ingly. "Besides, what impressed her wasn''t just his handsome appearance, but rather the strong sense of familiarity he evoked in her. However, she couldn''t pinpoint where she had seen him before. Moreover, his noble status was evident at a glance, how could a peasant woman like her have had the chance to know him? To say that he resembled anyone she personally knew would be even more impossible, as his appearance was hardly connected to any man of her own social class.
"As the two young men rode off side by side, she still failed to recall. It wasn''t until that evening when she carefully bolted the door that the reason for this habit suddenly came to mind, and memories all at once flooded back. My maid finally understood: that person was the phantom boy she had encountered in her childhood when she got lost! He had grown up, changed!
"This is absurd! Wasn''t he supposed to be a ghost child? How could a ghost possibly grow up?" Amy immediately interrupted.
"And to appear in broad daylight?" Anne added.
"She couldn''t fathom it either, so she told her now-deceased husband about it. The villagers speculated that he was another incarnation of the devil, as the vampire child was capable of using sorcery to transform into various forms. However, it surprised everyone that he was actually able to leave the cursed castle; they had always believed that the comte and the demon he worshipped were closely connected to their dwelling.
"But with the departure of the phantom youth, Comte de La Garnache seemed to crack up day by day. He rarely showed himself, but several years later, to the astonishment of the peasants, they saw the comte standing on the terrace on a sunny day. The lore of him being nourished by blood and immortal had already spread far and wide, and he indeed lived for too long, long enough to make people have butterflies in the stomach. Moreover, his countenance forever bore the mark of aged but non-decaying appearance.
"Yet now they could see that he had truly grown old. His silver hair had become even whiter - if that were possible. His emaciated and haggard body could no longer uphold the plush robes he wore, and his hands, marked with patches of spots, trembled. His once piercing eyes could barely open,