Chapter 71 Hyena
The third brother always knew that Slit-Eye and Skinny were up to no good. Those two were greedy; they always liked to pocket a little bit of whatever they got. In short, they only felt comfortable if they got more than others.
So after they found out where the piglet's house was, they took it upon themselves to go ahead.
The third brother was not surprised at all by these things.
Go early so you can get something into your pocket sooner.
On the other hand, the black pig that stayed behind to wait was foolish. He was straightforward and ruthless, and had offended many people before the apocalypse. After the apocalypse, he had countless lives on his hands. The fact that he had survived to this day, and was still black and fat, meant that he was foolish, but he was still quite capable.
Ever since the five of them got together to commit murder and robbery, Black Pig has killed many people because he doesn't know his own strength, which makes the third brother very dissatisfied. He could have found out the whereabouts of other piglets by digging out the piglets' mouths. One family of piglets would lead to another family of piglets, and they could rob one family after another. But because of Black Pig, they have lost track of the piglets for a long time.
As the population dwindles and serious diseases continue to claim human lives in some corner of the world, the fewer people who live in isolation, the more likely they are to go hungry.
Shorty is the most sensible one. Although he's short and not good at fighting, he knows his limits, unlike Black Pig. He follows the rules, unlike Slit-Eye and Little Devil.
Therefore, the third brother usually likes to take the short guy out with him.
This time, it turned out that it was those three unreliable guys, Black Pig, who discovered the clue first.
Following the clues left by the slit, they finally found the village.
Once you find the village, you'll see that the house stands out among a row of dilapidated houses: it's situated on high ground, has a clean exterior, and even the windows are bright and dust-free.
When the third brother saw the house, he was momentarily stunned. He thought that the people who lived here must be very comfortable. They were protected from the rain and the wind, and the house could be stored with plenty of food, so they didn't have to worry about going hungry the next day.
The third brother looked at the house from afar and spat.
He couldn't bear to see the piglets living so well.
It wasn't until the three of them entered that they discovered the gate to the yard was wide open. Several sheep were huddled together in one corner of the yard, and they didn't run away even with the gate open. They were clearly frightened, and when they saw the three of them come in, the sheep bleated in fright.
The doors to the hall were also wide open, and a fishy smell wafted out.
The third brother immediately spotted Feng'eryan lying face down on the stairs. His eyes were wide open, wider than ever before, and his face was pale. Blood was flowing down the stairs, covering the floor. He was clearly dead.
Then they found the same skinny ghost, who was also dead with his eyes wide open, and the madman in the bathroom.
The skinny ghost had been dead for a long time, while the madman huddled in the corner, holding his head and muttering something, looking just like the sheep in the yard that had been scared out of their wits.
The third brother cursed, his anger surging instantly.
Their piglets ran away and even killed their people!
The black pig didn't react at all. He even checked the skinny guy's breathing, shouting, "Impossible... How could this be! Those two piglets were beaten half to death by us, how could they have escaped!"
The third brother slapped the black pig on the back of the head: "You're a real pig! Did you see any sheep droppings on the way here?! These sheep don't even belong to this family!"
On the roads around sheep-raising households, you can often see small, flattened sheep droppings. The roads were so clean that the third brother had become suspicious. When he got here, he finally realized that more than one family lived here!
The woman and the shepherd boy that the black pig mentioned were not siblings at all; there were other survivors besides them.
Thinking of this, the third brother kicked the corpse of the little devil with great force: "You good-for-nothing! Greedy, you deserved to die!"
"Let's go, let's get out of here!" Realizing things were going badly, the taciturn dwarf was the first to leave.
They're likely falling into a trap!
The three men retreated. They didn't have much luggage, and their packs were thin, so they quickly took out their weapons. Black Pig walked in front, and as soon as he stepped out of the courtyard gate, he was blinded by a handful of chili powder and grass ash.
The black pig screamed and tried to rub its eyes, when a sharp, rusty iron rod was plunged into its abdomen!
