What It’s Like Being a Vampire - Chapter 652

Chapter 652: Chapter 652: The Glasses Squad

In Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, within a stretched luxury car.

Xiao Pingguo held a tall glass, sipping the orange juice inside while she looked around curiously.

“Sister Nana, why are we riding such a nice luxury car for our mission?” Xiao Pingguo asked. They were in the car compartment chatting, isolated from the driver’s cab, so they wouldn’t be overheard.

In her view, going on a mission usually involves riding in a functional vehicle, right? Something like an off-road vehicle, armored vehicle, or a modified car filled with equipment. The vehicles she had ridden in with Sister Nana and Ice Sister on previous missions were those types of cars. The luxury limousine they were in today felt more suited for attending banquets or balls.

Tang Baona was also pouring soda into her tall glass and laughed, “Alice arranged it. She asked me if I had any specific requirements for our transportation. I said as long as it’s comfortable, so she arranged this car.”

“It seems like our mission this time isn’t too difficult.” Xiao Pingguo looked out of the car window and said.

“Exactly, or else they wouldn’t have let Old Three come along.” Tang Baona joked.

But after she said those words, the expected counterattack from Yang Lao San didn’t happen. So she looked at Yang Zhen Er, who was sitting opposite her. He was wearing a denim jacket with a cotton hood and sunglasses.

Yang Zhen Er had put on her jacket’s hood and wore her sunglasses. More than half of her face was covered, only her tight mouth was visible. At that moment, she was leaning forward in her comfortable seat, carefully looking at the mission plan on an IPad.

“Old Three? Old Three?” After calling out twice, Tang Baona raised her voice, “Zhen’er!!”

“Huh?” Yang Zhen Er finally responded, lifting her head and staring blankly at Tang Baona through her sunglasses.

“Zhen’er, why are you wearing sunglasses in the car? Are you trying to be cool? Also, why are you wearing a hood? Aren’t you hot?” Tang Baona laughed and said, “Did you get- influenced by Xiao Lingdang? but even Xiao Lingdang would only wear her hood when she needs to use her ‘little magic’, with you wearing it all the time, there will be no BUFF bonus for you during battles!”

Yang Zhen Er chuckled and tugged at the hood strings, saying, “Wearing a hood makes me feel secure. I can now understand why Xiao Lingdang always likes to wear clothing with hoods.”

Xiao Pingguo laughed and said, “Sister Zhen’er, Xiao Lingdang wears a hood because she wants to imitate a magic robe.”

“Yes yes, of course I know that. The magic robe has a hood, it feels safer, right?” Yang Zhen’er quickly said, “Just like wearing a helmet, heh heh.”

In the five-plus years that Xiang Kun has been gone, Yang Zhen Er has spent the most time with Liu Shiling, even more than she has spent with her own mother.

Normally, children are easily influenced by adults. However, in the case of Old Three and Little Fatty Girl, it is the reverse. Over the years, it’s actually Old Three who has been more influenced by Little Fatty Girl – she prefers clothing with hoods, whether it’s clothes, bags, or other items, she likes to buy things with a pattern of cats or birds, and her taste leans towards spicy and sugary, even the songs she likes are 99% the same.

Perhaps because their diet, schedule, and style are almost identical, as Little Fatty Girl has grown older, she and Yang Zhen Er began to look more alike. When they go out together, fewer people mistake them as mother and daughter, and more as siblings.

Of course, this kind of mutual influence doesn’t just happen between Little Fatty Girl and Yang Zhen Er– the other members also influence each other. For example, whether it’s Little Fatty Girl, Yang Zhen Er, Xiao Pingguo or Tang Baona, when a hidden scheme is exposed or they have something to flaunt, they all laugh in an “hehe” rhythm, imitating Alice’s laughter.

Suddenly, Tang Baona reached out and removed Yang Zhen Er’s sunglasses, stared into her eyes and said, “Old Three, are you nervous?”

Yang Zhen Er subconsciously said: “No! Why would I be nervous…”

Xiao Pingguo smiled and sat next to Yang Zhen Er, putting her arm around her shoulder: “It’s normal to be nervous the first time you go on a mission. When I had my first mission, I was more nervous than you are today, Sister Zhen’er. I made Jin Shanshan so anxious too, who kept hopping around. We almost had diarrhea.”

