When the old man was talking, I didn't notice anything, but when he stopped talking, I realized that the sound of the girl chopping meat with the kitchen knife was weird. The speed of the girl chopping meat was too even, and the interval between each sound was just right. Unless the other party was a machine, it would never be able to chop meat so evenly.
When I glanced sideways towards the door, I saw the bloody kitchen knife being waved up and down on the chopping board. The girl holding the knife kept her head down and stared at the red meat on the board that was bleeding.
I gently knocked on the edge of the kang twice, signaling Shi Heshang and Ye Jin to be careful and alert, and I said to the old man with a smile: "Your girl's knife skills are pretty good!"
The old man used his pipe to pick up the dying wick: "She doesn't do anything else all day. If she can't even chop vegetables, what else can she do?"
As I spoke, I tapped the table several times with my hands, meaning to warn Monk Shi and the others to be careful. Unfortunately, they acted as if they weren't watching and continued to sit on the edge of the kang smoking as if nothing had happened.
My heart sank, but I remained calm and said, "Grandpa, I asked Hengfei about the old wolf's grave before, how come he didn't know anything?"
The old man laughed and said, "Nowadays, no one believes that old wolves can become spirits. Who would ask about the old wolf's grave? Have you ever heard that wolves can wear human skin?"
When I reached out and pressed the handle of the Rakshasa knife, Monk Shi and Ye Jin finally realized that something was wrong and stood up at the same time.
The old man continued to speak slowly, "Old people said that some old wolves can hollow out a person bit by bit, leaving only a skin. Then they wear the human skin and go to the door of that house. Once they enter the house, they won't say a word, but just fall on the kang and pretend to sleep."
"When everyone in the family is asleep, it will stand up and bite people's necks one by one."
"When the wolf bites a person's neck, it will also hold down his hands and feet, so that the person can't struggle even if he wants to! Even after the person dies, the person sleeping on the kang doesn't know that someone has died next to him."
I stared at the old man and said, "I've heard of wolves wearing skins, but I heard that there are some places where wolves can't hide, right?"
"That's right!" the old man laughed. "The wolf is wearing human skin, so it doesn't dare to lower its head or sit cross-legged. If it lowers its head, its ears will be easily exposed; if it crosses its legs, its tail will be exposed."
I then noticed that the old man had not crossed his legs since we entered the house. People in Northeast China like to sit cross-legged on the kang, unless they are visiting someone they don't know well, then they sit on the edge of the kang. Isn't this old man always sitting on the edge of the kang at home
Hengfei, who was sitting next to me, also shuddered: "Uncle Dong, please don't scare me..."
"Why would I scare you?" The old man laughed, "Why don't you turn around and look at Yadan to see if she has ears."
I turned my head slightly and caught a glimpse of a pair of furry ears on the girl's head from the corner of my eye.
The girl's chopping posture had also changed. I don't know when her butt moved a little away from the stool, and her body was arched over the chopping board. Although she still held the knife in one hand, the other hand was pressed on the ground. At first glance, it looked like she was lying on the ground.
Heng Fei asked in a trembling voice: "What are you doing, girl?"
"Just pretending to be someone! Sometimes you can't pretend to be someone else!" While the old man was talking, I also pulled out the long sword behind me half a foot. But before the Rakshasa was completely unsheathed, I felt a furry feeling on my legs, as if a dog was sticking to my legs and constantly nudging my thighs with its head.
Guazi! My head suddenly buzzed—Guazi didn’t help me fight the wolf, but came after me instead
The old man smiled and pressed the pipe onto the wick. The flame, which was more than an inch high, was suppressed by the pipe and then gradually disappeared.
After just a few seconds, the whole room was plunged into darkness, except for two green dots of light in front of me. It was this little bit of light that made me see a sharp beak more than half a foot long.
"Wolf—" Hengfei was so scared that he wanted to run away, but I grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground.
I used Hengfei as a weapon and smashed it at the melon son on the ground, but before Hengfei's body stretched out from the edge of the kang, the two green lights floating in front of my eyes suddenly disappeared without a trace.
The moment the green light on the opposite side disappeared, I grabbed Hengfei's neck and pulled him up again. I drew my knife out of its sheath and stabbed it straight at my leg. The moment the three-foot-long knife touched the ground, I clearly felt the blade scratch something. Before I could put the knife away, I felt a gust of strong wind with a fishy smell rushing towards me.
I held Hengfei down with my left hand, and the long sword in my right hand was still on the ground. Apart from dodging backwards, I had no hands free to deal with the wolf that was rushing towards me.
At the critical moment, a white shadow suddenly jumped up from my legs and lifted the table in front of me into the air. The strong wind that was blowing towards me was also deflected by the sudden attack of the white shadow.
