Seven Days and Nights with the Werewolf

Day 2 · 07

One sat, the other stood by the windowsill. The curtains blotted out part of the sunlight, leaving them bathed in contrasting streaks of light and shadow. Fang Daichuan stared out at the sea; Li Sinian turned his head to watch Fang Daichuan.

He didn’t know how long they’d stayed like that before Li Sinian spoke up suddenly, “Have you ever thought that...”

He never finished the sentence. A knock sounded at the door.

Fang Daichuan froze for a second. Before he could react, Li Sinian was already walking over to open it. Ding Zihui slipped in from behind the door, two plates of food in her hands. “It’s noon and you two still haven’t come down. I got worried and came to check on you.” She set the plates on the table across from the bed and laid out the cutlery.

“Thanks for the trouble.” Fang Daichuan rubbed his face and hopped down from the windowsill.

The two sat at the table and ate in silence. Li Sinian had seemed about to say something earlier, but with Ding Zihui there, he clammed up entirely.

“Have you eaten?” Being watched while eating felt strange, and Fang Daichuan, a minor C-list celebrity, clearly hadn’t grown used to it. He asked, a little embarrassed.

Ding Zihui heard the unspoken hint in his words, but she had things to say, so she pretended not to catch on. She stole a glance at Li Sinian and waved a hand. “I already ate. Don’t mind me.”

Li Sinian raised an eyebrow, shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth in a few bites, picked up the empty plate, and turned to leave. “You two talk. I’ll go wash this.”

“Don’t go!” Unexpectedly, Ding Zihui stepped in front of him.

Li Sinian arched an eyebrow, glanced at Fang Daichuan, and smiled at Ding Zihui. “I thought you came to see Brother Chuan?”

“I came to see you too.” Ding Zihui said.

Seeing this, Fang Daichuan lost his appetite entirely. He tossed his fork onto the plate with a sharp clink. “Shall we sit and talk?” He grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped his mouth, jerking his chin toward the windowsill.

Fang Daichuan and Li Sinian sat on the windowsill, and Ding Zihui perched on the edge of the bed. She hung her head, biting her nails, her face twisted into an odd expression mixing surprise and unease. Fang Daichuan and Li Sinian exchanged a silent glance.

“I have a lot of questions to ask you two.” Ding Zihui mumbled, still staring at the floor. “I just can’t shake this bad feeling.”

Li Sinian crossed his legs and tilted his head. “Before you ask us anything, answer me one question first.”

Ding Zihui looked up, her eyes wide with nervousness as she fixed them on Li Sinian.

“Are you a wolf?” Li Sinian cut to the chase. He couldn’t be blamed for his suspicion—Ding Zihui was far too likely to be on the wolf team. A girl who’d caused trouble in the first night’s game, a girl who’d gotten a random vote in the first round of balloting; no matter how he thought about it, Li Sinian dared not trust her card.

Ding Zihui pulled a villager’s card straight out of her waist pack and slid it toward them. “I know you two are good guys.”

Fang Daichuan jumped in surprise at her move. He instinctively turned to Li Sinian, thinking to himself, What’s wrong with everyone around me? They just lay their cards on the table at the drop of a hat, making me—the one who tore his role card up—look so awkward. For all his internal grumbling, though, he felt a flicker of warmth. Ding Zihui hadn’t even asked about his role before showing her hand like this; the trust was almost overwhelming.

Li Sinian, however, was unmoved.

It had been a risky move on Ding Zihui’s part, but not an entirely passive one. If the two were wolves, they already knew her identity anyway; if they weren’t, revealing her card would only work in her favor.

Li Sinian looked at her with a half-smile. “Put it away. This trick might fool Brother Chuan, but it won’t work on me.”

Ding Zihui’s cheeks flushed bright red, caught out in her little ploy.

Fang Daichuan froze, turning to Li Sinian, confused by his words. Li Sinian didn’t expose her further, though, switching topics instead. “What do you want to ask us?”