“Back then, I partnered with Ice Sister and didn’t want to hold her back. Guess what happened…hehe. Ice Sister told me that the ‘mutant’ we were up against was even weaker than Jin Shanshan and that Jin Shanshan alone could take it. It turned out that Jin Shanshan did go and fight it alone and won, though much of it was Xiao Luobo and Alice helping…So, Sister Zhen’er, these ‘mutants’ are generally weak. We have Xiao Luobo and Alice protecting us as doctor bodyguards, so we don’t need to worry at all. Very safe!”

“Yes! Very safe!” Alice’s clear voice predictably echoed through the car’s sound system.

In fact, Xiao Pingguo had long ago told everyone about her first mission. Little Fatty Girl even made a comic strip about “Jin Shanshan” helping her and Old Xia complete the mission. But she didn’t mention at the time how nervous she had been during the mission.

Tang Baona also took off her own glasses, replaced them with Yang Zhen Er’s sunglasses, raised her chin slightly in style, and held Yang Zhen Er’s head with a hand: “Don’t worry, Little Zhen Zhen, your Sister Nana will protect you!”

“Go away! I have also participated in the fight against the ‘Ultimate Predator’ in my dream, alright? At that time, I took all the monster attacks on myself! It’s just that Old Xia was unwilling to assign me a mission earlier, or else I’m sure my war records would not be worse than yours!” Yang Zhen Er retorted indignantly.

However, after being teased by Xiao Pingguo and Tang Baona, she was actually way less nervous than before.

Tang Baona tilted her sunglasses a bit and laughed at her friend: “When we encounter that old vampire later, Yang Lao San, you go and fight him alone. Xiao Pingguo and I will give you cover.”

“Ah?” Yang Zhen Er was taken aback, her mouth slightly open, and her hand instinctively reaching for the drawstring of her hoodie.

However, she soon realized that Nana was joking, so she pounced on her and pinched her stomach: “I’ll fight you one on one first! Take this, White Armor Fairy scratch!”

Xiao Pingguo quickly took the soda can next to Tang Baona, preventing it from being knocked over, then moved to the side, took out her phone, and began filming their “fight”.

Amid their playfulness, the limousine slowly came to a halt. The driver’s voice came from the intercom:

“Miss Tang, we have arrived at our destination.”

As soon as they heard this, the three immediately stopped their fights and gathered on one side, looking through the window at their mission’s destination—a bustling nightclub.

“I was expecting to see their castle when I heard from Alice that our target was an old European Vampire. Who’d have thought they would be hiding in the city?” said Xiao Pingguo, putting on her special glasses made by Xiang Kun and Alice, which helped to restore her vision.

She can now see like a normal person, but she still puts on these glasses when on a mission, or when she needed to enhance her special visual abilities and obtain more surrounding information. Even though the boost the glasses provided was limited, Xiao Pingguo, like Little Fatty Girl who wore a hood imagining it was a magic robe, felt cooler with these specially-made “glasses”, like a superhuman.

Yang Zhen Er and Tang Baona each put on their sunglasses and glasses respectively, making their “combat team” all coincidentally wear glasses, despite the glasses being of different types.

“I still think we should get a uniform combat suit, Nana, remember to mention it to Old Xia. Make sure it has a hood,” Yang Zhen Er said, tugging at her hoodie again as she got out of the car.

Tang Baona asked: “Why don’t you tell Old Xia yourself?”

“I have submitted a request…” Yang Zhen Er said helplessly.

Upon spotting the three of them alighting from the car, a towering blond man standing at the entrance of the nightclub quickly approached and bent over to talk to the leading lady, Tang Baona. In broken Chinese, he asked, “Are you Ms. Tang Xiaojie?”

“Please…” Seeing Tang Baona nod, he swiftly gestured the two ladies to proceed inside. The waiting queue of young men and women immediately began to hiss in disapproval. But a stern glare from the blond giant quickly silenced them.

The blond man turned around to Tang Baona and her companions once more, behaving with cautious reverence as he led them into the club.

Upon entering the main gate, instead of heading straight into the bustling dance area, they followed the blond giant through a side passage, winding their way down to the second underground floor.

The blond man stopped nervously in front of a deep underground passage, and whispered in English to Tang Baona,

“It’s down there, but I don’t have the key to that door.”

Tang Baona replied in English, “Understood. You can leave now.”

With a sigh of relief, the giant made a swift exit, not daring to look back.

Tang Baona retrieved a small flashlight from her coat pocket and continued her descent with Xiao Pingguo and Yang Zhen’er.

