Chapter 377: The Rump Rat

“Ah?”

“What’s wrong, Shui Miao? Did you sense something?”

As soon as Lin Xue and Chu Miaoyi heard Shui Miao’s words, they became instantly tense.

They knew Shui Miao was a serious and responsible person who wouldn’t joke around at a moment like this.

Shui Miao furrowed his brows and concentrated for a moment before opening his eyes. His expression was grave as he said, “I sensed two beings inside the church—one large and one small. They have no yang energy at all—only yin energy. They resemble humans, but they’re definitely not human.”

“What? What are they? Could they be foreigners?” Lin Xue quickly asked.

Shui Miao shook his head. “Outwardly, they look just like us—Han Chinese. One is an old man, and the other is a little boy, about seven or eight years old. But if you look closely, you can see the differences. Their ears are sharper than normal, their teeth are pointed, and their pupils are extremely small—like tiny mouse droppings.”

“I know! They must be vampires, definitely!” Lin Xue’s eyes lit up with excitement as she blurted out.

Chu Miaoyi found it hard to believe. “This seems a bit hard to accept. Vampires are fictional characters from movies. They can’t possibly exist in real life, right?”

“Ah, Miaoyi, you’re wrong there. Didn’t we used to think ghosts didn’t exist either? But now we believe, don’t we?” After explaining to Chu Miaoyi, Lin Xue turned to Shui Miao with conviction. “Shui, I’m sure now—they must be vampires. What a lucky break! Let’s prepare some silver weapons and go take them down!”

“Hold on,” Chu Miaoyi, ever the more cautious one, interjected. “Vampires are supposed to be afraid of crucifixes. Why would they hide inside a church?”

“That’s easy to explain,” Lin Xue replied excitedly. “The most dangerous place can be the safest. It seems they actually understand our culture pretty well!”

Lin Xue was convinced the old man and the child were vampires, leaving Chu Miaoyi and Shui Miao speechless.

“Calm down. Let me check again first…”

Shui Miao had never encountered such creatures before and wasn’t convinced they were vampires. He immediately summoned a wave of soul-piercing energy and directed it toward the church. Under his mental control, the energy entered the church and descended underground, arriving at the door of a room.

Underneath the church was a large hidden basement. The air was damp and filled with clutter and maze-like sewage pipes. The older creature was sleeping while the younger one was playing around like a cat, sneaking about with stealthy movements, though it was unclear exactly what it was doing.

The older creature appeared to be in his seventies, slightly thin, and was sleeping peacefully.

As Shui Miao’s energy approached the younger creature, it suddenly darted toward a corner at lightning speed. “Haha! I caught you again—you lose again!”

The little monster had caught a large rat. It held the rat in its arms, gently stroking it. Strangely, the rat didn’t try to escape and seemed unusually docile. After playing for a while, the little monster placed the rat back on the ground and tugged on the old creature’s hand. “Grandpa, grandpa! I want to go out and play! Please let me go out for just a little while!”

The old creature, awakened by the noise, pulled the little monster close and comforted it. “Xiaobao, I’ve told you so many times—we can’t go out during the day. People outside see us as monsters now. If we go out, they’ll kill us! Be patient until nightfall. Then I’ll take you out for some tofu pudding, okay?”

“Okay! Promise! Pinky swear!”

The little monster extended its pinky finger and made a pinky swear with its grandfather before obediently going to sleep nearby.

Sensing this scene, Shui Miao’s thoughts stirred, and he quickly withdrew his energy.

“They’re not just ordinary monsters—they must have once been human,” Shui Miao said as he opened his eyes. He noticed Lin Xue and Chu Miaoyi staring at him intently and felt slightly awkward. “Well… um… Lin Xue, the situation is much more complicated than we imagined. Let me sense again—please don’t speak loudly. I’m afraid they might hear us.”

“Okay, understood!”

“We won’t rush…”

Lin Xue and Chu Miaoyi both responded.

To avoid their intense stares, Shui Miao lowered his head, rested his chin on his hand, and focused his senses. This time, he tried to enter the little monster’s mind to search for clues in its memories.

But suddenly, he realized that both the old and the young creatures had disappeared.

“How could this happen?”

Had they been discovered? Startled, Shui Miao immediately scanned the surroundings, but he couldn’t find any trace of the two creatures in the basement room.

They couldn’t have gone far!

Determined not to give up, Shui Miao expanded his spiritual perception into the city’s sewer system to search further.

The sewers were a maze of filth, filled with rats and maggots, making the environment extremely unpleasant. After scanning for a while, Shui Miao began to feel physically unwell. He persisted for a little longer but still found nothing, so he finally withdrew his spiritual sense and gave up.

“They’re gone. I suspect they overheard our conversation…” Shui Miao lowered his voice. “Let’s just leave for now. We mustn’t act rashly until we figure out the situation.”

