Chapter 2

When Wangji regained consciousness, he found himself lying on the floor under the cross in the church, alone. His wounds had miraculously healed. And in his mouth he had the taste of iron. But he did not feel sick from this taste. Rather, it caused him a strong feeling of hunger!

With difficulty, he stood up and looked around. No one was there but him. Only a bowl stood next to him. And he didn't have to taste the red liquid in it to know what it was. He smelled the blood in the bowl as well as the dead in the marketplace. But how was that possible? Then it came back to him. The inquisitor was not a human! He is a bloodsucking vampire!

The longer the smell of the blood was in his nose, the hungrier he felt, until the hunger almost drove him insane. And without even noticing it, he had grabbed the bowl with the blood and drank the blood. When he realized it and saw the now empty bowl in his hands, he dropped it, shocked and disgusted.

The bowl was still rolling across the floor when Wangji heard footsteps approaching him. He panicked and ran to the door. But when he opened the door and stepped out into the sun, the sun burned like fire on his skin. "Come back inside boy!" He heard someone shout behind him. "Come on! Your skin can't take the sunlight yet. It'll take a few days. And even then, you have to be careful."

Wangji spun around and saw a strange man walking toward him. "Who are you?" He asked the man.

"My name is Wen Rouhan and believe me, I know exactly what you are going through. I went through this 147 years ago too."

"147 years ago? Then you're a demon like that inquisitor too?"

"Demon? Yes, maybe the term fits. But in general, we call ourselves vampires."

"We? Are you also part of this inquisitor?"

"No, I don't. I was talking about me and my sons."

"The blood in the bowl? Did you put that there for me?"

"Yes, I did."

"Can I have some more?"

"Later. You shouldn't drink too much at once. You are too young and have yet to learn to control your blood thirst. If you don't, you'll go into a blood lust and go wild."

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because I would have been happy if someone had helped me and my sons back then. I'm sorry we weren't here sooner and could have prevented this. We found out too late, unfortunately, that a vampire lord was here."

"Vampire Lord?"

"Mhm. That's what we call those who were not made vampires like us, but were born that way."

"He was born that way?"

"Yes. Well, that is, his mother was infected with the vampire venom when she was already pregnant and about to give birth to the child. The child was infected in the womb and was born a vampire. That's the theory, anyway."

"And that's why they're vampire lords?"

"They are different from us. When a human is turned into a vampire, they don't age any more. But vampire lords age until they are about 40 or 50 years old. I don't know why that is. It's just the way it is. They are also stronger than us. Some of them have special abilities like mind control, mind reading or the ability to see into the future. Others are able to inflict pain on you with a mere touch."

"How many vampires are there?"

"Nobody knows that. Only vampire lords can turn people. And they supposedly don't do it very often. But nobody knows how many vampire lords there are in the world and how many vampires they have created."

"Where are they from?"

"Nobody really knows that either. I honestly like the stories that they once came from the underworld as fallen Greek gods. It said, that had been people who worshiped them and even made sacrifices to them. But eventually there was no one left of the people and so the fallen gods roamed the land, creating Descendants of them here and there. Another story says that the first vampire came from Transylvania. He was a brutal butcher and was called Vlad the Impaler. Supposedly he lived in a castle with three wives. It was said that he drank the blood of people and became immortal. But I do not believe this story. Because, as we learned during our travels, he was killed in 1476, so he was younger than me."

"Can vampires be killed?"

"Yes, of course. But it's not easy. Vampires are fast, strong and hard to defeat. Only a stake to the heart or cutting off the head can kill a vampire and a vampire lord. But no vampire can kill itself. The creature that lurks within prevents that."

"Then I must become stronger! I want to kill this inquisitor!"

"You can get stronger by training a lot. And also if you drink the blood of another vampire and thus absorb the vampire's life force. But if you don't kill the vampire afterwards, it will recover quickly. Vampires heal almost immediately once they drink blood."

"Can you teach me how to kill vampires?"

"I can do that. But then you have to do what I tell you."

"I am ready for anything. The main thing is that I become strong enough to be able to kill this inquisitor!" Wangji replied. Wen Rouhan reached out to him and promised to prepare him for this fight.

