Chapter Twenty - nine

The heavy rain was the best catalyst for the scent produced by actinomycetes. The entire forest was filled with that refreshing and pleasant earthy smell, which was the result of a large number of actinomycetes reproducing and emitting their own scents.

Now, this aroma was mingled with the thick smell of fresh blood, indicating that a one-sided slaughter had just taken place here. The hunter was Katherine, and the slain prey was an adult male deer with brown fur.

The blood had been fully consumed, yet the excitement within her body, stirred up by the hunt, had not subsided. The venom still surged freely in her mouth, and the redness before her eyes remained intense.

Katherine rose to her feet. From her cascading long brown hair to the coat on her body, there were countless tiny water droplets, their color a bit darker than before due to being soaked by the rain. The curled ends of her hair, wet and stuck together in strands, were rather disheveled as they scattered over her shoulders.

She pursed her lips, which had become even more vivid after drinking the blood, and turned to see Sulpicia also standing in the rain like a drowned rat - no, at least she was a drowned rat that could be served at a state banquet. Katherine reckoned that her own appearance would at most be chosen by a slightly upscale food stall.

"Sorry, I... I still can't control it very well." Soothed by the ample supply of food, Katherine's restlessness had noticeably diminished. At least, she could deceive Sulpicia with a bit of pretense. She thought that she could prevent Sulpicia from noticing her abnormality, the one triggered by the discovery of her connection with Landon.

Sulpicia's gentle smile was like the warmest sunshine. Even the raindrops falling on her face made her look delicate and charming, like a pear blossom in the rain: "No, Cassie, the fact that you could actively avoid humans when you were thirsty is truly incredible for a newborn."

Katherine forced a smile and wiped the water from her long hair, shrugging as casually as she could: "But it seems we can't say goodbye to Heidi. I mean, we're both soaked like this."

Hopefully, Gianna's coat could be washed. Thinking about the series of hunting actions just now, Katherine thought that perhaps it also needed to be wrung out and machine-washed.

Thinking of this, she couldn't help but reach out and touch the coat, which still felt wonderful even when wet. It was indeed a high-quality item. Katherine grumbled to herself that if Gianna didn't want it anymore, she would just take it for herself. Anyway, even if those colorful euro banknotes were tossed into the washing machine and spun around, she would still like them just the same.

Sulpicia spread her hands helplessly: "I guess that's how it has to be. Let's go back first. I'll ask Gianna to contact Heidi later to let her know we've returned."

Noticing the faint yet distinct furrow between Katherine's eyebrows and the overly scarlet pupils, Sulpicia naturally attributed it to the hunting instinct that hadn't completely subsided after just having fed.

She held Katherine's hand reassuringly. It was as cold and hard as Katherine's, but with a slightly brittle touch. She wasn't sure if it was due to the moistening effect of the rain. She said, "Shall we go back?"

"Okay."

It turns out that there's a reason why expensive clothes and luxury items can be consumed by the wealthy. They have more time and the leisure to maintain and care for those precious and fragile things. What is regarded as an extremely time-wasting behavior in Katherine's value system is called elegance by them.

Well, she might never be able to be elegant.

Katherine took off the coat, which was soaked through by the rain, and placed it on the bedside. Her gaze hesitantly swept over the label on the underside of the hem, and as expected, she saw three large crosses - Do not machine wash, do not hand wash, do not wring out.

She thought for a moment. This probably meant that the coat was already ruined. Katherine stiffened for a moment, then comforted herself. Anyway, what's the difference in what one wears? It doesn't really matter. Besides, this coat, which had suffered so much and dropped a few notches in quality, might unexpectedly match her temperament when it dried.

After changing into a denim jacket, Katherine grabbed the pillowcase on the pillow and draped it over her shoulders, letting her wet long hair drip water onto it obediently, creating a map of wet spots. Then she picked up the coat and slipped out of the room, floating quietly all the way to the front desk area. She smiled apologetically at Gianna, the coat in her hand seeming to be accusing her with teary eyes of the mistreatment it had just endured.

Gianna, being the person closest to Katherine in the Volturi apart from Caius, naturally understood what she was embarrassed about. So she took the initiative to say, "Give it to me. I'll send a new one over."

"No need." Katherine quickly grabbed her. "Just dry it." "This coat can't be worn anymore, Katherine." Gianna's tone was so similar to that of her nanny in Windsor Castle, even the look of helplessness in her eyes was exactly the same.

"Don't worry. I'll be back in a while."

Looking at Gianna's elegant back, Katherine suddenly became curious about the source of the Volturi's wealth. Could it be that they still maintained the habits of the Middle Ages, with each family having to pay taxes?

But she soon realized that this wasn't something she should be concerned about. Why should she, with a salary as low as the Mariana Trench, care about the issues of Mount Everest?

The morning was spent with vinyl records and books. Recently, Heidi had been very considerate in bringing Katherine several books on human anatomy. Among them was the original manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci that had almost made Katherine engage in a fierce battle with the curator of the Mediterranean Museum.

Now, she wouldn't even care if she was wanted throughout Italy.

You could never understand how Katherine felt when she saw Heidi holding that book. If a follower of the Light saw the God of Light, it would probably be that kind of expression.

Sulpicia was doubled over with laughter at her appearance and even joked that perhaps Katherine should invent a secret method of biting open blood vessels, which would save the Volturi a lot of follow-up work.

Katherine responded with a tease of her own. If it could offset all her debts here, she wouldn't mind researching such a topic and then generously handing over the intellectual property rights to the Volturi for development and application.

