Infinite Hunter

This is the beautiful scenery of the French Mediterranean, where blue is the main color. In the sea, there is an island, and on the island, there is a beautiful manor resort hotel - this is a resort frequented by many nobles, royal family members, and wealthy businessmen. And on this day, a group of tourists with their own thoughts arrived here by ferry. After Cheng Yijiu left, he found himself on a boat.

The ship was over twenty meters long, with only a single roof. A dozen people sat on either side of the ship, with luggage in the middle, and the sailors and servants at the bow and stern. Cheng Yijiu felt a little warm, and his first observation was the sailors and servants' clothing. "Mediterranean?" The women on board were relatively lightly dressed, while the men were dressed similarly—not that was the norm at the end of the last century, or the beginning of this century.

The boat docked at the pier. Cheng Yijiu, carrying his briefcase, stepped onto the dock. At the servant's invitation, he walked up the stone steps. After turning a corner, he saw the hotel in front of him. "It feels like déjà vu..." Cheng Yijiu recalled it, and it really reminded him of the déjà vu that started on the boat. "Isn't this the hotel in the movie 'Evil Under the Sun'? Where is Poirot? Oh, that's not right. I remember that the case in the chronology would not happen for almost thirty years."

Cheng Yijiu's appearance wasn't exactly typical of the yellow race—unlike the yellow race of his generation, he exuded the confidence of a citizen of a great nation. Others would mistake him for a high-class person from the Middle East or South America—after all, people from those places seemed pretty much the same to the average Anglo-Saxon. So, he didn't feel out of place walking around here.

The weather was pretty good now. Cheng Yijiu felt the temperature was around 16 degrees Celsius, and the sun was shining brightly. He and the others walked into the hotel and lined up at the front desk to wait for check-in. This place also required reservations. The woman at the front desk was probably the manager, as she could accurately identify and call out every guest's name. When it was Cheng Yijiu's turn, the pretty female manager greeted him with "Hello, Sir Jon. Welcome to the Archibald Hotel. I hope you will have a wonderful vacation here."

Cheng Yijiu smiled bitterly, "Why did it become Sir Jon? Sir John is Sir John." After greeting the female manager Mary, he signed his name in the huge registration book - in English, of course, and then took the key to 303 and left. The stairs were very wide and the angle was very gentle, probably so that drunk guests could walk up without falling headfirst to death.

When he reached the third floor, the servant had already opened the door for him and was waiting outside. After Cheng Yijiu walked in, he waited a moment to see if there were any other instructions, then bowed and left. Cheng Yijiu did not close the door either. The decoration here was quite comfortable, definitely worthy of the taste of the luxury hotel. It could not be called extremely luxurious, but it could be said to be very comfortable. Cheng Yijiu put away his luggage - in fact, his luggage was the least among the tourists who came here.

Cheng Yijiu pulled the bell beside the bed, and soon a servant came running, "Sir, your order." His accent was quite pure, "Please get me a pair of soft shoes. Sorry, I forgot to bring spare soft shoes this time." Cheng Yijiu was wearing boots - these were Indiana work boots that he had customized at a high price, so that he could look more like the original. This thing will fit you better the more you wear it.

The servant here was quite capable. After looking at Cheng Yijiu and leaving, he soon returned with a pair of brand new soft leather shoes that fit Cheng Yijiu's feet perfectly. "What an amazing service," Cheng Yijiu praised him highly. He simply bowed slightly, neither servile nor overbearing, and then left again without further instructions. "Werewolves...are there werewolves on this island?" Cheng Yijiu, having changed out of most of his more formal attire, began to ponder this question.

Since he was here, there were undoubtedly werewolves—just like last time, who were they? In this era, human society had become more mature in the use of metal fixed bullets, and werewolves probably weren't as terrifying as they were in the Middle Ages—when werewolves couldn't overcome their killing urges on full-moon nights, they would be exposed in large numbers and killed by hunters armed with rifles.

Silver bullets aren't difficult to handle, and the advent of metal fixed-load ammunition and primers allows hunters to fire bullets much faster. The combined firepower of three or five hunters is enough to stop and kill a werewolf. Cheng Yijiu believes that werewolves are probably extremely rare creatures in this era, hiding in the wild and untamed places at the ends of the earth. But where is he now? This is a famous hotel on an island in the Mediterranean south of France. Are werewolves hunting here?

Are you seeking death?