They waited in the church until the sun had set. Wangji received 4 more bowls of blood from Wen Rouhan during this time. When night fell, Wangji followed his new mentor to his hiding place. They rode almost all night until they came to an inn where Wangji met Wen Rouhan's sons and after a few hours of sleep began his training.

While Wangji found it easy to learn swordplay and hand-to-hand combat, he had great difficulty controlling his thirst for blood. He was always hungry and had to be stopped several times by Wen Rouhan and his sons from simply pouncing on the nearest person and sucking their blood.

It took him 5 years of his immortal life to finally be able to completely control his blood thirst and even go days without blood. After these 5 years, he was even able to go weeks without blood, if he had drunk his fill. Wen Rouhan was proud of his student because he was even better than he could have ever expected.

After more than 100 years at the side of Wen Rouhan and his sons, Wangji went off on his own in 1600. Rumor said that wars were breaking out all over the world. And in order to become even better, even stronger, and even more experienced in battle, Wangji decided to participate in these wars. For the first time, he left his homeland.

He hired on a ship. He earned his sleeping place on the ship as a stoker. Even though he no longer had a problem being in the sunlight for a while, he preferred to be below deck and only spent time on the ship's deck at night. The work was hard. Even for someone like him, with an almost inexhaustible strength and energy.

His food on the weeks-long journey on the high sea consisted mainly of the blood of animals, which were also on board the ship. He only ever took enough blood from them to satisfy his hunger and keep his strength up. Fortunately for him, no one ever paid attention to whether or not he was eating with the rest of the ship's crew. No one cared about the stokers unless they had to shovel more coals into the oven.

After weeks of travel on the high seas, another 2 months followed on horseback or on foot through the country before he finally reached his first destination. He had used up all his savings on the trip and sometimes had to spend the night in nature, in the forest or in a field. But he did not mind. As a vampire, he was impervious to the various weather conditions.

When he joined an army as a mercenary, he didn't know what was in store for him. He was excited and eager to see what he would learn in this war. But when he stood on a battlefield for the first time, he first had other worries. For the smell of the blood of the wounded and dead, was so overpowering that he had difficulty concentrating. The creature deep inside him screamed and tugged at his chains as he tried to resist the smell of blood.

Only after a few days did he get himself under control enough to resist the smell of blood and concentrate on fighting. Which was just in time, when the biggest battle in this war began. For almost two days this battle had lasted. The field on which they fought was soaked with blood.

There had been thousands of dead and wounded. And many of those wounded died of their wounds from infections. The festering wounds stank so horribly that even Wangji lost his appetite. And some of them, he had to put out of their misery. They would have died anyway. He only helped them to end their agony.

For two years Wangji stayed and fought side by side with the soldiers. Then he moved on to the next battle with a bag full of money. As a mercenary, he was welcome everywhere. No matter on which side. He usually joined those of whom he knew that they could pay him well. Because even a vampire needs money!

He never stayed anywhere longer than two years. Because he had to prevent anyone from finding out his secret, why he didn't age. He also gave himself a new name after 15 years. He could not use Lan Wangji anymore, because this name was already too well known. He called himself Lan Zhan from then on.

On his many travels and the many battlefields, however, he learned not only how to fight, but also many new languages and customs. And he learned to help the wounded. To help them so that they could get well again. He was helped by the knowledge that he had received from his mother. He just had to remember what she had taught him.

When at some point he suddenly remembered all the wisdom and teachings of his mother, he was amazed that he had not thought of her or his father in all those years. Even when he was human, he rarely thought of them or his brother. But then when he became a vampire, he didn't think of them again until he happened to meet a Chinese healer and saw her treating an injured soldier.

All of a sudden he remembered again how his mother had imparted all her knowledge to him. Strangely, he found that he did not even feel regret because he had never learned what had become of his parents. However, he would have liked to know how his brother had lived and whether he had fathered more children with his wife.

After a total of 30 years and countless battles, Lan Zhan decided to take a break from fighting and travel the world. Above all, he wanted to acquire new knowledge about medicine and maybe he would find a place where he could stay and rest for a while.