The dwarf and the third brother, who were walking behind, reacted quickly and took a few steps back. However, their eyes were also blurred. Through the blur, they saw three small figures rushing in from outside the gate, carrying a sharp iron rod, a long machete, and a dagger. They quickly stabbed the fallen black pig several times!
The incident happened within seconds. Just as the third brother and the short guy were about to rush forward, the small man with the sharp iron rod looked up and met his gaze.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Seeing that they weren't blinded, the short man urged the other two to hurry up and leave.
The dwarf chased after them and fired a shot at one of the figures.
With a "bang," the person who was shot staggered but did not stop. The three figures quickly disappeared into the dilapidated village below.
The dwarf's gun is a homemade gun from half a century ago. It has a slow reload time and a short range. The good guns he used to get are long gone because he has no bullets. Besides a bow, all he has left is this homemade gun that he can use to make his own ammunition.
The black pig's belly was pierced through, and it was basically ruined.
His massive body leaned against the door, intestines spilling out of his stomach. He held his intestines in his hands, panting heavily.
Those three men were clever; the weapons they used were covered in rust. Even if the black pig wasn't pierced through, it would still die of tetanus from being cut by such a knife.
After so many years in the apocalypse, the survivors have long since figured out how to completely kill off the enemy.
There are people who use rusty knives, and there are quite a few skilled survivors, so Lao San's team has been changing members for the past two years.
He slaughtered batch after batch of piglets, and many of his accomplices also died.
Fortunately, the black pig obtained a very important piece of information by sacrificing itself: there are only three people alive in this mountainous area.
There were no troublesome adult men, only a slightly tall woman, a petite woman, and a little boy who hadn't even grown his first hair yet.
Fate is such a wonderful thing. The world is so big, and so many people have died, yet they still managed to meet.
—Zhao Xuan, the woman who pretended to be crazy in the camp but poisoned his second brother with wild taro, they actually met again.
If the leader's death was a coincidence—that Lu An didn't notice the brake failure while repairing the car, and the leader wasn't wearing a seatbelt, thus causing him to be thrown from the vehicle and die tragically—then Zhao Xuan's actions were undeniably intentional.
That day, Yu Laosan didn't eat the poisonous taro. He was allergic to taro and had never eaten such things since childhood. When his second brother ate the poisonous taro, he even wondered if his second brother had also started to be allergic to taro. It wasn't until just a few hours later, when his second brother died in his arms, that he realized that the sweet taro paste was actually poisonous! With bloodshot eyes, he rushed to Zhao Xuan and Lu An's residence, only to find it deserted. Only the camp prostitute who was close to Zhao Xuan was lying in a tattered quilt. The woman had also died of illness. She lay peacefully among the layers of bedding, her face a world apart from that of his second brother who had died with a ferocious expression.
Yu Laosan had nowhere to seek revenge.
With no ties to him, he left the camp and completely transformed into a heartless animal.
Over the years, he killed many people, and gradually he rarely thought of his two older brothers anymore, and even began to forget what they looked like.
He exiled himself to slaughter and found himself quite happy in that life.
The three brothers were idle and irresponsible even before the apocalypse, and their evil was amplified afterward. The eldest and second eldest brothers died, and the youngest brother's way of commemorating them was to inherit their evil and continue to wreak havoc on humanity.
He was determined to kill Zhao Xuan—not just for revenge, but also because Zhao Xuan was the only one who had escaped from his grasp. He couldn't bear to keep this little fool alive.
Zhao Xuan was trembling with fear as he hid in an abandoned building.
She saw it too!
The third son of the Yu family, he is not dead!
Zhao Xuan didn't tell Zhang Xiaohe and the dog about this. The dog's arm was grazed by a bullet, and a large piece of flesh was torn off. Zhang Xiaohe was helping him stop the bleeding. The mother and son only had two hands that could be used at the moment. The two of them were now equivalent to one person. Telling them about his grudge with Yu Laosan would only add to their fear.
