CH 31.1

Gu Xizhou: “…” What has life done to you? Making a local tyrant like you think that picking locks is a necessary skill?

Fang Zhi: “…” My handcuffs are about to be used.

“Let’s go and see first.” Si Yu ignored Gu Xizhou and Fang Zhi, and spoke to several people around him, “Go in and check for any clues.”

Thus, several people walked in together.

Gu Xizhou walked in front of them, and he could smell the scent of aged dust as soon as he walked in.

The first simple furnishings that came into view were wooden sofas, wooden square tables, and several benches. The room was facing the window in the courtyard with old yellowed newspapers. Two beds were placed in the two rooms. In one of the rooms, a wooden chair was placed, and the craftsmanship was not good. The set of tables and chairs was also very roughly crafted.

Xie Wenhuo and others followed behind Gu Xizhou and carefully looked at the furnishings in this room. They did not see anything special, which was completely in line with the situation that the woman told Gu Xizhou. A pair of elderly people lived here. The clothes and things left behind belong to the two old people. Obviously, there were only traces of the lives of the two old people, and there was nothing special about them.

Together, they rummaged through all the openable drawers in the enclosed house. Inside were largely lifestyle items, and were extremely normal.  

“A call book!” Fang Zhi found a contact list under the landline, with a phone number written on it, apparently left by the two old men.

After flipping through for a moment, they found the phone number of the Tian family.

Son’s phone number: ******

They looked at each other, and one of the men asked hesitantly: “After so many years, will this number still work?”

Let’s not talk about whether the number can get through or not. It was a bigger concern if the person on the other end would be a human or a ghost. The people around looked at the phone number with trepidation.  

At this time, Si Yu took out the mobile phone in his bag, and said nothing, directly dialling the number in the address book.

Buzz-

The phone is connected!

“Hello, who are you looking for?” A lazy male sounded.

Gu Xizhou heard Si Yu make up an identity, lying that he was a fellow villager. “Hello, sorry to bother you.”

“Oh, an old friend from the village? What’s the matter?”

Si Yu: “I heard that you have a very expensive dog in your family. I want to ask if it has any puppies. I just want to raise a dog here. I am willing to pay for it! Can I?”

“Yt… Tbe’gf ajixlcu jybea atja Vjwbsfv! Ktja vbu vlfv ijra sfjg, vbc’a sbe xcbk? Cirb, Olaaif Qtlaf lr j wjif vbu, jcv mjc’a ulnf ylgat ab qeqqlfr.”

“Zjif vbu? Lbk vlv la vlf?”

Xe Wlhtbe tfjgv atf kbgv ‘wjif vbu’, jcv wjvf j mbcoerfv cblrf. C wjif vbu kbeiv cba tjnf mtlivgfc, rb la kbeivc’a yf jr nlmlber jr j ofwjif vbu jcv jaajmx qfbqif ab qgbafma atflg qeq.

“During National Day last year, when we went back to our hometown with Little White, we also don’t know what happened to it. It suddenly started biting people, biting seven or eight kids. When we came home, the dog had already been killed by several neighbours in our yard. No matter how you tell the story, this was our fault, so we just paid and hurriedly buried Little White.”

“Why did the dog bite people? Do you know?”

“If you ask me, who do I ask? Little White was always so good at home, and it would never bite people.”

“En…  even though it likes to bite the sofa, the floor, shoes, clothes, etc., it would never bite humans. My second child in my family always sat on its head, pull at its fur, step on its tail, but Little White wouldn’t make a fuss, and would never fight. Little White was playful, but it would never bite others without reason. This, I still believe.”

“Actually, I always suspected that those barely mature kids had provoked it, so they were bitten. Unfortunately, it ended up in our family having to pay compensation.”

Si Yu hung up, and they all sat there in silence for a while. 

“The Tian family doesn’t seem to have any sort of problem. The problem is with the poisoned dogs,” Xie Wenhuo said as he looked at the address book.

Xiao Hua tightly grabbed Xue Xiao’s sleeve and said with some fear: “Those dogs? Then, will they want the lives of those who poisoned them?”

Xiao Hua was the girl who had been crying before. 

Xie Wenhuo said nothing. 

After leaving the Tian family’s house, they regrouped. 

The discussion was fruitless, so they could only go home and find their NPC parents to ask about the situation. 

Gu Xizhou had just taken a bath, and the woman painstakingly brought him a set of pajamas:  “Cub, come, your mother brought your clothes. Blow your hair after your bath, don’t catch a cold.”

Gu Xizhou nodded. Although it was an NPC in front of him, she treated her child really well.

Now it was National Day, so Gu Xizhou’s two NPC parents were at home. The very first middle-aged man that Gu Xizhou met was seated at the side, flipping through a newspaper in his hand. When Gu Xizhou came out, the man stopped him.

“Cub, the children of the Li and Liu families have not yet been found. Don’t go out at night, and pay attention to safety, okay?” The middle-aged man urged.

Gu Xizhou: “En.”

The man: “If something happens, yell for Mom and Dad, we will protect you.”

The man had a sincere gaze and a calm voice. However, when Gu Xizhou heard this sentence, he compared the situations of relying on an NPC for protection and relying on himself for protection. In the end, he felt that he was still more reliable. 

After hearing the man and woman’s instructions, Gu Xizhou agreed. Soon, Si Yu and Fang Zhi came over at the same time, and even chatted with the man and woman.

