Chapter 1 Once Airborne

The moment the plane took off, it was like Lily and Vivian had switched roles.

Usually, at home, Lily was the energetic one, the spirited werewolf girl always brimming with curiosity. She would enthusiastically examine anything she came across, and if no one was around, she would even pop a random stone she found on the street into her mouth to test its hardness. Vivian, on the other hand, was much more mature and composed. Despite her constant bad luck, the vampire girl always maintained the special pride and poise befitting a member of the "Blood Clan," appearing far more sensible than Lily.

But now, their behavior was completely reversed: Lily was lounging languidly in the spacious first-class seat, waiting for her meal, casually flipping through channels on the adjacent LCD screen, while Vivian was practically buzzing with excitement. The vampire girl was glued to the airplane window, mouth agape as she watched the clouds whiz by, finally exclaiming after a long while, "Oh, it's really flying! And it can really fly this high?"

Embarrassingly, this was also Hao Ren's first time flying, and he could sympathize with Vivian's excitement. However, he couldn't resist saying, "Don't you usually fly yourself? Is it really necessary to be so surprised?"

"It feels different when I fly myself!" Vivian retorted matter-of-factly. "Besides, I don't usually fly this high. It's easy to get struck by lightning at high altitudes, and the cold, high-altitude clouds are dangerous. Once, I wanted to study the stars in the sky and flew too high, and I ended up frozen into a big ice cube and fell – I almost got discovered by demon hunters because of that, so I rarely fly above a thousand meters."

Hao Ren clicked his tongue, finding it rather strange: "So you usually flew at low altitudes when you traveled the world? Aren't you afraid of being shot down by arrows?"

"When I traveled the world? Sometimes I flew, sometimes I walked. Anyway, I'm stronger than humans, and time isn't an issue. Even walking around Eurasia wouldn't be difficult," Vivian said smugly. "Besides, it's not like I never fly high. When I encounter demon hunters, I still have to hide in the clouds. Demon hunters rarely have the ability to deal with high-altitude targets. Oh, speaking of bows and arrows, I'm not afraid of those things. The Welsh longbowmen can't hit me. How far do you think those things can fly when shot into the sky? It was during World War II that I accidentally got shot down by anti-aircraft guns once..."

Hao Ren was dumbfounded, while Vivian patted her chest with lingering fear: "Tsk, tsk, your humans are too good at researching these dangerous things. Not long ago, you were still throwing stones at each other, fighting with big knives and spears, and relying on prayers to heaven to cure a headache or a fever. But in the blink of an eye, you can launch tens of tons of steel plates into the sky. I thought anti-aircraft guns were a new type of trebuchet, and one cannonball hit me right in the face – if I hadn't dispersed into bats in time, I might have become the blood clan with the most flamboyant death in the world."

The first-time airplane ride made Vivian, the penniless vampire, seem a bit overexcited, so these embarrassing secrets, which shouldn't be casually revealed, kept popping out one after another. At first, Hao Ren could still communicate with the girl with a smile on his face, but later he could only stare blankly and listen: some things were completely beyond his comprehension, and he didn't even know how to react!

When Vivian talked about an old acquaintance of hers being struck and killed by a meteorite while cruising over North America, Hao Ren decided to switch the topic and turned to Lily: "You seem pretty comfortable. Do you fly often?"

The werewolf girl lazily raised her head and smiled: "I've flown on early Stinson airliners."

Hao Ren was taken aback: "What's that?"

Vivian sat up straight, trembling: "From the Republic of China era… How rich were you back then?!"

"I couldn't afford plane tickets from the Republic of China," Lily waved her hand. "But I could sneak into the engine compartment, or the luggage rack. For the last leg, I simply hung on the outside of the plane. Security wasn't as advanced back then, and no one checked those places too closely. And with my skills, it was very easy to avoid the eyes of ordinary people. It was just more difficult when landing. I had to jump off beforehand. I wouldn't die from the fall, but it was quite scary."

Hao Ren immediately exclaimed: "Nonsense, a normal person would have died halfway if they hitched a ride like you!"

