Lao Hei shot him an impatient glare and stepped forward to walk past him, but without warning, the man flicked his hand, flinging a cloud of quicklime that blanketed Lao Hei's face.
Though his vision was stripped away in an instant, years of fighting experience still guided Lao Hei as he roared and lunged forward with bared fangs—only to feel a large pot of water splashed squarely over his face. As the lime reacted violently with the water, he clutched his eyes with both paws and screamed in agony.
Chu Qiguang stepped back swiftly and shouted to Qiao Zhi up on the wall, "What are you standing there for? Pelt him with stones!"
'So ruthless,' Qiao Zhi grumbled inwardly. His paws, nimble as human hands, picked up pebbles and hurled them, air whistling as they struck squarely against Lao Hei, who writhed and wailed on the ground.
On the ground, Lao Hei's breathing grew weaker and weaker. The rise and fall of his chest slowed, until only his nose still twitched faintly.
"A cat's scent?" he shouted with venomous hatred. "There's a cat monster? You teamed up with a human against fellow monsters? You monster traitor!"
Chu Qiguang couldn't even be bothered to answer, but Qiao Zhi couldn't help chiming in, "You've eaten people! If we don't kill you, the other dog monsters will follow your bad example. In the end, you'd draw the Daoist temple down on us, and everyone would suffer."
"Humans can eat dogs, so why can't dogs eat humans?" Lao Hei rasped weakly. "And why do you think I started eating people? Humans betrayed me first...
"...They were the ones who betrayed me first..."
The black dog monster's life was fading away, drifting into his final moments. Yet provoked by Qiao Zhi's words, he spoke on with an expression full of resentment, "I was originally a hound belonging to a hunter's family in the mountains. My father was a dog monster, and under his guidance, I trained myself from when I was young.
"I grew stronger and smarter, and I helped the hunter catch more and more prey..."
But as the prefect of Beiyue Prefecture organized the clearing of forests to open up wasteland, the mountain forests shrank, and hunting became harder and harder for them. In the end, they had no choice but to join in the land reclamation and start farming.
Though the hunter wasn't good at farming, the government promised that reclaimed land would be tax-free for the first three years. The dog monsters helped with the tilling too, and life was still manageable.
Who could have known that once a new prefect arrived, he conspired with the local gentry to seize all the newly cultivated, productive farmland?
With no game to hunt and no land to farm, life in the hunter's household went from bad to worse.
One day, Lao Hei realized his father had disappeared. He searched everywhere, but found no trace of his father—only remembering that for a while afterward, life in the hunter's household improved considerably.
Yet as poverty struck the household once more, Lao Hei discovered that his master intended to sell him to a butcher's stall.
"...I bit them to death, because they betrayed me first," Lao Hei muttered. "Those not of our kind... are sure to be of a different mind... sure to be of a different mind..."
Amid his final murmurs, the black dog drew his last breath. Chu Qiguang went up to examine him, knitting his brow in contemplation.
Qiao Zhi padded up with a complicated look, and upon seeing Chu Qiguang frowning, he sighed. "You're thinking about what he just said too, aren't you?"
"Huh?" Chu Qiguang blinked, slightly taken aback. In truth, he had just been wondering whether a dog monster's meat was edible.
Qiao Zhi let out a sigh. "I thought you'd finish him off right away. I didn't expect you'd let him finish his dying words." He thought to himself that Chu Qiguang actually had a heart after all.
Chu Qiguang nodded. In reality, he had merely figured that rather than wasting effort finishing the dog off, it was better to let him spend his dying breath on his final words. Isn't there a saying that villains die of talking too much?
Still, looking at Qiao Zhi's melancholy expression, Chu Qiguang wisely stroked the cat's head and sighed along, "This dog didn't have it easy either."
Qiao Zhi murmured, "As long as humans keep developing and expanding, they will have irreconcilable conflicts with demonic beasts and monsters of all kinds—in the mountains, on the grasslands, in the seas...
"Back when I was in Wang Family Village, I always told my subordinates to hide well and avoid humans, to stay far away from the village.
"Yet just like that time Daoist Qingling came hunting on the back mountain, even though I kept leading the demon race in retreat, human territory still expands year after year. A day will come when there's nowhere left for us to fall back. What should we do then?"
Chu Qiguang patted Qiao Zhi's head and said slowly, "A primitive life in the mountains and forests has no future. If you don't change, the world will only leave you behind."
Qiao Zhi asked, "Then how should we change?"
Chu Qiguang replied, "Integrate. Become an indispensable part of society as a whole. For instance, start by farming my family's land."
With that, Chu Qiguang hoisted Lao Hei's corpse.
'Farming for Chu Qiguang's family carries such profound meaning?'
Qiao Zhi froze in place, mulling over what Chu Qiguang had just said, before feeling a surge of joy. 'Make us monsters an indispensable part? Chu Qiguang seems to have changed a bit. Could it be my influence?'
'I might have just unintentionally changed the course of world history!'
Qiao Zhi bounded forward, circling Chu Qiguang and rubbing incessantly against his shins.
Chu Qiguang nudged him away with a foot. "Stop rubbing. You're getting cat hair all over me. These clothes cost a whole tael of silver."
Even though pushed away, Qiao Zhi was still beaming inside. 'More than just changing the world... I might have saved the whole world! Everyone ought to thank me.'
Chu Qiguang finally couldn't resist asking, "This dog monster's blood... if used on Chen Gang, it should be enough to perform another Heavenly Demon Foundation Establishment on him, right?"
***
Carrying Lao Hei's corpse, Chu Qiguang brought Qiao Zhi back to the abandoned temple.
The dog monsters who had fled earlier had already realized something was amiss; no Daoists seemed to be pursuing them. After wandering about for a while, they had trickled back one after another.
When they saw Chu Qiguang carry Lao Hei's corpse into the abandoned temple, they all posed as ordinary stray dogs, watching Chu Qiguang with eyes full of hostility and vigilance.
Chu Qiguang looked at them and said, "Your Great King was killed by the Daoists of Qingyang Temple. He held on to his last breath to find me, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to save him."
A commotion instantly broke out among the pack. A dog monster yelled, "Who killed the Great King?"
Chu Qiguang said somberly, "It was Daoist Qingling of Qingyang Temple." He tilted his head toward the sky, sighing with a grief-stricken face, "Brother Lao Hei lived such a hard life.
"He was originally a loyal hunting dog in a hunter's home. Who knew the world would be so unjust? The authorities cleared the mountains and felled the forests, forcing hunters to reclaim land, only to swindle and seize their fields afterward. Unable to survive, the hunter's household actually tried to sell Lao Hei to a butcher.
"Left with no choice, Brother Lao Hei fought back with everything he had, finally escaping to the county seat to save his own life."
As Chu Qiguang spoke, the surrounding dog monsters unwittingly pricked up their ears. Though most of them had heard rumors, this was the first time they had heard Lao Hei's story in such detail.
Meanwhile, a white dog and a black-backed dog wore looks of astonishment. The white dog was named Bai Pi, and the black-backed one Hei Bei—both having been the dog monsters closest to Lao Hei.
Their astonishment came from having heard Lao Hei tell this story before, but they never imagined a human could know it as well—unless this fellow wasn't human...
Chapter 45