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“He probably forgot to charge his phone. Again,” Feng Xin groused as he followed Mu Qing up the four goddamn flights of stairs leading to Xie Lian’s apartment. The latter huffed, his nose practically and predictably in the air.
“First the communication array, now this… Some things never change.”
No, they didn’t. They all may have been reborn, but their habits and personalities remained the same: Xie Lian was absorbed in his interests and often ignored worldly matters, Mu Qing was an arrogant prick with a well of bullshit he’d never say (which meant a constant, exhausting guessing game anytime they tried to have a conversation), and Feng Xin was saddled with babysitting the two of them. It wasn’t that they particularly needed it, not in this life or the previous one, but… Well, it had once been his job, and that shit left deep marks on a person’s soul.
Not all of them were the good kind.
So, it was standard operating procedure that he’d suggested they check to make sure Xie Lian hadn’t fallen through a manhole or something when five hours passed with no word on whether he’d actually brought a pet home the way they’d hoped. Of course, Feng Xin wasn’t assuming the worst just yet: that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. On the contrary, it had the potential to be a damn good one! Perhaps Xie Lian was simply focused on settling in a new arrival and forgot to check his phone—it was absolutely the sort of thing he’d do and no cause for alarm. Feng Xin would be perfectly comfortable if that were the case; whatever kept Xie Lian’s mind off that asshole he’d married for reasons Feng Xin would never fully understand was fine by him. By both of them, really, and wasn’t that a kick in the pants?
Still… The guy did have a history of vanishing for centuries at a time. Although that wasn’t a possibility for any of them these days, better safe than sorry and all that.
The hall outside Xie Lian’s abode was quiet before and after Mu Qing rapped impatiently on the door—no barking, no mewling, no footsteps—and the two of them shared a disquieted glance. They could see light beneath the flimsy imitation wood, so he was definitely home… Maybe he had actually taken Feng Xin at his word and adopted something that didn’t make any noise—a snake, a lizard, a turtle. Xie Lian had never been widely classified as normal by any definition, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he’d been drawn to a less conventional pet. Did shelters even have that shit, though?
Mu Qing knocked again, harder this time. It may have been his imagination, but Feng Xin could have sworn he heard something or someone shuffle around inside now. Stupid fucking humanity. This shit was easier when he could train his senses to catch everything.
Pounding on the door, he cringed when the whole damn thing threatened to buckle and called, “Your Highness? Are you in there?”
“Oh, yes,” drawled Mu Qing, arms folded. “If something’s wrong, that will certainly bring him running.”
“I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas!”
The deadpan stare he received for that nearly sent him flying off the handle in a rage only Mu Qing could incite, but he stopped dead when his shitty excuse for a so-called friend dangled his key ring before Feng Xin’s eyes—the one that had a copy of Xie Lian’s key on it. Just like Feng Xin carried on his own. Because Xie Lian let them come and go as they pleased even though they rarely took advantage of that privilege.
Stupid motherfucking goddamn son of a bitch…
That obnoxious, self-satisfied smirk Mu Qing wore while he unlocked the door did absolutely nothing to quell Feng Xin’s desire to throw him out the nearest window. As always.
Lucky for him, thoughts of defenestration fled Feng Xin’s mind almost immediately upon stepping into Xie Lian’s apartment to find their quarry standing awkwardly before them, apparently in mid-step on his way to the door. He was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a mess. His hair ribbon had vanished, leaving the mop on his head mussed and tangled in places; one leg of his jeans was sloppily rolled halfway up his calf, and Feng Xin was fairly certain his white T-shirt was on inside-out. Faint but perceptible bruises were beginning to form on his neck and ankle.
While none of that in itself was entirely out of the ordinary, Feng Xin wasn’t expecting to be greeted with a guilty, bashful, slightly breathless, “Ah… I can explain this.”
Mu Qing rolled his eyes. “No need. We’ve grown tired of waiting for you to explain why you don’t check your phone regularly.”
