Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: That Man, That Dog

Since Lou Xiaoping had died on the grassland, torn apart by the lions he himself had raised, how could Lou Xiaoping have committed suicide?

Having experienced these images for more than twelve minutes, Bai Wu had contracted another negative attribute, Weak Water.

This time, his luck was a small fortune in an unfortunate situation, as Weak Water posed almost no threat in an area without water.

Bai Wu was unconcerned and continued to ponder the clues.

There were some other documents, but most of them were left by Li Xianxiang and her brothers, Liu, as well as some tourists or other workers in the zoo.

Moreover, the content was chaotic and unable to provide any clues. It only revealed the name of this dog, Jing.

"The first four segments essentially narrate the tragic experiences of the animal-loving Lou Xiaoping, who died at the hands of a ferocious beast... but the fifth segment of the image overturns everything that came before..."

Bai Wu frowned.

"No... to be precise, the fifth segment overturns only the ending of the fourth segment, regarding the manner of Lou Xiaoping’s death. This may be the key to breaking the case."

Another two minutes passed, but Bai Wu was not panicked.

"What can be certain is that the dog and the human were locked together, and the perspective I’m seeing from is that of the dog’s. Since there are two conflicting images, one must be true and the other false."

But the resentment in both segments... was equally intense. Only one had color, while the other did not.

Color...

Bai Wu had an epiphany, suddenly discovering the key point!

"The first and second segments of the image are in color, while the third and fourth are in black and white."

"I had always thought this was symbolic of the emotional state, but now I see I was wrong, these are the resentments of two different entities."

The lion seemed a bit frightened because within these things that Bai Wu was searching, there was an essence that it feared.

The effect of the ring was also coming to an end, and after taking it off again, or when the effect wore off, it would take some time before it could be used again.

Bai Wu was also arriving at a critical moment.

"The first and second segments came from Lou Xiaoping; the third and fourth, from that dog. Though dogs are color blind, the fifth segment, despite the darkness of the room making it difficult to distinguish colors, was not a black and white image... hence this segment originated from Lou Xiaoping."

"I understand now, the truth is like this."

Bai Wu clenched his fists. He didn’t feel anger, but his fists were still tightly clenched nonetheless.

He had come to know the tragic fate of Lou Xiaoping and that dog.

A hollow feeling coursed through him like a tide, and sometimes he felt he might be a monster himself, one incapable of resonating with the sorrows of others.

As Bai Wu realized the truth, the dark aura attached to the first, second, and fifth documents, through Bai Wu’s negative attribute of Grudge Parasitism, began to surge into his body wildly.

Normally, Bai Wu would absorb these resentments and then completely transform into Evil Fallen.

But having attracted this massive resentment, he only attracted it and did not absorb it. The dense grudge converged on Bai Wu’s body, gradually taking on a silhouette.

From a distance, he appeared to be someone from the zoo back in the day.

This scene terrified the lion.

Bai Wu turned his head to look at the lion, then at his own hands.

"Those you resented, they are all dead. This grudge of yours should have dissipated long ago. Perhaps there’s something else you still wish to do?"

It was as if he was talking to a good-hearted person from seven hundred years ago; Bai Wu mounted the lion again, the effect of the ring having passed.

But at this moment, Bai Wu struck fear into the lion.

In the bottom level of the tower, within the TV wall in the middle of the port, all the spectators saw Bai Wu as a dark, shadow-like specter.

They had no idea what had happened, and at that moment, Bai Wu removed his handcuffs and turned off the live broadcast.

...

...

The Mech Lion raced across the prairie, and memories from seven hundred years ago gradually surfaced.

Originally, there were two male lions and six lionesses on the prairie. That year, it went off to play on the other side of the prairie, leaving behind the male lion and the six lionesses together.

When it returned, it witnessed an unforgettable scene.

Seven lions were frantically tearing at a dog that was almost entirely devoured, leaving only its head, but the dog managed to get up.

This scene seemed to have frightened the predators as well.

The sound of gunfire continued, yet the dog simply wouldn’t die.

Limping away, bullets left their marks on its bones, but they couldn’t stop its departing figure; no one knew where it went.

The lions didn’t dare to pursue it.

The Mech Lion knew that this was Lou Xiaoping’s most cherished pet.

That weak, clumsy dog always followed Lou Xiaoping’s side. They ate together, lived together, inseparable as shadows.

