Love!
Love again!
Has Ruby run out of other things to ask or something?
Ethan's face went blank and his cheeks flushed bright red, burning hot. His emotions were a tangled mess - embarrassment, frustration, and helplessness - all because of Ruby's poorly timed question.
At a moment this critical, when the line between life and death for Autumn was more fragile than ever, that girl Ruby was still only concerned about romantic matters between men and women.
It seemed that not only ordinary girls showed deep interest in other people's love lives - female Vampires apparently had the same hobby.
(Even Autumn is like that! But she's different. Ruby is different…)
No wonder Victor - Ethan's younger brother, the ninth-grade student currently trying to become a Western-fantasy novelist - was always crying to the heavens because the novels he wrote had so few readers.
Poor kid!
Even though Victor always invested a great deal of time and effort into: designing deep characters, building rich worlds, creating plenty of surprises in the plot, using a large amount of lore, applying all kinds of writing techniques, polishing the prose to the utmost… the number of reads his novels received was only about 5% of the reads that romance novels got.
Who told Victor - even though he clearly knew Western fantasy was a niche genre, especially in a market like Vietnam where romance and boy love dominated the majority share - to keep insisting on writing it?
(Or perhaps his skill simply wasn't as good as he always imagined?)
"Hey! Ethan! Answer me alreadyyyy!"
Ruby shouted. Her commanding voice pulled Ethan out of his sympathy for the struggles of his younger brother nearly 100 kilometers away - and dragged him back to reality at Harmony High immediately.
And under the power of Ruby's voice, the crystal chandelier on the ceiling began swaying back and forth, making its decorative pieces clink against one another. Down below, Kai's face had already turned pale green.
But for some reason, this guy stubbornly remained beside the piano and continued running his fingers across the keys. This time, he was no longer playing those slightly sad melodies but instead switched to a piece that sounded extremely bleak, mournful, and haunting.
"Remember, the Old Fortress is thirty kilometers away. If you don't answer my question quickly, Autumn's brothers won't be able to arrive in time to save her. And when that happens, the only thing left for us to do is prepare a beautiful coffin for her, bury it deep underground, and place many, many white lily wreaths on top of her grave…"
Ruby laughed coldly and painted such a gloomy scenario that Ethan could not help but think about it.
He slowly closed his eyes.
A world without Autumn?
Probably…
… the sun would still blaze, the trees would still be green, flowers would still bloom, and all things would still thrive…
No!
Only Ethan would be unable to exist in that not-so-distant future.
As for Autumn, Autumn was a Vampire after all. She would live, she had to live forever so that she could become friends with the descendants of his family in the generations to come.
"Love… Love what? We're just friends…"
Ethan answered firmly, though his eyes were focused on Kai. He felt that this small-framed boy was truly lucky that none of the decorative pieces from the crystal chandelier had fallen onto his head.
"Friends? Do friends look at each other so passionately like that?"
Ruby sneered and held her phone out in front of Ethan. The image of him carrying Autumn in his arms - captured by Andrew The Detective - was displayed clearly on the screen.
"But I already told you what happened, didn't I? That was just an accident…"
"Autumn is a Vampire, just like us. She's more agile than a cat. We can fall from a height of a hundred meters and still be completely fine. Who asked you to catch her?"
"But… But… Even so, Autumn looks just like a normal girl. People would become suspicious if they saw her perfectly fine after falling from a height of two meters. Then all of your secrets would be exposed…"
That was right.
Mrs. Marina - Autumn's mother - had once tried to manipulate Ethan into promising that he would never reveal the existence of the Vampire Community in Harmony Town to anyone - by any means necessary.
Although the woman with the blue eyes said that the purpose of that manipulation was to protect Ethan and his family, he suspected there was something else behind it.
Ethan had not known Vampires for long, yet he had already realized that they always told only part of the truth. Perhaps they did not fully trust humans. Or perhaps, more simply, that was just the nature of Vampires.
And think about it - if the secret of the Vampire Community in Harmony Town were not so important, then why would Vampires like Autumn and her family go to such lengths to live among humans while hiding their true identities?
"…You wouldn't want your secret exposed to the light, would you? Especially after so many major incidents that have already significantly reduced the Vampire population in Vietnam?"
Ethan almost curled his lips into a smile - a triumphant, satisfied smile. But he forced himself to restrain his expression when he noticed the look on Ruby's beautiful face.
"Hmph. Ethan! You've got some nerve. Now you dare threaten me too?"
Ruby ground her teeth.
She stepped closer to Ethan, standing face to face with him. Though she was only about four or five centimeters shorter than him, when they stood upright together, her presence nearly overwhelmed him.
"How pitiful for you, Autumn! You should have had a bright life ahead of you. Your parents shouldn't have had to suffer the grief of the old burying the young. Ah, right - how could I forget? Children dying before their parents is already a familiar thing for your parents. They probably won't be too sad. Soon enough, they'll just have more children to replace you…"
Ruby was no longer facing Ethan. She gently lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa and softly stroked Autumn's flowing hair.
"Oh, Autumn! You don't deserve an ending like this. All because… all because that human boy over there has no feelings for you at all. Perhaps he's the one happiest to see you disappear forever. He'll finally be free. No human enjoys being bound by blood and soul to a Vampire."
"I don't understand. What does love have to do with any of this? And anyway, you already have my clear answer. I'm only asking you for a phone call to your sister Celestia. That shouldn't be so difficult for you, should it?"
Ethan had no choice but to back down. He softened his voice as much as he could, because he knew that the more he pressured Ruby, the more she would deliberately stall with absurd questions.
But in response to Ethan's restraint, Ruby remained completely unmoved. She even began humming a lullaby carelessly, blending with the sound of Kai's piano.
Meanwhile, Autumn's time seemed to be running out…
Suddenly, Ethan remembered the last time he met Celestia. Mrs. Marina had asked about Ruby and lamented that it had been a long time since she had seen Ruby come by to visit. Then Autumn had smoothly lied to her mother, saying that she and the Femme Fatale group were still very close at school - even though the truth was the opposite.
"Weren't you and Autumn once very close? What happened between you that you can watch her die without helping?"
After Ethan's question, Ruby stopped singing, Kai stopped playing the piano, and the twin sisters Anya and Yara also fell silent.
In the room - quiet like a tomb - the only sound left was Ethan's pounding heartbeat.
Would his question improve the situation…
…or only make it worse?