A frown tugged at Xie Lian’s lips, which Feng Xin only now noticed were slightly puffy as though he’d been biting them and framed by cheeks rosy with…not embarrassment. It couldn’t be embarrassment. After everything, Xie Lian had the thickest skin of anyone Feng Xin had ever met, and he had been similarly unflappable even as a kid. No, it couldn’t be embarrassment.
He didn’t have to wonder at his friend and charge’s admittedly stranger than usual behavior for long, however, as the obvious culprit came sauntering down the hallway from Xie Lian’s bedroom a moment later.
Ah. That explains it. How does he get himself into these situations every damn time?
Jerking his chin at their audience, Feng Xin observed, “So, you went with a dog.”
And what a dog it was. The puppy that stared up at them from where it settled at Xie Lian’s feet was black with some unsightly brown spots on its face, better groomed than Feng Xin would have expected from a rescue, and wore the sort of bored and unimpressed expression that always seemed to instinctively attract Xie Lian’s attention given his choice of friends and husbands. It was a small creature, not yet tall enough to reach Feng Xin’s knee when standing, but it carried itself like a much larger dog, particularly one that owned the place. Except for the occasional twitch of its tail, it sat perfectly still and gave no indication that it must have been running Xie Lian ragged and bitten him repeatedly for his efforts. Xie Lian’s uncommonly thorough state of disarray was all the evidence they needed.
Mu Qing was apparently thinking along the same lines, because he scornfully remarked, “You would choose some ugly little stray.”
Considering the spectacle before them, Feng Xin couldn’t help feeling a surge of relief that it was some ugly little stray and not a goddamn bear that would maul him to death in his own apartment. After all, that would definitely be Xie Lian’s luck in any life.
The two of them may as well have been speaking German for all that Xie Lian appeared to comprehend what they were saying, though. He merely blinked in response before turning his blank stare towards the dog that he’d seemingly forgotten rescuing from the shelter if his obvious surprise was any indication. Then again, if a new puppy had given Feng Xin so much trouble only to pretend to be a perfect angel around company, he supposed he would be stunned as well. …Actually, he would just take that fucking thing back where it came from, but Xie Lian was nothing if not ridiculously patient even with shit that could kill him.
Some things really should change one of these days.
With a stilted laugh, Xie Lian finally rubbed his forehead and admonished, “Mu Qing, you can’t talk about…innocent creatures like that.”
Though the innocent creature beside him sensed his attention and straightened proudly, his reprimand fell on deaf ears where Mu Qing was concerned. “That thing doesn’t look like it’s even had its shots, yet you’ve brought it into your home. Don’t you remember the cat incident?”
Identical shudders ran down all their spines. The cat incident had become nearly as infamous an event in their new lives as Xie Lian’s third ascension in the past. He hadn’t meant to infest his entire house with fleas by bringing in some mangy little shit off the street when they were twelve, not to mention send a few home with Feng Xin and Mu Qing to infest theirs, yet it was seldom the case that things ever went precisely as Xie Lian planned. That was a month—and a few thousand yuan—that none of them or their parents would ever forget.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Xie Lian hurried to reassure them. “He’s…very healthy.”
Mu Qing raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Feng Xin elbowed him in the ribs to cut off what would undoubtedly be yet another scathing retort. Xie Lian had proven time and time again that he wasn’t a dumbass, much as both of them questioned it on occasion—vehemently questioned it. It wasn’t like he didn’t give them good reason! Regardless, he had accumulated well over a millennium’s worth of life experience, much of it in the Mortal Realm, where things were far more difficult than the heavens. One misstep as a child shouldn’t follow him forever. If he said the dog was healthy, then the dog was healthy. Or, at least, it was healthy enough that the shelter saw fit to let it be adopted. Feng Xin was more than willing to accept that.
So, in a show of good faith, he knelt down to reward Xie Lian’s furry new companion with a few scratches behind the ears despite Mu Qing’s condescending sigh behind him. That was the sort of shit you were supposed to do when small animals behaved properly, right? The dog seemed to agree with him, opening his mouth in a big, toothy, sort of adorable puppy grin…
Then sank those teeth right into Feng Xin’s hand.
Hard.
