CH 30.2

warning: animal abuse for this pretty much the entire arc, starting from here onwards

After school, the two of them hadn’t gone home with everyone else. Because their parents weren’t home, and the grandparents left to take care of them were entirely incapable of properly taking care of them, they decided to go straight to the only Internet cafe in town to play games until late at night. During this period, the grandparents came to search for their grandchildren, but were instead angrily scolded by them.  

Once the two of them had played enough games, at about two in the morning, they paid the rental fee and left the Internet cafe to return home. On the way, they disappeared. 

“Then, why are you looking for them on the mountain? Isn’t it more likely that they’re still in town?” Gu Xizhou asked.  

The dark-skinned man used a sickle to cut off the weeds in front of him. “There are many people in the town. Everyone helped to search through it. Sure enough, no one saw them. Many children have gone missing in the mountains, so the parents of the two kids think that maybe the kids left the Internet cafe at night and suddenly thought of going to play in the mountains. However, at night…”

The man didn’t finish his sentence, but Gu Xizhou understood his meaning. The children lived in the nearby town, and this mountain was very close. It was clear that this mountain held some special meaning for the children here. When they were younger, they spent most of their time playing here. It was possible that the two missing people might have climbed the mountain in the middle of the night and fallen into the mountain ravine, thus disappearing.

After all, the mountain in front of them was indeed tall and large, towering into the sky.

The man glanced at the scorching sun in the sky and wiped the sweat from his forehead. As they walked, they met another team. This team had three people, and each of them brought a dog. 

“Did you find anything?” the dark-skinned man asked when he saw the three men.

The three of them shook their heads, “No, we have almost turned the mountain all over, and we still haven’t found anyone. Even if those two families are certain that the kids are on the mountain, everyone else knows they are gone. But even if we all know it, it’s not nice to say that we won’t help.” 

The man continued: “Today is the fourth day. The entire mountain has been searched, and we still haven’t found anyone. They must have left the town.”

Gu Xizhou observed the mountain. Although it was steep, there weren’t any rock protrusions on the road. Even if someone fell and rolled down the mountain, they would not fall to death. The man who died last night could also prove that the reason behind the disappearances was definitely not because of climbing the mountain. 

Gu Xizhou was observing when he suddenly heard the loud barking of a dog. 

“Woof woof woof!” 

“Woof woof woof!”

Three dogs suddenly crazily rushed towards them, opening their mouths with a roaring roar, and their cracked mouths revealed sharp fangs. 

“Fuck, beast, be quiet!” The dog owner pulled the dog rope in his hand. The dog’s body was pulled halfway up by the dog owner, but it still did not forget to howl at several people. It’s fierceness made it appear to want to directly bite them to death. 

“Why did it suddenly go crazy?! Fuck!” 

“Memx, atfrf yfjrar, lo sbe rtbea jujlc, P’ii rafk sbe jcv fja sbeg vbu wfja abvjs!”

C ofk rfnfcaffc jcv flutaffc-sfjg-bivr kbeivc’a yf jogjlv bo rfflcu atf vbu, yea atja alwlv ulgi mglfv jujlc, tlvlcu yftlcv Wlf Qfcteb jcv Wef Wljb. Vtf mglfv: “P’w jogjlv bo vbur, mbcagbi atfw! Gbc’a ylaf wf!” 

The four men beat the dogs up. The dogs called out painfully, but still stared at Gu Xizhou and the rest with a fierce gaze. 

“Awoo…” 

The three dogs were beaten and lay on the ground, but they still showed their fangs without giving up, and made a threatening growl at Gu Xizhou and others.

When the three honest men saw the girl who was scared to the point of crying, they apologized very sincerely: “Sorry, these dogs are usually not like this, they ended up scaring you.” 

Gu Xizhou shook his head. They said a few words, but couldn’t bear to hear the three dogs’ constant barking, so they separated from the four people and went down the mountain.

After going down the mountain and back to the town, the girl was still frightened. When she saw a dog in the distance, she shouted for them to take another route, all the way until Gu Xizhou and the rest returned to the courtyard. 

Those dogs would even call at them from a distance. If they were not tied to a leash, they would have directly ran towards them! 

When they passed the alley again, they thought they would see the tragic appearance of the corpse. However, the corpse had disappeared, and all the blood on the white wall had vanished. 

Seeing that, the girl who had been crying whispered, “Where did the body go?”

Xue Xiao said lightly: “This is normal, you will see more of it in the future, until you don’t find it strange.” 

Without the body, when they came back, they were much less stressed than when they left.

Every household in the yard was cooking. Only the family of the man who died yesterday was dismayed. Two old people called the people who were working far away from the town to inform them that the child had gone missing. 

“The big son is missing, what sort of work are you still doing! Hurry up and come back, us two old things don’t have clear vision, we can’t find him!”

The two elderly people cried desperately, as if their hearts had been torn out of their chests. 

