Li Xianyu"s first reaction was not to look back. At the fastest speed of his life, he jumped around like a deer behind Great-Grandma to seek protection. After thinking about it, he thought about it and felt that it was not safe, so he jumped behind San Wu.
Then he turned his head and saw where he was before. There stood a young man covered in blood. His throat was slit and his chest was drenched red with thick blood.
Hiss!
Li Xianyu inhaled sharply.
So, Great-Grandma was speaking with him just now?
"You can see me?" The young man wiped his blood and looked at the man and two women.
Li Xianyu was also looking at him. He noticed that the guy had no cataracts, except for his ashen white face, his eyes were just like those of ordinary people.
Quietly poking San Wu in the waist, he motioned her to exorcise the spirit quickly. But San Wu did not move, and maintained her adorkable and quiet posture.
Great-Grandma explained, "He is not a vengeful spirit."
Li Xianyu pointed at him. "He"s already like this, and still not a vengeful spirit?"
Great-Grandma was exasperated. "After one pa.s.ses away and its spirit does not dissipate, it is all because of obsession. These obsessions vary. It"s not just resentment."
The young man looked at himself and said, "Although I didn"t die a graceful death, I have no resentment in my heart."
Li Xianyu calmed down, and said with a cough, "Brother, I am Li Xianyu, a defender of order. I specialize in cleaning up the ghosts that linger on earth. Since Your Excellency has pa.s.sed away, why not dissipate as soon as possible?"
The young man was silent for a moment. "We are all modern people, speak properly."
Li Xianyu said, "Oh."
The young man said, "I"m Zhang Chen. In fact, I"ve been following you for a long time, from the moment you stepped into the door of that family, I"ve noticed you."
Li Xianyu exclaimed in shock, "You"re the one who"s haunting the Shaxian shopkeeper?"
Zhang Chen nodded.
Upon hearing this, realization dawned on Great-Grandma. "No wonder I couldn"t smell resentment. If so, why are you haunting him?"
Li Xianyu echoed, "Why?"
"The boss of Shaxian Hotel broke Cream"s leg," Zhang Chen looked at the Samoyed. "He"s my dog, and you should consider the owner when hitting his dog. He abused my dog, and I haunted him for a while. After making him weak and have nightmares, I would naturally let him go."
Li Xianyu suddenly realized that all his queries had been solved. No wonder the shopkeeper dreamed of a man. No wonder he wanted to break his leg. It was the owner who came back to avenge his dog.
"I should have done it a long time, but his mother did not allow me to come near her son a while ago, when she returned 7 days after her death." The man said, "Even if she had died with resentment, she still had her son in her heart. That is maternal love."
"You"re not bad either. You"re dead and you didn"t forget to avenge your dog," Li Xianyu said. What is this? An undying love between human and dog?
Zhang Chen said forlornly, "My dog is called Cream. The first time I saw him, he was abandoned."
The first time he saw Cream, it was under a bridge outside the neighborhood. When Zhang Chen cut across the road below the bridge, he met Cream, who had just been born at that time.
Zhang Chen, a native of Zibo, Shandong Province, studied in East China Normal University. After graduation, he stayed in Shanghai like the vast majority of his cla.s.smates. The Shanghai market was a city with a large wage gap, and the bottom wages were even less than 3000 dollars a month. High wages can reach...I don"t know this, after all, we are poor people, and our imagination isn"t so rich.
"In short, in a first-tier city where there are more college students than dogs, it was difficult for me to find a decent job as soon as I graduate. The rent was expensive and product prices were expensive. I had to scrimp and save and lead a worse life than farmers of my hometown. So it wasn"t long before my girlfriend broke up with me."
"When a person was lonely, and cannot find a girlfriend, they can only keep a dog to alleviate their loneliness. Don"t get me wrong, it"s spiritual comfort, and has absolutely nothing to do with the body."
It was raining that day. Zhang Chen was without an umbrella, so he took a shortcut through the road below the bridge outside the neighbourhood. He saw a muddy puppy, alone at the bottom of the bridge. In the face of unexpected guests, the puppy looked him with fear and vigilance in its eyes.
The puppy had a pair of dark eyes that made people feel like he"s crying and trying to fawn on humans. But he had a great deal of vigilance towards human beings. The puppy didn"t dare to get close to Zhang Chen. Zhang Chen also felt that the little puppy was dirty. Both of them waited silently until the rain stopped. Zhang Chen bought a hot dog for him and left.
