Chapter 11

The ambulance was quick to arrive, likely because his shop was located not too far from the hospital.

Upon seeing the little girl lying on the ground, those paramedics were stunned. When they lifted her onto the stretcher, one of them kept glancing at Yao Qi and Liu Lin with a cryptic look. Liu Lin was already feeling extremely pissed off by this matter, and the judging look only served to tick him off even further, so he glared back viciously.

The man immediately frowned.

Seeing Liu Lin’s angry behaviour made Yao Qi internally chuckle, but on the outside, he told Liu Lin to stop doing this and politely apologised to the medic.

Liu Lin followed up with a sloppy apology, one without any trace of sincerity.

Then Yao Qi gave him a smack on the back of his head.

Yao Qi and Liu Lin both tagged along in the ambulance, partly because the hospital needed someone to pay for the little girl’s medical bills in case her family couldn’t be reached, and partly because Yao Qi was afraid that Liu Lin would be implicated if she really died.

As it turned out, the girl’s injuries were quite serious, but they were still able to save her. The moment Yao Qi heard this, he stopped listening carefully and responded only occasionally, paying more attention to Liu Lin who was standing beside him.

The doctor probably meant well, but the more he talked, the more excessive he sounded, his words filled with accusation towards Yao Qi who didn’t even lay a finger on the girl’s hair. While Yao Qi might not care, Liu Lin was getting more annoyed the more he listened. He clenched his fists, veins bulging prominently on the back of his hand.

“Blahblahblah—so damn noisy. How many times do I need to tell you that girl has nothing to do with us? Are you deaf?” Liu Lin confronted the doctor and stared at him with a displeased expression, cocking his eyebrows. His eyes dimmed with a dangerous look, and despite the joking tone, there wasn’t any hint of smile on his pursed and drooping lips.

Taken aback by this unfriendly attitude, the doctor involuntarily took a couple of steps back, his expression turning flustered and fearful—the man’s eyes and posture were too frightening.

“That’s enough, stop talking,” Yao Qi pulled Liu Lin back by the collar and gave his cheek a light pinch. “Apologise to the doctor.”

The doctor might have had a lot to say because he felt indignant for the girl and sympathised with her, but to keep chiding them even after they made it clear that they had no relation to her was going a little too far.

Although the girl’s current state was indeed essentially caused by them, she was also the one who hurt Ah-Lin.

He was already being magnanimous by sending her to the hospital and paying for her bills.

“Just now you told me to stop talking, but now you’re telling me to apologise, what is it that you want me to do?” snickered Liu Lin. He slung his arm around Yao Qi’s shoulders and leaned some of his weight onto the man.

He knew that since Yao Qi didn’t make any move to press his head down, the man wasn’t actually trying to make him apologise and was instead standing on his side.

It eased up some of his bad mood.

Seeing Liu Lin’s subdued look, the doctor started jabbering again, scolding him for being disrespectful and calling him a rogue, but it only took one glare from Liu Lin for him to finally leave in a huff.

In fact, Liu Lin didn’t really mind the scolding. It was rare to have someone talk about him directly to his face, and he was rather curious about how he looked in the eyes of ordinary people. But then, Yao Qi unexpectedly started to frown when the doctor called him a rouge. The movement was very subtle, and Liu Lin wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t been constantly and keenly observing Yao Qi’s demeanour.

When Yao Qi got like this, it usually meant that he was unhappy.

Once he noticed it, Liu Lin immediately glared at the doctor, but at the same time, he saw Yao Qi’s throat moving. The man had already opened his mouth and was about to say something, but because the doctor suddenly left, he stopped and closed his mouth again.

As he watched this unfold from beside the man, Liu Lin instantly burst with joy.

His baby was so caring!

It was making his heart melt!

Disregarding the fact that there were other people in the corridor besides them, Liu Lin happily hugged and kissed Yao Qi.

Yao Qi was equally unperturbed, letting Liu Lin hug, kiss, and bite him as he pleased.

Just as he said, his Ah-Lin was becoming more and more like a clingy large dog—but when he carefully thought about it, he felt that this wasn’t necessarily right, because only in front of him would Ah-Lin act this silly. In regards to other people, he was extremely fierce.

His Ah-Lin—as long as you sincerely treated him well, he would carve it into his heart and repay your kindness through his actions. If he got angry, you only needed to give him a little taste of sweetness, and he would be coaxed back in no time. If he cared about you, a single kiss would be enough to solve everything, but then he would greedily want for more, and ask you for more.

Thinking about this, Yao Qi felt a pang of distress in his heart.

