Bo Ting suspiciously looked toward Doudou and saw that it also had a bewildered expression on its dog face. He knew it wasn’t the one responsible.
The man and the dog innocently stared at each other. Bo Ting twitched the corner of his mouth and looked away first.
“Whatever. I’ll just bury it tomorrow when no one’s around.”
It wasn’t his business anyway. The rat must have had some issue of its own.
He packed the rat and its cage into a box, then thoroughly washed the hand that had remotely touched the dead rat before finally preparing to sleep.
Doudou obediently squatted on the balcony, showing no intention of making a fuss—a far cry from its behavior on the first day it arrived at his home.
Bo Ting couldn’t help but smile. “Alright, I’ll send you back first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Sleep.”
Gouzi whined twice. After the bedroom door closed, a ferocious expression appeared on its face. Its scarlet eyes puzzledly stared at the dead rat outside before closing after a long moment of confusion.
…
Thanks to the timely discovery, the rat surge this time was well-contained.
Aside from Ligang, which had been completely cleared, the other streets still had some fleeing Two-Headed Rats that had escaped into the sewers. But by dawn, there were hardly any left on the surfaces.
The cleanup squad members, who had been busy all night, breathed a sigh of relief. As the sky lightened, they changed into city cleaning uniforms and casually rubbed their sore arms while doing final checks in various corners.
Commuters heading out to work noticed nothing amiss and went about their routines as usual. Soon, the city was filled once more with its familiar hustle and bustle.
Yin Liao leaned halfway against the car, lips pressed tight as he wiped dust from his forehead. After an entire sleepless night, the deputy captain’s already weary face looked even more tense.
Even when the laid-back captain Lu Jingshan offered him some gum, Yin Liao didn’t take it.
“Let’s go. One last patrol and we can head back to rest.”
The impatient tall youth stood up. Lu Jingshan sighed and followed. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, his steps suddenly halted. The danger sense in his neural threshold triggered sharply, forcing him to stop abruptly.
As an S-Rank Ability User, his perception of danger was far keener than that of ordinary team members.
The moment they had stood up, a eerie aura appeared ahead— at least A-rank, capable of alerting him… or even higher.
Lu Jingshan’s expression grew serious. He reported to his superiors first, then signaled Yin Liao to stop.
Even without a word, Yin Liao sensed something was wrong. After a quick scan, he said gravely, “There’s a garbage mountain ahead.”
“That’s where nearby districts dump their trash.”
Lu Jingshan nodded and donned his gear. “Let’s check it out.”
The two approached the garbage mountain in the wasteland, one behind the other.
Doudou’s ears twitched as it heard the footsteps of unfamiliar humans.
But the skeletal black dog had no interest in humans. After tossing the dead rat far away from a distance, it snorted through its nostrils and lightly vanished from the spot.
Lu Jingshan had just entered the dump when he pinpointed the source of the eerie aura.
—A cardboard box.
As the garbage pile shifted under touch, the weight caused the box on top to tumble down naturally, rolling as if it were the most ordinary everyday occurrence.
“Looks like someone just dumped their trash here.”
Lu Jingshan sensed the danger fading and looked down at the box, shaking his head with a joke. “Tch, Mengjia City is so full of hidden experts now that even trash can scare people.”
“Not bad for the most prosperous metropolis among the surrounding city-states.”
Knowing the captain had been promoted from a smaller city nearby, Yin Liao expressionlessly ignored the remark.
“Is it dangerous?”
“It’s fine now.”
Lu Jingshan exhaled.
“The most dangerous thing was probably the person who dumped it.”
“But clearly, we didn’t run into them. They’ve already left—no lingering trace of that chilling aura remains.”
“Though, I’m a bit curious what they threw away.”
Seeing Yin Liao already taking photos for the record, Lu Jingshan relaxed and touched the box.
It looked like an ordinary box with nothing special on the outside.
Both men stared intently inside. The next second, they saw—a dead rat in a cage within the cardboard box.
The Two-Headed Rat King, with short horns hidden on its heads, lay lifelessly on the ground, clearly dead for some time.
Something was off.
Lu Jingshan and Yin Liao exchanged a glance and pulled out their phones to ask in the group chat: “Did anyone find the Rat King in the areas cleared yesterday?”
A few minutes later, a reply came.
“The Sixth Squad didn’t find the Rat King.”
The Sixth Squad…
That meant this was probably the missing Rat King from Ligang.
