Chapter 23 : Birthday Gift (5)

Thinking, the crowd suddenly parted around the black-haired girl, casting hostile glances.

It was that vampire.

An Xiaoxue looked at the black-haired girl from the beginning and then remembered she’d forgotten to tell the principal.

She was a Count-level vampire, so unless she actively revealed herself, a Viscount-level wouldn’t know she was also a vampire.

She didn’t remember having offended the other party.

Just as An Xiaoxue took out her phone to text the principal, she suddenly froze.

In her messages, there was a birthday greeting, anonymous.

Silence.

This woman… she knew her birthday too.

Of course, she claimed to be An Xiaoxue’s best friend, her lover, so how could she not know her birthday?

An Xiaoxue wanted to text her to ask where she was.

But why should she care where the woman went? An Xiaoxue didn’t understand either.

They had only met five times, and it wasn’t even a date.

They hadn’t said much to each other.

It was just a nuisance she wanted to get rid of, so how could she secretly hope for her appearance?

An Xiaoxue shook her head, thinking she must have spent too much time with the principal and was becoming insane herself.

Just then, everyone’s phones rang.

She looked over, and everyone, including students and professors, had grave expressions on their faces.

It was the exclusive alert tone for St. Antiona.

It meant it required high vigilance.
This was also one of the important courses for students at the school.

Everyone simultaneously pulled out their phones to check messages.

An Xiaoxue saw the message on the phone of the girl next to her: “Alert! A vampire has infiltrated the auditorium tonight! Alert! Everyone enter defensive posture!”

She was slightly surprised.

Before anyone could react, she quickly left.

The previously noisy, joyful crowd began to look around, their gazes quickly locking onto An Xiaoxue.

Car after car screeched to a halt in front of the auditorium, and well-trained enforcers got out.

The dense sound of gun cocking, special firearms crafted by the equipment department, blocked all entrances and exits near the auditorium.

An Xiaoxue calmly watched Professor Wolfe Douglas approach, showing her electronic invitation on her phone without complaint.

The professor, who also served as the head of operations for the Enforcement Bureau, glanced at the invitation and shook his head.

An Xiaoxue’s eyes showed confusion.

“I’m very sorry, Madam.”

Professor Wolfe said calmly, “From the current situation, you are the only outsider who has come out of the auditorium, even if you have an invitation.”

“I don’t want to explain too much, because I believe Principal Farrow is a trustworthy person.” An Xiaoxue looked at the auditorium, “The principal is inside, she can testify to everything.”

Wolfe gave an apologetic nod and turned to enter the auditorium, coming out calmly a moment later.

“A misunderstanding, my apologies.” He waved his hand, and enforcers poured into the auditorium.

The vampire who infiltrated St. Antiona was someone else, but it had already been controlled by students in the auditorium before the enforcers were ready.

It was a second-year student, who had been unknowingly transformed into a blood slave and controlled.

“How could a student become a blood slave?” A professor looked nervous.

This had never happened before. St. Antiona conducted annual checks on students to ensure no vampires infiltrated, and a second-year student being controlled was too challenging to imagine.

It meant that in the past few missions, this student had unfortunately been bitten by a vampire and controlled as a blood slave to infiltrate the school as an undercover agent.

If the Enforcement Bureau hadn’t discovered it in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Enforcers carried the unconscious blood slave out on a stretcher and put him into a car, preparing to go to the research department.

Students watched from the side, and An Xiaoxue also took a deep look at the black-haired girl among the students, who was lost in thought.

“How will you handle this?” An Xiaoxue asked.

“This child is Jiang Mu, the eldest daughter of the Jiang family. She’s a transfer student who arrived three days ago,” Farrow said, standing beside her.

“Are you sure?”

“I think this is what I’m good at.”

“Why are you speaking so coldly? You weren’t like this before.” Farrow glanced at her.

An Xiaoxue quickly left.

At the entrance of the dorm hotel, He Xiaoxin stood there, their eyes meeting.

An Xiaoxue ignored her and walked straight into the hotel.

