Fantastic Creatures’ Travelogue Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – And a Cat

In fact, Hao Ren instantly thought of a lot of things. He thought of the traditional Chinese virtues like grat.i.tude, thought of those revolutionaries who sacrificed themselves for the greater good, thought of fighting bravely against the bullies in his primary school who robbed him of his chocolate, thought of… Well in fact, not so many pieces, but he knew one thing for sure; although the girl named Lily was incredible, “possibly” someone n.o.ble and non-human, she was a good egg, and she had just saved his life – Hao Ren was one hundred percent sure that the “strange thing” was directed at him in its first attack, and in the later several attacks, “it” still focused on him, absolutely!

Although Hao Ren was just a normal man, he was quite proud of his intuition and calmness in dire situations. Growing up as a naughty kid, he had cultivated such kind of qualities from the many “dangerous experiments” he had conducted. Just like “welding the switch to see the lightbulb” 1 in metaphor. Thanks to this quality, even at the moment of life and death just now, he was also able to figure out that the “bat” was actually targeting him.

However, it seemed Lily did not notice this, which was perhaps because her mindset had already a.s.sumed that the bat’s only target was her. But anyway, the self-proclaimed “werewolf” girl saved his life, and Hao Ren could not forgive himself if he just left the wild girl here alone. Moreover, it was in the middle of the night, and for Lily, who was a complete stranger here… he was afraid that there was no place where she could stay in, and she could only sleep on the streets: he truly abhorred that thought.

Of course, he also thought of the possibility that the bat might return, and just as he thought – that bat was truly targeting them. With Lily’s company, it might be safer for him,  or it could be said that her Pegasus-Ryuusei Brick was more powerful than his rolling pin in defense…

This idea might be a little too frustrating, but in face of such a scene quite beyond the knowledge he had in his life, Hao Ren could only act in accordance to his self-preserving thoughts.

“Hurry up, it is already quite late,” Hao Ren rubbed his numbed and frozen legs as lead the way, “After arriving home, I have to make some food. By the way, are you a vegetarian? Do you have any preference in terms of food?”

He suddenly remembered the other party’s ident.i.ty as a “werewolf”, and he could not help but ask this. Just from his actions, Hao Ren’s endurance was indeed very strong.

“I can eat any food!” Lily nodded happily. She carried her hundred kilograms suitcase while walking with big strides beside Hao Ren. But then suddenly, she stopped and asked , “Landlord are you really not afraid? I think ordinary people will certainly be afraid to be involved with someone like me. Have you seen any ‘alien’ before? Eh Landlord, don’t worry, I’m not a dangerous fellow! I’ve seen a lot of movies, and it seems humans fear us greatly… “Hao Ren felt his brain began to ache again; the nature of the girl was exposed again: naturally engaging with people, a simpleton, and a soft-headed talkaholic. He could not answer a lot of things at the same time, so he only replied with a slight sigh, “Oh… To be honest, I’m still a bit dizzy. Let’s discuss after I took a cigarette to cool down at home. Leave everything until then.”

Then finally, Lily was quiet. After a while, they arrived at the legendary Whitestone Road and stopped in front of a two-story building which seemed to be grand.

The building was located at the end of the concrete road, and behind the building was a wasteland. The surroundings were quite empty, and it could even be described as the boundary between human civilization and environmental areas – Hao Ren often referred to his house with this high-end description in order to prove that his state of mind was still very young, and he still had the ability to have fantasies. The Whitestone Road was surrounded by the same kind of mottled old houses, and many of them were two-story or three-story, but half of them were deserted, with no lights and no human voices inside, like a haunted house abandoned for a long time. With the southern suburbs becoming increasingly desolate, and with the city center s.h.i.+fting elsewhere, more and more local residents chose to move into the city, and Hao Ren was one of the rare residents who still chose to live here.

“Fortunately, the street light was just replaced, otherwise, the district would be like a ghost street.” Hao Ren muttered to himself.

“What? What ghost street? ” Lily’s voice came immediately from  the side, truly worthy of a canine with such a good hearing.

Hao Ren waved his hand to indicate that he was just talking nonsense. Lily didn’t really care, she just raised her head to look at the house she was about to rent, and apparently, she was quite satisfied with the old building, “Oh, this is a good place. There’s not much noise around, and few people will recognize me. It is a torture to live in the human society, because I am always worried about being sent to some laboratory to be sliced and a.n.a.lyzed. There are also too many human liars; fighting with them can cause a lot of trouble.”

