Chapter Twenty-Three: A Swift Slide

"Of course not," Zhang Congwen replied with certainty.

"Why not?" Zhu Qingyan asked.

"Can you outrun something with four legs when you only have two?" Song Jiawei retorted as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"So what should we do then? Just stand there and wait for it to charge at us like we would at close range?" Zhu Qingyan pressed.

Zhang Congwen shook his head. "Actually, you can crouch down as if you're picking up a stone, then quickly stand up and pretend to throw it. Most dogs will get scared and run off. Even if they don't run, they'll be wary and won't dare approach so easily."

"Why is that?" Zhu Qingyan, curious as ever, asked again.

She'd heard elders mention this before, but never took it to heart, thinking it was too far-fetched and likely untrue. Plus, she never had the opportunity or courage to try it herself, so she never confirmed whether it worked. Over time, she simply forgot about it.

"There’s actually a debate about this in academic circles," Zhang Congwen explained. "One theory is that, long ago, people used stones to drive away dogs, so this action became ingrained in most dogs' DNA as a cause for fear. When they see someone crouching from a distance, they instinctively think the person is about to attack."

"What if you do that, but the dog still isn’t afraid?" Song Jiawei asked as soon as Zhang finished.

"If it’s not scared, just pick up a real stone and throw it. Whether or not you hit, it usually works," Zhang replied.

"Why?" Zhu Qingyan asked once more.

Zhang Congwen explained again, "In the eyes of dogs—or really, most animals—their understanding of attack is limited to the range of their own limbs. In their minds, a human's attack range is just as far as their hands, feet, or mouth can reach. But when you attack with a stone, your range suddenly extends far beyond your body. Imagine if someone hurled a fireball at you from hundreds of meters away—you’d think it was magic. Animals feel the same way; being threatened from such a distance seems impossible, so it frightens them. Most animals with a bit of intelligence realize you’re attacking but can’t understand your method, so fear drives them away."

"What if it still doesn’t work?" Song Jiawei persisted.

"If it doesn’t work, it usually means the animal hasn’t noticed your attack, or it doesn’t see you as a threat—like throwing stones at a bear, which would only make it angrier. In that case, you can only hope for the best," Zhang added. "So this trick works best on small and medium