The next day when he pa.s.sed by the bottom of the bridge, Zhang Chen found that the puppy was still there, and he seemed to have treated the place as its home. That day, Zhang Chen gave him a hot dog, and then left. After nearly a week, Zhang Chen"s kindness was exhausted, so he didn"t go.
A few days later, in the same light showers, he took a look at the bottom of the bridge on a whim and was surprised to find that the puppy was still there.
He became thinner and filthier. He was in poor health and curled up listlessly. When he heard movements, his ears flicked warily. But when he saw Zhang Chen, he looked very exhilarated. The puppy staggered a few steps and whined at him.
Zhang Chen was familiar with this look. It was a dog"s gaze when his owner finally came. He had a dog in his hometown.
"He stayed at the bottom of the bridge for several days. I guess he was waiting for me. The silly dog thought of me as the owner when I just fed him for a few days, and he relied on me." Zhang Chen smiled bitterly and sighed. "If I hadn"t gone back, would he have died there?"
"What happened later?" Li Xianyu took the spicy crackers pa.s.sed over by Great-Grandma. He stood in the middle. Great-Grandma was on the left and San Wu on the right. They ate spicy crackers and listened to Zhang Chen"s recount.
Zhang Chen turned his head away, did not look at them and continued to say, "I took him home. At first, I didn"t want to raise a dog. I bought him a hot dog and turned my head and left. Then the little guy didn"t eat it and staggered behind, following me. I kicked him a few times, he insisted on following me… I couldn"t bear seeing him so pitiful, so I took him home with me."
"I later found that having a dog was not bad. At least after work, when I open the door, the house was not empty. There was a dog who would keep waiting for you by the door to come back. When you open the door, he would shake his tail while clinging onto your pant leg. After dinner, you can take him out for a walk without having to pa.s.s the time by playing games. There"s more life at home."
Drifting in a big city and helpless, two single dogs warmed each other. The dog"s life was saved and the man had a companion. Dogs treated people as owners, and people may also treat dogs as family in such an instant.
Li Xianyu chewed mutton and listened with relish, "But you still abandoned him. Why?"
Zhang Chen was silent for a long time and squeezed out a bitter smile. "Because of my girlfriend. My girlfriend wasn"t a local. I worked hard chasing her. After dating, she moved in with me on my suggestion, saving rent. But she also had a dog, it"s a Sun Honglei."
Li Xianyu was surprised and exclaimed, "Sun Honglei?! Are you sure?"
"It"s a pit bull terrier." Zhang Chen clarified, "They always fight and Cream was bullied every day. My girlfriend does not like him, and felt one dog in the family was enough, so she suggested I abandoned him. I naturally disagreed. We quarreled about it until one day, when I got home from work, my girlfriend"s new bag was bitten.."
"And then you abandoned him?"
"Mm," Zhang Chen nodded. "I had no choice. We had a big fight that day. She even said she wanted to break up. If I don"t abandon the dog, we"d be over. How would you choose between a girlfriend and a dog?"
"Wait a minute." Great-Grandma suddenly interrupted, and said with righteous anger, "What a fierce lady who doesn"t know her place! She actually defied her husband for such small matters, even threatening him. In my days, such women would be divorced and chased out of the family. You, a tall grown man is actually so afraid of your spouse. You"re not manly at all. How offensive to society"s morals, the fall of tradition is here."
Li Xianyu"s eyes were filled with tears as he was touched, "Great-Grandma, the times have changed. It is now the age when women wear the pants. You slept for more than a hundred years, haven"t you seen the world clearly?"
Great-Grandma retorted, "Nonsense, even after following your father those years, I have not seen such a shrewd woman."
The 20 years of China"s take-off was also the collapse of the status of men for 20 years.
Li Xianyu sighed, "There is no way. You know, in the land of China, there are still more than 30 million single dogs who have to do things on their own."
Using their hands to caress their nether regions, they lament that house prices were unreachable.
"After dinner that day, I took him and walked a long way. It was here where I tied him around the tree. I don"t think I owe it. Our fate had ended, he"s no longer a little puppy. He can live without me, and I should go my way too. We are just pa.s.sers-by in each other"s life. When fate ended, we go our own ways."
This was overboard. Although Li Xianyu was not a dog lover, he particularly hated those who discarded their pet dogs.
"When you"re lonely, you call others sweetheart, and then when someone new comes along, you say fate has ended. Hah, men." Li Xianyu scoffed, thinking that the other party was at least a ghost, he should not be so sarcastic. He hurriedly corrected his att.i.tude. "Continue."