Chapter 10: A Broke Vampire
Frosty air and low pressure still lingered in the living room but fortunately, the two culprits seemed to have given up on the idea of starting a fight.
Hao Ren sighed and started to pick up the frozen blocks of tea cups (they also cracked due to the freezing temperatures). He looked at the tea table, which was destroyed and thought to himself.
“In life, 8 or 9 out of 10 people end up being unlucky. The remaining ones though, are actually even more unlucky…”
However, both Vivian and Lily were starting to believe what each other had to say. Well, maybe not completely but at least they had promised not to continue fighting. As long as the other party did not let the cat out of the bag, they would at least maintain a neutral stance.
This was the result of intense persuasion from Hao Ren which comprised of an hour long of facts, reasoning as well as appealing to one’s sense of justice. Hao Ren took up all the courage he had as the owner of the property and forced the two to patiently hear what each other had to say. Additionally, he tried to prove that what he said was the truth. Lily gave evidence that she did not threaten Hao Ren by calling Rollie out as a witness. She also showed Vivian that there were no trails of blood on her hands thus, Hao Ren was not cursed. Seeing that Lily was a bit silly, Vivian decided to trust her. To prove that she was able to curb her blood sucking tendencies, Vivian asked Hao Ren to take out a piece of blood tofu made from duck’s blood…
To be honest, Hao Ren felt that the way Vivian proved herself was not very convincing at all. Yet astonishingly, Lily believed Vivian after witnessing her display… Would you have believed something a silly person chose to believe?
In that temporary moment of peace, Hao Ren finally had the opportunity to ask what Vivian’s intention was for coming by in the morning. It was obvious that Vivian was shocked when she first saw him so it did not seem like she was looking for someone in the first place.
Vivian nodded and fished out a piece of colorful paper from her bag. “Well, I followed the address written on this paper. I’m looking for a room to rent.”
Sitting beside her, Lily was staring at the damaged tea table with a penitent look on her face. She immediately transformed into her werewolf form and her ears were upright, aware of her surroundings. A sense of foreboding flooded her!
Hao Ren was also stunned. Taking the piece of paper from Vivian, he realized it was cut out of a newspaper. It was the ad he posted up a couple of days ago! He had not been putting up the ad for the last six months but once he did business came knocking on his door!
However, why were all his potential tenants abnormal?!
“Erm…. This is the correct address.” Hao Ren had a weird expression on his face. He had no idea what went wrong in his life. He looked at Vivian from head to toe and surveyed her. “You came here to rent a room?”
“Yup.” Vivian answered whilst continuously nodding her head.
Hao Ren asked impetuously, “Of all places… why did you come to my place…”
Hao Ren actually meant why bizarre and abnormal things kept happening to him but Vivian misunderstood his point. She answered innocently, “It’s because your place is cheap and I have no money. I found out I could only afford the rent here after searching everywhere. I really don’t want to live in the deserted outskirts or cemeteries like I had in the past.”
Hao Ren had his mouth open, shocked at hearing about the vampire’s lifestyle.
“Aren’t vampires supposed to be dark lords of the night? Why is this vampire in front of me so different?”
“Yes, the rent here is definitely cheap. If you don’t mind the location being secluded, you can stay here,” Hao Ren nodded and answered. Unable to cry or laugh, living under the same roof with a vampire would make no difference as he already had a werewolf living there. He could not foresee the days ahead being average or normal. He let it be and allowed the vampire to stay. At least his life would be full of surprises. “However, I have to say something upfront. Both of you must stay out of trouble… Of course, I will not tell anyone about your true identities. I’m more afraid of you killing the eyewitnesses.”
Committing murder however was the least of Hao Ren’s worries. Both ladies in front of him were significantly different from what he had learned from stories. Ignoring the fact that they were the odd ones among their own race, the girls looked quite harmless.
As Hao Ren and Vivian were about to reach an agreement, Lily suddenly slammed the desk and stood up saying, “Wait! This winged rat will also be living here? Under the same roof?” The slowness of her reactions had no bounds…
BANG! Unable to withstand the pressure anymore, the cracked tea table finally gave way and collapsed onto the floor.
“You think I’m willing to live under the same roof with a beast?!” Vivian retaliated. She was also hot-tempered. However, remembering her promise to agree to a truce, she did not emanate any cold air. “If I wasn’t broke, I would have never come here!”
Hao Ren suddenly felt that rejecting Vivian might have been the right thing to do. He was definitely looking for trouble letting these two stay in the same house. It did not seem like they would be able to proceed with the truce with such tempers! Also, Hao Ren was not that desperate for income from the rent…
However, he had already agreed to it and changing his mind then would be inappropriate. He could only try comforting a sulking Lily. “It’s going to be alright. Vivian does not look like a bad person. And I’ve already agreed….. Let her stay here for the time being… Argh… No! I am the owner of this house, this is my home! Why am I even discussing this with you?!”
Hao Ren finally remembered that it was his territory. When did those two girls become the owner?
He was starting to get confused due to the tension between the two ladies as well as the string of events that happened earlier.
Lily smiled bashfully, This was all different from the legends. The curious and easy going werewolf shrugged and bobbed her head. “The decision is yours to make. But I still dislike this winged beast.”
“That’s more like it.” Hao Ren nodded, hugging himself. He was planning in his mind how he was going to let his two abnormal tenants live under the same roof in harmony… Living in harmony was out of the question… preventing them from bringing the house down was more like it. He was already dreading a life full of chaos. If it was possible he would have liked to have the two of them out of his house. However, there were two problems. Firstly, although both girls seemed to be easy going, it was not a smart move to offend them. Asking them to leave without any valid reason could have caused problems and Hao Ren was not ready to risk it. Also, he knew that he was no match for either one of the two girls with superhuman powers. If his words failed him, he would have been completely lost and it would have been hard for him to back down.
Due to these two reasons, he concluded that it was impossible for a normal human being to bargain with two beasts!!
No matter how complicated things were, Hao Ren was determined. With his meager strength, he tried to think of a way to protect his somewhat ‘normal’ life, which was about to end. While he was in deep thought, there was a loud cry beside him.
“Oh, my purse!”
Vivian jumped up from the sofa; the elegance she carried majority of the time completely vanished. She had lost her purse.
“It must have happened last night… last night when I was knocked out by this bastard. I have no idea where my purse is!” Vivian rummaged through her bag. Finally, she glared at Lily and said, “You dumb mutt! That was all the living expenses I had left! Pay me back!”
Although slightly embarrassed, Lily turned away. “Do not put the blame on others for your own mistakes. It’s good that you can’t afford rent now. I won’t have to look at that dumb face of yours.”
Moments later however, she turned her head towards Vivian. “Maybe try having a look at the front door and the streets nearby? Perhaps you dropped it on the road.”
This proved that the silly werewolf was in fact kind.
“I flew a vast distance last night, in search for a place with bright moonlight to recover,” Vivian sobbed. “How would I know where I dropped it… my remaining living expenses. I’ve been saving for a long time… I’ve already lost my money four times this month… and that was the last of it!”
Hao Ren’s eyebrow twitched.
“How could this vampire be so unlucky?! What’s happened to this so called dark lord of the night?”
Nevertheless, it did not take long for Hao Ren to realize that it was actually a good thing. He did not need to worry about epic battles happening between the werewolf and the vampire in the future. He had a good and valid reason for Vivian to leave.
Maintaining peace was the way to go!
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