Saving the Boss From a ‘Dog Blood’ Novel - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: That Day, the Puppy Finally Waited in the Heavy Rain…

On the first day Ye Li turned into a puppy, it was pouring.

He couldn’t see the color of his own fur, but it was likely white. Muddy ground was a disadvantage for a white dog, he was messy beyond recognition. He huffed and puffed as he climbed up a step, squatting in front of a shop entrance, gazing up at the curtain of rain cascading from the eaves.

Regarding the matter of turning into a dog, he had no clue. Perhaps it was because a dog’s brain was no longer sufficient to support complex, sophisticated thought, but it wasn’t enough to make him panic. He couldn’t remember the events of the previous day, yet he felt a strange certainty in his heart: this situation would not last long.

As long as he didn’t drown in the heavy rain first.

He tried his best to tuck in his paws, a look of gravity appearing in his round puppy eyes.

This was a “village within a city” with terrible drainage. Turbid rainwater, carrying silt and filth, backflowed into the streets and was about to submerge the steps. He was a small puppy who hadn’t yet mastered the innate talent of swimming—at least, not the skill of dog-paddling through a mudflow.

So, was this brief life going to end like this?

Ye Li curled his body further into the steps, his thoughts growing sluggish from the cold.

The filthy water submerged the puppy’s legs and belly, causing him to float involuntarily. His body, however, felt exceptionally heavy. The bone-chilling cold easily transmitted through his soaked fur to his nerves. Rainwater poured into his nose and mouth.

He struggled with all his might to crawl toward the threshold at the end of the steps, but the ocean formed by the storm followed him like a shadow. Right at this moment of life and death, a pair of long legs entered his field of vision. He tilted his head up with great difficulty:

The newcomer held an umbrella and looked down, a half-burned cigarette dangling from his mouth. A familiar face was blurred behind the mist of rain and smoke—deep-set eyes, a tight jawline, expressionless. The torrential rain had not destroyed his composure; it even gave him a faint air of majesty.

In front of short-legged creatures, adult bipeds are generally majestic.

Ye Li didn’t feel the relief of being rescued, instead, he thought secretly: It’s over!

The one who had come was Lu Mingtang, a beast in human clothing, an utter scoundrel.

He was accustomed to doing things in the name of charity: lending someone a hundred thousand but demanding five hundred thousand back. Even the usurers of the old society weren’t as black-hearted as him. If someone couldn’t pay, he’d make them pay with their bodies; countless men and women lived in trembling fear beneath his skin of “fame-seeking hypocrisy.”

They hadn’t seen each other for six or seven years, yet he could still hear negative news about him.

Unscrupulous, sinister, and violent—there were even whispers of involvement with organized crime. The only strange thing was that today’s legal system actually tolerated him jumping around until now.

Perhaps there was a hint of baseless rumor involved, but Ye Li didn’t truly care. After all, he had once resolved to kick this person out of his social circle; whether the news was true or false had long since lost meaning to him.

But now was different. His fragile little life was gripped in this man’s hand.

He might just quietly enjoy watching him drown in the rain.

Ye Li’s paddling motions became increasingly slow…

Lu Mingtang never truly cared about anything. Colleagues, subordinates, friends—everyone was merely a symbol to him. His heart was cast in iron, without a trace of warmth. All he had was a group of idiots charmed into stupidity, treating his words as gospel and following him step-by-step.

He was ruthless in his dealings, overbearing, and hypocritical. Once someone failed to keep up with his pace, they would disappear from the company the next day…

If he was like this toward humans, how much mercy could he have for a dog?

He could even lay a heavy hand on a child he had watched grow up. Now, he was just a strange, fragile puppy. Surely…

Eh?

Ye Li’s suspended limbs dangled in the air, maintaining a dog-paddling posture.

“Little thing, who dumped you here?”

The deep voice carried a hint of raspiness, mixing with the sound of the rain as it drifted into the puppy’s sensitive ears. Ye Li’s heart rate quickened slightly, but his movements became sluggish. He turned his head and was choked into a few sneezes by the face-full of secondhand smoke.

Seeing him coughing pitifully, Lu Mingtang held him further away, tilted his head to wedge the umbrella against his shoulder, and while still dangling the cigarette butt, used one hand to fish out his keys and open the door.

