Chapter 11 A Sudden Roar

This sudden roar startled not only the surrounding wild dogs but also Aunt Zhang.

She turned her head in surprise to look at Hu Ma, but didn't forget to swing the stick in her hand, watching for an opportunity to strike the nearby wild dogs.

She wasn't very strong, but when the stick hit the wild dogs, they howled in pain. Moreover, she specifically targeted the robust and ferocious ones, using the stick wrapped with red thread to strike their heads. Each hit was followed by a yelp.

At the same moment, Hu Ma dared not delay and rushed straight towards the leader of the wild dogs in the graveyard.

The sawtooth knife in his hand, with its jagged edges, looked terrifying.

The leader of the wild dogs in the graveyard, which had been wearing a sinister and cunning expression that seemed almost human, suddenly lost its composure after being startled by the Five Thunder Golden Toad roar. A deep fear emerged in its eyes, but it was already too late to escape.

Alarmed, it simply turned around to face Hu Ma, sticking its rear end up, clawing at the ground with its front paws, and barking fiercely.

…But it was useless.

As soon as it opened its mouth, before it could even make a sound, it got a mouthful of mud.

Hu Ma dared not be careless. He treated this wild dog leader with the same respect he would give to a human expert.

Not knowing if its bark would conjure something evil, he kicked up a spray of mud and sand as he charged forward.

Then, stepping forward, he used the "Opening Mountain" technique, and the sawtooth knife came crashing down.

"Pfft!"

The vicious dog was shaking its head, trying to get the sand out of its mouth, when a muffled thud sounded, and its head burst open.

Slipping to the side, Hu Ma dodged the dirty blood spraying towards him and followed up with another strike. This time, the knife came down from the side, directly severing the dog's head.

A dignified evil creature, the leader of so many brothers, had its head fall to the ground just like that. Its rapidly dimming eyes seemed to hold a hint of unwillingness, and its mouth still contained the sand it hadn't managed to spit out.

Hu Ma pulled back his knife, flicked off the blood, and was about to look around when he suddenly realized that things didn't seem to be over yet. His expression immediately turned serious.

Even though the dog's head had fallen to the ground, its body hadn't collapsed.

It was still retreating, and at the same time, the human-face-shaped sore on its back opened its eyes.

The area resembling a mouth suddenly gaped wide, emitting a wailing cry.

"This is so eerie?"

Hu Ma immediately swung the sawtooth knife horizontally, aiming to slice off the human-face sore.

"Stop, let me do it!"

But at that moment, he heard Aunt Zhang's voice in his ear. Hu Ma reacted quickly, immediately changing the momentum of his knife, making a feint in the air, and then planting the knife in the ground to dissipate the force.

Looking up, he saw Aunt Zhang rushing over with the red-thread-wrapped stick and striking the human-face sore on the headless dog.

The human-face sore, which had been emitting a sharp, eerie cry, weakened with the blow. Another strike silenced the cry, and when he looked again at the human-face sore on the dog's back, the mouth was actually sewn shut with red thread.

Panting heavily, its mouth gaping as if suffocating, it gradually lost its movement, and the dog's body finally collapsed.

"Help me watch out, don't let them bite me."

Aunt Zhang sat down in front of the wild dog's body, placed the stick beside her, and silently chanted a spell.

Hu Ma naturally didn't need her to remind him. He looked around and saw that his worry was unnecessary. His roar had scared the surrounding wild dogs so much that they had scattered in all directions, long gone.

Only four or five that hadn't run away, the ones that had just been hit by Aunt Zhang's stick, had red thread sewn into their mouths. They whimpered, prostrated on the ground, not daring to move.

But this red thread didn't seem real. One moment it was there, and the next, after rubbing your eyes, it was gone.

"Shǐ qīng fú mìng dòng yuān xíng, jīn yuè qián dǎo léi gǔ hōng."

"Bīng zhàng yì qiān huà zhēn líng, jǐng xiāo suǒ bù qū bìng wēn."

"..." (Incantations to dispel disease and plagues)

Turning back to look at Aunt Zhang, he saw her chanting silently at the dog corpse for a long time, striking the human-face sore on its back with the stick as she chanted. Each strike made the human-face sore smaller until, after a dozen or so times, the human-face sore had completely disappeared.

Only then did Aunt Zhang slowly stop, pick up her stick, stand up, and turn to explain to Hu Ma:

"The human-face sore on its back was formed from eating too many dead people. The resentment was too strong. If it were cut open with a knife, it would cause a plague."

"I recited the plague-dispelling incantation to eliminate the evil energy."

"..."

"I'm enlightened."

Hu Ma looked at the surrounding wild dogs and asked, "What should we do with the rest of them?"

"No need to bother with them."

Aunt Zhang glanced at the few wild dogs she had struck and said, "If we only kill the leader, sooner or later another one will emerge from the remaining wild dogs to replace it."

"It will still dig up graves and devour corpses, still beg for corpses along the road, and still cultivate a body of evil energy, knowing how to summon evil spirits to harm people. But now that I've hit them with the stick, they're under my curse and won't dare to eat people again."

"And they're also relatively strong, so the other wild dogs won't be able to compete with them for the title of dog king."

