Chapter 2 A Close Call

The next morning, bright and early, while the sky was still dim, Hao Ren got out of bed. He ran into Vivian, who looked like she hadn't slept all night, and Izhaks, who was also up early. The first thing the three of them said in unison was, "Let's see how Lily (Big Dog) is doing!"

Lily had been temporarily out of danger after knocking herself unconscious with a slap last night. It seemed that she wouldn't go berserk when unconscious. So Hao Ren and Vivian had worked together to send the werewolf girl back to her room. Now that a night had passed, Hao Ren figured the girl should be awake. He and Vivian pushed open Lily's door, and the scene before him gave him a shock:

Lily was still in her werewolf form and awake. She was crouching on the bed in a wolf-like posture, with her tail stretched out straight. Because Lily's back was to the door, her expression couldn't be seen, but Hao Ren could clearly feel an unsettling, oppressive aura slowly emanating from her. This feeling... was like facing a wild beast.

The furniture in the room seemed to be intact. Lily must have just woken up and hadn't had time to cause any damage.

Vivian took a step forward, and almost at the same time, Lily's ears perked up sharply. A low growl came from her throat, and in the next second, Hao Ren felt a blur before his eyes. Lily's figure flashed across the room like a silver lightning bolt. She ran directly along the wall and ceiling for half a circle, bypassing Vivian, and pounced on her with bared fangs and claws!

"Lily!" Hao Ren barely had time to cry out when Vivian instantly dispersed into a cloud of bats and flew into the air. The werewolf girl only hit empty air. She stopped, confused, and began sniffing around on the floor.

Hao Ren realized that she only seemed hostile to Vivian and had no intention of attacking him. He mustered his courage and took two steps forward, "Lily... can you hear me?"

"Hiss..." A garbled sound squeezed out of Lily's throat, but she obediently raised her head and gave a smile when she saw Hao Ren, "Landlord, eat... food..."

Hao Ren: "..." Was there any need to save this glutton?!

It seemed that Lily could still recognize familiar people, but Hao Ren carefully observed her appearance and found that her eyes were a little scattered. In those golden eyes, he couldn't even see obvious whites and pupils. Also, her breathing was very disordered, and the expression on her face was constantly changing while she spoke. Clearly, her mind was in a very bad state.

Seeing this situation, Hao Ren couldn't help but smack himself on the forehead. He probably shouldn't have waited that night. Lily's condition had deteriorated so quickly. He should have sent her to the Raven even if it meant taking a risk!

Vivian reformed into human form in the living room, then carefully circled back from behind Hao Ren. She kept more than five meters away from Lily: "Big Dog, are you still going to bite me?"

"No... bite," Lily squatted on the ground, raised her foot and scratched her face. It was difficult for her to speak, but her reasoning was still clear, "I just see things a little... blurry, not very... clear when I just woke up, but it's much better now. Landlord, take me... to the doctor?"

"Let's go, let's go right now," Hao Ren said, feeling a pang of heartache as he watched Lily struggle to speak. He stepped forward and helped the werewolf girl up, "Just try to stay awake, and leave the rest to me."

"Landlord, don't help... me," Lily quickly shook off Hao Ren's hand, "I'll throw you... look, thrown you out, right?"

Hao Ren climbed up from behind the sofa, depressed as he looked at Lily's muddled state: "Can you retract your ears and tail? You can't get on the bus like this!"

"You still want her to take the bus?" Vivian exclaimed, jumping up and down, "She's already like this, and you still dare to let her go to public places? She could kill someone with a sneeze right now!"

"Then what should we do?" Hao Ren spread his hands, "If I had known her condition was getting worse and worse, I should have sent her over last night while it was dark. Now that the sun is up, her condition hasn't improved at all!"

"Don't panic, I'm preparing a teleportation portal," Izhaks' voice suddenly came from the side. "Last night, I took a trip to that damn place and made the calibration. The teleportation portal will be ready in a few minutes."

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this: "Whew—I almost forgot that demons are good at space teleportation. I didn't expect you to be able to open a teleportation portal in this unfamiliar place?"

