24 – Big transforming dog

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The park next to the orphanage was the first park that had been made in the town.
The park was small and the facilities were outdated.
In recent years, another park had been built near the newly-built residential area in the town, since then, it had become even more deserted.
Although it wasn't completely unmanaged, it was still rather dilapidated.
Except for the old ladies who did taichi in the evening, no one visited the park.

The quick shutter sound was too abrupt and the person pressing the shutter was on the other side of the iron fence.
Between the thick branches and leaves, Baiju and Xiao Yao shouldn't have been aware of it.

Baiju responded fairly quickly.
He was no longer unfamiliar with the sound of camera shutters as he was when he first came down the mountain; on the contrary, he immediately realised something for the first time——the person who took the photo may have witnessed his transformation and may even have recorded his and Xiao Yao's dialogue.

Although he and Xiao Yao hadn’t talked about any sensitive topics for a while, a person who approached stealthily to take pictures of an orphanage through the gaps in the branches and leaves, and was able to hide their presence from Baiju and Xiao Yao, could be someone who had come prepared, and their purpose was obviously impure.

Baiju, who had crossed the fence, quickly searched for the person's scent, but found the smell of burning talisman paper in the air.

This scent was a bit cheap, it shouldn't be high-quality yellow paper or cinnabar.
Possibly a prop purchased by people who didn't know much about magic techniques.

Baiju raised his head and sniffed the burning ashes of the talisman in the air, and paused for a while, then Xiao Yao who followed up after him, “Bai’ge, what's the situation?”

Baiju lowered his body slightly, squinted, and replied, “A human, it shouldn’t be a practitioner; they used talisman’s that ordinary people can use.
The quality of talismans aren’t high and they haven’t run far.”

Xiao Yao pushed up his glasses and slowly exhaled the breath he was holding.
Then he nodded and said, “Understood…should we split up?”

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Baiju shook his head, “No need…I found him.”

As he said this, Baiju turned in the right direction, murmured “Follow”, and then sped towards the trail into the small forest without hesitation.

Xiao Yao would never question the nose of the old dog.
He immediately tensed his nerves and followed after Baiju.
It was perhaps a few breaths when Baiju, who was about to become a blur, suddenly turned sharply and kicked his legs hard and in the next instant, he pounced on a person ten metres away.

A thin young man fell to the ground, his back arched, and beside him fell a SLR camera with a broken lens.
The legs of his trousers were still stained with soot from the talismans.

Baiju's claws pressed against the man's neck mercilessly.
With little effort he could crush the fragile bones into slag.

Before Xiao Yao approached, he could see the young man had a mask on his face and signs of applying makeup around his eyes, he raised his eyebrows, and felt he understood the situation, “Are you here to take a sneak shot of Qiu Ziran?”

The blood vessels in the neck of the young man who was suppressed by Baiju almost burst.
The blood pumped to the top of his head again and again, making his face flushed, and the blood vessels in his temples were swollen and twisted.
He was filled with a sense of crisis and fear for his own life, so he quickly nodded against the rough ground, and said with difficulty through the mask, “Yes…”

Xiao Yao pulled his collar and squatted down.
He stretched out his hand and fished into the pocket of the man's coat, and as expected, he pulled out a piece of talisman paper that was used to hide his aura.

The quality of the talisman wasn’t high, but the craftsmanship was very good and made the talisman much more effective.

His slender fingers twisted slightly and the talisman between his fingers disappeared into ashes in an instant.
Xiao Yao watched the person struggle for a while before he relaxed and said, “Bai’ge, let him go first.”

Baiju released his paws and sat down beside Xiao Yao.
He saw Xiao Yao pulling out a few charms to fix the person in place, then he took out a small bottle and dipped his finger into the bottle.
Xiao Yao drew out a mantra talisman in the air, and then he folded his palms and slapped the rune formed in the air, and branded a cinnabar talisman on the man's arm.

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Simply and rudely taking off the person's mask, Xiao Yao had a bad impression of the person who appeared suddenly, “Why are you here, tell me everything.”

The man opened his mouth and the cinnabar mark on his arm lightened slightly, and his original expression changed.
When his lips opened again the details of the matter were all explained neatly.

The young man who was severely stomped by Baiju's paw was named Sun Daiyang, an artist who made his debut in the same audition show with the red fox Qiu Ziran.

At the beginning, he and Qiu Ziran followed the same path.
They were young musicians, talented and full of charisma; they even had similar origins.
Qiu Ziran had never concealed his origins, and the tale he told was always that as a baby he was abandoned and left at the entrance of an orphanage and was raised by the monks and Taoist priests in the orphanage.

However, the difference between Sun Daiyang and Qiu Ziran was that Sun Daiyang had grown up in a family where his parents fought with each other since he was a child and he suffered in the crossfire.
In the end, his parents divorced, and he was thrown into welfare housing by his gambling father.

