Kevin put down the phone and stood there, lost in thought.
If it were his old self, he would have brushed off the zero-second call duration and the strange caller ID as a glitch with his phone and moved on, but now he was in a particularly sensitive state.
Looking at the two abnormal tenants who were sitting in the living room, secretly competing and eagerly awaiting their next meal, he realized that his life had completely deviated from the norm. Some things that had always been regarded as idle gossip and urban legends might actually be true. Some mythical stories might be real, and even some brain-bending works only seen in movies... could also be true.
Kevin had become extremely sensitive, to the point where even an extra meow from the little flower cat named "Gun" at home would be seen as some kind of omen. So when he recalled the unconventional phone number from earlier, he felt a shiver run down his spine. And more importantly, he remembered that he had never submitted a resume to any import and export trading company!
Yes, he had submitted numerous resumes for all sorts of jobs, including two for male public relations and one for a pet psychotherapist (heaven knows what that job is), but he had definitely not submitted a resume to any import and export trading company! Because Kevin was well aware of his education and expertise. He was such an oddball that he needed a calculator to buy a bunch of celery, how dare he go to a trading company... Did he plan to sell himself by the pound?
In Kevin's mind, an import and export trading company was roughly the same as the small supermarket at the end of the alley. That was the extent of his knowledge.
"Landlord? Landlord, you're zoned out!" Lily's excitable voice came from beside him, snapping Kevin back to reality. He nodded at the two abnormal creatures, "Oh, an employer just notified me to go for an interview this afternoon..."
"Landlord, don't worry, I'll watch the house for you!" Lily happily waved her paw, as if she had stumbled upon some good fortune. "I'm really good at watching the house. I promise nothing will go missing!"
"Dog-like remark," Wei Lili couldn't resist taunting her rival, and each taunt hit the mark. But Kevin wanted to say, "Come on, you're so poor and downtrodden, stop acting high and mighty, okay? Do you even live up to your vampire identity?"
Lily glared at Wei Lili, but then shook her head dismissively. Her stomach growled, which quickly dissipated her anger and weakened her fighting spirit. She lay on the table, looking at Kevin with little energy, "Landlord, hurry up and cook. After eating, I'll watch the house for you..."
Kevin was slightly stunned: Did he find two tenants or two ancestors? He had been a landlord for so many years, and this was the first time he had seen tenants who could be so familiar!
But soon he attributed everything to cultural differences among different races and laughed it off. Anyway, these two weren't something he could handle. For the sake of his future peaceful life, the way to go now was to increase these two female superheroes' favorability – so that at least when Lily and Wei Lili fought again, he would have the confidence to scold them both: in his capacity as both landlord and caretaker.
Kevin finally managed to feed the two alien girls, and in the process confirmed that Wei Lili did indeed eat normal human food, finally putting his last worry to rest. By the time he had taken care of everything, it was already 11 o'clock. Obviously, he could skip lunch and just let the vampire and werewolf snack on some pastries to tide them over until dinner. Of course, considering that Wei Lili, the unlucky soul, was now penniless, and Lily would never share her food with Wei Lili (canines are territorial eaters), he specially went out and bought a box of cookies for Wei Lili, almost bringing tears to the poor vampire girl's eyes... What a situation!
Due to the vampire's nature, Wei Lili needed a long period of time to sleep during the day, so soon after eating she went up to her room on the second floor to tidy up and prepare for rest. Meanwhile, Lily was most energetic during the day, and she was guarding the front door downstairs to help watch the house. The two were finally separated due to their respective racial habits, so Kevin didn't have to worry about them tearing the house apart while he was away. This allowed him to go to the address provided by the mysterious woman for the "interview" with a bit more peace of mind.
Yes, despite his many doubts, Kevin decided to go and see what was going on. After all, what was meant to come would come, and if that woman was also related to the "aliens" he had encountered these past few days... Then he couldn't avoid her. Just look at the combat prowess of Wei Lili and Lily; this was not a field that ordinary people could navigate with just their brains - especially since his brain might not be up to the task.
Of course, he also considered taking Lily with him, but ultimately decided against it. For one thing, he had only known Lily for two days, and the werewolf girl was somewhat naive... Okay, let's just say she was a bit dim-witted. But being dim-witted was not a reason to bully her, and it wouldn't be right to drag Lily into various dangerous situations as a shield just because he trusted her a little (letting her stay at home to guard against a vampire attack was a necessary measure at the time). For another, Kevin was, after all, a tall and sturdy man, a proper gentleman. Just because he had encountered some strange things these past few days, he couldn't be so nervous that he had to drag a girl along as his bodyguard just to go to a job interview... How could he live that down if it got out?
So he decided to bite the bullet and go see what was going on.
While waiting for the bus at the bus stop, he couldn't help but have the "alien" forms of Wei Lili and Lily pop into his mind again, muttering to himself, "Is it really okay to leave them at home alone?"
To be honest, Kevin had been in the landlord business (if you could call it that) for several years, and he had seen all kinds of tenants. All walks of life had lived in his big house. The most important thing for a landlord was to discern whether a tenant was reliable, whether they might be dangerous, or whether they were simply thieves or swindlers - examples of renting out a place and ending up with a thief, resulting in heavy losses, were never lacking. Kevin certainly didn't have to worry about the two female superheroes at home being the latter, because he knew... The female superheroes at home were far more dangerous than those!
Is it a mistake to leave them both at home with such ease of mind? Will he return home to find a pile of ruins? Will he see over two hundred SWAT team members fully armed? Will he see a convoy of trucks from the Chinese Academy of Sciences packed in the southern suburbs? Will he see two Americans in black suits and dark sunglasses pointing an automatic pencil at him and pressing it?
With these unrealistic fantasies filling his mind, he boarded the car and headed towards another desolate place not far from the southern suburbs.
The address given by the mysterious woman on the phone was a place Kevin had heard of but never visited, extremely remote, already beyond the urban area, and could be considered a small village detached from the city. There were no direct buses from the city that could reach there, and even in the already remote southern suburbs, there was only one dilapidated bus that ran once an hour.
This magical place was called Wangbatuozi.
Obviously, it was also a magical name. I hope it won't be censored because of vulgar words, because this godforsaken place was really called Wangbatuozi.
Kevin rode on that dilapidated, drafty old bus that looked like it would fall apart if it hit a slightly bigger bump for half an hour. There were never more than three passengers on the bus at any given time, and he even wondered if the driver's cynical face was meant to match the bus's deplorable condition. But in the end, he was safely delivered to his destination and dropped off in a place that looked almost identical to the wilderness he had passed earlier.
The bus drove away with a clanging sound in four-four time, just like Kevin's mood at the moment: surging and wanting to howl to the sky. He had been obviously tricked! Had that woman on the phone not even bothered to make a draft when she was scheming to trick him?!
It wasn't far from the highway down a narrow, winding path to Wangbatuozi. Kevin could clearly see everything in that place from the highland by the roadside. It was an original old village with only a few dozen households, and almost half of the houses were still crumbling mud-brick houses. The village buildings looked disorganized and had the flavor of decades ago. The largest building in the entire village was a small brick building in the center, which was estimated to be about the same size as Kevin's house...
The woman on the phone had lured him there under the pretext of an "import and export trading company."
Come on, even someone with an IQ lower than their toes wouldn't believe that, right!?
But Kevin had still been lured over.