Factory Crisis, The Werewolf Outwits the Trap

Tang Yao's fingertip paused on the rusted iron gate, moonlight filtering through the gaps in the steel bars, casting a fragmented wolf-head pattern on the back of her hand.

Bo Yu stared at the light spots, his throat tightening unnaturally. The monstrous reflection on the soda can from last night suddenly reappeared in his retina.

"This place doesn't feel right," Tang Yao suddenly grabbed the hem of his hoodie.

The silver chain around her wrist hummed, the faint sound resembling the shattered moonlight Bo Yu had heard on the night of his awakening.

Bo Yu crushed half a piece of concrete with the tip of his shoe, the shards rolling into the darkness, the sound of them hitting the water coming only twenty seconds later.

He pulled out a tin of mint candies but noticed that the metal can had been dented into five grooves. "Was Boss Zhang supposed to meet at nine?"

Before he could finish, the searchlight overhead suddenly flared to life.

The sound of metal clashing filled the air as thirty gas canisters were pushed off the second floor, rolling across the cement floor into a cage-like formation.

Boss Zhang stepped out from the shadows, holding a remote control. The beam of his explosion-proof flashlight paused on Tang Yao's face for five seconds.

"You think you can buy the secrets of my factory for twenty thousand?" He kicked a chemical barrel beside him, and a transparent liquid immediately spilled onto the floor, forming a stream at their feet. "Smell that formaldehyde? It's easier to destroy the evidence than your surveillance footage."

Bo Yu instinctively moved to shield Tang Yao, biting down on the third mint candy.

He could clearly hear the sound of a credit card scraping in Boss Zhang's pocket, and the sizzling noise of the electricity flowing through the relay in a distribution box fifteen meters away.

The wolf-head mark in his palm burned, and a violent impulse surged with every beat of his heart, pounding against his temples.

When Boss Zhang's leather shoe deliberately scraped against the tip of Tang Yao's white sneaker for the third time, Bo Yu's pupils suddenly constricted into vertical slits.

His hand froze as he reached for his wallet—the cartoon wolf sticker inside was heating up. It was the same alarm tag Zhao had left when he hacked the school's surveillance system.

"Watch out!"

Tang Yao's warning and the sound of something breaking through the air came at the same time.

Boss Zhang, somehow now holding an electromagnetic interference gun, fired a bluish-purple arc directly at Bo Yu's face.

The violent energy pulse triggered a burst of light from the wolf-head brand in his palm. Bo Yu instinctively crouched and leaped, but the pain that should have shredded his tendons was replaced by a searing rush of pleasure.

Twisting in mid-air, he landed, and the sweat in his palm left five claw marks on the cement floor.

Boss Zhang stumbled backward, knocking over a chemical barrel, finally showing an expression of disbelief. "What... what the hell are you?"

Bo Yu licked his suddenly sharp canine teeth. Moonlight filtered through the broken ceiling above him, casting a long shadow that seemed to grow fangs.

Tang Yao suddenly gripped his wrist, the moonlight on her silver chain coalescing into a tangible force, wrapping around them both and temporarily sealing the bloodthirsty urge.

"Run!"

She pulled him toward the rusty freight elevator, the sound of Boss Zhang's frantic curses echoing behind them.

As Bo Yu gasped for breath, the smell of blood filled the air. Looking down, he found a broken piece of the wolf-shaped sticker wedged in his nails—during the life-or-death moment, he had unknowingly crushed the alarm Zhao gave him into powder.

The elevator rattled as it ascended, and the silver chain on Tang Yao's wrist left a searing mark on his arm.

When the floor indicator switched to "3," Bo Yu suddenly pressed his hand to his throbbing temple. "That interference gun... didn't it emit infrasound?"

Before he finished speaking, the entire factory erupted in an air raid siren-like wail.

The elevator's steel cable cracked with a grinding noise, and just as the sensation of weightlessness hit, Bo Yu saw his reflection in Tang Yao's eyes—the reflection of his pupils, which had turned red like a blood moon.

Bo Yu's knuckles left five bloodstains on Boss Zhang's collar, the man's greasy sweat rolling down his arm.

Moonlight pierced the broken ceiling, creating a sharp light beam between them. He could see Boss Zhang's eyes reflecting his own—his pointed ears had pierced through the tips of his hair, and his irises glowed with molten gold.

"Stop..." Boss Zhang's plea was cut off as the electromagnetic gun slipped from his trembling fingers.

