Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 890: The Bonds of the Immortals (part 2)

The scroll seemed to have a brass structure as its main body. When Song Da first saw the scroll, he couldn't take his eyes off it.

Instinctively, Song Da reached out to take the scroll from the pedestal, but Song Er quickly grabbed his wrist. "Hold on, Da, there's a trap!"

Song Da shuddered, knowing Song Er had a knack for studying odd mechanisms. He nodded and stepped aside.

Song Er circled the pedestal a few times, examining his surroundings. Suddenly, he picked up an ornate dagger from among the treasures.

Approaching the pedestal, Song Er carefully slid the blade under the scroll, explaining, "This seems to be a weight-triggered trap. The scroll is pressing on a switch, and removing it will release the trigger. Who knows what kind of trap will follow... Alright."

He pressed down on the dagger and quickly lifted the scroll. After removing it, he stood still, listening carefully for a few seconds before letting out a breath of relief.

Pointing to a nearby wooden box, likely meant for jewelry, Song San fetched it immediately. Song Er placed the box where the scroll had been and withdrew the dagger.

"All done," Song Er exhaled. "Luckily, this is an ancient mechanism. If it were a modern trap, it would have been a floating-type switch. A different weight would still trigger it."

Song Da gave a thumbs up before taking the scroll for a closer look.

Soon, Song Da frowned and said, "Why won’t this thing open?"There was no lock on the scroll, but even with Song Da’s strength, he couldn't unroll it. "This thing is strange! What does it say?"

Song Er took a glance. "It seems to be Arabic. I learned a bit from Mr. Blind... 'Qur'... Quran?"

"Quran?" Song Da was confused. "Is that someone's name?"

Song Er shot him a look and said, "It's likely the Quran, the holy book of the Mulims... It's like the Tripitaka is to the abbots."

"Why didn't you just say it's the Muslim's law book?" Song Da rolled his eyes. "Why would there be such a thing in a vampire's castle?"

Song San chimed in, "Maybe it was stolen from somewhere. Judging by the variety of treasures here, the castle’s owner probably looted all over."

Song Da grabbed the scroll from Song Er. "This thing feels off. When I looked at it earlier, I felt like I wasn’t even in control of my own thoughts. I think we should leave it alone... There's enough treasure here to make us rich for several lifetimes. Let’s not get greedy!"

"Wait, I have an idea." Song Er snatched the scroll back and said seriously, "Maybe the blind man can open it. I’m just a mechanic, but that guy is a spiritualist—he’s good at these things. He might be interested. Da, no matter how much we train, we’ll never truly advance..."

Song San hesitated. "Second Brother, are you saying..."

Song Er replied, "Why have we stayed with Master Song all these years? Is it just because he supports us? Plenty of people would if we showed them our skills! But we stayed here because of the blind man. He’s the one we've been searching for—a master of the mystical arts! If the blind man likes this, it could be our key to real power."

Song Da still hesitated.

Song Er pushed further, "Do you want just wealth, or do you want the path to immortality?"

"Dammit... Let’s do it!" Song Da slapped his head and decided. "We'll take this thing back to the blind man and see what he says!"

"Come check this out! There's another door!" Song San called.

They discovered a hidden door in the corner of the treasure room, previously blocked by a large wooden sculpture. After pushing it aside, a narrow passage was revealed.

Song Er quickly inspected it and found the mechanism to open it. It wasn’t a hidden room but a long passageway.

Song Er’s eyes lit up. "This is the treasure room, and there must be a back exit. It’s our way out!"

"But... what about the treasure? There’s too much, we can’t carry it all!"

"Idiot! If we’re dead, what good is money? If we survive, we can always call Master Song to bring men and weapons. We’ll flatten these monsters and take the treasure later!"

"Right!"

The group took the ancient scroll, closed the treasure room’s doors, and quietly slipped into the newly discovered passage.

...

Cythacyl had made up his mind to leave.

A merchant should never get too involved—though many would stop at nothing for a 300% profit, ignoring all risks.

Cythacyl had taken some risks himself in the past—but this wasn’t a risk anymore.

Had anyone ever seen a fourth-generation vampire get killed on the spot? Cythacyl had. Long ago, when the 13 clans banded together to eliminate a traitor, he even picked up some spoils from the battlefield. But the 13 clans’ forces suffered heavy casualties.

A fourth-generation vampire wasn’t someone who flirted in a university, hopelessly in love and waiting for sunrise.

He saw with his own eyes how his ancestor was rendered immobile by a single word, then stripped of his power by another, and finally returned to his original state with one final phrase.

As the origin of the Fernandez family’s bloodline, Cythacyl could clearly feel the disappearance of Viscount Fernandez. How could he dare remain in the manor under such circumstances?