And Lou Xiaoping?

It has been a long time since the animal zoo had seen Lou Xiaoping.

Later, when the dog returned, the entire zoo was inescapable, all creatures trapped within this area.

Former companions died one by one. The lions that had once feasted on that dog had long since turned to dust.

At this moment, Bai Wu had transformed from the sweet human into that person from years ago.

Grudge Parasitism couldn’t cause Bai Wu to undergo the Evil Fallen Transformation, but Bai Wu knew the purpose of these grudges. And now, the key to passing through this area had been found.

Lou Xiaoping died with resentment, yet those three segments of images were still colorful.

That indicated Lou Xiaoping still had lingering attachments to this world.

The scene was different for the dog... after its master, Lou Xiaoping, died, the world in the dog’s eyes became completely black and white.

It seemed to even conquer fear, or perhaps it gained a sense of mission. The Mech Lion ran wildly following Bai Wu’s instructions.

Hours passed, and that giant figure still wandered in the zoo, symbolizing an unerasable terror for all creatures within this place.

Only one person and one lion were in pursuit.

...

...

Though over six hours had passed, the giant dog moved like a zombie, extremely slowly.

As its huge figure emerged once more, seeing those dense gun barrels again, Bai Wu could somewhat imagine how twisted and terrifying the scene must have been in the dog’s eyes back then.

Those who once seemed like friends of its master had all turned into hideously grotesque demons.

The giant dog did not sense Bai Wu behind it. The dog was too massive now, everything else seemed too insignificant in comparison.

Its head was still there, but like its body, it was empty, no different.

For seven hundred years, it had roamed purposelessly in the zoo, endlessly moving from one end to the other, back and forth, without ever stopping.

The lion also understood that the giant dog never looked back. It would sweep through all life in its line of sight like a reaper and would not turn back for those it missed.

But just a moment ago, the giant skeletal dog suddenly stopped.

"Jing."

Bai Wu’s call echoed across the prairie. With those short two words, the mountain-like destroyer ground to a halt.

There was still a long way ahead to patrol, but for the first time in seven hundred years, the monster that made the entire zoo tremble, turned around.

This scene frightened the Mech Lion so much that it nearly exploded.

And Bai Wu jumped off the Mech Lion’s back, approaching the dog step by step.

At this time, Bai Wu was exceptionally calm, his brain still instinctively analyzing the pros and cons, trying to persuade the dog, considering the outcomes of both success and failure in persuasion, all possible paths.

These had become something instinctive to him.

Even reason was telling him what tone to use now, what expression to make.

The self-discipline of an actor was being pushed to its utmost by him.

The ground shook as the massive monster turned around, yet Bai Wu’s steps remained steady.

The creature approaching him was no longer the skeleton monster massive as mountains, but a small dog that couldn’t be more familiar.

The scenery around him changed once again, and everything on the grassland disappeared.

Bai Wu looked around and found himself in a dark and cramped room.

A foul stench assailed him, not just of human and dog excrement but also the smell of decaying flesh.

The truth within the dark room was finally revealed.

Three days prior.

Jing let out a weak cry, howling at its owner who had already died.

It licked Lou Xiaoping’s palm, as if calling out to him, just like it had done every morning for the past two months to wake Lou Xiaoping up.

But Lou Xiaoping did not wake up, he could never wake up again.

One day later, Jing looked even more sluggish and weak.

Two days later, its barking became exceedingly mournful.

Three days later, the smell of rotting flesh filled the room, and the dying Jing started to devour Lou Xiaoping’s corpse... to survive.

All of this was just as Bai Wu had guessed.

Lou Xiaoping died by suicide, but his corpse had been eaten by Jing.

Bai Wu had read a study before.

It asked if pets would eat their owner after their owner died, provided they were confined together.

This question was not really about whether they would eat their owners but rather when they would start. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

The premise was based on there being no other food source for the pets, and the owner dying first, leaving the pet in starvation.

Many pets wouldn’t hesitate for too long, but dogs would waver for a moment. Yet even they would only hesitate for at most two days.

Jing had been starving for a long time, surviving on the food provided by Lou Xiaoping for the past two months.

Three days after Lou Xiaoping’s death, nobody cared for the dog anymore.

It was about to starve to death, and there before its eyes was its owner’s corpse.

In the end, Jing ate Lou Xiaoping.

