“Hey, hey, hey? Does anyone know what’s going on? Is this a simulation drill? Should I join in?” Dorothea, who had snuck out, glanced around nervously.
The road was filled with Executioners rushing past the Watchtower.
Normally, Executioners rarely showed themselves, but tonight, five teams had been dispatched, each led by an S-Class Power Holder, all armed.
In front of the Enforcement Bureau’s Twin Towers, the Watchtower had once been the iconic building of St. Antiona Academy, offering a view over the entire campus.
Dorothea had just come down from there, still in a daze.
All the Executioners were converging on the Academic Affairs Building.
As the only student still wandering outside the Dormitory, Dorothea went unnoticed.
She’d spent the whole night atop the Watchtower—that was her little secret.
She loved spying on people through her telescope.
At this distinctive academy, everything was worth exploring with fresh curiosity.
Dorothea loved gossip and loved to play.
She found it great fun to peek at the secrets of Professors and students alike.
On her very first day, she’d eagerly sought out gossip and promptly joined the News Club.
The telescope was something she’d borrowed from there.
No one knew that Dorothea was actually an unstable Ability User.
Unstable meant she could easily turn into a kind of monster like a revenant, her condition worsening over time, gradually developing Vampire traits.
For example, her superhuman vision and hearing.
When humans wield Power, they also suffer Backlash.
This ability was inherently tied to the Vampire bloodline.
She remembered the first time she’d spied on the Dormitory.
That night, she saw a female student knocking on Professor Lu Xiaoxin’s door, could faintly hear her sobbing pleas, and saw a senior who was usually gentle and elegant, always immaculate—yet being toyed with by a woman during a game of tiles.
Thanks to her heightened hearing, Dorothea had become the biggest gossip supplier in just over a month.
Until one day, she discovered a secret.
A breeze fluttered the curtains, and moonlight slipped through the gap of the floor-to-ceiling window, illuminating an empty bed.
That night, when Dorothea intended to spy on Professor An, she saw—right in front of the window—a seemingly delicate silver-haired girl sitting on the balcony, swinging her nearly translucent legs, dressed in a thin white nightgown.
She tilted her head like that, gazing across hundreds of meters at Dorothea on the Watchtower, silently mouthing a greeting.
Her crimson eyes were bright, a gentle smile playing at her lips.
Dorothea was stunned.
She hadn’t expected the girl to notice her and greet her.
That night, Dorothea realized something: Professor An Xiaoyi was hiding a girl and had brought her into his own Dormitory at St. Antiona Academy.
She was one hundred percent a Vampire.
There were no words to describe the girl.
Simply put, her demeanor was the complete opposite of An Xiaoyi.
If An Xiaoyi harbored a human heart, then she was the monster’s other side.
The reason Dorothea used Professor An as a comparison was simply because he was the only one she knew so well.
But Dorothea didn’t choose to reveal this secret.
In fact, she felt that the girl was just like herself—both silently observing the academy.
Isn’t it terrifying? A Vampire hidden in the new Professor’s Dormitory, sitting openly on the balcony, legs swinging carelessly, her nonchalant gaze actually unfathomably deep.
Actually, from day one, Dorothea had sensed something off about An Xiaoyi.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it—it was dangerous, deeply hidden.
He disguised himself so well, deceiving others and even himself.
He seemed gentle and kind, an ordinary human, his behavior even more human than most.
His way of thinking was the same.
Yet perhaps he hadn’t realized—when meeting others, he liked to observe them.
So that man… was an extremely dangerous Vampire keeper!
From then on, Dorothea climbed the Watchtower every night, focusing on Professor An Xiaoyi’s Dormitory.
Most of the time, the curtains were tightly drawn.
Whenever they opened, the girl would appear.
Except for tonight.
She’d just climbed up when the alarm startled her so badly she nearly fell, and then she saw the Enforcement Bureau dispatch helicopters.
The helicopters didn’t leave, instead hovering above the academy.
It wasn’t hard to guess that something had happened on campus tonight.
Looking over, there seemed to be a figure standing on the top floor of the Academic Affairs Building—a middle-aged man.
“Not going to dig for gossip tonight?” someone spoke up behind her.
“With something this big happening, shouldn’t you be grabbing your camera and telescope?”
Dorothea turned around, stunned.
An Xiaoyi was standing by the streetlight, hair a bit disheveled.
“P-Professor?”
“Just came out of the basement,” An Xiaoyi brushed the dust off his clothes. “I’ll need to take a shower when I get back. How do I look now? Not too much of a mess, right?”
“You’re bleeding.”
An Xiaoyi glanced down—it was a graze from a bullet to his abdomen. “It’s nothing. Lucky to be alive.”
He looked at the distant figure and explained,
“That’s the Enforcement Bureau’s mole. A student found her out—Farrah, you know her. I went to help and almost lost my life. No choice, eh. Wonder if the academy will blame me for dereliction of duty.”
“You’re the professor on night duty today?” Dorothea asked.
“You know about that?” An Xiaoyi rubbed his forehead.
“So I was the last to find out, huh?”
“Everyone… knows.”
It took Dorothea a moment to squeeze out those words.
She noticed Professor An’s gaze sweep—intentionally or not—over her telescope and camera.
It seemed this man knew what she’d been doing for the past month.
“Your posts are pretty good—‘Fat Ten Pounds If You Insult Me’.” An Xiaoyi patted her shoulder.
Dorothea’s heart skipped a beat.
That was the alt account she used to post gossip on the School Forum, called Fat Ten Pounds If You Insult Me.
Not even the other News Club members knew.
A cute reaction, but it might get boring.
Maybe she ought to panic a bit more.
The Vampire’s way of thinking made An Xiaoyi fall silent.
He didn’t like that, so he turned away.
Facing the hostility of the blonde loli, An Xiaoyi scratched his head.
After all, she was probably the only student he was close to, so he had to explain.
“Didn’t you know I like browsing posts? In your fourth post, there’s a photo—the angle is obviously from up high. You can see your sleeve in it, and the Watchtower is right behind you. It wasn’t hard to guess that was your alt.”
“I changed my clothes, though.” Dorothea checked her sleeve.
“Just kidding, you didn’t show your sleeve in the photo.” An Xiaoyi gave her a sidelong glance.
“You, you, you!”
The blonde loli stammered, on the verge of tears, tricked into revealing herself just like that.
Watching her flustered reaction, An Xiaoyi thought for a moment, then spoke slowly: “Miss Dorothea, you wouldn’t want your family to know what you’re really like, would you?”
“Stop it! Your threats don’t scare me… they don’t!” Dorothea blurted out in her mother tongue, glancing around in fear that someone might overhear.
“I don’t understand. I was always at the bottom of the class in English.” An Xiaoyi shook his head.
“You, you, you… How can a professor threaten a student! Whether you understand or not, don’t think I don’t know your secret! You’re mixed up with the Vampires—I saw that silver-haired…” Dorothea couldn’t hold back and blurted it out.
“Sorry, just joking. It’s a popular meme online…” An Xiaoyi started to explain at the same time, but when he heard her last words, he fell silent.
Crap.
Dorothea shifted guiltily—she’d spoken too quickly and let it slip.
In the distance, the fleeing figure finally collapsed—Professor Chen Wen had been caught by the Enforcement Bureau.
Turning back, Dorothea shrank away in fear.
For the first time, An Xiaoyi’s gaze was utterly calm, a deep light flickering in those eyes.
That was the scent of danger.