In the summer, on the shaded path of Florence, one can still hear the faint voices of laughter and the rumbling of carriages from the main road. Lifting one's gaze, the vast and dazzling dome of the Florence Cathedral stands tall, unobscured by the cloudless azure sky, its layer upon layer of red rooftops unable to conceal its imposing presence.
Traveling back to the Renaissance period, this magical event took Joya two months to come to terms with.
But she did not know how long it would take her to fully digest the scene before her at that moment.
After the monster's head was twisted off, there was no gushing of fresh blood, nor any flesh still attached, as if it were just a lump of dead meat, forcibly broken in two. The head, which had been so ferocious-looking just a minute ago, was now being held by that pale, beautiful hand. The headless body, deprived of consciousness, slowly fell backward. Meanwhile, the still-unconscious Marco, who had been clinging to the monster's shoulder, was being lifted by the collar in the black-clad person's other hand.
Joya hurriedly stretched out her hand, grabbing Marco's shoe, then swallowed hard, trying to suppress the heart that was almost jumping out of her throat: "Sir, please, please rest assured, I won't tell anyone about today's events."
Due to the tension and the stimulation from the previous scene, Joya was almost incoherent, afraid that the men in black would go back on their word, so she quickly added: "I know, you, you all don't want humans to know of your existence, so I won't tell anyone. Marco has passed out, and he doesn't know what happened, and I, I will use my life as a pledge, I will surely keep the promise I made today, and not utter a word to outsiders. So, please spare Marco, and... spare me as well."
After she finished speaking, she immediately held her breath, waiting for the other party to respond.
The sun, hanging high in the sky, seemed to have shifted slightly westward, leaving an inch more of golden light on the western wall, and the specks of gray mud and dirt on the yellow walls were all exposed under the sun's illumination.
The man in black slowly crouched down, and the sunlight that had been behind him flowed into Joya's eyes. She squinted slightly, then saw a pair of deep brown eyes with a faint ruby glow under the black cloak of the man in black.
The owner of these eyes has a face that is perfect to the extreme, with fine and long eyebrows, a straight and prominent nose bridge, very thin lips, and every feature of the face seems to have been carefully and meticulously drawn by a painter with all his imagination. The face has a sickly pallor, without a trace of blood color, but this does not diminish the impact of the contours and features combined. He appears to be around eighteen or nineteen years old, and there is still a youthful vigor in his eyes that belongs to this age group.
"You......" he began, "why do you think I don't want humans to know of our existence?"
This is a voice that falls between adolescence and youth, but his pronunciation and use of sentences are somewhat old-fashioned, even with a sense of looking down on the common people
If it were not for the fact that Joya has been in the Vatican for fourteen or fifteen years and is more familiar with the members of the Curia than anyone else, one might think he was just another young priest with an old-fashioned style.
His question, however, had a somewhat aggressive tone, making Joya feel that if she answered in a way that did not please him, her fate would be the same as that of the monster whose head he had twisted off.
"I... I know..." Oya shrunk back as he stared at her, "I know you must be a vampire hunter."
"Vampire hunter?"
"Isn't it......" Joya looked down at the headless body. "Fangs, sufficient strength, a robust physique, and no bleeding after the head was twisted off, this must be a vampire. And you, sir..." She addressed him with respect, "You seem to have hunted him for a long time, and you managed to find the right moment to deliver the fatal blow. You must be one of those vampire hunters who make a living by hunting vampires, silently maintaining the peace in this world while humans remain unaware for hundreds of years."
The origins of the vampire creature can be traced back to the folkloric tales of Romania in the 18th century, but the existence of blood-drinking beings has been present in the mythological legends of Mesopotamian and ancient Roman civilizations even centuries earlier. Thus, during the Renaissance period, while the term "vampire" was not yet in use, the concept of monstrous creatures with fangs that drank blood had already become a part of mythological stories.
Joya was once a staunch atheist, but the sudden time travel shattered her worldview. After quietly living an ordinary life for 14 or 15 years, vampires then appeared, and she has now calmly accepted this fantastical fact.
However, the more serious and earnest her expression was when she said these words, the stranger the young man's expression became.
She felt that she had guessed all the key points of the story, and had seen through the reality hidden under this superficial world, so she silently gave herself a pat on the back.
After a while, when the shadow on the western wall of the alley had retreated another step, Joya heard a few disorderly footsteps coming from behind her. She was about to think that a passer-by was coming, when the black-clad person carelessly threw Marco, whom he was carrying, towards her. Joya hastily reached out and steadily caught Marco, and then she heard the voice of the young man above her:
"Remember your promise, if you reveal even a single word to someone else, I will not hesitate to kill you, as well as the person you have revealed it to."