"In this way, it will be difficult for this group of wild dogs to become a threat again."

"..."

"It can even be like this?"

Hu Ma felt like his eyes had been opened. On one hand, he admired Aunt Zhang's magical abilities—that hitting a dog's head with a red-thread-wrapped stick would prevent it from eating dead people again.

On the other hand, he also marveled at how these wild dogs seemed to have a strange and rigid order.

Looking around now, the matter was settled, but it was a pity that the piece of cured pork on the ground had been stained with dog blood.

Ordinary dog blood would have been fine, but it was stained with the blood of a dog that had eaten dead people, so it wouldn't be good to pick it up and eat it again.

"Give it to them!"

Aunt Zhang glanced at the few prostrating wild dogs beside her and said, "In times of natural disasters and man-made calamities, people can't survive, and neither can dogs."

"They won't be able to eat dead people in the future, and they'll be fighting with other dogs, so they won't have an easy time."

"..."

"Yes."

Even Aunt Zhang was willing to part with it, so how could he, the dignified manager of the Blood Food Gang, be unwilling to part with this piece of cured meat?

Hu Ma nodded and left with Aunt Zhang.

He was a little curious. After walking a few steps, he suddenly said, "Aunt has always been kind to people and even to demons. But why do I feel like Aunt suddenly had a murderous intent when she saw the wild dog leader just now?"

Aunt Zhang walked silently and whispered, "Because it can't be controlled anymore."

"If it only gained Dao cultivation, then it would be considered a spirit, but it has eaten too many dead people and has become a demon."

"In the eyes of the corpse walkers, some things can be cured, and some things cannot."

"Those that can be reasoned with should be spared, and those that can't be reasoned with should be struck first. This wild dog has turned itself into a demon by eating dead people's flesh, so it's only a matter of time before it eats living people."

"If it had met us, it wouldn't have been able to eat us, but if it had met someone else, they definitely wouldn't have been able to escape."

"Of course, I think it has already eaten living people. If it had only eaten dead people, the resentment in that human-face sore wouldn't have been so strong..."

"..."

"So, things that eat people must be eliminated?"

Hu Ma thought for a moment and smiled, "The evil spirit in the forest before also clearly ate people, right?"

Hearing this, Aunt Zhang turned to look at him and whispered, "No wonder Old Man Zhao said you like to be sarcastic..."

"The evil spirit in that forest did eat people, but I can't defeat it..."

"Anyway, as long as it has eaten people and continues to cause trouble, I can't deal with it, but sooner or later, there will be a powerful corpse walker who will take care of it."

"..."

"I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just curious..."

Hu Ma thought to himself, and vaguely understood Aunt Zhang's thoughts.

Corpse walkers are a kind of people, a whole sect.

Aunt Zhang's idea was actually very simple: as long as all corpse walkers thought this way, there would always be a powerful one to take care of that evil spirit.

Even if there wasn't a powerful one, if they could free up their hands, they could invite some fellow practitioners to take care of it together.

It's just...

Hu Ma also sighed faintly. Such an idea was good, but in this era, when could they free up their hands?

Everyone was just struggling to survive!

When they returned to the hearse, they saw that the coachman and the shop assistants had panicked expressions. A circle of flames was still burning around the carriage, not completely extinguished.

After Hu Ma and Aunt Zhang left with the cured pork, Steward Zhou and the coachman, along with the two shop assistants, were watching the carriage and the coffin when they suddenly saw the shadows of wild dogs darting back and forth on both sides of the road, making threatening noises.

The wild dog leader not only wanted to eat Hu Ma and Aunt Zhang in the graveyard but also wanted to drive the wild dogs to steal the coffin.

Although Steward Zhou hadn't traveled the martial world for a long time, he still had some experience. He immediately picked up a stick from the side and drew a large circle around the donkey cart. Then he clapped his hands and said to the coachman and the shop assistants:

"Don't worry, these wild dogs can't get in."

"..."

The coachman and the shop assistants looked at Steward Zhou in surprise, with a look of disbelief.

Along the way, they had clearly seen that Aunt Zhang had abilities, and the young master was also calm and steady, carrying a knife.

Only this lame old steward seemed to only be able to follow along and watch the carriage.

And now you're just picking up a stick, drawing a circle around the carriage, and saying that the wild dogs can't break in...

...What are you, a god?

But unexpectedly, not long after Hu Ma and the others left, these wild dogs around them, not knowing what signal they had received, suddenly rushed out from all directions, growling and trying to charge towards them in the circle.

But before the wild dogs could really charge, Steward Zhou chanted something and suddenly pointed forward. Flames suddenly rose up in front of the wild dogs, burning fiercely around the donkey cart, forming a ring of fire.

The wild dogs were terrified and were actually scared off, not daring to come up.

Then, a roar like a toad's croak, yet also like thunder, sounded not far away, and all the wild dogs fled in all directions.

The coachman and the shop assistants were all shocked.

Drawing a circle at random and being able to set it on fire—could this old steward really be a god?

Their respect for him was temporarily greater than that for the returning Hu Ma and Aunt Zhang, which made Steward Zhou feel a little elated.

He had finally regained the feeling of traveling the martial world back in the opera troupe days...

(End of Chapter)