There's Also a Cat

In that instant, Hao Ren thought of many things.

He thought of the traditional virtue of the Chinese people repaying kindness, of revolutionary martyrs who sacrificed themselves for their cause and the truth, of the first time in elementary school when he bravely fought back against the class bully who tried to steal his chocolate... Well, actually, he had not thought of that much. He only knew one thing: although this girl named Lily was unbelievable, although she "might" be something extraordinary, and might not even be human, she was not bad, and she had just saved his life—Hao Ren was one hundred percent certain that when that "weird thing," which shifted between a human form and a bat, attacked for the first time, it had been targeting him. Several times afterward, "its" attention had also been on him. There was absolutely no mistake about that!

Although Hao Ren was just an ordinary person, he was quite confident in, even proud of, his instincts and composure in a crisis. Ever since childhood, he had been a troublemaking brat, and countless reckless stunts like welding saws to light bulbs, along with the dangers that followed, had forged those qualities in him. Even when he had been a hair's breadth from death just now, he had noticed that the "bat" had been after him from the start.

But Lily seemed not to have noticed that. Perhaps she was trapped in a fixed mindset and had single-mindedly assumed from the beginning that the bat was after her. That could probably be attributed to the girl being a little dumb...

Still, no matter what, this girl who called herself a "Werewolf" had saved his life. Hao Ren could not just leave her alone. This place was barren, remote, and sparsely populated, and it was late at night. Lily, an outsider... wolf, would probably have nowhere to stay and end up sleeping on the streets. He could not bring himself to do that.

Of course, he had also considered the possibility that the bat would come back. But as he had said before, he felt that the bat was after him—so keeping Lily nearby might be a safeguard. No matter how unreliable the Heavenly Meteor Brick was, it had to be more powerful than the rolling pin at home, right?

That thought might have been rather discouraging, but faced with something so far beyond common sense, Hao Ren could only make plans like that. He knew his own limits well enough.

"Let's go. It's getting late," Hao Ren said, rubbing his legs, which had gone numb from the cold. He took the lead in front of Lily. "When we get back, I still need to find you something to eat. Oh, right, are you vegetarian?"

He suddenly remembered her identity as a "Werewolf" and could not help asking. It showed that Hao Ren was actually quite accepting.

"I eat anything!" Lily nodded happily. Carrying a huge box weighing over a hundred pounds, she strode beside Hao Ren as if it weighed nothing. But after only a few steps, she finally reacted. "Landlord, you really aren't scared? I think ordinary people would definitely be scared if they ran into something like this. Have you seen 'others' before? Hey, Landlord, don't worry, I don't hurt people! I've watched lots of movies. Humans seem pretty scared of us..."

Hao Ren felt a faint ache starting up in his head again. The girl's true nature had revealed itself once more: overly familiar, scatterbrained, blunt, and endlessly chatty—an absolute idiot. He could not answer that many questions at once, so he could only sigh softly. "Sigh... Honestly, I'm still dazed right now. Let me go home, have a smoke, and calm down first. We'll talk about everything when we get back."

So Lily finally quieted down a little. The two of them traveled the rest of the way in silence and eventually arrived at the legendary Baishi Road, stopping in front of a rather old-looking but fairly large two-story building.

The small building stood at the end of the concrete road, with wasteland behind it and plenty of open space around it. It could be called the boundary between Human civilization and the realm of nature—Hao Ren often described his home that way because it sounded impressive, proving that he was still young at heart, or at least still capable of being a melodramatic teenager. The sides of Baishi Road were lined with equally weathered, aging houses, many of them two or even three stories tall. Yet more than half were deserted, with neither lights nor voices, like haunted houses abandoned long ago. As this forgotten area of the South Suburbs grew ever more desolate and the city's center never shifted in this direction, more and more local residents had chosen to move into the city. Hao Ren, living at the very end of the road, was one of the few residents left here.

"Good thing they just replaced the streetlights here, or this place would really look like a ghost street," Hao Ren muttered to himself.

"Huh? What ghost street?" Lily's voice immediately came from beside him. Truly worthy of a canine—what hearing.

Hao Ren gave a Wave Hand to indicate that he had just been talking nonsense. Lily did not care much. She simply looked up at the home she was about to rent. This dull, rectangular old building seemed to please the girl quite a bit. "Mm, nice place. It's not too noisy, and with few people around, I won't have to worry about being recognized. Living in human society is hard. I'm always worried about being taken away and sliced up for research. And there are too many human scammers. Fighting never ends. It's such a hassle."

