Chapter 351 – Your Blood Is So Sweet – An Accident Within the Plan (17)
A prince’s insignia could never be faked. Only then did the few vampires finally believe that the rumors in the city were someone’s deliberate attempt to frame His Highness the Prince.
They knelt again, begging Bai Tang to forgive them for doubting His Highness.
“Q-Quick, get up~”
The little squirrel was being teased by Trey to the point of helplessness, his voice carrying a hint of alluring sweetness.
Just as the vampires, feeling that the prince’s voice sounded odd, lifted their heads, before they could see clearly, Trey had already swept Bai Tang into his arms and whisked him away like the wind.
The group looked at each other, then toward the second floor. Butler Norman coughed a few times, drawing everyone’s attention back.
“At the moment, there is something I need you all to take care of…” Butler Norman said to the vampires.
…
A few more days passed in the blink of an eye. Feeling the time had finally come, the Pope wrote to Edith, instructing her to make a move—either lure Trey away or bring Bai Tang out.
Edith was unwilling to aid such villainy. If the Pope truly succeeded and took control of the royal authority, who knew what this country would become?
She really did not want to think about it, but reality left her no room to avoid the matter.
The Pope waited several days, yet Edith took no action.
Seeing that the king’s condition was worsening by the day, the Pope could no longer sit still and decided to intervene personally.
He no longer demanded that Edith bring Bai Tang out. Instead, he wanted her to simply lure Trey away.
Edith relayed the Pope’s order to Bai Tang and the others.
The Holy Court did not yet have the power to take Bai Tang by force. The only one capable of doing so was Duke Adams. As long as Trey was lured away, without the Lightsaber, Duke Adams would have no more scruples.
“I can pretend to be sent away by you. Tang Tang can stay in the castle’s secret passage and not come out. Once you ‘go missing,’ Duke Adams won’t find him, the Pope won’t find him, and since they barely trust each other to begin with, they’ll definitely turn on each other like dogs…”
Trey moved Bai Tang’s bed and other daily necessities he was used to into the secret chamber. Everything that had happened so far was developing exactly as they expected.
However, not all plans can be carried out flawlessly.
Just when Bai Tang and the others were expecting to watch the dramatic fallout between Duke Adams and the Pope, an unexpected accident occurred on the Pope’s end.
The Pope no longer trusted Edith.
Yes—Edith had stayed in the vampire prince’s castle for quite some time, and her relationship with Trey was quite good. There was no guarantee that she wouldn’t be swayed by him. When she had replied earlier, the Pope could still believe she hadn’t defected yet, but the moment she disobeyed the order to lure Trey away, suspicion toward her began to grow.
And once the seed of doubt takes root, it is very hard to remove.
Edith wrote back to the Pope, stating that she would lure Trey away the next morning.
The Pope told her to proceed boldly.
Inside the castle, only the sleeping Bai Tang and Butler Norman remained.
Not long after Edith and Trey left the castle, Edith suddenly returned alone.
She went upstairs to the second floor and searched thoroughly. She found only Butler Norman sleeping in his coffin, but no sign of Bai Tang.
Unwilling to give up, she searched room by room.
As time passed, Edith grew increasingly anxious, and after checking each room, she no longer bothered to close the doors she had opened.
Inside the secret chamber, Bai Tang heard the noise and asked, “What’s going on up there? Why is it so loud?”
“Nothing much. A stranger broke in upstairs and is trying to find Tang Tang,” Qiu’er replied, his mouth stuffed with takoyaki.
“Looking for me?” Bai Tang was intrigued. “Could it be Duke Adams?”
Qiu’er swallowed hastily, and Xiao A patted his back to help him breathe. “No, no. Duke Adams hasn’t arrived yet. It’s someone from the Holy Court.”
Bai Tang remembered what Trey had said—right now, no one from the Holy Court had the strength to capture him. And all his belongings were upstairs; he couldn’t let them be grabbed by the Holy Court people.
“I’ll go take a look,” Bai Tang said, excited. He opened the secret chamber door and dashed out.
“Tang Tang… cough cough… Tang Tang…” Qiu’er shouted desperately inside the little white room, but he couldn’t stop Bai Tang’s footsteps.
Bai Tang thump-thump-thump ran up the stairs and soon spotted the intruder moving through the rooms on the third floor.
His eyes widened as he stared at that familiar silhouette. “Edith?”
“Host, that’s not Edith,” Xiao A explained. “It’s someone sent by the Pope pretending to be her to lure you out.”
“This is fun~” Bai Tang grinned mischievously, rolling up his sleeves.
He manipulated the ornate candle chandelier, making it sway above the fake Edith.
Sure enough, the impostor was drawn by the movement. She looked up to see the massive chandelier swaying harder and harder, as if it might fall at any moment.
She instinctively stepped back—and just then, a thin vine silently curled under her foot. The moment she stepped on it, she lost her balance and fell backward.
Behind her was the staircase. She tumbled down with a series of thud thud thud sounds, her head knocking against each step, one after another. Even Bai Tang felt pain just listening to it.
The fake Edith tumbled all the way from the third floor to the first, landing face-down on the ground without moving.
“Did she die?” Bai Tang muttered. He only wanted to scare her—he didn’t actually want anyone dead.
