~Still Beauty's POV~

The forest was pitch dark indeed, matching perfectly with my soul.
I have no idea for how long we were riding, maybe for hours, when I was distracted from my deep, dark thoughts by  my friend's  powerful shout, asking me to stop.

I had no time to ask him why, but a chaos was triggered...
What a?!

I don't know anymore what I heard first: Chiang Cheng shouting at me to stop, my horse's terrified neigh, the scary animalistic howl giving me shivers through my whole body, the desperate human voice screaming "No! Your highness, no!", or the overly loud gunshots exploding only a few inches by my deafened ears?

I quickly placed an arrow in my bow and squinted my eyes, trying to spot the possible enemy target, at the pale moon's low light.

I freaked out at two satanic shining eyes, watching me from the darkness.
I don't even know what I saw, red eyes shining in the dark green-yellowish forest, or they were spooky green-yellowish eyes glowing in the red forest.
My arm trembled like a leaf on the bow, but I still managed somehow to launch an arrow in the eyes's direction.

A huge shadow moved, staggered, then dropped to the ground, while a devilish growl coming from the bottom of the hell, raised my hair straight up into the air.
I watched in horror the massive shadow standing up after a few moments and blocking slowly the moonlight.
But at least the shadow didn't walk towards me, but crouched down and picked something or someone from the ground, then merged slowly with the darkness of the forest.

"Chiang Cheng, are you alright, where are you?", I whispered, dismounting the horse, extremely worried when I didn't spot his horse anywhere in the sight.

"I'm here, my horse got scared and ran away.
I have no idea about how many  did  attack us, but I'm sure that I got at least two of them. 
One is lying dead, down here, come closer.
But Beauty, your voice sounds strangled, are you okay?
I hope you are not wounded or something.", the adviser asked in a worried tone, hugging me and checking me out from any possible wounds. 

"No, Chiang Cheng, I'm not wounded, just a bit scared.
Help me to climb the man's corpse on my horse, and let's hit the fu*king  road.
Nothing had ever frightened me more in my whole life, like those terrifying glowing eyes, even though..."

"What glowing eyes?
Oh, maybe you're talking about  the animal's eyes.
The wild animal who had almost got you killed.
What did I tell you about wild animals?
I'm sure this was a good lesson to you and you will think twice before calling them innocent and worth only to be loved and protected.
Now let's go, thank god that you are safe!", Wang Zhuocheng ended his speech.  

"If you say that an animal attacked me, intending to kill me, what about the man you shot?
What is his role in all of this madness?
You can call me crazy, but from what I managed to see and hear, my guts are telling me that this man was  the culprit who tried to kill me, not the animal. Maybe in complicity with others who ran away, I don't know. But that animal, no matter how scary his eyes were, that animal was actually the one who tried to save me and protect me by jumping in front of the sniper and getting the bullet prepared for me.
And now I feel so guilty and regretful for wounding  the animal with an arrow, after he saved my life, dammit!
But I was too scared to process right away what I have seen before.
The more I think now, the more I remember a long gun popping out from behind a tree and directed towards me."

"Yes, you're right about this, I saw it, too. That's why I asked you to stop, while I was preparing to fire my gun.
But right after, that huge beast got into my rifle's firing line.
I'm telling you that the beast was ready to attack you at the same time that man was trying to shoot you.
Just a coincidence, I suppose.
But, luckily, I shot them both.
Even three maybe, because you said that the animal picked someone from the ground, maybe another man whom I've probably got him shot, too. 
One's corpse is carried by your horse, the other man's corpse was probably eaten by the beast as his last feast before dying.  We will look for the animal's corpse tomorrow in the daylight. 
I'm really curious to see the species he is part of...so huge and so strong, that he didn't die instantly, but was able to walk away and die somewhere else in the forest." 

"Oh, Chiang Cheng, you and your overflowing imagination!
I prefer to stick with my opinion that the animal tried to save me, and maybe he carried the other man, not to eat him, but for saving him, same like he did with me.", I shouted at him stubbornly, I don't even understand why I was so eager to believe that the animal was the  good guy in this happening.

"Yeah, right, that ferocious beast was actually an archangel in disguise, wearing  some creepy carnival mask and hairy costume to come saving you. 
And you say about me having an overflowing imagination, ha, ha.", my friend laughed, pissing me off...But he is my friend and I love him! 

~End of Beauty's POV~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Earlier, in Liu Haikuan's room~

"I'm gonna take a nap, while waiting for you to come back from dinner.
Lock the door behind you when leaving, we don't want for someone to get in and find a wolf sleeping in your bed.", Yibo told his friend, mentioning once again to be extremely watchful of his surroundings.

Haikuan was gone for maybe an hour since, and Yibo was half dozed off, when a sudden, sharp pain drilled through his entire body.
Same pain he has already experienced a day before...A night before, better saying!

He was changing again into that horrible beast, hungry for blood!

Yibo's intelligent brain understood now that his transformation from a white wolf to black werewolf and vice versa, must have something to do with the time cycle: his curse is to become a white wolf in the dawn, and a black werewolf at the sunset.

The need for fresh meat became so overwhelming that the werewolf king couldn't refrain himself from howling and desperately shaking the door handle.

The handle door snapped broken, but luckily someone unlocked the door, just when the animal decided to break the window and jump down.

Even though Wang Yibo's dominant way of acting and thinking was of a werewolf's one, his human self was happy to see that the one who unlocked the door was not any random stranger, but his friend Kuan Kuan.

But his happiness was pretty short. 
He forgot even about the meat hunger, when his friend started to explain hastily, that after dinner was over, he saw prince Xiao Zhan riding his horse toward the forest, together with one more rider.
"And right after that, I heard, completely accidentally, a guest commanding two of his servants to follow Prince Beauty in the forest.", Haikuan ended his telling.

"Cover the cage with a blanket, and if someone will ask questions, tell them that you need to take your pet to a vet, because your dog got sick.
Now, take me outside and let's hurry! 
Hopefully we will reach the forest in time for saving Beauty!", the beast growled, crumpling himself in the too small cage for his giant size.

King Xiao of Rose was overly surprised at his son's impatience for the hunting day to start already.

Prince Zhan didn't inform his father yet about what happened last night,a few hours ago, in the forest.
At his adviser's wise suggestion, he decided to keep everything secret for now and hide the sniper's corpse.
They planned to find out who wants the prince of Rose dead. 
But because their only witness, the sniper, was dead, they could only hope for the plotters to reveal themselves by asking around for information and searching for their lost sniper.

It was still dark outside when the hunting had started. 
Xiao Zhan and Zhuocheng were the first arrivals at the hunters meeting place.
They didn't wait for the bugle to announce the hunting's start, but they rushed riding their horses to the forest, impatient to look for the beast's corpse.

After a time of not finding anything, they stopped at the forest edge and took a break to give their horses a short rest.
When they proclaimed themselves defeated and they were just about to resume their searching, a weak whimper caught their full attention.

They approached carefully the small knoll from where the sound had been heard.

"Oh, my god, Chiang Cheng, there is a man here with his hunting dog, both are dead or woun