Joya looked up towards the source of the sound, but saw that there was no one in front of her, and even the body of the vampire whose neck had been twisted was gone without a trace.
And at this time, the sound of the chaotic footsteps behind her was getting closer and closer, until Ciro's panting voice sounded behind her: "Miss Joya, are you alright? We saw you jump down from the crossbeam inside the market room..."
"I did not jump down from the beams inside the central market." Joya, holding Marco, slowly stood up from the slightly chilly stone path in the back alley, cutting off Ciro's remaining words, "After we arrived at the central market, we went around separately, and then Marco got tired from walking, so we've now decided to go back home."
"As for me......," she lowered her head and glanced at her own crumpled, dusty skirt hem, and the dirty shoes beneath the skirt, "I was pushed by the people at the central market." "But......"
"You all know that a woman who scaled the wall appeared at the Central Market today, causing commotion on the scene, so there were many instances of trampling. Joya said calmly, "I was one of the victims."
After returning to Totti's residence, Joya first discarded the crumpled, bulgy dress she had worn during the day, then spent several hours gathering a bucket of hot water and taking a comfortable bath.
After she had tidied everything up, it was already late afternoon.
Lisa had already prepared the family's dinner, and fortunately this time there was no pasta on the table, which was a relief for Joya, who had been terrified all day.
Marco has also finished packing, sitting early at the dining table. He is shorter than his peers and his feet do not yet reach the ground as he sits on the stool, swinging back and forth between the stool's legs. His eyes brightened when he saw Joya enter the dining room, and he simply said a crisp "Sister," then closed his mouth, his gaze following Joya's movements.
Joya sat down next to him, looked around, and then asked, "Where is Mr. Ricardo?"
Lisa, who was standing next to her, said, "Mr. Ricardo made the lactase cake himself and took it to the third floor to be eaten by the madam."
Another day blinded by the sweetness of love.
Before long, Ricardo's figure appeared at the staircase, as he slowly walked down the stairs and directly came to the dining table. Seeing Joya and Marco looking at him expectantly, he pulled out a chair and sat down, smiling and saying, "Let's dig in."
Dinnertime is generally a time for family members to interact, but the Totti family is a bit special.
Marco is ill, and even though he wants to get closer to his family, he is unable to express what he feels in his heart; Martina is bedridden, and most of the time she is in her room, attended to by Grandma Eliza for her meals, and the rest is left to the three young servants, even though the Totti family is quite open-minded, they have not yet reached the point where the servants can dine and converse with the masters.
The dinner time at the Totti family was unusually... gloomy.
Joya did not feel uncomfortable, as she had never been a big talker. Her siblings were much more eloquent than her. During dinners at the Orsini Palace or while accompanying Rodrigo on vacation trips, the conversation would always start with Rodrigo, then proceed with Juan and Lucrezia arguing endlessly, and finally end with Rodrigo summarizing the key points of their debate.
From beginning to end, she could enjoy the delicious dishes in front of her without uttering a single word, fully focused.
Only, Ricardo always felt that the gloomy atmosphere at the dinner table might make her, who has just arrived, a little uncomfortable, so he always tried to make conversation with her about some interesting stories, such as how Marco had a little dog when he was young, but the dog bit him as soon as he brought it home and then ran away; or how Arturo had secretly fallen in love with a maid of Madame de' Medici's several years ago, and when he finally mustered the courage to confess, the maid said she would only marry a Botticelli, so he got angry and learned to paint, but eventually gave up because the paints were too expensive, and he would never admit that he had no talent for this art.
Over the past few days, Joya has come to know all the embarrassing matters of the Totti family in great detail.
She was thinking about what embarrassing story Ricardo would tell this time, but to her surprise, Ricardo, who was sitting across from her, after taking a bite of beef, thought for a moment and said, "I heard that a strange woman appeared in the central market today, Joya, did you see her?"
"..."
Florence is not small, nor is it large. After all, it is one of the wealthiest cities in all of Italy and is also a financial center of Europe. While it may not be considered large, the news of a woman walking on walls and ceilings at the Central Market at noon spread across the entire city in just one afternoon, even reaching the ears of Ricardo, who had stayed home all day taking care of his wife.
Joya coughed a few times and chuckled dryly, "Of course I saw it, I was even stepped on by the crowd watching."
"Indeed, Florence hasn't seen a person like this in many years, so it's understandable that everyone is a bit excited." Ricardo sighed.
"What kind of person?" Joya blinked her eyes, "What kind of person?"
"A person who can climb walls and move along eaves." Ricardo said, lowering his head again to take a bite of beef, chewing as if he were recalling something, "A person who can walk on smooth walls and uneven rooftops as if on level ground."
