On the weekend, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Tang Xiaoxiao got up from the bed, rubbed his messy hair, washed his face, put on a T-shirt and pants, sat in front of the computer, grabbed a bag of potato chips, and started a day's work.
Tang Xiaoxiao is an online writer who writes horror and supernatural novels for men. He has a five-year contract with Heiding Chinese website and has completed several long novels. Although he is not a top writer, he is also well-known. He earns a lot of money from subscriptions and rewards, but his life is reversed day and night. He writes until late at night, then lies down and wakes up in the afternoon of the next day.
Unfortunately, today's typing was not going so smoothly. The outline that I had thought of long ago encountered some minor problems and needed to be scrapped and started over again. Tang Xiaoxiao was in a very upset mood and the keyboard was clacking loudly.
Just when I was getting annoyed, there was a knock on the door.
"Who? I've paid the water and electricity bills!" Tang Xiaoxiao screamed at the top of his hoarse voice.
A calm male voice came from outside the door: "From the Public Security Bureau."
From the Public Security Bureau! Tang Xiaoxiao was so scared that he almost threw the keyboard away and began to reflect carefully on what he had written recently.
Is it because the supporting actresses in the recent chapters are too hot? Is it because I accidentally hit a red line that I am not allowed to write about? God and heaven are my conscience, he didn't write about the underworld, high-ranking officials, red and black, police and gangsters!
"What...what do you want to talk to me about?" Tang Xiaoxiao responded bravely.
"...Check the water meter." The man's voice outside the door was still so calm.
Damn, damn, damn, they are too lazy to even make an excuse, where does this arrogant police officer come from?
Tang Xiaoxiao walked over in slippers and opened the door. Two men were standing outside the hollow security door. Neither of them looked like police officers. They were dressed in plain clothes and had extremely good looks, just like the male supporting roles in online novels who were defeated by the ordinary male protagonists.
But upon closer inspection, one can see that their temperaments and auras are different from those of ordinary people. The one with slightly long hair looks fierce and strong, and he is not someone to be trifled with, while the other one is too calm and cold, and out of touch with reality.
Ye Qing showed his police ID through the hollow security door and politely asked if he could come in.
Tang Xiaoxiao nodded and let them in.
"It's like this, we read the novel you published--" Li Yuebai went straight to the point.
"Wow..." Tang Xiaoxiao was desperate, covered his face in pain, and howled: "Why! What did I write wrong again? Why don't you arrest that top-ranked "shooting planes to the sky" "Juju"? He writes all kinds of dirty jokes, why arrest me! I don't accept it, I want to appeal!"
"I'm not trying to arrest you." Li Yuebai didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and hurriedly comforted him, "I just need to consult you about some things in the novel."
Gu Xisha's face looked a bit fierce. In order to pretend to be like him, Li Yuebai made himself look ferocious a few days ago, but now he couldn't control himself.
"Isn't that just a euphemism for asking me out for tea?"
"Don't talk nonsense." Ye Qing handed over a piece of printed paper with an expressionless face.
It is filled with keywords.
Vampires, Countess Karnstein, maid Ampsha, retractable silver necklace, possession, mind control...
Tang Xiaoxiao took the paper and looked at it, not quite understanding what it said. He scratched his head and said, "Have I written all of these before?"
"You don't even remember it?"
"With my speed of updating 10,000 pages a day and having completed so many long novels, how can I remember so many...?" Tang Xiaoxiao protested.
"Then let me help you recall." Li Yuebai stood up and paced back and forth on the floor that had been swept for more than ten days. "Over the years, there have been many works about vampires, novels, movies, TV series, animations... In these works, the reproduction method of vampires is generally set to [first birth]."
The so-called first baptism is a classic setting - the vampire uses some complicated method to suck the blood of a human of his choice, and after the ceremony is completed, the human will become a vampire and join the blood clan.
However, there is no mention of the concept of "first possession" in Tang Xiaoxiao's novel.
In other works, vampires are immortal and always live in the world.
In Tang Xiaoxiao's novel, in the 16th century, vampires were defeated by hunters and hid in various objects and bricks in the form of dormant bodies. They fell into a long dormant period and disappeared from the world. They would only break out of their shells when the time was right and possess humans to coexist with them.
Exactly the same thing happened recently.
Not only that, every other aspect matches Tang Xiaoxiao's novel.
"So, why do you know so much?" Li Yuebai looked at the otaku writer in front of him puzzledly. No matter how he looked at him, he felt that this person had a simple mind and did not seem like a scheming person, let alone someone who knew any big secrets.
"Comrade police officer, we can't reveal creative secrets casually, right?" Tang Xiaoxiao shook his head and rolled his eyes: "I make a living from this. If I tell you all, wouldn't that be like destroying my own job?"
"Tang Xiaoxiao, don't be so frivolous." Li Yuebai changed his tone to a serious one: "Do you know why we are asking you this?"
"Why?"
"Recently, a murder occurred in the south of the city, and the murderer left a diary at the murder scene." Li Yue made up a lie without blinking: "The contents of the diary coincide with the contents of your novel, so you are a suspect."
"Hey!" Tang Xiaoxiao was startled and jumped three feet high: "You can't just accuse a good person. I have an alibi! I have the right to remain silent! I, I still need a lawyer to defend me!"
"The words written in the diary are the special terms in your novel." Ye Qing shook the paper.
"Then it could be that my readers committed the crime?" Tang Xiaoxiao argued. He himself felt unsure. His readers only watched the thrills and excitement. After reading the story, they might not even remember the name of the protagonist's father.
"Why don't you just tell me where your inspiration and settings come from?" Li Yuebai said, "It would save time and effort compared to hiring a lawyer, right?"
