The night wind in the mass grave was bone-chilling, whistling through the tatters of his clothes and making his entire body shiver.
Xiao Yu pulled his neck deep into his collar, his rusty shovel feeling as heavy as a bar of lead. The distant howling of wolves made his heart skip beats. Green eyes flickered in the tall grass—Xiao Yu didn't dare look. He was terrified that if he met their gaze, his legs would turn to jelly and he'd never stand up again.
"Mia, stop acting dead back there. Can't you release some 'vampire aura' or something?" Xiao Yu hissed under his breath.
Mia clung to his belt with both hands, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. Her voice was trembling. "Xiao Yu... my legs are cramping, I can't move. Besides, I'm a vampire, not a ghost hunter! This place is terrifying..."
"Useless trash. You're technically a ghost yourself and you're scared of ghosts? You're just a walking stomach!" Xiao Yu cursed. In truth, his own palms were soaked in cold sweat, and his legs were shaking just as badly as hers.
He knelt on the ground, struggling with a stalk of [Ghost Grass]. The weed grew in a stone crevice, its roots gripping the earth with stubborn strength. Xiao Yu gritted his teeth and pulled. He didn't feel like he was weeding; he felt like he was in a tug-of-war with the planet itself. Behind him, Mia wasn't helping at all; instead, she was clutching his clothes so hard out of fear that she nearly strangled him.
"Let go! My pants... my pants are coming off!" Xiao Yu growled, veins popping on his forehead as his entire body shook.
"Get... up! Get up!"
With a sharp crack, the root snapped. Xiao Yu lost his balance and fell backward into a muddy pit. Mia didn't fare any better, falling flat on her back and whimpering, "Ow, my waist..."
Xiao Yu lay there gasping like a stranded fish for half a minute. "Damn it all... a few coins for this? This is going to be the death of me."
As he tried to scramble up, the mud beneath him suddenly gave way.
"Ah!"
Before he could react, Xiao Yu tumbled down a steep slope. Mia shrieked and tried to grab something, but ended up using Xiao Yu as a human cushion. The two of them rolled into a heap, slamming hard into a pile of foul-smelling junk.
"Ow... are you trying to crush me?" Xiao Yu rubbed his aching back and struck a flint. Tch! In the dim light, he saw piles of rotting rags and chewed-up bone fragments. It was a half-collapsed tunnel, smelling of ancient, moldy earth.
"Trespassers... DIE!"
A semi-transparent specter drifted out of the shadows, clutching a notched greatsword. His voice sounded like a rusty saw cutting wood—grating and hideous.
"Holy mother of...!" Xiao Yu's scalp went numb. His first instinct was to run. But his body was pathetic; a normal person would have bolted, yet his legs just shook uncontrollably. He could only shuffle in place as the ghost drifted closer.
Mia, who had been a "damsel in distress" a moment ago, now hissed like a frightened cat. She hid behind Xiao Yu, poking half her head out and baring her fangs. "D-don't come any closer! I am a high and mighty v-vampire..."
But before she could finish, her fangs refused to fully extend because she was so terrified. Instead, the effort made her gums ache.
Xiao Yu's dead-fish eyes scanned the rat bones at the ghost's feet. His throat hitched. Gathering his courage, he pulled out the rock-hard black bread from his pocket and held it out.
"Uh... Old-timer, are you... hungry?"
The scene that followed left both Xiao Yu and Mia speechless.
The ghost, Roane, snatched the bread like a madman and began to "eat" it frantically. Mia watched from the side, her throat instinctively gulping.
"Xiao Yu... what is he doing? He's not actually swallowing it," Mia whispered. Her eyes were glued to the bread, thinking: If he's not eating it, can I have a bite?
Roane let out a hollow burp and a genuine smile spread across his old face. "Ha... Delicious. Damn delicious. Kid, you've got a good heart. Seriously. And you, little girl... a vampire falling this low? Life must be hard for you too."
Mia turned red. She wanted to snap back but had no confidence left. "Mind your own business. Once I recover my strength..."
Roane ignored her and sat down with a self-deprecating sigh, beginning to tell the story of how he starved to death in this rat hole. At the mention of "Alice," Roane's phantom form flickered violently.
Mia listened silently, her urge to complain vanishing. Even though she was useless, vampires were sensitive to "death-bed obsessions." Looking at Roane—starving but unable to eat, longing for home but unable to return—she didn't argue with Xiao Yu for once. She just quietly gripped his sleeve.
"Fine. If I make it out alive, I'll deliver the letter," Xiao Yu said, a rare look of seriousness in his dead-fish eyes as he took the necklace.
As if a mountain had been lifted from his shoulders, Roane's image began to fade rapidly.
"Kid... next time you come to a hellhole like this, bring two loaves of bread. No, bring chicken legs! Even if I can't eat 'em, just let me have one look at 'em..."
Xiao Yu picked up the ice-cold dagger, [Shadow Fang], and watched as Roane vanished. He brushed the dirt off his pants, looked at the black bread in his hand, and then at Mia, whose eyes were glowing green with hunger.
"Damn it. A hero ends up as a starving ghost anyway. I don't even have a chicken leg for myself, and I still have to feed a mouth like yours!"
Mia didn't talk back this time. She just stared at the bread in Xiao Yu's hand and whispered, "Xiao Yu... can I have half of that? My teeth... they really do feel soft."