Traveling back to ancient times to determine the zodiac

"Cave Master, have the rabbits returned? Otherwise, why can't we find even a single one?" Dong again doubted the possibility of the existence of the rabbit herd.

"Dong, according to my intuition, the Rabbit King and his group cannot just retreat like this. They must be hiding somewhere that cannot be found. Everyone must not take it lightly and must be careful." Qiu warned everyone.

Back in the cave, Ying was still crying. Qiu persuaded her, "Ying, since Guo is dead, there is no point in crying. Just accept the change and mourn! Guo was injured in a bullfight and died for resisting Emperor Nian. He is our hero and a warrior worthy of pride. Let's bury him now!"

Ying nodded, indicating her agreement to bury Guo. So Qiu led his men to choose a piece of land on a nearby hill and ordered them to bury Guo. After the funeral, everyone felt very heavy-hearted.

Night fell slowly. After dinner, in order to prevent the rabbits from attacking again at night, Qiu decided to set up two patrol teams to monitor the whole night. Once they found the rabbits invading, they would immediately call the police and kill them. The captains of the two teams were still led by Dong and Xiaoxing respectively. The two teams took turns patrolling, and everyone went to sleep peacefully.

Qiu came to the bottom of the cave and knelt down to pray to the statue of Nuwa on the back wall: "Nuwa Goddess, Bai Ling Angel, the tiger king's siege has just ended, and the rabbit king and his army are attacking again. These rabbits sneak into the cave and poison people. May Nuwa Goddess bless us to capture the rabbit king as soon as possible and eliminate the hidden dangers."

After praying for a long time, he went to rest.

To everyone's surprise, the night passed peacefully. The rabbits did not attack again, which made people suspicious. In the next two nights, there was still no movement from the rabbit army, and Dong's suspicion began again: Have the rabbit army retreated long ago?

In fact, the rabbit king and his army did not retreat. Because they had alarmed the people that night, the rabbit king was so scared that he quickly withdrew. After evacuating Tianju Cave, he led his army to flee to Zhuashugang. Only after he escaped into the cave did the rabbit king's heart, which had been pounding wildly, calm down. Because he was frightened, the rabbit king rested in the cave for three consecutive days. On the fourth night, the rabbit king finally regained some courage and decided to lead his army to attack humans again.

The moonlight was dim, and the rabbit army quietly came to Tianju Cave again, but the three people guarding the gate were still the same as before. The fire in the cave was dim and silent. The rabbit king turned his long ears and listened for a long time, then said to the black rabbit spirit beside him: "It's so late at night, I think everyone must have fallen asleep. Everyone should be more careful tonight, and don't fail like last time. Try to poison and annihilate all humans this time, complete the mission and return home."

When the black rabbit spirit and the other rabbit spirits heard this, they nodded in agreement and started digging tunnels again.

The patrol team of the East Group had not seen any rabbits attacking for several days, so they thought the rabbits had retreated, so they all became lazy and often sat down to take a nap.

When the rabbit king and his soldiers sneaked in from the tunnel, Dong and Xi were sitting on the ground and dozing off. The rabbit king and his soldiers came out from underground and looked around, but seeing that people did not notice, they were relieved and were about to start poisoning. At this time, Xiao Xing and Chen from another team had patrolled here. Chen had the brightest eyes and was the first to spot the rabbit king who was about to spray poison. He shouted: "The rabbits are attacking again! Everyone, quickly kill them."

He shouted and ran towards the rabbit king with a stick in hand. Dong, Xi and others were dozing off when they suddenly heard a rabbit coming in. Heizi was dazed and saw a fast-moving object in front of him. He thought it was a rabbit and reached out to grab it. He heard two sounds of "thump" and "ouch!" It turned out that he had mistaken Chen's foot for a rabbit and grabbed it, causing him to fall flat on his face.

