Chapter 35 Mad Dog Hotel
"I just heard them talking about getting rid of the Shiba Inu in the conference room," Professor Meng said bluntly. "Has anyone else turned into a dog?"
With the appearance of corpses, people became more sensitive to the existence of monsters. Early in the morning, Lü Shi'an called Tian Miaoying and told her not to go out.
They still have no idea what's happening outside.
“Yes.” Lu Qi sat on the sofa, with Tian Miaoying on her left and Lulu on her right.
She told the two of them what had happened that morning.
After listening to Lu Qi's explanation, the two felt heavy-hearted.
"You said you used tennis rackets to stop the dog-headed man who had turned into a Shiba Inu, tied it up, and locked it in the conference room." Professor Meng didn't wallow in negativity and quickly began to analyze, "So, they are not invincible, as long as you avoid neck contact."
“At least the Shiba Inu we encountered was like that,” Lu Qi said.
Professor Meng pondered, "After all, they are our compatriots, and there may still be a possibility that they can turn back into humans. We shouldn't kill them indiscriminately."
“Yes.” Lu Qi stood up. “They went to the conference room. We need to go and see what’s going on.”
After informing Tian Miaoying and Professor Meng about what had happened outside, Lu Qi planned to go and help with Lulu.
"Wait! There's something I need to tell you." Tian Miaoying exclaimed excitedly, "Yeye spoke!"
"Coconut?" Lu Qi suddenly remembered that they had named the Samoyed that parasitized Huang Zhenyi "Coconut".
"She was crying the whole time before, but when she woke up this morning, she suddenly started talking to me!"
Lu Qi hurriedly asked, "What did she say?"
"She told me what she saw after she crossed the red line at the hotel exit."
Professor Meng had obviously already heard about it. Lulu narrowed her eyes slightly, while Lu Qi asked with surprise, "Really? What did she say?"
“She said,” Tian Miaoying frowned, “that after crossing the red line, a red mist rose around her. She walked forward for a very long time, and when she came to her senses, she had turned into a Samoyed and was standing on the lawn in front of the exit.”
"That memory is also very vague; she only remembers that she had to go home."
Before Lu Qi could ask, Tian Miaoying continued, "I asked her, 'Then why did you stay on the lawn?'"
She said she had a gut feeling that the place closest to the red line was the closest to home.
"After she became a dog, did she never try to leave again?" Lu Qi pressed.
Tian Miaoying swallowed hard. "She said she was very scared. She was all alone, surrounded by an unfamiliar environment and a strange dog. She was too scared to move and could only wait for her 'owner' to take her home."
“Waiting for ‘master’ to take her home…” Lu Qi murmured the same sentence repeatedly.
Professor Meng said, "It sounds like an abandoned puppy."
After she pointed it out, Lu Qi said, "Indeed. There are so many dogs on the lawn, all of them are purebreds."
It's a purebred dog, but it doesn't have a collar.
“They must be stray dogs,” Tian Miaoying said resentfully. “They don’t have collars. And didn’t Rule Five say that pet dogs are friendly, while stray dogs and wild dogs are dangerous? When Yeye was a stray dog, she attacked me and Huang Zhenyi, but now that she has an ‘owner’ and has become a pet dog, she no longer attacks people.”
The rules use dangerous terms for "stray dogs" and "wild dogs," suggesting that their presence is not a good thing for humans.
“A stray dog is an abandoned pet dog, and a pet dog is an adopted stray dog,” Lu Qi pondered. “If stray dogs and pet dogs can transform into each other, then stray dogs certainly can too.”
Lulu asked warily, "You want to keep a stray dog?"
Lu Qi shook his head, "It's not a problem if stray dogs can become pet dogs. I'm just afraid that if stray dogs can't find owners, then if they mate with each other or with stray dogs, the puppies they have will become stray dogs, which will be even more disadvantageous for us."
Tian Miaoying asked in surprise, "They can reproduce?"
Professor Meng nodded, "That possibility cannot be ruled out."
“No,” Lulu firmly retorted. “Almost all the stray dogs at the exit are adult dogs. They were abandoned after they reached adulthood, so they have all been spayed or neutered.”
“…Cough.” Lu Qi choked, recalling Lulu’s proud expression when she told him she had cut off her testicles.
"That's not necessarily true," Professor Meng said with a smile. "Young man, outside of our circle, not many dog owners actually spay or neuter their dogs."
Lulu paused for a moment, "Why? Not spaying or neutering will breed a lot of diseases, and will also cause dogs to pee and poop everywhere, and become irritable and aggressive. Having too many puppies will also create a financial burden for people."
