An unexpected encounter with the Werewolf

Lin Xue had worked at this shop for five days, quietly observing it for all five.

Yet she still had not found any trace of the hooded figure.

As for the American Shorthair, she had interacted with the cat quite a few times lately. She had personally examined and fed the cat, and even secretly collected a piece of feces to take back for analysis.

The results showed nothing unusual. Every sign indicated that this was a perfectly ordinary American Shorthair cat. At least as far as being a cat went, there was nothing amiss.

The only strange thing was that the cat was clever-extremely clever! On several occasions while feeding the cat, Lin Xue had even felt that she was dealing not with a cat, but with an intelligent little child...

Xiao Ya turned and gave Lin Xue a puzzled look, then said solemnly, "First, Xue, I have to correct you: he's your boss too! Second... the boss really has been acting a little strange lately..." As she spoke, Xiao Ya herself began to frown.

"Oh? Strange how, exactly?" Lin Xue asked.

"I can't quite put my finger on it, but his behavior hasn't felt natural lately. He's gotten all weird and mysterious..." Xiao Ya frowned, thinking hard.

She and Mu You had worked together for over two years and knew each other very well. She could immediately notice even the tiniest changes in him, ones he might not have noticed himself.

"Weird and mysterious... so what exactly changed to give you that impression?" Lin Xue pressed.

"Lots of things!" Xiao Ya blurted out. After thinking for a moment, she added conspiratorially, "For example, once I saw the boss reading a book at the front counter, completely absorbed. He didn't even hear me calling him, so I went over to take a look. And the book he was holding turned out to be the Complete Guide to Harry Potter's Magic Spells!"

"Magic..."

Lin Xue's expression turned odd. That was an answer she had never expected.

"All right, let's stop talking about this. Who knows when the boss will be back? Let's head home first." Xiao Ya exhaled and stretched her arms, loosening up.

"Okay."

The two of them tidied up briefly, then went outside together.

Xiao Ya locked the front door and pulled down the roller shutter with a hooked pole. She dusted off her hands and turned to see Lin Xue still standing by the road a short distance away.

"By the way, Xue, I still don't know where you live." This was the first time in several days that they had left work together. Xiao Ya walked over to Lin Xue and asked.

"I live in the North District."

"Oh... huh? The N-North District?"

Xiao Ya froze, looking at Lin Xue in astonishment. "That's really far away! Even the subway takes over two hours... are you taking a taxi home?"

"No, someone's coming to pick me up." Lin Xue shook her head.

"Oh, okay, that's good..." Xiao Ya nodded repeatedly, her eyes darting about. She was dying to ask who was coming to pick her up-whether it was her boyfriend or something.

Just then, a car approached and pulled neatly up to the curb in front of them.

A short-haired woman in a butler's uniform stepped out of the driver's seat and opened the rear door. "Miss!"

"See you tomorrow!"

Lin Xue smiled and said goodbye to Xiao Ya, then sat down in the back seat.

The car soon started up and drove away.

"S-see you tomorrow..."

Xiao Ya stood rooted to the spot, waving blankly.

Only after the car had disappeared into the distance did she snap out of it with a shiver. She hurriedly took out her phone and looked up the car emblem she had just seen, which had seemed both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was familiar because she had seen that car in a popular urban drama she was currently following. The product placement had featured several shots of the emblem, leaving quite an impression on her.

It was unfamiliar because she had never seen that emblem in real life.

Now that she looked it up, sure enough...

"Maserati Butterfly, the same model driven by the female lead in Moonlight Love and Death. Price... 10.99 million..."

Xiao Ya stared at the information on her phone, dumbfounded. Even the fingers holding it began to tremble.

She was just a country girl who had dropped out of high school to work, yet she was coworkers with a wealthy young lady who rode in a luxury car worth over ten million... and had even said, "See you tomorrow"...

Was she dreaming?

Meanwhile, after leaving the Pet Shop, Mu You did not head straight to the residential area where the incident had occurred.

Instead, he wandered around outside for a while. Once it was completely dark, he found a deserted corner. His muscles rolled and twisted as he switched to the towering Night Watchman's Skin, then put on the Invisibility Cloak.

Taking the Mithril Bow and Pumpkin Lantern in hand, Mu You made all his preparations before heading to the Rainbow Bay Residential Area.

He found Building 39, just as Xiao Ya had described. Sure enough, the building had already been sealed off.

A wide perimeter of police tape surrounded it, and three police officers stood guard at the entrance, strictly forbidding anyone from approaching.

Taking advantage of his invisibility, Mu You quietly climbed over the police tape, slipped past the officers, and entered the apartment building.

The building was twenty-two stories tall. All its residents had been evacuated, and every floor had been sealed off.

