Chapter Fifty-One: Stealing the Medicine

Dongsheng Island, an inconspicuous islet on the eastern coast of the Great Xia Kingdom. In earlier years, nearly two hundred families lived here, numbering over a thousand people, most of them fishermen. Yet over time, for various reasons, the island's fishermen gradually migrated elsewhere. In just over a decade, only three or five households remained, holding fast to their home.

By day, the island was desolate and empty; by night, it sank into utter silence. Only the occasional barking of a dog offered a faint trace of life to the deserted village.

Lu Chen, who had once guided three baby saltwater crocodiles on a migration to the Tiannan Mountain Nature Reserve, had stayed overnight on Dongsheng Island before and was thus somewhat familiar with the place.

It was midnight, and the island was shrouded in darkness.

Waves crashed ceaselessly on the surface of the sea. A massive creature more than a meter long, its body cloaked in black scales, quietly emerged from the water. Its pair of crimson beastly eyes surveyed the surroundings before it crawled onto the rocks at the shore.

After flexing his cold limbs a few times, Lu Chen darted toward the nearby village.

As he entered the village path, a scent of decay invaded his nostrils.

Humans are the soul of a village. A village without people is but a shell, lifeless, left to rot and crumble until it returns to dust, nothing more than a heap of broken bricks and tiles.

After crawling forty or fifty meters, he finally caught a whiff of fresh human scent.

Hurriedly, Lu Chen quickened his pace, stopping outside a courtyard gate.

The house showed no lights, but inside, he could hear two faint breaths and the unmistakable traces of daily life.

Yet the house itself bore the marks of long neglect, its walls weathered and worn. The courtyard wall rose two meters high, beside which grew a tall camphor tree.

After surveying his surroundings, Lu Chen prepared to climb the tree.

Suddenly, sharp, piercing barks broke the stillness from within the yard.

Lights flickered on inside, and soon the sound of a door opening followed.

Damn it... With a single leap, Lu Chen melted into the darkness.

He had noticed the village dog upon entering, but he hadn’t planned to bother with it. He hadn’t expected the mutt to make trouble at such a critical moment.

Half a minute later, the courtyard gate opened.

An old man appeared on the village path, wearing a headlamp and holding a fishing spear, with the barking dog at his side.

The man swept his light left and right but found nothing unusual and prepared to return indoors.

The dog, however, barked furiously at the house across the way.

“Stupid dog, what are you yapping at now?!” the old man scolded, shining his light a few more times at the neighbor’s house before berating his own dog.

The house across the lane had been abandoned for seven or eight years; no one lived there. He had just checked—its gate was securely locked, with no sign of tampering.

He failed to notice the fresh claw marks scratched on the courtyard wall’s bricks.

Unwilling to linger outside, the old man locked up, cursing as he returned to bed, leaving the poor dog shut out in the cold.

Without its master nearby, fear flickered in the dog’s eyes, and its barking grew more frantic.

“Old Xu, why don’t you check again? The dog’s barking sounds off tonight,” a woman’s voice called from inside.

“What’s there to see? I just checked—didn’t even catch a ghost’s shadow. It’s probably just some wild cat or weasel making a racket. And what do we have left for thieves to steal anyway?” the old man replied impatiently.

It was past midnight, the hour when people are most weary, and with the island winds biting in late autumn, it was especially cold. If not for his wife’s urging, he wouldn’t have bothered to look at all.

Hearing her husband’s reply, the woman said nothing further, leaving the dog to bark into the dark.

When the lights opposite went out, Lu Chen leapt over the courtyard wall again, landing lightly on the village path.

In the pitch-black night, his beastly eyes gleamed with murderous intent. His gaping maw parted, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth that glinted faintly in the dark.

Since the dog was so eager to die, it could hardly blame him for what followed.

Saving the crocodiles was a race against time; Lu Chen had no patience for distractions.

He lowered his body, then sprang forward at lightning speed.

In a flash—another flash!—he crossed over ten meters in the blink of an eye.

The dog, shrieking in terror, tried to leap away, but before it could escape, Lu Chen’s jaws clamped onto its neck.

A dull crack of breaking bone sounded. The barking stopped abruptly, and the dog’s body collapsed to the ground.

Dragging the corpse into the darkness, Lu Chen feasted, then returned to the courtyard vicinity.

After confirming the two elders were sound asleep, he bounded up the camphor tree, then with another leap, landed steadily inside the yard.

His limbs bent to absorb the impact as he touched down.

With the dog silenced, all went smoothly.

After surveying the courtyard, Lu Chen crept soundlessly to the ground-floor window. Bracing his front paws against the earth, he pushed himself upright.

His hind legs and tail formed a tripod, enabling him to stand by the wall like a human, his front paws resting on the window sill.

The glass window was unlocked; with a gentle push, he opened it a foot wide.

With another leap, Lu Chen slipped through the gap into the living room.

The room was pitch black, but to Lu Chen, nothing was hidden. He took in every detail at a glance, but found no medicine.

Impossible—most elderly people keep some basic medication at home for emergencies.

After a moment’s thought, Lu Chen looked toward the bedroom off the living room.

Raising himself upright again, he gripped the doorknob with his front paws and gave it a gentle twist.

Thankfully, the door was not locked from within, saving him much trouble.

Inside the bedroom, Lu Chen found a trove of medicine on the bedside cabinet: blood pressure pills, cholesterol tablets, and many boxes of health supplements, all in flashy packaging.

It seemed that, no matter the world, old folks delighted in buying such things.

At last, Lu Chen discovered two boxes of antibiotics. Beside them lay a smartphone, which he hesitated over, but ultimately left untouched.

In truth, Lu Chen had no idea what he’d do if he were caught stealing medicine by humans.

At the very least, he wasn’t ready to harm anyone.

Leaving the fishing village, Lu Chen carefully wrapped the medicine in a plastic bag, swallowed it whole, and slipped away into the night sea.

By dawn, he had returned to the cave.

Just as expected, in the short half a day of his absence, the clouded leopard had returned to guard the cave.

Upon seeing Lu Chen, the creature bounded off into the depths of the forest.

Lu Chen ignored him as usual, entered the cave, and spat out the plastic bag.

The packaging was intact, the medicine boxes inside still dry. No wonder so many animals in his past life died from swallowing plastic—this stuff was nearly indigestible.

Even with his formidable digestive system, Lu Chen could not dissolve the bag.

Opening the medicine boxes and studying the instructions in the faint light from the cave entrance, he tried to discern the dosage and usage.

Yet after reading through, he remained uncertain. He could only follow the human dosage as a reference and let the three little ones each swallow some.