The person on the other end of the phone seemed to be in a hurry as well, saying: “Okay, okay, I’ll come back this afternoon! First, find some people to help out, help find the child!”

… 

They reconvened in Xie Wenhuo’s room. After walking for a whole day, they were tired. They sat by the bed in small groups. Xue Xiao said helplessly: “It feels like we didn’t find any useful information.”

Si Yu glanced at Xue Xiao and said: “It’s not that we didn’t find anything useful. Just now, those three dogs, there was something strange about them.” 

“Why is that strange?” Xie Wenhuo asked. 

Gu Xizhou answered that question: “Those three dogs started barking crazily the moment they saw us. On our way back, I noticed that every house has dogs to prevent robbery. The families next door to our courtyard also have dogs. I’m not sure if any of you realised this.” 

Fang Zhi put down the glass in his hand and said suddenly: “Yes, we don’t have any dogs in our yard! Thirteen families but not a single one that raises dogs! This kind of small town should have dogs for every household!”

Xie Wenhuo heard Fang Zhi’s words and frowned. “This does seem to be the case.” 

“Do you think the dogs are relevant to this mission world?”

“I think so.” Si Yu nodded. 

“Okay, let’s first determine why there are no dogs in our yard!” Xie Wenhuo looked at the situation, and after a moment’s consideration, he agreed with Gu Xizhou’s opinion.

Gu Xizhou was the first to go out and found his ‘mother’ who was cooking. He asked: “Why are there no dogs in our yard?” 

The woman who put the vegetables in the pot heard these words and froze slightly: “We raised them before, but didn’t you all get afraid of them?”

Gu Xizhou was startled, and asked, “Afraid?” 

Since they have raised dogs before, how can one suddenly be afraid of dogs suddenly?

The woman cooked and spoke at the same time: “Did you forget?  It was because of that dog that was brought back from the city. Last year, on National Day, the family next door brought back a white dog that bit you kids the moment it saw you, biting all of you. In the end, because we had rushed back and saw this, we finally beat that vicious dog to death.” 

“The family named Tian wasn’t very happy. They had to pay some money, and even had to pay for rabies vaccination for all thirteen of you. We were relieved only when the dog was confirmed to be free of rabies.”

Gu Xizhou asked: “Which family?” 

The woman: “They earned big money in the city, so when they came back last year, they took their old folks and moved to the city.”

“After that family left, for a period of time, you kids would cry the moment you saw a dog. At that time, this yard had about seven to eight dogs! You kids were all so frightened that you rushed to buy rat poison and poisoned those dogs to death.” 

“Originally, because you children were afraid, we planned to send the dogs away. In the end, they had protected our houses for so long, we saw them as friends. But who knew that you kids were so frightened that when we returned, all we saw were the dogs’ corpses.”

“Later, because you kids formed a shadow in your hearts due to that vicious dog, the families in the yard never raised dogs again.” 

The woman exclaimed the last few sentences. She didn’t sound particularly concerned, and said them lightly.  

After hearing this, Gu Xizhou gathered back with the rest. They had all received roughly the same information; last year, on National Day, nine dogs died in this yard. One was the dog that came back with the Tian family that had since moved away, and the other eight were the dogs that protected the houses in the yard.  

Xie Wenhuo heard this news, realised it involved National Day and dogs, and looked at Gu Xizhou’s trio with a different light in his eyes. When he had an idea, he would approach them for their opinion. 

“It does seem to be related to the dog.” Xie Wenhuo frowned.   

“Then, since we already know the cause of the dog’s death, can’t we just leave?” The girl who kept crying finally showed another expression, looking at the rest expectantly. 

“It’s not that simple,” Xie Wenhuo said lightly. “But now we are one step further to solving this mystery. Instead of looking for the missing three individuals, we should go search the innermost house in the yard, the one that the Tian family lived in!”  

With this clue, the other seemed to be more relaxed. Their hopes for leaving had been raised, and they walked over to the door of the Tian family’s house.

The doors and windows were all closed tightly. After that family left, they had locked up their house. The group was at a loss. 

“This door…”

Xie Wenhuo looked at the big door helplessly. This was troublesome.  

“Let me handle it.”

Gu Xizhou heard Si Yu say this lightly, and then he bit a black wire between his teeth, turning it against the door lock for a while. With a ‘click’, the door opened. 

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Fang Zhi: “…” You seem very familiar with this! 

Si Yu saw the two people looking at him with suspicious gazes and shrugged indifferently. “This is a necessary skill.”

soya: the chapter had that last part written like that, but I think it’s more of Si Yu had black wires with him and he held an extra one in his mouth while he fiddled at the lock with a wire using his hands… else the imagery of Si Yu kneeling next to the door using his mouth to hold a wire as he fiddles with the lock while his hands are placed neatly on his lap is….. kinda hilarious ngl…