As Hao Ren stepped forward to open the door, he gave Lily a surprised look. "You're so powerful, but you're afraid of being sliced up for research?"

Having seen Lily display her might earlier, Hao Ren had become rather impressed with her. He had thought a legendary creature like a Werewolf would naturally be stronger than a human, but he had not expected her to casually mention worrying about being taken away and dissected.

"Yep," Lily nodded vigorously. "I watch movies all the time. Humans love doing that. You're incredibly xenophobic. Aliens in the United States get sliced up for research, and aliens in China get sliced up for research and then tasted to see whether they're salty. It's terrifying!"

Hao Ren decided not to seriously discuss any topic with this idiot again.

There was an outer security door and then an inner reinforced door, and both locks were rather old. Hao Ren spent quite some effort before finally getting inside. He casually switched on the light in the main room, then turned around and called Lily in.

After locking the front door behind them, Hao Ren began introducing the layout. "This counts as the main living room. My Dad designed this house, and the layout is a little unconventional, so just bear with it. The two doors on either side of the living room lead to my room and the room reserved for you. Through the door in front is a small hallway leading to the kitchen and bathroom. The stairs go up to the second floor, where there are four empty rooms, but no one lives there right now, so you don't need to worry about them. I'll help you put your luggage away first—by the way, did you bring your own bedding, or will you use what's already in the room? Everything here is pretty clean, but girls usually care about that sort of thing..."

"I don't mind. As long as I can sleep, it's fine!" Lily called energetically, patting her box. "I didn't bring bedding. It wouldn't fit in just one box."

Hao Ren swallowed the rest of his sentence. It seemed the girl before him was not an "ordinary" girl. She was the uninhibited type.

Lily did not ask anyone to help settle her luggage, though Hao Ren did not know whether that was feminine reserve or simply because she was starving. She only urged him to hurry up and cook, emphasizing again that she would properly pay for her meals. Hao Ren was rather touched.

Entering the kitchen, Hao Ren dug out some dried noodles and a few ingredients from the refrigerator. Humming a tune, he turned on the gas, then remembered the terrifying events of that night and decided to smoke a cigarette while cooking to calm himself down.

...Fortunately, he realized what he was about to do just before lighting the cigarette and hurriedly ignited the stove first. Otherwise, this book would have ended after five chapters.

Listening to the clattering sounds coming from Lily's room and wondering what strange luggage she had packed in that huge box, Hao Ren sorted through everything that had happened to him that day while cooking the noodles. He had gone into the city looking for work without success, met an overly familiar girl while sleeping in the park, coincidentally discovered that she was his new tenant, and then, on the way home with her, watched his ordinary life get smashed to pieces by surreal phenomena—Werewolves, supernatural powers, and an attack that had nearly killed him. Less than ten minutes of experience had overturned and rebuilt the Worldview he had held for twenty-five years!

What exactly was that bat that could turn into a human silhouette and carried the smell of blood and an icy aura?

After thinking about it, Hao Ren reached a horrifying conclusion: it might have been the legendary Vampire. After all, there was already a Werewolf beside him. If Vampires and Werewolves did not love and hate each other, could they still be considered proper Vampires?

But speaking of Werewolves... the Werewolf girl he had met did not seem much like the ones from legend. She did not look blue-faced or fang-toothed. She was actually rather cute... just a little dumb.

After thinking for a long time without reaching any conclusion, Hao Ren displayed his admirable carefree nature and decided to leave everything until after dinner. Lily seemed like a fairly easygoing "Werewolf." Maybe she could explain the situation to him. At the very least, she could give him some direction while he rebuilt his Worldview.

The noodles were soon ready. Hao Ren carried the quick yet filling dinner back to the living room and found Lily already sitting at the dining table with an expectant look on her face. Catching the scent of the noodles, she sniffed hard and gave Hao Ren a brilliant smile. Why did she feel... like a puppy waiting to be fed?

The two sat down at the table. Lily had already impatiently grabbed her chopsticks when Hao Ren suddenly remembered something and hurriedly shouted toward the stairs, "Roll down here and eat!"

Under Lily's curious gaze, a black-and-white blur nimbly darted down from upstairs, then ran with practiced ease to Hao Ren's feet and rubbed its head against his shoes. It turned out to be a black-and-white kitten.

What happened next left Hao Ren unable to understand for a long time:

Lily—the powerful Werewolf, the Werewolf who had just overturned his Worldview, the Werewolf already classified as a "highly mysterious species"—jumped out of her chair the instant she saw that black-and-white kitten and zipped behind the sofa Not Far Away!

She had even been forced into her Werewolf form!

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