Chapter 4031: Soul and Life

"You passed smoothly, didn't you? Congratulations, congratulations."

Xia De smiled and congratulated Young Lady MacDonald; back in his hometown, this was also his happiest moment:

"I only provided a tiny bit of help; your thesis itself was excellent. However, I would be happy to continue checking your thesis afterward. But what are you all doing? Hasn't the library's ownership been transferred yet?"

"That Mr. Lebori already delivered the library keys to Fragrance Manor over the weekend, so the teacher asked me to bring people to clear this place out first."

Young Lady MacDonald said with a smile, then leaned closer to Xia De and lowered her voice:

"Additionally, the teacher asked me to tell you that the Council has dispatched another Witch to this locality, so do not go to Fragrance Manor today... The teacher looks somewhat distressed."

Xia De had already decided that no matter what, he must go visit Vige:

"So that Witch from afar has arrived, has she?"

"Yes. Half an hour ago when I set out, that lady was inspecting the human tissue samples retrieved from the cemetery on Friday night in the manor's underground crypt."

Xia De nodded:

"Then does this place need my help?"

The tall Miss immediately shook her head:

"No need; it's just cleaning the house. We can handle this small matter ourselves. Mr. Watson, you go attend to your own affairs first."

"Very well. I will also make time to go see Vige. You've worked hard... By the way, your dress today is very beautiful."

"Is it?"

Young Lady MacDonald asked with a smile, lifting the two sides of her skirt slightly with both hands and turning in a circle before Xia De:

"You really know how to speak. However, I indeed rarely wear this dress; after all, one doesn't need to dress so flamboyantly in the laboratory... Does red suit me?"

"Yes. Now is the season of spring warmth and blooming flowers; brighter colors are very beautiful and also suit your hair color."

After bidding farewell to Young Lady MacDonald, Xia De went directly to the Upper District. Because Flora bore no Moon Seal, and because a very strong anti-detection ritual existed in the underground crypt beneath the manor, Xia De had no way of knowing whether Flora was currently here.

However, Xia De was due to tell Vige the truth this week, so even if Vige learned everything today, he did not care. He knocked on the door as usual. After the housekeeper Miss Lorraine opened the door and saw Xia De outside, she was exceptionally surprised:

"How come... You didn't encounter... at the Blue Ink Library..."

"I encountered Young Lady MacDonald, but I still wish to see Vige."

Xia De replied, and Miss Lorraine laughed:

"The Young Lady will be extremely happy, but your actions are also somewhat too risky. Come in quickly. The Young Lady and that other lady are currently in the underground crypt. Please wait in the study first; I will go notify the Young Lady to come up."

Xia De did not wait long in the study before hearing the sound of hurried high heels tapping the floor in the corridor outside. After Vige pushed the door open, she almost threw herself directly into Xia De's arms:

"The Witches in the Council are all bullying me!"

She said quite aggrievedly, hugging Xia De and refusing to let go; these words were clearly suppressed in her heart all night:

"There is clearly not much time left for us to be alone together, yet they still sent someone to my place. I originally thought, thought, thought I wouldn't see you today at all. Ahem, ahem."

Miss Lorraine quietly closed the door, and Xia De gently patted her back:

"Look, haven't I come?"

"But you will surely leave in a while."

She stopped coughing and looked up at Xia De:

"The Chairman still wishes for the Witch who came to my place today to meet you. My colleague just mentioned this topic to me. So, are you interested in disguising yourself as a fe..."

"No interest."

Xia De did not let her finish that bold idea:

"Vige, I would rather go downstairs right now to meet your colleague than ever do that."

"Just joking. I apologize."

Vige then kissed Xia De on the side of his face:

"You still suit men's clothing... Even though the time for us to be alone is already not long, we cannot be together today either."

She placed her hand on Xia De's chest, closed her eyes and kissed Xia De again, then suddenly pushed Xia De away, revealing a pained expression:

"Go, my lover, go attend to your affairs. My colleague will probably leave tonight, so let us endure loneliness and solitude and meet again tomorrow... Do you have time to see the opera tomorrow night?"

Tomorrow is Tuesday; Agnelina will probably arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. Vige obviously wanted to leave sufficiently deep memories for the final time they would be alone.

"Of course."

Xia De agreed. Vige then hugged Xia De again, demanding another kiss like Xia Xiao Miya who hadn't had enough snacks, and only reluctantly bid him farewell after a long while, so much so that after Xia De left, Miss Lorraine reminded her to touch up her lipstick.

Xia De indeed still had many matters to handle. There were currently no leads regarding the demons, but he still needed to discuss the events of last night with Mr. Finch.

Today Mr. Finch was at the Gear Workshop in the Outer District. When Xia De arrived, he was personally welding a machine inside the factory. It appeared to be a heavy carriage with an all-metal body, at least three times larger than the hackney carriages on the street.

