The chubby middle-aged man on the television was around forty or fifty years old. Just as Hao Ren had guessed, he was a local who lived on the outskirts of Brusar. He owned a small inn in town and was named Angus. He was the one who had first discovered that Yuefu'erde Castle was haunted and spread the news. The fat innkeeper looked simple and honest, yet had the shrewdness of a businessman.
The interview continued, but all of Hao Ren's attention had been drawn to this news. He didn't even notice Lily scratching him with her claws beside him. The werewolf girl couldn't understand a single word and was gradually slipping into a frenzy.
"...That day, I was tidying up the rooms on the second floor. It was nighttime." Angus looked radiant in front of the camera. Although he was telling a ghost story, he seemed unusually excited. The recent haunting had made his little inn famous, which was actually a good thing for him. "My inn is right on the edge of town. It's called 'Angus's Cabin.' If you're coming from the highway, it'll definitely be the first thing you see. A row of windows on the back faces the ancient castle ruins, though they're very far away. Normally, you can't make out those stones with the naked eye—but that night, I saw flames shooting into the sky in the direction of the castle from behind the windows! There's no forest or houses there, just a pile of stones. I had no idea what was burning, but I still called 999..."
"Did many people see those flames?" the female host asked from the side, preventing Mr. Angus from straying too far from the subject. The latter clearly wanted to stay on camera a little longer, and his rambling seemed endless.
"Yes, many people did. I saw lights come on in many of the town's windows facing the castle." Angus nodded. "And the next day, it was confirmed that many people had seen those flames. But they only 'burned' for a little over ten minutes. Then it was as if they had suddenly vanished, and nothing could be seen anymore. The forest fire brigade rushed over, but found nothing. They said there was only a pile of dry, cold stones there. But I'm certain I didn't make a false report. I'm an honest businessman. 'Angus's Cabin' has been running for so many years because of our honesty..."
"I heard you later drove here yourself to investigate. Is that right?" the female host hurriedly steered the subject back.
"Yes. I've come here many times since then, and I always specifically chose nighttime." A trace of lingering fear finally appeared on Angus's face. "That was when I encountered all sorts of strange things. Soldiers in full armor swaggered past my headlights, there were strange noises shouting loudly, my car inexplicably stalled, and I heard people speaking with extremely odd accents on the car radio... It was terrifying."
The female host pulled back the microphone and faced the camera. "The 'haunting stories' of Brusar have been spreading more and more widely. Increasing numbers of paranormal enthusiasts and adventurers are flocking to this little town. Professional scholars researching electromagnetism, geology, and other fields have also taken an interest in the place..."
Hao Ren had lost interest in what came afterward. It was basically a load of nonsense about urging everyone to believe in science while enthusiastically discussing the hauntings. He casually switched off the television, then rested his chin on his fist like a thinker and stared blankly into space.
Lily finally went completely berserk. She leaped onto the sofa and vigorously scratched Hao Ren's shoulder. "Landlord, Landlord, what exactly did they say on TV just now?"
"Our 'new friend'..." Hao Ren's tone was solemn. "There's a nine-out-of-ten chance it's a ghost. Remember the haunted-castle incident that Mr. Nangong mentioned? That's what they were talking about on TV. Unless the locals have teamed up to fool tourists from out of town, it must be related to the 'newcomer' Raven 12345 sent over. Tsk, tsk. Why did this newcomer have to be such a troublesome one?"
Vivian hadn't understood what they were saying on TV either, but she could tell from the commotion on the screen. "Wait, if that's the case... there must be lots of people around Yuefu'erde Castle now! And everyone's looking for ghosts in that area?!"
"Yeah, this is a huge headache." Hao Ren sighed. "What I fear most is attracting attention. Who knows whether the newcomer will be as easy to deal with as you guys... Uh, I mean, sensible. If it's some reckless idiot who doesn't care about anything, things will definitely get lively."
Lily squatted on the sofa and tilted her head, thinking for a long while. Then she suddenly clapped her paws. "I'm sleepy. I'm going to bed."
