Chapter 5

In that instant, Hao Ren thought of many things.

He thought of the traditional virtue of the Chinese people to repay kindness, the revolutionary martyrs who dedicated themselves to their cause and the truth, and his first brave resistance against the class bully who tried to snatch his chocolate when he was in elementary school. He thought of... well, actually, he didn't think that much. He just knew one thing: the girl in front of him, Lily, although incredible and possibly a formidable character, even possibly not human, was not bad, and she had just saved his life—Hao Ren was one hundred percent sure that the "strange thing" that sometimes turned into a human and sometimes into a bat had targeted him during its first attack, and several times afterward, its attention was on him. There was no doubt about it!

Although Hao Ren was just an ordinary person, he was quite confident and even proud of his intuition and calmness in crisis. He had been a troublemaker since childhood, and through countless dangerous stunts and the subsequent dangers, he had honed these qualities. Even in the face of life and death, he had noticed that the "bat" had been targeting him from the start.

But Lily seemed not to have noticed this. Perhaps she was a bit set in her ways and had assumed from the beginning that the bat was after her. This could probably be attributed to her being a bit scatterbrained...

However, no matter what, the girl who called herself a "werewolf" had saved his life, and Hao Ren couldn't just leave her. The area was desolate and sparsely populated, and it was late at night. Lily, being from out of town... a wolf, would have nowhere to stay and would likely end up sleeping on the street. He couldn't let that happen.

Of course, he also considered the possibility that the bat might return, but as he had thought earlier, he felt the bat was after him. Keeping Lily around might be a safeguard. Even if the "Meteor Hammer" was unreliable, it was still more powerful than a rolling pin at home, right?

This thought might be a bit disheartening, but in the face of this scene that defied common sense, Hao Ren could only think this way. He was quite self-aware.

"Let's go, it's getting late," Hao Ren rubbed his legs, which were slightly numb from the cold, and walked ahead of Lily. "When we get back, I'll make you something to eat. By the way, are you a vegetarian?"

He suddenly remembered her "werewolf" identity and couldn't help but ask, which showed that Hao Ren's ability to accept things was quite strong.

"I eat anything!" Lily nodded happily, carrying a large box weighing over a hundred pounds and walking briskly beside Hao Ren. However, after a few steps, she realized something. "Landlord, aren't you scared? I think ordinary people would be scared in this situation. Have you ever seen 'monsters' before? Hey, landlord, don't worry, I don't hurt people! I've seen a lot of movies, and humans seem to be quite afraid of us..."

Hao Ren felt a headache coming on again: this girl's true nature was revealed once more. She was friendly, a bit scatterbrained, straightforward, and talkative. He couldn't answer too many things at once, so he could only sigh slightly. "Sigh... To be honest, I'm still a bit dazed. Let me calm down with a cigarette when we get home. We can talk about everything then."

So, Lily finally quieted down a bit. The two walked in silence and eventually arrived at the legendary Bai Shi Road, stopping in front of a two-story building that looked old but was quite large.

The small building was at the end of the cement road, with wasteland behind it and a rather open area around it, making it a boundary between human civilization and the natural world. Hao Ren often described his home in this grandiose way to prove that he was still young at heart and still had the ability to be a bit of a middle-schooler. The two sides of Bai Shi Road were lined with similarly old and dilapidated houses, and many of them were two or even three stories tall. However, most of them were deserted, with no lights or sounds, like abandoned ghost houses. As the southern suburbs became increasingly desolate and the city's focus remained elsewhere, more and more local residents moved to the city. Hao Ren, living at the end of the road, was one of the few remaining residents.

"Fortunately, the streetlights were just replaced, otherwise it would look like a ghost street," Hao Ren muttered to himself.

"Huh? What ghost street?" Lily's voice immediately came from beside him. True to her canine nature, her hearing was excellent.

Hao Ren waved his hand, indicating that he was just talking to himself. Lily didn't mind, just looking up at her new home, a simple rectangular old building that seemed to please the young girl. "Yeah, it's a good place. It's not noisy, and with few people around, I don't have to worry about being recognized. Living in human society is difficult. I'm always worried about being dissected, and there are too many human scammers. Fights never end, and it's very troublesome."