The werewolf Cheng Yijiu had seen the last time was a man-eating monster. If it really appeared here, the first person to die would reveal the werewolf's presence. Then, all they had to do was use needles to investigate, and they'd be able to catch the werewolf quickly. At worst, they'd be locked up in solitary confinement, where they'd be exposed on a full-moon night. Was this necessary to deal with a real werewolf? Cheng Yijiu felt there was something fishy going on.

After putting his things away and changing his shoes, he prepared to go downstairs to the lobby. He hadn't paid much attention to the same group of passengers this time, so he needed to get to know them better. He only remembered that it seemed similar to that mystery movie: at least three or four couples and a child. It seemed like there were several people like him who came alone. In any case, those who came here were likely middle class or above, and he was sure to run into them in the lobby lounge downstairs.

They will definitely be there for dinner, and it's already afternoon, so dinner is only a few hours away.

Cheng Yijiu went downstairs. In the hall were only a few servants and Mary, who was writing something in the register. Cheng Yijiu nodded to Mary and left, but before leaving, he turned around and went to the front desk. "Miss Mary, do you have a map of the island? I'd like to take a walk around before dinner." Cheng Yijiu wanted to feel the terrain. This island was basically a mountain in the sea. It must be about five or six square kilometers in area, at least.

Cheng Yijiu planned to go to the garden and the green maze to take a look. He didn't plan to go to the mountain and sea for the time being. He didn't have that much time, and he planned to go there tomorrow.

Chapter 2 Observation

Going down the road on one side, there are tennis courts and maze gardens. Passing through the garden is the road up the mountain - yes, the circular mountain trail has only one pedestrian entrance and exit here. If you don't want to walk, you can only take a boat back from the small pier on one side - but there are no boats at the pier at all. Whether it is a rowing boat or a pedal boat, they all depart and go back from the small pier below the hotel.

There's also a bay on the backside that can only be reached by speedboat or swimming. That's the entire extent of the island's hiking—where there are paths, two-thirds of it is actually completely off-road, simply because the terrain is too steep and the developers probably didn't have the money to build roads. From a distance, it's quite wild and charming.

It was a ridge with a steep slope. If a road were built there, it wouldn't be suitable for tourists to walk on. The map mentioned ancient stone steps, but the description was vague and clearly warned against going. Cheng Yijiu didn't go up the mountain. He just walked around the tennis courts. "Wow, there's even a croquet court. That's pretty cool."

After wandering around for a while, he settled down on a chair under a grape trellis overlooking the sea, admiring the beautiful Mediterranean seascape. Cheng Yijiu felt a sense of peace and emptiness—no need to think about anything, just be in a daze. It seemed unlikely that a werewolf would attack in broad daylight.

A werewolf can be controlled to transform during the day? That's an Alpha Wolf. If such a creature really exists, Cheng Yijiu will be in big trouble. He only has a knife in his hand, and he didn't even bring a shotgun. Perhaps these people want to see him fight a werewolf like in the Colosseum?

After resting for about an hour, Cheng Yijiu walked back to the hotel. Dinner was about to begin, and most of the guests were already in the lobby downstairs. In this era, Cheng Yijiu was surprisingly the tallest and most robust person present. Everyone noticed him when he entered, and Cheng Yijiu also noticed the others.

There was a relatively young couple, around thirty years old. The man was quite handsome and tall, but still not as handsome as Cheng Yijiu. The woman was dressed rather unfashionably, but that might be a disguise. "The sense of guilt under the sun is getting stronger and stronger," Cheng Yijiu muttered.

There was an elderly couple, I heard they were theatre producers or something, a middle-aged couple with a son and a daughter, both around ten years old, a captain who looked a bit like a captain but who I heard made a living writing, and two elderly ladies who seemed to be travelling together on holiday.

The most eye-catching group was a rather "ugly" but imposing old lady, accompanied by a young man, two young women, and a family that looked like a maid. Finally, there was a small group of tourists consisting of two young ladies. Cheng Yijiu nodded slightly to them all, then chose an empty table and sat down. "A glass of sherry, thank you," he said to the servant.

Cheng Yijiu took a sip from his wine glass. A musician was playing the piano at one side of the hall. "Who here could be a werewolf?" Cheng Yijiu casually surveyed the crowd, his gaze rather aggressive—of course, he earned a vicious glare from the unsightly old woman.

