Welcome to the World of the Strong [Unlimited Flow] 24p2

Chapter 24 p2

Shi Jun didn’t go into the house to rest. Her body was feeling better today, so she planned to take a walk around the village.

So, Shi Jun ignored the others and slowly turned to leave.

Zhao Yuan frowned and called out, but Shi Jun just waved her hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

Zhao Yuan was a little helpless.

Perhaps sensing that Zhao Yuan wanted to follow her, Shi Jun paused, then turned around. In the moonlight and lamplight, she smiled faintly and held a finger to her lips. “Don’t follow me.”

Her pupils reflected a faint light. Her face was calm, her lips curved slightly, her eyes dark. At this moment, she had an air that made people not dare to disobey.

With that, she left.

Zhao Yuan frowned.

In that moment, the other girl was clearly smiling, but she had felt a force that restrained her, preventing her from following.

But it was strange. She was just a newcomer. How could she have had that feeling? Was it an illusion?

Jiang Yu thought for a moment. “I want to go for a walk too.”

Zhao Yuan asked, “Where are you going?”

Jiang Yu: “To the houses of the people who died.”

They had investigated those houses in the afternoon but hadn’t found any useful information. Even their families didn’t know when or how their men had died.

Because their accounts were too similar to the village chief’s, they hadn’t found any useful information.

Lin Hui said, “I’ll go with you. Two people are better than one.”

Jiang Yu thought for a moment and didn’t refuse.

Seeing this, Li Nanmeng also wanted to come along.

Shen Yuan looked around, a little troubled. “I-I’m a little scared. I don’t really want to go out.”

Li Nanmeng was blunt. “There are lights on the street. What are you afraid of?”

But Shen Yuan’s face was crestfallen. “But I’m just scared.”

Jiang Yu, of course, wouldn’t force him. After all, she had originally planned to go alone.

For one, it wasn’t the full moon yet, so the danger was relatively low. And she wouldn’t go far, ensuring that she could get back in time if something happened, or that she could make a sound to alert the others. For another, she would bring her own weapons this time.

Jiang Yu wanted to train herself.

Although she had already enhanced her body and bought weapons in the system store, Jiang Yu had never had any real combat experience.

Wu Xing and Zhao Yuan were carrying them through the instance, but they wouldn’t always be there.

Therefore, Jiang Yu couldn’t become a useless person who only relied on others and got carried to victory.

She had to be self-reliant and strong to survive in future instances.

Zhao Yuan asked, “Do you need me to go with you?”

Jiang Yu shook her head.

Zhao Yuan didn’t insist. Instead, she said, “If anything happens, call us.”

She pointed to the phone they had been brought into the instance with. “The phone’s normal functions can be used, so you can call if you’re in danger.”

Jiang Yu nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

The three of them packed their things, put on their backpacks, and left.

On the way, Li Nanmeng talked about Zhong Yu.

“She’s so strange. I feel like, although she’s a newcomer like us, she’s also different from us.”

Lin Hui agreed.

“And she never follows the team. Look, she’s run off somewhere on her own again. If something happens, we’ll have to go and save her.”

Jiang Yu came back to her senses and looked at the two of them.

“You seem to have a big problem with her.”

Li Nanmeng was stunned for a moment, then quickly waved her hands. “No, no.” She scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “I just feel… she’s very different.”

Jiang Yu nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

She had never seen a newcomer like Zhong Yu, so special and contradictory that she suspected she wasn’t a newcomer at all.

But Jiang Yu also knew that this suspicion was very unreliable. After all, in the newbie instance, hadn’t she also been suspected of being an imposter because of her overly calm and rational reaction?

This showed that first impressions couldn’t be trusted.

Lin Hui bit her lip, hesitating.

“Don’t you think there’s something strange about her?”

Jiang Yu thought for a moment. “She is a bit strange, but…” She chuckled softly, a little helpless. “We’re already in this world. It’s understandable if she’s a little strange.”

“Besides, we’re only teammates for this one instance. We might not see each other again in the next one. As long as she doesn’t do anything out of line, even if she’s a little strange, it… doesn’t matter.”

Hearing this, the others fell silent.

Jiang Yu arrived at a certain place. This was the house of one of the deceased, not far from their place.

Jiang Yu had investigated here in the afternoon but had found nothing.

Lin Hui asked in confusion, “Why are we here again?”

Jiang Yu slowly shook her head. “Just to see if we missed any clues.”

Was there anything that the villagers were unwilling to tell them during the day, but that they might accidentally reveal at night?

Jiang Yu knew that she was just trying her luck. But it was always good to try.

Because the people in the house had already turned off the lights and gone to bed, considering the village’s schedule, Jiang Yu didn’t choose to go in and wake them up. Instead, she used her phone’s light to look around the outside of the house.

Li Nanmeng sighed. “It’s so hard to find clues like this. I feel like I’ve become a detective.”

Jiang Yu glanced at her.

Li Nanmeng: “If only I were a real detective, like Sherlock Holmes. I could just take one look and know everything.”

Jiang Yu chuckled softly.

“But our goal isn’t to solve a case.”

