我的狼人代码。

Chapter 20: The Trap

The reason why it was said to be "as if" was that Clayton had no evidence to prove that someone was following him.Everything was just speculation based on intuition.There were indeed some strange situations like a slight increase in the temperature around him and his footsteps sounding heavier than before. However, these could also have been caused by his not-so-good mental state.This feeling didn't stop until he arrived at the old mansion of the Marney family.Clayton couldn't help becoming paranoid and felt uneasy about this trip.Anyway, this trouble was originally caused by Joe Marney, but now it seemed that he had to solve it all by himself. And if he didn't, there would be serious consequences.Just thinking about this made him feel quite hungry.After transforming into a Darkborn, he had some additional instincts, natures and the like, which were completely different from when he was human.Negative emotions and exhaustion would all turn into appetite, and it would keep growing if not satisfied. He had to overeat in his werewolf form to soothe his mind, otherwise he would remain restless. This was also one of the important reasons why his food expenses had increased more than ten times recently.If he hadn't been rich enough to buy large amounts of meat, he might have attacked ranches or humans like the wild werewolves in folk tales.After calming down his emotions a bit, he opened the front door of the old mansion with the key given by Joe Marney.The door panels swung open to both sides, and a gust of dusty air rushed towards him.Clayton had been here once four years ago. But that time, he was a guest, so his range of activities was limited to the first floor. He didn't know the layout of the second and third floors.At that time, Joe Marney had two maids taking care of him. But after he sold the "Rusted Silver Coin", those two maids disappeared.On the east side of the first floor was the living room, next to it was the kitchen, and the bathroom was near the front door on the west side.The dust on the floor was perfectly spread out in a layer, obviously no one had been here recently.Clayton didn't overlook the first floor just because he had been here before, but there really wasn't much here.The living room was empty, with only some basic tables and chairs, and an old horsehair sofa. The plates and jars in the kitchen were still there, along with some expired spices. The silver-plated cutlery that was once used to entertain guests was gone. Obviously, Joe had sold them later to get travel expenses.There were some pots in the low cabinet beside the stove. Clayton didn't think they were worth paying much attention to.So he left the kitchen and walked towards the magnificent staircase with mahogany handrails.Starting from the second floor, there was a painting on the wall at short intervals, so many that it was annoying.From landscape paintings to portraits, each one was different.Clayton found Joe's bedroom on the second floor.Joe definitely hadn't come back to live here after returning to Sasha City, because there were a lot of mouse droppings here, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated from the table to the floor.The desk was placed under the window sill. Looking up, one could see the scenery outside the window.The railway station of Saint Alvin Parish and the parts factory with tall chimneys spewing thick smoke could all be seen from here.The huge steam and the noise of the mechanical operation...

By the time it reached here, it had already been distorted into a sound like the trumpeting of elephants.Probably because of this problem, few people were willing to continue living in this batch of old mansions nearby.The windows were wide open, and the not-so-fresh wind blew in. The curtains, whose colors could no longer be seen, were dancing in the wind like tattered dancing girls, just as they had been for the past four years.There were only a few books on the bookshelf here, including a collection of poems, novels, and Joe's math textbooks.All of them were dispensable.There was a photo frame on the bedside table. Clayton walked over and picked it up.In the photo, a man and a woman were holding the young Joe Marney and smiling brightly. They each had some resemblance to Joe. They were probably Joe's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Mavis.Clayton had never seen them in person, so he knew nothing about their characters.Joe seldom mentioned them. It seemed that in order to take care of his business, Joseph had been living in Saint Morel Parish with his wife most of the time and had only entrusted others to look after Joe Marney.There was little communication between the two generations, so they weren't as close as normal parents and children.This was really suspicious.Clayton calculated that even he, who was originally an amateur, had made a lot of money from the "Rusted Silver Coin". Even if Joseph Marney really had no talent for making money, he shouldn't have let Joe end up in such a situation as he was today.He had heard that some gang members would work far away from their families and pretend to be someone else when they were at home.Perhaps in Joseph's hands, the "Rusted Silver Coin" was just a guise to disguise his identity.Clayton put down the photo frame and searched thoroughly under the carpet and under the bed. Except for a collection of rather mediocre adolescent secret drawings, he didn't find much.He then turned to search the other rooms on the second floor, including the guest rooms, bathrooms, and the family storeroom, but found nothing.Except for Joe's room, there was nothing of "significance" in any of the rooms on the second floor.All the utensils that were kept were the plainest, just the basic items with living functions. None of them could be missing.He didn't know whether the Marney family had started to decline in Joseph's generation or whether Joe had sold all the good things to get travel expenses.Clayton came out of the family storeroom with a dusty face. His nose really couldn't stand it here. The dust was almost ruining his sense of smell.Now only the third floor hadn't been searched.He walked up to the third floor. The placement of the paintings on the walls also gradually rose in position along with the slope of the stairs.After stepping over the last step, there were no paintings of other subjects in the corridor on the third floor. All of them were frontal half-length portraits of people.Clayton knew the rules of this kind of portraits.This meant that from here on, all the people in the portraits were the direct ancestors of the Marney family.They were either old or young, either male or female, staring straight at the people in the room.Clayton walked through the corridor under their gaze and inspected the rooms with open doors.Among them, there was a huge room that occupied one-third of the entire floor. The windows inside were hidden behind the curtains, and the light shone dimly through the dirty fabric. A magnificent double...

