CH 35

Chapter 35

Wang Boming said, “If that’s the case, you all rest in the living room. Yuzhé and I will go outside to the villa yard and check the surrounding safety.”

Fu Jingjing replied, “Thank you, Brother Wang, Brother Lin.”

They were worried that the creature from before might follow them, so they were willing to go out and check the situation. Besides, staying in the living room seemed safer.

Lin Yuzhe and Wang Boming stood alert outside the door, their faces serious.

Lin Yuzhe said, “I just checked Qin Jiulin’s villa. It’s quiet, glass doors and windows are intact. It doesn’t seem like there was an attack. This is unreasonable!”

Wang Boming added, “Indeed, it’s unreasonable. Normally, these ferocious animals would choose the weaker side to attack first. Why would they come to our villa first?”

Lin Yuzhe pondered, “I don’t understand. By the way, I heard earlier that Qin Jiulin seems to have saved Qi Yue, the younger brother of Qi Jinglan, who we expelled before.”

Wang Boming asked, “Is that related to this attack?”

Lin Yuzhe replied, “Probably not, but I feel something’s not right.”

Wang Boming suggested, “How about we go talk to them, probe a bit?”

Lin Yuzhe hesitated, “Let’s not go for now. Who knows if that calf-sized mouse is still there? What if it’s hiding in the dark, planning to ambush Qin Jiulin’s group?”

Approaching might just be walking into their own trap.

Wang Boming didn’t speak. Lin Yuzhe’s beast form was a small pigeon, with no combat power. Although Wang Boming’s beast form was a red fox with decent combat abilities, he, deep down, was still a human and afraid.

When strengths were equal, whoever was more afraid had already lost.

By now, Qin Jiulin and others had come out of the villa. They took Qi Yue to the neighboring villa that had been attacked to inspect the situation. Qin Jiulin and the others were fine, but Qi Yue was scared.

While inspecting the villa, Qi Yue, on the first floor in a corner room, saw scattered bone fragments and some fingers that had been gnawed on. He almost stepped on a nearby eyeball when he retreated, “Ah!”

Qi Yue jumped three feet high, directly hiding behind Qin Jiulin. Qin Jiulin was speechless, but it was Qi Yue’s first time seeing such a gruesome scene, so being scared was understandable.

Liu Zhongyuan looked with interest, “Quite gruesome.”

Qin Jiulin said, “There’s a smell of blood upstairs. Let’s go.”

Liu Zhongyuan nodded, “Let’s go.”

Qi Yue shivered, “Wait for me, wait for me!”

The three arrived upstairs and quickly noticed the only door that had been knocked down. Looking inside, they saw a scene similar to downstairs, except this time the deceased seemed to be a woman.

Because the head had long black hair, Qin Jiulin raised an eyebrow in surprise. It seemed to be someone he knew? Zhou Yiyi?

He walked over and used his shoe to turn the head to the front, “Indeed, it’s Zhou Yiyi.”

Liu Zhongyuan asked, “Do you know her?”

Zhou Yiyi answered, “Her parents know my parents. I’ve met her a few times.”

Liu Zhongyuan said, “Oh, in that case, it doesn’t matter?”

Qin Jiulin, looking at the chaos in the room, coldly said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Liu Zhongyuan smiled, “Okay, okay.”

Qu Yue, watching their conversation from behind, felt as if he had nothing to fear. These two were really something. Even in the face of such a terrifying scene, they still had the leisure to banter and flirt.

Qin Jiulin said, “There are broken glass windows downstairs, probably damaged by those two beastmen individuals when they escaped.”

Liu Zhongyuan remarked, “Looking at the bite marks on the two deceased, it seems somewhat similar to a rat.”

Qin Jiulin added, “That rat must be quite large, able to forcibly open doors with sheer strength.”

Liu Zhongyuan pondered, “In theory, someone with the beast form of a red fox should be able to handle it.”

Qin Jiulin sighed, “You said it could handle it, but now, if it’s seriously injured and there’s no hospital for treatment, coupled with fear and excessive concerns, it just fled.”

Liu Zhongyuan pointed out, “That rat dares not come to us, only daring to secretly hunt in the villa area.”

Qin Jiulin found it strange, “Why would this rat risk being hunted by us to enter this villa area to find prey? In the wilderness, it could easily find food anywhere. After all, it scared away a red tiger, able to dig holes and launch surprise attacks. If it’s cautious, it could live for a long time.”

“Inside the villa area, there’s really not much food, except for a few people and a few half-beastmen individuals. Due to our presence, the surrounding animals are reluctant to approach. Hmm?”

