When I reached home, Adrian caught sight of my gloomy expression and hurried over in concern. I glanced at him somewhat wearily.

"Yeah."

"I heard that there was a murder in the high school division today."

"Yeah. Someone from another cla.s.s." I gritted my teeth. "I told them the culprit, but n.o.body believed me. All because she had an alibi. I told them the so-calld alibi is a vampire, and they laughed me off. Said I had no proof."

Well…I should have expected that, to be honest. How else were the police going to react? When I told them, "Xu Wu Cheng is a vampire! If you don't believe me, check him out!" they only gave me a look of bemus.e.m.e.nt, and then told me to go home.

n.o.body belived a single word I had to say. Not that I could blame them. I had no hard evidence. What was I supposed to do, get his blood or something? When I recorded the whole thing, Xu Wu Cheng and Ji Yan cleverly covered that up as a play. They covered their tracks so well that everyone would believe them over me.

"Senior Nan Gong Ji Yan is very popular in the high school division – she has been for the past year." Melina had joined us, also looking worried. "Of course everyone is going to defend her. She has quite a good reputation. And she is that Senior Nan Gong Zhao Yan's twin sister."

Yeah, so what? That didn't change the fact that she was still a backstabbing b.i.t.c.h.

"Also, I heard a lot of my cla.s.smates comment on how good looking and popular Senior Xu Wu Cheng is. Most people will side with him."

She didn't have to say "over you, Sensei." That much was clear enough for me, and she was sensitive enough not to twist the knife in my gut.

"Do you guys believe me?" I asked. Adrian nodded vehemently.

"Of course I believe Brother Richie! I know you're telling the truth!"

"I think Sensei isn't lying, but…"

On the other hand, Melina sounded skeptical. She hesitated for a moment, even as both Adrian and I stared at her, and then she sighed.

"…perhaps things aren't as simple as they seem. Maybe Sensei made a mistake or something?"

Well, she wasn't there to witness the actual event, so it was natural that she had her doubts. Not wanting to put her in an awkward situation, I decided to change the subject.

"Well, there's nothing I can do for now, so I might as well carry on with whatever I've been doing. Let's get back to training, you two!"

"Yes!"

The both of them responded enthusiastically, and for the rest of the night, I moved my mind away from the mess that I had gotten involved in.

*

That didn't mean I wasn't going to do anything, though. For the next week or so, I followed Ji Yan closely to ensure that she didn't attack any other innocent students. It turned out that I needn't had bothered because there were no further incidents after Jiang Xue Yang's death. Ji Yan had received enough blood from her master, Xu Wu Cheng.

In fact, my stalking was so noticeable that Xu Wu Cheng – otherwise known as Yi Tai – walked up to me one day.

"Are you stalking my Ji Yan? You seem…pretty obsessed with her."

I glared at him, too tired to deny it. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d was the cause of everything, from Ji Yan's transformation to a vampire to Jiang Xue Yang's death. I resisted the temptation to attack him there and then. The teachers would come rus.h.i.+ng over and stop me before I could kill him, and then I would be locked up and imprisoned. While I was stuck rotting in jail, this guy would be free to continue doing whatever he wanted. I couldn't allow him to provoke me into doing something so impulsive. He had the law on his side…for now.

Until I obtained hard evidence that he was a vampire, I could do nothing.

"You should stay away from her."

"Why? Ji Yan will run wild if I do, and end up attacking her cla.s.smates when her thirst for blood becomes too strong."

Glaring bitterly at Yi Tai and wis.h.i.+ng I could slay him, I clenched my fists and swallowed my anger. Not here. Not now. Not until I got evidence. Aware of my predicament, Tai Yi chuckled scornfully.

"Oh, I know that you know. You've been stalking my precious servant to prevent that from happening, haven't you?"

I sighed in resignation. "I will get the evidence and report you. I swear I will."

"Go ahead, if you dare. Who will believe you? It will be your word against mine and Ji Yan's. After all, we just wanted to enact a little play." Xu Wu Cheng threw his head and laughed. That excuse was the reason why recording this exchange would be rendered moot. As long as both of them insisted that they were play-acting, I couldn't use this as evidence against them. "And besides, after your little stunt a week ago, your credibility isn't very high, I might add."

I couldn't refute that. After the whole fiasco where I joined Kufa Van Peer in fighting the Chiropterans and saving Saya where I was slapped with house arrest for a week, my public image had taken a severe hit. I wouldn't say that I had become untrustworthy in the eyes of teachers and students, but at the very least they wouldn't believe me over two model students. More so when I was merely an exchange student, and considered an outsider.

Yi Tai was correct. I was cornered here.

"Your only option is to fight me," Yi Tai gloated, his handsome face crinkling into a smile. "But I wonder, do you think you can defeat me?"

Actually, I might. If I could summon all my Constellation spirits, then of course I would be able to crush him. Even a demonic vampire prince such as Yi Tai wouldn't be able to survive a nuke spell. The guy was pretty idiotic if he thought he could best me in a proper duel.

