Chapter Thirty-Seven: Triangular Footprints

  In the grass, a huge fox face, as if injected with hormones, was about the size of several basketballs. The canine teeth were covered in green ***, and on the lower side of the fox, there were two gaping wounds torn by sharp claws, from which yellow pus continuously seeped out.

  Qin Zhong saw this scene, his eyebrows furrowed, and after stabilizing his footing, the double knives in his hands opened the way, while slashing towards the fox. However, when his knife had already slashed onto the fox's face, he suddenly realized that this was actually a Dao virtual shadow. Could it be that this was just an illusion?

  The Korean military was even more astonished, as the smell, which had suddenly appeared and walked away in a large fox shape, should have been explainable, but the fact that the fox was just a shadow made it a bit intriguing.

  Qin Zhong took a few steps back, his eyes wide with wonder as he examined it carefully: "This isn't fake, is it? Could it be a spirit? No, that's not right. If it were a spirit, an animal's spirit shouldn't appear so clearly."

  Han Junmeng looked in the direction of the light shining down and found that it was actually moonlight.

  Qin Zhong boldly stepped forward, and with a light grasp of his hand, he actually passed through the beam of light. The fox shadow turned out to be fake.

  Lao Geng's son came to his senses after seeing Qin Zhong's actions, feeling that he had been deceived. However, the next scene left three people baffled.

  As the moonlight was surrounded by more and more clouds, the huge face of the fox gradually disappeared. Adding to what Qin Zhong saw in the grass just now, the scene where Lao Geng sucked the blood of the fox appeared vaguely in his mind, making it difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion.

  But just as the three people were walking on the small road under the moonlight, a more special scene appeared. On the sandy ground of the small road, several strangely shaped footprints suddenly appeared at intervals, and from a distance, it seemed to be the path of something's movement.

  Qin Zhong crouched down, took out his phone and took a photo. The mark looked like a fox's footprint. Just as he suspected this, the strange moonlight cast another beam of light, and in the distance, on the small path, was the silhouette of the fox from earlier. But at that moment, the fox was slowly moving away from Qin Zhong and the others.

  "Hurry up, I want to see what's going on." Qin Zhong and the others quickened their pace. Old Geng's son didn't dare move, and was dragged along by Han Jun, closely following Qin Zhong and the others as they chased after him.

  But contrary to their wishes, Qin Zhong and the others had already run onto the highway, nor did they find the fox shadow from just now, but the footprints on the ground disappeared at the junction of the asphalt road and the yellow soil.

  At this moment, the sky had slowly brightened. Qin Zhong sighed and said: "It's really strange, I'll take a footprint back and study it slowly."

  "It can't be helped, it's getting late, we should head back." As Han Jun spoke, he looked around in all directions, as if searching for some means of transportation.

  Lao Geng's son finally spoke out after holding back all the way: "Director Qin, it seems I was wrong to suspect you guys. The things that happened here are really strange."

  "Well, you know that's all. Your father's death has nothing to do with us, but his death is not normal at all. Also, go back and think about it, if there's anything special, come back and tell me." Qin Zhong said, and then sent away Old Geng's son.

  He rested with the Korean army for a while, and then walked to the place where there was a bus station. However, they hadn't gone far when Qin Zhong suddenly felt his feet tighten up, and he almost flew out.

  "Big brother, help me out, I'm stuck!" A seemingly pitiful voice came from the roadside ditch, where a hand reached out and grabbed Qin Zhong's ankle.

  Qin Zhong was about to draw his sword, but he turned his head and saw that at the bottom of the ditch there was a man covered in black mud, with a strong smell of farm fertilizer.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Little brother, help me out, the things on me are too heavy, I can't get up."

  "Want wealth but not life? What good thing are you carrying on your back?"

  "It's nothing, just a matter of farmers eating their own food. If you don't carry it on your back, there won't be any seeds for next year's spring."