Zhang Xiaohe tore off her clothes and bandaged the dog's wound. She said, "It takes a long time to reload that gun, so there's nothing to be afraid of. What I saw was that person carrying a bow and arrow."
It was a short guy. Besides the knife in his hand, the bundle on his back looked more like a bow.
People who know how to use a bow and arrow are terrifying in the apocalypse.
"Sister Xiaohe," Zhao Xuan thought for a moment and said, "Why don't you go to the hunting lodge in the mountains and wait for Brother Yuan to come back?"
Zhang Xiaohe turned to look at her: "The two people we stabbed to death together, do you think they'll let us go? Unless we stop living in these mountains, we can't escape anywhere."
Whether or not to let Zhang Xiaohe and her son go is another matter, but Zhao Xuan knows that Yu Laosan and he are mortal enemies.
The dog had already been slapped hard several times, and blood was seeping from its ears. Now it had been shot again. Although it hadn't hit any vital organs, it had lost a lot of blood. It was leaning against Zhang Xiaohe's chest, its eyes tightly closed, but its mouth was murmuring something. Its hand was still trying to lift up, wanting to grab the knife next to it.
Zhao Xuan reached out and found that the dog had a slight fever.
She took the sharp iron rod and crept closer to the window. They were now in the attic of a dilapidated wooden building, and it was eerily quiet outside.
"Sister Xiaohe, we need to move."
Zhang Xiaohe nodded and patted her son's face: "Doggy, we have to go. Staying here will make us easy to be discovered."
The drowsy dog suddenly opened his eyes, clearly forcing himself to wake up immediately with reason. His voice was a little hoarse, but he said "okay" in a steady voice and then forced himself to stand up.
He swayed for a moment, but surprisingly, he managed to stand firm.
The three people quietly left the house and moved to another abandoned building.
Zhao Xuan knew that the three of them and Yu Laosan were playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek. Both sides were hiding and searching for each other, and whoever was found first would die first.
As she and Zhang Xiaohe searched for their next hiding place, they discussed their next plan...
As the sun rose higher, the cicadas began to chirp loudly, their noise irritating and unsettling.
Yu Laosan never expected that this little fool would not run away, and even dare to ambush him.
Another woman and boy used their familiarity with the terrain to lure the dwarf away, while the little fool crouched in the corner, ready to hit himself on the back with an iron rod.
Unfortunately, once this happened once, he wouldn't allow it to happen a second time.
Yu Laosan saw a shadow that didn't belong to him suddenly dart out under the blazing sun. At the critical moment, he turned around and grabbed the sharp iron rod that was about to stab him!
When Zhao Xuan realized her sneak attack had failed, she tried to run away, but was immediately caught up. Yu Laosan grabbed her shoulder and yanked her, throwing Zhao Xuan to the ground.
As she was slammed to the ground, Zhao Xuan suddenly laughed to herself: "I'm so slow, how come anyone can catch up with me?"
At that moment, she knew she was going to die.
In fact, when she decided to stay and fight this group to the death, she was prepared to die.
She was going to die anyway if she ran into this group, so she might as well die like this, at least it wouldn't be a cowardly death.
It's a pity that her vast fields of rice, wheat, soybeans, and corn were all ripening and ready to be harvested, but there was no chance to harvest them.
Zhao Xuan was thrown to the ground, and for a moment the world spun around him, and he couldn't get up.
Yu Laosan walked up to her and kicked her several times.
Zhao Xuan was small and thin. She let out a muffled groan of pain, curled up her limbs, and hugged her head like a dying kitten.
—And then there are the pigs she raises. After a year and a half, they've grown into four big, fat pigs. They'll definitely taste better than the wild boars they caught before the New Year. There's also a yard full of chickens; another batch of hens have grown up and are ready to lay eggs.