Bai Wu already knew the truth, and he wasn’t surprised.

It wasn’t that the dog didn’t love its owner. Without a doubt, if there was danger, Bai Wu firmly believed Jing would throw itself in front of Lou Xiaoping without hesitation.

But when the apocalypse came... under human greed, Lou Xiaoping’s girlfriend and colleagues had created the most despairing environment.

"Actually, at that time, Jing, you were already dead, weren’t you? When you were being torn apart by the flames and Elsa, you had died... it was only the grudge and guilt that turned you into another form."

"You devoured your only friend, wishing you had never done so, hoping I would just lie next to you, also killed by those people, those animals."

"You must have felt very guilty these years, constantly thinking how much better it would have been if your owner had not been eaten by you... thinking that I died alongside you at the hands of those lions."

Inside the dark room, Bai Wu was playing the role of that corpse.

For seven hundred years, Jing’s consciousness had been trapped in this dark room, longing for that person to wake again.

But through the long years, what answered it were only the remorse of having eaten its owner and the loneliness that came with it.

But this time, Bai Wu woke up in place of Lou Xiaoping.

Two starkly different grievances brought back the scene from years ago.

And on the grasslands, all the mechanical beasts seemed to sense the dissipation of a certain presence... They all came out of their hiding spots, one after another.

That huge monster... was actually getting smaller bit by bit.

The Mech Lion didn’t know what Bai Wu had done, but the human and the monster in its eyes seemed to have frozen in place.

"I forgive you, Jing. I never blamed you, good child. If you hadn’t been dragged into this, you wouldn’t have done such a thing... The fault wasn’t yours."

The dog, barely hanging onto life, stuck out its tongue and licked Bai Wu once again.

Bai Wu gently gazed at it, as if everything had returned to a peaceful afternoon seven hundred years ago.

Back then, the apocalypse had not yet arrived, and he had had a radiant smile.

"The ones at fault were those who drove you and me into a corner."

Bai Wu still remembered the research about dogs and cats eating their owners and how some people had fanned the flames, saying that animals were just animals, unable to endure the slightest hunger, so easily devouring their own masters.

But these people would never understand how pure an animal’s affection for a person can be.

If it wasn’t for extreme weakness, how could a dog eat its own master?

And how many people in history have eaten others to survive?

They wouldn’t feel guilty in their hearts.

At least, not like Jing, who roamed like a walking corpse, wandering for seven hundred years; throughout all these years, its thoughts remained locked in this dark room.

Lou Xiaoping died, leaving behind a strong resentment; these resentments came from people like Liu and Li Xianxiang who plotted against him.

But after these people died, his resentment did not dissipate. Instead, it waited for a successor.

He had to release his beloved dog from its guilt.

And this giant dog? A scene just before its death filled it with a profound hatred for the world, turning its resentment into a huge monster that surpassed even Cain’s Disciple.

But this also made it more miserable than Lou Xiaoping, having lived on in the form of Evil Fallen, tormented spiritually for seven hundred years—

The one it loved the most, it had devoured.

Neither the dog nor the human were Cain’s doing; they were simply the product of the malevolent human heart when the apocalypse descended seven hundred years ago.

But Bai Wu felt that if he could also experience emotion, perhaps he would feel even more pity for the master and pet than the Angel Envoy would.

"Jing, it’s okay, I don’t blame you, I never have. Thank you for taking revenge for me. These years... it’s been so hard on you. I should have told you sooner."

In the dark room, he gently stroked the dog.

On the grassland, the beast that had terrorized all of the Evil Fallen for seven hundred years was slowly dissolving,

Until in the end, the barrels of the guns turned into iron powder, and together with the terrifying bones, they vanished into smoke and ash.

Bai Wu’s consciousness also returned from the dark room to reality.

The skeletal body finally collapsed, its huge, fierce skull now showing the silly demeanor it had seven hundred years before.

Faintly, Bai Wu thought he could hear Jing’s bark, perhaps expressing joy, or perhaps gratitude.

As of now, Bai Wu knew one thing: this area was cleared.

Although he hadn’t activated the Return Roulette, a note had already popped up.

[Nice find! You’ve found the first piece since venturing beyond the tower, and as an emotionless strategist, ahead is an unprecedented bountiful reward. Let’s hurry up and collect the treasure chest, shall we?]

(A bit challenging to write, but it’s finally done. Vote, please.)