The two hesitated for a moment. The blacksmith began shooing them again: “Get going! Don’t just stand there — there’s no silver, I’m closing up!”

The blacksmith was gruff and loud-voiced; even people outside could hear.

A young man walked in and asked, “No silver today either?”

“Sold out!” The blacksmith replied. “Those outsiders bought it all — not a thread of silver left!”

The young man’s expression soured. “They bought it all — what are the rest of us supposed to do without silver? These people — of all the times they could’ve come, why did they have to come now!”

The blacksmith was indifferent: “You could melt down a silver fork.”

“I already melted two last month. There’s not much left at home.” The young man frowned and grumbled, but knowing there was no silver here, complaining further was pointless. He muttered a few more words under his breath, turned around, and left.

The blacksmith looked at Bai Youwei and Shen Mo. “Hm? Why are you two still here?”

“If I have my own silver, can I have you work with it here?” Bai Youwei asked.

The blacksmith paused, then gave the two of them a thorough once-over. “…You have silver?”

“Yes.” Bai Youwei asked very seriously, “I’ll give you the silver — you make me some nails. And one silver dagger as well.”

She paused, then changed her mind, holding up two fingers. “Two daggers.”

The blacksmith shook his head repeatedly. “No, no — two is too much work. One at most. Come pick it up tomorrow!”

“That long?” Bai Youwei’s expression fell. “And the nails?”

“The nails will be ready before sundown today.” The blacksmith answered.

Bai Youwei thought for a moment, then pulled Shen Mo out of the blacksmith’s shop and found an unoccupied corner. She opened the dollhouse and had the rabbit carry out several silver cups and silver plates.

The tableware was extraordinarily ornate — some pieces engraved with floral patterns, and several of the cups studded with pearls and gemstones.

Bai Youwei selected two cups and one plate, returned to the blacksmith’s shop, and placed them in the blacksmith’s hands.

“Will this be enough?” she asked.

The blacksmith turned the exquisite silver tableware over in his hands, unable to put it down. “Enough, more than enough.”

“Alright then. We’ll come collect later.” Bai Youwei said, then took Shen Mo’s hand and left.

There were still parts of the village they hadn’t explored. They needed to keep walking around and gathering information.

And they had to find an opportunity to keep an eye on Hans’s side as well, to make sure the other group wasn’t up to something.

The two continued deeper into the village. By chance, they ran into the young man from the blacksmith’s shop — he was crouched beneath the window ledge of a cottage, doing something they couldn’t quite make out.

Bai Youwei was about to go over for a closer look when Shen Mo beside her gave her a tug and pulled her a few steps away to duck behind the side of an adjacent house.

Bai Youwei looked at Shen Mo in bewilderment, silently mouthing, “What are you doing?”

Shen Mo lowered his voice. “Look again — what is he doing?”

Bai Youwei was skeptical, but cautiously poked her head out halfway and watched for a while — until she gradually made sense of what she was seeing.

The young man was holding a pair of pliers and, one by one, pulling out the protruding silver nails from around the windowsill!

Bai Youwei took another look at the cottage, and felt a small twinge of gleeful satisfaction. She said to Shen Mo, “That looks like the house Hans’s group was planning to stay in.”

The lodgings the village chief had given them were all unoccupied cottages — without nails. The nails that had now appeared on this cottage were clearly placed there by Hans’s group, since they were the ones planning to stay.

“Is this not exactly what they deserve?” Bai Youwei grinned. “Serves them right for buying up all the silver — this is karma!”

Shen Mo mused aloud, “I wonder whether the number of silver nails affects the werewolf’s choice of target…”

“Ah… he’s leaving?” Bai Youwei saw the young man pocket his pliers and walk off — there were still quite a few nails left in the windowsill.

“Did he notice us?” Bai Youwei couldn’t help stepping out to take another look.

Shen Mo said, “Pulling them all out would be too obvious. He’s probably planning to visit several households and pull out seven or eight nails from each — that should be enough.”

—