Chapter 205 Back to the City

I kept thinking about it the whole way back to the city. Che Zhong wasn’t fully awake at this time, but he was sure that he wasn’t in the habit of swallowing rings, and he didn’t eat anything before he came to see me.

The only possibility was that the ring came from the snake’s body, and may have been discharged into Che Zhong’s stomach when the snake was laying eggs, or excreting.

Given that these snakes had been hibernating for decades, this ring may be a very priceless treasure from a long time ago.

The ring was surrounded by a layer of some amber-like substance, which may have been formed in the snake’s stomach, much like how pearls formed in mussels.

Because of this, I couldn’t see what the real surface of the ring was like inside. The stone film was also very strong, so I couldn’t scrape out any marks with my fingernails.

If Fatty was here, he would have been able to smash the stone into powder. I thought this thing might be very valuable, so I secretly put it into my pocket. Che Zhong wasn’t awake, anyways.

Even though Brother Xiao Man had been unconscious for a long time, Che Zhong said that it was fine. The dog’s ability to resist poison was better than most, especially because he had been taking small doses of snake medicine since young. As long as we went to the hospital and got him some antibiotics and water, he should be ok. If he really encountered a snake venom he couldn’t resist, there was nothing more we could do.

When I said he must really trust the dog’s ability, he answered that he didn’t trust the dogs, but my grandfather. If a dog that he brought to the mountains died as soon as it encountered a poisonous snake, then it would have died in training. I didn’t know how many dogs he had gone through before he chose this dog in front of me.

Moreover, dogs were different from humans. Their abilities were stable, and they wouldn’t rock the boat because of emotions or other factors.

In fact, just as Che Zhong had predicted, Brother Xiao Man was already up and walking around before I could find a pet hospital in the town we arrived at.

Che Zhong also woke up from his wine stupor, so we went to the emergency room, and had his stomach pumped. When he spit out six or seven snake eggs, the nurse asked him why he didn’t peel the shells when he ate quail eggs. I had no choice but to say that my buddy had been drinking too much, and made a bet. While he was being scolded, I took all the snake eggs to the bathroom, crushed them, and flushed them down the toilet.

After I did all this, Che Zhong was given a scan to make sure there was nothing left in his stomach, and then given an IV drip, and told to rest. I also fell asleep on the emergency room bench. The hospital in this town was empty at night, so nobody noticed Brother Xiao Man lying under my feet.

When I woke up, I really thanked Black Glasses. My physique had improved a lot, and I didn’t feel tired at all. I went to eat breakfast, and then found a public phone to call Wang Meng.

Three hours later, I was soaking in the bathtub of the best hotel in town. This hotel was called “Venice of the East”, and was actually a bathing and recreation center.

I opened a bottle of red wine for myself, washed the strange smell from my body, sorted through the things I had brought out, and then sent the money to Che Zhong.

Then I went to the hospital to ask him what his purpose was. I didn’t know that he and my grandfather had such a deep relationship before.

Che Zhong seemed to be in good health overall, and promised to tell me the details if I helped take Brother Xiao Man out for a walk. We walked three laps and I ended up consuming all the dopamine I had gotten from the bath.

Che Zhong told me that my grandfather had only ever taught three people how to raise dogs in his lifetime. Moreover, the only thing he taught them was superficial knowledge, because he felt that it was inhumane to ask dogs to carry the sins of humans. During his lifetime—especially when he was young—it was very common for them to die, and only one or two would come back. Over time, he started feeling indifferent towards life.

My grandfather was the rare type of person who had all kinds of feelings that a grave robber shouldn’t have. There wasn’t a gloomy bone in his body, and many people in the industry said that once they saw him, they knew that they could live happily by doing this kind of thing.

But he was afraid of his own indifference to his life, because once people had such thoughts, they would start going to extremes. It was because of this that he didn’t want the people below him to keep dogs. Of the three people he had taught, the first one who had learned the most was Luo Ruiqing’s (1) adjutant at that time. The second one was my Uncle Two, because after Grandpa died, someone had to raise the dogs. In our family, these dogs even had more seniority than my father. The old dogs were lazy and unwilling to move, and Grandpa said more than once that he wouldn’t bless us if he saw any of them die within three years after he left.

The last one was Che Zhong, who was the only one who knew how to maintain the abilities of the dogs Grandpa had trained. In other words, many of the dog’s abilities would deteriorate rapidly if they weren’t trained for a long time, so they required very diligent practice. This was Che Zhong’s job.

But my grandfather was the only one who knew how to train the dogs to find hei feizi. In this business, the only one that could deal with them was Brother Xiao Man.

“Since traffic became more and more developed, the hei feizis’ way of monitoring people gradually changed, and many of them began entering our circle. It’s creepy, right?”

I knew he was referring to Bao Sa, so now I basically knew who the hei feizi were. They must be part of the family opposing Poker-face’s family. It appeared these people had attached great importance to grave robbers’ tomb activities from the very beginning.

“When did you know there was a problem with Bao Sa? I feel like you were on guard very early on.”

“It’s a long story.” Che Zhong patted Brother Xiao Man, who hid under the bed just as the nurse came in. She urged us to leave the hospital so they would have a bed free, because there was a snake disaster in the mountains, and many people had been bitten.

Che Zhong and I glanced at each other just as a villager with swollen feet was pushed forward. I pinched the villager’s mouth and looked down his throat, but was immediately smacked by a violent woman who looked like his wife.

I helped Che Zhong outside so we could go through the discharge formalities, and asked, “What’s going on?”

Brother Xiao Man was off to the side, showing his fierce expression at the village woman. But instead of barking, he was looking at her coldly.

As Che Zhong lit a cigarette, I saw his hands were shaking a little, and he said: “Don’t make any sudden moves, or reveal any kind of expression. Go through the formalities calmly, and then leave here quietly.”

I instinctively wanted to look in the direction Che Zhong was avoiding, but he immediately grabbed my clothes, clenched his teeth, and said: “Do it quickly.”

Then don’t do the discharge formalities, I said to myself. I helped Che Zhong out to the road, and then got into the car. Brother Xiao Man jumped into the car as well, and then continued staring at the hospital. Che Zhong said to Wang Meng, “Drive. Get away from this town.”

“What’s the matter?” Although I could probably guess what had happened, I still couldn’t resist asking.

After looking out the window, Che Zhong said, “It looks like they’ve started paying attention to us. In the end, where’s the flaw?”

<Chapter 204> <Table of Contents><Chapter 206>

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TN Notes:

(1) He was that Chinese army officer mentioned in Chapter 195

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First off, BURN! BURN THAT MOTHERFUCKING TOWN TO THE GROUND! DESTROY EVERYTHING! LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND ヽ(ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ Second off, the Wangs are the, uh, hei feizi? Didn’t see that coming lol. I wonder how they smell differently? (⚆ _ ⚆) And Brother Xiao Man didn’t go off on the Wangs that kidnapped Li Cu????? *sigh* I don’t even know anymore