Chapter 3

At the food stall where the assistant eats, I held the phone and sighed, "Sigh, after the young man at my last job woke up, his family let me go. I wanted to rest for a month before continuing work."

"Well, it's because his ancestors accumulated merit that the coma patient woke up. It doesn't have much to do with me."

"But I should thank them for letting me accumulate experience caring for coma patients."

"Mm, I bought a ticket home for the day after tomorrow."

The assistant sitting nearby listened with brightening eyes. When I mentioned buying tickets, the assistant patted my shoulder: "Miss, there's a caregiving job with a monthly salary of eighty thousand dollars. Would you consider it?"

——

That night, I followed the assistant and walked openly into the mansion. Because I told the assistant I'm allergic to sunlight, I could only work at night.

After the assistant reported to Mrs. Sinclair, she said she'd take me back for a trial first.

In the mansion's spacious European-style living room, Mrs. Sinclair sat upright on the sofa looking at me, smiling: "So young and already working as a caregiver?"

I nodded: "My family is poor. I dropped out of middle school and started working."

Mrs. Sinclair: "I saw your resume. You're very suitable. Can you start today? Three-day trial period, and if you pass we'll sign a long-term contract. We'll also pay for insurance and benefits."

As I was debating whether to tell her I don't need insurance and benefits, Mrs. Sinclair said, "Oh, don't worry. Even if you don't pass the trial, it's still 4,000 dollars per day."

No need to complicate things. I agreed immediately: "Okay, thank you, ma'am!"

On my first day, the other seven caregivers hadn't been found yet.

When I pushed open Ethan Sinclair's bedroom door, large swaths of moonlight poured in through his floor-to-ceiling windows. The gentle moonlight bathed him, making him look like Sleeping Beauty from a fairy tale waiting for a prince's kiss to wake him.

Mrs. Sinclair stood by Ethan Sinclair's bed, looking at her beloved son with tender expression: "Before my son got sick, he was a sunny, kind, good child. His father and I were too busy with business to take care of him, but he worked hard and got into the best medical school. Undergraduate, master's, PhD, plus residency—a full thirteen years. He was so busy studying and working he didn't even get a girlfriend."

Mrs. Sinclair turned to look at me. She was smiling: "Do you know what happened later that made my son end up like this?"

I shook my head, though my intuition told me it must be a very tragic story.

Mrs. Sinclair's expression was calm: "A young woman who had suffered domestic abuse asked my son to perform an abortion procedure for her. The surgery was successful. When my son was explaining post-operative precautions to the family and returning to his office, he was pushed down the stairs by that woman's husband."

Mrs. Sinclair said softly, "If there had been even the slightest error in the surgery, it would have been what my son deserved. But all the evaluations said there was nothing wrong with the procedure. After my son started working, he basically lived at the hospital, donating most of his salary to the hospital's relief fund. He wore those Crocs year-round, just putting cotton covers over them in winter. I often told him there was no need to suffer like that—our family didn't need that small doctor's salary. But my son just smiled and said, 'But I took an oath, Mom!'"

The muscles in Mrs. Sinclair's face trembled uncontrollably as she forcibly suppressed her emotions to keep from becoming hysterical: "My poor child, you pitied others, but who will pity you!"

Mrs. Sinclair cried.

A woman who could build such a successful business and care for her comatose son so well that he only looked asleep—how could she not know better than to share too much with a stranger?

It was just that she was in too much pain. Her heart had been ripped out, and she could only ease her pain through telling her story.

The assistant stepped forward, handed Mrs. Sinclair tissues, and gently patted her shoulder to comfort her.

After a while, Mrs. Sinclair finally composed herself again and looked up. She held my hand and said earnestly, "I'm sorry, Lily, for making you witness that. I'm entrusting my son to you."

Me: "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll take good care of Ethan."

That night when I drank Ethan Sinclair's blood, for the first time I tasted bitterness.

This is one of my abilities—the blood of people with different emotions has different flavors to me.

When happy, blood is sweet.

When sad, blood is bitter.

When angry, blood is spicy.

When afraid, blood tastes like wasabi...

This was also why I loved drinking Ethan Sinclair's blood. Other people's blood was either explosively spicy or unbearably wasabi-flavored. Rarely was there someone like Ethan Sinclair with such pure, original-flavored blood.

Hot, with that metallic taste—if you savor it carefully, there's even a sweet aftertaste. Baby loves it.

Ethan Sinclair, who usually had no emotional fluctuations, why did he taste bitter today?

I gently withdrew my fangs and said to Ethan Sinclair, "Ethan Sinclair, don't be sad. I'll take good care of you and help take care of your mother too."

I affectionately sniffed the wound on his neck: "Want me to kill that bad Grahamy for you?"

"For us vampires, killing someone is just a matter of one bite."

Ethan Sinclair's blood was still bitter.

Me: "Are you determined to cosplay bitter coffee tonight?"

My humor didn't get the laugh it deserved. The bitterness flowing from Ethan Sinclair's blood vessels just lightened a bit.

I stuck out my tonGrahame and gently licked the wound on his neck: "Not bad. It tastes like bitter coffee with a spoonful of sugar added. Hehe, this Chinese jiangshi finally got to drink American coffee."

I slipped my hand around Ethan's waist: "In a couple days, the cherry blossom grove by my grave will bloom. I'll take you to see it, okay?"

"Okay, thank you, baby." I lowered my voice, imitating a man's deep voice.

I looked up at Ethan Sinclair's profile, wondering what his voice sounded like.

"Ethan Sinclair, is your voice as pleasant as your blood?"

In the silent deep night, no one answered me.

0