The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 129: A Dog?

Having said that, he suddenly realized something and turned to look at the young man with the gun again.

He was surprised to realize that it was Yang Hao.

Yang Hao had changed his hairstyle. Originally, they had jokingly called it the "three-part wash, cut, and dry" and "seven-part Huang Yi Fei" [1] hairstyle, but now it was a crew cut. The hair hadn't been cut very short, and it wasn't very smooth in many places, making it obvious it hadn't been done by a professional.

Despite this, the short-haired Yang Hao looked a bit like the protagonist of a prison break movie. He gave off a feeling of cleanliness and bold action, but the look in his eyes when he glanced at Li Cu was so cold, it almost seemed as if the temperature had dropped. It was like he was a completely different person.

"You?" Li Cu wondered aloud.

Yang Hao said, "I told them everything I know. Like you said, if I can come out alive again, I won't be of any use. Now that I'm out alive, you can take care of yourself."

Li Cu looked at Yang Hao, and couldn't help laughing when he suddenly understood what was going on.

He didn't expect things to develop so fast, but he had foreseen such a result.

"You didn't expect me to come out alive." Yang Hao said to him. "I heard you slept well these past three days. Do you know what I went through?"

Li Cu looked at Yang Hao— whose eyes didn't change as he said these things— and realized that the hatred had sunk deep into his bones.

He didn't want to explain, so he merely sighed. Yang Hao pulled down his own shirt collar, and showed Li Cu the wound that had previously been hidden.

Li Cu couldn't see the wound clearly, but it was thickly dotted, as if it had been eaten by bugs.

"Don't make such a fuss, no one's any better off than anyone else. At least you came out alive." Li Cu said, looking around at the black-clad men's dead bodies: "Now you can do whatever you want."

"Bullshit! Don't make it sound so easy!" Yang Hao suddenly exploded. His calm immediately disappeared, and the gun in his hand trembled: "Those people were in pain! All those bugs crawled into their brains, and we had no choice but to kill them ourselves."

Li Cu looked on as Yang Hao began to cry, "I killed someone. I killed two... I killed two people."

"Don't do this to yourself." Li Cu said, his own calmness surprising him. He didn't experience it himself, after all, so it really was too easy for him to talk.

Yang Hao slowly regained his calm, wiped away his tears, and then said, "It's all your fault. You asked for it. Now, look at that dog, don't look at me."

Li Cu turned around. Although he was only a gun's length away from the friend behind him, he felt that the two of them were no longer the same. A huge gap had formed between them, and the distance was so far that you could tell at a glance that it was futile to do anything.

The dog had already pressed up against Li Cu, and didn't react at all when Yang Hao yelled just now. It was smelling every part of his body, as if it were very leisurely looking for something.

It was really a beautiful German Shepherd. The hairs on its back were an oily black that shone brightly in his face, and it was obviously a little older, which reflected the maximum quality of such a breed—self-confidence.

Self-confidence in dogs was a rare thing, and this particular German Shepherd's self-confidence made him look like a wise, middle-aged man who's physical strength and experience had reached their peak.

"What does it want?" Li Cu asked Yang Hao.

"It'll determine your life and death. If you don't move, it won't attack you." Yang Hao said. "They're going to take you down there. We couldn't find the hole you mentioned, so your broken leg won't save you this time. But before that, they need to know if the black-clad people did anything to you, or if you're a deeply hidden member of their group. If you aren't, you'll be fine."

Li Cu looked at the German Shepherd and found it kind of funny that his life was now in the hands of a black dog. He wasn't afraid as he looked at it, because he wasn't a member of the black-clad people's group.

When the dog went around behind him, and sniffed his back, it suddenly became confused. After sniffing him for a long time, it began wagging its tail and lay down at his side.

Li Cu thought it was a little strange, but the people around him were even more bewildered. When they all looked at each other, Yang Hao held up his gun and looked at the bearded man behind Li Cu, unsure of what this meant.

The man waved and told the people to put the dog back into the cage. The men began knocking on the cage, hoping the German Shepherd would go back on its own, but it merely looked up at the cage and leaned against Li Cu's side.

"Old Black is lying down beside him." A whisper could be heard from the side: "Old Black isn't close to anyone."

"Is he a member of the Wu family?" Another asked. "Is this kid from the Wu family?"

"What Wu family!" The bearded man cried out as he rushed into the crowd: "This is my cousin, my cousin, you know?" When he said that, he walked over, "Aiya, aiya, cousin—" As he passed by Yang Hao's side, he pressed the gun down, "Alright, alright, you two brothers shouldn't make such an unpleasant scene. As your senior, this also puts me in a difficult situation. Let's go back—"

The German Shepherd stood up and stopped in front of Li Cu. The bearded man immediately stopped and retreated a few steps. He touched the gun at his waist when the German Shepherd barked at him twice.

No sooner had his hand touched the gun than all the people around him looked at him, and pulled out their own guns: "Old Black is a dog of the Wu family. In terms of seniority, this dog is older than you. What are you trying to do?"

"It's just a dog." The bearded man said.

"Did we say we'd lend a dog to you? I'm talking about you asking Old Black to come out and do you a favor. Do you know what that means?" One of them asked. "Although Master Three is gone, a lot of our families have three generations worth of history working for Old Dog Wu's family. These dogs are more important than our lives."

When the man finished, everyone else agreed.

"Although the Wu family isn't as good as it used to be, people don't forget their roots. If you dare touch Old Black, nobody here will let you go." The man continued, "Old Black has never been close to anyone, so this little brother is very special. Are you sure he's your cousin, and not a member of the Wu family?"

Li Cu was intrigued when Old Black went to lie down in front of him again. He touched the dog's back, but instead of resisting, Old Black narrowed his eyes comfortably.

The people around him exclaimed again, as if the creature lying in front of Li Cu was a tiger instead of a dog.

The speaker who had been arguing with the bearded man said to Li Cu with shining eyes, "Young man, please say 'Brother Xiao Man' and see if he listens to you."

"Brother Xiao Man" was said in the Changsha dialect, so Li Cu made sure to say it the same way. The German Shepherd stood up and looked at Li Cu. His eyes were different from before, and he became very calm and focused.

"Fuck me, Old Black listened to him." The speaker said. "Are you the reincarnation of Old Dog Wu?"

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Note:

[1] Hong Kong actor who had played in a lot of Cantonese films. Most notable is his role as Iron Head in "Shaolin Soccer".