Hao Ren walked ahead to open the door as he looked at Lily in surprise, “For someone so powerful like you, you’re still afraid to be sent to some laboratory for a.n.a.lysis?

Hao Ren was quite dazed about this girl especially after seeing her stunning ability. He felt that no matter what, the werewolf,  a “legendary creature,” should be powerful than humans; he had never expected that Lily would have fear “to be sliced”.

“Yeah,” Lily nodded firmly, “I used to watch movies, and human beings like such methods the best. You guys are really xenophobic. In the US, aliens will be sent to laboratories and sliced, and in China, aliens will also be sent somewhere to be sliced and tasted, so horrible!”

…Hao Ren decided not to discuss any topic with the soft-headed girl.

Behind the security door was the engineering door, although they were a bit old. As such, Hao Ren had used quite a big effort to open the door. He readily opened the lights in the living room and welcomed Lily inside.

After he turned to lock the door, he began to introduce the structure of the house, “Here is the living room. Because the house was originally designed by my dad, you know the structure is kinda innovative. The two doors on both sides lead to my own room as well as the room where you’ll be staying at. The door in front leads to a small hallway, connecting the kitchen and the bathroom. In the second floor, there are four empty rooms, and because they are now unoccupied, you do not need to be concerned about them. First, let me help you put away the luggage – well, did you bring your own bedding? Or can you use the one in the room? Anyways, the stuff here is quite clean, but I heard girls care a lot about such things…”

“I’m fine as long as I can sleep!” Lily energetically said as she patted her suitcase, “I did not bring my bedding, because it cannot be put inside my suitcase.”

Hao Ren swallowed his last words; it appeared the girl in front of him was not an “ordinary” girl, and she belonged to the bold type.

Lily did not let Hao Ren help her settle her luggage, and Hao Ren didn’t not whether it was because of the girl’s restraint or hunger. Lily hurried Hao Ren to cook and once again stressed that she would pay for the cost of food, which made Hao Ren feel touched.

Coming to the kitchen, Hao Ren prepared dry noodles and a few ingredients from the fridge. While humming a tune, he unscrewed the gas. Thinking of tonight’s horrible experience, he decided to take a cigarette to calm down while cooking.

… Thank goodness he realized what he was doing before lighting the cigarette. He first quickly lit the gas, otherwise, this book would have ended here, with only five chapters.

Hearing the clattering from Lily’s room, Hao Ren tried to guess what on earth did Lily put in her baggage. Hao Ren began to reflect the experience he had today. He went to the city and was unsuccessful to find a job, slept in the park while meeting a naturally-engaging girl, found coincidently that the girl was his new tenant, led her all the way to the house… then his worldview was smashed to pieces – werewolf, supernatural forces, experiencing an attack that almost costed him his life; to put it simply, what he encountered in the past ten minutes was able to subvert his world view which was composed of 25 years of life!

What sort of bat could deliberately change to a shadow and bring a smell with blood and cold wind with it?

After some thought, Hao Ren reached a terrifying conclusion that it might be the legendary vampire – after all, he had already met a werewolf, how could it be called a qualified vampire if it did not cause werewolf any trouble?

But when it came to werewolf… he thought that the girl werewolf he was dealing with was quite different from the “legendary werewolf”; it was cuter than buck-toothed… though a little soft-headed.

Failing to find any clue after thinking for a long time, Hao Ren decided to put everything behind until the meal. It seemed that Lily the “werewolf” was quite easy to coexist with, so perhaps he could ask her to explain the situation; at least, he could have some clue while reconstructing his world view.

The noodles were quickly cooked, and Hao Ren held the fast and filling dinner back to the living room. Once he arrived, he found Lily expectantly waiting in the dinner table. When she smelt the aroma of noodles, she sniffed hard as she revealed a brilliant smile. Well, she looked like… a puppy waiting for to be fed?

The two people were seated at the table, and Lily could not wait to grab the chopsticks. At this time, Hao Ren suddenly remembered something as he quickly shouted towards the stairs, “Roll, come down to eat!”

Lily curiously s.h.i.+fted her gaze, and the place where it fell had a black and white shadow swiftly going down from upstairs. Very skillfully, Hao Ren rushed to the foot of the stairs to welcome the shadow in his arms. Originally, the shadow was a black and white kitten.

However, what happened next was truly beyond Hao Ren’s expectations.

Lily, the powerful werewolf, the werewolf who had just subverted his worldview, the werewolf who had been cla.s.sified as a “highly mysterious species”, jumped up from the chair at the sight of the black and white kitten and dashed towards the back of the sofa nearby!

She was even coerced to transform into her werewolf form!