She suddenly remembered that her current identity was An Xiaoyi’s sister, and this identity meant staying at a hotel outside the campus, not in the campus dorms.

So she turned back.

“Wait,” He Xiaoxin called out to her.

She said flatly, “I couldn’t find you.”

“I went to the school banquet, I’m sorry.” An Xiaoxue turned and stared into her eyes.

Slowly, she said, “Because I didn’t wait for you either. I thought it was too boring, so I gave up on stargazing or whatever.”

He Xiaoxin wanted to explain something but eventually didn’t say it.

She pulled a bouquet of roses from her pocket and handed them to her.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.” An Xiaoxue took them, fiddling with them in her hand.

Another bouquet of roses.

Principal Farrow’s gift was also roses.

Their intentions seemed to align.

But… who gives roses as a birthday gift?

However, for An Xiaoxue, who had no friends, roses were just right as a gift.

Without waiting for the woman to say more, she waved and ran off, “Bye, maybe we’ll meet again sometime.”

He Xiaoxin watched her disappearing back for a very long time.

A slight smile played on her lips.

It was almost the dead of night, on a deserted campus path.

Under a streetlamp, An Xiaoxue stealthily hugged the lamppost, looking left and right, as if she were a scout gathering intelligence.

She confirmed no one was there.

She confirmed the woman wasn’t there.

She took a deep breath before running into the dorm hotel entrance, quickly pressing the elevator button and slipping inside.

She checked the time.

Good, it was already 3 AM. At this hour, even vampires would be asleep.

The elevator arrived.

An Xiaoxue carefully crept past dorm 30-3.

Before the sound-activated sensor light could react, she quickly opened the door and leaped into her own dorm, all in one swift motion!

An Xiaoxue didn’t use her power to sense the situation in dorm 30-3, as He Xiaoxin would most likely detect it.

Originally, she didn’t need to be so nervous, but wearing a nightgown, An Xiaoyi’s identity seemed quite perverse.

She finally let out a complete sigh of relief and slowly turned on the light.

Her pupils contracted sharply.

The scent of roses wafted over her.

The room was filled with roses, soft petals covering the floor, and a single bouquet stood silently on the table, as if the world were made of roses, extending from the entrance all the way to the bedroom.

Along both sides of the corridor, bouquets of roses were neatly arranged, emitting a faint fragrance.

Her steps involuntarily slowed, her heart fluttering slightly, and her fingers gently touched the soft petals.

This was… a birthday gift for herself.

An Xiaoxue pulled up a chair and sat at the table, tilting her head to stare at the roses.

So delicate, so perfect, so lovely.

It was as if she knew she would return to her brother’s – An Xiaoyi’s – dorm.

And Professor An’s excuse for taking leave from the principal was that he wouldn’t be back at the dorm all night, planning to stay up all night playing games at an internet cafe outside school.

The excuse was quite straightforward.

Actually, An Xiaoxue didn’t like roses, even found them a bit hateful.

This was because the only memory she had of receiving a gift was on her 12th birthday night, when a vague older sister had given her a birthday present.

It was also a bouquet of roses.

And then that girl never appeared again.

They didn’t say a single word.

Since then, An Xiaoxue had hated roses.

She believed that giving a gift meant being friends, but if the friend never appeared again, then it was the roses’ fault.

An Xiaoxue was just that kind of person.

Pushing open the bedroom door, moonlight streamed in through the French windows.

More roses piled up on the bed, and the woman’s scent lingered in the air.

The bloodlust she had been fighting off all night, almost to the point of collapse, finally subsided.

She sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought.

An Xiaoxue finally realized her mistake: He Xiaoxin hadn’t stood her up.

Instead, An Xiaoxue herself had waited in the wrong place.

According to the plan, they were supposed to meet directly behind the mountain, but she had subconsciously chosen to wait in the dorm for the other person to knock.

The previous five times, it had always been He Xiaoxin knocking on the door, at the hotel outside school, which was supposedly An Xiaoxue’s residence.

She lay down on the bed, immersed in the fragrance of the