Chapter Sixteen: The Mongrel Dog

  Mr. Yin, leaning on his cane, followed Mrs. Yin into the house: "What's going on?"

  One of the slaves stepped forward and replied: "Reporting back to Master, this wild dog has entered our mansion and even stole your golden canary!"

  "Ah!" Old Master Yin exclaimed, "What did you say? This dog ate my canary?"

  "Yes! When we found it, it was eating a canary. We approached it and were bitten by several people, chasing all the way here." The house slave said angrily.

  "My canary!" Old Master Yin cried out, his mouth quivering with rage, his walking stick fiercely poking at the ground, his withered finger pointing at the little black dog. "Beat it to death! Beat this wild dog to death!"

  The family slaves were about to rush forward with their clubs, when Yang Qiuchi stood up and shouted: "Stop! You can't hit!" The family slaves stopped in their tracks and turned around to look at Old Master Yin.

  Before Old Man Yin could speak, Yang Qiuchi asked: "How much is your canary? I'll compensate you for it, please let this little dog go." After saying that, he took out Song Yuner's embroidered purse from his pocket, pinched the silver inside, and handed it to Old Man Yin with a determined look, "Here! There are over ten taels of silver in here, compensation for you!"

  "Compensation? You spent over a hundred taels of silver on it, can you afford to compensate me?! Hmph!" Old Master Yin didn't respond, still fuming and trembling with rage. It seemed that this golden oriole was indeed the old man's treasured darling.

  Mrs. Yin consoled him on the side: "Old master, calm down, Su Mei's affairs are still waiting for you to handle, don't let it affect your mood!" After hearing this, Mr. Yin nodded and slowly calmed down, gesturing to Yang Qiuchuan with his hand, but didn't say another word. He supported Mrs. Yin and walked out of the room with a shaky gait.

  Yin De pushed the money bag back to Yang Qiuchun: "Little brother, this is also a wild dog from who-knows-where, it's not yours, how can we make you pay for it?" After a pause, looking at the little black dog being affectionate with Yang Qiuchun, he said again: "Even if it was your little dog, the golden bird is already dead. Even if you paid compensation, it wouldn't come back to life. Little brother has worked so hard for my Yin family's affairs, how can we still have the nerve to make you pay? Let's just consider this matter settled."

  Yang Qiuchi nodded gratefully: "Thank you, Mr. Yin!" and put the money bag back in his pocket. He felt a little strange in his heart, why did this Mr. Yin always favor himself, was there something he wanted from him?

  The little black dog seemed to know that the crisis was over and happily jumped around, wagging its small tail and running wildly in the room.

  Song Zhi-xian was truly furious about the case being cracked, and shouted: "This is a murder scene! How can you let this dog make trouble here? Why don't you beat it away?"

  Several patrolmen responded loudly, about to come up and catch the little dog. The little dog's front legs were low and bowed, a pair of eyes in the dark dusk emitted wolf-like green light, coldly staring at these several patrolmen, and a low threatening sound came from its mouth. Although the patrolmen were a bit afraid of this little dog, they still took action with a hard scalp.

  The little dog saw the policeman's big hand coming over to grab him, and with a quick flash of his body, he turned around and bit down on the policeman's wrist. The policeman let out a painful yell, covering the wound with his hand as he retreated repeatedly.

  At this scene, several other patrolmen drew their waist knives and prepared to go up.

  Song Yun'er sneered: "This wild dog is very fierce, I spent half a day's effort to catch him, you are not his opponent!"

  The police officers exchanged skeptical glances, one of them looked at the steel knife in his hand and shouted: "Are you afraid of dogs? Let's go together and chop this dog to pieces!" Several police officers nodded, swung their knives and slashed towards the little black dog. The black shadow flashed, all the knives missed, and a police officer let out a scream, his hand holding the knife had been bitten by the little black dog, the steel knife fell to the ground, the other police officers continued to wield their knives like wind, slashing at the little black dog repeatedly.

