Not being friends, the other person could only send one message before Ye Yang replied. Ye Yang casually clicked follow, and suddenly the messages exploded.
The person on the other end bombarded him with a flurry of images—the notification sound kept going for a good twenty seconds.
The pictures were all of various puppies. Before Ye Yang could even finish looking through them, the other person said: “You can take your pick of these puppies. No charge, no adoption agreement needed. Free delivery, and I’ll throw in dog food, a leash, treats, canned food, a crate, a bed, and toys.”
“You don’t need to pay for the vaccines either—the puppy’s vaccine package has already been paid for. All yours for free!”
Then came several more photos, this time of a large pile of dog supplies.
Well, the terms were excellent, there were many breeds to choose from, and every single puppy was cute and beautiful.
Ye Yang immediately reported and blocked the user.
This was obviously a scam.
Those puppies looked too good—many of them were expensive breeds that would cost thousands of yuan each from a kennel. Now they were being given away for free along with a bunch of extra stuff?
Too ridiculous. The pictures were probably stolen from somewhere anyway.
He thought it was just a minor incident, but by the afternoon, when Ye Yang opened his messages to see if anyone wanted to adopt Little Parrot, he found another person asking if he wanted to adopt a dog.
This netizen said: “Hey blogger, your place looks pretty lively, so you probably don’t mind small animals, right? I found a stray puppy no one wants, but I’m still a student and don’t have anywhere to keep him. Could you take him in?”
Ye Yang thought it over and decided to follow this user back.
The other person quickly sent a photo. This one looked more real.
The picture showed a little mixed-breed dog. Though just a mutt, it was incredibly cute—the kind that melts your heart at first sight.
The person didn’t send many photos, but each one showed that the dog had been found in the wild. There were also pictures of the puppy getting shots, playing with toys, and even pooping at home…
Very cute, but Ye Yang still refused. “Sorry, but I don’t want to keep a dog right now.”
To his surprise, the other person immediately asked, “Why not? Isn’t he cute?”
“No, he’s really cute, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t take good care of him. My work might not leave me time to walk him. And you’ve probably seen—I’m also trying to find a home for my parrot.”
“This puppy is very well-behaved and easy to take care of!”
Even though it was just a text message, Ye Yang felt like the person on the other end seemed very anxious.
“You just need to give him a place to sleep. You don’t have to feed him or walk him—he can handle that himself!”
Ye Yang politely declined again. “I really can’t keep him. You should ask someone else.”
“Come on, let me bring the puppy to show you. Maybe once you see him, you’ll want to keep him?”
Hmm… really anxious. And was that even the point?
Wait a minute—this had a sense of déjà vu. It felt just like the scammer from before.
Ye Yang swiped his phone screen, tempted to block this person too. Just then, Chi Lian suddenly spoke up: “Just let him bring the dog over. Sounds interesting. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
Ye Yang jumped in surprise. “How come you don’t make any sound when you move?”
Chi Lian pointed to his lower half. Ye Yang looked and nearly got dizzy—taking advantage of no outsiders in the company to just let loose like that? The giant python body was taking up half the lobby!
Ye Yang instinctively shrank back and asked him, “Why are you so long now?”
“Been eating well lately,” Chi Lian replied casually. “Anyway, forget that. Show me that puppy again. Looks pretty cute to me.”
“…Just because we’re good friends doesn’t mean you can sneak a look at my phone. I’ll let it slide this time, but watch it next time.”
Chi Lian ignored him entirely, only repeating: “Show the puppy! Show the puppy!”
After looking at it, he declared, “If you don’t want this puppy, I do!”
·
The netizen on the other end quickly agreed to bring the puppy over the next day. When Ye Yang came to work the next day, as soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he saw Grey squatting in front of the company gate, facing away from him.
Hearing the elevator, Grey immediately turned and called out to Ye Yang, “Come take a look—who sent you this little thing?”
Ye Yang leaned in and saw a puppy identical to the one in yesterday’s photo sitting in a shabby cardboard box. Its yellowish fur was clean, as if just washed, with two short ears standing perkily on its head.
Inside the box were also a blanket, dog food, and other supplies. Written on the outside of the box was Ye Yang’s phone number—clearly meant for him.
“Who left this here?”
Grey picked up the puppy and gave it a pet. “If I knew, would I be asking you? It was already here when I arrived. Hey, this dog doesn’t run off at all, and it’s not even on a leash.”
Ye Yang took out his phone to message that netizen, only to find that the person had already deleted him. When he clicked on the user’s profile, the account had even been deactivated!
??? What was going on?
Completely baffled, Ye Yang was still trying to figure it out when Chi Lian cheered and carried the puppy inside the company.
Chi Lian was terrible at naming things, but he refused to let anyone else do it. After thinking it over for three days, he finally decided to name the little mutt “Tu Tu.”
Ye Yang never expected that this puppy could really walk itself.
The little mutt picked up its own leash in its mouth, rode the elevator down to the first floor by itself, did its business in the flower bed, and then calmly rode the elevator back up to the company. It wasn’t until Grey caught it for the second time that Chi Lian remembered dogs actually need to be walked—twice a day, leading the little mutt downstairs.
