Chapter 2

Celen came out of the bathroom, holding a deeply sleeping Zhiyu tightly in his arms. 

The young man was sleeping peacefully. 

His face was round, he had long black eyelashes and slightly pink lips. 

A real temptation. 

Even the faint scars visible all over his body couldn't take away his charm. 

He felt the soft skin against his fingers and the anger ebbed slightly as he laid him down in bed. 

He dressed with force of habit, the young man, pajamas of a pale green color.

The door opened slowly. 

But Celen ignored the intruder, edging Zhiyu.

- Is he okay? asked a soft voice.

Celen glanced at Xin, his garnet eyes lingering for a moment on the young man's bulging stomach, before returning to the caramel eyes.

- He is sleeping.

Xin's face unlike Zhiyu's slightly childish one was enchanting. Worthy of a model, her short black hair sweeping the skin without imperfection. The young man moved awkwardly embarrassed by his belly and sat down on the bed, his hand caressing the sleeping affectionately.

- Did you kill them?

Celen looked at Xin in silence and the young man finally turned his head towards him. A cold, pitiless gaze giving him a dark aura despite the slight smile on his lips.

- They didn't rape him. Zhiyu provoked them.

Celen was not a nice person. 

If he had to be defined by something as Manichean as good and evil, he would certainly be considered on the side of evil. 

In addition to his vampire status which made humans constituting the majority of the population, his prey. 

However, he was not a murderer without a conscience and followed the law as a whole.

 Although Zhiyu would the matter as if he just went out for a walk. Celen wouldn't have been so forgiving if he'd been raped. 

It was undeniable that these men hadn't been tender but Celen knew Zhiyu well enough to know that he also knew how to behave like a whore and provoke the men badly to get what he needed. 

If he were to kill every man who gave in to his instincts in the face of provocation, it would take months.

- Let him rest. Celen said coldly to Xin.

He then turned and walked out of the room. 

He had healed the external and internal wounds. 

Zhiyu was fine and his balance was back, that was the main thing.

The mansion where he lived with Zhiyu and Xin was a bit too big for three people. 

Some of his servants lived there, but it was since Zhiyu's arrival seven years ago that the mansion had come alive. 

There were plenty of traces of his presence.

In each room, there were strange objects that he had bought on a whim and which clashed with the antique and luxurious decoration. 

Like this neon pink lamp sitting on this shelf in the hallway but whose cord was hanging miserably because there was no outlet to plug it in.

Zhiyu must have realized this after the fact and dropped the case before he forgot about it.

 His mind was simple yet a bit complicated to understand sometimes. 

Simple because he always acted in the present moment according to his desires and complicated because the direction of his thoughts was known only to himself. 

He was sure he was different. 

But he was no less intelligent or retarded. 

He just saw life in a unique way that Celen didn't always understand. 

However, Zhiyu was a young man of twenty-five who had a broken spirit and was aware of it.

Celen walked back into his office, letting out a soft sigh, two fingers against the bridge of his nose. 

It was barely 6 p.m. but he had been under pressure since his employees had reported his chalice missing. 

It wasn't strange that Zhiyu sometimes left his post but he had been gone for over an hour when Lisa the store manager finally decided to call him. 

Zhiyu had gone to buy waffles but did not return. 

Celen immediately went looking for him, using their chalice bond to find him. 

But the young man had blocked the connection on his side, making him even more worried. 

Finally 3 hours later the connection had returned and he had found it 20km from the Workshop, where Zhiyu was working.

Celen knew it wasn't entirely Zhiyu's fault. 

Humans were all born with two cores of contradictory magic. 

The Core of the Sun and the Core of the Moon. 

Normally after a few years, one of the nuclei took over the other, completely suppressing the opposite and harmful energy. 

This was what decided whether a human could use Sun God magic or Moon God magic. The two deities who ruled the planet. 

Where in the country anyway. According to what the government had decided.

But Zhiyu's father had used his son as an experiment subject trying to bring together two opposing forces. 

And he had succeeded. 

In a way, he fully deserved his genius nickname. 

But it was at the cost of his son's integrity. 

Zhiyu was probably the only human who could use either energy. 

But because of this his body was on a tightrope and the balance of energies could shift to one side or the other causing either energy to attack and Zhiyu's body to collapse permanently. 

At times, out of an instinct for survival, Zhiyu frantically sought to restore balance to his body. The easiest way was to expel the excess energy and sex was a good way to do that, quickly feeding the compatible partner with the energy that was poisoning their body.

These episodes of imbalance were infrequent but could be fatal if not treated quickly, causing Zhiyu's blood vessels to burst. 

This was the reason why Celen paid prostitutes for Zhiyu's exclusive use in the city brothel.

But sometimes Zhiyu's frantic mind just didn't think that far and he found himself in dangerous situations.

Celen looked at the contracts on his desk and got back to work. 

His main activity was buying humans for wealthy vampires. 

It was obviously illegal and the contracts he had in his hands wouldn't normally be worth much...if he hadn't changed the terms to personal assistant rather than slave. 

Some humans were desperate and others adventurous, but he didn't force anyone to choose this path. They were aware of the risks but signed in the face of the lure of the money.

It was human trafficking. No more no less. Some had also tried to sell their children to him. But he had enough stock not to need that manpower.

Xin...was different. 

The woman who had sold it. Xin's mother was the descendant of a family he kept tabs on. 

They were the descendants of one of the few friends he had had in the past before deciding not to tangle with these short-lived creatures anymore. 

He had remained emotionally distant from humans for 500 years. 

But he couldn't leave Xin alone. 

He was still a child whose soul had not yet been blackened. He had always helped when he could Xin's family from the shadows. But it seemed that humans sometimes sought their own downfall. At least the child was still innocent so he had finally taken him under his wing. 

The last descendant of his friend. 

He gave the woman the money she was asking for and placed Xin with a suitable family. 

However, without him understanding yet how, Xin had imposed himself in his life. 

He was sneaky and cunning. 

And he was very good at playing the innocent even if Celen was not blind to all his schemes to slip into his bed. 

Her obsession with him, however, was appeased with Zhiyu's unexpected arrival.

Her jaw twitched at the thought of Xin's pregnant body. 

He had only doubts and no proof. 

But if he had doubts it was because he was not far from the truth. 

Xin was not human. 

He was a hybrid and that was why as a man he had no trouble conceiving. 

Considering Xin's newfound obsession with Zhiyu. 

The other father was probably Zhiyu. 

Celen didn't know, however, if he Xin had raped him by drugging him, while he slept or if he had collected the sperm in some other way.

Either way, it was still serious and he held out a slim hope that the 20-year-old he had ended up raising hadn't gotten that far.

When Celen asked if they had slept together, Zhiyu just shrugged.

He obviously did care . 

In any case, it was sure that Zhiyu absolutely did not suspect his friend of having used it. 

If that was really what happened and Zhiyu found out he would never forgive Xin.

Celen wouldn't be on his side either. Even though he considered Xin his family.

The vampire didn't quite understand the relationship Xin and Zhiyu had, but he was at least sure of that.

The two had hated each other from the first seconds, at that time Xin was 13 and was way too precocious for his age and 18-year-old Zhiyu was broken and a bit childish. They ended up becoming friends, but how it ended up happening was a mystery.

Well, Zhiyu saw him as a friend, because Xin certainly didn't see him just as a friend.

Regardless, Xin was just a sneaky kid, raised by force of circumstance.

And Zhiyu was just a human, whom he had taken as a chalice by force of circumstance.

It wasn't like he had time to worry about them.

Humans only bring trouble.