Izhaks' voice had a hint of pride: "The space parameters of this world are a little different from mine. I had some trouble when I first established the connection, but my basic skills are solid, so I just need to substitute the formula. By the way, is there any soy sauce left?"

"Soy sauce?" Hao Ren had just been quite amazed when he heard that the demon was opening a teleportation portal in his living room. He thought that he finally had an extraordinary tenant he could be proud of. A demon teleportation portal sounded high-end and impressive, but when he heard this, he couldn't help it. He went around to Izhaks in a few steps, only to see that this guy was squatting on the ground drawing symbols. Now he had drawn a large circle two or three meters in diameter in the center of the living room floor, and next to him was a small basin with a small amount of dark liquid inside. The smell of soy sauce was wafting...

"This can work too?!"

"Why not? As long as you have enough skill, you can draw formations with clear water. Everything in the world has magic capacity. I know a very powerful archmage. He was calmly drawing a Hellfire barrier with a puddle of his own piss when facing an encirclement of 20,000 orcs. Then he held on until the reinforcements came to rescue him--but that old drama queen later refused to admit it and insisted that he used blood as an oath in a moment of crisis... Hey, is there any soy sauce left?"

Hao Ren: "...Yes! There's plenty of soy sauce! Damn it, I'm not going to be a drama queen at this time. I knew that I'm destined to have no connection with high-end stuff in my life! Vivian, go get the soy sauce..."

It took another whole bag of soy sauce for Izhaks to finally finish drawing the teleportation array. You have to admit, without considering the material of the teleportation array, it really looked like something. Complex and strange demonic runes were arranged in three concentric circles on the teleportation array, and rows of obscure incantations were swimming like living things in the center of the rune array. When Izhaks input his power into the runes, the entire pattern began to emit a turbid red-green light. This thing could actually be activated!

The only flaw was that the whole living room smelled even more of soy sauce after this thing started running.

One sentence kept echoing in Hao Ren's mind: Is this even magic?

But even if it wasn't magic, you had to use it at this time. Lily's mental state was deteriorating at a speed visible to the naked eye. She was squatting on the ground without saying a word. From her posture to her movements, she was more and more like a wolf acting on instinct (of course, she was also a bit like a dog). Hao Ren even saw her uncontrollably reach under the dining table and gnaw on the table leg a few times. If the wood hadn't been too difficult to eat, he would have lost another table in the few minutes Izhaks was drawing the formation.

Izhaks stood up and pointed to the teleportation array he had just drawn: "Everyone stand in the center of this circle, and then I'll activate the teleportation. It can only be used once, so it's best to go together."

Hao Ren subconsciously asked, "Is it because the magic that soy sauce can store is limited?"

"No," Izhaks shook his head and pointed to "Dumpling" squatting on the sofa next to him. "According to its eyes, it will come over and lick the soy sauce as soon as we leave, destroying the integrity of the runes..."

Hao Ren quickly jumped into the circle: "Okay, okay, let's go quickly. If you keep talking, I'm afraid I won't be able to look at any mythological works directly in my life."

Fortunately, the teleportation array drawn by Izhaks with soy sauce worked normally, and the group was successfully sent to their destination.

The vicinity of Wangba Tuozi was always so deserted. Even during the day, you couldn't see a few cars passing by. In addition, the opening of Izhaks' teleportation portal itself was disguised, so the group's appearance out of thin air from the teleportation portal didn't cause any trouble.

Hao Ren held on to the telephone pole in a daze, enduring waves of nausea: "Speaking of...speaking of, the teleportation portal drawn with soy sauce is really unreliable. Why is it so dizzy?"

Izhaks smiled honestly: "Demonic things are always like this, crude and simple, but also very durable. Just get used to it."

Lily was still squatting on the ground in the posture of a wolf, now hanging her head and swaying slightly. Hao Ren carefully touched her shoulder: "Lily, are you okay?"

"I'm okay," Lily raised her head. Hao Ren's figure was no longer reflected in her completely turbid eyes, but her reason was still there, "Where is that big house floating in the sky that you mentioned?"

Hao Ren smiled confidently and found the iconic old Chinese medicine doctor advertisement on a nearby telephone pole: "Next, it's time to witness a miracle!"