Hao Ren, while unlocking the door, looked at Lily in surprise. "You're so powerful, and you're still afraid of being dissected?"

He was already quite impressed by Lily's display of power and thought that werewolves, as "mythical creatures," should be more powerful than humans. He didn't expect her to say something like "afraid of being dissected."

"Yep," Lily nodded vigorously. "I often watch movies. Humans love to do that. You are very xenophobic. In America, aliens are dissected, and in China, aliens are dissected and then tasted. It's terrifying!"

Hao Ren decided not to take this scatterbrained girl seriously on any topic.

There was a security door and an engineering door, both with old locks. Hao Ren had to work hard to open them and get inside. He turned on the light in the living room and gestured for Lily to come in.

After locking the door, Hao Ren introduced the layout of the place to Lily: "This is the main living room. The house was designed by my father, so the structure is a bit innovative. Just understand it. The two doors on either side of the living room are my room and the room I've prepared for you. The door in front leads to a small hallway that connects to the kitchen and bathroom. Upstairs is the second floor, with four empty rooms, but no one is living there now, so you don't need to worry about it. I'll take you to put your luggage away—by the way, did you bring your own bedding or will you use what's here? Everything here is clean, but girls usually care about these things..."

"I don't mind, as long as I can sleep!" Lily called out energetically, patting her box. "I didn't bring bedding; this box can't hold it."

Hao Ren swallowed the rest of his words: it seemed that the girl in front of him was not an "ordinary" girl. She was of the free-spirited type.

Lily didn't need help settling in, either out of a girl's modesty or simply because she was hungry. She just urged Hao Ren to cook quickly and emphasized that she would pay for the food, which moved Hao Ren.

In the kitchen, he found some dry noodles and a few ingredients in the fridge. He hummed a tune, turned on the gas, and then remembered the terrifying experience of the evening, deciding to have a cigarette to calm down while cooking.

...Fortunately, he realized just in time before lighting the cigarette and quickly turned on the stove. Otherwise, this book would only have five chapters.

Hearing the clattering sounds coming from Lily's room, he wondered what strange things were in her large box. As he cooked the noodles, Hao Ren began to sort out his experiences of the day: he had gone to the city to look for a job but failed, fell asleep in the park and met a friendly girl, coincidentally found out that this girl was his new tenant, and then, on the way home with his new tenant, his normal life was shattered by a surreal phenomenon—werewolves, supernatural powers, and a near-death experience. In less than ten minutes, his twenty-five years of worldview had been completely overturned and rebuilt!

What was that bat that could turn into a human shadow and carried a bloody and cold aura?

Hao Ren thought for a moment and, with a shudder, concluded that it might be the legendary vampire—after all, he already had a werewolf, and a vampire that didn't have a love-hate relationship with a werewolf wouldn't be a proper vampire.

But speaking of werewolves... the werewolf girl he had encountered seemed different from the legends. She didn't look fierce or have fangs; she was rather cute... just a bit scatterbrained.

After thinking for a long time without reaching a conclusion, Hao Ren, with his carefree nature, decided to put everything aside until after dinner. Lily seemed to be a friendly "werewolf," and perhaps she could explain the situation to him. At least he would have a direction when rebuilding his worldview.

The noodles were quickly cooked, and Hao Ren brought this quick and filling dinner back to the living room, where he found Lily already sitting at the table, eagerly waiting. She sniffed the aroma of the noodles and smiled brightly at Hao Ren, making him feel... like a dog waiting to be fed?

The two sat down at the table, and Lily couldn't wait to grab her chopsticks. At this moment, Hao Ren suddenly remembered something and shouted up the stairs, "Come down for dinner!"

Under Lily's curious gaze, a black and white shadow nimbly ran down the stairs and skillfully rubbed against Hao Ren's shoes: it was a black and white cat.

What happened next left Hao Ren bewildered 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 up from her chair and darted behind the nearby sofa the moment she saw the black and white cat!

She even transformed into her werewolf form!