The development of events was different from what he had imagined. Ye Li remained somewhat dazed, his limbs tucked in, not making a sound.

This is his home?

Had the business of Mingde Company sunk to such a level?

The rusted iron gate was pulled open. The smell of fishy water carried dust, and a cold, damp, greasy scent wafted toward him. This place looked as though no one had visited for at least a year. Lu Mingtang acted with practiced familiarity, tossing him onto a table, opening the circuit breaker box, and—snap—the room became bright.

The place where Ye Li sat was a sewing machine—an old item; he didn’t know if it still worked. But judging from the bolts of cloth and clothes piled on the shelves on all four sides, this should be a tailor shop.

How peculiar. A tailor shop in a “village within a city”—not the high-end custom kind, but likely the kind of shop from the old days that helped common folk with mending and patching. So?

Lu Mingtang was once a tailor?

Then he should have studied fashion design. Why get into sympathetic nervous system AI? And if he were a tailor, they likely never would have met; there would be one less unpleasant existence in his life.

Reason returned, but the current situation still couldn’t be called safe.

Lu Mingtang likely just didn’t want a dog to die at his own doorstep. He had a bit of a cleanliness obsession, likely because he originated from a “dirty” urban village. Things like dead rats or dead cockroaches absolutely could not appear in his sight.

Ye Li had seen it with his own eyes: every day when this man went to work, he had to take a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wipe that spotless desk one more time.

So a dead dog was too much for him. Though he had luckily survived the heavy rain, he couldn’t expect this guy to have more patience—like taking him to a hospital, heating water for a bath, or feeding him to prevent starvation. Even simply not chaining him up or giving him a beating afterward would already count as lucky.

Logic shouted: He has to find a way to escape.

Ye Li obeyed logic, squatting obediently in place, staring with wide eyes to observe Lu Mingtang.

Cigarette ash fell to the floor. He was sweeping while ash continued to fall, the efficiency was “touching.” He was absent-minded, but his movements were brisk. The jacket he wore was old but looked thick. Likely finding it in the way, he threw it onto the dog’s table.

Unaccountably, Ye Li felt a sense of displacement. This Lu Mingtang before his eyes truly looked like a native of this place, as if with just one breath, he could silently melt into this soil.

He had originally thought that even if the man didn’t come from a wealthy background, he was likely from a spoiled middle-class family.

This place was so dilapidated that Ye Li didn’t know how to describe it.

Likely, the remaining value of the buildings for ten miles around lay entirely in the land. If demolition and relocation went smoothly, it would be a “attainment of merit.” If not, it was a genuine “historical legacy issue”—the inevitable pain in the development of every city. One endures until it merges with the life of the city itself.

Like a scar on the city, and also a scar on Lu Mingtang. He never spoke of the past, perhaps because it was hard to voice. All Ye Li knew was that he and Wu Yu were from the same hometown; beyond that, even Wu Yu hadn’t said much.

After a simple cleaning, Lu Mingtang freed up his hands to deal with the dog on the table. Obviously, the primary method for most humans to welcome a life was—boiling water.

Ye Li felt as if he were facing a formidable enemy. He saw the man lift the kettle from the stove and pour a basin of steaming hot water. The hazy white mist blurred his vision, and in the gloom, the other’s actions became dangerous.

He couldn’t help but think of the segments he had seen in documentaries about rural people slaughtering chickens and ducks. Scalding with boiling water was a primitive and effective method of hair removal. The chicken in the footage was just like him now: soaked feathers clinging to the skin, cast aside in a strange posture.

Once the farmer finished boiling the water, the bird would be held by its legs and plunged into the high-temperature water, swirled and circled like a piece of shabu-shabu meat, up and down, and when it came out, it was hairless, easily stripped bare.

So, he shivered when Lu Mingtang approached. He should run to prevent his brief dog life from ending in such an absurd scene, but his physiological instincts were uncontrollable. His trembling limbs failed to perform their duty, and he was easily caught.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. It’ll be over soon.”

The hand pinching his neck was moist and warm. Ye Li raised his eyes and met Lu Mingtang’s gentle gaze. His body still couldn’t stop shaking, but the images of slaughtering chickens and ducks that had been swirling in his mind vanished like thin smoke.

If he wasn’t a pervert, he probably wasn’t going to eat him.

He awkwardly recalled the past. Although Lu Mingtang had various flaws, it seemed…he probably wasn’t a pervert.