That smile—smirk, the mutt was fucking smirking at him—remained fixed in place as Feng Xin sputtered and cursed incoherently around Xie Lian’s fervent apologies, the dog utterly unfazed by his reaction. It was a good thing the fucker was cute and just a baby, or Feng Xin would have been sorely tempted to punt him across the goddamn room.
But he was cute. And he was just a baby.
Feng Xin would give him a pass this time even though, while Xie Lian insisted the opposite was true, he was pretty fucking sure the little shit did it on purpose.
***
That cur was an absolute menace.
Mu Qing was never one to look upon animals with a great deal of fondness in general. Most were vile creatures who would gladly eat their own waste if it smelled appetizing enough. They wallowed in the dirt and then trailed it everywhere, and the loyalty they held for their masters was as fleeting as their lifespans. What use could they be put to that all manner of servants couldn’t fulfill more efficiently? What purpose did they embody besides being a drain on energy and resources? Yes, he had recommended a pet to Xie Lian as a cure for the persistent loneliness that he would never admit to feeling in the absence of his beast of a husband, but not because he would get one himself under similar circumstances. Xie Lian had simply always been one to protect pathetic strays and helpless vagabonds, even and perhaps especially at the cost of his own comfort and position. It gave him a sense of satisfaction or something equally nonsensical. If that was what it took to distract him from his pining, then Mu Qing would grudgingly support it. That was what…friends did.
It grew increasingly difficult by the day, however, as they were exposed to that mongrel with greater frequency.
To say that Xie Lian and Hong-er, as he’d so abominably named the miniature monster, were inseparable was understating the situation. Mu Qing could confirm without the slightest bit of hyperbole that they went everywhere and did everything together: they lived in that rundown apartment together, ate all their meals together, walked to the grocery store together, rode the bus together, called on Mu Qing and Feng Xin together, watched television together, went to Xie Lian’s secondhand shop together, slept in the same bed together… It wouldn’t have surprised Mu Qing in the least to discover that they used the toilet and took showers together, crass as it sounded to even joke about in his own mind. To seek Xie Lian’s company was to seek Hong-er’s as well, without exception. If they wanted to visit a restaurant, they had to choose a location that accepted pets or eat outside; if their text messages went unanswered for longer than an hour, they had a new reason to assume that Xie Lian was otherwise engaged.
Even more obnoxious was how genuinely, frighteningly, nauseatingly adorable they were with one another. It would have been far less infuriating if Hong-er were a friendly beast, but that was asking too much. No, the tiny demon was very much a one-person dog. It doted more on Xie Lian than vice versa, and if Mu Qing or Feng Xin so much as thought about making a remark that could remotely be construed as insulting, it glared at them with a fire that would have been daunting on a human, let alone a dumb animal prone to acting on pure instinct. There had been no further mishaps since Feng Xin’s unfortunate, intimate confrontation with Hong-er’s sharp little teeth, but it was only a matter of time at this rate.
Mu Qing would gladly declare in front of all the former gods of the defunct Heavenly Realm that he hated that dog with a passion.
With Xie Lian, though, he was like a different creature entirely. It was sickening to watch the two of them interact, and Mu Qing made a concerted effort to do so as seldom as possible, futile effort though it was.
Perhaps a large part of the problem was that Xie Lian spoiled Hong-er rotten. The mutt was allowed to lounge around on the furniture, stretching across every sofa cushion it could reach so that Mu Qing and Feng Xin couldn’t sit but shifting immediately should Xie Lian move in the direction of that ratty old couch. They were so graciously granted access only because Hong-er would practically materialize in his lap or arms to cuddle with him, his furry head tucked beneath Xie Lian’s chin and eyes contentedly closed. Whatever Xie Lian ate, he reserved a portion for Hong-er. (Technically, he made or ordered double the amount he would have gotten for himself. The brute was oddly attuned to Xie Lian’s needs and wouldn’t take a bite of anything if it meant his owner going without.) At the faintest of whines or disgruntled huffs, Xie Lian would be on his knees asking what was bothering the menace as if it could answer him. As if he didn’t already know the answer.
Hong-er wanted his attention.
Hong-er always wanted his attention.
And his owner was only too happy to oblige.
