Most families in Liu Yang Village couldn’t even afford enough rice to fill their stomachs, let alone spare grain to feed dogs. The village dogs were all skin and bones, their daily fare limited to licking pot washing water or circling around the outhouse, perhaps gnawing on a couple of bone scraps without a trace of at during the festivals. That was the best they could hope for. As a result, these dogs only served as door guards, nothing more.
So households, lacking silver to celebrate the New Year, would even trade their dogs—thin as firewood—for a couple of jins of pork. The ultimate fate of those dozen or so canines raised in the village was mostly to end up in soone’s belly, be it their owner’s or soone else’s. To suggest that the Mo Family had tricked these dogs away for money would have been laughable even to a three-year-old child. Those handful of dogs together might be worth a few hundred wen at best, and the Mo Family was hardly in need of such ager assets, so why bear the stigma of such an act?
Seeing that Wang Dali was at a loss for words, people lost interest in his argunt and the decision to have Little Flower lead a patrol of the village dogs was settled. The villagers began discussing the formation of teams.
The Mo Family had only Mo Qingze as a young and able-bodied adult, but he was due to return to the Academy early the next morning, so naturally, the villagers weren’t going to delay him over such a trivial matter. They joked that with Little Flower around, it was as if they had several young n.
Mo Qingze expressed his gratitude to everyone and did not insist furthermore.
Each household in the village provided one able-bodied man, and with over a hundred households, that made a total of one hundred and twenty n. They were divided into teams of twenty, resulting in six teams altogether. Two teams would patrol each night, taking turns between the first and second half of the night, so everyone could rest for half the night and avoid freezing out in the cold.
Not long after Mo Qingze returned ho, families with dogs brought them over, each dog leashed with a rope.
In total, there were thirteen dogs, all skinny local mongrels barely more than skin on bones. As Little Flower stood before these dogs, all thirteen trembled, laying flat on the ground, their heads buried deep, bodies shaking like sieves.
The villagers might not have known that Little Flower was an alpha wolf, but as dogs, how could they not sense that this large creature was different from them?
Then, as if by agreent, Dabai and Mao Tuan also appeared before these mongrels, scaring them into crying pitifully. They wanted to run away but couldn’t even move their legs an inch.
The three beasts shot them a disdainful look and arrogantly sauntered off. Little Flower, thinking about the coming days of dealing with these undoglike mongrels, felt its wolfish dignity plumt. It was truly disheartening!
Mo Yan couldn’t care less whether Little Flower felt disheartened or not, tugging on its ear, she demanded it lead these dogs to perform well. Otherwise, she would withhold its daily roasted chicken and Spirit Spring Water and forbid it from entering the Space again.
Little Flower was aware it had done sothing wrong, and even without Mo Yan’s threats, it would have dutifully done what she asked of it. But now, faced with her ultimatum, it was even more intent on giving its best effort.
No one knew exactly how Little Flower communicated with those dogs, but it efficiently gathered these "underlings" and quickly beca one with them. Later, when Mo Yan loosened their ropes, they followed Little Flower around instead of running back to their respective hos.
At dinner ti, the house beca a spectacle. With just the three beasts, it had seed ordinary, but now with thirteen more mongrels added, sitting in a row on the ground, they looked up at a forty-five-degree angle, their eyes fixed on the delicious dishes on the table, drooling from the corners of their mouths and forming a puddle on the floor, making everyone feel too guilty to even eat their al.
Seeing their impatient looks, Mo Yan had no choice but to take out three unused large basins, reheat the aty soup left over from the midday feast, and soak so leftover rice for them.
As soon as the basins were set down, the thirteen dogs crowded around, jostling to eat first. This was the first ti they had tasted such delicious food, and they wished they could bury their heads in the basins forever. Fortunately, with Little Flower watching over them, the dogs did not fight over the food.
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