Bo Yu kicked the weapon up, the alloy casing deforming like soft clay in his palm, the electric sparks burning the "Safety Production" slogan on the wall.

Tang Yao's silver chain suddenly rang.

The sound sent a chill down Bo Yu's spine, reviving the memory of the rusted smell he had caught in the alleyway behind the convenience store the night before.

The moment he released his grip, Boss Zhang crashed into an abandoned machine, his thick waist caught by the rusty gears, his begging transformed into a pig-like scream.

"Are you filming a movie?"

A mocking male voice came from outside the warehouse's roll-up door, and Bo Yu's wolf ears instinctively picked up the sound of a metal button scraping against fabric.

As he turned, his pupils had returned to their normal amber color. Only the fragments of the electromagnetic gun remained in his nails, a reminder that everything that just happened wasn't a hallucination.

Officer Wang's sharp shoes pushed aside the scattered chemical barrels, and the beam of his police flashlight lingered on Bo Yu's bleeding knuckles for three seconds. "Third time meeting, Bo Yu." He flipped through his notebook, the plastic cover crackling ominously in the silence. "Last Wednesday's library CCTV failure, yesterday's convenience store robbery, and tonight..."

Tang Yao suddenly cleared her throat, and the silver chain pendant struck the fire hydrant with a crisp sound.

Officer Wang's questioning stopped abruptly. The cold light reflected off the second button of his uniform, perfectly hitting Bo Yu's forehead—revealing the blue glow of a mini law enforcement camera.

"We're doing social practice," Bo Yu kicked aside the electromagnetic gun wreckage, his school shirt, stained with oil, flapping in the wind. "Boss Zhang mentioned there were industrial ruins from the Republic of China period here." He pulled out his phone, showing a twenty-minute call log.

Officer Wang's finger slid across the police terminal screen, suddenly breaking into a playful smile. "But the reporter says there's a humanoid beast here." He took a step closer, his rubber boots crushing glass shards on the floor. "Bo Yu, are you familiar with the werewolf legend?"

A loud crack from the nearby substation signaled an overload.

Bo Yu wiped the cold sweat from his temple as he adjusted his glasses, the glare blocking the sudden narrowing of his pupils. "The literature club just performed the play Wolf Rain last week." He pulled open his collar, revealing a fever patch on his collarbone from the convenience store. "Want the script?"

The standoff was broken by Tang Yao's shout.

The girl had wrapped her silver chain around the live distribution box, and sparks flew from it, burning small holes in her skirt.

The moment Officer Wang drew his police multi-tool, Bo Yu snatched the fiery cable, hearing the sizzling of burnt flesh as he tore it free.

"I'll personally submit the materials for a Good Samaritan award to your school," Officer Wang suddenly tucked his notebook away, turning to leave. His police belt's metal clasp clinked against a chemical barrel with the sound of a ticking pendulum. "And a reminder for Bo Yu—" He raised three fingers, turning his back on everyone, "When a wolf pack leaves its alpha's protection, it's most vulnerable to traps."

As the police car's red and blue lights faded at the intersection, Bo Yu finally loosened his clenched fist.

The wolf-head brand in his palm oozed golden-red blood, corroding the ground beneath him.

Tang Yao's silver chain tightened around his wrist again, but this time, it brought a searing pain, not the usual cold.

"He's testing you," Tang Yao tugged him into the blind spot of the surveillance cameras, the moonlight turning their shadows into a blurred mist. "That button camera...?"

Bo Yu suddenly pressed his hand to her mouth.

The sound of a soda can rolling from three hundred meters away was exactly like the rhythm he had heard the night he awakened.

He found the broken wolf sticker in his hoodie pocket, now inexplicably reassembled into a complete totem.

Tang Yao's silver chain suddenly straightened, the pendant pointing toward the southeastern sky.

Bo Yu looked in that direction. The moon, which should have been whole, was missing a segment. That missing part was slowly emitting a dark red glow, as if the sky had been torn open.

Officer Wang's warning drifted on the night breeze, and Bo Yu noticed the fever patch on his collarbone was burning.

When the fourth soda can rattled from the direction of the convenience store, he finally saw the figure flickering under the neon lights. The man's right hand was tapping the advertisement lightbox at a specific rhythm, with every third tap forming a wolf howl in Morse code.

The moonlight stretched Bo Yu's shadow long, and its fangs pressed against the convenience store window.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction of Tang Yao. As his hoodie's hood was blown away by the wind, a dark moon pattern faintly appeared on the back of his neck—a new totem, formed from the wolf-head brand and silver chain burns.