That wasn’t to say that Xie Lian completely ignored his responsibilities, of course, but whatever his precocious puppy wanted, he got. Well, whatever he wanted short of Mu Qing and Feng Xin to stop showing up. It didn’t take a genius to decipher that Hong-er hated them as much as they hated him, their mutual distaste growing daily. For the first couple of weeks, they’d tried to play nice. …All right, Feng Xin had tried to play nice. Mu Qing refused to change himself for anyone, but especially not anyone’s pet. Instead, he’d observed as all the treats, scratches, pets, and threats in the world failed to impress upon Xie Lian’s four-legged shadow that they were neither going anywhere nor enemies.
“Leave it to you to have a type,” Mu Qing had bitterly commented one day when he joined Xie Lian for lunch at his shop. “Obsessive and tasteless.”
As he’d come to expect from the little nuisance, Hong-er had leapt out of the overlarge donated dog bed he’d been dozing in and wandered over to collapse pitifully beside Xie Lian. His pathetic whimper was an evident ploy to get Xie Lian to pet him—which he did—and smile down at him as if he was an angel and not a furry devil—which he also did.
Par for the course.
The moment of this disgusting montage of undeserved affection that Mu Qing hadn’t anticipated was how Hong-er froze the instant Xie Lian idly murmured, “Good boy.”
What he also didn’t anticipate was Xie Lian’s face inexplicably turning bright red when, after the words stopped echoing through the front room of his shop, the monster’s tail had started doing its best to beat a hole through the rickety floorboards while he stared up at Xie Lian as though he were still a god—the only god, at that.
In a blink, however, they were right back to normal: Hong-er was blissfully appeased, and Xie Lian was smiling at Mu Qing without a trace of discomfort. If Mu Qing hadn’t been so confident in his carefully honed insightfulness, he would have thought he had imagined the whole thing.
“Don’t worry,” Xie Lian had told him, the words constituting a mantra with how often he uttered them. “Hong-er will come around.”
As usual, his use of the demon dog’s name had been pointed.
As usual, Mu Qing was positive that the mongrel had rolled his eyes.
***
If Feng Xin had it his way, he’d have moved Xie Lian into a ground-floor apartment years ago. What he saw in his little shithole four floors up in a building that had no elevator was beyond him. Mu Qing believed that it was beneath his station as a former crown prince and god, which was stupid given that that was an age long past and none of them were quite the same anymore. Even so, he wasn’t wrong about the fact that Xie Lian could definitely afford better than this. His secondhand store was a hit in the neighborhood, and Feng Xin knew that he had a steady and increasing revenue stream that could easily see him living comfortably—far more comfortably than he did. A house would have been asking too much in the middle of the city, but there were plenty of luxurious apartments that would both suit his needs and give him a bit more to work with than what essentially amounted to a glorified closet.
But this was Xie Lian, and despite the best efforts of a husband who would literally hand him the world whether or not he asked for it, he chose to live in… It wasn’t squalor, as Mu Qing called it. It was just…simple. Lesser. The modern equivalent of a dumpy little shrine at the edge of a town the heavenly officials hadn’t cared enough about in the first place to even bother forgetting its existence.
Without a goddamn elevator.
Mentally lamenting the loss of his spiritual powers and verbally regaling anyone inside the apartments he passed with some colorful commentary, Feng Xin hoisted the heavy paper bags he carried more securely in his arms and trudged up to Xie Lian’s door.
Yes, Xie Lian could take care of himself. Yes, he had somehow managed not to give himself food poisoning in the last two decades of their new, infinitely more vulnerable lives. Yes, he was perfectly capable of going to the grocery store on his own (by which Feng Xin meant that Hong-er would be nipping at his heels the whole way).
Like he said: old habits died hard.
In all the centuries they’d been alive, Xie Lian had yet to improve on his cooking skills. If any of them had thought that rebirth might make a difference, they were sorely mistaken. Rather, it was almost like he had doubled down on maintaining the same level of achievement in that arena whether they continued through the cycle or, as they’d initially and mistakenly suspected, it all ended with their divine reign. Their school cooking courses had been a disaster, and Xie Lian was given an instant passing grade purely for staying away from the appliances. Even when Feng Xin had left home for university (an endeavor he’d only tolerated for a semester before he realized that it was a waste of his time as a former immortal), he and Mu Qing had been stunned to learn that Xie Lian had attempted an adult cooking class with Shi Qingxuan for fun (and at the latter’s behest) only to be kicked out on the first day.
