Vampire Coroner

Early morning. A mid-to-high-end apartment in Los Angeles.

On the king-size bed, a fair-skinned blonde girl lazily rolled over. The flush on her cheeks hadn't faded yet. She half-closed her blue eyes and hooked her finger around the hem of the man's shirt at the edge of the bed.

"Steven, can't we... do it again for free?" Jessica's voice carried obvious flattery and suggestion.

"Sorry."

Steven John didn't turn around. He brushed her hand away without mercy. "If you want to continue, you'll have to pay more."

He grabbed his shirt, draped it over his shoulders, and walked straight to the floor-to-ceiling window. He yanked the curtains open. The Los Angeles streets, washed by the rainstorm, gave off a cold atmosphere. The harsh morning light hit his body, making his porcelain-doll-like pale face appear even sharper. Black hair, brown eyes—his pure-blooded Italian mother and Chinese-American mixed-race father had given him an extremely striking appearance.

Unfortunately, this body was now a bit overworked.

Steven discreetly rubbed his aching lower back, forcing his consciousness to fully wake from last night's madness.

He walked to the mahogany desk and sat down, pulling out a sheet of fine-quality parchment and unscrewing his fountain pen cap. The pen tip scratched across the paper as line after line of fluent American Federal language appeared.

"Name: Jessica Davis."

"Mileage: Eighteen years old (nearly new vehicle)."

"Inspection results: Accident-free premium vehicle. Front-engine, rear-wheel drive. Original factory paint. Solid chassis, excellent automatic driving experience."

"Drawbacks: Extremely high fuel consumption, overly wild speed, difficult to control."

"Overall rating: Grade A."

Steven sealed it with his exclusive wax stamp and pushed the "Vehicle Assessment Report," which gave off a faint ink fragrance, to the edge of the desk.

"Assessment fee, two thousand Federal dollars." Steven tapped the desk without looking up.

Jessica wrapped herself in the bedsheet and came over. When she saw the eye-catching "Grade A" mark at the bottom of the report, undisguised joy burst from her eyes. In this circle, this thin stamped piece of paper represented status and capital.

"Beep—"

The card reader spat out a receipt. Transaction complete.

Jessica pressed the report to her chest, looking at Steven with increasingly seductive eyes. "Steven, you really are Los Angeles's most discerning chief vehicle assessor! If you're willing, you can come to me anytime in the future... no charge."

"Put your clothes on, Miss Davis." Steven took a sip of cold coffee, his tone completely flat. "I do assessments for only two reasons. First, I desperately need money; second, to relieve my serious psychological condition. Unfortunately, free test drives don't help with either of those."

"What an unromantic man." Jessica pouted, but the infatuation in her eyes didn't diminish one bit.

After seeing Jessica out, the apartment door clicked shut and locked.

Steven immediately slumped his shoulders and collapsed into the leather sofa, letting out a long breath of stale air.

"Twenty-something years old, a thirty-something body, fifty-something erectile tissue..." He self-mockingly tugged at the corner of his mouth. This line of work really wasn't something just anyone could do.

However, looking at the deposit notification that popped up on his phone, his tense nerves finally relaxed a bit. With this two thousand dollars added, he'd finally scraped together his adoptive parents' special medication costs for the month. At least for the next few days, he could give his battered body a proper break.

He casually picked up the remote and turned on the TV.

"According to our station's latest astronomical warning, tonight will see the 'Blood Moon' astronomical phenomenon that occurs once every thirty years. At that time, regardless of hemisphere or whether it's day or night, the entire earth will be shrouded in an eerie blood-red color..."

On the screen, the host excitedly pointed at the crimson full moon on the backdrop.

Steven frowned and pressed the channel button without hesitation.

The words "Blood Moon" inevitably stirred up those distant memories deep in his mind. In his previous life's rental apartment, he had also been eating takeout while staring blankly at a screen.

That's right, Steven was a transmigrator who had crossed over from birth.

This world was highly parallel to the Earth in his memories, but all the country names had changed, and the technology tree had developed more advanced.

When he was eight, what should have been a warm family road trip became the turning point of his fate—his parents mysteriously disappeared, vanishing along with their car.

He did have relatives in New York, but his uncle Andrew was a real mafia boss who couldn't even pass the basic guardian qualification review. So eight-year-old Steven, with his stunning looks, was forcibly sent to a children's home.

There, he quickly learned a cruel truth: without parental protection, striking beauty was a sin, a deadly poison that attracted countless filthy desires. After experiencing several extremely unpleasant "dangerous situations," his mafia uncle Andrew used his powerful methods to forcibly arrange for a kind-hearted Asian couple to adopt him, finally preserving his innocent life.

When he got into college, the high tuition and student loans pressed down on him like a mountain.

In his previous life, Steven had been just a socially inexperienced loser who muddled through life on the meager inheritance his parents left behind. His daily routine consisted of gaming, being a keyboard warrior online, and devoting all his remaining energy to studying tens of thousands of gigabytes of "study materials."

His only achievement in his previous life was that meticulously categorized, comprehensive portable hard drive. And his biggest regret before dying suddenly was not holding on long enough to format that hard drive!

Who could have imagined that what he'd treated as entertainment in his previous life—all that "armchair expertise"—would become his livelihood in this life!

To make money, he quietly made connections through his uncle Andrew's gang channels. With that flawless face, the sharp eye developed from watching countless films in his previous life, plus the eloquence to talk the dead back to life, he officially hung out his shingle as a "vehicle assessor."

