Chapter 145 Angus

The stout man on TV looked to be in his forties or fifties. Just as Hao Ren had guessed, he was a local. His home was on the edge of the town of Brússar. He was the owner of a small hotel in town named Angus. He was the first to discover the haunting of the ancient castle, and the one who spread the news. He looked like a simple, honest man, but with a businessman's shrewdness.

The interview continued, and Hao Ren's full attention was drawn to the news. He didn't even notice Lily scratching him with her claws. The werewolf girl couldn't understand a word and was gradually descending into a state of frenzy.

"...That day I was cleaning the rooms on the second floor. It was nighttime," Angus said, looking radiant in front of the camera. Although he was telling a ghost story, he seemed unusually excited. The recent haunting had made his small hotel famous, which was a good thing for him. "My hotel is on the edge of town, 'Angus's Cabin.' You'll definitely see it when you come from the highway. The row of windows on the back face the ancient castle, but it's far away. You usually can't see the stones with the naked eye—but that night, I saw a blazing fire in the direction of the castle behind the window! There's no forest there, no houses, just a pile of stones. I didn't know what was on fire, but I still called 999..."

"Did many people see the fire that night?" the female host asked, preventing Mr. Angus from straying too far from the topic. The latter clearly wanted to stay in front of the camera for a while longer. His rambling was endless.

"Yes, many people. I saw that many windows in town facing the castle were lit up," Angus nodded. "And the next day, it was confirmed that many people had seen the fire. But it only 'burned' for a dozen minutes, then disappeared as if it had vanished. The forest fire brigade found nothing. They said there was only a pile of dry, cold stones, but I assure you I didn't make a false report. I'm an honest businessman. 'Angus's Cabin' has been running for so many years because of honesty..."

"I heard that you later drove here yourself to see the situation?" The female host quickly brought the topic back.

"Yes, I've been here many times since then, and I specifically chose to come at night," Angus said, finally revealing a hint of fear on his face. "Then I encountered those strange things. Soldiers in full armor swaggered in front of my car lights. There were loud, strange cries. The car stalled for no reason. I heard people speaking in the car radio with very strange accents... It was terrifying."

The female host retracted the microphone and faced the camera: "The 'ghost story' of Brússar is spreading more and more widely. More and more paranormal enthusiasts and adventurers are gathering in this small town, and professional scholars studying electromagnetics, geology, and other fields are also becoming interested..."

Hao Ren wasn't interested in what she said next. It was basically nonsense about calling on everyone to believe in science while vigorously discussing the haunting. Hao Ren turned off the TV and stared blankly, propping his chin on his fist like a thinker.

Lily finally went completely berserk and jumped onto the sofa, scratching Hao Ren's shoulder vigorously: "Landlord, landlord, what did they say on TV just now?"

"Our 'new friend'..." Hao Ren said in a heavy tone, "is most likely a ghost. Remember what Mr. Nangong said about the haunted castle? That's what they were talking about on TV just now. If this isn't the locals working together to fool tourists, then it must be related to the 'newcomer' Raven 12345 arranged to send over. Tsk, why did such a troublesome guy come right away?"

Vivian didn't understand what the TV was saying either, but she could see the situation: "Wait, if that's the case... there should be a lot of people near Yoford Castle now! And everyone is looking for ghosts in that area?!"

"Yeah, this is a big trouble," Hao Ren sighed. "What I fear most is attracting attention. God knows if the newcomer will be as easy to deal with as you guys... uh, I mean reasonable. If it's a reckless fool who doesn't care about anything, it'll definitely be lively."

Lily squatted on the sofa, tilting her head and thinking for a long time. Suddenly, she slapped her paw: "I'm sleepy, I want to sleep."

After saying this, the werewolf girl swaggered towards the room while Hao Ren and Vivian stared dumbfounded. It wasn't until she slammed the door shut that they realized: this idiot's jet lag still hadn't been corrected. It was broad daylight outside, but it was already her bedtime.

"I'm a little sleepy too," drowsiness was contagious. Seeing Lily go back to her room to sleep, Hao Ren's fatigue accumulated from the journey spread as well. "I'm going back to my room to sleep for a while. Aren't you sleepy?"

"My schedule is different from yours anyway," Vivian shrugged. "And I messed up my biological clock trying to match your schedule at your house for the past few days. I'm not sleepy right now anyway."

"Okay, I'm going back to sleep. If I'm not awake by night, wake me up. We'll go downstairs to eat. That Lily probably won't wake up. She sleeps soundly—bring her something to eat." As Hao Ren spoke, he stretched and walked towards his room. In the end, Vivian was left alone in the living room, stunned. The vampire girl looked at the door to Lily's room, feeling extremely sad: it wasn't easy being away from home. Tonight, she, a noble member of the blood clan, would have to share a nest with a big dog...

Hao Ren slept straight through until eight or nine o'clock local time. Vivian said she didn't want to disturb him because he was sleeping so soundly. As Hao Ren had predicted, Lily had no intention of correcting her jet lag and slept exceptionally soundly. Even when Vivian wandered around her, she didn't react.

Since there was something to do early tomorrow morning, Hao Ren and Vivian went downstairs to the restaurant for a quick bite and then returned to their rooms. Lily was still fast asleep, not even planning to eat. Hao Ren left the snacks he had brought her on the short table by Lily's bed and returned to his room to rest. He vowed to adjust his jet lag within a day by sleeping like crazy. Vivian's sleeping habits were different from humans in the first place, and she had messed up her biological clock even more at Hao Ren's house, so she didn't feel sleepy until late that night—well, by now, smart people must have guessed what happened in the middle of the night. That's right, Lily woke up...

A physiologically normal ordinary person, a werewolf who didn't plan to correct her jet lag at all, and a vampire whose biological clock had been adjusted to an unprecedented state of chaos—this magical trio finally experienced a fierce collision in their schedules in this foreign land eight time zones away. Lily was sleeping when Hao Ren and Vivian were awake. Lily became energetic when Vivian finally felt sleepy. At the same time, Vivian was energetic for two-thirds of the time that Hao Ren was sleeping. And when Vivian and Lily were both awake, Hao Ren hadn't woken up yet—don't try to figure out the correspondence between the three people's waking hours by drawing timetables and connection diagrams, because it was so chaotic that even they couldn't sort it out! The three people's sleeping hours corresponded to each other in a nested pattern of two-thirds and three-quarters. Basically, when one person in the trio was sleeping, there was at least one person wandering around the house like a ghost...

Early the next morning, Hao Ren came out of his room with a disheveled head, looking listless. He was greeted by Vivian, whose eyes were bloodshot. The vampire girl complained to Hao Ren as soon as she saw him: "Hao Ren! I'm never sleeping in the same room with that big dog again! She jumped up in the middle of the night, yelling for breakfast, and paced around my bedside in the dark for two hours!"

Hao Ren was probably the one with the best sleep quality among the three of them. He had slept for nearly a dozen hours in total, and he was only one doctor away from being in a coma. He looked at Vivian with sleepy eyes: "Uh... I felt particularly cold in the room last night. It didn't help even when I turned off the air conditioner. Do you know what's going on?"

Vivian's face turned red: "Uh, I couldn't sleep in the first half of the night, so I did two sets of slimming exercises in the living room. Maybe I didn't pay attention."

Hao Ren was immediately horrified. He thought about how terrifying last night was: in the first half of the night, a vampire was doing aerobics silently in the living room, and in the second half of the night, a werewolf was patrolling the room across the hall in the dark for two hours!

The things that happened in this room all night were only a film crew away from being a *Liaozhai* story! (*Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*)