Liu Zhongyuan blinked, “Ah! Maybe it’s because of that.”

Qin Jiulin speculated, “Since there are hardly any other animals daring to approach here, maybe this rat provoked some formidable creature outside, something it shouldn’t have, and had to come here to hide?”

Liu Zhongyuan suggested, “We’re going out tonight, right? We can check around the villa area. If the rat has stayed here for so long without leaving, there’s a good chance that the creature chasing it is still lurking around the villa area, waiting for it to come out.”

Qin Jiulin agreed, “Alright, we’ll go out and take a look tonight.”

Hidden in the villa area was a rat. Despite its large size, a rat was still a rat, adept at digging holes and hiding. The chances of finding a runaway rat in such a large villa area were slim. In that case, they could give the creature outside, reluctant to leave for a long time, an opportunity. For example, they could both transform in its presence, leave the villa area in its line of sight, and even go farther away. This way, it would surely be tempted to enter the villa area.

Liu Zhongyuan wondered, “I wonder what grudge it holds.”

Qin Jiulin explained, “Rats are generally sly and cunning. Perhaps it took advantage of the absence of danger in other animal dens and tried to sneak in to hunt the offspring of the residents but got caught.”

Liu Zhongyuan agreed, “Alright, we’ve looked enough. Let’s go back. This villa is practically abandoned.”

Qin Jiulin smiled, “Not necessarily…”

The two of them walked downstairs, chatting and laughing. Qi Yue followed closely; he didn’t dare to stray too far alone in this place.

Liu Zhongyuan asked, “What do you mean?”

Qin Jiulin explained, “Once we come into contact with the military, our identity in the Capital won’t be a secret. If someone knows we live here, won’t this villa be at risk of being seized?”

Liu Zhongyuan was surprised, “What? Do you plan to live here forever? With our strength, after the urban area is cleaned up, asking the military for a building in the city center is not a problem!”

Qin Jiulin blinked, “You’re right. In that case, there’s no need to live outside. I just don’t know if the people in the military will be easy to deal with when the time comes. After all, when we demand our reward, it will be equivalent to the restoration of order in the Capital. If we encounter someone with a bad temper, they might just use us and discard us.”

Liu Zhongyuan reassured, “That’s unlikely. Our two… three-member team of variant beastmen individuals, even if the military is stingy, they can’t withhold our things.”

Qin Jiulin nodded, “True, especially with you as an acquaintance. By then, it will be a case of the more, the merrier.”

They continued discussing until nightfall, and there were no disturbances outside. Qin Jiulin and the others prepared to go out. The person who had previously lived next to them had moved to a more distant location, near the river. It seemed that even if they needed water, they didn’t want to go too far to avoid danger.

However, this wasn’t interesting for them. Qin Jiulin transformed into a giant tiger, lying in the yard, waiting for the others. Liu Zhongyuan had also transformed into a giant snake, lying on the road outside the yard.

Soon, a pure white snow owl with wings spanning about four meters approached and landed on the roof of the villa. It flapped its wings, a bit unsteady at first, as if not very skilled. It hovered in the sky, occasionally going up and down, as if it might fall at any moment. Fortunately, after two or three minutes, it began to hover skillfully in the air.

Qin Jiulin stood up, leaped over the wall, and walked to the giant snake’s side. He flicked his tail, indicating that it was time to go. Their goal wasn’t hunting tonight; their first objective was to search for any traces of the creature that had been chasing the rat.

If they have it, they need to move a bit away from each other when the other party notices, giving it sufficient time to enter the villa area to hunt down that annoying old mouse.

They didn’t want to create a place of refuge for this man-eating mouse. The snowy owl’s snowy white figure, if there isn’t much light in the dark night, is actually not conspicuous at all, unless it’s an animal with particularly good night vision.

Before setting off, Qin Jiulin specifically mentioned this to Qi Yue. Although it’s difficult to find predators hidden in the dark night when looking down from the sky over an area with many trees and some mountains at night, it’s not entirely impossible.

On the ground, Qin Jiulin and Liu Zhongyuan were watching. There probably wouldn’t be a problem. They could also smell the residual odors of other animals outside, and the more powerful the odor, the more pungent it was to them.

They probably circled around the villa area twice and finally found a more pungent odor in the northwest corner of the villa area. This animal might not be formidable to them, but it was definitely a predator level for others.

A giant tiger and a giant snake continued to circle around the place where they detected the strange odor until…

Qin Jiulin and Liu Zhongyuan looked up when they saw the snowy owl circling and flying not far away in the sky. They knew it had found the target animal for this time. Although they didn’t know what it was exactly, they now…