“Uncle, Auntie, do you know what happened to the dead dog of the Tian family? Did it bite us as soon as we arrived in our yard?”

With such a clean voice, Gu Xizhou didn’t need to turn to look. He knew it was Si Yu acting coquettish again. He turned back and silently looked at Si Yu, the slightly crooked lips and laughter hiding in those eyes.  

Coquettish, brother.

The woman didn’t show any signs of being affected. She frowned and said: “What reason? The dog’s personality wasn’t good. Dogs in the city are proud, refusing to eat leftovers, insisting on eating what canned food, dog food. Country dogs are the best, happy just randomly eating meal leftovers.”

“I heard that the dog also loved to bite things back at home, which is why it was beaten often. On National Day, the Tian family came back, and brought that dog with them.”

“On the first day, it refused to eat anything, howling day and night, to the point that no one in the yard could fall asleep.”

“It saw you kids and started to be incredibly fierce and vicious. Because of this, the Tian family beat it several times, but the moment night fell, it just kept barking. The other eight dogs in the yard also started to bark. Forget our yard, even our neighbours next door were also irritated.”

“I remember that the Tian family couldn’t do anything, so they decided to return to the city early. That day, they had gone to a relative’s home, so when there was no at home other than you kids, that dog bit through the string and crazily chased after you. The other dogs at home were also bitten because they tried to protect you. That dog bit and refused to let go, using so much strength that it was as if it didn’t want its life anymore! It was like there were nine generations of resentment between you and the dog.”

“Until we took the pole to kill it, the dog refused to let go. That time, the dog was covered in blood, and the blood splattered across the yard.”

As the woman reminisced, that scene was still fresh in her memory.

The dog was too cruel. In the end, it was beaten until all of its bones were broken, but it still fiercely bit the Li family’s children without letting go. It had been harshly beaten until its last breath left its mouth. Only then was the Li child saved from the dog’s mouth.”

“Thank you, Auntie.” Si Yu’s handsome face was marred by a slight frown. The situation was similar to what the master of the Tian family had said.

After leaving, they told Xie Wenhuo and the others about what they had just discussed.

The Samoyed might have barked day and night because it wasn’t used to this sort of life, ending up irritating the kids in the yard. They might have beat the dog when the Tian family wasn’t home. Then, the dog bit through its rope in order to enact revenge on those who had bullied it. In the end, the Samoyed had been beaten to death.

Since those dozen-ish children were bitten by the dog, they also had a psychological shadow in their hearts towards the dogs at home. They were afraid of hearing the dog barking, so several children discussed and poisoned those dogs.

Xiao Hua sighed. “Those eight dogs protected them but were poisoned. Maybe, because of this, they want revenge…”

The people around were silent for a while. It was true that the eight dogs did nothing wrong. From the words of the woman, they knew that instead of biting, the eight dogs came forward to protect them when the Samoyed bit those few children. Finally, they were poisoned by their owners.

Thus, if they were resentful, it was reasonable. 

“Sleep now.” Xie Wenhuo held a cigarette in his mouth. It must have been brought over along with his mobile phones and other things. He inhaled the smoke, speaking in a light tone.

The crowd dispersed. Gu Xizhou’s trio had just closed their door for a moment when suddenly, a scream was heard outside the courtyard!

“Ahh-“

At the same time, the sound of barking dogs rang throughout the yard. The barks resounded one after another, but quickly disappeared. 

Fang Zhi didn’t have time to react before Gu Xizhou opened the door and rushed into the courtyard. In the darkness, the sound of footsteps came from the alley. Xiao Hua stood on the side of the alley, and her eyes were full of fear and panic. “There, there’s a dog… there’s a dog outside… it…”

Xie Wenhuo, Xue Xiao and the rest reached the courtyard, only to see scarlet blood flowing out from the alleyway. From time to time, blood splattered out, and there seemed to be the sound of something being bitten, creating the sound of bones being chewed on.  

Gu Xizhou wanted to take a step forward, but Si Yu reached out to stop him, “Don’t go out.”

Gu Xizhou glanced at Si Yu, and didn’t stop. Instead, he sped up. In the dark, he vaguely saw a pair of eyes looking at him. He barely took another step when suddenly, the barking sounds started up again, as if seven or eight dogs had surrounded him and were barking at the same time!

“Are you looking for death?!” Si Yu shouted at Gu Xizhou in an impolite manner, and at the same time, pulled him into the yard. The barking stopped when he entered the yard.

“Wu…wuwuwu…”

“What did you see?” Si Yu asked.

Gu Xizhou shook his head and said: “It’s too dark, I didn’t see clearly, I only saw a pair of eyes.”

After hearing Gu Xizhou’s words, Xie Wenhuo turned to look at Xiao Hua, grabbed her collar, and asked anxiously, “What happened?”

Xiao Hua trembled all over, pointing outside: “I, I saw it. It was a dog. There were many dogs. They suddenly rushed out, biting Hai Ge…dragging him…dragging out…”

The sound of something biting bones lasted for a long, long time, as if an animal was lightly chewing on those bones. Those sounds kept echoing. Gu Xizhou listened for a long time. Xiao Hua, who had originally wanted to speak, was frightened to the point of trembling from  those sounds and broke down crying.

soya:

Xiao Fang: my handcuffs are about to move

Gu Xizhou: move aside, he’s going to be trapped by only one pair of handcuffs.