Chapter 72: The White-haired Dog's Mission
"Haha! It's stuck! It's stuck!"
"I want to play too! Let me try!"
Long Zhu opened his eyes in a daze, and what he saw was an extraordinary tall gate.
A few naked children, who had not even grown their heads yet, were swinging a long sticky stick on the old camphor tree at the door, trying to stick the chirping cicadas down from it.
Long Zhu couldn't help shaking his head and heard a bell sound in his ears.
Where is she?
Where is the little white bird?
Is this the inside of the fragment? It looks... like it was from a long time ago.
Somewhat familiar, but not much.
"Let me play!" A commotion broke out up ahead. A child with patches on his body and two snotty noses running down his face rushed to grab it aggressively: "I'm the young master, you have to listen to me!"
"Hahaha, shameless!" The other naked people started scratching their faces and booing, "Little Zhao, don't you dare let your mother hear it!"
Little Zhao didn't care: "Give it to me now! Otherwise I'll go to Aunt Zhao and complain about you!"
"Oh oh~ Little Zhao is going to complain~"
"Go ahead and sue me! If you do, your mother will definitely get beaten by the Madam again!"
"Lululu, come and catch us!"
The children started fighting, and finally Zhao Xiaohai bit one of them on the butt, leaving a bloody mark. The man cried out and stumbled into the back room next door: "Mom——"
Little Zhao got the pole as he wished and banged it against the tree, laughing over his shoulder: "Look at the silver! I glued down a lot of transparent wings!"
Long Zhu blinked and turned his head left and right, but didn't see anyone else.
Little Zhao... is he talking to her? Is she Yin Zi?
Thinking of Bai Heye's instructions before leaving, Long Zhu was lost in thought.
So her current identity is called "Silver"?
Just as he was about to say something, a series of muffled gurgles escaped his throat. Long Zhu then realized what was happening and looked down in astonishment. All he saw was a soft, gray, furry mass.
He stretched out his hand and raised his claws, his nails flashed with cold light, and he looked left and right.
It turned out that Yinzi was a white-haired native dog that was over one year old.
However, Yinzi seemed to have not taken a bath for eight or nine days, so she was now a gray-haired mongrel dog.
Long Zhu was thinking about why she became a dog. While pondering, she subconsciously raised her leg to scratch her face. After a moment, she had no idea and could only decide to go to the nearby river to take a bath.
However, as soon as his short legs took a step, his entire body flew into the air and was taken into someone's arms.
Little Zhao grabbed the dog and stroked its ears a few times, sighing, "Yin Zi, you are so dirty."
Long Zhu swung her tail twice and found that this body had no spiritual power at all. Apart from being able to think and having consciousness, she was no different from an ordinary dog.
Thinking of this, a dull look appeared on the dog's face, and then it became serious again - if that was the case, then she might as well not go out... Would she die here in three days?
Then she felt naive about this fantastic idea.
According to past experience, perhaps by then, what will die is only the dog body in the superficial sense, and the remaining leaves are not strong enough to kill Xiao.
"Hey, I'll take you for a bath, Yinzi." Little Zhao grinned, his words suddenly tinged with a warning malice. He looked around, making sure no one was around, then scurried to the back wall, pushed open the stone lid on the water tank, and tossed the dragon bamboo in. "Hurry up, Yinzi! I'll keep watch for you."
Long Zhu was stunned. He flicked his nails and stuck them tightly on the stone wall. He slid down a few centimeters and his tail splashed into the water.
Wait, how does a dog swim? How does a dog with no spiritual powers swim?!
Before she could figure it out, the kids who had gone to complain came back again, yelling, "Oh no! Little Zhao threw the dog into the water tank in the kitchen!"
Zhao Xiaohai showed a moment of panic, but quickly calmed down. He made a face and climbed up the wall, stepping on the gravel and firewood. His small body was extremely agile. While the group of children were clamoring for adults, he had already climbed over the wall and disappeared. Long Zhu finally adapted to this body. Seeing the right moment, he suddenly rushed out of the water tank, dodging the adults who had arrived late. He jumped out the back door, passed through the dog hole, and was faced with a high wall. There was no time to stop, so he could only drift on his belly, covered in dust, and then ran away.
