Chapter 37 Chapter 37 (Inverted v) [VIP]
Bai Yu raised the peeled peanuts in his hand, and Ning Zelan lowered his head and took them naturally with his mouth.
"Are you hungry?" Bai Yu looked up and smiled at the person standing beside her to block the wind for her.
Ning Zelan nodded obediently.
Bai Yuke fell for it, so he took out a bag of beef jerky from his pocket and fed it to him while standing on tiptoe.
Bai He seemed to be an emotional insulator, ignoring the sweetness next to him, and concluded: "People from the same family tend to be similar." Their great aunt and great uncle were a perfect match.
Bai Yu agreed from the bottom of her heart. It was also her grandfather's eagerness to shoulder the responsibility. After walking for a few minutes, they entered the town center.
"The town looks quite desolate," Bai Yu sighed, glancing around. The town remained much the same, but with no one to maintain it, the streets were littered with garbage and sewage. The once vibrant posters had faded from rain and snow, and the shops were mostly shuttered. Only a few people roamed the streets, some in a hurry, others with their hands tucked into their sleeves, squinting as they observed the passersby.
The whole town lost its colors and brightness overnight, leaving only the quiet twilight.
As soon as he entered the street, Bai He turned his head and met a pair of eyes that peeked out from the eaves. The eyes were cloudy and greedy, like a hyena on the grassland.
Bai He stopped walking and pulled the knife from his backpack. Turning back, he met his gaze, his dark eyes filled with coldness and impatience. His whole body etched a note of untouchability. The man shrank back, not daring to look, and turned his gaze back to the other people on the street.
"You two should just walk around the streets, don't go into the alleys."
They were carrying bags and were alone and weak, making them easy targets.
Bai Yu nodded carefully. She wasn't an ignorant girl. In fact, having worked alone for so many years, she was even more cautious and sensitive.
Bai He gave the knife and an electric baton in his hand to the two men.
There are police on the main street of the town, so you will be safe as long as you stay within this area.
"Why don't you come with us?" Bai Yu was worried about Bai He leaving alone.
"Don't worry, sister. I've been practicing martial arts since I was a child. If we really meet, we don't know who will suffer." Bai He put on the hood of his down jacket, covering the lower half of his face, turned around and left.
Bai Yu said earnestly to his back, "Safety is the most important thing. We'll meet here at three o'clock."
"Yeah." Bai He waved his hand and quickly disappeared into an alley.
Bai He's purpose was clear: he continued walking eastward. This area was the site of a former factory, seemingly hollowed out. Consequently, the houses here were mostly self-built, one or two stories high, with some very simple, primitive red brick and loess structures.
As I approached a low-walled yard, I could smell a fishy odor that lingered even in winter. This was the largest farm in the area.
Before Bai He reached the door, he heard the sound of dogs barking one after another.
Through the iron gate, one could see two tall wolfhounds, baring their teeth and glaring at Bai He with ferocious eyes, constantly roaring, with the iron chains around their necks pulled tightly.
The dog barked fiercely, but no one swung a finger inside. Bai He knocked on the iron door and shouted a few times. Then a short, stout, and sturdy man hurried out.
"Do you have horses and donkeys for sale?" With the help of the prophet Bai He, he knew that the resources of Blue Star were rapidly depleting, and cars and other means of transportation were destined to be banned, while cattle, horses and donkeys would become mainstream again.
"Yes." The man nodded and led Bai He and Bai He forward.
When I walked into the inner hall, I saw a boy of about six or seven sitting on the ground, hugging a dog and crying loudly. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust and a pool of brown sticky liquid that I couldn't tell was blood or oil. The boy's bright blue long down jacket was completely stained with it.
"You can't eat big tigers..."
"You can't eat big tigers..."
Tears and snot clumped together on his face, and the skin on his cheeks was cracked and red.
Two women stood beside him. One looked somewhat like him, presumably his mother. Her nostrils flared wildly, her brows knitted tightly together, revealing a suppressed anger. She pointed at the boy with a clothes hanger and yelled, "Chen Xuyang is giving you one last chance. Do you want to stand up?"
Seeing the clothes hanger, the boy instinctively flinched, his red eyes filled with fear and alarm. His crying became much quieter, but he remained seated on the ground, holding the dog tightly in his arms.
The dog was also very well-behaved. No matter how the boy struggled, it would just lie quietly in his arms without moving, only wagging its tail occasionally.
The woman could no longer bear it and dropped the clothes hanger she was holding high. "Wow!" The boy's cry became shrill.
The big dog in his arms, who had been well-behaved, raised its head and licked the tears on its little master's face with its tongue.
Seeing that the clothes hanger was about to fall again, the old woman with gray hair reacted and quickly grabbed her daughter-in-law's hand.
"The child is still young, don't hit him."
After saying this, she looked at her grandson who was hiccuping due to fear with anger and heartache, "Yangyang, be obedient and get up quickly. Your mother is really angry now. She will hit your grandma later and you won't be able to stop her."