Seeing Xia De arrive, the old gentleman cheerfully invited Xia De into the carriage interior. The decoration inside the carriage was not yet complete, but tables, chairs, and cabinets fixed to the carriage floor had already been placed; the interior of the carriage was simply like a small workshop.

Mr. Finch asked Xia De:

"When you were young, did you ever imagine that one day the apocalypse would suddenly erupt, and you could drive a carriage through the ruins of civilization, rescuing survivors and gathering various supplies?"

"This carriage is something I have been preparing and building for these years. Different ritual base arrays are inlaid inside the alloy body; every steel plate has a different blessing effect. Several Supernatural Items, including low-risk Relics, will be used inside to maintain stability."

"Although I do not know if this will be useful in the future, I will design and build this carriage as my last and most important work in life."

Although the space inside the carriage was large, it was still just a carriage, so without using space expansion, it could probably only accommodate no more than five people living there.

Xia De curiously looked at the interior decoration of the carriage; the old gentleman's words also reminded him of the fantasies from his youth:

"I imagined a similar situation when I was young, but if it is for apocalypse survival, would a train be more convenient? Although the tracks are a troublesome problem, at least the train's capacity is large enough."

Mr. Finch thought for a moment:

"That makes sense. Then after I finish building this carriage, if I still have energy, I can try to design a locomotive again... How about calling it the 'Apocalypse Survivor'?"

The old man revealed a smile; it was the kind of smile children show when seeing toys, youths show when picking up straight tree branches, and middle-aged people show when casting their fishing rods after a busy day.

"That name is good."

Xia De replied. He did not need such a vehicle capable of transferring many people at once, because he already had the "Herald of Radiance."

Mr. Finch had also learned the news of the "Construct Master" and the "Blood-Weeper" appearing last night, but he knew very little about the details. Xia De therefore started from his own desire to seek evil spirits and demons, all the way to his meeting with the "Construct Master" at the abandoned farmhouse outside the city.

Regarding Xia De's contact with that betrayer of the Church, Mr. Finch said nothing. He nodded, indicating he had basically grasped the current situation:

"So next, the various factions will fight over the 'Life Ember,' right?"

"Yes. Whether or not it's for the Chosen One, every faction has reason to gather more vitality. It's just that at present, we still don't know whether, besides the one in my hand, the one held by the Blood Spirit School, and the two ember sources held by the Creation Church, other powers also possess ember sources."

Xia De had also brought that flesh-and-blood eye "vessel" along. He wanted Mr. Finch to hand it over to Mr. Bernhardt — they would certainly find this thing useful in their pursuit of the "Life Aberrants."

As for the old gentleman, he had no further news of Mr. Bernhardt and his group for the time being. The vampires had recently encountered not only "Life Aberrants" in the city's sewers, but also, one after another, incidents of underground corpses standing back up because of "distorted Life Embers."

Even the local Church had noticed the vampires' unusual movements, but the Church was likewise clearing out those risen corpses in the sewers, so it had not become hostile toward these foreign high-ranking vampires.

"Our Hermitage does have some new information. After consulting ancient texts, we found some records related to the 'Life Ember.' That portion of the record is extremely ancient, and the original documents cannot be sent over, but the gist is that the significance of the 'Life Ember' is not only to grant life — it can also awaken spirituality, thereby causing souls to be born in dead things.

The infiltration of life will bring about an essential change in cold dead things, and souls are born within that faint firelight.

Mr. Finch paused, leaving Xia De time to think:

"Combining this with the information you've given, the organizations currently possessing 'ember sources' can most likely only use the embers to animate dead things, but have not yet reached the point where dead things give birth to souls within the warmth of life. That's why they want to acquire more embers — to use quantitative change to drive qualitative change."

Xia De recalled that when the massive ember source in the Creation Church first erupted, he had clearly sensed a look of intelligence in that great burning eye.

"If souls are so important, then while granting life to dead things, couldn't one just forcibly procure a soul and pour it into the body?"

Xia De asked curiously:

"Why go to all that trouble to give birth to a soul nurtured by life?"

Mr. Finch knew that although the young man before him was a "Summoner of the Divine," his actual age was not great. He was quite willing to answer Xia De's questions:

"If one directly uses an existing soul, then that doesn't count as birthing a new life — it's merely converting one form of existence for a life. Of course, there are also two very special exceptions that would make an outside soul count as a new life —

The first case: although the soul is external, that soul has already abandoned everything from its past, transforming itself in essence into another form of life. This is extremely difficult — it means that 'I' am no longer 'I.' This can't be achieved merely through ideological awakening; it requires truly being reborn after death. As for the second case, it is when the soul is an outsider, a life that never belonged to this world in the first place, born from the void itself. Because it has no past, after being poured into a new body, it too can count as a new life being born."