Encountering a dead cat and a dead deer was just the beginning. Before noon, Famous, who was walking in front, smelled a third strange smell.
Although Zhang Zian couldn't smell it, judging from the elfins' reactions, he had already guessed the owner of the third animal corpse — it was still a cat.
Sure enough, he and the elfins followed the smell and found the source of the smell in a tree hole. It was an American Shorthair.
Similar to the situation of the Maine mixed-breed, this American Shorthair had also been bitten by sharp teeth. After hiding in the tree hole, it had died from excessive blood loss.
Zhang Zian poked the body of the American Shorthair with a branch. It hadn't completely stiffened, which proved that it hadn't been dead for too long.
He and the elfins stood next to each other, and no one spoke for a long time.
If there was only one cat, it could be said to be a coincidence. However, in such a short distance, they had already encountered two cats that had died from the same cause of death. Could this be explained as a coincidence? No one would believe it no matter who said it.
Not only was the cause of death the same, but even the time of death was almost the same. The strangest thing was that the bodies were still intact, which meant that the beast that killed them had not intended to eat them.
It was just to bite them to death, not to hunt for food.
People often said that only humans would kill for no reason, and animals would only kill when they needed to eat. This saying was applicable to most ferocious beasts, such as the great white shark. When it was full, divers could swim beside it.
However, there were always exceptions. Many canines, such as wolves, foxes, and jackals, would occasionally carry out senseless killings. In the past, in the countryside, there was often a situation where a fox got into a chicken coop and killed all the chickens.
It was reasonable to say that a fox could not eat so many chickens in any case. It could eat one, take away another, and then let the others go. It could come back later to eat again. Why would it kill all of them?
Wolves and jackals also had similar situations. For example, a jackal would sneak into a sheep pen and kill all the sheep.
Whether it was in China or abroad, similar things were not uncommon.
In the forest of northwestern Canada, scientists once witnessed a pack of wolves killing more than 30 reindeer in a short period of time. The carcasses were scattered over a few square kilometers, but only a few were eaten. Most of them were discarded after being bitten to death.
It should be known that the success rate of wolves hunting was not as high as people usually thought. It was only about one in ten. That was why wolves often only had enough to eat once a week. So it was very puzzling that they killed the precious food and did not eat it.
In the past, the people of the older generation hated foxes, wolves, and jackals to the bone. They would kill them on sight, which led to the current situation where these animals were almost extinct.
Cats are like that sometimes.
Why did these animals do such senseless killing? Did they kill for pleasure, just like the criminals in the human world?
No one knew.
Perhaps they were not doing this for no reason, it was just that humans could not understand the hidden meaning behind it.
The current situation was as if a group of scavengers had appeared in the forest and were carrying out a senseless killing similar to the one above.
Another thing that people could not understand was why house cats appeared one after another in the depths of the forest.
Without needing Old Time Tea to say anything, Zhang Zian took the initiative to take out the folding shovel and bury the dead American shorthair. Before burying it in the ground, he took a few photos of the American shorthair.
Everyone continued on the road in silence. Other than Richard, who was still noisy, no one spoke. They were all thinking about the internal reasons behind these strange things.
In the end, before they set up camp in the evening, they had encountered a total of four cat carcasses and two deer carcasses that day. The way they died was basically the same.
The deer carcasses attracted scavengers. The carcasses were incomplete, so the cause of death could not be determined. The cats were all bitten to death.
In the end, Old Time Tea was too embarrassed to ask Zhang Zian to bury the carcasses.
After supper, they sat around the fire, gazing at the roaring flames. No one thought of going to bed early.
"What the f * ck!" Vladimir cursed and broke the silence, but he didn't say anything else.
Zhang Zian stole a glance at Fina. He thought that Fina would be furious because of this, but he did not expect it to be so restrained from beginning to end. In a sense, this made him even more worried. Could it be that this guy was secretly planning to die in silence?
Fina's expression was very calm. It maintained the thoughtful look that it had for the whole day.
"Quack! It's time for me to show up! " Although Richard could not see anything, it did not affect its ability to talk nonsense. "Let me show you the way!"
No one paid attention to it. No one was in the mood to joke around.
Richard was thick-skinned enough that it did not feel embarrassed to be ignored. It continued to say, "Quack! In my opinion, the first thing to do is to find out the cause of the cat's death! Watson, what do you think? "
It patted Zhang Zian's head, indicating that he should speak.
"Cause of death? You are not only blind at night, but also during the day? "He pushed its wings away impatiently." Can't you see that they were all bitten to death? "
"Quack! I said you are an idiot, and you still won't admit it! Of course I know that the cats were bitten to death, but why were they bitten to death? "It raised a strange question.
"Why? How would I know? It's not like I was the one who killed them … "He replied without thinking.
"Quack! So, Watson, you can only be a supporting character. As the protagonist, I, Richard Holmes, will not be as stupid as you! To deal with such a cruel serial killer, the first thing to do is to find out what the victims have in common! " Richard pretended to jump up and down, only regretting that it did not have a pair of glasses that it could put on its beak.
"What the victims have in common? Aren't they all cats? "Zhang Zian asked.
"Look, look, tsk tsk! Rotten wood cannot be carved! " Richard shook his head and sighed exasperatedly. "If four human beings were killed, and I asked you what the victims had in common, would you answer, dare you answer — are all the victims human beings?"
Zhang Zian was speechless. If he really dared to answer like that, he would probably be torn apart by the families of the victims.
No matter how careless Richard usually was, at least this time, it was reasonable.
He and the other elfins were all thinking about what kind of animal killed these cats.
Richard, however, approached the problem from a unique detective perspective. He thought about what the victims had in common.
What was in common?
Other than the first mixed-breed Maine cat, Zhang Zian had taken photos of the other three cats before burying them. He took out his phone, opened the photo album, and browsed through the photos one by one.
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