Li Nanmeng had a sudden realization, then, as if she had thought of something, she asked Jiang Yu, “Yeah, we’re not detectives, so we don’t have to solve a case. Besides, isn’t the killer already clear? It’s the werewolves. If we defeat them tomorrow night, won’t we have completed the mission?”

Jiang Yu didn’t deny it. “Yeah.”

Li Nanmeng hesitated. “Then what are we doing here now?”

Jiang Yu thought for a moment. “Training ourselves?”

“…?”

Jiang Yu’s eyes curved in a soft smile. She no longer had the flat expression from before.

She said, “To be precise, I wanted to come out and check things out myself. If you’re tired, you can go back first.”

Li Nanmeng didn’t choose to go back. Instead, she rubbed her chin. “Do you think there’s more to it?”

Jiang Yu nodded. “Something like that. And… do we have to fight the werewolves head-on tomorrow night?”

Li Nanmeng didn’t understand what she was thinking. “How can you call it a head-on fight? We have Wu Xing and Zhao Yuan to help us.”

Lin Hui said, “But we can’t always rely on them.”

Li Nanmeng pouted. “I didn’t say we should always rely on them. It’s just that this instance happens to be a place where we need their help.”

Jiang Yu said, “I’m just not sure what the werewolves’ combat strength will be like tomorrow.”

Her brow furrowed, and her expression slowly calmed.

“The full moon and werewolves are inextricably linked. And they choose to kill on the full moon, which must be because it’s the best time for them to act, not the worst, right? What if there are more werewolves on the full moon? What if they become stronger? What do we do then?”

Li Nanmeng was a little at a loss. “But no matter how strong they are, they can’t be stronger than Wu Xing and Zhao Yuan, right?”

Jiang Yu didn’t answer, because she wasn’t sure either.

Just as she wasn’t sure if the level of the instance and the werewolves would also increase.

And she was thinking about something else.

If there were no Wu Xing and Zhao Yuan, if only newcomers entered this world, then how would they pass this stage?

Would they also have to brute-force their way through?

Unconsciously, Jiang Yu was lost in her own thoughts.

The group walked along the edge of the road, passing by a few villagers’ houses. But the lights were all off, and it was quiet.

As time passed, a gust of wind blew from somewhere, bringing dark clouds that covered the moon.

The originally bright night suddenly became much darker without the moon to light the way.

And since the streetlights were far apart, it also became much dimmer.

Li Nanmeng, a little scared, turned on her phone’s light. “The horror effect really doubles at night without any lights.”

And as they were passing by a villager’s house, they suddenly heard snoring coming from inside, which was very obvious in the quiet night.

Li Nanmeng almost couldn’t hold it in.

She covered her mouth, a little amused.

“This is too funny. How can it be like this?”

Jiang Yu was about to laugh with her, but she paused, then narrowed her eyes, made a shushing gesture, and slowly approached.

Although the rural houses had courtyards, they were currently behind the house, which meant the window was facing them. That was why they could hear the snoring so clearly.

Jiang Yu approached the window and leaned in to listen.

“Snore… snore…”

There were some other noises mixed in with the human snoring, and it was also deeper.

Gradually, the snoring grew deeper and rougher.

Jiang Yu and the others exchanged a look, all frowning.

Did people snore like this?

It didn’t sound like snoring. It was more like… the sound of some kind of beast.

Jiang Yu frowned, then peered through the window, trying to see inside.

Unlike yesterday’s clear sky, today was cloudy, so the clouds came and went.

But fortunately, at this moment, a gentle breeze blew, pushing away the clouds that had been blocking the moon.

The radiant moonlight shone down again, allowing Jiang Yu to see a little of the situation inside without a flashlight.

They hadn’t drawn the curtains, and the window was in the right position.

Jiang Yu ignored her somewhat undignified posture, and the fact that she could have been reported in the real world. She leaned in closer.

In the moonlight, a lump was visible under the covers. The two people who had been lying in bed, their throats rumbling with a deep snore, uncomfortably turned over.

They were now facing the window.

Jiang Yu’s eyes widened.

The people lying in bed were not the villagers she had thought they were. Or rather, their appearance was not.

In the moonlight, their furry faces, large ears, long snouts, and exposed teeth were revealed.

They were clearly werewolves.

But then, the fur on their heads slowly receded, and their faces gradually returned to their original appearance.

Jiang Yu’s expression darkened.

When Jiang Yu returned, Li Nanmeng and Lin Hui saw that she didn’t look well and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Although the villagers were asleep, Jiang Yu was still afraid of waking them up, so she said softly, “Let’s talk farther away.”

Away from the house, Jiang Yu told them what she had discovered.

Lin Hui and Li Nanmeng exchanged a look, both in disbelief.

“The… the villagers are actually werewolves?”

Jiang Yu frowned, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. Because the werewolves we met before looked normal. They kept their original appearance whether there was moonlight or not. But these people… they seem to turn into werewolves when the moonlight is gone, but when there’s moonlight, they turn back into humans.”

Li Nanmeng: “That sounds like the opposite of the legendary werewolf.”

