High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 874: Chapter 132: Mouse-Wolf

Facing Dylan’s question, Xiao Xiao didn’t keep them in suspense but closed the booklet in his hands and began to patiently explain, ”If you consider it with a normal mindset, naturally, it has nothing to do with mice.”

”But what we’re dealing with is a school-organized winter hunt. You should know about the 2003 winter hunt...”

”No, we don’t.” Zheng Qing immediately interjected.

Xiao Xiao glanced at him, his speaking pace unchanged, continued, ”...that winter hunt involved the You Yao Qi hunting team being responsible for cleaning up an area upstream of Lin Zhong Lake. According to the description in the handbook issued by the Hunting Committee, the You Yao Qi hunting team was supposed to handle a group of water foxes... What do you think of when you hear ’water foxes’?”

”Foxes in the water.” Zheng Qing earnestly snatched up the answer.

Unsurprisingly, his response was met with unanimous disdain from the rest of the hunters present.

”It should be ’Zhu Nounou,’ I guess,” Zhang Ji Xin hesitated, seeing the puzzled expression on Zheng Qing’s face, he quickly explained, ”It’s mentioned in the ’Shan Hai Jing - East Mountain Classic’, ’Move further south for three hundred miles, called Geng Mountain, abundant with azure waters and large snakes. There resides a beast, shaped like a fox but with fish fins, named ’Zhu Nounou’, whose howling signifies fear in its nation...’ Zhu Nounou looks quite like a fox except it has fish fins. In some places in the south, it’s also called a water fox.”

”Tsk tsk,” Zheng Qing, listening to Zhang Ji Xin’s explanation, clicked his tongue in admiration, ”I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t tell from all those muscles of yours that you would be able to recite such a long passage... Come here, let me check, don’t let any unclean spirits possess you. After all, you’re our main hunter, and if something happens to you prematurely, it would be too much pressure on everyone else!”

As he spoke, the young scholarship student dramatically pulled out several Evil-Exorcising Charms from his grey cloth bag, pretending to slap them onto Zhang Ji Xin’s body.

Of course, this was just playful banter among companions. Elder Zhang Da slightly lengthened his face, and the scholar promptly retracted his hands.

”You’re the main hunter this time, not me. I’m just a small wandering hunter,” Zhang Ji Xin retorted. ”Besides, the ’Classic of Mountains and Seas’ doesn’t have nearly as many words as the ’Wizard’s Encyclopedia’ or the ’Wizard’s Codex’... My brother said that to become an excellent hunter, the ’Classic of Mountains and Seas’ is a basic requirement. If you don’t even recognize the most iconic creatures of the wizard world, what kind of hunter are you?”

His words carried a somewhat impassioned fervor.

However, this statement only led the already slightly off-track discussion further astray. Xiao Xiao, who was moderating the discussion, had no choice but to cough loudly a few times to bring everyone’s attention back.

”Enough idle talk! Indulge in self-adoration after the winter hunt!” he said, fiercely sweeping his gaze over Zheng Qing and Zhang Ji Xin, then continued with the previous topic, ”Since you can think of the ’Zhu Nounou,’ those in the You Yao Qi hunting team naturally thought of it too. They even considered the water otter in addition to the Zhu Nounou, so their prepared hunting strategy and tools were all designed for creatures like Zhu Nounou... However, against all expectations, nobody anticipated that the ’water foxes’ in the booklet were actually a group of ’Yu.’”

”As you know, the talent of Zhu Nounou lies in creating panic, leaning towards illusion techniques and psychic attacks; meanwhile, the Yu’s abilities, besides shadow sand shooting, are especially good at harming through qi... Due to improper handling, that year all hunters from the You Yao Qi hunting team were spewed with poison by those Yu, and when they emerged, each had their bodies covered in sores, a sight most pitiful.”

”Damn! That’s a trap!” Dylan couldn’t help but exclaim.

”The Yu that shoots shadow sand? Why? How did it trap them?” Although Zheng Qing was aware of the strange insect Yu, he couldn’t quite connect it with the name ’water fox’ initially.

”Yu’s other name is ’Water Fox,’ and in some places, it’s called ’Short Fox,’” Xiao Xiao explained. ”In the ’Wizard’s Encyclopedia,’ Yu, along with Cheng Huang, Shi Wolf, Zhu Nounou, and other creatures, are classified under the fox category. However, although it belongs to the fox category, Yu and the common fox differ more than the Golden Monkey does from a Big Wizard; it’s hard for most people to think of it as just a little bug.”

”So, what you mean is, those ’Star Apes’ listed in the small booklet given to us by the Hunting Committee certainly aren’t what we think they are?” Zheng Qing finally began to deduce by analogy.

”What do you think?” Xiao Xiao countered. ”If they were really a group of apes, with our search capabilities, we would have found them already... But since we haven’t found them yet, those Star Apes definitely aren’t apes.”

”Then what could they be?” Xin Fat Man scratched his chin in distress, turned his head, and nervously looked towards the snow-covered forest outside the Protect Legal Formation.

The cold northern wind slowly swept across the tree tops and the snowy ground, picking up a few dead leaves and several puffs of snowflakes, creating a mournful noise that made this small part of the world seem even more sinister and terrifying.

Xin Fat Man couldn’t help but shiver and quickly turned his head back.

At this point, Doctor Xiao had already begun a new deduction. ”Since we cannot use normal reasoning, we must trace the origin, starting from the character ’狌’.”

”The character ’狌,’ read one way as ’xing,’ is the same as ’ape’; read another way as ’sheng,’ it is the same as ’sheng’.”

”The ’ape’ is easy to understand, just a big monkey, so I won’t explain that here... But if we choose ’sheng,’ then many clues can be connected.”

”As everyone knows, ’sheng’ refers to the Yellow Weasel, also known as the Weasel. Because they were known to voraciously consume mice and resemble wolves, ancient people called them Mouse-Wolves. Coincidentally, due to the early return of the Silent tide this year, a large-scale rodent infestation erupted near the school, even prompting the Dressed-up Rat Race, which usually hides in the underworld, to surface recently.”

”Hunters always move following the traces of their prey.”

”With mice right here, can the Mouse-Wolves be far away?”

”So, are you saying the third type of Star Ape is not read as ’ape,’ but as ’sheng’?” Zheng Qing somewhat understood, yet was somewhat perplexed. ”If that’s the case, should we be looking for Mouse-Wolves instead of mice?”

”Because finding the mice means we’ve found our prey.” This time, it was Zhang Ji Xin who answered: ”Mouse-Wolves that can survive in Silent Forest are not the same as their foolish relatives in the outside world... Keeping mice as food during winter is a basic tactic. So, if we can find a major rat hole, there’s a good chance we’ll find those ’Star Apes.’”

Xiao Xiao said nothing, simply nodding silently.

Zheng Qing smacked his lips and reholstered his Colt Python revolver on his waist. ”Based on your analysis, we’re going to be busy... We’ve only walked a few rounds, and there aren’t many caves that could fit wild boars or apes, but there are quite a few that could fit mice!”