Chapter 5: Vampire’s First Embrace

Time rewinds ten minutes.
Wearing ill-fitting clothes, the new vampire miss with striking silver hair endures all kinds of stares.
She finally buys two sets of fitting clothes at the mall.
One’s on her now—a tacky black tracksuit, but miles better than her old look.
Her clunky, oversized slippers are swapped for snug canvas shoes.

“Size 33 shoes fit… so small, I could hold them in one hand…
F*ck, why’s it gotta be my body?!”
Cola tugs her hair, grumbling, then giggles.
“Ahem… I’ll give ‘em a few extra squeezes back home…”

Lost in her own world, muttering to herself, she ignores passersby’s glances.
When she snaps out of it, she’s in a small alley.
This top-tier Asian metropolis has towering skyscrapers but also old low-rise buildings and narrow lanes from history.
Even in this bustling area, you can stumble into a quiet, cramped alley.
It’s a strange experience.

Above, only Tokyo’s sky is visible.
No stars, but the deep blue sky is clear.
The air quality seems decent.

“Excuse me…”

“Huh?”
Cola spins around, spotting a girl with a single ponytail, wearing a JK skirt, holding a camera.
She’s looking at Cola cautiously.

“Hi.”
Cola forces calm.
Her heart’s pounding.
A whole year in Japan, and this is the first time a girl’s approached her on the street!
A year!
Twelve months!
Three hundred sixty-five days!
This was… kinda one of her goals here.

“Ahem.”
She flicks her hair, aiming for cool.
The silky feel yanks her back to reality.
Right now, she’d kill for her old rough, stiff hair—along with her male body.

“…What’s up?”
Calm now, her heart’s dead.

The girl, who looks a bit like Asuka Saito, seems puzzled by Cola’s mood swing.
She asks softly, “Are you an empty lot enthusiast too?”

“Empty lot… enthusiast?”
For a second, Cola wonders if her Japanese failed her.
“Empty lot?”

“Yeah… like this open space in a tight area.
It has a special, subtle vibe.”

“Oh, got it!
Like… ‘core’ stuff, right?”
Cola uses the Chinese word, unsure how to translate.

The girl tilts her head, confused.

“Like, loving weird scenery… that feeling, yeah?”

“Yes, exactly!
You’re a fellow fan!”

“Ahem, sorta, just a casual one…”

“Are you cosplaying a character?”

“Uh… vampire.”

“Wow—I thought vampires usually wear fancy clothes.”

“That’s ‘cause fancy’s too common.
Plain stuff feels more real sometimes.”
Cola’s bullsh*tting skills shine.
Years of practice, dreaming of charming a cute girl with her silver tongue, finally pay off.

“That makes sense!
Such a unique take!”

“Hehe…”

“Where’d you get those contacts?
The red’s so special, like they’re glowing.”

“Oh, bought ‘em in Qingguo.”

“Qingguo?”

“Yeah, overseas purchase, high-end stuff.”
‘Not some Yiwu market junk,’ Cola mutters internally.

“Wow… um, can I take your portrait?
If you don’t mind.”

“Sure, but… isn’t my outfit kinda plain for photos?”

“No worries!
You’re right—simple and normal is more captivating.”

“Ahem, go ahead then.
Do I need to do anything?”

“I’m into natural shots, no posed stuff.
Just walk around, look wherever.
I’ll snap candidly.”

“Cool.”
Cola struts around, stealing glances at the lens.
“Like this?”

“Like I’m not here.
Relax more.
If you’ve got some emotion, even better.”

“Emotion?”
Cola gazes at the sky.
Tokyo’s nights are too bright for the moon—just neon lights in colorful clumps.
She squints, imagining she’s a vampire… noble, under the moonlight.
Sipping eight-hundred-year-old wine, plotting to rule the night world.

“That’s a great shot!”

“Hehe…”

“There’s a sadness, like you lost something precious.
Very vampire-like!”

Cola’s mouth twitches.
She did lose something precious.
The comment stings, flooding her with sorrow.
Sorrow so intense it’s overflowing.

When will her mom’s research bear fruit?
There’s a tiny hope, but it feels so unreliable.
What if it takes ten, twenty years to turn back?
By then, won’t she be fully a girl, inside and out?

“Watch out!”
Lost in thought, staring upward, Cola stumbles, losing balance.
In that split second, her hearing sharpens.
She catches the sound of something sharp slicing skin.

“Guh…”
The girl, chatting happily moments ago, clutches her neck, face twisted in pain.
She collapses.

Cola, sprawled on the ground, scoots back two meters, looking up at a shadowy figure in the dark.
A man in tattered clothes, his beard a wild, shapeless mess, like overgrown weeds.

‘Murder’ barely forms in her mind when the man laughs maniacally, bending down.
He stabs the girl’s body repeatedly with his knife.
Blood sprays like a sprinkler, spurting from her wounds.

The scene’s too unreal.
Cola thinks it’s a hallucination.
But the sharp, metallic stench of blood is undeniable.
She doesn’t know how she got up or why her brain didn’t scream to run.
When she comes to, the man’s eyes are on her.

—Leading to the earlier moment.

“There’s really a Japanese guy killing over the single tax?!”
Her legs shake, fear mixing with a desperate, fatalistic optimism as the knife-wielding man charges.
Her mind’s just ‘I’m done.’

Like before, he aims to slash her throat with the bloody knife.
Her body suddenly moves.
Just a slight tilt of her neck.
It dodges the fatal cut.
But not entirely—pain stabs her collarbone.

The knife slices her pale, delicate skin.
Blood beads fly into the air.
Memories and images flood her mind.
Instinctively, she raises her right hand, like pulling invisible strings, controlling the blood beads.

The beads form a blood thread, then whoosh—it shoots out.
A brief delay, and the man’s knife-wielding wrist falls off.
The cut’s clean, no immediate blood, like an invisible film seals it.
A second later, he screams.

Clutching his arm, he falls back, smashing his head on the ground—out cold.
Cola stares at the blood thread, manipulating it into shapes with her fingers.
She snaps back.
“Whoa, that’s vampire power?
F*ck, that’s strong…”

She glances at the unconscious man, steps over him, and crouches by the girl in the blood pool.
“You saved me earlier…
If you hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t have reacted in time…”
Memories keep surging, playing in her mind.

Multitasking, she checks the girl’s breathing, then takes a deep breath.
“She’s dead…
Heart’s pierced…”
Dead as can be.
But there’s a way to save her.

Her memories tell her vampires have a powerful ability: the First Embrace.
If someone’s dead less than thirty minutes, the Embrace can turn them into a vampire.
It reshapes the body, reviving the recently deceased.
The amount of blood essence used determines the new vampire’s rank.

The lowest rank, using one drop, creates a blood thrall.
Thralls often lose memories and burn to ash in slight sunlight.
The next rank up is a true vampire.
Cola’s sired vampires have a perk—they don’t fear sunlight.
So, if she Embraces this girl, she could revive her as a sun-resistant vampire.

But…
Though the girl saved her, to Cola, she’s a nameless stranger.
“I can only Embrace three times…
Mom said not to turn anyone into vampires.
If I do, she won’t let me change back…
But I can’t just let her die!
She saved my life.
Mom would understand, right?”
Cola grits her teeth, deciding in half a minute.
“Phew…
First, bite to make an opening.
She’s got wounds everywhere, so any spot works…
Uh… throat, I guess.”

Cola closes her eyes, following her bloodline’s memories.
She slowly extracts blood essence from her body, channeling it bit by bit into the girl…