At that time, Sun Daiyang was already pacified, and he himself didn’t want to return to those kinds of parents.
Therefore, while he was in an orphanage, he insisted that he didn’t remember who his parents were, and he was very dependent on the teachers and friends in the orphanage.
More than once he even said that he wanted the orphanage to be his home.
An opportunity came when he was fifteen years old, and the audition was held.
He was visiting a retired orphanage teacher in Luocheng and thought that since he looked good and sang well, he could try it out.

Sun Daiyang’s natural talents were indeed quite good.
Before the auditions started, he warmed up his voice on the stage, and really did set off a small bomb and after being selected into the top eight in Luocheng, he was also on the same stage as Qiu Ziran.

At that time, the little fox who hadn't developed, had innocent eyes, just like a little girl.
Sun Daiyang also looked similar and the two of them together were often compared, so Sun Daiyang subconsciously regarded Qiu Ziran as his competitor.

As for what the silly fox who followed the ancient teachings of Buddha thought about his competitors on the same stage, he only thought that he wanted to make good music.
As a result, when the host asked about their pasts and musical dreams, Qiu Ziran simply said two sentences “I like to sing, and I want to sing better” and was done.
Meanwhile, Sun Daiyang seized the opportunity to mention a few things about his past and then expressed his thoughts very beautifully.
He wanted to sing to earn money and take care of his younger siblings in the orphanage.

As one could imagine, Sun Daiyang became very popular for a while because he would sell his pitiful past, but within two years, he gradually became notorious because he would talk about his past every time he appeared on the scene.
Then three years after his debut, it was found that after he had left the orphanage he hadn’t donated a penny, and the opportunities in front of Sun Daiyang completely dried up.

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In the end, he didn't have the musical strength or put in the effort to match his rhetoric.

Sun Daiyang, who was overwhelmed, was naturally dissatisfied.
Abandoned by the market, Sun Daiyang was perplexed and couldn't help but find someone with similar conditions to compare himself to.
This time, he turned to Qiu Ziran again and watched as the red fox flourished in the entertainment industry.
His popularity rose and he became hotter and hotter, and gradually, the red fox that he seemed to share a background with became a thorn in his heart.

Why, if they look the same and sing the same, was he more popular than me?
Why, when I have obviously suffered more, he is the one who is compensated by fate?
Why, when I try to manage myself and show my best image to the outside world, I still can’t compare to his extremely simplistic music dream?
…

Countless jealous thoughts accumulated in his heart, and Sun Daiyang took another path.

He began to pretend to act in groups, mix into the arena, and moved around Qiu Ziran.
He observed him and tried to figure him out, and then simulated countless ways to pull him off his altar.

But no matter how much malice was in Sun Daiyang's heart, he was still an ordinary person after all, and could only think about acting on his desires, not able to do anything himself.

As a result, some time later, a bright opportunity was sent to him.

An ordinary-looking practitioner found him and communicated with him quietly.
The practitioner understood Sun Daiyang's mentality thoroughly, and immediately gave him a reading, finally coming up with a remarkable explanation.
His conclusion: Qiu Ziran, the red fox, had taken his life and all the blessings that should have belonged to him.

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Sun Daiyang was a bit dazed, when the practitioner first said this, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was the case.

So the practitioner fanned the flames, implying that Sun Daiyang could take back what he deserved, and when Sun Daiyang was completely tempted, the practitioner gave him an idea.

Fate was delicate and couldn’t be exchanged by ordinary means; he had to make an opportunity to cause Qiu Ziran to commit bloodshed.
In this way, Qiu Ziran's fortune would be stained with blood, and he could take advantage and change their fates back.

At that time, Sun Daiyang, who believed in ghosts, obeyed the practitioner and did a lot of things according to his instructions.

Everything went as they suspected.
This Sun Daiyang was used as a weapon.
The method described by the practitioner for changing their fates was a lie to fool Sun Daiyang, a layman who didn’t know anything at all.
Those like Baiju immediately knew what he described was impossible.

How could fate be so easy to change…
Sun Daiyang simply thought too highly of himself and he really thought that he and the little fox were on the same level.

After the puppet failed several times in the first two days.
Sun Daiyang only knew that the warning card in his hand was cracked but Qiu Ziran hadn’t fallen.
He was immediately anxious.
Somehow he actually found a little practitioner who was selling real talismans, so Sun Daiyang bought some hidden amulets and magical talismans and sneaked up to the orphanage with a SLR hanging around his neck.

After all that, he didn't take any photos of Qiu Ziran.
He only saw a big dog, and then white dog stepped on his neck neatly.

After hearing the cause and effect, Xiao Yao and Baiju looked at each other.

This guy was an unlucky human with no ability, even his own mind wasn’t being used well.

However, Baiju was lucky in the end, this was exactly the kind of fool who could give them a clue.
That ordinary-looking “practitioner” who had contacted Sun Daiyang was probably the one who made the sophisticated puppet.