In years past, eating his own creations hadn’t been the end of the world. At worst, he would end up feeling queasy for a few days—hardly anything to be concerned about for someone who had undergone the trials Xie Lian had. Now he was mortal, and the last thing Feng Xin wanted was a phone call from the hospital as one of Xie Lian’s two local emergency contacts.
So, he had spent the last couple of years periodically bringing easily prepared, prepackaged foods to Xie Lian’s apartment with a bullshit story about how his friend would inevitably stay at work late some nights and need something easy to throw together. Feng Xin wasn’t deluded enough to think that Xie Lian didn’t realize exactly what he was doing, but hey, nobody could fault him for trying to save the guy some face when the only kitchen appliance he could be trusted with was a microwave. Most of the time.
Upon reaching the correct landing with this week’s haul, Feng Xin wasn’t surprised to hear Xie Lian’s voice through the door. Seriously, they needed to replace that shit with one much sturdier.
“How long will you keep doing this?”
Guess his douchebag dog is acting up for him this time, he snorted inwardly. Miracles weren’t so common these days, but they reared their heads now and again.
His amusement was cut short when another voice—a very human voice—answered. It was too far inside for Feng Xin to recognize or make out their words, and he had to restrain himself from pressing an ear to the door. Xie Lian had company. So what? Infrequent as that was, his social life wasn’t any of Feng Xin’s business. All he had to do was make his delivery and get the hell out of here.
If he simultaneously checked to make sure whoever else had paid Xie Lian a visit wasn’t bothering him, no one had to know.
Both his friend and the mystery guest immediately fell silent at the sound of Feng Xin kicking the door rather than knocking. His hands were full, after all, and he wasn’t exactly trying to be subtle.
The second surprise of the evening was the door swinging open to reveal not Xie Lian, but Hong-er. The manipulative little shit was positioned right in the center of the threshold, watching him with what would have been mingled disdain and exasperation if he were human. How did Feng Xin know? Because it eerily resembled how Mu Qing approached…pretty much everybody. On him, it was off-putting but tolerable; on a tiny puppy, it was downright out of place.
Speaking of which, it suddenly occurred to Feng Xin that this tiny puppy really shouldn’t be so tiny anymore. Didn’t animals grow exponentially quicker than humans? If so, then this little guy was way behind the curve. Maybe he was sick or something. It would explain why Xie Lian fed him so much and imposed absolutely no boundaries whatsoever.
Although he could have easily stepped over his least favorite canine, their impromptu staring contest lasted until footsteps heralded Xie Lian’s arrival, and his friend glanced between the two of them with a tired yet amused grin.
“Feng Xin,” he began, nodding towards the bags and sticking to their usual bullshit script, “I appreciate this, but it isn’t necessary. I have plenty here.”
Feng Xin shrugged and finally edged around the unmoving pseudo guard dog. “It’s no big deal. I was already shopping and picked up extra.”
If Hong-er weren’t an animal, Feng Xin would have thought its sneeze was a laugh. But that was crazy. He was a dog.
And because he was a dog…
“Here. I saw this, too.”
Feng Xin unceremoniously dumped his bags on Xie Lian’s counter, grabbed the red ball he’d impulsively bought from its spot between two packages of instant noodles, and thrust it towards Xie Lian.
“This is…?”
“For Hong-er. He never plays with his toys. Maybe he’ll like this.”
A complicated expression flitted across Xie Lian’s face and vanished before Feng Xin could inspect it further.
Strange. What was there to be weird about? Feng Xin was just stating the obvious: not once since Xie Lian had brought Hong-er home had Feng Xin ever seen him play. He trotted around the apartment in his owner’s wake or lazed about, usually in Xie Lian’s lap, but weren’t dogs his age supposed to be working on their coordination or whatever? Not this one. He didn’t so much as glance twice at shit that any other puppy would be exploring as though discovering the eighth wonder of the world. Any toys Xie Lian must have gotten him never made an appearance, and up until this moment, that hadn’t seemed to bother either of them.
