I followed Zhuying's direction and only then did I notice many pairs of shiny green eyes on the mountain road ahead. In the middle of the night, they seemed deep and glowing like fluorescent lamps, making my heart race.
"What on earth are those things?" I took a step back, letting Ma Li San go ahead.
This guy looks ugly, very scary looking, so I let him take the lead to intimidate those strange creatures.
Before Ma Li San moved forward, Dajintooth suddenly shouted for me to look behind.
I took a look behind and saw that the road there was also filled with many green eyes that glowed in the dark.
"Could they be wolves?"
I asked Zhuying.
Zhuying, the Ewenki female hunter, honestly told me that they were definitely not wolves. Wolf packs rely on unity, usually using howling to communicate and direct their actions during hunting. These shining green eyes were not communicating, so they were definitely not wolves.
"What do we do?" asked Dajintooth.
I gave Wooden Beard a slap and said, "You come here. Look at the path you led us on, with all these eels and whatnot. What kind of place is this?"
Wooden Beard felt wronged and said he didn't know either. He claimed to be a devout Buddhist and would never lie.
I don't believe you!
I asked Zhuying to smear her knife with fox blood and lead us up the mountain. Since we have encountered this situation, we can't back down – hesitating will only get us into trouble.
Zhuying nodded and said we could go. She took the lead and led us up the mountain.
After about ten meters, I finally saw clearly that these green eyes were not wolves or wild animals but a group of black dogs.
I had seen these dogs in the pet market. They were Norwegian Elkhounds, particularly fierce with large heads.
The Elkhounds growled lowly, seemingly very annoyed by our presence.
"Zhuying, they're all big black dogs. Do you have a way to deal with them?"
"Just a few dogs, not a problem," Zhuying said confidently. She instructed us to pick up stones from the ground, the bigger, the better, as these dogs were different from wild animals. Dogs don't have the wild nature, and if you hurt them, they would run away – except for Rottweilers and Tibetan Mastiffs, whose pain nerves are quite dull.
"Alright!" We all silently picked up stones from the ground. Dajintooth was the most exaggerated, picking up a piece of brick that weighed around fifty to sixty pounds.
I cursed at him in my mind – mountain cannon, can you even throw such a big stone?
"Whether I can throw it or not, it can be used as a shield," Dajintooth said with a trembling voice.
Zhuying started to command again, saying she would lead the charge, and we should follow closely behind her.
We all agreed, as facing such a large group of Norwegian Elkhounds, we had to listen to Zhuying.
"One, two, three, charge!"
Zhuying suddenly ran forward, and we followed behind.
These Norweigan Elkhounds, I don't know where they came from, were very fierce. When they saw Zhuying charging forward, instead of dodging, they pounced on her, baring their teeth.
Zhuying was skilled, and she grabbed the first Elkhound that came at her and slashed its neck cleanly with her knife.
The Elkhound, with its throat torn, lay on the ground, whimpering, and splattering us with its blood.
In the meantime, I threw a big stone, smashing it onto these damn creatures.
With a few loud bangs, we managed to knock all of these creatures down.
Then we continued to run forward quickly.
Zhuying was like the goddess of death. Any Elkhound that dared to stop her was met with a swift and lethal strike, no mercy given.
These dogs were terrified of Zhuying, so when they saw her charging forward, they didn't dare to come closer and only bit us from behind.
The stones we picked up earlier finally came in handy. We threw and fought, driving away the Elkhounds.
Unfortunately, Dajintooth was in a particularly bad situation. The heavy stones were too heavy for him to throw, and when he threw it forcefully, it hit his own foot. But more importantly, he had a chunk of meat bitten off from his butt by an Elkhound.
I quickly picked up a big stone and smashed the Elkhound's head, splattering its brains everywhere.
When we finally broke through the encirclement of the Elkhounds, we were all covered in black dog blood.
"These dogs! I don't know where they came from."
The translation of the given text into English is:
"Dajinya teeth were chattering from the bites. I tore a piece off my clothes and stuffed it into his buttocks to help stop the bleeding.
"Why are there so many strange occurrences here?" A few of us sat on the roadside resting, and Zhu Ying asked me.
I said, yeah, there are eels and black Norwegian dogs.
Zhu Ying said: It's not surprising to encounter wild beasts in the mountains, but eels and Norwegian dogs should not be appearing in such a place, right?
Eels are things in the water, how could they crawl up the mountain?
And besides, Norwegian dogs are not wild either!
Most of the Norwegian dogs are born in the city. Even if there are some in the wild, there should only be one or two, so there shouldn't be so many of them showing up here.
"Come here, your stone coffin, did you steal it from here?" I pulled Mu Xuyou over and asked him.
Mu Xuyou said: Yes, absolutely, he couldn't have remembered it wrong, and because he is... a follower of Buddhism.
"You're a Buddhist too, right?" I pushed Mu Xuyou impatiently and continued to call on my teammates to go up the mountain.
