Their basketball team's victory had the students at Yan University buzzing with excitement for days. They called it immensely satisfying.
Although none of the students there now had witnessed the incident from a few years ago, Polytechnic University's basketball team had been notorious for its arrogance.
With everyone united against a common enemy, the fruits of victory tasted all the sweeter.
Xiao Xiao was naturally pleased, especially since he'd played a part in that victory.
Even if no one knew about it, he still got a little thrill from feeling like the only sober person in a room full of drunkards.
Especially when he saw Eldest Brother's utterly clueless expression.
He found it a little hard to keep his face straight.
But Xiao Xiao grimaced. He wanted to grab a huge hammer and give Eldest Brother a good whack on the head! He didn't have some lofty aspiration like a monk who sought enlightenment through hardship, so, Elderly man of the Monster Compendium, couldn't you just get rid of his headache once and for all?
Xiao Xiao rubbed his palm over the Monster Compendium's strangely textured cover, hoping it would unleash its power. Even if it couldn't cure his headache completely, it could at least ease it a little more.
Unfortunately, even after Xiao Xiao rubbed the Monster Compendium all over, from top to bottom and side to side, it didn't cooperate at all. It gave no reaction whatsoever, as if it were saying, "Let the winds blow from east to west, north or south; I remain unmoved."
Xiao Xiao's eyebrows twitched. He felt like the pain was about to make his brain malfunction.
Phew. Xiao Xiao let out a long breath and silently recited, "When Heaven is about to entrust someone with a great responsibility, it first tests their resolve, wears out their muscles and bones, starves their body, deprives them of necessities, and frustrates their every endeavor. In this way, it strengthens their mind and will, and makes up for what they lack."
At last, the worst few days passed. His headache still hadn't gotten much better, but after so much rest, his back and waist ached and his limbs had grown stiff. He couldn't take it anymore.
And after all those days, he'd actually gotten used to the pain. Huh, why did that suddenly sound so masochistic?
At any rate, he'd become perfectly capable of keeping a calm expression while feeling like his insides were churning.
The sun was setting. A hazy yellow light bathed the world, and the broad swathes of red clouds were tinged with a few streaks of blood-red crimson.
Xiao Xiao shuffled along the campus in flip-flops, his hands in his pockets.
His whole demeanor was languid and listless.
Well, isn't this what's known as the hour of the demons? Xiao Xiao thought absentmindedly, casually glancing at the sky in the distance. Seen this way, it really did seem a little eerie.
Xiao Xiao avoided the crowds. It was the after-class rush, and everywhere he looked he saw a sea of heads. All around him came the buzz of laughter and people horsing around.
After spending several days recuperating in his dorm, he found the racket uncomfortable and frowned. He hurried along, heading wherever there were fewer people without paying attention to where he was going.
Before long, the noisy voices were left behind. He could only hear them faintly in the distance.
The world seemed to be coated in thick, richly layered ink. The colors were so heavy that Xiao Xiao felt strangely oppressed.
Xiao Xiao rubbed his aching temple. Maybe he should just head back. This really wasn't a good time to take a stroll.
Just as he was about to turn around, his nose twitched. An unfamiliar yet familiar smell drifted through the air.
Was that... the smell of blood?
Xiao Xiao had a bad feeling.
It seemed that going out today really had been a bad idea.
If his head hurt, he should have stayed in the dorm and rested. Why had he gone wandering around?
Though he grumbled to himself, Xiao Xiao still followed the faint scent of blood.
He wasn't so cold-blooded that he could knowingly ignore something wrong.
This was an alley by the back gate of the university, a place few people ever visited. The deep alley stretched into darkness with no end in sight. It seemed all the light stopped abruptly there, leaving a boundary between light and darkness that was both clear and indistinct.
"Tsk. Who knew there was such a creepy place near campus?" Xiao Xiao muttered, though every nerve in his body was taut.
The smell of blood here was so thick it made him sick.
And the source of that smell lay deeper in the alley.
Xiao Xiao irritably raked a hand through his hair. His face was pale, a faint weariness and frustration showing between his brows. Then his expression gradually settled, and the lines of his face took on a hard, sharp edge.
His already dark, quiet eyes grew deeper and blacker. A glimmer of golden light flashed briefly at their depths.
With his hands in his pockets, Xiao Xiao stepped into the alley.
The hazy, warm light gradually fell behind him, peeling away from his body. The sinister chill clawed at him, spreading until it covered his entire body and seeped into his every limb.
The darkness of the alley did nothing to hinder Xiao Xiao.
Everything in the alley was crystal clear in his field of vision.
An old, rusty trash can had been kicked in at some point, leaving a dent in its middle. A few cigarette butts and bits of litter lay scattered across the ground.
A foul, rotting smell wafted through the air.
Everything seemed perfectly ordinary.
But the smell of blood that lingered in his nostrils kept reminding Xiao Xiao that something was definitely wrong.
Xiao Xiao scanned the area, his eyes gleaming in the darkness.
Suddenly, his gaze stopped. He walked over and crouched down. There were several dark, dried stains, so inconspicuous that an ordinary person wouldn't have paid them any attention. They might have mistaken them for watermarks or drops of spilled drink.
But Xiao Xiao's keen nose told him that the spots reeked of blood.
These were... bloodstains!
Xiao Xiao suddenly remembered the vicious monster he'd seen in the gymnasium.
The first thing he'd done after returning to his dorm that night was take out the Monster Compendium to see what the monster was.
Yellowed paper, bright red cinnabar, and an unusual aura filled the air. The cinnabar flowed like a stream, and a monster that looked like neither an eagle nor a hawk appeared vividly on the page.
A single horn atop its head curved into a savage arc. Its sharp, glinting edge seemed to shimmer endlessly, bringing with it wisps of blood-red shadow.
Two strangely written characters appeared right after it: Gu Diao.
Perhaps because the Monster Compendium had leveled up, or for some other reason, it gave him more information than it had at first. Besides the monster's name, Xiao Xiao was surprised to see more words slowly appear beneath it.
At that moment, for some reason, Xiao Xiao suddenly thought of a line from that description: "Its cry resembles a baby's, and it eats people."
Eats people...?
Then Xiao Xiao shook his head hard, wondering if the constant headache was making him overly paranoid.
Why else would he keep attributing everything to monsters?
For now, he couldn't even be sure that the smell of blood came from a person.
He wasn't a police dog. Though in some ways, he was a lot better than one.
But he couldn't tell the difference between human blood and the blood of a cat or dog.
Maybe he'd simply stumbled upon the scene of animal abuse, the kind of cruelty to cats or dogs he'd heard about on the news, rather than a human murder scene.
Heh. Since when had he gotten so good at deluding himself?
Before you continue