Ed sat on the sack, holding a lighter in his hand, speaking softly, but without a smile on his face.
Mr. George slowly took off his bowler hat, revealing his thin cheeks. There was a faint smell of sulfur on his clothes, and there were signs of cracking, with all the buttons bursting out, and the skinny facial muscles were embedded with hysterical ferocity.
The bloodshot and scarlet eyes were no longer as gentle and wise as they were during the day, as if there were countless crazy evil thoughts swelling and surging in them.
But in the end, he slowly spoke: "You shouldn't be here, kid..."
"But I guess you will show up here." Ed shrugged, looking confident, "You are later than I expected, probably twenty minutes late, right? My pocket watch is gone. No time."
"She was an excellent hunter, but inexperienced."
"How did you get away from her?"
"Blood-stained scraps of cloth, a feral cat, and sulfur. Unfortunately, she found the wrong target, and by the time she came back, I had burned away the scent trail."
Mr. George put his hat in his arms and said with a smile on his lips. His appearance was still as slow, weak, and decrepit, but it made Ed feel inexplicably palpitating:
"Now it's your turn to answer the question, kid. How did you guess the murderer was mine?"
"The motive for the crime. If the murderer is really a madman who kills people randomly, why did he go into the basement and steal a large number of books?"
"I have browsed those ancient books, and the contents are not mysterious. They are valuable only to people like you who cherish books as much as their lives. So I guess that the body is not you, but your landlord - he is the only one besides you. There will be a key.”
"Then conversely, we speculate that you smashed the window with a dictionary before leaving, making people think that the murderer broke in through the window."
Ed tapped the dictionary on the ground with his cane and continued:
"You first killed your landlord, destroyed his face, and then hurriedly put your own clothes on the deceased to create the illusion of your own death - no one would suspect a dead man, so you would have enough time Leave the city without anyone noticing and start a new life."
"When you packed up all your beloved ancient books and wanted to escape from here, you discovered a problem: you can't escape tracking while carrying such a large bag of books."
"So you decided to put them in the basement until it was safe and then surprise you by returning to the scene to take them away. Am I right?"
Snap... snap, snap. The old man stretched out his hand to applaud Ed's reasoning, and there was even a hint of kindness in the corner of his mouth:
"You're right, kid. Turn the lighter off and I'll get you out of here safely."
Ed moved the lighter down slightly for half a minute. The sack was now his only weight in the confrontation with Mr. George. He is not good at fighting. At such a distance, there is no chance of winning in a close combat with a werewolf.
Since George Sr. was willing to take the risk to return to his hometown, it proves that the collection of books is of great significance to him.
At that time, Ed realized that George was very likely to return here, so he sent fat policeman Mance to ask for help from the Bureau of Investigation teams in other jurisdictions.
There is absolutely no possibility of defeating the opponent alone. The only thing he could do at this moment was to hold George back as much as possible to buy time for support.
"I believe you are not a murderous person, but the matter has reached this point and is irreversible. I cannot let you make the same mistake again and again."
"Do you think they will let me go as long as I give up resistance?"
A gloomy cold wind blew away the curtains, and the moonlight shone on his old, wrinkled face. He grinned, revealing teeth that didn't match his wrinkled cheeks, as if he heard something funny:
"Do you think madness is like epilepsy or hysteria? That I would have twitching hands and feet, foam at the mouth, or talk nonsense?"
"...No, kid, you don't understand madness at all."
His eyeballs suddenly widened, his tone was terrifyingly calm, and there was an undercurrent in those sinister and flashing scarlet eyes:
"True madness will rot quietly in the heart, like accumulated sludge. Beasts that have tasted blood will grow sharper claws, and will thirst for blood more unscrupulously, and everything else will become useless. It doesn’t make more sense.”
The old man stepped towards Ed, carrying a terrifying aura that far exceeded his size——
Like an old wolf slowly approaching his prey.
"You will watch the human part of you slowly die and become a monster, and there will be no other way."
Ed felt that his back and shirt were tightly stuck together. He could only stick the lighter to the sack and shouted:
"Back off, Mr. George! Otherwise your book..."
The next moment, the old man rushed in front of Ed at a terrifying speed that was almost impossible to capture visually, and his seemingly thin arms grasped Ed's wrist like an iron vice.
So fast...too fast...
Ed only had time for such a clumsy thought to cross his consciousness. He had never seen such a powerful and precise burst of speed, as fast as a thunderbolt, far faster than anyone he had ever seen.
A huge force forced Ed to let go of the lighter, and George easily caught it in mid-air and extinguished the flame with his thumb.
"They're on their way, aren't they? Those hounds, let them come and see who's the prey."
Old George raised his arm and threw Ed to the side, as if he was throwing a ball casually.
After the ground rolled and staggered uncontrollably, Ed's forehead hit the wall hard. He was secretly glad that this rolling had relieved him of the kinetic energy, otherwise he would have been "glued" to the wall now.
A buzzing white light flashed before his eyes, and then his consciousness began to become dull and blurry.
Ed tried his best to open his eyes and saw George opening the sack paranoidly and eagerly, but only a pile of colorful old clothes appeared in front of him, but his beloved books were missing.
The old man was startled for a moment, and then his face became completely distorted and ferocious, his muscles swollen and swollen under the withered skin, and he let out a deep beast-like growl in his throat:
"what have you been doing?!"
"I... asked someone to transport the book and the body to a safe place..."
A wisp of bright red blood slowly flowed along Ed's forehead, and he said weakly.
He just felt extremely tired, had a splitting headache, and his ears were screaming and buzzing like a boiling kettle. But he must go on:
"If you kill me, those books will never be found again."
While he was still able to speak, he had to let the other person understand this.
George was silent at first, then walked up to Ed with angry steps, grabbed his neck and lifted him up.
Huge force pressed on Ed's erect neck, like pinching a dandelion.
"You think you're smart?!"
The old man had a fierce look in his eyes, gritted his teeth, and no trace of rationality remained.
No, I feel stupid for bargaining with a madman.
But Ed couldn't say this.
He only felt that the sky and the earth were dark in front of him, and the world was gradually extinguished in his pupils...