It truly wasn’t like Xie Lian to get uptight about his own efforts being insufficient, not since they were much younger in another life, but the guy was only human now. It might sting if his dog wouldn’t touch the toys his master gave him but took a liking to something from a person he couldn’t stand.
To his credit, he let it go right away and accepted the ball with a smile that did reach his eyes, albeit tentatively. Then, kneeling with the gift in his outstretched hand, Xie Lian emphatically beseeched, “That was very nice of Feng Xin. Wasn’t it, Hong-er?”
If that dog could talk, Feng Xin had no doubt that it would have a few choice words about what else it was besides nice. His eyes practically said it all for him, shifting between Xie Lian and the ball in something close to disbelief.
Excuse us for thinking you were a normal fucking dog for two seconds.
Like his odd behavior, there was one other thing about that four-legged shithead that was unfailingly consistent: he was a total sucker for Xie Lian. So, although he made a show of looking as put out as a puppy could possibly manage, Hong-er caught onto his master’s wordless encouragement and primly opened his mouth to hold the ball between his teeth.
He didn’t play with it. He didn’t chew on it. He didn’t move towards Xie Lian in an attempt to get his owner to throw the damn thing.
He just fucking stood there, staring at them with a big red ball hanging out of his mouth as if to ask, “Happy?”
“Your dog is weird as fuck.”
“Feng Xin, don’t be rude.”
Rude or not, he had to wonder if maybe that unintended peace offering had nevertheless acted as a sort of olive branch. Not once in the three hours Feng Xin stayed (after Xie Lian assured him that his alleged company had actually been the television, which he’d turned off when Feng Xin arrived) did Hong-er bother him with his usual games. When he made an offhand remark about Xie Lian needing heavenly intervention to save the noodles he’d somehow managed to burn even just using the microwave, Hong-er’s beady little eyes weren’t glaring him to death; the sofa was free and clear for Feng Xin to sit and bitch about nothing in particular that Mu Qing had done while Xie Lian nodded sympathetically. Amazingly, Xie Lian’s furry shadow made himself scarce the entire evening.
That being the case, Feng Xin didn’t think anything of it when he tripped on the stupid ball as soon as he stood to leave and damn near brained himself on the coffee table. A dog couldn’t know he would put his foot there.
It wasn’t until he’d descended two floors towards the exit and realized why the insides of his shoes were wet that he figured out what that fucker had been busy doing.
***
“‘Your shop is on fire,’” Mu Qing intoned. “That was legitimately the best story you could come up with to get Xie Lian to leave.”
Curling his fingers into fists at his side, Feng Xin appeared to be forcing himself to remain calm and keep his voice down. About time he learned some self-restraint. “As if you could come up with anything better.”
“You could have invited him out while I checked his apartment.”
“Invited him where? We don’t just go places. I’m not Shi Qingxuan.”
Rolling his eyes, Mu Qing stuck his copy of Xie Lian’s key in the lock and rejoined, “Why didn’t you ask them to take him out? They’d be gone for hours.”
“And have to explain why I was asking? Not a chance. Besides, if you’re so clever, why didn’t you ask? This was your dumb idea.”
“Hardly dumb,” hissed Mu Qing once they were inside Xie Lian’s place with the door closed as firmly as it allowed behind them. “I’m telling you, there is something wrong with that mongrel.”
“Yeah, we’ve known that since the day Xie Lian adopted him,” Feng Xin scoffed, reaching for the light switch only for Mu Qing to bat his hand aside.
“No lights in case your ridiculous excuse doesn’t occupy him for long. And you know what I mean. It’s been weeks, and that dog is no bigger now than it was then.”
“No shit.”
Mu Qing hated being the one endeavoring not to lose his temper for a change. However, he reined himself in at the last moment, took a deep breath, and imperiously ordered, “Just look around for anything suspicious. If the little monster isn’t what it seems, there must be some clue, especially if it means His Highness harm.”