"This old woman does look a bit like a werewolf," Cheng Yijiu took a sip without hesitation. The last group of customers were coming downstairs—they had captured everyone's attention. This was a dazzlingly beautiful woman, her attire and powerful presence stealing the spotlight from the man beside her and the little girl behind her.

Cheng Yijiu noticed the man, who was at least a generation older than the glamorous woman, and the little girl, who looked about thirteen or fourteen. The woman who came downstairs almost became the center of attention. "They're becoming more and more alike. Is this a werewolf mystery?" Cheng Yijiu was curious about where the detective was.

"Where is Hercule Poirot?" Cheng Yi hadn't seen the little guy with an egg-shaped head for a long time. "Then... Miss Marple?" However, none of the old ladies here looked like this old lady, and the time would definitely not match - if these two were really there, Poirot should be a middle-aged man under forty years old, and Miss Marple should be a little girl, just like the girl of thirteen or fourteen.

Cheng Yijiu had heard a lot about the identity of this woman and confirmed that she was Miss Danbier, the most popular actress in Europe. She was 26 years old at the time but had been married and divorced three times... He heard this from those gossipy women, because he had excellent hearing.

Soon, singing began. This woman truly deserved the title of a popular actress. Her voice was excellent, though Cheng Yijiu felt it lacked a bit of emotion. Several people, both men and women, gathered around her. Cheng Yijiu began to carefully identify any werewolves.

"Silver cutlery?!" Cheng Yijiu felt something was amiss. Could a werewolf really dare to appear in this place at this time? Were the werewolves in this world so cruel? They weren't even afraid of silver? "But maybe it has to enter the bloodstream to cause harm to the werewolf..." Cheng Yijiu explained.

Or could a high-level werewolf really be able to touch silver without any discomfort? After all, the ones who would be burned by silver should be low-level werewolves, right? The low-level werewolf he killed and the high-level werewolf he almost died with were both more difficult opponents. It seemed that they were not difficult to deal with now, but it was difficult to distinguish them.

After all, Cheng Yijiu was a man who had strangled a mythical lion and slain a flying dragon. A mere werewolf... a mere werewolf was probably worth a fight.

At least if it was a female wolf, Cheng Yijiu didn't think he would lose.

For dinner, Cheng Yijiu ordered steak. He didn't like fish soup, especially the French Mediterranean fish soup, which he found fishy and unpalatable. "According to the storyline, is today the day for the first murder?"

Cheng Yijiu wasn't sure. So far, he hadn't recognized any of the werewolves. It was unfortunate, but he could only wait until the first attack occurred before making a final judgment. "A werewolf at night..." Cheng Yijiu remembered the werewolf he had encountered before. The final battle with the priest had taken place in broad daylight...

"If it's the Alpha Wolf..." Cheng Yijiu knew that it would be almost impossible to be recognized, just like the priest back then.

Chapter 3 Gradually Begins

After dinner, Cheng Yijiu had no interest in joining the casual conversation in the lobby. These days, entertainment consisted of listening to music, the radio, and dancing. Even movies, the latest and most fashionable form of entertainment, were rare, at least in the small hotel theater. Cheng Yijiu certainly had no interest in them. So he went straight back to his room, showered, and then sat on the balcony in his bathrobe, looking out at the sea view.

When Cheng Yijiu heard the noise downstairs, he thought Hercule Poirot might be himself, because it was a man and a woman—Cheng Yijiu still remembered their voices, the young couple. They were arguing, and it sounded like the rustic wife was accusing her husband of constantly flirting with Miss Danbill, and that there was an ambiguous relationship between the two of them.

It seemed so. Miss Danbill really had the personality of an actress. She liked handsome young men and liked men surrounding her to fawn over her. The only thing she lacked was a sense of responsibility as a wife. Cheng Yijiu sometimes couldn't understand what this woman's husband was thinking. "Protective desire? The desire to save a woman from trouble? Or is he just an idiot?" he thought as he listened to the noise below.

If the novel and the film are true, then the two men must have deliberately chosen Cheng Yijiu as their "witness," with Cheng Yijiu acting as a substitute for Hercule Poirot. However, Cheng Yijiu wasn't interested in that. He was listening intently for the wolf's voice—would it be a full moon night? Would the werewolf attack? If so, that would be a serious problem.