He ran over and crouched beside the fake Edith.
Unexpectedly, she had only been pretending to faint. The moment he got close, she snapped her eyes open and threw a handful of white powder into Bai Tang’s unguarded face. After inhaling the powder, Bai Tang collapsed almost immediately.
The impostor rolled up Bai Tang’s sleeve and examined the prince’s insignia on his arm, only to be shocked—the mark didn’t match the one the Pope had shown her.
She had already been inside for quite a while; Trey was probably on his way back soon. She no longer had time to look for the real vampire prince.
Anyone who could appear in the prince’s castle had to be related to him somehow. She would bring him back first and deal with the rest later.
And just like that, Bai Tang was taken away by the Holy Court’s people.
When Trey and Edith returned, Trey instinctively went to look for Bai Tang.
Carrying the sugar figurine he bought at the market, he walked toward the secret passage. “Tang Tang, look what I got for you!”
No one responded inside the tunnel. When he entered the secret room, it was empty.
“Tang Tang…” He called several times, but Bai Tang wasn’t playing hide-and-seek.
He rushed out. Edith was washing her hands, preparing to make dinner.
“Why are you in such a hurry—did something happen?” Edith asked.
Trey anxiously said, “Have you seen Tang Tang?”
“No, isn’t he supposed to be in the secret room? …Huh? He’s gone? Could he be upstairs?”
They ran upstairs at once. Trey first checked Bai Tang’s room—empty.
The two of them repeated exactly what the fake Edith had done that afternoon, searching room by room, yet there was still no trace of Bai Tang anywhere.
With no other choice, they had to wake Butler Norman ahead of schedule.
“You’re saying His Highness the Prince is missing?” Butler Norman’s face darkened.
He had entrusted His Highness to that pretty boy, and this was how the pretty boy took care of him?
But now wasn’t the time to argue about responsibility. The most important thing was finding Bai Tang.
Butler Norman summoned a swarm of little bats and sent them out to search.
Trey waited anxiously in the castle— the more he thought, the more panicked he became.
Tang Tang was so timid; he must be terrified. And it was already evening—he hadn’t eaten yet. He must be starving. And when Tang Tang got hungry, he always felt dizzy…
Trey’s imagination spiraled: Bai Tang captured by enemies, locked in a water dungeon, his body covered in whip marks, his voice hoarse from crying, calling out why Trey hadn’t come to save him.
“Tang Tang!” Trey suddenly stood up, startling Edith.
“Tang Tang hasn’t come back yet… let’s wait a little longer,” Edith said, though she herself was just as uneasy. If Bai Tang was harmed because she had lured Trey away, she would never forgive herself.
“You two stay here. I’m going out to look for Tang Tang.” Trey couldn’t sit still any longer. Just imagining Tang Tang suffering somewhere felt like being cut to pieces by a knife.
He returned to the secret room to grab his sword—only for a slip of paper to flutter to the ground.
He picked it up. On it was written in Chinese: “Bai Tang is in the Holy Court’s water dungeon. Come quickly.”
Chinese wasn’t the language of this country; no one here used that script. Yet Trey understood perfectly.
Holding his sword, he went downstairs to Butler Norman and Edith. “Tang Tang has been taken by the Pope.”
The Pope wanted the vampire prince’s heart, so his suspicion was no less than Duke Adams’.
Butler Norman asked, “How do you know?”
Trey showed them the paper. Butler Norman and Edith couldn’t read it.
“I’ll go to the Holy Court. Butler Norman, please check whether Tang Tang is in Duke Adams’ hands.”
Both sides were suspects—Trey wouldn’t abandon investigating either of them over a single note.
“I’m going too. You’ve already been expelled from the Holy Court—under what identity can you return? But I’m different. I’m the Holy Maiden. If I appear in the Holy Court, it will be perfectly justifiable.”
Edith then turned to Butler Norman. “Don’t worry. If Tang Tang really is in the Holy Court, I will definitely bring him out.”
Trey and Edith rushed back to the Holy Court overnight. When they arrived outside the gates, Edith said to Trey, “I’ll go in first and take a look. You stay outside and don’t move. Let me assess the situation.”
After saying this, Edith dismounted and walked into the Holy Court.
Within the Holy Court, Edith still commanded great respect. Everyone she passed along the hallways saluted her.
However, she soon noticed something strange—most of the guards were unfamiliar faces. The guards she had been familiar with were nowhere to be seen.
She casually stopped a passing maid and asked, “Why are there so many new guards in the Holy Court? Are they new recruits? Where are the previous ones?”
Although Edith had been away from the Holy Court for a long time, everyone simply assumed that the Pope had assigned her a secret mission. This kind of situation had happened before—when the Holy Maiden left, she was often gone for months.
The maid replied, “Your Holiness, you’ve been away so long, so you may not know—these guards were all appointed by the Pope. You see how brightly lit the Holy Court is tonight, and the guards are triple the usual number? It’s because the Pope captured the vampire prince. Soon we’ll be able to eradicate the vampires and bring peace to the common people.”
The maid spoke excitedly, as if the vampire race had already been wiped out and no blood clans remained in the world.
Author’s Note:
Good night, my dears~ 🌙