They didn’t always call Xie Lian by his former title, but when they did, it was either a minor slip of the tongue or the result of long ingrained instincts that something was awry—most often, something that could do Xie Lian serious injury should he happen to miss the signs. (That also didn’t happen terribly frequently, but they’d all been burned before.) To hear it from Mu Qing’s mouth with neither condescension nor sarcasm sobered Feng Xin up immediately, and he silently nodded as the two of them separated to search Xie Lian’s apartment.
Given that the place wasn’t exactly a mansion, it took them all of ten minutes to come up with nothing. Not a conclusion that nothing was wrong—literally nothing. No matter which room they turned upside down, they didn’t find so much as one subtle hint that a dog lived in the apartment alongside the human. There were no toys, from the ball Feng Xin claimed to have bought Hong-er to even a chewed-up shoe used as a substitute. The kitchen was bereft of dog food and anything specifically designed to serve it, and while they’d never seen Hong-er with a collar or leash, they’d wrongfully assumed that he had one.
Either Xie Lian was the absolute worst pet parent in the world, or they had stumbled onto quite the mystery. Mu Qing wasn’t foolish enough to convince himself of Xie Lian’s incompetence, so it had to be the latter.
What that mystery could possibly be, however, they had no idea.
Not that they had any time to ponder it. The moment Mu Qing opened his mouth to suggest a new course of action he had not quite determined yet, the sound of the front door opening and someone turning on the lights sent them both running for the only space in this dilapidated apartment where two fully grown men could squeeze in together without being seen: the bathroom.
Oh, how the mighty had indeed fallen. Whatever. It was late enough in the evening that they could simply wait for Xie Lian to retreat to his bedroom and then slip out unnoticed. If they really must, they could pop out and say that they had a surprise for him. Anything they decided on would be unspeakably moronic on such short notice, so he would just claim that it was Feng Xin’s idea. The fool was responsible for this mess anyway, so it would serve him right.
Truly, Mu Qing should have known by now that with Xie Lian as a variable, his best laid plans would be meaningless in the face of the sheer chaos that seemed to follow him like…well, like a puppy.
There were two pairs of footsteps entering the apartment. Not one and a set of paws. Two.
“I don’t understand why Feng Xin would lie about my shop burning down,” Xie Lian mused, his keys clanking against the kitchen counter where he always put them. “It’s not like him to play a prank like that.”
Feng Xin stiffened beside him, and Mu Qing felt his blood suddenly run cold when a terrifyingly familiar voice languidly drawled, “I’d be happy to murder him for you, gege. Nice and slow.”
And just like that, it all fell into place.
A puppy that didn’t grow or change.
Xie Lian’s lack of dog toys or amenities.
Hong-er’s immediate animosity towards Mu Qing and Feng Xin yet uncanny obedience to Xie Lian.
Feng Xin caught his gaze, Mu Qing’s dawning horror reflected in his eyes, as Xie Lian laughed—laughed!—in the other room.
“It’s all right, San Lang. I’ll just ask him tomorrow.”
“But gege,” that damn Hua Cheng implored him, practically pouting like a toddler rather than a fearsome, supreme-level Ghost King, “that useless trash made you run across half the city for no reason.”
“It wasn’t that far.”
“You didn’t even let me transport us there quickly.”
“Because it wasn’t that far, San Lang,” sighed Xie Lian. He would have sounded exasperated if not for the slight hitch of breath at the end of his sentence that Mu Qing sincerely wished he hadn’t heard.
“Making gege all sweaty for no reason… This San Lang thinks a shower is in order before bed,” murmured Hua Cheng.
The together was probably implied.
“San Lang.” This time, that hitched breath was accompanied by a chuckle and followed closely by what came dangerously close to a moan.
The together was definitely implied.
They didn’t discuss it, agree on it, or even glance at one another. Mu Qing and Feng Xin just sprang from the bathroom as if they’d been launched out of a cannon, beelining for the front door with their gazes firmly planted on the floor and ignoring Xie Lian’s surprised exclamation lest they see something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
It was Hua Cheng’s deep, rumbling, knowing snicker that would follow them into their nightmares instead.