A rusty iron door creaked open.
An Xiaoyi took out his phone and switched on the rear light.
The beam cut a faint line through the darkness, illuminating the glass display cases ahead.
The cases gleamed coldly, and inside, folders were arranged as neatly as treasures in a jeweler’s window.
The air was thick with the scent of aged wood, tinged with a trace of metal rust.
All around, silence reigned—only the footsteps of him and He Xiaoxin echoed in the hollow room.
“Are confidential files always this thin? How do you even open these?” An Xiaoyi reached out and touched one of the glass cases.
“To be precise, these folders are just the indexes.” He Xiaoxin walked toward a wall.
She tapped lightly, and all the glass cases clicked open at once.
An Xiaoyi carefully removed one folder. Inside, instead of paper, there were numbered U Disks—five in each folder.
Behind each U Disk was a card inscribed with “SS0032. Duke of Neon Incident.”
SS0033. Federation Attack Case.
SS0034. Codename Black Goat – Endgame Operation…
An Xiaoyi stared at the U Disk in his hand. The number on the card seemed to burn under the dim light.
He gently turned the U Disk over.
The metal surface reflected a cold gleam.
It wasn’t what he’d imagined—St. Antiona Academy’s confidential files weren’t on paper, but encrypted and stored with meticulous care as data.
Thinking about it, it made sense.
Important files were safer on offline U Disks.
If someone could steal a U Disk, they could just as easily steal paper documents. At least with data, you could encrypt it.
He Xiaoxin walked over.
An Xiaoyi looked up and put the U Disk back into the folder.
“We don’t have enough time to copy everything.”
“We can’t afford too much risk. Just look for anything related to the Board of Directors. You look through it.”
She put his folder back and took out another. This one held only a single U Disk—probably containing all the Board of Directors’ information for St. Antiona Academy.
“You want me to look through it?” An Xiaoyi was taken aback.
“Don’t you have a Memory Ability?” She plugged the U Disk into her tablet. The screen flickered from black to gray, and the file directory popped up.
An Xiaoyi leaned closer, muttering, “I thought all Vampires had that ability?”
“I’m too lazy to remember things,” He Xiaoxin replied coolly.
“Does this make us thieves?” An Xiaoyi joked.
“As long as we don’t take the U Disk out, it doesn’t count. Are you really worried about that after coming all the way here?”
“No, what I mean is… it’s almost too easy to find what we want.”
“You like a challenge?”
“Not really. I just don’t get why we can’t copy the files—if there’s only one U Disk.” An Xiaoyi stared at the tablet, which had already loaded the contents.
If you could read it, copying should be easy.
“It’s not that simple. I only have the access password, not Administrator privileges. In other words, the U Disk can detect copying attempts and will cut off access.”
He Xiaoxin handed him the tablet.
“First I’ve heard of that. You could have mentioned it earlier.” An Xiaoyi took it, while she settled into a chair in the corner.
She knew this would take a while and casually flipped through some documents she’d picked up.
“Aren’t you going to look?” An Xiaoyi asked.
“You’re a history professor. You’re more likely to spot clues. I won’t disturb you. But just a reminder—don’t pull out the U Disk right away when you’re done.”
An Xiaoyi nodded, scanning the directory.
The number of Board of Directors members was surprising.
From personnel number 001 to 0062, it meant that in the decades since St. Antiona’s founding, there had been sixty-two Directors—some merchants, some from families specialized in hunting Vampires.
His parents had never mentioned being part of the Board of Directors.
He’d always thought they were tomb raiders. It made sense—tomb raiding was one of the few ways for old Vampires to survive in decline.
Feed on blood while robbing tombs, in places where no one would notice. Their crimes went undetected by both humans and the Blood Party, letting them survive.
Those eccentric parents—he’d never have connected them with the Board of Directors.
Finally, in the file for person number 058, he saw his father’s name.
But when he looked at the content, An Xiaoyi thought he was mistaken.
Number 058: An Mochen. Tenure: 2011—?
Blank—blank—blank—blank… All content was classified, except for a few photos of him at St. Antiona Academy. In the pictures, the bearded man wore a somber expression, leaning against a curtain, as if lost in thought at a meeting.
Besides that, an unnamed folder contained only a single line: [Last deleted on 2023.11.17.23:42:32].
That date was close to when his parents disappeared.
An Xiaoyi opened the file for number 059—his mother, Shirley. The same—nothing but blanks. Someone had wiped their records the year they vanished, leaving only a few photos.
These files could only be edited by Faro, but she shouldn’t have blocked An Xiaoyi’s investigation.
Unwilling to give up, An Xiaoyi spent nearly twenty minutes searching other Directors’ files, but found no more traces of An Mochen or Shirley.
The couple had been deliberately erased from St. Antiona.
He ended the tablet’s access to the U Disk, pulled it out, and returned it with the folder to the glass display.
An Xiaoyi said nothing. He Xiaoxin read the frustration in his eyes; the U Disk held no new clues about his parents—just confirmation they’d once been Directors.
“Nothing?” An Xiaoyi walked to the door.
He wasn’t too disappointed—he hadn’t expected things to go smoothly.
“It’s fine. As Vampires, and Counts, I don’t think anything will happen to them.” He Xiaoxin seemed to slip up, then immediately went to switch off the glass case.
For the first time, she’d revealed a flaw.
He Xiaoxin shouldn’t have known that An Xiaoyi’s parents were Vampires.
She only knew their names—An Xiaoyi had said his parents were missing and that he was worried about them, but never mentioned anything else.
He shot her a surprised look. This woman was more than just a high-ranking pureblood Vampire. Their family, as the last of the old blood, had hidden from the Blood Party for decades, and the Blood Party had searched for them for just as long.
Things even the Blood Party didn’t know—she did.
An Xiaoyi stopped and blocked her at the door. For the first time, he questioned her directly.
“Not going to explain? If I remember right, in your understanding, An Xiaoxue was just an adopted daughter in a human family. Yet you called my parents Vampires.”
“When did I say she was adopted by a human family?” He Xiaoxin tilted her head.
Before An Xiaoyi could recall, she cut in coldly:
“My original words were, ‘I want to understand you, because you’re her brother now. I don’t know why she entered your family and became your sister.’”
An Xiaoyi’s mind spun, unable to catch up.
“So my parents are Vampires, my sister is a Vampire who joined us, and I’m human?” He Xiaoxin pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“Come on, don’t you think something’s off? I’m human—how could my parents be Vampires?”
“Sorry, I just realized. I meant An Xiaoxue’s parents—they were indeed Count-level Vampires.” She apologized with utter calm, not sounding sorry at all.
“You nearly scared me to death.” An Xiaoyi let out a breath and walked out.
She had misspoken.
Just now, He Xiaoxin said “Count-level,” but in fact, his parents were Marquis-level Vampires.
That meant her understanding of An Xiaoxue wasn’t deep—she didn’t know that An Xiaoxue was actually himself.
An Xiaoyi realized he needed to avoid such topics and steer the conversation elsewhere.
His questioning had nearly exposed him.
It hadn’t sounded like the confusion of someone who’d just been told their parents were Vampires. More like someone worried about being found out. Fortunately, the woman beside him didn’t dwell on it.
He Xiaoxin’s gaze wandered indifferently.
Suddenly, from the far end of the long corridor, faint, furtive footsteps echoed.
They exchanged glances, reading surprise in each other’s eyes, and quickly retreated into the darkness behind them.