Little Zhao had already joined another group of dirty kids in the alley not far away and waved triumphantly at her: "Here! Here!"
Long Zhu looked at the naughty kid listlessly, his dog face speechless, and walked in the other direction, wagging his wet tail.
Little Zhao got anxious and stood up: "Silver! Silver!"
A pair of black boots happened to stop in front of him.
When Long Zhu saw that Zhao Xiaohai's voice suddenly stopped, he looked back and hid in the corner of the shade of a tree.
She noticed that there was a person in front of Zhao Xiaohai - this person was short and thin, wearing a lake green round-necked robe, with his hair tied up and two bangs like dragon whiskers on his forehead. He had the skin below his eyelids wrapped with a bandage and was dressed very strangely.
Little Zhao also looked up at him with a confused expression.
The man squatted down and looked intently at the children playing games on the ground: "What are you playing?"
It was rare for Zhao Xiao to be spoken to, so he didn't care about the money anymore and said proudly, "Pushing the date mill!"
Two dates were strung on a bamboo skewer, placed on the tip of another date pit, and spun around. Whoever pushed the skewer most steadily and quickly won. Children also had their stakes: a piece of candy, a hair tie, or whatever they stole from home.
The man seemed a little interested: "Can I play?"
Zhao, like a young, intrepid boy, started chatting without fear. He sized the man up with his dark eyes and asked with a frown, "Do you have a prize? What will you give me if I lose?"
The man asked, "What do you want?"
Little Zhao had been staring at the purse on the man's waist, but suddenly had another idea after hearing what he said. He put his hands on his hips and said with a smirk, "You're going to give me everything?"
The man nodded, his tone relaxed: "Okay."
Little Zhao couldn't hold back his laughter, with a kind of almost innocent cruelty in his eyes, deliberately making things difficult: "Then I want two of your fingers, do you dare to give them to me?"
After saying this, the children burst into laughter. They didn't seem to understand the meaning of the bet. They just thought that this man was really funny. How could anyone be willing to bet two fingers?
But the man said, "Okay." He didn't even blink, and his tone was nonchalant.
Little Zhao lost his pleasure in seeing others make a fool of themselves and glared at him: "Weirdo."
He quickly put the incident behind him, his heart ablaze with desire to win the game: "I've never lost at this."
As he spoke, he didn't mind the dirtiness and simply lay on the ground, excitedly fiddling with the bamboo sticks and turning the dates over ten times. The children around him clapped their hands and counted happily: "One, two, three... Oh! Ninety-nine!"
When it was the weirdo's turn, he first stretched out his hand, rubbed the bamboo stick in his hand with curiosity, and then placed the stick on the tip of the date pit like Zhao Xiaohai had just done, and turned it gently - the stick turned four or five times, then lost its balance and fell to the ground with a plop.
The children clapped and booed.
Little Zhao sniffed his nose, stood up suddenly, and looked as proud as a newly crowned top scholar riding a tall horse and parading through the streets to enjoy the flowers.
The weirdo twisted the bamboo stick and looked left and right: "I lost."
The next second, without hesitation, he pinched his left pinky finger, pressed his fingertip against the base of the joint, and with a sudden force, he forcibly ripped the pinky finger free! Hot red raindrops slid down, hitting the date pit unexpectedly, frightening the child who reacted first and screamed in shock. They abandoned their chance and scrambled away.
Little Zhao retreated to the wall. He was still standing, his legs shaking and suddenly wet.
The man was about to pull out the little finger of his other hand. Little Zhao turned pale and finally realized what was happening. He cried out, "Wait! I don't want it anymore! I don't want your other finger anymore!"
The man's slender fingers paused, blood still seeping from the broken pinky finger on his left hand, revealing a glimpse of the eerie white bone. He seemed unconcerned, letting the blood drip onto the loess road. "Next time, if you win, I can grant you one request."
