Surrender and You Won't Be Killed

Seeing the three of them endlessly discussing the topic, Su Yang couldn't take it anymore. He looked ahead and said, "Hey, look, what's that in the bushes?"

"What's what?"

Su Yang scratched his nose. "Oh, nothing, my mistake. I thought it was a person."

"Don't scare me, it's the middle of the night."

Su Yang successfully interrupted the topic. The three of them tacitly dropped the conversation and continued walking forward.

However, while chatting, they had unknowingly walked quite far. At this point, there was no one else on the sidewalk but the four of them. There were no more houses on their left, only a dense, pitch-black mountain forest.

The streetlights along the road only extended another thirty or forty meters ahead; beyond that was a pitch-black road with no end in sight.

"We've walked this far? There are no more streetlights ahead. Are we still going?" Shen Yixue said, subconsciously leaning closer to Su Yang.

After looking at the situation ahead, Su Yang spoke up, "Let's head back. If we keep going, we'll be heading to the next village, and there's a kilometer or two of road with no streetlights in between."

"Okay, okay, let's go back. It's way too dark up ahead."

"Yeah, if something suddenly jumped out of the bushes, it would scare the life out of me," Meng Qianyu chimed in.

"Qianyu! Stop talking nonsense. There's already no one around here, and you're saying things like that. It's creepy. Let's go, let's go, hurry back." Shen Yixue pulled the others and turned to walk back.

They had just turned around and taken two steps when suddenly, a rustling sound came from the bushes.

The moment she heard the sound, Shen Yixue let out a loud scream. Startled, she jumped right off the ground and clung onto Su Yang.

Su Yang instinctively supported her thighs. "What are you doing?"

"There's—there's—there's something in there!"

"What is it?" Pan Ning turned to look at the bushes and asked.

"I don't know, didn't you guys hear that sound?"

"I didn't hear anything," Meng Qianyu, who was closest to the bushes, said blankly.

"You're so close and you didn't hear it?"

Meng Qianyu shook her head.

Su Yang had actually heard it, but to him, it didn't sound like it was made by a person. He guessed it was probably a stray cat or some small animal.

"Stop scaring yourself, get down." Su Yang put Shen Yixue down, then walked over to the edge of the greenbelt and peered in.

"Be careful," the three girls said, stepping back a little.

"What's there to be afraid of? It's probably just a little stray cat."

"Why would there be a stray cat here?" Meng Qianyu asked.

"It's totally normal to have stray cats in a place like this. I'll go in and take a look." Su Yang stepped over into the tall grass.

"Be careful!" Pan Ning cautioned from behind.

"It's fine." Su Yang walked into the pitch-black greenbelt without a second thought.

Although there were streetlights at intervals along the sidewalk, they weren't very bright, and the group happened to be standing right between two lights, so visibility was poor.

Su Yang bent over, looking left and right in the bushes.

Suddenly, the rustling sound came again from the dark bushes to his front left. He quickly turned his head to look.

However, it was simply too dark in that spot, and his view was obstructed by the grass, making it impossible to see clearly.

He slowed his pace and moved quietly toward the source of the sound, muttering in a low voice as he walked, "Tsk, tsk, tsk... come on buddy, stop hiding, come out."

"I'll give you one last chance. Come out on your own and I'll spare you. Otherwise, if I catch you, you're going to suffer!"

Rustle!

As soon as he finished speaking, a small, black thing suddenly jumped out from the bushes ahead.

"Holy crap?"

...

The three girls standing on the sidewalk watched as Su Yang moved slowly in one direction, constantly muttering something.

The three of them stared intently, not even daring to breathe—except for Pan Ning, of course. She wasn't worried at all and watched Su Yang with complete ease.

"What in the world is it?" Meng Qianyu whispered curiously.

"I don't know, maybe it really is a stray cat," Shen Yixue replied.

"He won't get scratched, will he? Why don't we tell him to come out and just leave."

"It's fine. He's a guy who can wrestle a wild bull, and you're worried about him getting scratched by a stray cat?"

Hearing this, Meng Qianyu suddenly recalled the scene at the top of Yuzixi Mountain earlier.

"Oh right, what am I blindly worrying about."

As they were talking, Su Yang suddenly crouched down and disappeared from view.

"Eh? Where did he go?" Meng Qianyu, caught off guard, quickly ran forward to check.

Pan Ning and Shen Yixue hurriedly followed.

Just as they reached the edge of the greenbelt, Su Yang stood up, but now he had a small, pitch-black thing in his hands.

"Whoa?! What is that?" Shen Yixue and Meng Qianyu, unable to see clearly, recoiled two steps in shock.

Pan Ning, however, stepped forward, tilted her head, and asked, "Is this... a dog?"

"Hehe, exactly. A wild little puppy."

Su Yang was holding a little black dog with both hands. It wasn't even as big as his two palms. The dog was fluffy and completely black without a single speck of any other color, which was why Su Yang hadn't spotted it hiding in the bushes earlier.

The dog looked to be only two or three months old, its eyes barely open, giving off a very innocent, milky vibe.

It lay very obediently in Su Yang's hands, not whimpering or making a single sound.

"Oh my, it's so well-behaved. Give it to me, give it to me." Pan Ning showed a rare smile as she reached out and took the little black dog from Su Yang's hands.

Only then did Shen Yixue and Meng Qianyu snap out of it and jog over to look. "Wow!! A puppy!" Shen Yixue shouted happily, as if she had discovered a treasure.

"Don't yell, it's so tiny, you'll scare it to death."

"You're exaggerating."

"Let me hold it," Shen Yixue said anxiously.

"I just got it, wait a minute."

Meng Qianyu walked around to Pan Ning's other side, looked down curiously, and said, "So cute! What breed is this?"

"Right, do you guys know? I can't tell." Although Pan Ning liked small animals, she had never kept a pet and wasn't familiar with dog breeds.

Shen Yixue's family had a dog when she was in high school. She gently pulled at the puppy's ears and head, examined it closely, and said, "It's a Schnauzer!"

"A Schnauzer?" Su Yang stepped out of the bushes. "Aren't Schnauzers black and white?"

"Are you silly? There are solid black Schnauzers too, they're just rarer. But this is a hundred percent a Schnauzer. Just look at its beard and you'll know."

"Really?"

"Why would I lie to you? It's so sweet, this little dog. Hurry, let me hold it." Shen Yixue said, taking the puppy from Pan Ning's hands.

After the three girls played with it curiously for two minutes, Su Yang spoke up, "So what do we do now?"

"What do you mean, what do we do?"

"This dog. Do we let it go or take it with us?"

Shen Yixue widened her eyes and looked up. "Let it go? This is a pet dog, and it's so small. If we let it go and no one finds it, I doubt it'll survive until tomorrow."

"Then what? Do we really take it with us? I've never raised a dog."

"Who said you have to raise it? This puppy was probably lost by some tourists playing around here during the day. This place is so big, they might have searched for a long time, couldn't find it, and just gave up. Since we ran into it now, it means it's destined for us, so we definitely have to take it!"

Pan Ning and Meng Qianyu nodded in agreement. "We'll just have to take it back. We can't exactly toss it back into the bushes to fend for itself."

Seeing that all three of them felt the same way, Su Yang nodded and joked, "Alright then, let's take it with us. We'll braise it when we get back."

......