“Execution ground…” Bai Youwei looked back at the stone pillar.

The pale grey-green stone pillar was faintly coated with a human-shaped layer of black ash — the remnants of repeated burnings.

Once she recognized this, the smell of the weeds burning in the brazier took on a strange new quality, as though something else had been mixed in…

Bai Youwei felt a wave of revulsion rise in her stomach. She raised a hand to cover her nose, and asked the little girl, “Why did you need to burn the grass? Couldn’t you just throw it away?”

The little girl answered matter-of-factly. “Oh, because mother said to burn it. Mother doesn’t like this kind of flower.”

Bai Youwei was taken aback. “But you just said she wasn’t your mother.”

The little girl froze for a moment. “Did I say that? That can’t be right — how could my mother not be my mother?”

Bai Youwei: “…”

Was she not blatantly lying?

The little girl brushed off the grass fragments clinging to her clothes and turned to leave.

As she walked, her small leather shoes went tap-tap-tap-tap against the ground, crisp and clear.

Bai Youwei and Shen Mo looked at each other, both finding it deeply unsettling.

“Let’s go as well.” Bai Youwei glanced at the stone pillar beside her. “This place makes me very uncomfortable…”

Shen Mo nodded, and he and Bai Youwei left the small square.

They made another circuit of the village but discovered no further clues, nor did they encounter Hans’s group again. As the sun began to descend, Bai Youwei and Shen Mo returned to the blacksmith’s shop to collect a full box of silver nails, then found two empty cottages not far apart from each other and nailed the silver nails into the doors and windows.

By the time all of this was done, the sun had already tilted westward, and the sky had grown dim. Every household shut its doors and windows; a hushed stillness had descended.

Bai Youwei gazed at the vivid crimson sunset at the edge of the sky and murmured quietly, “After dark, the werewolf will come out…”

It was hard to imagine that this tranquil, easy-going village could harbor a werewolf at night.

She sighed, moved close to Shen Mo and wrapped her arm around his waist. “Ah, I’m really not suited to sleeping alone in a room.”

“It’s only two hours — not that long.” Shen Mo rested a hand on her head in reassurance. “Take the rabbit with you. Be careful on your own.”

“I suppose that’s all I can do.” She released Shen Mo, knowing she couldn’t argue her way around the game rules. She stepped through the doorway of her cottage, then turned back around, gazing at Shen Mo expectantly.

“You be careful too.” Bai Youwei said.

“I will.” Shen Mo closed the door and windows from outside, and said, “Remember to bolt the lock from inside. I’m going.”

The door could be bolted, but the window wouldn’t close tightly, and there were no curtains. Bai Youwei rummaged inside the cottage and found a small sliver of wood, wedging it between the window frame to force it shut.

Through the glass she watched Shen Mo stride quickly toward his own cottage, and in the final few minutes before the sun set completely, he went inside and closed his door and windows.

If her view had been angled just slightly differently, she could have seen Shen Mo behind that cottage’s window. But the night came too quickly. A blood-red full moon rose, and the entire village was swathed in a deep crimson gloom. The silence that had already settled became something deeper still…

Bai Youwei sat cradling the rabbit, keeping watch at the glass window. She didn’t know when the werewolf would appear, or from which direction it might come.

This red moonlight set the nerves on edge, and the body grew weary with alarming speed, desperate for rest.

But Bai Youwei dared not sleep.

Through her mind passed the young man who had been pulling out nails — then the unpredictably appearing and vanishing little girl — then the village chief with his sausage-wide mouth who resembled the supervisor. He was certainly up to no good. Aside from having no silver nails, the vacant cottages he had assigned them — could they have other traps as well?

Bai Youwei sat down on the edge of the stone bed. The rabbit looked up at her with a blank, uncomprehending expression, unable to grasp the anxiety gnawing at her.

No one could say how much time passed.

A scream shattered the deep silence of the night!

Followed immediately by the sound of something slamming — then shattering — then a desperate cry for help!

“Help me!!! …Hans! Save me!…”

The color shifted in Bai Youwei’s face.

Something had happened.

On Hans’s side — something had happened.