  These several patrolmen were all working in the government office, and had also practiced some boxing and footwork, their movements were quite agile. However, when several people surrounded this little dog, they couldn't do anything to it, not only did they fail to hurt the little dog in the slightest, but instead two of them got bitten.

  Song Yuner burst out laughing: "I told you so, but you didn't believe me. Back off now!" The constables heard her say this and also knew that the county magistrate's daughter had received guidance from a superior, and her martial arts skills were indeed exceptional, so they all backed off. County Magistrate Song said: "Yun'er, don't be reckless! Quickly, quickly retreat!"

  Song Yun'er ignored her father and stared at the little black dog, brushing off her sleeves: "Let me take care of it myself, this time I'll finish it off!"

  The little black dog had once suffered at the hands of Song Yun'er and knew that this little girl was not to be trifled with, or else it might end up being strangled to death. It retreated a few steps back, hiding behind Yang Qiuchu, letting out low whimpers.

  Song Zhixian ordered the arrest of this little dog, Yang Qiuchi did not dare to stop him, but seeing the pitiful appearance of this little dog now, after all, he couldn't bear it in his heart, and raised his hand to shout: "Don't move, wait a minute! This little dog is useful to me."

  Song Yun'er stopped in her tracks, looking at Yang Qiuchi with a puzzled expression: "What's the use?" Suddenly, she revealed a joyful face: "Are you going to cook dog meat soup? Count me in!" Then, she deliberately blinked her mouth, as if she had already tasted the fragrant dog meat.

  "Of course not!" Yang Qiuchi shook his head, gently stroking the small black dog's pointed mouth. This little dog was so fierce when it bit people, it didn't seem like an ordinary little stray dog. Those eyes that emitted a green glow were somewhat like a wolf's, and it might be a hybrid of a wild dog and a wolf. In the Yin family's large mansion, it could track its own scent to find itself, and maybe it could also track down the murderer. Thinking of this, Yang Qiuchi's eyes lit up, and he said in a low voice: "I'm going to rely on this little dog to catch the murderer!"

  Everyone was shocked when they heard it, relying on a small dog to catch the murderer, this is the first time they had ever heard of such a thing.

  Song Yun'er asked in surprise: "How did you catch it? Can little dogs talk? How does it know where the murderer is?"

  Yang Qiuchi ignored her, picked up a piece of broken ceramic from the ground, walked to Bai Xiaomei's corpse, poured the remaining tea water on the half-dry * on the inside of Bai Xiaomei's thigh, then scraped it with the ceramic piece. He turned around and beckoned to the little black dog, which ran to Yang Qiuchi's side with excitement. Yang Qiuchi handed the ceramic piece with the * mixture to the little black dog to sniff.

  The little black dog sniffed carefully and looked up at Yang Qiuchi, as if to understand the master's meaning. Then he lowered his head and sniffed carefully again.

  Yang Qiuchi's heart lifted, after all, this little dog had not received specialized forensic tracking training, although it didn't look like an ordinary stray dog. However, whether it would work or not, he had no idea at all. He just tried it out and patted the little dog on its butt.

  That little black dog lowered its head, sniffed on the ground, and then walked out all the way.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  Yang Qiuchi put his finger to his lips, making a silencing gesture, and then followed behind the little black dog. Song Zhixian, Yin De, Lei Bu Kuai and others saw Yang Qiuchi's mysterious appearance, and also quietly followed behind him.

  The little black dog ran quickly, occasionally stopping to sniff around, and then continued on. Before long, it had exited the back gate of the Yin family's large courtyard and was walking along the edge of the street, sniffing as it went.

  After walking for more than half a time, they arrived at a bungalow not far from the south city gate. The door was tightly closed. Xiao Hei let out a burst of loud barks in front of this house.

  "The culprit is likely among them!" Yang Qiuchi turned around and said to Song Zhixian and others: "Quickly surround the house!"

  Song Zhi-xian didn't believe that the dog could catch the murderer, but he was willing to trust it a bit. He waved his hand and Lei Cai and over ten other constables surrounded the house.