After saying that, the werewolf girl swaggered toward the bedroom under the stunned gazes of Hao Ren and Vivian. It wasn't until she slammed the door shut that the two of them came to their senses. That idiot's body clock still hadn't adjusted to the time difference. It was broad daylight outside, yet it was already her bedtime.
"I'm a little sleepy too." Sleepiness was contagious. After seeing Lily return to her room, the fatigue Hao Ren had accumulated during the journey began spreading through him as well. "I'll go back to my room and sleep for a while. Aren't you tired?"
"My schedule has always been different from yours." Vivian shrugged. "And during those days at your house, I messed up my biological clock trying to match your schedule. I'm not sleepy right now anyway."
"Alright, then. I'm going back to sleep. If I'm still not awake by tonight, wake me up. We'll go downstairs for dinner. Lily probably won't wake up—she sleeps like a log. Bring some food up for her." As he spoke, Hao Ren stretched and walked toward his room. In the end, Vivian was left alone in the living room, staring blankly. The vampire girl looked toward Lily's door, her heart filled with sorrow. Life was difficult when traveling abroad. Tonight, the noble Bloodkin would have to share a nest with a Big Dog...
Hao Ren slept all the way until eight or nine in the evening local time. Vivian said that he had been sleeping so soundly that she hadn't had the heart to disturb him. Lily was exactly as Hao Ren had expected: the idiot werewolf, who had no intention of adjusting to the time difference, was sleeping incredibly soundly. Even Vivian's pacing around beside her had failed to wake her.
Since they had things to do early the next morning, Hao Ren and Vivian went downstairs to the restaurant, ate a little, and returned to their rooms. Lily was still sleeping like the dead, apparently with no intention of eating either. Hao Ren left several convenient foods he had brought for her on the low table beside Lily's bed, then returned to his own room to rest. He was determined to correct the time difference by sleeping like a maniac within a single day. As a vampire, Vivian's sleep schedule was already somewhat different from that of humans, and she had also thoroughly scrambled her biological clock at Hao Ren's house, so she only began feeling sleepy around midnight. Well, surely some clever people had already guessed what happened in the middle of the night. That's right—Lily woke up...
One physically normal ordinary human, one werewolf who had no intention of adjusting to the time difference, and one vampire whose biological clock had become more chaotic than ever before—the marvelous trio finally collided fiercely in their sleeping schedules in this foreign land eight time zones away. When Hao Ren and Vivian were awake, Lily was asleep. When Vivian finally became tired, Lily perked up. Meanwhile, Vivian was full of energy for two-thirds of the time Hao Ren was sleeping. When Vivian and Lily were awake at the same time, Hao Ren still hadn't woken up. Don't try to figure out the relationship between these three people's waking hours by drawing timetables and connection charts, because things had already become so chaotic that even they couldn't sort it out themselves! Their sleeping periods were nested within one another in patterns of two-thirds, three-quarters, and so on. Basically, whenever one member of the trio was asleep, at least one other was wandering around the whole house like a restless ghost...
Early the next morning, Hao Ren emerged from his room looking listless, his hair sticking up like a bird's nest. He came face-to-face with Vivian, whose eyes were bloodshot. The vampire girl immediately complained to him. "Hao Ren! I'm never sleeping in the same room as that Big Dog again! She jumped up in the middle of the night yelling that she wanted breakfast, then paced around beside my bed in the dark for two hours!"
Hao Ren had probably gotten the best sleep of the three. Adding up all the fragments, he had slept for nearly a dozen hours. By the end, he had been only one doctor short of falling into a coma. He looked at Vivian through bleary eyes. "Uh... I felt like the room was especially cold last night. Turning off the air conditioner didn't help at all. Do you know what happened?"
Vivian's face reddened. "Uh, I couldn't sleep during the first half of the night, so I did two sets of slimming exercises in the living room. I might not have noticed."
Hao Ren immediately felt a chill down his spine. He realized just how horrifying the night had been. During the first half of the night, a vampire had silently performed exercises in the living room. During the second half, a werewolf had patrolled the room across the hall in total darkness for two hours!
What had happened in that room overnight was only one film crew short of being a story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio!
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