In legends, werewolves were humans during the day and only revealed their true form on the full moon.

Although the werewolves they had met were different from the legends, the villagers’ situation was also different from the legends.

Jiang Yu couldn’t help but say, “Why is that?”

But neither Li Nanmeng nor Lin Hui could say.

They started brainstorming.

“Could it be that the villagers are the children of werewolves and humans?”

Jiang Yu: …

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Let’s go. Since it’s cloudy today, let’s check a few more houses.”

Neither of them had any objections.

So, they followed Jiang Yu, sneaking around and peeking into people’s windows.

After checking a few more houses, Jiang Yu pursed her lips.

Not all the villagers were werewolves. The probability was about four out of ten.

And just as Jiang Yu had seen before, when the moonlight shone on the villagers, they would transform from werewolves back to humans.

Although she didn’t know the reason, at least the process had been verified.

Li Nanmeng: “Let’s tell Wu Xing and the others about this.”

Then, Li Nanmeng suddenly thought of something. “Do you think… the werewolves in the forest are innocent, and these werewolves are the ones who are killing people?!”

Her eyes widened. She had never thought of this guess herself, so when she said it out loud, she was stunned.

“Holy crap, I suddenly think this is a huge possibility. Are the werewolves in the forest just…”

Li Nanmeng suddenly fell silent.

“Oh…”

She was stunned for a moment. “I forgot. The werewolves kill on the full moon.”

She rubbed her head in frustration. “And here I thought I had come up with some brilliant idea.”

It turned out to be a flawed idea.

Jiang Yu’s lips curved. “Not necessarily.”

She comforted her, “We don’t know what the weather was like on the previous full moons. What if it was cloudy that day? It’s not impossible for some clouds to have blocked the moon.”

Li Nanmeng looked up again. “Then…”

Jiang Yu: “In any case, let’s tell Wu Xing and the others about this first.”

In fact, even Jiang Yu had thought that the mission was about to be over. But after seeing this discovery today and hearing Li Nanmeng’s guess, she was no longer so sure.

That’s right. They were all werewolves killing people, and the killers were all beings that strong men couldn’t resist. So how could they be sure that the killers were the werewolves in the forest, and not the werewolves in the village?

Although there was the evidence of the full moon murders, what if it was a deliberate smokescreen?

And why did the villagers turn into werewolves? Why were some of them werewolves and some not?

Jiang Yu had thought that the mystery was almost solved, but now, it seemed to be getting more and more complicated.

***

Shi Jun, feeling better, took a walk around the village and its surroundings and found that there were three large wells in the village.

If there were no surprises, the villagers’ daily drinking water came from here.

Although there were lights here, there was no running water, so the villagers still followed their old habit of drawing water from the wells.

The only difference was that they didn’t have to draw the water themselves anymore. There were machines to pump it, which was much more convenient.

After confirming these locations, Shi Jun didn’t do anything else. After all, her main purpose for coming out was not to look at the wells.

She found a place to sit down, then took out the silver leaf she had taken.

Her snow-white fingertips held the leaf, examining its texture and color, but she couldn’t tell anything from its appearance.

A thoughtful and calm look was in Shi Jun’s eyes.

She was thinking, should she risk trying it herself?

The tree grew right next to the pool. Shi Jun didn’t believe that there was no connection between the two.

Besides…

Shi Jun’s lips curved. Where there is a poisonous pool, there must be an antidote within a hundred miles. So, what was the situation with this tree next to the pool?

Shi Jun flicked the leaf with her fingertip and finally decided to try it.

But she only tore off a small corner of the leaf and put it in her mouth.

The next moment, Shi Jun’s movements froze. She covered her mouth and coughed, her head bowed.

Her thin shoulders trembled, revealing a fragile and heart-wrenching quality.

However, although blood was overflowing from her mouth, there was not a trace of surprise or panic on her face.

Her expression didn’t change at all.

After she finally finished coughing, Shi Jun spat out the blood in her mouth and slowly wiped her lips with her thumb.

It seems it’s not a good thing.

Shi Jun looked at the torn leaf in her palm, her lips, still stained with some blood, curving slightly.

She suddenly had an idea.

Shi Jun didn’t really believe that this leaf would have an effect on “innocent” people. She thought that she was probably having this reaction because she had drunk the water from the pool.

Although this idea still needed to be confirmed, Shi Jun was already confident.

Then—

A smile appeared on her lips. Although her face was pale, her smile was radiant.

What if I grind this leaf into a powder and throw it into the wells the villagers use for drinking water?

Thinking of the possible scene, the smile on Shi Jun’s lips grew deeper.

I wonder if one leaf is enough.

Of course, Shi Jun wasn’t just doing this for entertainment and to satisfy her own malicious desires. She also wanted to know how many people in the village had drunk the water from the pool.

And the relationship between the village, or rather, the people who had drunk the water, and the werewolves.

The village chief must have drunk it. So, would he let others drink it?

What was his relationship with the werewolves? Were the deaths related to him?

Shi Jun slowly closed her palm, clutching the leaf in her hand.