Lillian looked down at the pendant.

She said calmly, "These are my mother's belongings."

"Can you just give it to me?" Ai Cao asked her again to confirm.

Lillian nodded. She raised her hand and pointed to an inconspicuous corner on the roof.

Ai Cao followed her finger. There were several twisted black characters there that she hadn't noticed before. They were characters, but Ai Cao couldn't make out any particular character from the strokes.

They were just twisting together and clustered together.

The system exclaimed in surprise, "My code!"

Ai Cao raised an eyebrow. She calmly watched the words wriggle in the corner, and even had the composure to ask Lillian, "What is this?"

Lillian's eyes crinkled into a smile: "They used to be my mother."

"And now?" Ai Cao pressed.

Lillian's smile faded slightly. "They are just things now." She pointed to the pendants around her neck. "These two pendants are keepsakes from my mother—my mother is dead."

"Please accept my condolences?" said Ai Cao.

Lillian smiled. Outside the room, the sky gradually darkened as they talked.

Lillian glanced at the door and said, "We're going to the lord's castle."

"Okay." Ai Cao nodded. "How do we get there?"

Lillian glanced again at the small, somewhat dilapidated room.

She said, "We'll go to the village entrance and take a carriage to the lord's castle."

Lillian broke off a small handful of broom twigs and put them in her pocket. She then opened the stable door again and untied the ropes binding it—though the skinny horse was still quietly chewing hay in the corner, Lillian still said goodbye to it.

Then, she and Ai Cao walked out of the house, bidding farewell to the house—her past memories.

It was already getting dark.

The yellowish sky was shrouded in a layer of white smoke.

Although Lillian said she was going to the village entrance, there were only a few houses built far apart. There was no clear road; cart tracks and footprints had compacted some of the soil, all pointing to a crossroads with a road sign.

At the intersection, there was a carriage whose appearance seemed completely out of place.

The carriage was pulled by several strong, dark red horses.

Its carriage was entirely black. Several passersby bowed to it upon seeing it—while Lillian calmly looked at the carriage and said, "This is it."

Ai Cao weighed the size of the carriage in her hand and asked, "If you want to run now, I can help you run."

Lillian smiled: "On the lord's land, everyone belongs to him."

She only said that one sentence. She only mouthed the rest of the sentence.

I will leave.

Ai Cao breathed a sigh of relief. If she managed to get along well with Lillian, but Lillian had no intention of leaving, wouldn't she have been wasting her time and energy?

Besides, she couldn't just kidnap Lillian for her life.

If she doesn't change the future of this world, then no matter where she takes Lillian, Lillian will face the same inevitable fate.

That's why Artemisia chose to follow Lillian.

Lillian stood by the carriage. She looked up at the woman in black sitting in the front of the carriage.

“Hello.” She looked directly at the woman in black with a calm expression. “We are the new blood slaves.”

The woman in black held a riding crop in one hand, slightly raising herself. Judging from her appearance, she was not young. Beneath her dark eyes, where the pupils were invisible, were two lines etched with the marks of time.

“Blood slaves.” The woman in black smiled enigmatically and used her riding crop to lift the curtain for them. “Go inside and sit down. Don’t make a sound if you hear anything.”

Lillian bowed to the woman. She lifted her skirt and climbed onto the carriage, then, through the light coming through the gap in the curtain, she saw the faces of several unfamiliar young girls sitting in the carriage.

They are ordinary human beings.

Artemisia thought as she followed behind Lillian.

The girls' faces were almost bloodless. They huddled in a corner of the black carriage, staring wide-eyed at the two newcomers.

Their eyes were very light in color, but there was no light in them.

Artemisia couldn't help but glance at Lillian again.

Lillian turned her head, looked at her, and shook her head.

They silently entered the carriage and sat down in another corner.

The curtain was quickly drawn back down. All the light in the carriage was blocked out by the thin curtain.

A woman's voice came from outside: "Don't make a sound if you hear anything."

Ai Cao thought about what she said, but still didn't say anything like "I understand".

Lillian sat beside her, silent as she was.

Then came the sound of a whip tearing through the air. The horse's hooves pounded the mud, kicking up clumps of dirt.

The carriage lurched and jolted as it moved.

Since she couldn't chat with Lillian right now, Ai Cao simply asked the system, "Who was the woman driving the carriage just now?"

"You know?" the system blurted out.

"What do you know?" Ai Cao asked gently.

The system wished it could go back in time and slap itself a couple of times.

But having already let it slip, it decided to go all in and said, "She's a vampire hunter from a story."

Artemisia: "?"