“Rumble—”
Lightning slashed through the heavens, its light reflecting off Mira's face.
As the priest raised the longsword, its tip piercing her skin and skewering her heart, her smile froze forever at this moment.
“Mira.”
Lillian stared intently at this scene. It was only at this moment that she seemed to truly process what was happening.
Mira was dead.
She wasn't coming back.
Like her parents, she had left her forever.
“If you're so reluctant to see her go, why didn't you try to stop her?” Lu Li asked.
Even though this was the second time he had witnessed such a scene, his face remained frighteningly pale.
Even if she was a vampire, Mira was no different from a human in his eyes. She could speak, she could laugh; she was once vibrant and alive, yet now she had died right before his eyes, turning into an immobile, ice-cold corpse.
Lillian shook her head and whispered, “Mira said she had to die. If she didn't, some people would feel uneasy, and when people are uneasy, they do bad things. They would hurt you, Pope Brother.”
“Pope... Brother?”
Lu Li was slightly taken aback, then glanced at the girl beside him. “Who taught you to call me that?”
Lillian felt a bit nervous under his gaze and unconsciously gripped the hem of her clothes, answering in a low voice, “I... I came up with it myself. Do you not like it?”
“No, I like it very much.”
Lu Li smiled. It was as if he knew very well how good he looked when he smiled, so he was not at all stingy about sharing this beauty with the world.
Lillian's little face flushed slightly, and she couldn't help but inwardly chide herself.
Because she had turned into a vampire, her body had stopped growing long ago. Although she looked short, in reality, she was much older than the boy beside her.
Calling him “Brother” at her actual age was so mortifying it was practically off the charts.
Lillian kept reassuring herself that this was all to stay by Your Holiness's side and fulfill the mission Mira had entrusted to her. Although she still had only a vague understanding of what that mission actually was, it didn't stop her from enjoying herself.
“T-Then, Pope Brother, can I call you that from now on?” Lillian asked sheepishly with a cold tone, her face blushing red.
“Of course you can.” Lu Li nodded slightly.
He saw the priest pour a gasoline-like fuel over Mira's body. The next moment, a raging fire erupted on the execution stake.
The dim sky grew even darker against the backdrop of the flames. The sound of rain pattering on the umbrella and the crackle of fire devouring flesh constantly intertwined, before falling completely silent at a certain moment.
Yes, silent.
Lu Li could no longer hear anything. No sound of rain, no sound of burning fire; everything had ground to a halt.
It was only at this moment that he realized falling rain didn't look like round drops, but had turned into thread-like streaks of water.
Right now, they hung from the sky, suspended one by one in the air like a transparent curtain.
“Sigh.”
He sighed. Here it came again.
Wait... why did he say “again”?
Lu Li looked back and, sure enough, saw a figure walking over from afar step by step. She was draped in that red robe she had pilfered from God knows where, clutching a small white flower to her chest.
Seeing the boy look her way, a smile blossomed on her face as she naturally executed a polite bow.
“Good afternoon, Your Holiness.”
“Morningstar, is Heaven really that idle?” Lu Li asked. He was truly a bit curious now.
This girl didn't look like she possessed the Status of an angel at all, constantly wandering over to show her face every few days. Where was the promised sense of mystery?
If they met any more often, it would just start to feel ordinary!
“Not really idle. Someone like me has to take care of an old friend all day. This time, I actually squeezed some time out to attend a funeral.”
Morningstar walked over to the execution stake. The raging fire was frozen in place, yet its wild, clawing flames remained lifelike and vivid.
She slowly leaned down and placed the small white flower on the ground, her posture indeed looking like she had come to attend a funeral.
But whose funeral would be held at the exact moment of their death?
Lu Li's gaze landed on the small white flower in front of Mira's body. It was a stalk of gladiolus, its petals pristine and elegant, its leaves layered over one another. It did indeed suit Mira's identity.
But the flower language of gladiolus is victory!
So at this very moment, who was the one who had won?
Was it Mira?
Lu Li stared at Morningstar's back.
Right at that moment, as if she had sensed his gaze, Morningstar turned around and said to him with a smile, “I just came to offer a flower and will leave right away. Who knows when we'll meet again next time? I really hate to leave you!”
“Is that so?”
Hearing this, Lu Li's expression slowly relaxed, and a brilliant smile bloomed on his face. “Then why don't you stay? Stay by my side.”
Morningstar seemingly didn't expect the boy before her to say such a thing. She felt her heart skip a beat betrayingly, and even her smile froze for an instant.
However, she recovered very quickly, and acting as if she hadn't heard a thing, she smiled and spoke, “May the glory of the Lord be with you.”
With that, she disappeared once more.
The pattering sound of the rain returned, and time began to flow once again.
Lillian noticed that, at some point, a small white flower had appeared in front of the execution platform.
She thought she was seeing things and rubbed her eyes in disbelief, only to find that the flower was still there.
“Pope Brother, did someone come by just now?” she asked the boy beside her.
The boy did not answer. Instead, he took her hand and said softly, “Come on, let's go back.”
Mira's “deliverance” ceremony was held in secret inside a church in the suburbs. Aside from the priest responsible for the execution, the only observers were Lu Li and Lillian.
Therefore, no proper funeral was held after her death, and the only ones who came to the graveyard to lay flowers were likewise just Lu Li and Lillian.
Perhaps for Mira, the final blessing Lu Li had spoken to her was already a grand funeral in itself.
“Pope Brother.”
Standing before the low tombstone, Lillian gently tugged at Lu Li's sleeve and asked, “Will Mira go to Hell?”
“And who told you that?” Lu Li asked.
Lillian thought about it, then replied, “It was Mira. She said that vampires don't go to Heaven after they die, only to Hell.”
She still clearly remembered that on the day Mira picked her up, she had asked her, “Do you want to live? Even if the future is Hell?”
She had said, “I do.”
Hell lay in the future, but Heaven was right now.
Now that Mira's future had come to pass, Lillian wanted to know if she had truly gone to Hell.
“She lied to you. When many people die, they don't go anywhere, and vampires are no exception,” Lu Li answered.
“They don't go anywhere?” Lillian was a little dazed.
“Mhm.” Lu Li rubbed her head. “So many people die in this world every day. If they had to go to Hell just because they couldn't go to Heaven, then Hell would have been overcrowded to the bursting point long ago.”
Rate on N.U.
