After discussing for a while, we couldn't come up with any conclusions.
Xie Qiang led us around the village, carrying the burning stick, but we didn't find any suspicious individuals.
On the way, we ran into Heizi.
"Hey, Heizi!" I greeted Heizi from a distance.
But as soon as Heizi saw me, he got scared and ran away as if he had seen a ghost.
Xie Qiang took a shortcut and intercepted Heizi. Despite Heizi being a troublemaker, when he saw Xie Qiang, he still had to call him "Brother Qiang."
Xie Qiang asked Heizi, "Didn't my brother call you? Are you deaf?"
Heizi leaned against the wall, looking scared, and kept glancing at me.
Ever since I used the five ghosts to teach Heizi a lesson, he had become afraid of me and spread rumors that I was a monster.
Xie Qiang asked Heizi, "Why do you run when you see us?"
Heizi with a bitter face said, "I... I'm afraid... I'm afraid of Yang Cheng..."
Xie Qiang slapped Heizi's face and scolded angrily, "Who the hell is this Yang Cheng? Did you call him Yang Cheng? Yang Cheng is my brother, you should call me Brother Qiang, what should you call Yang Cheng?"
Heizi covered his face and cried, "Cheng... Cheng Ge..."
"Haven't eaten? Speak louder!" Xie Qiang said.
Heizi managed to say, "Cheng Ge!"
Only then was Xie Qiang satisfied, nodding his head and grabbing Heizi's ear, saying, "Listen carefully, if you don't respect Cheng Ge, then you're not respecting me, understand?"
Seeing Heizi obediently nodding, I felt great in my heart. Heizi deserved it. He talked bad about me behind my back, causing the kids in the village not to play with me.
Xie Qiang pointed at Heizi's mouth and said, "Also, I warn you not to speak nonsense everywhere. If you say anything bad about Cheng Ge, you're saying it about me!"
"I won't! I won't!" Heizi shook his head repeatedly and ran away.
Heizi was a typical bully who only picked on those weaker than him. Now that Xie Qiang had my back, Heizi wouldn't dare to defy me.
We were just kids after all. After playing around the village for a while, we forgot about the chicken thief incident.
The next day, I saw my mom squatting in front of the chicken coop counting the chickens, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven..."
I asked my mom what she was doing, and with a furrowed brow, she told me that one chicken was missing from our home.
My dad came over and asked my mom if she had counted correctly. My mom let my dad count, and he indeed found out that one chicken was missing.
So my dad asked my mom if she had managed to put all the chickens back in the coop last night, maybe one chicken was still in the yard and hadn't returned to the coop.
My mom said it was impossible. When she drove the chickens back to the coop last night, she personally counted them, so she remembered clearly. But when she opened the coop this morning, she found one chicken missing, which was really strange.
My dad rubbed his chin and said with a serious expression, "If that's the case, our home might have been robbed last night!"
My mom said, "Robbed? A chicken thief? Who would steal just one chicken and run away?"
My dad said, "By the way, Lao Sun's female dog gave birth to puppies. I went to pick one and kept it at our door to guard the house!"
My dad and mom stood in front of the chicken coop, talking in a low voice. For a not so wealthy family in the countryside, losing a chicken was indeed a frustrating thing.
I furrowed my brow, wondering how there could be a chicken thief again last night?
Two nights ago, Xie Qiang's family lost a chicken, and last night our family lost a chicken. Could it be the same chicken thief?
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I walked around the chicken coop and quickly found some unfamiliar footprints on the ground.
They were exactly the same as the footprints I saw at Xie Qiang's house yesterday. The footprints on the ground were damp, as if someone wearing rain boots had crawled out of the water. The footprints also had yellow mud sticking to them, and there were a few feathers scattered on the ground.
These strange muddy footprints weren't animal footprints; they were human footprints. Judging from the yellow mud, I concluded that it came from the mountains.
What was going on? Could there be wild people in the mountains? Did they come down to steal chickens?
In this area of southeastern Guizhou, there were undulating mountains and dense primeval forests. Rumors of wild people had been circulating since ancient times.
Many hunters and herb gatherers who ventured into the mountains claimed to have seen wild people. Their descriptions were mostly consistent, saying that wild people were tall and had long arms. They were covered in thick hair and looked like long-armed apes. They ran fast and liked to eat raw bloody things.
Some hunters encountered wild people in the mountains. They said the wild people stole their game. The wild people seemed extremely hungry. Right in front of them, they took out a roe deer, tore it apart in a few seconds, and even crunched the bones.
The rumors about wild people were rampant. It was said that a few years ago, it caused a commotion in the provincial research institute. The researchers sent a team of over ten people to search for traces of wild people in the mountains of southeastern Guizhou.
As for whether they found the wild people or not, the research team did not disclose it to the public.
Some speculated that they didn't find them, while others guessed that they did find them, but the information was kept confidential.
But no matter what, I hadn't seen any wild people. If it was true that they came down from the mountains to steal chickens, it would be major news.
Another day passed, the last day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. I went to find Fatty, preparing to go back to school with him.
I saw Fatty looking worried, so I asked him what was wrong. Fatty said, "Actually, it's nothing. It's just... my family was robbed last night, just like Xie Qiang's family. We also lost a chicken!"
I was surprised to hear this. How could the chicken thief come to the village every day?
And the chicken thief's method was very strange. They only stole one chicken each night. There were so many chickens in the coop, why didn't they take them all?
Xie Qiang's family was robbed, my family was robbed, and now Fatty's family was also robbed. Who would be the next victim?
This incident was indeed peculiar, but it wasn't uncommon for such things to happen in the countryside. After discussing for a while, we headed to school together.
A week later, when Fatty and I returned to Hongqi Village after school, we heard barking everywhere. Almost every household had a dog tied up at their doorstep—black ones, yellow ones, spotted ones, big and small dogs of various breeds. The whole village seemed to have turned into a dog village.
Fatty and I were puzzled. Was it popular to raise dogs now? How come so many dogs appeared in the village in just a week?
Even before reaching our house, from afar, I saw a little yellow dog tied up at our yard's entrance, barking happily.
Hey, did we also have a dog now?
I entered the yard, and the little dog didn't recognize me. It barked at me for a while.
I threw down my backpack and played with the little dog for a while. It soon became familiar with me and licked my hand to show affection.