Mu You climbed all the way to the twentieth floor before finally finding the crime scene.

In front of apartment 2005, a dried pool of crimson blood was so glaring that it was impossible to miss.

Two police officers were guarding the apartment on this floor. They happened to be blocking the doorway completely, so Mu You could not get inside and had to wait.

A short while later, he seized the opportunity to slip inside while the two officers were changing shifts to get something to eat.

Naturally, the body had long since been removed, but the outline marked on the floor still clearly showed him the victim's condition at the time.

Judging from the outline, the victim had undoubtedly been female. The wound was probably at her throat; it looked as though she had died from having it slit with a sharp weapon.

That alone, however, was not enough to determine whether the Werewolf was responsible.

Mu You moved closer to the body outline, activated the Pumpkin Lantern, and quietly shone it around the area.

Under the glow of the cyan dust, traces invisible to the naked eye appeared on the floor-footprints and fingerprints, for instance!

Mu You immediately noticed a faint handprint on the edge of a wardrobe at one side of the room. Or rather, a "claw print"! Each of its five fingers ended in an incredibly sharp nail! Without question, no human hand could have left that mark!

It was definitely the Werewolf!

Having confirmed that, Mu You's heart only grew heavier.

Could this really have been the "little girl's" room from the game?

Strictly speaking, he and the "little girl" did not actually know each other. They had never even had a proper conversation in the game.

But they were players on the same side, after all. Her fate could very well be a warning of what awaited him...

Shaking his head, Mu You lifted the lantern and continued searching. Soon, he found another trace.

The floor around the body was covered with footprints. Some belonged to the Werewolf, some to the victim herself, and others to the police. They overlapped and crisscrossed, making them extremely difficult to distinguish.

What caught Mu You's attention, however, was a trail of footprints a short distance from the body. It abruptly branched off from that tangle and headed straight toward the window.

The footprints were not large, around a size 34. They probably did not belong to an adult man, but rather to a woman or child.

Mu You followed the trail to the window and discovered that the final footprint was actually on the windowsill. After that, the trail vanished...

"What does this mean? Someone jumped out of the window? This is over twenty floors up. Even the Werewolf wouldn't dare jump straight down, would he...?"

Puzzled, Mu You leaned out to look. A drainpipe ran right beside the window, connecting directly to the water tank on the roof.

"Could they have climbed up the pipe to the roof?" Mu You was not quite sure.

He searched the room again, but still found no sign of a player. Besides, even if a player had left any items behind, the Werewolf would surely have taken them long ago.

Before the officers on duty returned, Mu You decided to check the roof.

He went straight up the stairs, took out the Magic Wand, and opened the rooftop door with an unlocking spell. Then he stepped onto the building's rooftop terrace.

It was late now, and the rooftop was pitch-black.

Mu You walked over to the water tank and searched the surrounding area.

Sure enough, he found another trail of footprints!

What puzzled him, however, was that these footprints were considerably larger than the ones in the apartment. No matter how he looked at them, they did not seem to belong to the same person.

"What on earth is going on?"

Mu You could not help frowning. Why were the clues at the scene getting stranger and stranger?

But he had already come this far. He certainly could not back down now.

Mu You continued following the footprints, walking a long way along the wall before finally rounding the corner of a stone platform ahead... ngh!

Mu You suddenly froze. The sight beyond the corner made his pupils contract sharply and every hair on his body stand on end!

A half-human, half-wolf creature was huddled in the corner!

Gray fur, sharp fangs, and blood all over its body. A wound resembling a burn on its left arm was steadily seeping blood.

The Werewolf licked his wound to stop the bleeding while warily scanning his surroundings with eyes that gleamed with a sinister light.

The Werewolf apparently had not expected anyone to appear in front of him either. Hidden from each other by the corner until that moment, man and wolf had met without warning, and both froze.

"Fuck!"

This was Mu You's first time seeing a real Werewolf in person. He was far uglier than Mu You had imagined, and a chill shot straight to the top of Mu You's head.

The Invisibility Cloak?

No. Something like that might fool ordinary people, but against a high-level player at such close range, the sound of my breathing alone is enough to give away my position!

Without a moment's hesitation, Mu You darted backward, his right hand simultaneously reaching for the Pocket Watch in his pocket.

Unfortunately, the Werewolf was faster!

Whoosh!

Something sliced through the air, launched later but arriving first.

Mu You felt a stab of pain in his right shoulder.

A hook had pierced his right shoulder, stopping him just as he reached for the Pocket Watch.

Then an immense force jerked him backward.

Twisting around in midair, Mu You dimly saw the Werewolf in the corner hauling on the Chain Claw with one hand while raising the other high. In that hand was a Bone-Cleaver covered in blood and scraps of flesh!