VAP - Chapter 57
Chapter 57: The Supreme Sage Hopelessly Obsessed with Beauty (16)
“You’re in a bad mood,” Nai Yin said.
It sounded like a statement, yet also a question, and an unwitting joy trickled into her voice.
Yue Du could only respond with silence.
The two looked at each other in silence for a moment. Nai Yin seemed to have confirmed something, and her crimson lips slowly curved upward.
She tapped the armrest of her chair with the knuckle of her right index finger, then suddenly stood up.
The silver-trimmed cuff of her long, dark dress swayed, tracing a smooth arc in front of Yue Du as a pale hand opened toward her.
“Yue, come with me.”
Yue Du didn’t move. Half-serious, half-joking, she said, “What, planning to take me to your collection room?”
Nai Yin said earnestly, “Believe me, starting today, there will be no more collection room.”
After a moment’s thought, Yue Du placed her left hand in Nai Yin’s palm, and it was quickly and gently enclosed.
Nai Yin’s fingers were beautiful, the color of white porcelain. They were long and elegant, giving the illusion of a sculpture’s exquisite coldness, and only through touch could one feel how soft and supple they were.
For a rare moment, Yue Du’s mind wandered.
She wasn’t sure what exactly she had been thinking about, even after she came to her senses. All she knew was that by the time she did, her host had already led her to the collection room.
Though called a collection room, it was more of a museum. The entire two-story, spire-topped miniature castle served as a repository for all sorts of collectibles and had no other purpose.
“The first and second floors are for living creatures. Everything else is underground,” Nai Yin said, leading Yue Du inside.
Before them was a magnificent hall with wooden floors, connecting to corridors on the left and right.
A row of doors lined each side of the corridor, facing one another. Presumably, behind each door lay one or more collected items.
Yue Du closed her eyes. Her head was starting to ache.
“…So, why did you bring me here?”
“To look around. We’ll keep what you like and throw away what you don’t,” Nai Yin said matter-of-factly.
As she spoke, she pushed open the first door on the left.
The room contained only a single silver-wire cage, where several identical-looking, pale red birds perched on a branch. Hearing the door open, they merely lifted their eyelids before ignoring them completely.
After getting a clear look at these collectibles, Nai Yin shut the door even faster than she had opened it.
“The ones in this room don’t count.”
She cleared her throat, offering a forced explanation.
Yue Du recognized the bird. She had seen it in an illustrated guide in Miss Bifula’s collection just a couple of days ago.
It was a type of magical beast, beautiful-winged and highly intelligent, but not particularly powerful.
Yue Du blinked. Without asking why, she quietly watched her host’s little performance.
Nai Yin pushed open the second door. Inside, it seemed a miniature ecosystem had been created, with plants and animals complementing each other in a way that was very pleasing to the eye.
Nai Yin asked, “Do you like it?”
Yue Du: “It’s alright.”
Nai Yin said, “Oh,” then decided for herself, “So you don’t really like it. Let’s move on to the next room.”
With that, she snapped the door shut.
Yue Du: “…”
They proceeded to view the collections in the other rooms one by one. It had to be said that the creatures kept here were all worldly treasures, vibrant and beautiful.
There were magical beasts with iridescent fur, lying on patches of grass and letting out melodious calls.
There were carnivorous flora that fed on flesh, luring animals with their dreamlike appearance, filling an entire room with a captivating illusion of drifting, colorful petals.
Magnificent jellyfish drifted in pale blue water, strange fruits with human-like faces exuded a subtle fragrance, and giant magical butterflies with color-shifting wings danced gracefully for them.
Dancing gracefully…
Lord Nai Yin slammed the door shut once again.
Yue Du was no longer surprised. “What was the reason this time?”
“It dared to dance for you. Unforgivable,” Nai Yin said icily, looking as if she wanted to reopen the door and slice the butterfly to pieces.
Yue Du thought for a moment and realized that for this species of butterfly, a soft, rhythmic fluttering of the wings was a courtship display.
“Maybe it was for you.”
“Impossible! The last time I was here, it hovered motionlessly over a flower. This time, it clearly has designs on you.”
Yue Du didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What kind of designs could a butterfly have? Flap its wings and sprinkle dust on her?
Still, whatever Lord Nai Yin said was right. Yes, completely right.
Having finished the first floor, Nai Yin stopped before the spiral staircase.
“More than half of the second floor is humanoid species. Even if you like them, I won’t be keeping them.” Nai Yin paused, then asked hesitantly, “You wouldn’t take a fancy to them, would you?”
Yue Du, who had thus far only shown interest in a single potted plant, replied, “Perhaps.”
A sense of crisis instantly flared in Nai Yin. She grabbed her system and headed back the way they came.
The tour of the living was over; now it was time for the dead.
The underground level was like a natural ice cellar, with extremely low temperatures. Nai Yin, having come prepared, carefully draped a heavy cloak over her.
“I’m not cold.” With her fire ability, it was difficult to feel cold.
“Just looking at how lightly you’re dressed makes me feel cold.”
As she spoke, Nai Yin pressed close, intimately linking her arm with Yue Du’s. Her pale fingertips sank into the soft fur of the cloak.
“There, that’s better,” she announced with satisfaction.
Yue Du twitched her fingers but ultimately didn’t pull away.