A double bed for two people was placed against the wall, and there was also a dressing table. A large golden chandelier in the shape of exotic flowers was hanging from the ceiling, with densely packed tubular candlestick brackets. It was hard to imagine the magnificent scene when it was lit.He thought that perhaps it was the room once used by Joseph and his wife.There was a book on the dressing table, but with the curtains drawn in this room, the light wasn't enough for him to see the cover of the book clearly from the doorway.He walked in and went to the window to pull the curtain open a little to let the sunlight in.At the same time as Clayton was making his move, the chandelier on the ceiling behind him gradually changed color. Silently, it spread out its petal-like tubular brackets, and its surface was plated with a layer of black and red ringed patterns, just like a certain highly poisonous spider in the Western Continent.Those tubular brackets hung down, and the original connecting pipe structure between the chandelier and the ceiling behind it was revealed.It was a blonde girl's head with a wooden wedge in its mouth.Her blue eyes were staring fixedly at Clayton's back.Clayton, completely unaware, was dusting the book in his hand while facing the window. By the time he heard the wind, it was already too late.The sharp ends of the arthropod limbs slashed across his calf.He quickly rolled away, but the muscles in his right leg had already been pierced, and blood was flowing continuously.The giant spider with the girl's head on top was lying on the double bed, looking at him and giggling."Clara has been waiting! Clara is the smartest! Joe Marney broke the contract! He entered this room! His flesh and blood are all mine!"Clayton dragged his injured leg and walked into the dark area of the room. His body swelled, tearing his clothes apart, revealing his strong and majestic werewolf torso.He opened his wolf maw, and old and new hatreds surged in his heart. He roared furiously:"I'm fucking Clayton!"Two black shadows instantly tangled together.Although this room was quite large, it was still too small for the two monsters.The spider woman screamed, "It's all the same! It's all the same!" Then she raised her black and red ringed long legs, which were several times longer than those of a normal spider, and stabbed at Clayton, leaving five or six deep wounds on his arm. Her other supporting legs were deeply stuck into the bed board.Clayton was not to be outdone. He turned sideways to withstand the attack and with one swipe, cut off four of her legs.Transparent liquid spurted out from the severed limbs, wetting the dust and the white bed sheet."Clara hurts so much! It hurts!"The strange creature leaped backward and clung to the wall. The stumps twitched, and visible white granulations grew out of the wounds, and then dried and hardened to look exactly the same as before.The girl's head on the spider's body shook from side to side: "But Clara isn't afraid! Clara is immortal!"The intense pain from the initial injury had stimulated Clayton, and he could no longer suppress his instincts.He just wanted to eat something right now. Anything would do.The spider with a human head would be just fine too.The beast claws covered with black fur were inserted under the bed board. Clayton's already thick arms swelled another circle. With a sudden force, the double bed, which weighed about six or seven hundred pounds, was thrown up by him, crashing towards the spider Clara clinging to the wall with a gust of wind.