The rabbit king and the rabbit soldiers saw that the situation was exposed and hurriedly fled from the cave. When Chen got up and looked for the rabbits with everyone else, there was not a single one left. Angrily, Xiaoxing stamped his feet and shouted, "Hey, Dong brother, you guys fell asleep during patrol, which really ruined everything."

"Xing, don't be anxious. The rabbit just ran away, it must not have gone far. Let's go out of the hole and continue chasing it." Dong knew that he had failed in his duty and said with great regret.

"Okay, everyone, hurry up and chase after him, maybe we can catch up." Xiaoxing waved his hand, holding a torch and led everyone to chase outside the cave.

The rabbits had not escaped far, so everyone chased them desperately in the moonlight. When they reached the mouse-catching area, the rabbits that were vague in front of them suddenly disappeared. Everyone searched everywhere, but they didn't find a single rabbit until dawn.

"Damn it, this is so weird. The Rabbit Army clearly disappeared here suddenly. Why can't we find them?" Dong said confused and depressed.

"Brother Dong, could it be that we are seeing things and the Rabbit Army is actually fleeing forward?" Xi proposed a hypothesis.

"Well, it's possible. Let's look ahead." Xiaoxing was also very confused.

After searching for another seven or eight miles, they still found nothing. They returned along the same route and soon met Qiu and his warriors who came to support them. Qiu asked hurriedly, "Dong, Xing, have you caught up with the Rabbit King? Have you found anything?"

"Reporting to the cave master, when we chased to the rat-catching post, the rabbit army disappeared inexplicably. We searched everywhere but found no trace of them." Dong replied.

"If Brother Dong and the others hadn't been sleeping, perhaps the Rabbit King would have been captured by me. Alas!" Chen said with a sigh.

"Dong, I ordered you to patrol, but why are you sleeping? This is so irresponsible!" Qiu asked sternly.

"We didn't sleep, we just took a nap. Who would have thought that the rabbits would suddenly attack us." Dong explained hurriedly.

"You, you, ah——" Qiu sighed and continued: "Old people often say: Be prepared for rainy days when it's sunny, and think about the times when there are no times. Since you have to patrol at night, you should sleep more during the day so that you won't feel sleepy."

"Cave Master, Dong, Xi, Bei and others have been patrolling all night, and it is very tiring. It is understandable that they took a nap. I think we should not blame them too much." Ping advised.

Qiu glanced at Ping, nodded, stroked his white beard, and said in a softer tone: "I know you are working hard, but this concerns the safety of everyone. I hope you can learn from this, do you hear me?"

"Yes, nephew knows I was wrong! I will be more careful next time." Dong agreed timidly.

Everyone returned to Tianju Cave. As they were constantly disturbed by the rabbits, they could not rest in peace. Everyone was in a very bad mood. Dong gritted his teeth and said, "Damn it, I will not come back until I catch the rabbit king next time."

His wife Li was shocked when she heard this: "Dong, if you don't come back, what will happen to my mother and me? Woohoo... you have no conscience."

"Cry, cry you dead head! Do you have so no confidence in me?" Dong cursed irritably.

"Brother Dong, it is said that a cunning rabbit has three burrows. Plus, they hide during the day and come out at night, so it is really possible that we won't be able to catch the Rabbit King and his men!" Xi said worriedly.

"Xi, you are discouraged all day long. Aren't they just a group of rabbits? I don't believe they can escape from my palm!" Dong scolded again.

"Brother Dong, if we hadn't dozed off last night, we would have caught the Rabbit King." Heizi looked regretful.

"Well," Dong nodded, "We were too sleepy last night because we didn't get enough rest during the day. So, let's all have a good sleep during the day and get enough rest so that we can catch the rabbits in one fell swoop at night."

"Yes, Brother Dong." Xi, Bei, Zhong, Heizi and others agreed, and then went to rest.

Everyone slept until dusk, and then got up. When they patrolled at night, they were in high spirits, and they patrolled without blinking. Until dawn, the rabbit king did not come to attack.