The problem was that he wasn't stupid enough to accept a proper challenge from me. He would scheme something to put himself at an overwhelming advantage. Furthermore, he had Ji Yan on his side. Yi Tai alone would be a handful, but if the two of them joined forces…

Well, I could just nuke the two of them together. To h.e.l.l with Zhao Yan's feelings. Her sister was trying to kill me and I was merely acting out of self-defense. At least in that scenario, but the issue was whether Yi Tai would even allow such a scenario to come to pa.s.s in the first place. I couldn't exactly nuke the school along with him and Ji Yan, after all.

Yi Tai laughed as he left me standing alone there, bristling. While I contemplated my otpions, wondering if I should somehow rope Guang Zhi Yi Sect into helping me (they wouldn't – why the h.e.l.l would they trust the word of an outsider like me over the word of Ji Yan, who had been a member of their sect for over a year?), Kufa slapped me in the back.

"Hey, Richard, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Really now?" Kufa raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth curling slyly. "You've been following Nan Gong Ji Yan very closely for the past week or so."

Was I really that obvious? And here I was thinking I had covered my tracks well enough. Then again, Kufa was among the more skilled students in Saint Teresa Academy, so it wasn't surprising for him to notice that something was up.

"Give up. Not only is Xu Wu Cheng much more handsome, popular and smarter than you, girls tend to prefer the bad boy vibes that he gives off than well-behaved but boring nice guys like you."

That was quite the outrageous stereotype, but I had to admit that it was true in Ji Yan's case, particularly when I bitterly recalled how she betrayed me in favor of becoming a vampire just to beat her own sister.

What was the expression again? Didn't want to walk the road to heaven and chose to walk the path to h.e.l.l or something like that? Whatever.

"Don't worry, it's not what you're thinking. I'm not interested in her at all." Then I suddenly had an epiphany. "I simply have a suspicion that Nan Gong Ji Yan might be a Chiropteran."

Kufa stared at me in disbelief, and then burst out laughing.

"Dude, don't even joke like that. If there was a Chiropteran in this school, I would have flushed them out long ago. Don't forget that I have the same abilities as Saya. I can detect them. I can a.s.sure you that Nan Gong Ji Yan is not a Chiropteran."

"Oh."

d.a.m.n, that didn't work. I was such a fool. However, that brought up another question to mind.

"What about vampires? Can you and Saya tell apart vampires from normal humans?"

"Hmm…" Kufa thought for a bit, and then shook his head. "Not exactly. Vampires are still humans. Chiropterans are clearly not humans – they are monsters. They are biologically different. We can track them through pheromones and mana, but since vampires use the same type of mana as humans, we can't distinguish them from other humans."

Even among mages, only Saya and Kufa could tell Chiropterans apart from humans, and I couldn't unless I had my gla.s.ses. Even my gla.s.ses couldn't pick up any biological differences between vampires and humans, unable to distinguish Xu Wu Cheng from the other students. Otherwise I would have used that as evidence long ago.

d.a.m.n it…was there really nothing that I could use against that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!?

"Anyway, tone down on the stalking," Kufa warned. "Miura is getting increasingly annoyed…there she is."

Miura was stomping over, and she tried to seize me by the collar, but as usual I deftly avoided her.

"What is the meaning of this, Richard?!" she hollered. "Just when I finally believed that there is nothing between you and Rossetti, now you're chasing after a new girl?"

"I'm not chasing after any girl," I told her coldly. "And even if I am, it's none of your business."

"Of course it is! You already have me!"

"I'm not interested in you. I've already told you that." What was this girl, a stalker? Wait a second, given my behavior over the last week, I probably was in no position to criticize her for stalking. But I was doing it for a different reason, especially after Ji Yan's murder of Jiang Xue Yang last week. I had a perfectly justifiable reason.

"Just go out with me already! My La Noir family requires a powerful summoner like you to be their son-in-law!"

"Like h.e.l.l I'll marry into your family over such a superficial reason!"

"If you marry me, you can do whatever you want with me." Miura winked suggestively at me, but I glared at her in disgust.

"Have more self-respect for yourself, lady. And get it through your head that I am not interested in you."

"But…!"

Kufa cleared his throat. "Don't worry, Miura. Richard is only helping me in investigating Nan Gong Ji Yan for involvement in bloodsucking monsters."

"Oh, right…I heard that you accused her of being the murderer of Jiang Xue Yang last week." Miura then frowned and placed her hands on her hips. "Don't tell me…that was an excuse for you to stalk Nan Gong Ji Yan?!"

I really wanted to know what went on in the brain of this deluded young lady. Again, as beautiful as she was, I was turned off by her stalker-ish and possessive behavior. I honestly wished she would stop bothering me. She just wasn't my type – I could tell that she would be worth more trouble than I could handle.

"Look, I don't care if you don't believe me, but stop following me around." Turning in the direction of Xu Wu Cheng and Ji Yan, who were together again, I sighed. "And I guess I'll also stop following others around as well."

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