Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
This was a scent that Xiang Kun had never smelled before. It was not the smell of a cat or a dog or any animal that he knew. However, he did not feel strange as, after all, his “database” of scents was limited. Moreover, most of his data came from the city.
What animal was it?
Xiang Kun suddenly felt curious. When he became curious, he had to find it out.
He turned around and turned on his flashlight. He took a tree branch and began to check the body of the rat.
There were many unknown insects on the body of the rat. As Xiang Kun shone the light and used a tree branch to touch the rat, the insects began to crawl quickly in all directions. Some scurried into the grass, while some crawled into the mud. There were also many maggots crawling on the dead body of the rat.
If he had seen this in the past, Xiang Kun would’ve felt disgusted. However, he did not feel much now. He could even analyze the scents on the insects and the sounds they made as they crawled.
After checking, he realized that the rat had probably been dead for a while. However, he did not know how to deduce the time of death based on the degree of rot.
Xiang Kun smelled the surroundings again. The source that produced the weird scent had probably left long ago. The source was not around, as the smell was no longer obvious. It was almost undetectable.
There was a huge possibility that the source of the smell was the animal that had killed the rat.
However, he felt strange. Although the rat had died miserably, it did not have any missing limbs and its body was rather complete. After its body was cut open, its intestines were not eaten. Did that mean that the animal that killed it merely killed it because the animal did not like the rat, and treated it like an animal?
However, the scent was not from a cat or a dog. Apart from cats or dogs, what other animals would do that?
Xiang Kun took a few more whiffs and began to find the direction of the scent. However, after taking a few steps, he could not find the direction at all.
Could it be because it had been too long?
Xiang Kun flashed the light of his cell phone around the rat, checking the ground for any footprints. However, even after the battery of his cell phone was about to run out, he could not find any useful information. Apart from his footprints, there was no useful information or information that he could make use of.
He turned off the flashlight on his phone and sat down. He took a deep breath, relaxed his muscles, and closed his eyes. He began to use his sense of smell and hearing to explore the surroundings.
Xiang Kun was not merely practising, he was searching.
The scent that had attracted his attention made him very curious. Even if he could not find the source, he hoped that he could find a similar scent in the forest. Then he could trace it and find out what creature had left the scent behind.
Every creature had a different scent. Every class of living thing also had their own unique scent.
The special scent earlier on was not obvious when mixed with other scents.
However, just as Xiang Kun was about to leave, he smelled the scent again and was attracted to it. The scent did not belong in his “database” and was a scent that he had never smelled before.
This was a natural instinct. It was as though his body was telling him to notice the scent.
Xiang Kun sat in the mountains until sunrise. He sat around five meters away from the dead rat.
An ordinary person would feel nervous and uneasy if he sat in a pitch dark forest at night. At least he would worry about insects crawling on his body.
However, although Xiang Kun had his eyes closed and could not see anything, he knew what was happening around him. There was an earthworm digging into the soil, an insect finding food, a spider making its cobweb, a few ants moving in a row… Oh, and a beetle fell onto his shoulder. He flicked it with his finger.
Fortunately, mosquitoes were not interested in him. He had never been bitten by any mosquitoes ever since the changes happened to his body.
For the entire night, Xiang Kun waited for the scent to reappear.
Of course, although the mountain was very small, he could not search the entire mountain using sounds and smell by sitting in one spot.
Therefore, he began to search the mountain after he got up.
He did not do that the previous night because although his senses of hearing and smell were exceptional and he could walk on the streets with his eyes closed, on the mountain, where there were no paths, he would probably hit a tree or lose his footing easily.
He spent the morning searching the small mountain.
At about 1 PM, he finally left and jogged back home. After changing out the dirty clothes and taking a shower, Xiang Kun went to the biggest zoo in the city.
Xiang Kun could not stop thinking about the scent. He always emphasised on the “signals” his body gave him even though the “signals” might not be obvious. That was because it could help him understand his body better.
Therefore, he went to the zoo to build up his existing “database”.
He wanted to see if there were any samples with the same scent as the smell from earlier.
After buying a ticket, Xiang Kun went in and collected the scent of every single animal.
Although some animals remained hidden and did not roam about in the areas for visitors to see, it did not stop Xiang Kun from “capturing” their scents.
Until about 6 PM, when the zoo was about to close, Xiang Kun analyzed all the scents in the zoo in detail.
However, unfortunately, none of the scents coincided with the special scent he had smelled the previous night.
That made Xiang Kun even more curious.
After he returned home, he took a flashlight, went back to the small mountain, and found the dead rat.
It was already 8 PM. Xiang Kun held the flashlight on one hand and a wooden stick on the other and began to examine the dead rat.
Although the decay was worse, Xiang Kun found two cuts in the rat’s body that made it seem like it was hurt by claws.
However, the claw was about as thick as his index finger.
A big animal of the felidae family?
However, that should not be the case. He had smelled almost all the animals belonging to the felidae family in the zoo today.
Moreover, it was not a remote forest, so there should not be any wild creatures around. At most, there would only be wild cats and wild dogs.
In fact, even if there was a carnivorous creature, there should not be only a dead rat. There should be more signs around. The fact that there were no footprints around the dead rat was even stranger.
Xiang Kun began to search around the mountain and lake but found nothing.
After sunrise, he went up to the mountain again and searched carefully near the location of the dead rat. At 5 PM, he had not found any clues and could not find any signs of wild creatures.
Xiang Kun began to wonder if he was being a little too stubborn.
Could it be that he had misjudged the scent as the scent was already disappearing?
When he returned home, he bumped into the lady who owned the husky. She walked out of the lift in a hurry and frowned.
She did not greet Xiang Kun, so Xiang Kun did not greet her. Both of them passed each other as though they did not see each other.
However, after Xiang Kun pressed the button in the lift, the lady suddenly turned back and stopped the door of the lift.