He threw the severed finger over and said, "This is yours."
The severed finger fell at his feet, and Zhao Xiaohai shuddered. Under the expressionless gaze of the other party, he squatted tremblingly against the wall, not daring to look down, and groped to pick up the sticky thing.
The man just hung his bloody hand, turned around and walked forward leisurely, turned the corner of the alley, and disappeared from Zhao Xiaohai's sight.
The peddler with a flower in his hair came over, shaking a rattle. He had narrow eyes and a smile that showed off his black teeth. "What happened just now?"
When the man raised his hand again, the wound had healed as before.
He looked at his left hand, which was missing a finger, and turned it over and over in curiosity for a long time: "I played a game and lost."
"Have you found Hun'er?" the peddler asked with a smile.
The man said, "There is some clue."
The peddler asked, "When can I pick it up?"
The man thought for a moment and said, "Any time is fine, but I want to win a round first."
The peddler took a painted bamboo stick from the rack of boxes and baskets, placed it on his fingernail, and twirled it around. "That's not easy."
-
A droopy white-haired native dog was rolling around in the shallows of the river outside the city.
There are few people around here, and if someone passes by, they will definitely find it a little strange - this dog can use its paws to rub its muddy tail like a human, and finally go to the water in front to look in the mirror.
After taking a bath and shaking off the water, Longzhu lay on a large smooth rock and fell into deep thought.
The current situation is that she and the little white bird are separated, and it seems that the other party probably doesn't know that she is now a dog. Perhaps, the other party doesn't even know that people swallowed by the torn pages can turn into dogs.
What's worse is that she doesn't know what the little white bird's identity is now, and where the other people who disappeared are.
Although she didn't feel any sense of crisis, she was used to being a human, and suddenly became a dog, which made her quite uncomfortable. Even taking a bath was so troublesome.
As I was lying there, a dark cloud suddenly floated over my head.
Long Zhu opened his eyes, jumped up nimbly, turned over, looked back, and pressed down his front paws, as if ready to kick and pounce at any time.
The fierce and majestic posture frightened the man behind him so much that he staggered and fell to the ground with a cry of "Ouch", followed by a series of tinkling sounds.
"You scared me, you dog," the man rubbed his waist and sat up, grinning bitterly, "I thought you were drowned. I'm glad you're okay."
The young man was wearing a scholar's flowing scarf and a plain blue robe, and was carrying a book box and a pile of miscellaneous items on his back. When he fell, the basket was pressed against a stone, and it seemed that something was broken.
Long Zhu tilted his head and looked over. He felt that this person looked very familiar. It seemed that...
The scholar sat on the ground, holding the bookcase between his legs. He looked inside and took out a broken jade bracelet. "What a pity!" He then took out a few brushes wrapped in cloth, opened them, and smiled. "At least they're not broken."
He tried to save a local dog that was suspected to be drowned, but ended up breaking a valuable jade bracelet. No matter how you look at it, he looks like a fool.
The silly scholar quickly packed up his bag and asked Long Zhu, "Little Dog, what's your name? Is this the way to the capital?"
Long Zhu squinted at him and said, "Can dogs talk? What a fool."
However, what came out was: "Woof woof woof woof? Woof woof woof woof."
The silly scholar rubbed the depressed dog's face and said, "Hahahaha! Are you actually answering me? You're smarter than my eight-year-old nephew."
Long Zhu: “…”
I never thought that one day I would lose my spiritual power and be taken advantage of by a fool.
The scholar wrapped the broken part of the bookcase with a piece of cloth and put it on his back again. "Puppy, I'm going to study at the Academy in Beijing. Do you have a home to return to? If not, why don't you come with me?"
Long Zhu was still thinking about other things and turned his head away without paying any attention to the other party. However, with a sudden muffled "bang", the other party's chattering voice stopped and died down.
Her ears pricked up suddenly and she turned to look.
The scholar fell to the ground. A man in black holding a wooden stick was standing behind him. His eyes fell on Long Zhu and he said in a sinister tone: "Oh, there's a dog too."
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