Chapter 2: Encountering a Wild Dog Spirit in the Graveyard

  Do you guys know why I'm having palpitations? It's because this stench is different from the usual stench, it's a unique smell that comes after human decay, and can be clearly distinguished from the smell of general things rotting. The three of us stood there in a daze for a while, then started searching for the source of the smell. At this time, Skinny Monkey said: "Dà Dàn Gē (Big Brother), look over there."

  As soon as I heard it, I looked in the direction where the thin monkey was pointing. On the ground, there was a corpse, to be exact, a mutilated corpse. The corpse was scattered next to a newly dug grave, with obvious signs of being gnawed on its limbs. The torso seemed to have been scooped out by something with its mouth, and it was empty inside, with greenish-black fluid flowing out. What's strange is that I didn't see the head of the corpse, don't know if it had been carried away by something. Seeing this extremely terrifying scene, my palms were sweating, my scalp felt numb, my heart rose to my throat, as if it was blocking my breath, and I couldn't breathe.

  The Republic of China era was a difficult time, we had seen dead people before, but it was the first time to see such a miserable scene. I felt my legs trembling and kept turning back, the fool behind me said in horror: "This is my second grandfather's grave, not even five or seven years have passed, how could this be?"

  When he said that, I remembered his second uncle. His second uncle died of ascites, which many people may not know about. In fact, it's just a disease that causes abdominal fluid, such as liver ascites and so on. At that time, it was not like now, and we couldn't find out what caused it. I remember when the second uncle died, his whole body was yellow like gold paper, and his belly was bulging high. I wanted to go see clearly, but my mother didn't let me go, saying that the disease was contagious.

  The silly egg asked me anxiously what to do, I was just about to speak when suddenly I had a more eerie feeling, as if something in the shrubs behind us was staring at us. My scalp felt increasingly numb, this kind of feeling usually doesn't happen, what exactly is behind our backs? Could it be even more terrifying than the corpse in front of us? I sensed it, and so did Skinny Monkey and Silly Egg, sometimes people's intuition about danger can be quite accurate.

  We involuntarily looked back, and saw a shrub cluster tens of steps behind us. The mountains here are mostly covered with dwarf shrubs like hawthorn, which are not tall but full of thorns, bearing sour and sweet haws on top. However, we didn't look there to eat today, but felt that the terrifying thing was hiding behind the shrubs.

  I looked at the bush and said to Skinny Monkey and Dumb Egg: "I feel like there's something over there, do you guys feel it?"

  Skinny Monkey said: "Dàdǎo brother, you say it's not a ghost, right? I heard Dad say before, seeing a ghost is this kind of feeling."

  It's noon now, ghosts won't come out during the day, so I wanted to refute Skinny Monkey. Just as I was about to open my mouth, I suddenly found a pair of blood-red eyes in the bushes. Yes, they were indeed eyes. Those blood-red eyes stared at us fixedly. I couldn't help but believe Skinny Monkey's words, and it was true that we saw ghosts in broad daylight. I pointed at those blood-red eyes with fear and said: "Th-those eyes, are really ghostly."

  My voice was a bit loud, and suddenly startled the terrifying thing in the bush. The thing stood up at once, about the size of a small donkey, with two drooping ears like fans, its whole body covered in shiny black fur, with a red fleshy tumor on its head, two blood-red eyes, an enormous mouth, sharp teeth gleaming with cold light, and saliva dripping from its mouth.

  "Wild dog spirit."

  In our time, many people starved to death. Although people died of starvation, these dogs didn't die of hunger. The survival ability of dogs is absolutely stronger than that of humans. Before they starve to death, they start eating human corpses. In fact, dogs are just domesticated wolves, and eating humans is just a return to their nature. At first, they only ate those dead children in the stone towers, fighting over them. Later, after eating human flesh, their eyes turned blood red, and their bodies became bigger and bigger. They then targeted the dead people in the graves.