For three days, the rabbits still did not attack. The rabbit king and his army stayed in the cave of Zhuoshugang, complaining to Emperor Nian: "Damn Emperor Nian, humans are so vicious and terrifying, but they sent us to conquer them. How can we be a match for humans?"

"Your Majesty, we cannot defeat humans, let alone Emperor Nian. We are really in a dilemma!" said a white rabbit spirit.

"The strong prey on the weak. As low-level herbivores, we have no choice but to live." The Rabbit King sighed.

All the rabbits were worried and helpless when they heard this. At this time, the black rabbit spirit offered another suggestion: "Rabbit King, since we can't annihilate humans, I think it's better to hide forever or escape."

"Tsk!" The Rabbit King glared at the rabbit spirit and said, "Little Blackie, what do you know? If we neither attack nor retreat, we will be violating the orders of Emperor Nian. With Emperor Nian's brutal character, will he let us go? Even if we flee to the ends of the earth, he will find us and kill us."

When the rabbit spirits heard this, they were all shocked: "Will we be found even if we hide? Is Emperor Nian really that powerful?"

"Of course." The rabbit king turned his long ears and said, "Do you think the rooster is just leading us? In fact, it is a military supervisor. Our every move cannot escape its eyes. We have nowhere to hide even if we want to."

Upon hearing this, the rabbit spirits all drooped their long ears, looking very dejected.

The Rabbit King shook his long tail again and said helplessly: "My people, if you retreat, you will die. If you don't retreat, you will die too. I think we should just attack with all our might."

At midnight that night, the Rabbit King led the rabbits out of the cave for the third time and came to the outside of Tianju Cave as usual. The Rabbit King turned his long ears to listen and watched for a while. The cave seemed to be even quieter than the previous two times. The Rabbit King immediately ordered: "My people, follow me, strive to succeed and return to the nest."

All the rabbits followed the rabbit king and dug a tunnel to sneak in again, but this time they were not so lucky. Just when the rabbits came out of the hole and were about to find a target to poison, Dong's patrol team happened to see them. Dong shouted, "The rabbits are coming again, brothers, hurry up!"

He was seen holding a stone axe, rushing towards the rabbit king quickly, and chopped it down with one axe. The rabbit king knew that he had been discovered, and he didn't care about the other rabbits, and went to the cave. But he was still a step too late. Although his body got into the cave, his tail was chopped off by Dong. The rabbit king screamed and had to flee in pain. The other rabbit spirits and rabbit soldiers ran away quickly, and those who ran slowly were captured alive by everyone.

“Damn it, if the Rabbit King hadn’t run away so fast, I would have chopped him to death with this axe!” Dong picked up the bloody long tail and showed off to everyone.

"Brother Dong, we have accomplished a great feat this time." Xi couldn't help but get excited and said, "Look, we have captured dozens of rabbits alive. What do you think we should do with them?"

"Haha! In my opinion, just kill them with one knife and then roast them into delicious rabbit skewers." Shugen couldn't help drooling.

"Shugen, you are such a glutton!" Dong glared at Shugen and said, "You still need to ask the cave master how to deal with it."

After this commotion, people were awakened and gathered around to watch. Qiu got up and came to everyone. Seeing that many rabbit spirits were caught, he was very happy and praised Dong and others, saying, "Dong, Xi, you did a great job this time. Although the rabbit king escaped, it was not easy to catch these rabbit spirits. This time, you have dealt a blow to the arrogance of the rabbits and made us more powerful."

"Cave Master, what should we do with these rabbits? Kill them or keep them?" Dong asked as he picked up a rabbit spirit.

The rabbit spirit tucked its tail between its legs, trembling all over in fear. Qiu looked at the rabbit spirits, stroked his white beard, and said, "Killing one or two rabbit spirits will not help. I think it would be better if we use these rabbit spirits as spies to lead us to find their hiding place."