Ch8 - Materialistic scientific views all went down a dog’s stomach

The section of the car window that was wiped by the tissue very quickly became blurred by fog again. Those flickering fields and tree shadows became indistinct once more. Yet Qi Chen still maintained his posture of looking out the window. It was unknown if he was staring into space or thinking about something. 

“What are you looking at?” Xu Liang asked, glancing at him.  

“Oh, nothing.” Qi Chen’s fingers played with that somewhat damp tissue ball and retracted his gaze, “It must not be easy living here. The distance between each house is too far. It’s probably quite horrifying to live here at night. Seems like they own a lot of dogs. On the way here, the barking of dogs from near and far hasn’t stopped.” 

“Barking?” Xu Liang focused on the road ahead for a while, then quickly turned around to glance at Qi Chen and smiled: “What kind of ears do you have? How come I don’t hear any barking?” 

 “Ai ai” Qi Chen pointed at the windscreen wipers moving left and right across the foggy car window: “Look at the road when you’re driving, don’t look at other places. It’s slippery and foggy on snowy days. The barking came from the fields. The car windows are completely closed, you can’t hear it clearly.  It’s normal for you not to have noticed it while driving.” 

Xu Liang made an “oh” sound. 

“How much further?” Qi Chen was still squeezing the ball of tissue in his hands, not raising his head. He appeared so bored, his hands were fidgety. 

Xu Liang replied with a smile: “Soon, not much longer.” 

Qi Chen made a sound of agreement and nodded.

This time Xu Liang’s estimate was accurate. After driving for about ten more minutes, he looked around and finally slowed down, eventually bringing the car to a stop at the side of the road. 

There happened to be a one way dirt road where the car was parked, only it was somewhat narrow. It’d be a bit hard to drive a car in especially since the ice and snow residue on the ground had been trodden into a large expanse of soaking wet blackened mud on the road. Even if they forcefully drove in, a slight mistake would cause them to slip into the fields beside the dirt road. Then it would certainly be troublesome.

“Here?” Qi Chen asked Xu Liang in shock. Then, too lazy to even pull a tissue, he directly used his fingers to wipe away a section of the foggy window and looked outside.

He saw that at the end of that dirt road was a small, pathetic, grave mound like slope. In front of the slope there were a few wind blocking trees. Through the trees, you could faintly see a dull grey building. Similarly, the glow of low quality neon lights and a crude shop sign shone through the tree branches. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Qi Chen opened the umbrella and pulled him under it. He couldn’t help but look back at the roadside. There were numerous private cars parked there. They were probably also the same as them, rushing here from the city to eat and had no choice but to walk through this dirt road by foot. 

Only it was already past dinnertime. The ones that came early had already entered. No one else could be seen on this dirt road apart from him and Xu Liang. 

There were no lights on either side, only a few tall sparse trees that looked like they’d been conveniently planted there. They were extremely bare. It was a complete joke to count on them to block the wind. Their only use was that once night fell, they not only made this stretch of dirt road dark but also ghastly. 

Qi Chen was afraid of stepping into a puddle and could only fish out his phone, wanting to turn on the flashlight to illuminate it. 

The weather was abnormally gloomy and cold. Having not even walked a few steps away from the car, his hands had already become ice cold. Even the action of grabbing the phone was somewhat stiff. He moved his stiffened fingers and was about to swipe open the screen when barking sounds suddenly erupted not far in front of his feet. Suddenly startled, Qi Chen’s hand trembled. The phone slipped out from between his numb fingers and fell to the ground with a “pa”. 

The somewhat brightened road fell into darkness once more. But that bark was only the beginning. 

Its bark seemed to have aroused the interest of other nearby dogs in this desolate place. They began to bark one after another in undulating waves, creating a cacophony of barking sounds. According to the position, a few of them seemed to be bounding over here. 

Qi Chen originally wasn’t afraid of dogs, but he hadn’t been surrounded by the barking of so many dogs before. Thus the phone that had just been picked up stiffened. 

He didn’t know if the light from his phone screen had been too bright on this pitch black dirt road and attracted these guard dogs and wolf dogs. Thus the finger that was about to press the phone flashlight could only pause, hesitant on whether to press it or not. 

But quickly he realised that it didn’t seem to be the case ——–

Based on the somewhat dim light of the phone screen, Qi Chen discovered that several dogs a short distance away didn’t seem to have the intent to pounce. They only crouched low neither near nor far. With a body of bristling hair and baring their teeth, they produced threatening growling sounds in their direction. But that posture seemed to be somewhat defensive. Seemingly as if, if Qi Chen and Xu Liang moved, they would flee wildly. 

