This time when they reach the National Parks and Rec building, Xiao XingChen greets them after they park Lan Zhan's car.

He bows in greeting, but doesn't say much.

Wei Ying realises that this is another quiet person, not prone to using extraneous words. And from what his grandmother had told him, about his lost partner, Wei Ying felt sorry for him. He couldn't imagine being separated from Lan Zhan at all, nevermind however many years Xiao XingChen had been apart from Song Lan.

Had they even discussed being together? What if they never had that chance? What if they were about to confess, maybe on the cusp of being together, when Song Lan suddenly disappeared, and now Xiao XingChen is simply waiting for him?

What had even happened to Song Lan?

So many people had simply disappeared, leaving people confused and bereft after the fact, and then there was that niggling feeling of the Wens being involved somehow.

Of course, this was just conjecture on Wei Ying's part, but he couldn't help feeling bad for the man clad in white, mourning clothes in Eastern countries, in front of them.

When they passed by their usual floor number, Lan Zhan's grip tightened on his hand, and Wei Ying looked up to see a kind of glaring match between him and Xiao XingChen in the polished surface of the metal elevator door, definite hostility in both their eyes.

Wei Ying tugs on his hand, mostly to get his attention, and to stop Lan Zhan doing that.

He knew Lan Zhan wasn't as accepting of these new people in their life as Wei Ying was, he certainly wasn't going to be okay with the person he saw as kidnapping Wei Ying previously.

No matter that Wei Ying had gone with him willingly, it only made matters worse when Lan Zhan found out what Xiao XingChen had said to get Wei Ying to actually go with him.

But Wei Ying wasn't suddenly going to let go of that trusting part of himself. There was a difference between being ignorant of danger, simply trusting people blindly, and knowing that he could get hurt, have his trust torn to shreds, and still go on thinking the best of the people he just met.

So far, that innocent trusting side of him hadn't led him astray yet, even if the jury was still out on the issue of Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

It was this relationship which bothered him the most up till now. Wei Ying really didn't want to believe that the Wen Siblings were bad, that they had ulterior motives when it came to him. That shit was gonna hurt so bad, if it came out that Wen Qing was using him.

And there was no way that Wen Ning didn't know what his own sister was up to.

Only time could tell what was going on with them and Wen Rouhan.

The smooth, hardly there jolt of machinery sliding to a halt snapped Wei Ying's attention back to the present, and a concerned Lan Zhan gazing back at him.

"Mn?" It was barely a whisper as they followed Xiao XingChen out of the metal box.

But Wei Ying forgot everything when faced with the golden doors right in front of them.

The coat of arms on his locket was here, as well, and Wei Ying's fingers reached to hold onto the warmed metal around his neck, cradled against his skin.

Where had it come from?

What was the connection between it, himself and this extended family?

The doors open from the inside, and his grandmother is standing there, as smart as ever.

Wei Ying has never seen someone look so good in an ordinary dress. It's a deep forest green silk, soft and draping on her petite form, bringing out the silver flecks in her grey eyes. Her hair is held up by a jade pin with a flower dangling from one end on a silver chain. She looks elegant, refined and like a member of the gentry, and not at all like someone who could drink like a sailor.

But even more astonishing is this room.

There are wide golden discs in strategic places, lighting up all the otherwise darker parts of this room, which is all scarlet and gold, with oak shelving from top to bottom. And there are levels.

It is a library, and yet Wei Ying feels bad calling the place something so ordinary.

It is a place worthy of scholars, Kings and the Great thinkers of the past. It's so bright and colourful, such an interesting place to see, and be in.

As Wei Ying's gaze lifts up towards the ceiling, he sees rows and rows of shelves, all brimming with books and in some cases, scrolls and artifacts, presumably from times gone by. The upper levels have thin metal railings preventing the peruser from falling if ever they were so caught up in reading that they forgot themselves.

It's a circular room, which leads into another open round room, where comfy looking chairs are waiting for them in the centre of the room. There's no open fire, presumably because of the risk of damaging what is essentially dry tinder everywhere, and yet it's very cosy.

There's a large table on one side, with a vase of fresh flowers, and more golden discs lighting up the room. Parchment, oil, wood...these are just some of the tantalising scents surrounding them, and Wei Ying is brimming with wonder.

When he catches his grandmother's eye, and sees the smug, proud look on her face, he can't help but smile back in delight.

"Wow!" He mouths it back to her, as if he might disturb the ghost of past librarians and invoke their wrath by speaking louder than a whisper.

It's like watering a flower.

Baoshan Sanren positively glows, beaming with joy.

"I thought you might like this place."

"That's an understatement." Wei Ying bounces up to her, dragging Lan Zhan along with him. "Where did you even get this many books from?"

"Accumulated over the decades. This is hundreds of years worth of knowledge, and only what I thought we would need to fight the current problem. Our library back in Yiling is at least five times this size. As I said, information is power." She looks even more pleased with his wide eyes still taking everything in.