"We understand this principle, but humans have only been well-fed and clothed for a short time, and we haven't even realized the importance of spending money on dogs yet."
"Cough cough cough..." Lu Qi coughed even harder in an attempt to suppress his laughter.
She thought Lulu knew something, but seeing his shocked expression, she realized he thought all owners would have their pets spayed or neutered.
Lulu patted her back worriedly, "Are you feeling unwell, Lu Qi?"
“No, it’s nothing,” she said, barely suppressing a laugh. “If it were really like you said, all the stray dogs would be spayed or neutered. The number of stray dogs and mongrels wouldn’t increase, which would be a good thing for us.”
She quickly asked Tian Miaoying, "Besides that, what else did Yeye say? Is she still alive?"
Tian Miaoying shook her head, "They stopped talking after less than three minutes, just like Huang Zhenyi, always barely audible."
“Coconut couldn’t speak at first, but now it can. This means that their consciousness didn’t deteriorate after becoming kobolds,” Lu Qi thought. “This is a good thing; we understand now.”
Perhaps this news can dissuade humans who distrust the kobolds, letting them know that the kobolds retain human consciousness.
"Be careful." Tian Miaoying and Professor Meng stood up to see them off. "Come back if things don't go well."
"Okay," Lu Qi replied. "You all should stay in your rooms and not come out either."
She and Lulu hurried to the conference room.
As soon as I arrived at the floor, I could see a crowd blocking the corridor in the distance.
Lu Qi took two steps forward, but was stopped by Lulu.
He shook his head at her, and Lu Qi understood. She and he hid behind the nearest corner to observe first.
The meeting room door was open, but she couldn't see what was inside.
Nearly twenty people formed a semi-circle, blocking the doorway, and only the voices of Lü Shi'an and Xie Yun could be heard.
They are negotiating.
The conference room has two doors: a main entrance that people are gathered around, and a security door that opens into the emergency exit.
When Lu Qi left, the Shiba Inu was tied to the doorknob of the security gate.
The main entrance was packed with people, so she crouched down and went with Lulu to the emergency exit, found the corresponding emergency door, and gently knocked on it.
No one answered; the knocking was too soft and drowned out by the argument in front of them.
Only the Shiba Inu noticed and barked.
Its call intensified the opposition's anger.
"I don't understand why you're protecting a monster!" The leader brandished a watermelon knife he'd found at the restaurant. "You've wasted so much manpower guarding this thing. You can hold it up now, but what about later? If a second or third one appears, how many people are you planning to spend guarding it?!"
"Yeah! Don't do anything else, just sleep while guarding the monster!"
"Once we understand their characteristics, we will find a solution!" Xie Yun said.
"What method?" The man pointed the knife at the Shiba Inu. "You're all so sympathetic to it; I think you've all been assimilated by the monster!"
Lu Shi'an countered, "It's not as mysterious as we imagine; it can be controlled."
"If it's really not that strange, you wouldn't have sent so many people to guard it. Isn't it because you yourselves aren't sure?"
Lu Qi frowned.
She had knocked more than ten times, but had not received a response.
"The security door is locked from the inside, and everyone inside is gathered at the doorway; nobody's paying attention here." She looked back at Lulu. "What do we do?"
Lulu didn't mind the Shiba Inu being killed.
Humans and monsters can coexist peacefully without generating negative energy. This is not what he wants to see.
Besides, he really disliked that "cute" Shiba Inu.
But when Lu Qi asked him, he still replied, "It won't last long. There are people causing trouble with weapons in the hotel. Security will be here soon to handle it."
"Security guards?" There were two security guards in the lobby. Lu Qi remembered that there were also security guards on duty in the underground parking garage.
"Won't there be any danger?" she asked with concern. "[Security guards] sound much more dangerous than [pet dogs]."
"Then let Lü Shi'an and the others handle it themselves," Lulu said cheerfully. "It's his own responsibility."
“You really don’t like him,” Lu Qi sighed.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said to Lulu. “There are a few ordinary [pet dogs] on the lawn near the hotel. They won’t attack humans. How about we bring them over and scare them a little?”
According to the rules, humans cannot harm pet dogs.
The last one who kicked the King Charles Spaniel, Zhao Feipeng, has turned into a dog-headed man and died.
She let her dog over, and the people outside had no choice but to give way.
“No need for all that trouble, shh—” Lulu held up her index finger to her, “[Security] is already here.”
Before Lu Qi could even wonder, he suddenly heard a series of sharp alarm sounds.
The brightly lit stairwell was conspicuously stained red.
The white motion-sensor lights and the sunlight outside the window all turned red, illuminating the surroundings in a crimson glow.