"That means it's at least a Beta wolf, or maybe even an Alpha wolf with some low-level werewolves. They shouldn't be so unlucky as to run into an Omega wolf." Cheng Yijiu leaned on the balcony and listened. He could even imagine the two people below pretending to quarrel while secretly laughing...

Soon, Cheng Yijiu went to bed, the silver-plated hunting knife under his pillow, and he slept peacefully. He was confident that if a werewolf really attacked him, he would definitely wake up at the first moment. He could also guarantee that if a werewolf attacked from next door or downstairs, he would be able to react, but if the distance was further, he could not guarantee it.

Cheng Yijiu awoke as moonlight filtered through the windswept window screens, catching him. He half-sat up, feeling something. He quickly got out of bed again—his muscular body, clad only in boxer briefs, was like a marble sculpture in the moonlight. The moonlight brought a warmth, a bit like sunlight. As an Asian, Cheng Yijiu didn't have a hairy body, so he could be like an ivory marble sculpture without the waxing and olive oil treatments Europeans required.

Cheng Yijiu grabbed the water bottle by the bed, poured a glass of water, and walked to the balcony. Just then, from far away, the faint sound of a wolf howling rang out... Aside from Cheng Yijiu, no one else was awakened—the sound was so soft, so soft that even Cheng Yijiu almost thought he'd misheard it. Cheng Yijiu looked in the direction of the howling wolf and took a sip of water. "In the mountains of the island," he thought, but it was impossible to search for it now.

After listening for a while, Cheng Yijiu turned back to the bed, put the cup away, sat on the bed for a while, and then fell asleep again - it was not easy for the wolf to pass through this complicated terrain, not to mention that if it really dared to attack, Cheng Yijiu might just send it to death, and his mission would be completed.

The next morning, Cheng Yijiu woke up and looked at his watch. It was only seven o'clock. He put on his clothes and washed up. Then he changed into a change of shirt and dressed, ready to go downstairs for breakfast. As for the clothes he changed out of, someone would take them for cleaning and ironing. When Cheng Yijiu went downstairs, there weren't many people there, but the elderly guests were already sitting downstairs. Cheng Yijiu also chose a seat, picked up a pressed morning newspaper, and waited for breakfast to be served.

He had no intention of chatting with anyone else. Breakfast consisted of toast, jam, and butter, thick-cut bacon, fried eggs, and salad. Cheng Yijiu simply ordered a large glass of milk—he had no interest in coffee. The newspapers were lackluster—it was still the golden age of colonial power, so to Cheng Yijiu, a colonized nation, it certainly seemed lackluster.

The conversations between the old ladies and the old man were mostly just gossip - for example, if they found someone they knew, it would be nice to share some gossip about them to satisfy their curiosity. Cheng Yijiu was eventually dragged in, mainly because the old man asked Cheng Yijiu, "Ser Jon, I think you look like a hunter, don't you?" This old guy was obviously a theater performer before, so how could he tell what Cheng Yijiu's profession was?

Cheng Yijiu nodded. "I do enjoy hunting. This is... Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. Mr. Thomas, you're right. Age truly brings you wisdom." They began chatting. These people had long been curious about him. Cheng Yijiu satisfied their curiosity with boasting—they were all middle-class or older, living comfortably on interest payments.

In their eyes, Cheng Yijiu was also a wealthy young man, and the key was that he was full of exotic charm - that was for sure. Cheng Yijiu was almost a hundred years older than them, so his temperament was naturally unique. Around eight o'clock, the others came down one after another. There was no murder, no one was hurt, and there was no werewolf.

All this changed when Cheng Yijiu decided to go for a walk and check out the terrain. He heard a servant talking to the kitchen maid at the back of the building. Cheng Yijiu understood French, but the accent was quite strong in those places, so he only caught words like "dead sheep." So he walked over and asked curiously, "What happened?"

The other party clearly didn't want to answer the question, but couldn't help but explain rather bluntly that they raised goats—they were delicious, but two of them had gone missing this morning and hadn't been found, so they were presumed dead. This was a bit of a hassle for the kitchen, as the order for today was for lamb shanks.

Cheng Yijiu smiled and said that he would go for a stroll in the mountains later and bring back any sheep if he saw any - but he knew very well that the sheep were definitely gone.