He would treat Liu Lin well and use his own method to make him happy, indulging him to the best of his limits. He wished his Ah-Lin could occasionally act cute towards him, stay away from all those dangerous things, and always be this happy. If Ah-Lin could get the peace and happiness he deserved to have, yet hadn’t been able to taste—then that was all Yao Qi wanted.

“Always gnawing on the things you’re holding, are you a dog?” he teased.

“If you’re a bone, I don’t mind being a dog,” Liu Lin snorted and rubbed against him.

“But a bone can’t ‘eat’ you. I’m more like your owner.”  Yao Qi glanced down at the man’s rear with a meaningful look.

“Fine, you can be my owner then.” Liu Lin, who was drunk in delight, silently gave a middle finger to his previous self who hated the idea of being Yao Qi’s pet. His baby was such a good owner. Even if others wanted to find someone as good as Yao Qi, they wouldn’t be able to, no matter how they searched.

“Is that so? Then I’ll have to find a leash to tie you with, lest you run away.”

The nibbling stopped, and so, feeling that Liu Lin had gotten his fill, Yao Qi walked to the ward the doctor said the little girl was staying in. Liu Lin was still hanging on him, and the man followed his step the moment he moved.

“Yeah, you better make it tight. It’s best if you can also tie the other end to your neck, so I won’t bite you to death if you let go of the leash.” This was the cruel truth. If Yao Qi really dared to throw him away one day, then there would only be two possible outcomes—Liu Lin would either lock Yao Qi up, or bite him to death and swallow him into his stomach.

“So fierce? What breed is this dog?” As if he couldn’t hear the threat in Liu Lin’s words, Yao Qi amusedly put on a puzzled expression.

“Monster breed.” Seeing Yao Qi in such a good mood, Liu Lin remembered his dream last night and happily joked along.

“Sounds really expensive. It’s fortunate that my luck is pretty good, I have one that’s readily available right here,” Yao Qi responded, “But with how clingy you are, it seems like we’d have to be buried together after we die.”

“That sounds good. If our ashes can be mixed together, then that’s even better.” Liu Lin couldn’t help but to eagerly look forward to this.

“Okay, then let’s go adopt a child someday. In the future, we’ll ask him to put our ashes together.”

“Alright.”

Chatting with one another, they reached the ward in no time. Yao Qi stopped talking and pushed the door open, quietly stepping inside.

There were three beds inside the ward, with visitors present for each patient except for the one in the innermost bed.

Yao Qi walked over to that side and took out the stool under the bed, motioning for Liu Lin to sit while he stood beside him and looked down at the person lying on the bed.

Judging by the girl’s appearance, she should be around fourteen years old.

To be honest, she was actually a good looking child. Her skin was fair and clear, and with her eyes currently closed in peaceful slumber, she looked like a painting.

When he first saw her, he already thought that she was very skinny. Now without the cover of the fluffy lolita dress, her malnourished form was even more obvious under the hospital blanket. It could be seen that whatever kind of life she was living wasn’t a good one.

If she was just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary family, she would probably be a child her parents doted on—but she was of the same kind as Ah-Lin.

“Xiao Qi, you’re making me jealous.” Because Yao Qi didn’t sit down, Liu Lin also chose to stand. Seeing Yao Qi looking at the girl so seriously, he shook the man’s hand.

“Pfft, okay, I was wrong.” Yao Qi laughed and shook Liu Lin’s hand back.

“We’ve seen her and made sure she’s fine, and you’ve already paid for her medical bills, so let’s go home.” Liu Lin really didn’t want to stay here any longer. Aside from not wanting to be in the same space as this girl, another reason was because he hated hospitals.

“Wait for her to wake up, we’ll leave after telling her about the situation.”

Liu Lin frowned, not understanding why Yao Qi was so concerned about her.

“I want to know why she’s targeting me.” Truth to be told, Yao Qi couldn’t care less about this girl’s wellbeing. He could overlook her attempt to kill him, but what he couldn’t forgive was that she harmed Liu Lin.

A large part of Yao Qi’s gentle temperament was due to the fact that he could think things over rationally—or at least, he was able to do it now. If this had happened a few days earlier, he would have most likely left straight away after paying her hospital bills because the girl had injured his Ah-Lin.

But Yao Qi had calmed down by now. Since he was able to clear his head, he should make use of this optimal condition to find out the truth and try his best to solve this matter.

“How troublesome,” Liu Lin clicked his tongue in frustration, grabbed a fistful of his own hair several times, then sat down on the hospital bed.

He knew that Yao Qi could be quite a clean freak. The man would rather stand than sit on the hospital bed, so he simply took a seat on the bed to let Yao Qi sit on the stool.