After reading for a while, Katherine suddenly looked up and asked, "Are you worried about their operation this time?"

Sulpicia's smile sent a chill down one's spine: "Why, are you worried about Caius?"

"No." Katherine blurted out, but such a hasty denial only made it seem even less believable. She had to endure Sulpicia's extremely teasing expression and continued, "I mean, I saw a werewolf in the moment of a vampire's death. Caius told me that werewolves are our nemesis?"

The blond noblewoman relaxed her body, leaning lazily on the lounge chair. Her tone was casual, but the rather caustic choice of words made Katherine sense her dislike for werewolves: "Sort of. If you encounter them on a full moon night, it's indeed extremely dangerous."

Katherine nodded and didn't ask any more questions. After all, the predator-prey relationship in the biological world wasn't anything new. Since vampires belonged to this world, it was normal to have natural enemies. However, it was still obvious that the vampire race had the upper hand. Werewolves were only invincible on a full moon night. If they were attacked at other times, they might be in a rather pitiful state.

So, something that happened only once a month was never a good thing.

At this moment, Sulpicia suddenly asked with great interest, "What else did Caius tell you?"

"Ah. He also said that if I was really interested, the library in the Volturi was enough for me to explore."

"Are you going to go?"

"I haven't been there yet. What are the books in there about?"

"Many things. You can take your time and look around. Don't rush. Come with me, dear."

Walking briskly through the corridor and around a corner, the library of the Volturi was just ahead.

The vampire standing in front of the library doors opened them, and Katherine saw the largest, oldest, and most richly stocked library she had ever seen. The lighting conditions in the entire library were much better than in other parts of the Palazzo dei Priori.

All the light sources came from the arched windows at the top, which were close to the ceiling. The light shone down from above, enveloping the place. All the bookshelves were extremely tall. Of course, this was also largely due to the fact that the space of this library itself was huge. Architecturally speaking, this space could easily be divided into three floors for living, but now it was solely used for storing books.

The walls were densely packed with books, and corridors connected them. The blackish-gray of the stones and the brownish of the bookcases were the main themes here, a low-key luxury.

Katherine was stunned by the number of books in front of her. Although she had expected that the library in the Volturi would exceed her imagination, this was still too exaggerated.

"How long did it take you to collect all these books?" Katherine turned her head. Sulpicia's expression was rather indifferent, as if she didn't think there was anything to be surprised about.

"It took quite a while. You can stay here until you get bored." Sulpicia said, reaching out to place her hand on Katherine's shoulder. "We have guests coming this afternoon. Aro and the others are away. Originally, it was supposed to be both of us to go and greet them. But considering how you are today, I'll go alone. There are quite a number of accompanying personnel with the guests. It would be a bit of a strain for you to be in such a confined space."

"Will humans come here?" Katherine said in surprise. Clearly, the Volturi's laws didn't allow humans to know about the existence of vampires.

Sulpicia nodded: "They're people from some political and administrative organs. You won't be interested. In fact, our ability to hide here for so many years has been made possible by some cooperation and negotiations with the human upper echelons."

"Alright, I have to go and prepare. You can have a look around first to see if there are any books you like. See you tonight."

"See you tonight."

After Sulpicia left, Katherine began to wander around the room. She now had enough energy to think about her plan. Since Heidi was at the tourism bureau and Sulpicia was going to receive guests, all she had to do was wait until this afternoon and then find a chance to go back to Florence to figure out where Landon really was.

Landon hadn't taken many things from the house, so there would surely be some traces left. For example, who he had been in contact with. By asking the neighbors around, she could find out what kind of person Landon was with when he last appeared.

She didn't want Landon to know that she had become a strange creature, but she wanted to know how he was doing. She hadn't had the chance to repay Landon for his care before disappearing and parting ways with him like this. It made her feel really bad. The last connection she had as a human was severed just like that.

As long as he didn't discover her identity, he would be safe.

How ironic. To a large extent, his safety actually depended on her leaving.

Katherine shook her head. Since she had already made up her mind, she shouldn't think about it too much. She observed the books around her and noticed that the higher up the books were, the older they were. Katherine didn't plan to touch them. Not being able to understand them was one thing, but breaking them would be disastrous.

She remembered the ancient books she had accidentally damaged in the Florence Library. She didn't know if they had been discovered yet. To be honest, she kind of hoped that the curator of the Mediterranean Museum, fuming with anger, would lead a group of security guards and police officers to break into the Volturi and take her back.

The problem was that they were more likely to come to replenish the Volturi's blood storage room.

As Sulpicia had said, the books in this library could outdo any library in the world. Even the Vatican Archives and the British Library seemed dwarfed in comparison.

When passing by a bookshelf in the third row, Katherine was attracted by a pile of books randomly piled on the ground. Everything else here was so neat, but only this pile of books was in a mess, looking as if they had just been consulted and hadn't had time to be put back in their proper places.

She looked up around her and didn't find any empty space. So she casually picked up a book and flipped through it. It was in Italian, and the book felt quite new. The name Carlisle Cullen appeared frequently in the book. His eating habits were recorded in large sections of classic italic Italian by the author because he could control his craving for human blood and always fed on the blood of animals.

So it wasn't just her eating habits that were so special. Looking at the sketch of Carlisle, his whole temperament was as gentle as a compassionate pastor in a church, not at all like a vampire.

Katherine continued reading with a sense of amazement and strange familiarity. As her fingers turned the pages, apart from Carlisle Cullen, gradually some other people emerged.

Two people's names were circled in red. Alice Cullen, with the ability to predict the future, and Edward Cullen, with the ability to read minds.