Free Web NovelChapter 241: Chapter 241 Private Photo_1
Finding Kael’s temporary residence in Silvertown wasn’t difficult since, as a foreign non-human, he had registered his current address with the Heresy Tribunal upon arrival.
Moreover, he had left a return address in the letters sent to Ophelia—an affordably-priced inn approximate a fifteen-minute walk from the Rose Iron Prison, offering weekly and monthly rental services.
The following morning, Aiden found the inn following the address and located the corresponding room, trying to knock on the door.
After several seconds had passed and Aiden received no response, he tried knocking on the door again.
Aiden couldn’t help but suspect that the other party had gone out and began to hesitate whether to visit another day or to wait nearby for a while.
But before he could make up his mind, the door suddenly opened, revealing a pale, bloodless face through a narrow slit—it was Kael Callado.
Upon seeing the visitor, Kael’s eyes widened, "Warden?"
"I’m sorry, did I disturb your rest?" Aiden doffed his hat in greeting, his first thought being that Kael had probably just been sound asleep in bed, awakened by his knocking.
After all, most vampires were nocturnal; what was morning for humans was like evening for them.
"No, not at all, absolutely not!" Kael forced a polite smile and opened the door wider, "What brings you here?"
"Well..." Aiden was about to start speaking when he suddenly paused.
He noticed there was a young woman sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking.
The lady was wearing what was obviously a counterfeit nurse’s outfit, scandalously skimpy material-wise, and draped over her shoulders was a men’s suit jacket.
Upon realizing that the man at the door was not hotel staff but a male visitor, the woman frowned and turned slightly, pulling the jacket tighter around herself, covering up the exposed pale skin.
Seeing this, Aiden raised an eyebrow, took about a second to understand the situation, and nodded at Kael, "Seems I would be better off visiting in the afternoon. You can continue with the second half."
"Wait, wait, wait..." Kael hurriedly stopped Aiden, "You might have misunderstood something?"
"No worries, Mr. Kael, I’m only in charge of the prison, not personal conduct. I haven’t seen anything, so I won’t gossip. I respect others’ privacy," Aiden said, showing an understanding and polite smile, then bowed slightly, "Good day."
"You see, this is a complete misunderstanding!" Kael threw up his hands in exasperation, "Please don’t jump to conclusions; this is just part of my job, I need to earn a living too!"
"Your job?" Aiden paused for a moment, and then, as if a light bulb went off, he lowered his voice, "You mean... you’re the one getting paid?"
"Not at all!!" Kael vehemently denied, "I am a photographer, a portrait photographer!" freewёbnoνel.com
Kael pointed to the desk inside the room; only then did Aiden notice a camera placed there—different from the ones he occasionally toyed with in the prison out of interest, Kael was using a professional piece of equipment that newspaper reporters would use.
"You need to take portrait photographs in your rented room?" Aiden asked, still somewhat dubious.
"Please do not lump me together with those malicious trash from the industry," Kael said, pressing one hand to his chest and placing the other on Aiden’s shoulder, looking straight into Aiden’s eyes with a face full of righteous indignation.
"So why in your room?"
"As you have seen, a nurse uniform photo set needs a hospital scene set up. I couldn’t possibly go to an actual hospital to borrow a setting; I’d get thrown out," Kael spread his hands, "The bed in the hotel where I live happens to have the right colors. I merely hire models, photograph them, and then sell the pictures to magazines—nothing more. I absolutely do not cross the line with the models. In this respect, I consider myself the conscience of the industry."
"Sold to magazines?"
"You must have seen ’B.B. Girl Magazine’ distributed in the autonomous region. Every adult man here has basically seen it!" Kael asserted, "There’s also ’Playboy’ from the Empire, ’Little Black Room Treasures’ from the Netherlands... I have worked with magazines everywhere; I sell them loose pictures!"
"The ones you just mentioned all seem to be adult magazines..." Aiden commented dryly.
No wonder this guy would bribe people with lewd pictures; he was a maker of them himself.
"I only pursue artistry!" Kael insisted.
"All right, all right, I believe you," Aiden raised his hands, "after all, your kind indeed is... But I still have to ask, you haven’t broken the ban, right?"
"How could I? Look, the magic tattoo on my neck is intact! If you don’t believe it, you can check it yourself." Kael tilted his head back, letting Aiden see the ring of magic script on his neck.
"All right," Aiden nodded, "then it seems I have interrupted your work; I’ll visit some other time."
"No need, no need. The shooting has just ended; it will be fine once Miss Model has changed her clothes." Kael snapped his fingers, "I apologize, Miss Mary, I have an important guest now. We can talk about having a drink tonight, how about that?"
The model sitting in the room glanced disapprovingly at Aiden standing at the door, got up, walked to the corner of the room, and drew the curtains that had been set up.
After a while, the model changed clothes, grabbed her bag, and left, and only then did Kael invite Aiden into the room. frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Haha, there’s not much in this hotel to entertain guests with, how about I show you my recent proudest works?" Kael said with a dry laugh, "The set I just shot still needs a place to be developed; you can admire some of my work from the past few days..."
"We’ll talk about that later," Aiden waved off the offer.
"Then let me pour you a cup of coffee. Since I had a shoot today, I had the hotel prepare a pot specially," Kael said, moving towards the table to pick up the pot and a cup.
"You came to the autonomous region and have been busy with this kind of work all this time? I thought you were occupied with investigations," Aiden remarked, not taking a seat but folding his arms and looking at Kael.
"Investigation requires clues; I do wish I could be busy with investigations, but to be honest, aside from the useless Earl I caught in the red-light district, I can’t find any trace or clue." Kael sighed with his back to Aiden, "I was actually planning to visit you when I had a moment, to ask if there have been any developments at the Heresy Inquisition Council."
"There haven’t been any on that end, but there have been on mine," Aiden segued into his news, "Last night, a female vampire countess from the Blood Moon Cult came to my prison trying to stage a jailbreak, wanting to take Ophelia out of prison—"
A sharp crash suddenly broke out, interrupting Aiden’s words—The handle of the cup in Kael’s hand had snapped off suddenly, and the cup fell to the ground and shattered.