Chapter IV Cases

People generally believed that werewolves didn't appear during the day, and therefore were safe. However, Cheng Yijiu clearly remembered his fight with a werewolf in broad daylight. If vampires were afraid of sunlight, there was no such rumor about werewolves. It was just that anyone who could transform into a werewolf during the day must be a tough guy. Cheng Yijiu had a hunting knife on his waist, so if a werewolf really jumped out, he wouldn't mind giving it a try.

The reason for this was that he felt the power of sunlight, which was even stronger than what he had felt in the world of ice and fire. The warm sunlight brought amazing strength and vitality to his body, so even when facing a werewolf, Cheng Yijiu was not afraid at all - he also understood why he couldn't bring the sprayer in.

Cheng Yijiu walked along the ridge. The scenery was stunning, but acrophobia was definitely not an option. It was around nine in the morning when he reached the top of the cliff. Standing on the cliff, Cheng Yijiu looked down and saw people riding water bikes slowly entering the small white beach. This was indeed the white sand beach that Manager Mary had mentioned, and it was a very nice attraction.

However, Cheng Yijiu didn't see clearly who was riding on the raft. He could only confirm that it should be a woman. After taking a look, he continued walking along the road. The other party should not have seen him.

Following the path down to the ridge, the road was blocked by a single wire gate with a lock and a warning sign. "No tourists allowed," Cheng Yijiu said, looking at the road on the other side, which was becoming noticeably steeper. This place looked like the remains of a volcanic eruption, with one side of the mountain covered in ash. Fortunately, the eruption was probably quite old, so it was covered in vegetation, but it was still easy to fall down.

As far as the eye could see, the road in the distance seemed to have transformed into a path along a knife-edge ridge. The scenery was magnificent but also extremely dangerous, even though there seemed to be handrails. The wolves' howling at night came from that direction. As for the sheep? Perhaps the flock would be in the valley below, at most climbing up the slope to graze on the plants. Cheng Yijiu hadn't seen a single one.

He didn't climb over the door to go over there, because if there was a werewolf, there was a high probability that it was not there.

Afterwards, Cheng Yijiu started down the mountain from another route. He didn't meet anyone along the way, but he did see a vineyard on the hillside. "Oh, I remember they make their own wine here, and there's a wine cellar under the hotel." He felt quite relaxed. French people, French hotels. Even if there were werewolves, they wouldn't be that powerful these days, right? In another thirty or forty years, the French werewolves would probably be even worse. Maybe they would immediately give a French military salute if Cheng Yijiu appeared.

He was lost in thought when, at 11:00 AM, he walked through the garden gate and spotted the tennis courts. "Hey," Cheng Yijiu said, extending his hand to greet the group—the elderly couple who worked in theater, the local woman, and another young woman, who were playing two-on-two tennis. They called Cheng Yijiu over and he played for a while. At 11:30 PM, the local woman said she had an appointment at 12:00 PM and needed to go eat first.

By 11:45, Cheng Yijiu was ready to go to dinner. So far, nothing had happened. No murders, and certainly no signs of the werewolf. At 12:15, he finished his meal and went upstairs to find the local woman coming down with the daughter of the actress' husband. They were carrying a sketchpad, and the girl was wearing a swimsuit, apparently heading to the beach. Cheng Yijiu nodded and went back upstairs.

"The sense of déjà vu is getting stronger." He muttered.

If he guessed correctly, the female celebrity's death would occur around 2 p.m., and whether there would be a werewolf attack afterwards? Only God knew - perhaps the werewolf was stimulated by the murder.

Anyway, since it felt like a vacation, he might as well act like one. Cheng Yijiu moved a lounge chair to the balcony and lay down on it, ready to take a nap. There was a soda in the ice bucket next to him. His door was open, and the breeze from the balcony flowed through the room and out the door, making the whole room feel comfortable. There was a servant who patrolled the third floor regularly, and he could clearly see part of Cheng Yijiu's body on the balcony.

Around two in the afternoon, Cheng Yijiu was awakened—just as he'd predicted, a murder had occurred. It was indeed Ms. Danbill, dead, strangled on a sunbed in the same cove Cheng Yijiu had looked down at. Cheng Yijiu had no interest in taking on the mantle of Hercule Poirot, and naturally, he wouldn't try to solve the case. He simply stayed in the hotel—Mistress Mary had announced that a French police inspector would be arriving to investigate.