The color was chilling. Lu Qi took two steps back and bumped into Lulu's chest.
Lulu picked her up and ran upstairs.
Through the security door, Lu Qi heard the low growl characteristic of large dogs.
The next moment, terrified screams rang out from the humans; someone was shouting:
"A dog, what a big dog!"
"A dog has eaten someone! Run!"
Lu Qi's face turned pale as he suddenly heard the sticky, tearing sound of flesh and blood flying everywhere.
She used one hand to cover her mouth and quickly opened the manual she carried with her with the other.
The light shone through the pale yellow paper of the manual, turning it a faint red, like diluted blood.
The text appeared on the reddened eleventh page:
[11. If you encounter any personal safety issues, please immediately seek assistance from hotel security. Our security personnel will also monitor the security situation within the hotel at all times and handle any unstable factors as soon as possible to ensure guests' peace of mind.]
Unstable factor... This isn't a common term in human safety announcements, but it's a frequently used phrase in books on dog behavior correction.
Dogs are peace-loving and very rule-abiding.
To maintain the safety and stability of the dog pack, they will help unstable elements within the group, such as dogs that bark for no reason or attack their companions at will.
Dog packs typically help their companions in three ways: subjugation, biting, and expulsion. They will never intentionally cause death.
Lu Qi suddenly realized what was happening and grabbed Lulu tightly, "Why are we running away!"
From a human perspective, [security guards] will only deal with the perpetrators;
From a dog's perspective, a security guard, being a dog, wouldn't be so vicious as to kill his companion.
There's no issue of their lives being at stake here, so they have absolutely no reason to run away!
"Let's go back!" Lu Qi struggled to jump down. "Let's go back and check the situation!"
"No! It's too dangerous!" Lulu objected. "Not only are there [security guards], but there are also a lot of men there!"
man?
Lu Qi was taken aback.
So that's how it is, it's because of her...
“It’s okay,” she said, stroking Lulu’s blonde hair, her heart aching. “You’re still here with me, so I’m not so scared.”
Lulu did not respond.
Lu Qi frowned, "Lulu..."
"Oh no, Lu Qi." Lulu buried her head and rubbed against her shoulder. "You'll get caught in the crossfire. They have nothing to do with you."
Lu Qi understood perfectly well that rushing into danger was the act of a reckless fool.
But the situation is different now. Any information in the ghost stories is important, especially since it's the first time a [security guard] has appeared. She needs to figure out the security mechanisms of the ghost stories.
Lu Qi turned and jumped down, but Lulu hugged her tightly.
"Let go!" As they got further and further away from the conference room floor, Lu Qi became a little anxious, pushing Lulu's shoulder with her hand and struggling with her legs raised.
"No, you can't," Lulu warned her gently but seriously. "Be good."
A soft snap.
Lu Qi was stunned.
"You, you..." She suddenly grabbed the booklet and shoved it at Lulu's face, her ears burning. "Where are you taking pictures of!"
This was indeed how she used to discipline Lulu. When he had a headache, she would gently pat his bottom. But how could he possibly copy this method onto her?
"Stop it, good baby, stop it!" With the manual shoved in his face, Lulu couldn't see the steps. Lu Qi in his arms was still struggling. He panicked and his grip loosened.
Lu Qi immediately broke free and ran downstairs.
She had barely run half a floor when a strong force grabbed the back of her collar.
His body was suddenly lifted into the air, and Lu Qi let out a short cry.
Lulu grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up with one hand.
In an instant, she remembered Zhao Feipeng being grabbed by the neck and lifted up by Lulu in the clinic.
It's no wonder Lü Shi'an rejected Lulu; the feeling of being lifted up by one arm is indeed terrifying.
Even knowing that it was her Lulu, Lu Qi still felt a little uneasy after her feet left the ground.
The light in the hallway seemed even redder.
A tall, handsome young man stood on the steps, his whole body bathed in a strange red light.
"You're being naughty." He lifted her up, sighing but also smiling. "My sweetheart, it's dangerous outside. You can't leave me and run around."
A strange chill crept up Lu Qi's spine.
These were the words she used to say to Lulu.
But she was certain that she would never speak like Lulu was now: breathing heavily and sticking out her tongue.
He was excited.
He wanted to pursue her; he enjoyed pursuing her.
The chase game that Lu Qi had interrupted with the excuse of feeling dizzy resumed at this moment.
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Author's Note: The difference between a puppy and a domineering CEO when he chases her.
CEO: Run away, woman, do you think you can escape my grasp?
Puppy: I'm coming to catch you, Lu Qi! I'm coming! I'll catch you in no time! In no time!
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