“…” When he saw Liu Lin nonchalantly sitting on the hospital bed, Yao Qi could roughly guess what the man was thinking. Letting out a soft sigh, he dragged the stool to where Liu Lin was sitting at the end of the bed before finally sitting down on it.

“Ah-Lin.” Sitting around doing nothing was pretty boring—the moment such a thought entered Yao Qi’s mind, he had already called out a name, shocking himself with his own action. The shock quickly passed, and he couldn’t help but laugh in spite of himself.

“Huh?” Liu Lin glanced down at him.

Liu Lin was taller than Yao Qi, and the differing levels of their seats only served to increase this height difference, so he had to slightly tilt down his head to look at Yao Qi.

“Nothing, I just want to call you.” Yao Qi told him the truth.

“…Why’d you wanna call me,” the corners of his lips twitched as if they were about to split into a smile, but it fell through in the end, and the man opted to bashfully tug at his own hair.

For Liu Lin, the notion of shame was something that did not exist at all—he could do things others judged to be shameful without caring about how they would look upon him, and he could also be as wanton as he wanted to be during intimate times. But whenever Yao Qi did or said something that made him feel warm inside, he would get all embarrassed without knowing how to act.

“I just think it’s good to have you next to me.” Yao Qi happily smiled and played with the man’s hand.

“You’re so sappy,” Liu Lin pouted.

Yao Qi just kept gazing at him with a smile.

“Someone has also told me that before.” After a moment of silence, Liu Lin took the initiative to speak.

“Hm? Who is it?” Yao Qi’s interest was instantly piqued. Liu Lin never liked to talk about himself, and very rarely would he take the initiative to open his mouth like this.

“The woman who gave birth to me.” Liu Lin raised his hand and gestured in the air, as if he wanted to paint an outline of something, but his memory of that person had faded to the point where only a hazy concept remained. There was no more image to speak of, so he finally gave up. “And then she threw me away. I couldn’t remember what she looked like, and I didn’t know where she went off to, otherwise, she would have been the first person I chose to kill.”

“Hey, young man, you can’t say that kind of thing. Murder is against the law, they’ll send you to jail and execute you.”

Yao Qi was about to say something when an old voice suddenly interjected from the side. It was the elderly patient from the neighbouring bed who heard them talking and jumped into their conversation.

Liu Lin frowned and closed his mouth.

The interruption also made Yao Qi lose his smile. In an instance that was extremely hard to come by, his Ah-Lin finally told him about his own past. After missing this chance, he would probably have to wait for another long stretch of time for Liu Lin to be willing to open up again.

But the old woman didn’t do it out of any malicious intent, so Yao Qi couldn’t say anything to her.

So he just took Liu Lin’s hand in his and held it tightly, giving him a reassuring smile.

Small Theatre 1

On the surface, Xiao Qi the Fox is earnestly listening to Doctor Woodpecker, who has been lecturing him non-stop. In fact, he is actually distracted, thinking about all kinds of ways to bully Ah-Lin the Dog. Suddenly, a loud bark startles Doctor Woodpecker, making it fly away in fear.

Xiao Qi: Good boy, give me a kiss~

So Ah-Lin the Dog, who has been raised like a wolf, took Xiao Qi the Fox’s snout into its mouth.

Xiao Qi: …

It forgot that ‘he’ is an ‘it’ in this small theatre.

Ah-Lin: *licking Xiao Qi’s fur*

Xiao Qi: Good boy *raises his claws and pats Liu Lin’s head*

Ps: A way of expressing affection among wolves is to hold another wolf’s head in its mouth. Doufu doesn’t allow image linking, so those who are interested can browse for it, they look super cute doing this.

T/n: I tried googling it and this behaviour is apparently called the ‘muzzle grab’. There are all sorts of reasons wolves would do this, but one of them is indeed to express affection/reassurance. Here’s a cute photo:

Small Theatre 2

Xiao Qi carefully looks at the little girl lying on the bed. Her skin is fair, and she’s indeed a very good-looking child—

Without giving him another chance to look, Ah-Lin pulls up the blanket and covers the girl’s face.

Ah-Lin: I’m jealous.

Xiao Qi: Don’t be jealous, I’ll give you some sweets to eat *hands him candies*

Ah-Lin: I’m also good-looking.

Xiao Qi: You’re not.

Ah-Lin: Σ…… *deflates*

Xiao Qi: My Ah-Lin is the most handsome in the whole universe, I like my Ah-Lin the most.

Ah-Lin: *wags his tail and uncontrollably pounces on Xiao Qi, pecking and nibbling him*