How did it end up dumped here like trash?
The Sixth Squad clearly hadn’t taken it down, so who did?
And why dump it here?
Did it mean something?
…
Bo Ting woke up early in the morning to find that the disgusting rat from last night had vanished.
It had disappeared into thin air from inside the house.
He had planned to have Doudou carry it to a corner downstairs to dispose of it, then give Doudou a good tooth-brushing afterward. Now, he was stunned, doubting his own memory.
Wait, did his tiny one-bedroom apartment have some secret room?
How could not only Doudou come and go freely without using doors or windows, but even a dead rat with its cage vanish into thin air?
Bo Ting rubbed his chin and looked at Doudou.
The only explanation was—it did it!
“You threw out the trash for me?”
“Good dog!”
Pleased, he patted Doudou’s head. The more he looked at Doudou, the fonder he grew. He couldn’t resist bragging online to his netizen: “Mr. Xu, you know what?”
“Doudou did another big thing this morning.”
“It was so diligent—got up early and threw out that dead rat for me.”
“Oh right, that rat died on its own last night somehow.”
“Weird.”
Bo Ting hugged the dog and grumbled.
Xu Qinglai recalled the habits of Two-Headed Rats and paused. “Two-Headed Rats are pack animals. When a second-generation rat in the pack dies, the leader Rat King will naturally perish due to the severance of its neural threshold network.”
So, nothing strange about it.
Bo Ting: …
Such complex terminology.
This rat sounded pretty advanced.
But weren’t those things pack animals? How had he never seen that before?
A two-headed rat would make the news, right?
He vaguely noted the knowledge point and couldn’t help but admire.
Mr. Xu was truly knowledgeable.
As he thought that, another message from Mr. Xu arrived.
“How did you sleep last night?”
Xu Qinglai leaned back in his chair, glancing at the file just issued by the Resurgence Management Office.
“Slept great.”
Bo Ting was a bit puzzled.
Though he’d been startled by Doudou at first, once back in the bedroom, he’d slept soundly until now, waking up with sore muscles from lying still too long.
Tch.
He’d have to stretch a bit when he went downstairs later in his raincoat and mask to walk the dog—wouldn’t want to get bedsores from the AC.
Lazily reclining on the sofa, Bo Ting wondered why Mr. Xu asked, when another message came.
“Good to hear.”
“Last night’s rat disaster was pretty serious.”
“But it should all be exterminated by now.”
Huh?
Rat disaster?!
While he’d been asleep, something that big had happened last night?
Obsessed with catching up on sleep, Bo Ting hadn’t noticed at all until Mr. Xu mentioned it.
So, the city had a rat surge last night—that’s how Doudou caught the rat.
Bo Ting frowned and searched online, but perhaps it hadn’t been reported yet; the net was clean, showing nothing.
Hesitating, he @’d everyone in the [Taiping Luxury Garden Family Group].
“Streets had a rat issue last night, everyone check your homes for any dead rats.”
“What? Rats on the streets?!”
Neighboring Aunt Qian jumped in first, startled. “No way, I gotta check thoroughly.”
“If rats ruin my kitchen, I’m done for.”
Bo Ting cleared his throat. “Aunt Qian, don’t panic.”
“The outdoor rats have all been eradicated; should be fine.”
People popped up in the group one after another.
A rat problem wasn’t trivial. Everyone knew that spotting one rat visibly meant more lurked in hidden spots.
Fortunately, only Doudou seemed to have caught one last night. No traces of gray rats on other floors yet.
“No in 1904.”
“None in 212 either.”
Bo Ting relaxed upon hearing this. “Good, probably a false alarm.”
“Looks like our neighborhood got lucky last night.”
Elder Wen nodded but then added, “That said, since it’s mentioned, we should still disinfect tonight.”
“Just in case.”
The residents all agreed, and Bo Ting thought Elder Wen made a good point.
Better safe than sorry—disinfecting would make living there more reassuring.
…
Inside the Resurgence Management Office:
The dead Rat King had been brought back to the hall.
The cause of death was clear: soul dissipation due to neural threshold network severance.
However… what gave Lu Jingshan pause during the inspection was the chaotic eerie aura around the Rat King.
It wasn’t just the aura typical of Two-Headed Rats—something else was mixed in.
Considering how the Two-Headed Rat pack avoided Wenhua District, Lu Jingshan suspected this aura might be connected to that “nonexistent neighborhood”?