He glanced pointedly at Lin Xue as he said this.

Chu Miaoyi understood his meaning and chimed in, “That makes sense. Those two monsters are really powerful—they vanished in the blink of an eye. We wouldn’t be foolish enough to come looking for them blindly.”

“Indeed, they were extremely fast,” Shui Miao nodded, sighing. “I still can’t figure out what they really are. Anyway, let’s go back first and keep an eye on Guo Jing. We can deal with this matter later.”

“Right, right!” Lin Xue nodded repeatedly. “Guo Jing might have already fled with the money. If he escapes overseas, we’ll never catch him. Let’s go, Lin Jie?”

Lin Xue clicked her tongue in disappointment but reluctantly drove away.

As it turned out, Lin Xue was a huge vampire enthusiast. She was convinced the creatures hiding in the church were vampires and couldn’t wait to meet them. She felt no fear—only excitement.

But now, she felt deeply disappointed.

Back at the station, Chu Miaoyi assigned Lin Xue to lead a team to monitor Guo Jing. If any sign of him attempting to flee with money emerged, they were to arrest him immediately without hesitation.

Lin Xue, sullen and silent, took a few officers to begin surveillance on Guo Jing.

With nothing else to do, Shui Miao returned to his shop.

The shop remained unchanged. Shui Miao lay on a reclining chair, practiced the Ling Tong Jue and Zong Heng Ce techniques, and began pondering the events at the church.

“If they really are vampires, they should possess European black magic. If they do, they might have transformed into bats and used black magic to escape my spiritual sensing. That’s certainly possible… But where could they have gone?” Shui Miao reflected on his search. When he first noticed their disappearance, he hadn’t thoroughly scanned every inch of the area. Perhaps there were hidden compartments underground? Or maybe there were places among the clutter where someone could hide. He realized he shouldn’t have hastily scanned only briefly before rushing to search farther away. Perhaps they had transformed into bats and were hanging upside down somewhere?

The entire afternoon, Shui Miao’s thoughts were consumed by the creatures in the church.

As the sun neared the horizon, Wang Yong arrived as agreed.

Shui Miao invited Wang Yong to a small restaurant, ordered a few dishes, and chatted with him while they ate, discussing his grandfather’s gambling habits. He also returned the ten thousand yuan he had borrowed from Wang Yong for renting the shop, adding an extra two thousand.

In no time, only ten thousand yuan remained from the original hundred thousand.

After finishing the meal, Shui Miao went to a store and bought a new phone, along with some phone credit, spending another five thousand.

On their way back to the shop, Shui Miao recounted his experience at the church that day, describing the creatures he had sensed, and asked Wang Yong if he knew what they were.

Shui Miao hadn’t really intended to ask Wang Yong—these creatures were extremely rare, and he assumed Wang Yong wouldn’t know anything about them.

But with nothing else to talk about, he asked casually.

To his surprise, after hearing Shui Miao’s account, Wang Yong became visibly excited. “Shui Miao, is everything you said true?”

“It’s all true, Dad,” Shui Miao blinked his eyes. “You don’t think I’m making this up, do you? Hey, Dad, you actually know something about them?”

“Know? Of course I do! When I was a kid, I was treasure hunting in a tomb and got bitten by one of these creatures. I nearly died. The old man and the child you described must have been bitten by the same thing. They were poisoned and then transformed. They’re not demons—they’re just victims of a disease caused by the creature’s poison. I was lucky. I met an old man who was very knowledgeable. He treated me using Western methods. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be alive today.” Drunk and reminiscing, Wang Yong grew more and more excited. “Shui Miao, take me there now! Those two might even be my old playmates—they might have come all the way to Huang Hai City specifically to find me after being poisoned. The old man only passed his treatment method down to me—nobody else knows it.”

How could such a coincidence exist in this world? Shui Miao found it hard to believe Wang Yong’s story. “Dad, you’re saying all this, but what exactly is this creature you’re talking about? Maybe you mixed it up with something else.”

“It’s called… called something like ‘Kao Shu’—I can’t remember the exact name. Anyway, it looks somewhat like a rat. At first, there’s no problem after a person is bitten, but over time, they start fearing light and loving darkness. Then their whole body begins to itch, especially their ears. After a month or so of itching, the ears start peeling, then gradually become pointed. Their teeth fall out and are replaced with sharp fangs. The most noticeable change is in their pupils—they keep shrinking until they’re as small as a mouse dropping. According to the old man, if the bitten person develops a layer of black fur all over their body, they’ll completely transform into a monster—huge, inhuman, and extremely violent and bloodthirsty, beyond terrifying!”

“Kao Shu!?”

A chill ran through Shui Miao. It seemed Wang Yong really did recognize this creature.