“I don’t understand the vote earlier.” She hung her head and explained, “I’d planned to vote for Boss Du—after all, I heard Brother Daichuan suspects him too. But you whispered something in his ear, and his face lit up in surprise. I figured the person you deduced couldn’t be Boss Du; it must have been someone unexpected.”

Li Sinian shot Fang Daichuan a glance, his eyes clearly saying, See? Everyone here is smarter than you. Stop worrying about everyone else and start worrying about yourself for once.

Fang Daichuan glared at him.

Li Sinian nodded at Ding Zihui. “So after weighing your options, you voted for Zhao Chu?”

“How did you know I voted for Zhao Chu?!” Ding Zihui’s eyes flew wide.

Li Sinian curved one corner of his mouth into a smile. “Du Wei has it out for Boss Du—those two votes for Du Chaosheng were obviously from the young couple. Old Madam Song got Niu Xinyan’s vote; I got Yang Song’s. I originally thought that little brat voted for you and Zhao Chu voted for Niu Xinyan, but it turns out I was wrong. For one thing, you’d never be stupid enough to vote for yourself. For another, Zhao Chu got five votes, which means they came from the remaining five people.”

“That little brat didn’t vote for me?!” Ding Zihui exclaimed. “Then who did?!”

Fang Daichuan sighed. “Niu Xinyan got one vote— it was from her crazy son. Yours... was probably from Zhao Chu.”

Ding Zihui looked completely dumbfounded. Fang Daichuan raised an eyebrow at Li Sinian, his eyes saying, See? Even if she’s smarter than me, it’s not by much.

Li Sinian let out a silent laugh and patted the back of his head gently.

He explained, “Old Madam Song and Niu Xinyan were at each other’s throats, and Niu Xinyan’s reaction was off the whole time. I’d guess either she knows something, or she has an old grudge against Old Madam Song. Yang Song was probably genuinely trying to catch a wolf, but he’s just not smart enough—so he voted for me. It’s easy to guess why Zhao Chu voted for you: he’s a wolf. All he had to do was vote for someone who’d get more votes than him, and he’d be safe. Before the vote, Yang Song accidentally told you to vote for yourself. Add in your fight with that little brat, and his mother’s brainless, overindulgent act, and you already had three votes against you before the balloting even started. Who else was he going to vote for? You should thank God during your prayers tonight. That little brat threw the rulebook out the window and voted for his own mother, and you followed your gut and voted for Zhao Chu—that’s the only reason his plan failed.”

Still shaken, Ding Zihui nodded and made the sign of the cross on her chest in silence.

“It’s a shame.” Li Sinian shook his head. “The only two I can’t figure out are Boss Du and that bespectacled Liu Xin. I wanted to test them with this vote, but they both voted for the wolf without a second thought.”

Fang Daichuan blinked. “How did you know for sure Zhao Chu was a wolf? You never checked him. What if you were wrong?!”

“He wasn’t wrong.” Ding Zihui pointed downstairs. “We searched the body during lunch. We found three vials of wolf poison and destroyed them.”

Li Sinian still seemed preoccupied with Boss Du and Liu Xin’s identities, his brow furrowed in thought. He asked casually, “Did Liu Xin and Boss Du come down when you searched the body?”

Ding Zihui thought hard for a moment, then shook her head.

“Please, you two.” Ding Zihui looked up at them, her eyes pitiful. “Take me under your wing! I did come to this island with an ulterior motive, but I never meant to risk my life. I don’t want to die.”

Li Sinian let out a bitter laugh. “If you follow us when we vote, you’ll only die faster.”

“Either way,” Fang Daichuan cut him off, “let’s go explore the island while it’s still light, okay?! Tonight, we’ll gather everyone together and search each other’s rooms. We’ll smash any wolf poison we find. There’s no one else on this island anyway—the killer is one of us. We either act alone, or we act together.”

It was a plan, at the very least. If all else failed, they’d have to tear off the pretense and lay all their cards on the table, fighting with brute force. It was better than living in constant fear and suspicion. Ding Zihui nodded her head so fast it looked like it might fall off.

Li Sinian forced a smile and glanced out the window at the sky. A faint cloud of unease curled in his chest.