Chapter 36

After seeing Wang Zhuo and the others off, Su Jing sent Shi Qing home.

However, as they walked, both of them tacitly took a detour, strolling along the beach.

Su Jing had been back for almost ten days. He had seen Shi Qing twice before, but this was the first time they were alone together.

Su Jing really wanted to ask why she had been angry with him for half a year, but looking at her beautiful profile and her hair fluttering in the wind, he didn't want to break the moment.

Shi Qing was also secretly observing Su Jing. She felt that since he returned, he had become somewhat inscrutable. His fishing and cooking skills were almost divine, and even the young master of the Wang family treated him with respect, investing in tourism development with him. This problem, which had troubled her and the people of Qingyun Town for a long time, seemed to have been easily solved by him.

"Hey, why are you staring at me?" Noticing that Su Jing was always looking at her, a blush rose to Shi Qing's cheeks.

"How would you know I'm looking at you if you don't look at me?" Su Jing smiled.

"You're still as full of nonsense as before." Shi Qing gave him a slight glare.

"I'm telling the truth." Su Jing paused slightly, then asked tentatively, "By the way, you seemed angry with me before. Did I do something to offend you?"

"I'm not angry." Shi Qing blinked.

"You say you're not angry, but you ignored me for half a year." Su Jing was speechless.

"I heard you have a girlfriend, so I didn't want to bother you." Shi Qing said naturally.

"Uh..." Su Jing was taken aback. So she knew. Could it be that she was jealous? He quickly explained, "I'm not really dating her; she's just a college classmate."

Su Jing felt a bit guilty saying this. At that time, he had indeed had a good impression of that girl, and they had already held hands, almost confirming their relationship. Unfortunately, her parents intervened, and the plot was quite melodramatic. Simply put, her family was wealthy and thought Su Jing was not a good match. Unlike in melodramas, the girl didn't break down in tears; she broke up with Su Jing very casually.

"Hehe, they didn't think you were good enough and dumped you, right?" Shi Qing smiled with a hint of schadenfreude, her eyes even crinkling with amusement.

"..." Su Jing was almost in tears. Being dumped was a sad thing, and not even offering comfort was one thing, but to be so gleeful about it?

Just then, a sharp bark came from a distance.

"Help me stop that beast." A middle-aged man was chasing a half-grown, bloodied stray dog with a kitchen knife.

"Uncle San, what are you doing?" Su Jing was taken aback. The middle-aged man was called Su Zhenqiao, not Su Jing's real uncle, but a close neighbor. He remembered that the stray dog belonged to Su Zhenqiao. What had it done to deserve being chased with a knife?

"Jing, help me catch that mad dog so I can kill it." Su Zhenqiao shouted.

"How can I stop it?" Su Jing was speechless. A mad dog was not easy to stop, even though Su Jing was now very strong, he wasn't invincible. If he got bitten, he could get rabies.

As Su Jing was thinking this, the stray dog ran past. Su Jing quickly shielded Shi Qing behind him, vigilantly guarding against the dog. In this focused state, he suddenly felt that the dog's movements seemed slow, and it might not be hard to stop it.

This thought took hold, and almost reflexively, his hands shot out, instantly grabbing the dog's neck and pinning it to the ground. The dog whimpered and struggled but couldn't move. Su Jing was delighted, thinking that eating monster meat for a long time had not only increased his strength but also his reaction speed.

"Good job, Jing. Hold it there, let me kill it." Su Zhenqiao ran over.

"Uncle San, slow down. Isn't this your dog? Why do you want to kill it?" Su Jing was almost laughing and crying. Uncle San was usually gentle, but today he seemed so cruel.

"The dog is mad; it has to be killed." Su Zhenqiao said, both angry and sad.

"Mad?" Su Jing looked into the dog's eyes and saw that they were clear, with a look of fear and sadness, like a dog that had been abandoned by its owner. This didn't look like madness. Su Jing didn't notice that at this moment, a few drops of the dog's blood on his pants pocket were suddenly absorbed by the jade pendant inside.

Then, Su Jing heard a childish, tearful voice: "Wah, don't kill me, don't kill me."

Su Jing was stunned and quickly looked around. He saw only Su Zhenqiao and Shi Qing. The voice sounded like a little boy, definitely not them. Was he hallucinating? Su Jing shook his head, thinking it must have been a hallucination.

But the next moment, the childish voice sounded again: "A-Tu didn't do anything bad, A-Tu isn't mad, don't kill me, master."

Su Jing was suddenly stunned, mechanically lowering his head to look at the dog he was holding. A-Tu was its name, given by Su Zhenqiao. Could it be that the voice was coming from the dog?

"My God! Am I going mad? I'm actually hearing a dog talk?" Su Jing was almost driven to the brink of madness. He considered himself mentally sound, far from being a lunatic, but at this moment, he had a fleeting doubt.

"A-Tu isn't mad, A-Tu just has a very painful tooth, something is stuck in it." The childish voice continued, regardless of whether Su Jing could accept it.

"Calm down! Calm down!" Su Jing took two deep breaths and quickly calmed down. He didn't believe he was mad. From the reactions of Shi Qing and Su Zhenqiao, they hadn't heard those three sentences, so it couldn't be that the dog was really speaking. The only explanation was that he had somehow understood the dog's language. But how could he suddenly have this superpower?

A flash of inspiration struck Su Jing, and he reached into his pocket, touching the jade pendant. If there was any difference between him and before, it was that he had this jade pendant. The sudden ability to understand dog language was likely related to this pendant.

"Where does it hurt?" Su Jing asked the dog tentatively, his heart filled with trepidation and complexity. Shi Qing and Su Zhenqiao were slightly stunned but didn't think much of it; talking to animals could actually be helpful in calming them.

"The tooth on this side hurts." As the childish voice spoke, Su Jing noticed the dog whimpered twice. After a closer look, he saw a sharp fish bone stuck in the dog's left gum, which was already infected.

"Can we really communicate?" Su Jing was overjoyed. After the initial panic, he became excited. Being able to directly communicate with a dog was such a magical and interesting thing. He turned to Su Zhenqiao and said, "Uncle San, the dog isn't mad; it has a fish bone stuck in its gum, which is infected and causing a lot of pain."