Finally, when we reached the top of the mountain, we actually saw a group of buildings.
There is actually a group of buildings on this mountain.
The buildings looked very old, but in fact they were only made to look ancient, because I saw a lantern shaped like a lantern hanging on the lintel of the building - an electric lantern.
A lantern made to look like a lantern.
Why are there so many buildings on this mountain?
A few of us approached the lintel and saw a plaque hanging high above it, most of the gold paint on the plaque had peeled off, so it was not clear when seen from a distance, but now it was clear.
There were six large characters written on it - Yanggu Hot Spring Villa.
Oh!
So this is a hot spring resort. Perhaps business has been very bad in recent years, so they have closed down the place. As for why these buildings are left on the mountain and not used for anything else, I haven't figured it out either.
"How about it? Should we go in?" Dajinya covered his buttocks and gritted his teeth at me, saying, "Xiao Li, don't tell me Mu Xuyou set us up? There must be quite a few lonely spirits and wild ghosts in this house."
I do know this. In general, buildings in desolate areas, if uninhabited for a long time and without vitality, will attract lonely spirits and wild ghosts.
So in general, buildings that are very old or have been idle for too long in desolate areas need to ask professional repairmen to renovate the place before they can move in.
Otherwise, it can be as good as finding death.
I thought about it for a while and asked for Zhu Ying's opinion.
If the fox's coffin was taken out of this hot spring villa, then Zhu Ying would definitely be able to tell. After all, she is a fox raiser.
Zhu Ying said she would have to smell it first.
And with that said, she lay down and her nostrils kept opening and closing, sniffing hard for the scent.
Mu Xuyou was so anxious, saying this place must be where the stone coffins came from, don't waste any more time, and finish this when to get down quickly by daylight.
Dajinya glared at Mu Xuyou and scolded, "Shut your trap. Your bloody buttocks were caused by you, lad, and do you have any idea who this girl is? A fox raiser, the musky smell of foxes can travel far, far along the ground, she's smelling the fox's scent, making sure we aren't taken in by your boy."
As a fox raiser, Zhu Ying is very sensitive to the smell of foxes, and she has been hunting in the mountains all year round, her nose is much better than normal people's.
I waited for Zhu Ying's answer.
She said we go in, we go in, and she said we don't go in, I'll take the people down the mountain immediately, I can't risk my brothers' lives.
After sniffing for a few minutes, Zhu Ying suddenly crawled up from the ground and said, "We can go in, there's the smell of foxes."
Since there's the smell of foxes, it indicates that the fox's coffin really was dug up from here.
Just as the few of us entered the 'gate', we could smell a strong musty odor and then the barking of two dogs.
I turned my head and saw that it was also a Norwegian dog.
No wonder there are so many Norwegian dogs here, they are actually raised in this hot spring villa.
I guess this villa has been uninhabited for a long time, and some of the Norwegian dogs that were free-ranging are still here, and the ones tied to a chain have been sitting at the gate. The dogs probably feed each other here.
I was relieved and began to lead my teammates further inside.
In the first-floor lobby of the hot spring villa, there were two hot spring pools, each larger than ten square meters, churning with lots of eel.
"Oh! I wonder why eels would appear in this place. It turns out that this is also raised in the hot spring villa?" Dajinya looked at me.
I nodded, because over here in Guangzhou, people eat a variety of things, and one dish is the Dragon Phoenix Auspicious, which is actually snake stew 'Chicken'.
But some people can't eat snake; they're unaccustomed to the earthy taste. There's another dish, "Little Dragon Phoenix Auspicious", using eels to stew black 'chicken'.
There were probably so many eels because they were being raised in the hot spring villa to serve the guests.
Unfortunately, the villa closed down later and the eels were not taken away, so they were left here.
Eels have amazing survival and reproductive ability, they can dig holes, burrow into the soil, probably some eels crawled out and then multiplied in the mountains, and so there are eels everywhere in the mountains.
They should be considered as mutated eels.
"Damn it, a lousy hot spring villa, just blow it up when it's closed, causing so much trouble." In the end, all the incidents at night were false alarms.
Suddenly, Zhu Ying shook her nostrils and said, "I smell it, a very strong fox odor, follow me!"
After speaking, she ran forward as fast as she could and ran along the stone road inside the hot spring villa, up the stairs, into a hot spring hall.
There were no lights in the hall. I was about to turn on the flashlight when Zhu Ying raised her hand and said not to turn on the light. She smelled a scent of "fox resentment."
Author's note: The book was put on the shelf yesterday. Thanks to the dedicated readers for their support, and thanks to the generous brother Fengyingda for the three hundred ghost coins as a reward, and the four hundred ghost coins for the "oh oh oh" reward, as well as the ten ghost coins from Shuiwuyue. Thank you for subscribing. Fengge, once this part of the story is finished, it will be your turn to appear, so please be patient. Also, if any brothers want to play a role in the story, they can leave a message in the book review area.