Yu Laosan squatted down, looked at Zhao Xuan who had already vomited blood, lifted her head, and after a while he suddenly laughed and began to tear off Zhao Xuan's clothes. Summer clothes are very thin, and they tore open easily, revealing her skin covered in bruises.
—And then there were her pickled vegetables, smoked meat, and all sorts of ground flour… She filled the family's storeroom to the brim. She had clearly started to live a good life, and she had promised her parents countless times in the dead of night that she would live well and live beautifully with the people she loved…
His fingers were broken during the struggle, the pain excruciating. Zhao Xuan thought he must look terrible like this, naked and pressed down on the muddy ground, covered in wounds, his hands and feet probably twisted.
She resigned herself to her fate and closed her eyes.
"Woof!"
A dog barked, and Zhao Xuan had never heard a dog bark so loudly and violently before. Then came several more barks, followed by Yu Laosan's scream.
As Yu Laosan was taking off his pants, several wild dogs suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The leader was a large, all-black dog with blood-red eyes. It charged at Yu Laosan like a cannonball and bit down on his head, tearing off half of his face and an ear in one go!
Then the other stray dogs swarmed over and tackled him to the ground.
Yu Laosan cursed wildly, then grabbed a knife from beside him and swung it down at the black dog's head. The dog dodged, the knife missed, and the tip grazed the dog's eye, blood spurting out. Seeing their leader injured, the other wild dogs were further enraged. One yellow dog barked a few times, as if in rallying its pack, and two dogs lunged at Yu Laosan's knife-wielding hand with all their might!
This pack of wild dogs is accustomed to hunting in the mountains, so their claws and teeth are sharp, their bite force is strong, and even their speed is unparalleled.
Zhao Xuan struggled to sit up and look. Through her blurry vision, she saw that Yu Laosan was initially struggling with his knife, but soon his arm was bitten and his face was torn open. He was too weak to stand up.
He started by cursing furiously, then gradually fell silent, and finally collapsed to the ground...
The big black dog squinted its injured eye and viciously bit Yu Laosan's neck until he finally breathed his last.
“460!” Zhao Xuan looked at 460 and its Paw Patrol team, laughing and crying at the same time.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Zhang Xiaohe and her son were also fighting with the dwarf.
Like Zhao Xuan's side, their strength was far too disparate.
Zhang Xiaohe was shot in the calf by the dwarf's arrow and her head was slammed against the wall. She was already unconscious. The dog was pinned down by the dwarf and had its neck strangled with a bowstring.
Although the dwarf was small in stature, he was still an adult male, and he could easily subdue the injured mother and child.
The dog's face was red from being strangled. He struggled to turn his head to look at the unconscious Zhang Xiaohe. Her leg was still bleeding, and if the bleeding wasn't stopped, she would die.
But he no longer had the strength to resist.
The lack of oxygen caused his vision to darken, and he couldn't even see the dwarf's hideous face clearly.
Then his thoughts began to become chaotic, and many images flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern. He couldn't help but try to recall those images, some of which he had already forgotten.
He saw his mother leave him in the duty room when she was on night shift. She had tied a rope to his feet, with the other end of the rope tied to the metal bunk bed, to keep him from running around.
He also saw his mother put him on the back seat of her bicycle after he finished his shift. It was already dawn. His mother bought a hot red bean bun from the breakfast shop and put it in his hand. He ate the bun and the two of them hurried home in the cold wind.
He saw his mother coaxing him to sleep, saw his mother busy in the kitchen... and saw his mother being hit by his father, his mother's cries of pain, his mother's pleas.
That father, his biological father, always had a drunken face, and his expression was always ugly and ferocious, just like this short guy.
He seemed to remember that when he was a child, his drunken father would grab him by the neck like this, calling him a little bastard and telling him to die.
—It turns out he had always known that Yao Yuan was not his father.
Memory is truly laughable; he actually forgot what he wanted to forget, allowing his own perceptions to overshadow the original truth.
