Henry: "Maybe we should call the police. Oops, no signal here. What a great place to spend your birthday."
Everyone: “…”
Henry: "It looked like something had thrown them in from outside at high speed."
Everyone turned their heads to look at the broken window, and as their sight extended beyond, they saw a pile of metal barrels.
After a while, everyone walked out, leaving only Henry, who had sprained his foot, sitting on a high stool to rest.
After watching everyone leave, he turned his head and looked at the unfortunate dead guy: "Are you familiar with this place? How does the barbecue taste here?..."
They arrived at the pile of metal barrels not far from the hole in the window and discovered that one of the barrels facing the hole had bones and food residues at the bottom, and a faint burnt smell, the same as the smell of the man and the raccoon inside. Then they saw a can next to it with the label: Ethylene.
Nick looked around and picked up a small box from under his feet: "Matches! It seems that someone is crazy and dead here."
An image emerged in everyone's mind: a man looking at a raccoon eating at the bottom of a bucket, grinning and lighting a match and throwing it in.
Suddenly, Luke's expression changed, and he signaled everyone to be quiet, and he quickly walked back into the house.
Inside, Henry was still chatting with the corpse and stopped when he saw him come in.
Luke stood at a passage behind him and gestured to Henry to keep quiet.
Not long after, a man suddenly walked out with a gun and looked at Henry with surprise.
The next moment, Luke snatched the shotgun from the man's hand and pressed the man against the wall with his other hand.
He is now ten times stronger than an ordinary person, and one hand is enough to subdue an ordinary person.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man: "Who are you? Why did you break into the store?"
Nick: “Are you the owner?”
The man: “…No. I’m just a clerk.”
Nick: “What’s your name?”
The man: "Slick."
Nick: "Where were you? What were you doing?"
Slick: "I'm looking for something in the underground warehouse."
Luke and Nick both looked at a bag slung over the man's side, which contained several bottles of strong liquor.
The two looked at each other, and Luke loosened his hand, allowing Slick to regain his freedom.
The only danger this man poses is because of that gun. Now that he has lost his gun, he is no longer a threat.
Slick saw the corpse slumped there and screamed, "Gomez, what happened to you? Ah, did you kill Gomez?"
"Sir, we can explain the cause of his death. The deceased was named Gomez. We found food scraps and ethylene gas, as well as matches, in the metal barrel outside. Apparently Mr. Gomez set a trap, and then he wanted to ignite the ethylene and burn the raccoon to death." Xiao G explained.
Seeing that Slick was obviously listening, Little G continued, "But he didn't notice that the ethylene gathered at the bottom of the barrel and the match couldn't light it. He stood at the mouth of the barrel and shot at the raccoon inside. Then... he and the raccoon were blown in together."
Slick was silent for a moment, then nodded sadly: "That's right. Gomez always likes to compete with raccoons. These damn rodents are thieves. They always sneak in to steal food and mess up your home."
Haggis held up a hand. “Excuse me, but raccoons are not actually rodents. They are in the genus Procyon, family Procyonidae, order Carnivora. Mice are in the family Muridae, order Rodentia.”
Everyone: …
Slick stared at Haggis, the straight man, for a moment, and suddenly gave him a thumbs up: "I can tell from the first glance that you are a person who has really read books."
Everyone: …It sounds like someone here has a low level of education.
Luke and Selina: We have high school diplomas after all! We took biology classes in high school.
After that, everyone finally relaxed and began to question Slick, who claimed to be a clerk.
The main issues are where to find a phone and where to find a car.
As a result, the restaurant closed down long ago, and the telephone line was cut off due to non-payment.
All Slick said was there was a radio downstairs in the utility room and they could try it.
Then, Nick and Little G followed Slick to find the radio station, while Luke and the others stayed in the restaurant to rest.
Luke's expression was a little strange. He looked towards the barbecue stove in the restaurant and stared at the pile of wood ashes for a moment before looking away.
In the utility room, Nick and his friends found the radio station. After the power was turned on, a voice came from inside: "Earthlings? This is Zenith. We have discovered you. Tremble in fear..."
Crack!
A series of sparks came out of the radio station, and then a thin puff of blue smoke rose up, and then there was no sound.
Nick: "…Are there any other radio stations here?"
Slick: "It's gone. You can only try. Maybe you can fix it."
Nick: "Then I have to find a vacuum tube first. Is there one here?"
Slick tried to think for a moment and replied, "Only a vacuum cleaner, will it work?"
Nick, Little G: "..."
Why didn’t you mention that there are vacuum packaging bags here
Little G was annoyed: "If I really can't find a phone, then I'll assemble one myself."
Luke and the others were sitting upstairs. Suddenly, the sound of a car engine was heard outside, and everyone's faces lit up with joy.
But the next moment, there was a loud bang, followed by a series of ping-pong and tinkling sounds.
Everyone looked at each other, stood up and opened the door, and saw a red convertible vintage car that had crashed into the pile of metal barrels, with a little white smoke coming out of the hood.
A middle-aged woman wearing a red and white plaid shirt inside and a thick gray coat outside pushed open the car door and walked over crookedly.
Haggis: "... Well, it seems that this car can't be driven. Also, why does this car look familiar to me?"
Luke smiled but said nothing.
Selina: "If I'm not dazzled, this is the car that was occupying the road and almost killed us."
Everyone: Well, the culprit for the unfortunate car accident has finally been found.
The middle-aged woman looked confused. She walked to the door and finally saw the people standing inside the door looking at her: "Who are you? Why are you in my store?"
As she stood there, a strong smell of alcohol filled everyone's noses, and she kept burping.
Selina: "Are you Henry?"
The middle-aged woman said with a mocking look, "Ha, I'm not Henry, but his wife. Well, to be exact, the ex-wife he abandoned."
Everyone subconsciously looked at the birthday boy Henry who was sitting in the store.
…
In the utility room, Nick and Little G were looking for tools.
Little G: "Slick, isn't there a phone here?"
Slick: "The one in the store is broken, and even if it wasn't broken, it wouldn't have any phone credit. Oh, there seems to be a spare phone here, on the wall over there."
Little G walks off to look for the phone, while Nick continues to look for tools.
Suddenly, he saw a vague figure standing behind a door.