The underground collection room was an ice vault. The “dead things” here weren’t originally inanimate objects, but humanoid creatures encased in a gelatinous magical potion.
They had long since lost all signs of life, leaving only perfectly preserved husks. Yet their eyes remained open, so vivid they seemed merely asleep, every detail perfectly rendered.
The corner of Yue Du’s mouth twitched. Her tone was heavy. “Host.”
Nai Yin: “Hm?”
“I knew you were twisted, but I didn’t know you were twisted to this degree.”
Yue Du was utterly dismayed.
A collector of human bodies! In any story, that’s the classic trademark of a villainous antagonist!
“…” Nai Yin said decisively, “Let’s go. We’ll get rid of all of this.”
She looked eager to move on from the topic.
Yue Du’s headache intensified. She suspected that the graceful beauty beside her was, in fact, a pure-bred deviant—the type to whisper, “Your eyes are so beautiful, I want to collect them,” in a moment of passion.
Yue Du felt an urge to recoil.
Wearily, she said, “Don’t just throw them out. At least give them a proper burial.”
Lord Nai Yin, who had collected these “human popsicles” for centuries, felt not the slightest pang of regret. “As you wish.”
How tragic.
What was even more tragic was Yue Du’s realization that even knowing Nai Yin had such a horrifying hobby, the wavering in her own heart didn’t diminish in the slightest.
Yue Du left the collection room in a daze, with Nai Yin following close behind, a nervous look on her face.
Tina was waiting outside. Seeing them, she bowed first before asking, “My lady, when shall we begin the cleanup?”
Nai Yin: “Now.”
“Send the common magical beasts and the bodies from the ice vault to auction, transplant the plants to the nearby garden, and escort the highly intelligent species out of the territory to leave as they please. Is that arrangement acceptable?”
“Bury the bodies. For the rest, do as you said,” Nai Yin replied casually, then turned to Yue Du. “That’s a better way to handle it, don’t you think?”
Yue Du silently handed the cloak back to her. “I don’t know anything.”
Then she turned to head back to her room. “I just remembered there’s an illustrated guide to magical beasts I haven’t finished. Excuse me.”
Nai Yin: “…”
Tina, reading the mood, asked, “And Sherry…?”
Nai Yin: “Send back half of what we received back then. Let her go complain to the Merman King for all I care; I don’t mind a war between our peoples. Is there anything else?”
Tina lowered her head respectfully. “Nothing else, my lady. Please, go ahead.”
Lord Nai Yin hurriedly chased after her system.
As she walked, she felt a certain bitterness, as if all her progress had been wiped out in an instant.
But no matter what, she couldn’t let Yue just walk away. She quickly caught up.
Yue Du glanced at her.
“All done with your business?”
“No, but Tina can handle it,” Nai Yin said.
Yue Du had the urge to sigh.
“Where did those collectibles come from?”
“The black market, and underground auctions.”
“I thought you made them yourself.”
“Using preservation potions and placing them in an ice vault are just the sellers’ methods for preserving them in their most vivid state. I have no interest in creating human sculptures,” Nai Yin solemnly declared.
Yue Du calmed down a little. “Is that so.”
Nai Yin nodded, her stunning features conveying absolute sincerity.
Yue Du: “So, you’re not going to pluck out my eyeballs for your collection?”
Nai Yin seized the opportunity to confess, “If your eyes were ever to appear anywhere besides your beautiful face, it would only be in my heart, as my treasured possession.”
Yue Du: “…”
Yue Du: “Right, I understand. I’m going to go read. Goodbye.”
With that, she quickened her pace and entered her room, leaving Lord Nai Yin outside, distraught and wishing she had never gone to the collection room at all.
She should have just thrown everything away from the start. All of it!
The matter of the collection room was settled for the time being. Sherry of the Sea Tribe apparently caused quite a stir for a while, but it wasn’t long before her father came to retrieve her.
“I am very sorry, Lord Galor,” the Merman King said when he came to collect his “fish.” “Sherry has always been willful, as you know.”
In the background, his daughter could be heard crying sorrowfully.
Nai Yin said coolly, “I hope you can keep a better eye on her. I am already spoken for.”
Sherry stopped crying. She widened her sea-blue eyes and asked, “You have a lover?”
Her father immediately pushed her head down. “Address her as ‘my lady’! You impolite girl, use the proper honorific!”
Even with her head being pushed down, Sherry stubbornly finished, “To have caught your eye, they must be very beautiful. May I meet him? Or her?”
Lord Nai Yin’s expression immediately darkened. “Tina.”
The chief attendant stepped forward with resignation. “The two of you, please leave.”
The mermaid princess was dragged away by her father with great effort, begging even as she left to meet the mysterious second master of Galor Castle.
“From now on, Sea Tribe are forbidden from entering my territory,” Nai Yin stressed. “Screen everyone strictly. Sea Tribe disguised as other races are especially forbidden.”
During afternoon tea, Nai Yin, her anger still simmering, recounted the incident to her system.
“A fish with ill intentions,” she concluded. “You have to be wary of them at all times, unless they’re on a dinner plate.”
Yue Du: “…Oh.”
No wonder she’d fallen for Nai Yin at first sight.
She was another one obsessed with looks.
Suddenly, she felt a flicker of sympathy for the mermaid she had never met.
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