I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood
Chapter 315: The Veteran’s Final Thread of Doubt

The inexplicable emotional dislocation left Wendy in a daze.

Elsa paid it little mind. She cast a calm glance over the two of them, their expressions each a study in contrast, and simply said, “Our exploration work here is finished. Time to head back.”

She walked over to the enormous leather trunk and crouched beside it. From an inconspicuous side compartment, she withdrew two thick manila envelopes. They bulged at the seams, their edges slightly deformed by the contents within.

“Thank you, Mr. Milo and Miss Wendy, for your full participation. This is the agreed-upon compensation for the job.”

Elsa straightened up and handed an envelope to each of them.

Wendy accepted hers almost mechanically. She didn’t open it to check, didn’t even gauge its thickness.

All she wanted in that moment was to leave—to get out of this basement that felt so inexplicably oppressive. To go home, back to her spacious, warm apartment, and get a good, long sleep.

How strange. She couldn’t remember doing anything particularly strenuous. Yet she felt utterly exhausted. A bone-deep weariness seeping from the depths of her spirit.

Veteran Milo was different.

He took the envelope, first testing its heft. Then he skillfully peeled open the flap and, by the dim candlelight, rapidly counted through the thick stack of green bills inside.

His movements were steady. The crisp rustle of the notes between his fingers was a practiced sound.

Confirming the amount was correct, he raised his head and gave a solemn nod. Then he carefully tucked the envelope into the inner pocket of his faded military jacket, patting it from the outside to make sure it sat securely.

Only one thought occupied his mind now: That was an absurdly easy job.

Nothing had happened. Even if something had, it was nothing more than cheap tricks meant to spook little kids. The reporter had scared himself silly and bolted. The young man had carelessly broken his leg. That was all.

This was the easiest, highest-paying job he’d landed since leaving the service.

The last faint trace of unease lurking in the depths of his heart—something even he couldn’t quite name—dissolved the moment his fingers brushed that solid stack of cash. It no longer mattered.

………………

They ascended the stone steps, retracing the path they’d come.

The cold, damp air of the basement was gradually replaced by the slightly stale but far less biting air of the ground floor.

Wendy walked in the middle, with Elsa hauling the massive trunk ahead of her and the veteran Milo following in silence behind.

Her mind still felt hazy, her steps a little unsteady.

Just as she was about to step onto the final stair and return to the first-floor foyer—her foot suddenly caught on something.

“Ah!”

She let out a startled cry, stumbling forward, nearly falling.

Luckily, Elsa ahead of her seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. She stopped just in time, allowing Wendy to bump against the back of that crimson dress and barely steady herself.

In that dazed moment, as she glanced down to see what had tripped her…

She thought she saw something.

It seemed to be extending from a crack in the stone wall beside the stairs. It was… a vine?

But the vine’s color was strange. Not withered yellow, not vibrant green. It was a raw, vivid red—like freshly flayed flesh. And it was… pulsing faintly?

“Don’t let your imagination run wild.” Elsa’s voice drifted back from up ahead at just the right moment.

“Sometimes, people just scare themselves. Otherwise, your boyfriend wouldn’t have been so frightened he couldn’t even walk straight and ended up breaking his leg.”

Elsa had already turned away again, continuing forward as she dragged the trunk, her voice trailing behind her.

Wendy snapped her gaze back down to the step. There was nothing there but damp moss and cracks in the stone.

“Yeah…” Wendy patted her chest and let out a long breath.

Her boyfriend was just too high-strung. He claimed he’d seen weird father-daughter apparitions, worked himself into a panic, got so jittery he misstepped on that rotted patch of floor in the music room, fell, and broke his leg. That had to be it.

She didn’t dwell on it further. Drawing a deep breath, she quickened her pace, caught up to the two ahead of her, and walked out of the ancient manor known as the Black Crow…

Standing outside the rusted iron gates, the evening breeze swept over them, carrying the city’s distinctive smog and the faint, distant aroma of food.

Wendy clutched the thick envelope in her hand. Almost without thinking, she turned and looked back at the dilapidated, shadow-draped mansion, now even more menacing in the twilight.

Strangely, she felt not a shred of fear. Instead, a faint, inexplicable thrill bubbled up inside her. A mild, giddy high from having taken part in something… significant.

A pity, she thought with a touch of regret. She hadn’t gotten the chance to properly conduct a séance in this rumored haunted house with her treasured tarot deck.

Next time, maybe. If there ever was a next time, she mused.

Farewell.

Elsa stood on the gravel path outside the gates, giving a slight nod. Then she turned, dragging the trunk that was nearly as tall as she was, and prepared to leave.

“Hope… there’s a chance to work together again.” Veteran Milo seized the moment, stepping forward.

He pulled out a crudely made, makeshift business card and offered it. The paper was rough, the ink a blue-black stamp bearing his name, a blurry address, and the number for a public phone at some corner drugstore.

Milo wouldn’t normally have something like this, but life had forced his hand.

Seeing this, Wendy hastily fumbled through her own pockets, but she had no card. In the end, she borrowed Elsa’s Parker pen and dug a crumpled slip of notepaper from her bag, scribbling down her name and address.

Elsa accepted the two contacts without any extra pleasantries. She merely nodded once more. Then, hauling the bulging, heavy trunk behind her, she headed down the street into the deepening dusk.

Rumble… rumble…

The wheels of the trunk rolling over the ground echoed starkly in the descending silence.

Veteran Milo stood where he was, watching his employer’s retreating figure. Especially that trunk.

For some reason, unbidden, a tiny thread of doubt surfaced in his heart. “Was that trunk… really something the woman brought from the very start?” he muttered under his breath, his brow instinctively furrowing.

He strained to remember the scene from a few hours ago, when they’d first met outside the iron gates. He recalled Miss Elsa holding a notebook and pen. But that massive trunk… it seemed…

No. That wasn’t right.

Milo shook his head forcefully. In his memory, the image of the trunk had been there countless times. From outside the iron gate, to the foyer, to the descent into the basement…

He might not be young anymore, but he wasn’t old. His eyes weren’t failing him. He couldn’t possibly misremember something like that.

It had to be exhaustion. His nerves were frayed, playing tricks on him.

Pushing the thought aside, he turned his head toward Wendy, who still wore a slightly dazed expression beside him…