With that thought process, Qi Chen tried walking forward a step while holding the umbrella. With this movement, he discovered another problem——– 

These dogs didn’t even move their heads, still maintaining their original position and angle, staring at the original direction. 

And right now, only Xu Liang was standing in the same place. 

These dogs were opposed to Xu Liang? 

Qi Chen was somewhat doubtful for a while…… If they were on guard against strangers why were they only on guard for one and completely ignored the other?  

Just as he was stunned, a small pitch black body swept past his feet. It fled up a tree branch to the side with great speed and dexterity. Concealed amongst black, only a pair of glistening eyes emitted a dim light. 

With the limited light from the phone, Qi Chen felt that it should be a black cat. 

In the instant he saw that black cat, Qi Chen suddenly thought of a saying he heard from god knows where — — If cats and dogs howl incessantly at night, they might’ve seen something filthy. 

That black cat crouching in the tree gave a soft cry.  

Hearing that, Qi Chen’s heart gave a ‘thump’. It seemed like it’d been dropped into a pool of ice water. He felt so cold he started. Those strange yet somewhat uneasy emotions he had the whole way here overflowed. 

Xu Liang, who was half a step behind him, finally moved. The soles of his shoes made a watery sound as it stepped on the icy residue and snowy sludge. 

That slight watery sound  was like someone had thrown a firecracker at the dogs in front of them. The explosions caused them to turn around and flee, shooting away without a moment’s hesitation. Only it seemed they still couldn’t control their mouths while fleeing, emitting low barks. 

Qi Chen hadn’t yet recovered his wits from witnessing that group of dogs fleeing before he felt a hand on his left shoulder.  

He subconsciously drew in a breath, his body suddenly trembling. 

“Chen-zi — —” Xu Liang froze and walked to his side with a smile, “Why have you been scared into such a state by a pack of dogs?” 

Qi Chen patted his chest and gave a hollow laugh: “Yeah, probably because I haven’t been surrounded by so many before and they’re all wolf dogs. Really why don’t these people here chain up such large dogs.” At this time, he was incomparably grateful that it was dark enough on this road and the phone’s flashlight wasn’t on. Otherwise the stiff expression on his face would be clearly illuminated.

“Let’s go.” Xu Liang said, about to guide him forward by the shoulder.  

Qi Chen subconsciously shook him off and pretended to be nonchalant: “Ok ok let’s go. Do you still want me to hold the umbrella with your paws on me?”

“Hehe.” Xu Liang laughed twice and released his hand, seemingly nonchalant and stepped forward: “What’re you holding an umbrella for? Just wear a hat. It’s less snowy now, how much can it get on you? You’re just too fastidious!”

Qi Chen thought that his manner of speech didn’t seem very different from normal and suddenly felt he really had a giant hole in his brain just now. That night, he actually had the face to tell Executive Leader Long that he didn’t really believe in gods or ghosts. Only two days had passed and he’d already slapped himself in the face. 

He blamed his paranoia just now on the sufficient atmosphere in this environment. Then he shook his head to shake clear these filthy god and ghost theories. 

“It’s really a kind of skill for the road to be this dark. I’ll turn on the phone flashlight.” Qi Chen swiped open the phone screen, lifted his head and said towards Xu Liang who was a step ahead. At the same time, he berated himself internally: you really watched too many fictional movies, you actually associated Xu Liang with those kinds of things. How could it be possible? Materialistic scientific views all went down a dog’s stomach ——-

He hadn’t finished berating when in the instant his phone flashlight opened, something flashed in Xu Liang’s down jacket pocket. 

His hands were stuffed in his pockets before so Qi Chen couldn’t see anything. This time, he’d taken his hands out to pull at the hat covering his head. The pocket was half opened by hand and hadn’t been closed yet. You could glimpse a section of the item inside and that section just happened to be a gilded clasp. It happened to reflect light when it was illuminated by the phone flashlight. 

That item wasn’t anything else. It was precisely the gilded white jade bracelet that was stolen by Qin-jie and had randomly disappeared.  

The step Qi Chen had just taken forward suddenly stiffened again. 

Yet, Xu Liang who’d already taken several steps forward, suddenly turned around without warning, lifting the corners of his lips in a smile. That smile only affected the skin and flesh around the mouth. It seemed stiff and extremely cold, completely unlike a living person.