There's just so much to see, though.

Even Lan Zhan is shocked into silence.

"Is that natural light?" He asks, gesturing towards the golden discs.

"No. A synthetic version to protect those unable to withstand the sunlight," she replies, leading them through the arched doorway into the warmer room.

Baoshan Sanren gestures towards the sofa, while she sits in the single armchair.

"How many floors down does this place have?" Wei Ying asks her, completely in awe.

"Enough that if ever we were attacked, we would survive a good few decades."

She's vague on purpose, not wanting to be cautious but having no choice about it.

After all, she's just met her grandson after so long, and though all the reports on him have come back clean, she has to think about all the additional lives at stake, if she's wrong.

It doesn't bear thinking about.

"Grandmother...I have a question for you." Wei Ying sounds uncertain.

He's such a wonderful boy. Baoshan Sanren is proud of him and the way he's turned out, in spite of his rocky beginning. And she's learning to cope with the stabbing pain of remembering that her daughter is dead, every time Wei Ying tilts his head just so, or taps his nose when he's thinking deeply.

There are other signs too, things that remind her of what she's lost.

It's in the way he sits, and the way he picks up his chopsticks.

"What is it?" She distracts herself from the bittersweet nostalgia, the memories of her loved ones, threatening to consume her.

"Where did this come from?" Wei Ying is holding the precious locket between the first finger and thumb of his right hand, one brow raised. "It's just that I keep seeing this coat of arms everywhere here, and then there's the crest on the back. What do these mean?"

Baoshan Sanren mourns the loss of time, the years that have vanished in between her grandchild missing, and being here now. So much time lost, when he could have been growing up knowing all of this already.

It was his heritage, after all.

"Your grandfather, he was a highly intelligent man, even at that time. He was constantly two steps ahead of his peers, thinking about the possibilities of several outcomes beforehand, and hardly anything caught him off guard. After he turned, and after we became pregnant, he understood what was happening to him, and myself better than I ever did. There is a connection between vampires and animals, and when we give in to our most basic instincts, it's possible to forget ourselves. It leads to a frenzy of killing until the vampire affected starts to feed on himself out of desperation.

"He discovered that the need, the thirst for blood, only gets stronger the more one feeds, until the vampire is mad with it. When Wen Mao began to go crazy with bloodlust, your grandfather started investigating ways to prevent that. He understood the delicate balance of Mother Nature and her Universe, and he thought this bloodlust was a way for Nature to protect her humans."

"That makes sense. What would the world be like if only vampires existed? No humans to feed from?" Wei Ying shuddered uncomfortably.

"Exactly. I know he was working on something top secret. He wouldn't even tell me what it was, and it's only recently I discovered he called it the HeartStone. From the way he used to talk, I used to think it was a preventative measure, but now, I think it's more of a failsafe," she continues.

"Meaning?"

"Nature is all about balance, right? And since we are a product of evolution, that doesn't make us unnatural, and yet every single species has a nemesis. A way to control their numbers, the bigger predator, if you will. But regarding vampires, if we are the Apex predator, who will or what will keep us balanced?"

"Are you saying Grandfather thought of a way? To destroy vampires?" Wei Ying is leaning forward, beyond interested in this.

"I think so. Until now, I thought beheading was the only way, but the more I read, the more my theory makes sense." She stood up to pick up an old manuscript and carefully placed it in front of them on the small table.

The papers were crumbling on the uneven edges, coloured like someone had dunked the pages into strong tea and let them dry. The brushstrokes however, were dark and clear.

"What language is that?" Lan Zhan asked, now also leaning forward to take a better look.

"And grandmother, shouldn't we be wearing gloves?" Wei Ying is holding himself back just barely. He wants to read whatever it says, and fast.

He's not even sure what is propelling his urgency in this, but it's like he has a ticking clock in his head, and it's going fast.

"No. Studies have shown that latex does more damage than natural oils on skin. Just be careful when handling them." She looks at Lan Zhan, then. "It's ancient Chinese, and it's in a code my husband developed, just in case these notes got into the wrong hands. And in case you're wondering, we have blood wards on all the entrances. Your DNA has been added to the security measures. However, if someone was forcing you here in any capacity, they would not get past the car park." She looks smug about that.

"Activation of this device will happen automatically once the item has returned. The owner will be able to control the degrees of the dead, depending on the gestation period." Wei Ying reads off the papers in front of him.

When he looks up, both his grandmother and his boyfriend are staring at him like he's suddenly grown another head.

"Er...what?" He blushes, wondering why they look so shocked. "Oh. When you said code, did you mean these?" He's shocked, too.

"Yes."

"Mn. Wei Ying can read this?" Lan Zhan is astonished as much as he is proud.

"Well, yeah...?" Wei Ying's finger drifts over the characters he's just read out.