The boy shrank back, not daring to raise his head. He looked at his grandmother who always doted on him. "Hickey... Grandma... Hickey... If you promise not to kill Da Hu, I will get up from the ground."
"Yangyang! Grandma knows you like Dahu, but Dahu can't walk or eat. It can't survive."
Looking closely, the dog in the boy's arms looked very sick.
"Wow! Da... Da Hu will be fine. Grandma... burp... you lied. You just... want to eat Da Hu." Hearing this, the boy burst into tears. His voice was already hoarse from crying, and now he couldn't make a sound.
The grandmother was so distressed that she hugged him and tried to pull him up, but the boy was chubby and he was holding the dog, which weighed dozens of kilograms, so there was no way she could pull him up.
"Please don't eat Xiaohu, okay? I will...hiccup...never eat snacks again...from now on. I will be good...hiccup...and listen to you."
The man who brought Bai He in saw that his child was still making a fuss, and he couldn't control his anger.
"Mom, why did you pull him to do that? He just cried. I work myself to death every day to make money for him, and he keeps causing trouble for me. I think I didn't beat him enough. I'll tell you after I give him a beating."
Ignoring the boy's frightened look, the man snatched the hanger from his wife's hand.
Seeing this, the grandmother quickly stood in front of her grandson and said, "If you have something to say, talk it over nicely. Don't use violence."
"Mom, this little bastard is so ignorant. Brother Wang helped us drive away the thieves the day before yesterday, regardless of the danger. He asked for a half-dead dog. Are we reluctant to give it away?"
"Da...Da Hu...I brought him back. He's my...dog. You can't give him to anyone else." The boy felt both fearful and aggrieved. He couldn't understand how his father could give his friend away to be eaten. Da Hu was clearly licking his face to cheer him up, so why did his grandmother say he was going to die?
He was too small to know how to protect his friend, so he could only hold it tightly in his arms. But how could a child defeat an adult?
Ignoring the boy's wishes, the man snatched the dog from his arms.
The boy watched helplessly, unable to stop it. He was extremely panicked and scared. His face turned as pale as window paper, tears streamed down his face, and his mouth was wide open but no cry came out.
The grandmother who had been trying to stop her son from being stubborn suddenly tensed up when she saw this scene. "What's wrong with Yangyang? Tell grandma."
The boy's hands were stiff as chicken claws, his eyes were filled with fear, and his body couldn't help but curl up, making a strange whirring sound in his throat.
"Yangyang." The child's parents also realized that something was wrong and surrounded the child.
The scene was in chaos. No matter what method the family used, such as patting the child's back, pulling his fingers, or hugging him, the child's expression became more and more painful.
Just as several people were blaming each other and frantically looking for money and clothes to go to the hospital.
"The dog is here, don't worry." Bai He, who had been observing from the side for a while, handed the black dog back to the little dog. At the same time, Bai He calmly adjusted a suitable position for the mother holding her.
"Come on, breathe in slowly."
“Exhale slowly”
“…inhale.”
“…exhale.”
The calmness in his voice infected the boy's family, and as they saw the boy's breathing gradually become smoother, they felt a little relieved.
"Okay, don't irritate him anymore." Bai He helped the boy sit on the chair.
Seeing the boy slowly relax, his grandmother slapped her legs in fear and said, "Little ancestor, you are going to scare your grandma to death."
"You guys are the same. Yangyang raised this dog by himself. How can you just give it away without any hesitation?"
The boy's father was also frightened, but he still said stubbornly, "This little bastard is so young, but he has such a bad temper. If he can't bear to part with the dog, then just keep it!"
The boy's mother's eyes bulged, and before his wife could react, the man fixed his gaze on Bai He. "Thank you, brother."
The man's gratitude was beyond words. These days, a family with only one or two children is considered a treasure.
Bai He waved his hand and looked at his watch. "Take me to see the horses and donkeys! I have something else to do later."
"Okay, brother." The man took out a box of cigarettes from the table and handed it to Bai He.
Bai He took it and put it in his pocket.
The farm covers an area of about one thousand meters, divided into countless small pens. At this time, these pens are almost empty, and only a few livestock are left in the huge farm.
Without Bai He asking, the boss explained the situation himself. "The supermarkets and the police in the city bought all the pigs, cattle, and sheep I raised. I'm keeping these few for my family."
"We don't have many donkeys and horses here. I bought them from a middleman and planned to raise them and slaughter them for the New Year. But now the temperature has dropped so suddenly that I can't even fatten them up by the New Year. I'm just going to have to keep them from getting thin." The boss patted the shivering black donkey huddled in the corner with a heartfelt gesture. He then gathered a large handful of hay and spread it on the damp ground.
"Brother, whichever one you like, I'll sell it to you at a low price."
There were three donkeys and two horses in the pen, all raised by the owner for meat, so don't expect anything fancy or spiritual. But after a moment's deliberation, Bai He decided to take one donkey and one horse. Donkeys are docile and capable, while horses are fast and agile; their roles will be invaluable in the future.
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