He just wanted to give the puppy a bath.

Outside, the rain was torrential. The puppy was covered in mud; who knew how many miles he had wandered or how many lice and fleas were on his body before appearing here? So, a bath upon the first meeting was very normal.

The bad news was that a bath was not a convenient time to escape.

But the good news was that the dog’s life was saved.

Having figured this out, Ye Li relaxed his body and calmly entregusted himself into Lu Mingtang’s hands.

But he soon regretted it.

“AWOOOOOO!!!!”

This basin of water is boiling! At least semi-boiling!!

He retracted his previous statement. Lu Mingtang was a pervert; he really did want to eat dog!

Lu Mingtang was also startled. The puppy suddenly leaped from the basin, using all four paws to cling to his forearm, howling incessantly.

He had never washed a dog, especially a small puppy like this. The fragmented information retrieved from his phone search just now seemed insufficient to handle the situation at hand. Are dogs not tolerant of high temperatures?

But the water isn’t scalding anymore?

He reached into the basin to stir, crushing the laundry detergent that had settled at the bottom. It wasn’t hot. Therefore, the conclusion: the puppy was pampered and shouldn’t be spoiled.

Fortunately, the puppy became very obedient later on, even tolerating the laundry powder that didn’t produce much foam in the basin.

After all, this man truly didn’t know how to wash a dog.

He gave him warm water, a dry environment, and later would likely give him a bite of hot food—this already counted as a kind and compassionate person. Although the description didn’t quite fit Lu Mingtang, Ye Li was willing to admit that he might, perhaps, seemingly have held a prejudice before.

When he turned back into a human, for the sake of these kind deeds today, he would give him…

Ye Li’s train of thought stalled.

What could he give Lu Mingtang?

In the six or seven years since they parted ways, Lu Mingtang had never asked him for anything.

And speaking of which, how did the current accident happen?

An experimental accident?

Wait, what experiment was he doing?

An animal experiment?

Using such a small puppy for animal testing?

Even for him, that was going too far.

No, no, no—that was a slander against his character. The laboratory had specialized mice for feeding, ten thousand times more professional than a little white dog.

“Puppy is so good.” The one washing the dog felt quite a sense of achievement, unceremoniously wrapping him in his own old clothes.

Dammit, stop interfering with my thoughts.

“Probably a pet that got lost. Not sick, right?”

Lu Mingtang flipped him over, checking his limbs and belly. To his unprofessional eyes, this puppy looked quite healthy.

Ye Li-dog endured in silence.

“The rain is so heavy; I can only wait until later to help you find your owner.”

“I’ll get you something to eat in a bit.”

Lu Mingtang talked to himself, habitually pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and unconsciously biting one in his mouth.

The dog’s gaze followed it, and his thoughts branched:

It wasn’t an animal experiment. D*mmit, did this guy always have such a heavy smoking habit?

Secondhand smoke was very pungent; for a nose like a dog’s, it was absolute torture. Especially for a puppy, he might just get lung cancer directly from the fumes.

Lu Mingtang’s movements paused strangely. He had a bit of telepathy with this puppy and actually read its resistance to secondhand smoke. He froze for a moment, didn’t light the cigarette, and said helplessly:

“Pampered.”

Ye Li sneezed. Pampered it is then, a dog raised in poverty dies young.

Lu Mingtang wrapped the puppy well and looked around for a hair dryer. Suddenly, a voice came from the door:

“Brother Lu? You’re back!”

Lu Mingtang was familiar with him. Hearing the voice, he didn’t even turn his head as he nodded:

“Ah Feng, why are you running around in such heavy rain?”

Ah Feng was in a hurry; his voice sounded like a car racing on the tip of his tongue, spilling out in a rush:

“Quick, quick, quick, good timing. Grandma Wu is on the mountain and refuses to come down. Everyone’s gone. Oh man, it’s flooding! She won’t listen. You know how it is—she’s old, a bit of dementia…”

Ye Li didn’t hear the rest clearly. By the time the tail end of Ah Feng’s words faded into the distance, he realized he had been left behind.

With no one around, it was a good time to escape.

But he had just taken a bath, hadn’t been dried, and it was quite cold—

He sneezed again and reluctantly burrowed into the jacket Lu Mingtang had left behind, borrowing the man’s residual body heat for warmth.