  People attach importance to being at peace after death, as long as they are not too poor, they will try every means to get a thin wooden coffin. The tumor on the stray dog's head was formed by repeated collisions with the thin wooden coffin, which looks like a tumor but is actually hard as iron. They have a special way of eating people, first they dig up the grave, use their heads to knock open the thin wooden coffin, pull out the corpse, and then rip it open with their mouths. Since they eat rotten flesh, their bodies are full of cadaveric poison.

  In fact, the dogs that eat human flesh are not eaten by people. As long as the villagers see a dog's eyes turn red and its mouth water, they will find a rope to strangle it and then bury it deeply in a place. We stared at the wild dog, and the wild dog also stared at us. I saw a kind of excitement in its eyes, which was the excitement that only comes from finding food. The old people often warned us that this wild dog is much more terrifying than the gibbon, because the gibbon will only eat humans when it's hungry, but not the wild dog. They are extremely greedy and even if they're not hungry, they'll still tear open a person's chest and eat their internal organs.

  I only have one thought, that is to escape with my life. Some people say that the wild dog spirits are as fast as a donkey, and in terms of physical strength, they can run faster than humans. Can you outrun the wild dog spirits? The people in this village have experience, although the wild dog spirits run fast, their brains have become dull due to eating rotten meat. They run extremely fast like the wind, but when it comes to turning corners, they are much slower. Sometimes while running, they can't turn in time and will crash into the trees in front of them, that's because they can't turn in time and end up crashing.

  I thought of running after that, and then loudly said: "Run, run fast, turn around and run."

  I said run, and we took off immediately. We all grew up in the village, used to running wildly like horses every day, and could run as fast as rabbits. But that wild dog was even faster, suddenly darting out of the bushes and pouncing on us. I and Sha Dan Shou were brothers who grew up together, not exactly telepathic, but our coordination was incredible. As I turned a corner, they followed close behind me, turning the same corner. The wild dog behind us was just as the old folks said - fast but slow to turn corners.

  When people are fleeing for their lives, potential is limitless. The sour jujube trees and the like under our feet are no longer obstacles to us. We ran and ran until we reached a large earth mound in front of us. In front of the large earth mound was a round stone monument. This large earth mound was about one mu (a unit of area) in size, with nothing but bare soil on top, not even a single blade of grass. There were many thieves' dens on the large earth mound, which were left behind by tomb robbers. The wild dogs had already caught up from behind. I saw a collapsed thieves' den on the earth mound and said to Xiaoyuan: "Quickly, quickly get into the big earth mound."

  This used to be a tomb raider's cave, but it collapsed due to its age. The mountain here is made of stone and can't be dug through, so it's an above-ground grave, built on the surface with earth piled on top. The collapsed tunnel was like a door, and inside the tunnel, there were many brick-like objects. I was small in stature at the time, and to escape, I crawled in directly. That idiot Skinny Monkey also followed me in, and we made our way through the long tunnel into the tomb chamber. This chamber was very large, and because of the collapsed tunnel above, it wasn't very dark inside. In the center of the chamber were two stone pedestals, each with a nearly rotten coffin on top. On the coffins' lids, for some unknown reason, whether by human design or collapse, there were two pillars of light shining directly onto the coffins' heads, making them look extremely eerie.

  Inside the tomb, apart from these two coffins, there was nothing else. At this time, we heard a noise behind us, and it goes without saying that the wild dog demon had arrived. I turned my head to look back, and saw that the wild dog demon was right at the entrance of the collapsed tunnel, staring at us with its blood-red eyes. At this moment, we really became fish in a jar, and the wild dog demon looked at its prey as if it couldn't escape. It sat down suddenly, stuck out its long tongue, panted heavily, and drooled while gasping for breath.

  We have to run out, so I quickly looked inside and tried to find a way to escape. However, I saw that the thief holes were all opened at the top of the tomb chamber, which was over 10 feet high, and we couldn't reach it at all. At this moment, I suddenly found a thief hole on the north side, which was about our height, with a round entrance, and we could easily drill in. So I said: "Quickly, quickly drill into that hole."