Later that day, Cheng Yijiu spotted a neatly dressed man with a mustache and an egg-shaped head—he looked quite young. "Inspector René," he introduced himself, now that all the guests were in the hotel lobby. "Only one ship has ever left here—and the police were notified, of course. Therefore, I believe the murderer...is still on this island. I will speak to each of you later today. I hope you will cooperate with my investigation."

This person might be the one to replace Poirot, and Cheng Yijiu felt that there was a restlessness here, a particularly restless feeling, and that the wolf might be unable to hold back. In fact, when he saw the dead, Cheng Yijiu himself was a little distracted. He had also transformed into a ferocious beast during punishment missions, but he had never felt anything special when seeing corpses in the past. But this time, he felt a little "out of control"?

The inspector brought three detectives with him. They also got two rooms in the hotel. They converted a reception room into a place for conversation, and Cheng Yijiu was the second one invited in to talk. Inspector René was very polite, calling him Sir Jon, and Cheng Yijiu also chatted with the inspector for a while. With a light cough, Cheng Yijiu knew that the formal conversation had begun. "Today from 1 to 2 pm, sir, where are you?"

Cheng Yijiu naturally replied that he was taking a nap in his room. If the hotel servants hadn't neglected their duties, they should have been able to see him - because he left the door open to enjoy the draft. Then Inspector René wanted him to talk about his whereabouts for the day... "Well, after breakfast this morning, I felt like taking a walk, so I went for a walk alone. Around ten o'clock, or maybe a little earlier, I was at the top of the mountain and looked at the bay below."

Inspector René leaned forward slightly. "What did you see?" he asked.

Chapter 5 Night

Cheng Yijiu had a strange sense of participation, as if he were taking part in a stage play. This reminded him of Harley Quinn from Agatha Christie's short story, "The Mysterious Mr. Quinn." In this mood, Cheng Yijiu leaned back slightly in his chair. "It was around ten o'clock. Sorry I didn't write down the exact time. I saw a woman riding a water bike at the top of the cliff, heading towards the bay where the accident happened."

Inspector René's green eyes seemed to glow. "Excuse me, can you see who it is?"

Cheng Yijiu shook his head. "Sorry, my hat was blocking my view and it was quite far away. Besides, I didn't particularly want to know who it was at the time, so I took a look and left. I walked towards the ridge until I reached the isolated iron gate, then turned around and went down the mountain. I arrived at the tennis court around eleven o'clock. I played tennis for a while until about eleven forty-five. After lunch, I returned to my room to rest."

Then they asked if anyone had any proof of his whereabouts. "Maybe not on the mountain, but there are on the tennis courts. Look, the couple and two ladies, one of whom is the wife of that follower," Cheng Yijiu said. "Thank you, Sir Jon, you can leave now." The inspector wrote a long note in his notebook and then escorted Cheng Yijiu out the door, followed by the elderly couple. Cheng Yijiu nodded to them and returned to the hall.

The atmosphere in the hall was quite strange—there seemed to be little grief, but a lot of gossip and a fair amount of gloating. Even Ms. Danbill's husband probably didn't feel much sadness, but rather a fair amount of grief. "Mourning his wife's death? Killing her there can only be considered a murder due to an affair, right? This unfortunate guy's head is like a prairie."

Cheng Yijiu's mind was never on the case. He took the opportunity to sip his drink slowly to secretly observe everyone present. The werewolf might be tempted to kill, and if he transformed here, that would be... not good. His hunting knife was still upstairs. The inspector didn't say everyone had to wait in the hall, but wasn't this something that most people were very interested in?

In the end, Cheng Yijiu took the initiative to get up and went straight upstairs. "Investigating the case is not a matter of one or two days. The werewolf will probably hunt tonight." Cheng Yijiu returned to the room, put on his clothes again, put on his hunting knife, and sat in the middle of the room with his eyes closed to rest.

The conversation downstairs was moving quickly. Cheng Yijiu could hear the sounds of people coming upstairs, the sound of conversation, and then everything fell silent. The hunter sat in his chair, half asleep, until the moon reached its zenith. Cheng Yijiu suddenly opened his eyes, sensing something amiss—"On a whim..." Cheng Yijiu stood up silently, twisting his hunting knife into its sheath.

Cheng Yijiu descended from the third-floor balcony, using the drainpipe and iron frame for support to easily reach the first floor. Following a sudden impulse, Cheng Yijiu took long strides along the moonlit path. The moonlight revealed every detail of the surrounding scenery, even the shadows of the trees—yes, today was only two days away from a full moon. Cheng Yijiu made his way through the maze of trees, past the deserted tennis court, and ran briskly up the mountain.