He didn't want to die; he hadn't lived long enough to truly protect his mother and father.
The confused memories clouded his mind. The dog felt another dark shadow suddenly appear out of nowhere, pounce on the dwarf, and then the two shadows wrestled together.
He heard the dwarf seemingly cursing something, something like "crazy bastard," while the other dark figure was slurring, "Don't hurt my baby..."
The incident happened in just a few seconds. The dog got up, and although his vision was still dim, he saw the dwarf pull out a knife from his boot and stab the dark figure more than a dozen times!
The sound of the knife tip piercing flesh and scraping against bone was extremely grating.
But the shadowy figure didn't let go. It held onto the dwarf like a shadow, clinging to him and impossible to pull away.
The dog's survival instinct took over his body. He stood up unsteadily, picked up the knife at his feet, and by then the dwarf had already subdued the dark figure and mounted it, but he had also exposed his entire back.
The dog raised its knife and slashed fiercely at the dwarf.
His first strike landed on the back of the dwarf's neck, killing him instantly. The dog, on the other hand, had a cold expression, as if he were chopping down a piece of wood.
The dwarf was chopped into a piece of mangled flesh.
He mechanically repeated the slashing motion until his vision returned and his reason returned.
He dropped the knife and rushed to Zhang Xiaohe. He took off his clothes and pressed them against Zhang Xiaohe's wound to stop the bleeding.
"Baby..." A voice suddenly came from behind the dog, which turned around and looked at the source of the voice.
The sound came from the dark figure. Only then did the dog realize that the dark figure was the crazy woman that the bandits had brought with them.
The dog didn't recognize her.
The madwoman had been stabbed more than a dozen times and was clearly beyond saving. She lay on the ground, and the blood gushing from her body pooled into a large puddle.
She tilted her head as far as she could toward the dog, and when the dog looked at her, she actually grinned, revealing a toothless mouth and an ugly yet very gentle smile.
"You..." The dog couldn't understand why this madman it had never met would risk his life to protect it.
The madwoman reached into another sleeve. She was wearing many layers of clothing, which were already filthy. Her hand searched through the layers of clothing for a while. There seemed to be a small pocket inside. In the post-apocalyptic world, people often put pockets in their sleeves to prevent thieves from stealing their valuables. Some even sewed pockets onto their underwear.
This simple action took the madwoman a lot of effort. She was panting as she finally pulled out a small round mirror from inside.
Small round mirrors were a common item found in general stores before the apocalypse; they had a plastic gold casing and were studded with a row of cheap plastic diamonds.
The madman's blood-stained hands opened the lid, and the mirror opened like a seashell, revealing one side of the mirror and the other side, a self-portrait of a dog.
It was a self-portrait drawn with crayons. The little boy in it had a buzz cut, was laughing, and showed his snow-white teeth, which was very different from the dog's usual appearance.
The dog remembered that this was a small gift she had given to Zhao Xuan for her birthday. Zhao Xuan was an honest person; she had confessed to the dog a long time ago that she had accidentally lost the small gift in Taiping Town.
The dog didn't know the madwoman's identity or background, but seeing her dying appearance, he felt sorry for her and took pity on her. He first settled the still unconscious Zhang Xiaohe, then went over, squatted down in front of the madwoman, and reached out to press on her still bleeding wound.
He knew that everything he had done was in vain, but the madwoman was his savior, and he couldn't just let her die so miserably.
The madman's life is already on a countdown.
She had too many wounds on her body, and the dog couldn't cover them at all. Suddenly, the madman's hand landed on the dog's hand, with such force.
The dog turned its head and looked at the madman's face.
The extremely thin woman had a serene expression on her face. Her eyes suddenly cleared, and she lowered them slightly, as if she had remembered something or was thinking about something. After a moment, she looked at the dog's face again.
Suddenly, the woman smiled, pursing her lips, her eyes crinkling into a smile of relief.
The smile lingered on her face.
She left quietly.
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