Good thing Grey noticed early. Otherwise, if Tu Tu had been wandering outside without a leash, either it would have been caught as a stray, or Chi Lian would have been tracked down and fined. These days, the city had been cracking down hard on walking dogs without a leash.
Walking itself was one thing, but the puppy could even buy its own snacks!
On the third day after the puppy moved into the company, Ye Yang arrived in the morning to find a box of freeze-dried treats and a can of wet food sitting at the door, packed in a pet store bag. Inside the bag were also a receipt and some loose change.
Ye Yang found the pet store’s phone number on the bag and called. As soon as he mentioned the address, the person on the other end laughed. “That puppy you’re raising is way too smart! It came in to buy things all by itself. Oh, by the way, the missing one yuan was a delivery fee.”
Ye Yang looked down at the little mutt. Tu Tu was panting happily, tongue lolling out, tail wagging nonstop, its eyes clear and bright.
When everyone in the office heard about it, they started guessing whether the puppy had awakened its intelligence. Xing Tian even went so far as to feel the puppy’s bones with great seriousness. Of course, it was just an ordinary puppy.
Sister Wu: “Amazing. Can a mutt really be this smart?”
Chi Lian felt strangely proud. “Of course the puppy I picked is smart.”
Gradually, little Tu Tu got familiar with the company and the people in it and started exploring beyond.
At first, everyone thought the little mutt was smart and well-behaved, but it only took a few days for its true nature to show.
It was too clever. The company’s front door couldn’t keep it in. Every night, it would squeeze through the gap under the door and roam around the entire floor. Grey would receive complaints from other companies every couple of days.
Chi Lian grabbed a rolled-up newspaper and slammed it on the desk. “Did you pee on someone else’s desk again? And steal their snacks too?”
Little Tu Tu sat upright in front of him, lifted a hind leg to scratch its neck, and pretended not to hear.
Chi Lian was furious. “Still pretending? I know you understand me. The security camera caught everything. You bad dog!”
Tu Tu turned around and pointed its butt at him.
Chi Lian was beside himself with anger, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually hit the puppy. The chaos went on for days. Finally, Tu Tu did something major and got the company jointly complained about to the building management by several other companies.
That day, to make mopping easier, a cleaner had used a wedge-shaped piece of wood to prop open a fire door. When the cleaner left, they forgot to close it. Tu Tu ran all the way from Ye Yang’s company floor down to the first floor.
On the first floor, there was a coffee shop that also sold some breakfast items, bread, and desserts.
The security camera footage was crystal clear. Tu Tu had a clear goal in mind—it headed straight for the dessert display case, which still had some unsold bread from the day before. But with its short little legs, it had to get up via the back counter. As it tried to climb the display case, its paws slipped, and it fell backward, knocking everything off the counter.
There was also some sort of extraction machine on the counter—reportedly very expensive and quite heavy. It didn’t fall to the ground, but a flying bread knife had punctured its extraction bottle, shattering glass everywhere.
Ye Yang couldn’t even bear to look at the coffee shop owner’s twisted face.
After over an hour of chaos, Boss Long personally stepped in to negotiate compensation with each party. When he came back, he told Chi Lian, “This puppy can’t stay in the company anymore.”
Chi Lian was a bit defiant. “I can use a barrier to confine it at night.”
Boss Long shook his head. “You can’t keep it locked up forever. You’ll have to let it out during the day. This puppy is too unruly. Take it home and train it properly first.”
After all, pets weren’t even allowed in this building to begin with, and now things had escalated this far.
Xing Tian couldn’t help asking Chi Lian, “Since you can use a barrier to confine it, why didn’t you do that earlier?”
Chi Lian turned his head away, his voice dropping with less confidence. “I just didn’t want to restrict Tu Tu’s freedom, that’s all. He rarely gets to go out as it is. That’s already pitiful enough.”
Aside from being led downstairs for walks, the puppy was usually stuck inside the company. That was already sad enough. Locking a sea creature up… Chi Lian immediately thought of those days when he was forced into hiding. How could he bear to make the puppy suffer the same way?
Sister Wu narrowed her eyes, tapping her chin. “So basically, you’ve completely spoiled Tu Tu, haven’t you? He was actually very well-behaved at first.”
Chi Lian froze, then looked horrified. “Wha… Is that true?!”
Sister Wu nodded. “Exactly.”
Chi Lian was deeply shaken. In the end, he agreed to take Tu Tu away. But after just one day at home, he brought the puppy back.
Ye Yang was puzzled. “Why did you bring him back?”
The moment Chi Lian saw Ye Yang, his eyes lit up. “Hey, hey, Teacher Ye! You’ve come at the perfect time.”
Ye Yang instantly went on high alert. Chi Lian hadn’t called him “Teacher Ye” in a long time. Sudden politeness like this never meant anything good.
Sure enough, Chi Lian’s next words were: “Teacher Ye, could you take Tu Tu in for just a couple of days?”
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