Cythacyl felt that this deal had cost him everything—Tu Shenyi, no, Karen, had destroyed one of his substitute mud figures, the True Blood Plan had failed, and Viscount Fernandez, the most hidden power of the Fernandez family, had been neutralized.

However, before retreating, Cythacyl made his way to one final place.

This was a location created by the last bit of energy from Viscount Fernandez before he reverted to a dried corpse. Due to their blood connection, Cythacyl could hear the ancestor's final voice.

Another secret of the Fernandez family.

As Cythacyl descended a spiraling staircase, he came upon a massive wooden door.

The door naturally couldn't stop Cythacyl, who easily pushed it open. Inside, his eyes fell upon various forms of wealth. With his keen sight, he quickly dismissed the gold and silver as worthless.

However, some gems in the room held faint traces of power, though they weren’t of great value either. Cythacyl frowned—what use was such a treasure to him?

Would a vampire ever be short of money?

Cythacyl furrowed his brow, stepping inside and observing carefully, until he noticed a pedestal in the center. On the pedestal was a delicate jewelry box.

He opened the jewelry box. His intuition told him that the item the ancestor intended for him to take must be on that pedestal.

“Earrings?” Cythacyl frowned as he lifted a pair of pearl earrings from the box.

The pearls were large, but the key issue was that Cythacyl couldn't see anything special about them.

“There must be a hidden secret I don't know,” Cythacyl muttered to himself. Otherwise, Viscount Fernandez wouldn't have wanted him to take these in the end.

Taking a deep breath, Cythacyl thought for a moment before putting the earrings on, deciding to study them more closely after returning.

Cythacyl quickly turned and left; the wealth in the room held no allure for him.

The longer he stayed, the greater the danger… Who knew if he would survive another encounter with Luo Qiu?

“Next time… The next time I see you, I must make you mine… my little darling.”

Cythacyl flashed a wicked smile before vanishing into the darkness.

...

...

Staggering slightly, the power of the fourth generation of Viscount Fernandez was difficult for her to bear. She had to support herself against the wall just to walk.

At this moment, she should be addressed as Karen.

Her head full of white hair swayed as she stumbled, looking like a patient recovering from a serious illness. Although her injuries were severe, the vampire’s self-healing abilities were steadily accelerating her recovery.

But she tripped over something and fell forward. A coin dropped out from her body—a 1 Mark coin.

Karen raised her head, trying to reach out and pick up the coin. Her hand was in front of her, but still some distance from the coin, when her vision began to blur.

...

Heavy snow, the sound of bells ringing in the streets. It was Christmas Eve, 1990, in Berlin, Germany.

People hurried along, rushing to be with family or to meet loved ones, all heading toward their respective destinations with excitement and anticipation.

Ding-ding-ding... ding.

Distinct from the bells in the Christmas music, a coin dropped to the ground, rolling toward the drain at the side of the street.

But before it could fall in, a boot stopped it—rather, the rolling coin happened to collide with a passerby’s boot.

At that moment, a disheveled young man hurried over, his gaze fixed on the ground. It seemed the coin belonged to him.

When he saw that the coin hadn’t fallen into the drain, he smiled and said, “Oh, thank God, this is my last possession.”

With that, the young man bent down to pick up the coin.

It was only then that he noticed the person who had stopped the coin was a woman—a beautiful woman.

The young man smiled and muttered, “Maybe my luck isn't so bad after all.”

“Are you unlucky?” the woman suddenly asked, speaking in perfect Mandarin, without the slightest trace of an accent.

But the woman had blonde hair and blue eyes, clearly not Chinese.

The young man, curious, asked, “You speak Mandarin?”

The woman nodded casually, her hat already covered in a layer of frost. Her hands were in the pockets of her coat, and her face was slightly pale, as if from the cold.

“You haven’t told me yet, are you unlucky?” she asked again.

The young man shrugged, rubbing his cold-stiffened hands, and said nonchalantly, “I just gambled and lost all my money. All I have left is this 1 Mark coin. I don’t even know how it ended up on me.”

The woman replied calmly, “Losing money in a gamble makes you unlucky? Then there are many unlucky people in the world.”

The young man said, “What if we were gambling solely on luck? Pure luck, and I even used some tricks, but I still couldn’t win?”

“Oh?” The woman raised an eyebrow, intrigued. She glanced at the young man’s hands.

His fingers were long and slender, yet she could tell that all ten of his fingers were stronger and more flexible than the average person’s.

The young man, in a self-deprecating tone, said, “I’ve never lost before, but this time I lost completely, and to someone who doesn’t even know how to gamble… They just had the luck of a goddess.”

“Is your gambling skill very good?” the woman asked indifferently.

The young man smiled confidently, pinching the 1 Mark coin between his fingers, and said, “Do you believe I could use this coin to buy that building over there in one night?”

He pointed with the coin-holding hand toward a building across the street.