After a short probation period, Steven's reputation in Los Angeles's underground circles exploded.

His target clients were very specific: independent women with money to spare, ambition, and a desire to raise their status through an "authoritative assessment."

Even Jessica, the eighteen-year-old nearly-new vehicle who had just walked out the door, had been personally referred by her own mother—the still-charming Mrs. Davis.

In just a few years, he had not only paid off all his student loans but also rented this luxury apartment worth over 1.3 million in this expensive neighborhood. Life should have continued smoothly from there.

But he ultimately couldn't outsmart fate.

Earlier this year, the kind adoptive parents who had taken him in were both diagnosed at the hospital with a rare and fatal genetic disease.

The monthly bills for special medication, amounting to hundreds of thousands, were like a bottomless pit that instantly emptied all the savings in his account and even forced him to take out a shockingly large high-interest loan.

Forget about buying his current dream apartment—he could barely afford next month's rent.

The underground autopsy room at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office was always filled with the nauseating smell of formaldehyde mixed with rotting flesh.

"Steven, come give me a hand. Get this pile of meat into a body bag." The chief medical examiner called out without looking up.

"Coming."

Steven put on double-layered rubber gloves with a blank expression and scooped the mangled remains from the operating table into the bag, piece by piece - body parts crushed into pulp by a car accident. Taking photos, recording, sending samples for testing, collecting the remains. That was all there was to his job as a forensic assistant.

Authority reports, cause of death determinations - that was the medical examiner's job. Him? He was just a glorified janitor who got in through connections.

Two and a half years on the job, still a nobody. Steven had no passion for this profession - he even found it disgusting. When he first started, he threw up for over two weeks straight and lost more than twenty pounds before barely getting used to it. After all, causing accidents for people and personally cleaning up rotting flesh were two completely different experiences.

If it was so painful, why not quit?

Because quitting meant death. Literally.

Taking off his blood-stained protective suit, Steven leaned against the metal locker in the changing room and lit a cheap cigarette. Through the swirling smoke, his thoughts drifted uncontrollably to the past.

If it weren't for Uncle Andrew Thomas, he probably wouldn't be alive today.

When he was eight, at the children's home, a pedophile caretaker and the so-called "house parent" cornered him in a storage room and tried to pull down his pants. To protect himself, little Steven locked the door that night and set a fire that completely "purified" those animals. No one would suspect an eight-year-old orphan of being a serial arsonist.

Later, he moved to several other foster homes. Anyone who tried to lay their dirty hands on him died in various bizarre "accidents." Three caretakers died one after another, and four adoptive families had dark corners filled with filth.

The name "Child of Disaster" spread like wildfire. Just when Steven thought he was about to be exposed and was preparing to run, family members from New York contacted him.

Uncle Andrew flew to Los Angeles himself. "Kid, you've suffered." Those were the warmest words Steven had ever heard in his life.

Andrew pulled strings and found him a genuinely kind couple to adopt him. Steven finally ended that twisted, bloody path, woke up from the nightmare, and started living a normal life. He was genuinely grateful to Uncle Andrew.

When he was ten, the Thomas family couldn't make it in New York anymore, so Andrew moved to the Italian community in Los Angeles with the dozen or so remaining family members.

After that, Steven became a regular at family gatherings. Although these relatives collected protection money and ran loan sharking operations - doing all kinds of bad things - they were especially protective of Steven, their nephew by a different surname.

"Steven, watching cars pays quick money. The family's got your back, nobody will mess with you." With one sentence from Andrew, he landed a side job as a vehicle appraiser that ordinary people wouldn't dare touch. Without gang connections, doing this work meant either getting shot by competitors or dumped in the Los Angeles River.

With the family's protection, Steven made it through college safely. He liked body art, but definitely not the lifeless chunks of meat in the autopsy room.

Until his junior year, Andrew called him over and said in a tone that left no room for argument: "Drop your career plans. Go to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office."

Steven tried to resist, but seeing the expectant looks in his family members' eyes, he gave in. To repay his debt, he frantically finished all his credits in two years. With his good looks, several well-respected male professors generously gave him straight A's. His resume looked flawless, and he got into the coroner's office smoothly.

But he overestimated his ability to handle it.

The intense stench of decay, the severed limbs - they tortured him day and night. Steven developed serious psychological problems. The unlicensed black market doctor, blowing smoke rings, told him: "You need to let it out. Use physical activity to stimulate your brain."

So Steven's life became completely split.

During the day, he examined dead bodies on cold autopsy tables. At night, he "examined bodies" of Hollywood dreamers working as escorts in hotel beds, occasionally having to "take care of" female college students working their way through school.

At first, this double life brought intense stimulation that suppressed his depression. But over time, his body stopped going numb, but his heart did.

Like a walking corpse.

A month ago, Steven really couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to leave Los Angeles, find an honest woman, settle down, and live a normal life.

In the morning, he submitted his resignation letter to the legal supervisor.

That afternoon, someone threw a bag over his head and took him to an abandoned cemetery in the suburbs.

As cold, foul-smelling dirt was shoveled onto his face, shovelful by shovelful, Steven suddenly woke up.

At the edge of the pit above, Uncle Andrew's familiar face was chillingly cold: "Steven, the family didn't raise you all these years so you could go live the good life. That position at the coroner's office - you're going to keep holding it for me. Try to quit, and this pit becomes your bed."

In that moment, suffocation mixed with bone-chilling cold surged through him.