Lily stuck out her tongue: "Anyway, that's where I got my experience. That's why I said this bat is too rigid. Sometimes she's not as smart as me. You just don't know how to make good use of your physical abilities."

Vivian turned her face away: "I don't think there's anything to be proud of about hanging on the outside of a plane to avoid paying for a ticket."

Despite saying that, she couldn't help but discuss it with Lily. The main topic of their conversation was how to safely hang themselves on various human modes of transportation – Lily taught Vivian how to sneak into the luggage compartment, while Vivian told Lily how to dodge anti-aircraft guns. Anyway, they were all topics that sounded completely unreliable to Hao Ren. But no matter how ridiculous the topic itself was, these two rival enemies had finally reached a temporary truce in this bizarre field: they were both quite interested in this kind of crazy stuff.

Looking at Lily's cheerful face, Hao Ren thought that this werewolf girl was probably much more powerful than she looked. Hanging on the outside of an airliner and flying across half of China wasn't scary, what was scary was that she dared to do it in the Republic of China era. How many shocking experiences did this seemingly idiotic girl have behind her? Hao Ren thought about modern Chinese history and immediately didn't dare to think any further.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The strange trio flew in the sky for eleven hours, finally arriving at their destination, Heathrow Airport in London, on a cool and breezy morning.

Hao Ren dragged the nearly sleeping Lily and the energetic Vivian out of the terminal, took a deep breath of the foreign air, and slowly exhaled: it seemed to be no different from the air back home...

Vivian looked up at the sky. It was early morning, and the sky was not yet bright. The weak morning sun was slowly spreading from beyond the horizon, and the sky was shrouded in a gauze-like mist, making the already dim light even more dim. The streets of a foreign country, the cold morning breeze, and the dim morning sun in the mist – these three elements might make ordinary people feel depressed, but they were just to Vivian's, the vampire girl's, liking. She nodded in satisfaction: "This kind of sunlight is just right. It's good for the skin – these past few days have been terrible for me. Have you ever seen a blood clan member sunbathing all day?"

Hao Ren gave her a roll of his eyes: "Nonsense, have you ever seen a blood clan member going out to work all day?"

Vivian scratched her face awkwardly, then tried to change the subject: "Um… speaking of which, the scenery here looks a bit unfamiliar. Why is it so different from what I remember of England?"

Lily, with her sleepy eyes still half-closed, didn't forget to retort: "You couldn't even afford a plane ticket before, how could you possibly know the way to the airport!"

Hao Ren suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of crisis, and Vivian's next words confirmed his feeling: "That's not what I meant. I mean… um, I remember this place should be wasteland or rocky beach… if my sense of direction as a blood clan member is correct."

Hao Ren almost choked, and he finally realized what the unsettling feeling he had since the departure was all about: "When was the last time you came to England?!"

Vivian thought for a long time, her head slowly drooping: "I remember there was someone called Richard the Lionheart fighting a war..."

Hao Ren's mouth dropped open almost perfectly round, and he nearly fell on his butt: that was 1190 AD!

It was evident that Hao Ren's knowledge of world history was quite good.

"How can you be so clueless sometimes?" Hao Ren rubbed his chin, looking at Vivian in disbelief. He didn't expect anyone to be so muddleheaded – even if there was someone, it should be an idiot like Lily.

"I've lived for so many years, can't I be a little wrong about certain details?" Vivian tried to make her tone sound imposing, but in the end, she still lowered her head. "You know I'm a little forgetful."

"What do we do now?" Hao Ren felt a little at a loss. If someone who went out often and had seen the world encountered this situation, it might be okay, but Hao Ren was a genuine homebody who had never traveled far. Now, the only translator and guide he relied on was just as clueless as he was, and his task was to go to a remote, foreign village that couldn't even be found on a map, to find a "client" whose name and appearance were unknown. This first mission since taking office was indeed quite tricky.

Vivian gritted her teeth: "It's okay, at least I can speak the language, right? That's better than you, isn't it?"

Hao Ren thought about it and realized that was true, although it still seemed like something was wrong, he could only nod.