"Okay, okay!" Tang Xiaoxiao gritted his teeth and agreed.
He pulled out a thick notebook from the bookshelf and opened it. It was filled with ugly and sloppy handwriting that no one could recognize, mixed with many pictures, circles and dots.
"Vampire... vampire... that book seemed to have been started four years ago..." Tang Xiaoxiao flipped through the dirty pages of the notebook.
"What is this notebook?"
Tang Xiaoxiao explained unhappily, "It's my handwritten outline. I write down all the random thoughts I have before I start writing."
"It's not easy to recognize the characters." Li Yuebai praised sincerely.
"Got it!" Tang Xiaoxiao turned to a page and pointed at the dark words on it: "I remember it clearly. I found this setting from an ancient book at home!"
"Ancient books?" Li Yuebai and Ye Qing looked at each other.
"Yes, yes." Tang Xiaoxiao slapped his head and suddenly realized: "They were all taken from there! It's not my fault, it's the ancient book's fault! The murderer you are talking about must have read the ancient book!"
Writers are more or less obsessed with antiques. The ancient book that Tang Xiaoxiao mentioned was also well preserved. When it was taken out of the safe, it was wrapped in a layer of plastic paper to prevent oxidation.
After opening the plastic wrap, there was a blue silk paper book inside with three big characters written on it: "Blood Charm Examination".
Tang Xiaoxiao took out two pairs of disposable plastic gloves, handed them to Li Yuebai and Ye Qing, and reminded them: "Police comrades should protect the lives and property of the masses, right? So when you turn the pages, you must be careful and don't damage them. This is a book from the Ming Dynasty, it is precious."
"Ming Dynasty?" Li Yuebai opened it carefully and saw the reign title "Zhengde" written on the page.
Looking at the inscription again, it actually starts with a sentence: Portuguese Jesuit missionary...
The Society of Jesus was an organization of Christian missionaries at the time.
"Wow! This is amazing! It's an important evidence of cultural exchange between the East and the West." Li Yuebai was stunned. He often told his students in class that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Western European missionaries came to China to carry out a large amount of cultural exchanges. Among them was the famous Matteo Ricci, who co-authored many technical books in China with Ming Dynasty officials and scholars.
"That's right!" Tang Xiaoxiao said proudly: "This book was co-authored by our ancestors and Portuguese missionaries during the Ming Dynasty."
"How did your ancestors get to know the Portuguese missionaries?" Li Yuebai asked curiously.
"Ahem, my ancestors settled in Guangzhou, Guangdong. It's close to the sea and has been relatively open since the Ming Dynasty, so it's not uncommon to meet foreigners." Tang Xiaoxiao was full of pride: "My ancestor, Mr. Tang, was a scholar and a wild man. He never followed the old ways. At that time, he was a pioneer! After a while, he hooked up with foreigners."
The title of the book is "The Study of Blood Charm", and its content is of course the research on vampires.
According to Tang Xiaoxiao, his old man Tang was truly a romantic figure. Since childhood he had been interested in mysterious stories about ghosts and monsters such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Tang Legends, and Buddhist Past Events. After passing the exam to become a groom, he took a part-time job and had some spare money. He traveled around the country every day, inquiring about all kinds of ghost stories. He built a large library at home, which did not contain books about saints and sages, but only books about ghosts and monsters.
One day, he heard that several missionaries had arrived on a ship from the West and were planning to stay in the Ming Dynasty for a few years. They needed to talk to the scholars of the Ming Dynasty. However, those pedantic and orthodox scholars were unwilling to meet these red-haired and blue-eyed foreigners. Mr. Tang, on the contrary, became interested and went to meet them without saying a word. At first, they could not communicate with each other and had to rely on gestures. After eating, living and traveling together for a while, they were able to talk a little.
As time went by, their relationship deepened, and Master Tang had another evil idea. He thought, I have collected almost all the ghost books from the Ming Dynasty, so I wonder what kind of ghosts there are in the West? So he started to ask.
The missionary told him sternly that there is a leader of all demons named Satan, who is the source of all evil and must be criticized.
After listening to the story about Satan, Mr. Tang still didn't give up and asked other questions, but the missionary was very evasive and refused to say anything.
A few years later, the missionary who had a particularly close relationship with Mr. Tang was bitten by a poisonous insect while preaching in the countryside and fell ill. Mr. Tang was very worried when he saw that his friend was seriously ill. He quickly sent someone to bring him home to take good care of him, and he even stayed by his bedside to chat with him every day.
The missionary knew that he didn't have much time left, and was moved by Mr. Tang's care. After waking up from a coma, he finally revealed the secret, which was the secret about vampires.
When Mr. Tang heard this, he was greatly surprised and hurriedly copied it down by hand. He completed the book "The Study of Blood Charm" by dictation and transcription on his sickbed. Not long after the book was completed, the missionary passed away.
The content of this book was so bizarre and mysterious that Mr. Tang did not dare to circulate it widely. He only copied ten copies for himself and kept them for future generations.
Hundreds of years later, after wars, famines, and multiple book destruction disasters, most of the ten copies of "The Blood Charm" were lost. Only this one miraculously escaped and remained in Tang Xiaoxiao's hands.
"I wanted to write a cool vampire-themed novel, but I found all the information I looked up was the same and boring." Tang Xiaoxiao said, "So I looked up the book left by my ancestors and checked the contents. Wow! It was really exciting. I didn't read it carefully, so I used all the settings in it."
"We need to take this book back to the bureau and study it carefully." Li Yuebai said, "We will return the original copy to you afterwards."
"This..." Tang Xiaoxiao looked embarrassed.
"You can pay the rent." Ye Qing said.
Tang Xiaoxiao immediately took out the card machine with both hands.