Su Fan didn’t remember ever telling Carlisle anything about Victoria.
He was rather curious about how the other party had come to learn this information.
Carlisle, having lived for several hundred years as a vampire, could see the inquiry in Su Fan’s expression. He smiled slightly and began to explain.
“Su, you might not know very much about vampires. Apart from ordinary vampires like me who have no special traits, there are also some vampires who possess special abilities. In my family, there is one such person… It was through her ability that I learned you were hunting Victoria.”
Hearing this, Su Fan nodded, and at the same time, he did find some relevant information tucked away in a corner of his memory.
She seemed to be a short-haired female vampire.
After finishing his explanation, Carlisle continued with the previous topic.
“Victoria has now fled Washington State — she’s even left the United States.”
“She ran that far?”
Su Fan was quite surprised to hear this.
He knew Victoria was the most cowardly of them all, but he hadn’t expected the psychological shadow he’d left on her to be that deep.
Running out of Washington State wasn’t enough — she’d actually fled the country entirely.
“That’s right. According to our investigation, her destination should be Italy.”
“Does she have some kind of backer there?”
Victoria must have had her reasons for choosing that city.
For a simple escape, she could have picked any country in the world besides America — why go all the way to Italy?
The only explanation was that, in her mind, there was a force or individual there that could stand against Su Fan.
Whether it was seeking shelter or calling for reinforcements, it was the best choice.
“Calling it a backer isn’t quite accurate…”
Carlisle suddenly paused here.
Su Fan listened for a moment and understood — there were people coming and going outside.
“This isn’t something I can discuss here. It might involve other people…
Could we move to my current residence and talk in detail?”
“Showing up unannounced — won’t your family members treat me as food?”
Su Fan asked with a hint of amusement.
“Rest assured, they’ve been trained for a long time and can perfectly control the hunger their instincts produce.”
Thinking of his family, a warm and proud smile appeared on Carlisle’s face.
“They’re all good kids.”
“All right, I’ll come with you.”
—
Inside the hotel, Jacob pushed his father’s wheelchair toward the interior.
“Did you and him run into a brown bear last night?”
Billy, a man of few words, asked Jacob this.
“How should I put it… This is a bit complicated to explain…”
Jacob hesitated inwardly.
Although the man hadn’t formally accepted him as a disciple, Jacob felt that, based on what he’d learned that night alone, calling Su Fan “Master” was not an exaggeration at all.
Great power easily attracts the covetous attention of evildoers. If he couldn’t keep the secret, it could bring a whole series of troubles to Master Su Fan.
“Even I can’t be told? Hah.”
Old Billy was somewhat displeased.
“That’s not it either. I’ll explain the brown bear thing to you slowly later. More importantly, there’s something even bigger I want to tell you.”
“What is it?”
Billy instinctively glanced at his son.
Could he have awakened?
No — if he’d awakened, this set of clothes would definitely be gone. He clearly remembered Jacob had worn this exact outfit up the mountain yesterday.
“I’ve learned real martial arts.”
Jacob took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the corners of his mouth that kept curling upward, and announced this exciting news — exciting in his view, at least.
Billy, sitting in the wheelchair, felt nothing upon hearing this. Instead, he lowered his head and pressed a hand to his broad forehead.
Originally, their family had all been workers in traditional trades.
But that hit movie had boosted the town’s tourism, and for better development, they’d simply opened a hotel.
Business had indeed become prosperous, but troubles had followed.
The young people in the tribe, exposed to new things from the outside world, gradually cast aside the family’s true legends and traditions.
His son had no interest whatsoever in the tribe’s real history — and to make matters worse, he loved the flashy moves from TV and movies.
Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan — he’d collected a whole pile of their movie discs.
And in his free time, he liked to bounce around and jump all over the house.
They were werewolves!
After awakening, the giant wolves they transformed into could take down an adult male brown bear with ease!
Vampires — immensely strong, appearing and disappearing without a trace — were their prey too!
Ignoring their innate powerful bodies, he just had to obsess over that other stuff.
Werewolves in human form did possess strength and recovery abilities beyond ordinary people, but against vampires, it was completely insufficient.
Fighting vampires in human form with fists and feet was using one’s weaknesses to attack the enemy’s strengths.
Too foolish.
Just as he was about to say something, a commotion of playful roughhousing came from the hotel’s backyard not far away.
A group of men walked in, bare-chested and wearing only shorts.
They seemed to have just finished exercising — their whole bodies radiated heavy heat.
The cold wind outside seemed not to exist for them at all.
Jacob heard the commotion and felt instinctively annoyed.
Sam was his tribesman, but recently, for some unknown reason, he’d suddenly changed completely.
Starting with him, many others had gradually changed their appearance too.
Uniformly short hair, tattoos — like some gang of unknown origin.
Jacob felt a natural resistance toward this group.
But he still couldn’t help instinctively looking toward the sound — and unexpectedly saw his good friend among them.
Just a few days ago, that friend had been complaining that Sam’s group looked like a steroid-pumped muscle patrol. Yet in less than a week, he’d become one of them.
That tightly knit group dynamic made Jacob quite wary.
What method had Sam used to brainwash them?
At this thought, obvious hostility surfaced in Jacob’s eyes as he looked at Sam.
But Sam seemed completely at ease.
Behind him, Embry and Paul began whispering to each other.
“Looks like Billy still hasn’t told Jacob the truth.”
“No helping it. Nobody knows who’ll awaken the gene next. If people who haven’t awakened learn the truth, it’ll only cause the tribe members to grow distant from one another.”
“Awakening is a good thing. Protecting this land and ordinary humans from those neither-human-nor-ghost things is our responsibility and our honor.”
“That’s not what you were saying before.”
“Well, that was before I knew how great awakening is… Bro, super strength and transforming at will — that’s just too cool, okay?”
“Why don’t you let Jacob experience it? Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
At Paul’s suggestion, Embry’s eyes lit up, and he immediately looked toward Jacob.
“Hey, Jacob! How about we go to the backyard and spar a bit?”