The hotel must have lost another sheep today. Cheng Yijiu could already smell the scent of blood in the distance. The hunter was also half-crouching, his hunting knife drawn in his right hand, running quickly along the mountain path. Looking back, he could still see a corner of the hotel, but the werewolf was probably right in front of him. Cheng Yijiu jumped out. In the clearing in the woods, the smell of blood was everywhere. It was not easy to distinguish the bloodstains in the moonlight, but the broken body could still be identified.

This was a shattered sheep. Judging by the remains, it seemed like a voracious eater. Cheng Yijiu didn't know what breed of goats were raised here, but he'd seen them weigh quite a bit, with males tipping the scales at over 80 kilograms. And here, the remains of a sheep's head, part of its spine, and limb bones, could possibly weigh 10 kilograms? This monster had devoured at least 50 kilograms of flesh and bones in one sitting.

By this calculation, the size of this werewolf is probably not small. Cheng Yijiu thinks it can be compared to a brown bear.

Cheng Yijiu half-crouched on the ground, his left hand touching the ground, motionless. He searched for wolf tracks, and at the same time, his nostrils flaring, he searched the air for the scent of wolf—werewolves weren't the only ones who could track their prey by scent. Though Cheng Yijiu remained motionless, he exuded the aura of a hunter, the scent of a tiger. Soon, Cheng Yijiu found tracks, and the moving air told him where the wolf had gone.

Hunting knife in hand, Cheng Yijiu bypassed the shredded sheep, this time heading straight for the summit—the part of the mountain where tourists were forbidden to enter. The blade-like ridge couldn't stop Cheng Yijiu's high-speed advance. He hopped and climbed the mountain with ease, quickly crossing the ridge and entering a valley where the moonlight was shattered. Wolves had been here before.

Sadly, the wolves had already left, and Cheng Yijiu had practically lost the scent of the wolves—the sea breeze, squeezed by the mountain, had become so strong that it completely blew away the scent. The hard ground also held no trace of wolf tracks, or rather, the traces left were insufficient for tracking. Cheng Yijiu stood up straight. "You're lucky you satisfied your bloodlust with sheep tonight. But soon you'll be unable to suppress it!"

This werewolf had a brain, using killing sheep to satisfy its own desires. However, Cheng Yijiu knew it would soon be unable to suppress its desire to kill humans. "Sheep are both an inhibitor and a fuel. It's going to be a bloodbath!" Cheng Yijiu decided to return quickly. He was eager to see who else was not in his room, besides him.

It was half an hour later when Cheng Yijiu returned to the hotel. He put away his hunting knife and went straight to the second floor—he didn't go to the first floor because he couldn't explain why he came in from outside. Cheng Yijiu wanted to know if anyone was not in the room, which was basically a bit troublesome—so he rang the fire alarm... He rushed down the hall and started to count the number of people...

Some people were injured, and of course some had illnesses—thankfully, one of them was a doctor and Cheng Yijiu had brought heart pills and an adrenaline injection pen, so no one died of a heart attack. Unfortunately, Cheng Yijiu was probably a step too slow, because the number of tourists was normal...

Chapter 6 Daily Life

"It's unlikely to be a servant or other hotel staff, otherwise the sheep would have been eaten long ago." Cheng Yijiu had hinted, knowing that the staff member with the shortest tenure had been working at this hotel for over three years. "How cunning! One step ahead of me." Now Cheng Yijiu had to reason with them; it was inevitable. He didn't need to find the murderer, he just needed to find the werewolf.

Without alerting anyone else, if the werewolf wasn't living alone like Cheng Yijiu, then someone was covering for him. "Or there might be more than one werewolf, but that's wrong. I'm not so bad that I can't distinguish the footprints... There's only one, only one werewolf tonight." Cheng Yijiu thought. After a panic at the scene, it was Miss Mary who came forward to calm everyone down. "I'm sorry, I'll ask someone to check the alarm system. I think this might just be a small misunderstanding."

Most people were calm, though startled, but happy to be alright. Only the rather ferocious-looking old lady was accusing the hotel of being shabby and demanding compensation. Cheng Yijiu once again carefully surveyed the crowd, finally focusing his attention on two people—one was the cuckolded knight whose wife had just died. Although he had brought his daughter with him, she and he didn't share a room. After his wife's death, he had essentially been living alone.