Xiao Pingguo was unfazed, but Yang Zhen’er’s heart was pounding in her chest. She held onto Xiao Pingguo’s arm, looking over her shoulder from time to time. By now they were two floors underground and could barely hear the club music from above, only the faint reverberations of the bass.

“So, this old vampire hides amongst so many people. Is it planning to suck everyone’s blood?” Xiao Pingguo whispered. Their task briefing from Alice had informed them that their target, the so-called “old vampire”, feeds on human blood and has claimed many lives over the past centuries.

“Very likely,” Tang Baona replied.

Yang Zhen’er tightened her grip on Xiao Pingguo’s arm.

When they reached a metal door, Tang Baona didn’t attempt to push the door or check the lock. Instead, she took a small pouch the size of a dumpling from her pocket and held it to the keyhole.

A dozen tiny tungsten steel balls poured out and burrowed into the keyhole. Seconds later, there was a soft click, and the metal door creaked open. Tang Baona walked in as the balls flew back into the pouch.

The staff showing them around, the need to use a “tool” to unlock the door below – it’s all written in the mission details provided by Alice, they just need to follow the instructions.

What lay beneath was a sloping passage flanked by places designed for holding torches, all of them now empty without a source of light.

Yang Zhen’er and Xiao Pingguo followed the beam of Tang Baona’s flashlight, observing the surroundings. This section appeared to be an old structure, built in a different style and from different materials compared to the floors above ground and the first two underground levels.

It seemed that the underground space and the nightclub were not built at the same time. Instead, the underground space existed first, with the nightclub constructed later.

Considering the task description of the “old vampire,” they couldn’t help but feel as though they were in an adventure game or a horror film. Even the bravest among them, Xiao Pingguo, subconsciously held her breath, treading lightly.

After navigating several bends, descending a few flights of stone stairs, and unlocking another door using the previous method, they entered a vast underground hall.

An enormous underground hall, large enough to contain two standard basketball courts, with a ceiling seven to eight meters high.

In the middle of the hall was a colossal stone coffin tailed by a dozen other smaller coffins connected to the central coffin by long, slender chutes. If not for Alice’s mission briefings mentioning “stone coffins,” they might have mistaken this arrangement for some age-old brewing equipment.

Tang Baona shone her flashlight inside the open coffins. They were all empty. Xiao Pingguo and Yang Zhen’er stayed close, looking around carefully without daring to touch anything.

After a full exploration, they gathered around the largest coffin in the middle.

“What do we do now?” Yang Zhen’er couldn’t help asking.

“Perhaps, we should try opening the biggest coffin. Our target is likely inside,” Tang Baona suggested.

“That doesn’t sound right…that wasn’t part of the mission, was it?” Yang Zhen’er hesitated.

Xiao Pingguo agreed. She tapped the side of her auxiliary glasses to display the mission details from Alice. “According to the mission, we should be ready to fight as soon as we enter the hall.”

Thus, the three began preparing for battle – each taking out the “super coin” that Xiang Kun had left for them.

However, after waiting about five to six minutes with no sign of movement, Xiao Pingguo suggested, “Should we just open the coffin…”

Tang Baona proposed, “Alright, let’s settle this with rock-paper-scissors. The loser opens it.”

Hence, the trio huddled together, the slender fingers of Tang Baona and Xiao Pingguo and a clenched fist of Yang Zhen’er appeared under the dim light of the miniature flashlight.

Yang Zhen’er paused for a moment. Looking at her own two unbent fingers, she suggested hesitantly, “Best two out of three?”

“Two out of three in a game of three? Go on, Yang Lao San, this is your first mission, enjoy the ‘privilege’ of summoning the monster!” Tang Baona replied, barely suppressing her laughter.

Xiao Pingguo also chimed in, “Don’t worry, Zhen’er. Nana and I have got your back. Trust us.”

Yang Zhen’er moved two steps towards the massive coffin with a solemn face before turning back to say, “Uh… I probably don’t have the strength to open this. Alice has more strength – should we get her to do it?”

No sooner had she finished speaking than an eerie, low-pitched noise filled the hall, sounding somewhere between a sob and a chuckle.

Yang Zhen’er yelped and leaped back as though startled, then quickly hid behind Tang Baona and Xiao Pingguo. Crouching low, she peered out from between them towards the coffin.

Amidst the strange, unearthly noises, the enormous central coffin slowly moved aside, revealing a nauseating stench. Tang Baona and the others instinctively covered their mouths and noses, stepping back.