High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 2714: Chapter 935: Because of Love

After drinking a cup of blood, a trace of color finally appeared on Nikita’s face.

Zheng Qing chewed on the blood-replenishing pill Thomas fed him, only to feel a bitter taste filling his mouth. He still remembered when he went shopping at the Great Ming Pavilion in his freshman year, because he used a blood ritual to forge a law book at the Shangyuan Bookstore, he experienced symptoms of excessive blood loss, and it was Thomas who had given him a blood-replenishing pill at that time.

But this time, he could no longer taste the same as last time, in every sense. If he had known that the patient and meticulous interviewer beside him would one day tie him to an experiment table for dissection, the choice of whether to come to the First University would suddenly have become an unknown.

Let’s just say the world is unpredictable, fate toys with people.

”Bring that thing over.” Thomas’s voice came from beside his ear.

The little female demon originally lying by Nikita’s bed immediately jumped up, darted into the darkness, and soon returned next to the owner of the laboratory, holding a plate.

Though lying on the experiment table, Zheng Qing could still feel the chilling aura emanating from the plate. From his angle, he could only see a fist-sized, snow-white block, resembling pig fat soap, on the plate.

He sensed the boy’s gaze.

Thomas very considerately lowered the plate slightly, making it clearer for Zheng Qing: ”This is a tissue I cultivated in the laboratory using your skin flakes...”

As he spoke, he slowly squeezed out the remaining half-pack of blood, dripping it onto the ’snow-white meat block’.

The piece of flesh immediately took on a tinge of crimson, and for a moment, Zheng Qing felt it almost came alive, as though he could hear the sound of its heartbeat thumping the next second.

But immediately, a foul odor permeated, as if the snow whiteness was doused with hot water, or like metal corroded by strong acid, quickly melting, blackening, and emanating wisps of visible black gas under the blood’s erosion.

”It really won’t work.”

Thomas sighed softly, looking at Zheng Qing, his tone carrying a tinge of apology: ”It seems only what’s taken directly from you is active...”

Ha!

On another experiment table, Nikita let out a clear laugh of ridicule.

”If you’re going to do something, do it thoroughly, that’s a basic requirement for a Black Wizard.” She obviously thought the laboratory owner was doing something unnecessary.

Thomas glanced at her, earnestly correcting: ”I’m not a Black Wizard.”

”Really?”

”Do you think abducting and kidnapping students from school, using their blood and flesh as a potion catalyst, conducting unauthorized black magic experiments, what do you call such behavior?”

The laboratory immediately fell into an eerie silence.

The little female demon and Zheng Qing rolled their eyes, glanced at Thomas, then at Nikita, and very obediently kept quiet.

After a while.

Until the snow-white block completely turned into a pile of black ash.

Thomas’s faint voice resurfaced.

”It’s love.”

He put away the cold tray, twisted open the blood-drawing instrument again, lowering his eyelids, speaking softly: ”Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your staff and your rod, they comfort me①... The time with you was always brilliant because the weather was good, because the weather was bad, because the weather was just right, every day was shimmering②.

So I still want to do more happy things with you— cheer while drinking beer at hunting tournaments, camp on the ice fields, looking up at the starry sky and auroras, eating strawberry mousse and small roast chickens, collecting yellow spring flowers by the river, stuffing those little flowers into fish bellies and frying them, paired with Sea Monster Langmu and soda—just imagining these scenes feels so beautiful.”

In the spacious and quiet laboratory, only Thomas’s muttering was audible.

Clearly, these were all trivial matters, yet he spoke of them with such happiness.

The little female demon listened with her eyes shining.

Nikita blushed crimson.

Zheng Qing, however, only felt his teeth ache and his heartache.

”Why did you join Starry Sky Academy?” He interrupted the atmosphere in a tone that was quite disruptive—in his impression, Starry Sky Academy was always a bunch of maniacs who only knew how to fight, someone like Thomas, so sentimental, even if not joining Jiuyou Academy, should have entered Alpha Academy.

Poof!

Following a forced interruption of the romance, the little female demon became furious, instantly transforming back into a large snake, hissing its tongue, glaring at the boy lying on the experiment table.

Zheng Qing sneered.

——If you dare, bite me.

Thomas’s mood was disturbed by the boy’s retort; he paused for a moment, then looked up at Nikita: ”... If I really intended to become a Black Wizard, I would conduct myself more like a true White Sorcerer than a White Sorcerer, I would quietly lie dormant, quietly conduct experiments, rather than abduct students for some past memories.”

The female demon lying on the experiment table turned her face away, avoiding Thomas’s gaze.

”You finally admitted doing something foolish,” she muttered softly, sounding rather unsure: ”I’m glad we finally agreed on this point.”

Zheng Qing couldn’t bear to see them like this in front of him.

”What about Gan Ning?”

He impolitely disrupted the delicate feel in the air again, casually asking: ”You did it for love, why did Gan Ning become a Crow? He was already a lecturer at the school, with a promising future, why risk being wanted by the Alliance, confined by Danghag to Black Prison, to become a Crow?”

He had pondered this question many times and discussed it with Xiao Xiao and others.

According to Xiao Xiao, Crow’s downfall was partly in pursuit of more formidable magic, and partly getting swept in after a misstep.

Thomas, however, didn’t give such a straightforward answer.

He administered another blood-replenishing pill to Zheng Qing.

”I wonder if you’ve heard the name Hilma af Klint.” The laboratory’s owner, while massaging Zheng Qing’s chest and limbs, turned his head, looking at a painting hanging above Nikita.

Zheng Qing followed his gaze.

It was an abstract egg tempera painting, showing several nested rings of various colors at the center of a red base, with the left side distinctly black and white, and the right side featuring sky blue, bright yellow, and pale red.

”Hilma was a witch from Scandinavia and a renowned master of mysticism. Her reputation as a witch was widely known even in the mortal world... Of course, the mortals all thought she had already perished in a tram accident in 1944.”

Only after thoroughly introducing the author of the painting did Thomas start analyzing it: ”Just like this painting ’The Swan’ ... Indeed, although it looks abstract, the painting truly is of a swan, a swan bending its neck to rest on the lake surface, its goose-yellow talons stirring the sky-blue water surface, with the red crown hidden under the black wings.”