  Qin Zhong thought to himself that it was indeed true, what did a farmer rely on to eat, wasn't it just the grain from last year?

  Thinking of this, Qin Zhong also reached out and, together with Han Jun, pulled the person up. Once on the road, he wiped his face with his hand, and behind the black mud, a seemingly delicate face finally appeared. Upon closer inspection, the person's age was not particularly old.

  At this moment, Qin Zhong's mind was filled with doubts. A farmer, how could he have such good skin? He began to suspect this person, but he didn't ask more questions. He just put his knife back in his waist and then put away his antique dagger. As he was putting away the dagger, he noticed that the man who had been pulled up suddenly changed his gaze.

  "Hey brother, wait a minute."

  "What's going on?" Qin Zhong discovered something unusual about this person.

  That man casually threw down the package he had just pulled up with great effort, stretched out his hand to ask Qin Zhong for the dagger: "I don't think what you're holding is something that came from a normal source, right?"

  Qin Zhong was about to speak when Han Jun intercepted him: "This gentleman seems to have an urgent matter to return home, isn't he still in a hurry to plant the farm next year? It's just right that we also have things to do, so let's not chat with you again."

  The Korean military was about to drag Qin Zhong away, and Qin Zhong also sensed that something was off about this person. He too prepared to leave, looking down to see that the sack the man had brought seemed somewhat strange. However, Qin Zhong didn't think much of it, merely humming softly: "You old scoundrel, compared to what's in your sack, I reckon it's more important than your life, eh?"

  "Let's go, let's go, we still have things to do, let's head back first." Han Jun pushed Qin Zhong towards the train station.

  Just as the two were leaving, the mud man said in a cold voice: "Kid, when you're short of money, you can bring this knife to Lao Liu's Mountain Goods Store in town and look for me."

  Qin Zhong raised his hand and waved it, but Han Jun didn't understand what Qin Zhong meant. However, Qin Zhong and the muddy man seemed to have a tacit understanding, and their communication was all in the waving of hands.

  Qin Zhong and Han Jun walked into the town, found an inn to take a nap in the afternoon, after lunch, the two took a car back to Andong City, all the way, Qin Zhong's mind was always thinking about those things that happened in Lao Gengjia Village.

  Thinking back, from the discovery of that fresh footprint to now this strange triangular footprint, it seems like a fox's footprint, but thinking back, there seems to be a connection, yet no connection at all. Adding to that, the mysterious bald man in the video has plunged Qin Zhong's mind into unprecedented chaos.

  The Korean military sent Qin Zhong back to the archives, he left alone, and only Qin Zhong himself entered the archives, still on the first floor of the archives room. He sat quietly there, thinking that someone was staring at him that day, snatching some worthless photos. He always felt that the mysterious bald man seemed to be about to reveal his true intentions, but no matter how he thought, there were no clues that could be linked together.

  Cave 137, a place worth Qin Zhong's careful recollection. He went through everything that had happened in Cave 137 from start to finish once again, and it seemed all the evidence still pointed to that footprint and the mysterious bald man.

  At this moment, Qin Zhong compared the footprints he had collected from Fang Shu and Lao Gui with those in cave 137. The three footprints were completely different, proving that Qin Zhong's efforts on Fang Shu and Lao Gui seemed to have been wasted.

  Qin Zhong then compared the footprints in the 137th cave with those of the fox, and they were two completely different footprints.

  Qin Zhong fell silent, and he casually flipped through the edited video. The image of Dabao wearing a red outfit was indeed quite interesting, but thinking back to Auntie's memorial portrait, that old man seemed extremely kind-hearted.

  Qin Zhong watched the video and suddenly discovered that there were some things he had overlooked in the video. When he was filming the big teeth on the first floor with his DV, there were some continuous footprints on the wall from the first floor to the second floor. He enlarged the video and found that they were indeed footprints. It turned out that when they broke into Han Jun's villa and let the female ghost in, there was actually someone else involved.