I took advantage of the situation and dragged Hengfei back to the edge of the kang. Not long after I left my original position, I heard the sound of the wolf's claws moving back and forth on the kang mat and Guazi's low growl. It seemed that Guazi was confronting the evil wolf.
At that time, I didn't have time to think about anything else, I could only desperately push Hengfei behind me...
After only a few seconds of confrontation between Guazier and the evil wolf, Guazier suddenly crashed into the window. After two loud noises of wooden bars being split, moonlight shone into the room through the broken window frame.
My first reaction was not to look at the battle situation, but to look at Hengfei beside me. He covered his throat with his hands and huddled up beside me, protecting his vital parts with his hands and feet, but he was not hurt at all.
Before I could even breathe a sigh of relief, I heard a scream from Monk Shi and Ye Jin. When I looked back, Monk Shi had already knocked the girl to the ground, and Ye Jin raised his knife and cut off the girl's neck with one stroke.
It was not until the girl's head rolled two meters along the ground that Ye Jin exclaimed, "She is a human!"
"Look at Hengfei!" I didn't care to see whether the girl was a human or a ghost. I threw Hengfei to Monk Shi, grabbed Luosha and jumped out of the window. At this time, Guazier was already fighting with a black wolf.
I don’t know whether the black wolf had no intention of fighting or was no match for Guazi, but Guazi bit its hind legs and dragged it to the spot.
After I jumped out of the house, the black wolf pulled me out fiercely, tearing off a piece of flesh from my leg, and rushed out of the yard with the injured leg. Strangely, Guazier didn't chase the black wolf, but turned around and rushed into the house.
When I dragged Luosha to the door, the black wolf with a broken leg had already run five or six meters away. If I wanted to catch up with it, I could only follow it up the mountain. After a moment's hesitation, I reached out and took out a green fly dart and hit the wolf from behind.
The hidden weapon turned into a stream of light and hit the black wolf's hind leg with a dull sound, but the wolf only staggered a step and rushed into the dense forest on the mountain.
When I rushed back with a knife, I saw Ye Jin holding the kid with a knife. The latter stood in the corner, looking at Ye Jin's blade with disdain, without any fear at all.
Ye Jin saw me coming and shouted, "Zhaozi, what should we do with this dog?"
Without even thinking, I said, “Let it go.”
"Let it go?" Ye Jin suddenly became anxious, "It's in cahoots with that wolf!"
"No!" I explained, "I suspected this at first. When I threw Hengfei to the edge of the kang, his neck was exposed. If Guazi wanted to bite his neck, he would have died under my knife by now."
The knife I just struck was aimed at the melon son. It was a test but also a killing move. If it really wanted to kill Hengfei at that time, it would have been the one to die.
Ye Jin shouted, "Won't it hide? Look, there's a knife wound on its leg!"
There was indeed a knife wound on Guazi'er's leg, and it was a mark left by my Rakshasa. I said in a deep voice, "That's the hind leg. If its head was facing me at the time, the wound should be on the front."
"But it's a smart dog. The old wolf is right in front of us, so how come it can't see anything?" Ye Jin's question is also my question.
Just when I was wondering how to explain it, I saw Guazi scratching the wall with his claws. Was he telling me to look at the shrine on the wall? I walked over a few steps and used a knife to remove the red cloth covering the shrine. Behind it was a tablet with no words on it.
"What is this?" I have seen shrines and tablets engraved with the names of various immortals, but I have never seen a family that would have an empty tablet.
Monk Shi also shook his head and said, "I can't tell what this is. Wasn't that girl sitting under the tablet just now?"
I just realized that when we came in, wasn't that girl sitting right here? I didn't see her at that time, could it be because of this tablet
I looked at the tablet several times but couldn't figure it out. I put my things down and looked at the body on the ground. It was not a wolf in human skin, but a little girl.
I asked Monk Shi, "When you attacked her, didn't you see whether she was a human or a ghost?"
"No!" Monk Shi shook his head. "At that time, the girl was running around on the ground like a wolf. I heard the sound and pinned her to the ground. Then, you saw it, too."
Monk Shi was probably trapped in the darkness like me, unable to see, and could only identify his opponent by sound. At that time, the black wolf opposite me suddenly closed its eyes, also to prevent me from finding its trace. If Guazi hadn't pounced on it, I might have suffered a loss.
I looked at Ye Jin: "What about you?"
Ye Jin said: "After the monk pinned her down, I saw that she had wolf ears. When I chopped her down with my knife, the ears disappeared. I thought it was too late to put away the knife. With just one cut... Zhaozi, she can't be a real living person, right?"
“It’s hard to say…” I squatted down and tried to tear off the clothes on the body, but suddenly I heard someone shouting, “Stop!” (To be continued)