The second one was the nephew of the sinister-looking old woman. He also lived alone, a fact the old woman had revealed when she was complaining about the uneconomical nature of this trip. If these two people were to appear at night, they would be just like Cheng Yijiu, without alerting anyone. Cheng Yijiu observed for a while and finally decided to ask the servants on the second floor after daybreak to see if there would be any unusual events that night.

Because the old woman was a busybody, she had called her nephew three times in just twenty minutes, asking him to do this and that. If she had called him two or three times in the middle of the night, it would be hard to say whether she would be exposed.

Nothing happened in the second half of the night, and Cheng Yijiu slept until noon. He didn't go downstairs for breakfast until after nine o'clock. Fortunately, the resort hotel serves breakfast until ten-thirty, and brunch is available after that. When he went downstairs, Inspector René was also having breakfast. Seeing that he even arranged the rolls neatly and cut the butter into perfectly equal slices, it was clear that this guy had obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Inspector René saw Cheng Yijiu and immediately waved to him. Cheng Yijiu nodded and walked directly to the table next to him to sit down, signaling the servant to bring bread, butter, jam, bacon, fried eggs and milk, and of course grilled tomato sausage and beans in tomato sauce. Cheng Yijiu was actually quite accustomed to this food. In his opinion, it was more nutritious than the white porridge with pickles or soaked rice with salted eggs in China.

Especially for someone like him, breakfast must be sufficient in protein and fat, and less in carbohydrates. While eating, Cheng Yijiu asked Inspector René, "Inspector, what do you think of the murderer?" He drew a circle with his fork, "Which of us would kill that woman? I didn't even know her before I came here, so I naturally had no motive, and I didn't have the time to kill her."

Cheng Yijiu's words were almost joking. He knew full well that Inspector René would have immediately ruled him out as a suspect. As Cheng Yijiu himself had said, he and Ms. Danbill had no connection at all. The two of them had never met before, and had never exchanged a single word beforehand. They were strictly strangers. Furthermore, the Inspector should have already confirmed Cheng Yijiu's whereabouts, so he was definitely among the first to be ruled out.

At the same time, many people were ruled out. The elderly ladies were definitely ruled out - they didn't have the strength to strangle a young woman with their bare hands. Moreover, most of them had alibis - to get to the bay, they had to either take a boat or walk down the cliff. The latter method was not something these old women could do, and the former method had been confirmed to be only used by the "eyewitness" among them.

Inspector René smiled and said he had an opinion. There were several interesting doubts in this case. When he could answer these questions, the truth of the case would be revealed. "Then would you mind telling me why this murder happened?" Cheng Yijiu was a little curious. "Red Star, my friend, the famous ruby," Inspector René said, "She went out wearing the red star, and we didn't find the stone."

"Well, another murder for money. If that's the case, it wouldn't be a spur-of-the-moment act - I think we all know that it's not easy to sell a famous gem, especially when it's involved in a murder." Cheng Yijiu stuffed the bacon into his mouth, "It tastes really good. This vacation is worth it just for this." He still has time to hunt the werewolf this time, so there's no need to rush.

The werewolves had already killed at least three sheep in two nights. The kitchen staff had already warned that something was amiss on the island. They didn't know how the wolves or lynx had arrived by sea, but they believed a ferocious beast had appeared. At night, the iron gates outside the gardens on the mountain path began to close, likely to prevent wild animals from entering the hotel—they hadn't been closed the previous two nights.

It would be a joke if this could stop the werewolves, but Cheng Yijiu wasn't about to point this out—before the werewolf attacks and the full moon, no one would believe there were werewolves here. Cheng Yijiu spent the day wandering around and wasting time, while Inspector René began to ask the tourists other questions one by one. A few times, Cheng Yijiu even saw some people excited by the inspector's words, waving their hands and shouting excitedly.

As for himself, he is now swimming in the sea.

After getting ashore and washing up, Cheng Yijiu played tennis with the two young ladies again. "Marianna, Louise, if you want to play doubles, you'll have to find someone else." Cheng Yijiu was still quite popular, no less popular than Mr. Klein, who had originally surrounded Ms. Danbill. Now he looked like an ancient Greek statue, a combination of strength and beauty. Although Cheng Yijiu himself didn't realize it, after all, he was a warrior blessed by Apollo.