I'm going to fight you!!"

Alarmed, Hao Ren reached out to stop her, shouting, "Hey, wait! Inside..."

But Lily's speed and momentum were impossible to halt. Hao Ren saw a flash of white, and found himself holding a tuft of white fur in his hand, plucked from Lily's tail. By the time he realized what had happened, the husky had already charged into the house, into the middle of the four vampires.

A cacophony of bangs and crashes followed. At first, there were surprised cries from Hesperianna and Cassandra, then the sounds of Lily yelping and scrambling away. Hao Ren's unfinished sentence drifted away in the air, "Inside… there are more of them…"

Half an hour later, a large group of people gathered in the living room amidst a scene of utter chaos. Vivian stood amidst the wreckage of a broken coffee table, hands on her hips, scolding everyone. "You, you, and you – big dog! Hesperianna! And those two comedians Hesperianna brought! Look at the mess you've made of the room! It took me forever to clean this up! What's so funny? Landlord, why are you laughing? If you had stopped the big dog, none of this would have happened!"

Hao Ren snapped out of his amused daze, a strange expression on his face. "Wait, aren't I the biggest victim here? This is my furniture... Why am I getting scolded along with them?"

Vivian paused, her hands still on her hips, and then awkwardly stepped aside. "Oh, right, you don't count. Carry on laughing."

Lily was curled up in a ball on the sofa, nudging Hao Ren's arm with her head. "I lost big this time, lost big."

Hao Ren couldn't bring himself to be angry at the husky in this state. He could only pat her head and look at Hesperianna, who was sitting on the opposite sofa looking dejected. "Are you badly hurt?"

Hesperianna, sporting a head full of teeth marks, looked dazed. "Everything happened so fast... Why did she chase after me?"

"You look too much like Vivian," Hao Ren said, pointing to Vivian, "And your combat strength is conveniently weaker."

Nangong Wuyue was cleaning the floor, sweeping up dog hair and bloodstains. She had just returned home to this shocking melee, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Can't you all get along for once? Can't you rest after your 'business trip'? Is it not tiring enough?"

Hesperianna, who was carefully examining the teeth marks on her face in a small mirror, paused at Nangong Wuyue's words. "Business trip? What business trip? Vivian, what are you busy with now?"

"Busy helping someone save the world," Vivian said, glancing at Hao Ren, then gesturing towards Hesperianna. "Take out what you brought and show everyone, and tell us what's going on."

Hesperianna said "Oh," but looked at Hao Ren with some distrust. "Can he solve..."

"He's the big boss here, what he says goes," Vivian frowned. "You're biased against the landlord—didn't you two work together in Athens? You should know he's capable."

Hesperianna pouted, but didn't dare argue with Vivian. She reached for a briefcase beside her. It was an ordinary-looking black case, like the kind a company employee would carry. But after Hesperianna opened the briefcase's complex combination lock, a strange, bloody stench wafted out.

The scent was nauseatingly strong, but had been completely sealed inside the case. Hao Ren peered inside and noticed something unusual about the case's interior: it was lined with an unidentified gray-white leather material, covered in dense, blood-red Leta runes and magic circles. The small briefcase was actually an extremely intricate magical artifact.

The interior structure of the case was so complex and mysterious that Hao Ren almost couldn't believe the five large characters that read "Shanghai Luggage Factory" on the bottom.

Nangong Sanba had been watching the excitement, but when he saw the structure inside the briefcase, he was stunned. "What's inside there? Why would it need such a tight seal?"

"An evil thing," Hesperianna said, carefully removing something wrapped in black goatskin from the case. "To be honest, even in the world of异类(Yi Lei) it's rare. The wizards transformed from humans can create things like this, though."

Hesperianna unwrapped the black goatskin, and Hao Ren saw a shriveled, blackened object less than a foot long. It resembled some kind of fish, but with a horrifying "face," large teeth, and menacing triangular eyes.

Lily stared at the object in shock. "Salted fish?"

Hesperianna: "..."

"This is the幼体(You Ti) of a炼狱撕裂者(Lianyu Si Lie Zhe), preserved as a specimen for hundreds of years," Cassandra said, ignoring Lily's "salted fish" comment. She explained what Hesperianna had brought. "This kind of thing shouldn't exist in our space—it comes from a异空间(Yi Kongjian) called '炼狱(Lianyu)' that was once connected to Earth during the mythical era. It's very, very dangerous."

She added, "Of course, calling it salted fish is fine—because the炼狱撕裂者(Lianyu Si Lie Zhe) is indeed a type of fish. This is its jerky."

Hao Ren: "..."

Lily remembered the terror of the red-haired Vivian. She frowned at the salted fish. "What does this thing have to do with that magic book from before?"

"The person who made the magic book and this salted fish… uh, this specimen is the same person," Hesperianna said seriously. "And that wizard probably created more evil artifacts. His original goal… is likely closely related to Vivian."