His grandmother is trying hard not to cry, though whether she can or not is the real question, and she's biting her lip hard.

When she recovers, she swallows with difficulty and busies herself with making tea. There's an electric kettle on the side table with a pot of honey and two stacks of four matching teacups.

Only when the tea has steeped adequately does she turn around with a tray in her hands, having composed herself.

Lan Zhan rises to take it from her. He pours it out into three cups, distributing them to each person.

"I've spent the best part of my life trying to decipher those characters. And you just read it out like poetry. I'm shocked, that's all. How is it possible?" She says this to Wei Ying.

Wei Ying feels uncomfortable with this kind of attention on him.

He squirms in his seat, not looking at either of them. "I don't know," he mumbles, staring at his hands.

Lan Zhan reaches across to tangle their fingers together.

"Wei Ying is a genius," he says, with a small, proud smile.

"But Grandmother, it's easy." Wei Ying looks up when he sees her shaking her head.

"For you, maybe. And, oh wait!" She's up moving as fast as her thoughts, coming back with a stack of papers. "Can you read this? And this?" She selects particular parchment papers and places them in front of him, sporadically, as soon as Wei Ying reads the first line on every one.

"What?" Wei Ying is getting both embarrassed and annoyed with them.

"Wei Ying. That isn't normal. There are extra strokes on some characters and some missing on others. Even someone used to this kind of text would have difficulty reading it, let alone translating it on the fly and reading aloud, 'just like poetry'." Lan Zhan quotes Baoshan Sanren.

"So... that's a good thing, right?" Wei Ying asks them uncertainly.

"Not just good, that's fucking awesome!" His grandmother swears, and suddenly the unexpected comment dissipates any leftover tension.

Wei Ying smiles at that, tentatively at first, before his face transforms into a blinding, beaming of sunshine, lighting up his whole face.

Lan Zhan doesn't even want to blink, lest he misses a vital second of this view.

Wei Ying is so, so beautiful that something hurts him inside. His beauty is raw, and yet perfect and innocent.

He's so amazing, and Lan Zhan feels like the luckiest man on the planet. He gets to see this whenever it happens.

"I just don't understand how, though." His grandmother carries on speaking. "When I tell you that I have spent hours mulling over the possibilities, studying the nuances of text trying to figure out the code, and then whether it was Cantonese or Mandarin and then, which period. I was contacting the curators of the oldest museums around the world trying to make head or tails out of this...and you just come along and read it out, just like that. Well, if there were any doubts about your heritage before, they're gone now. Welcome to the family." She stands up to enfold Wei Ying in a bear hug.

"But Grandmother, that still doesn't explain this." Wei Ying leans back, going slightly cross-eyed from staring at the locket in his fingers. "For example, why is the crest raised but the coat of arms is engraved, like in the metal?"

"We should find the answer in his notes. If all three of us tackle this, we should be able to sort out what exactly your grandfather planned. You, write down everything he says," she points at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan nods, thinking about what a crazy turn this morning has taken.

"While Wei Ying reads, and you're writing it down, I'll start making piles. If we organise his notes into what's relevant and what isn't, we should get a clearer picture." Baoshan Sanren reaches into a drawer on the big table and fetches pens and blank sheets of writing paper.

She goes into the back room and brings back a huge box of papers wrapped in protective muslin, and when she goes back again, this time Lan Zhan goes after her. He helps her carry out another five boxes, so they have a total of six to organise.

"Start a new sheet every time he does." That's the only tip she gives them.

Wei Ying finds out why, pretty quickly.

"Omg, Grandma! Did you do this?" He accuses her.

They've already pushed back the furniture so they're sitting in a triangle on the rich, thick crimson carpet.

She has the good grace to look embarrassed.

Lan Zhan looks between the two, trying to figure out what he could possibly mean.

"In my defence, your grandfather wasn't the most organised person ever!" She protests, gesturing wildly at the boxes still to be unpacked.

"But surely, he would have stuck to one topic at a time!" Wei Ying says, running his hand through his hair in agitation. His red ribbon now sits upon his wrist, after Wei Ying accidentally ripped it off.

"Not necessarily!" She bites back, clearly guilty of messing them up.

"Meaning?"

Wei Ying looks at Lan Zhan in a huff. "Meaning, we're not only deciphering and translating, but at the end of all that, we're going to play sudoku with the different parts until we figure out what he's talking about."

"Well, you have to admit, it's a genius way of keeping the information safe." His grandmother replies with an unrepentant grin.

Yep, Wei Ying thinks. He couldn't argue with that.

************

A/N

Dear Lovely Readers,

We've just gone over 200K words already, and I'm so shocked! It certainly doesn't feel like that to me, hehe.

I hope you're all having fun so far. Still a bit to go yet.

Love you all and thank you for reading and sticking with me until now.

Charlie