The longer Hao Ren knew the vampire maiden, the more he found the girl to be a miracle of the cosmic's malice. The things that were happening in front of him further convinced him that.
While Vivian was extremely poor herself, the bat who dropped off her body had transcended and become rich. Her landlord, who was working for God already had a billion followers; even the menial whom she had given a broken piece of stone had garnered tons of gold and given birth to the Andrea Family. This girl was like a propitious ornament, if used properly, she could bring health and prosperity to others at the expense of herself.
Of course, this auspicious "ornament" seldom brought a positive effect. Most of the time, she was better at bringing bad luck to the people around her. Those close to her who had low bad-luck resistance would either lose money, choke while drinking, suffer toothaches after a sneeze and stuff like that. Even the Romans and Egyptians back then had something to say about this matter. Hao Ren felt that the people of Troy could have thrown a pan at this auspicious bat, who was working like a double agent back then.
Perhaps the Andrea Family had less resistance: they gained amazing wealth from the gifts left behind by Vivian, but they were tortured by a terrible evil spirit for a full 300 years. These 300 years of torment may have cost more than the value of a few tons of gold.
Lily patted Vivian's shoulders, not letting any chance of teasing the bat slip away. "Your clone is doing better than you are. Now even your teammates have surpassed you. I think that the greatest value of your existence is to serve as a foil to others."
"Is this a dimensional storage device?" Hao Ren came up and picked up the triangular gadget. He quickly swiped his fingers over the several ridgelines. Then the space opening closed. It seemed it still worked perfectly after so long.
The MDT flew over and studied the device. "Dimensional storage function is the correct words. But this module was only one of the three parts. The rest is in standby mode and will only work when in resonance with other devices. It's like a wireless device."
"Another stone..." Hao Ren looked up at Vivian. "Where is the other stone now?"
Vivian shrugged. "I don't know. Now I only know that my first minion had become the ancestor of the Andrea family, but the second minion, I don't know whether he's still alive or not. The other 'stone' looks differently from the one in your hand. It mightn't be able to bring wealth to its owner, the second minion was probably not as lucky was Andrea, he might have died in the snow of Siberia."
"Didn't you know that?" Hao Ren turned and looked at Igor, briefly telling about the two humans who were following Vivian in Siberia. "There were two people following the witch. Aside from your ancestor, there is another guy who had also received a 'stone'."
Hao Ren did not have high hope on it, until Igor actually nodded his head. "... There's a mysterious man living in St. Petersburg. He should be the descendant of the person you mentioned."
Hao Ren was somewhat surprised. "Mysterious man?"
"For three hundred years, the Andrea family had always had intermittent contact with another hermit family," Igor rubbed the button on his chest, which seemed to be a habitual gesture when he was thinking or nervous. "It's unclear what's circumstance of the other family. We don't know whether they are poor or wealthy. This intermittent contact has been a ritual passed down from our ancestors. We would normally exchange news about our current circumstances, such as whether the family members are healthy, whether some 'dark forces' has signs of getting out of control... Aside from that we didn't reveal much. The letters were usually sounded vague, and sometimes even we ourselves weren't very sure about the contents of the letter—this was to avoid triggering the curse of the evil spirit. At any one time, the other party would only send a representative to exchange letters with the Andrea family. All we know about the hermit family is also limited to that one person—a mysterious person that is."
"Isn't it troublesome?" Nangong Wuyue could not wrap her head around. "Why not come in direct contact? Since both of them are descendants of the minions of the witch, is it necessary to be so mysterious?"
"They're also plagued by another curse, perhaps it's related to the content of the curse," Igor said. "This was the habit of our ancestors. Although our respective ancestors had worked together three hundred years ago, since the terrible curse took effect, our ancestors chose to live isolated from each other, and their descendants didn't know why but still followed the tradition diligently. When there is an evil spirit hanging around, you got to be always careful."
Then Igor took a pile of letters out from another small room nearby. "These are the letters."
As the evil spirit in the castle had been expelled, Igor was no longer afraid of angering the evil forces.
The letters were well-preserved though some looked old. From the level of yellowing of the paper, it could almost tell the era from which it had come from. The oldest letters even had the coat of arms of the Catherine period. Hao Ren picked a letter randomly and read it but the words were hard-to-understand, obscure idioms and metaphors. "...Friends from afar, our situation is steady, the dark voice has never left but it has also never spread out from the nightmare to the outside. This year is more difficult than the previous years, as the wind in the North has an ominous vibe. Two of the family's juniors may not be able to survive this winter: their bodies are gradually becoming empty as an indescribable darkness is slowly replacing their souls. Maybe next month I can't say for sure if their skins would still be their own..."
Again, Hao Ren took another letter. It was written more than ten years ago and it seemed to have been sent from St. Petersburg. "... To my friend from afar, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Auguste, I will replace my father in keeping contact with you. My father has left this miserable world and the nightmare has finally left him. I hope that the dark forces will not continue to harrass his soul in the other world. My situation is a bit worse now as the hungry voice has started to sound during the day, but this may be because I'm not skilled enough..."
Hao Ren randomly picked several more and found that they were basically the same obscure and seemingly nonsense stuff. When mentioning about the evil spirits, these letters were very cautious, and tried not to reveal too much details of the circumstances they were in. Fears of the writers could be felt when reading between the lines. However, Hao Ren had felt that something was out of place. He asked Vivian. "How many vengeful spirits are there?
"One," Vivian pointed down. "The one we've just got."
Nangong Wuyue frowned. "If there is only one vengeful spirit, then what are haunting Ogyust's family?"
"Then we will find out when find him," Hao Ren held up the last letter which was written a few months ago. "At least we have his address. Find and ask him to return the stone. Igor, could you help contact him?"
Igor rubbed his hands with an embarrassing expression on his face. "Maybe I can write him a letter... apart from that I'm afraid not much I can help. Ogyust and I have been completely relying on this obscure communication method for more than ten years. We know little about each other's family, nor can we have deeper personal friendship: Due to the forbiddance handed down from the ancestors, our families have never met. But if the witch was to reveal her identity to him, I guess it might work."
However, Vivian thought otherwise. "Don't pin your hopes on this completely. He may not necessarily be the same as you..."
Nangong Sanba suddenly chimed in. "Wait a minute, I need to figure out something; Igor, haven't you said Ogyust is living in St. Petersburg? Is his full name not Ogyust Futoryak Rakikh?"
Igor nodded in surprise. "Yeah, how do you know?"
Wuyue looked at him, surprised. "Brother, you know this man?"
"It's a small world," Nangong grinned. "Ogyust, I helped him perform a soothing ritual three years ago. He was about fifty, a lone wolf, living in an old house on the outskirts of St. Petersburg."
Everyone were astonished. Igor also felt incredible but this turn of event. He asked eagerly about the other family which used to serve the witch. "How is the situation of the Rakikh family? Their family..."
"Family? They no longer have a family," Nangong Sanba shook his head. "Just as what Vivian was worried about, the other person is unlike you: Ogyust is an old man who lives alone in the countryside. He has no relatives nor friends. I didn't see anything related to the witch in his house. I am afraid the family has already come to an end. It's difficult to say whether he even knew of the witch."
Igor's eyes widened, and all his emotions turned into a long sigh.