Yuande looked curiously at the puppy sitting in front of him. He had found it wandering around the slums a few weeks ago, and pitying the poor creature, decided to feed him some rice. Soon, they formed a close bond, and the creature became less aggressive towards him by the meal—by the day. A few days ago, the pup even let Yuande pet it!

Today, however, it was acting strange. In the midst of playing fetch, it suddenly lost the excitement and sense of joy Yuande had gotten used to.

“Whoof whoof! Whoof whoof whoof!” the puppy squealed.

“What’s wrong Gouzaizi?” the moment Yuande said gouzaizi, the puppy’s ears perked up and it stared at him

“Whoof whoof?”

“You don’t want to play catch?”

“Whoof whoof whoof!”

“Well, how about a tummy rub?” Yuande bent to pet Gouzaizi, but the moment his hand touched Gouzaizi, it recoiled back with a look of disgust.

“…You’re acting weird today,” Yuande stood up. “I’m going back home then. I’ll bring you some food later tonight. See you later!”

When Yuande first started to leave, Gouzaizi stood there dumbfounded, unsure of what to do. When it saw the young boy’s silhouette disappearing around a corner, it looked around and saw no one in the desolate alley. The puppy knew what to do and immediately ran after the only person it was somewhat familiar with.

Yuande was shocked when he heard Gouzaizi running after him. When they’d first met, he’d always look back in hopes of seeing the puppy secretly following him when he left, but after days of nothing happening, he had lost all hope. The heavens were smiling on him today.

“Gouzaizi, you can’t follow me! I don’t think older brother will accept you.”

The puppy stopped when it heard this, looked up, and then continued following Yuande anyway.

Yuande was secretly happy, but he didn’t show it and instead made a grouchy face. His cover was easily discoverable because of the edge of a smile on his face and occasional giggles.

“Oh, big brother is going to be very angry! Don’t complain that I didn’t warn you!” Yuande looked back at Gouzaizi in search of a reaction. Gouzaizi was scared, looking around with confusion in its eyes.

Yuande continued talking the rest of the way. Gouzaizi didn’t make a good conversation partner, so he soon got bored by its lack of excitement and decided to play a game. In the middle of talking, he would suddenly get quiet, look back at the puppy with the corner of his eyes, and then immediately run forward.

This comma-inducing prank startled the puppy and sent it scrambling after Yuande. However, after two times of this happening, Gouzaizi caught up. When Yuande ran away for a third and fourth time, he stopped shortly afterward and looked back at an unimpressed Gouzaizi rolling its eyes at him.

Yuande didn’t let this disappoint him. On the fifth attempt, he didn’t stop after a brief run. Instead, he continued running without looking back. This time Gouzaizi was scared and chased Yuande. Since Gouzaizi was still a pup, it couldn’t catch up with Yuande; he’d even slow down at times to shorten the distance between them.

As the two continued running, they soon entered bigger streets. Now, there were a lot more people about, but that didn’t make Gouzaizi feel any better. Peddlers dotted the sides of the street, and men and women walked about in cliques. A few minutes later, they entered a bigger area which could be described as a market. Now, peddlers gave way to stalls and shops. There were entertainers around every corner, and people would line up to see them perform. A mixture of sweet aromas wafted through the air, but they weren’t enough to distract panicked Gouzaizi.

“Xiao yuan!” a voice called out. Yuande stopped in his tracks and turned towards the speaker.

“Big brother!” he screamed and skipped to the side of the street. Gouzaizi warily followed Yuande amidst shuffling feet.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

There, in a corner, stood a boy who looked to be eleven years old. Even someone without eyes could see that, if this boy was not the most unattractive, then he was definitely one of the most bland-looking people in the world—a stark contrast to Yuande who, although his head was shaved, was very cute and adorable with chubby cheeks despite a slim malnourished figure.

This other boy had somewhat long hair tied by a knot at the back. He looked very typical. His eyebrows were thin, but not too thin. His nose was a little short but not fat and pudgy. His… it’s difficult to pinpoint what exactly was missing, but he would be handsome if his facial structure was a bit…different. The only significant thing about him was a black dot birthmark between his left ear and cheek. He also had a wooden sword on his waist.

There was a barbeque grill with skewers on top propped up on a wooden stool beside him. The boy looked at the dog coming his way.

“What is this, Xiao yuan?” he turned to Yuande.

“It’s a puppy, older brother.” He excitedly replied, as if he’d completely forgotten Gouzaizi.

The older brother smacked his face. “I know, Xiao yuan. I mean why is it here?”

“Well…” Yuande looked down and put hid his hands behind his back, “it started following me… and…” he gulped and, lost for words, faced his brother.

“Yuande.”

Yuande didn’t respond. Instead, he stood on his tiptoes then returned his feet on the ground. He did this a couple more times.

“You know we don’t have enough food even for ourselves.”

Yuande perched his lips and pulled off the sweetest, most innocent puppy eye imaginable in the world. Gouzaizi didn’t know what was going on, but it was taken back with admiration by such skill.

“Yuande.”

“Pweasee.”

“Yuande—”

“Pweaaaaseeeee.”

“Uhhhhhh,” the older brother bent his head back, making it face the sky. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out a couple of times, then opened his eyes again. The heavens were beautiful today. Fluffy clouds sparingly colored a clear blue sky. Shortly afterward, his head snapped down. He huffed. “Fine, it can stay, but I’m not taking care of it!”

“Yayyyy!” Yuande jumped, picked Gouzizai up, and danced in a circle around himself. Gouzaizai wasn’t sure what was going on, but it made a clever guess, and happy with the result, grinned the way dogs do, but stopped immediately after realizing how silly it looked.

Yuande put Gouzaizi down, then, he and his older brother both squatted and looked at the new member of their clique.

“So, is it a boy or a girl?” the older brother asked.

“I don’t know,” Yuande replied.

“Well, let’s check.” The older brother picked the pup up by its two front legs. Gouzaizi began squirming and howling in embarrassment.

“damn, it’s a boy,” he put Gouzaizi down. He immediately growled and barked at the older brother. “Feisty one we have here, don’t we.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Yuande looked curiously at his big brother.

“That it’s a boy? Yes. In a few months, it’s going to start humping all the girl dogs below the heavens! Then we’ll have even more of them!”

“Isn’t more dogs good?”

“We can’t even feed one..”

“Oh,” Yuande looked dejected. The two stared at Gouzaizi for a few more seconds, then, Yuande remembered something.

“What does hump mean, older brother?”

“Ehhhh…” older brother smiled nervously and scratched his head, “It’s like, you know, when, umm…Anyway, does he have a name?”

“Oh! Yes, he does! He’s Gouzaizi.”

Older brotherr began laughing so hard that he held his stomach and fell back on the wall. He even cried a little. “Yuande! That’s not a dog’s name!”

“It’s not?”

“Of course not!” older brother rubbed the tears from the edges of his eyes, “that’s another name for ‘puppy’. You can’t name a puppy… puppy! Bwahahahaha…” he continued laughing.

Yuande stood up and crossed his arms. “Ok, but it’s not that funny.”

“Yes it is!” older brother laughed harder and Yuande rolled his eyes.

After a few moments of this, the older brother opened his eyes and looked around. Passerbys and fellow stall owners were giving him looks of worry, contempt, and disgust. He coughed into a fist and returned to his squat position.

“Ok, well, how about we call him…” older brother looked up in contemplation, then snapped his fingers, “Dougu! Dou for ‘fight’ and gou for ‘dog‘. Fight Dog!” He smiled to himself approvingly. The pup gave him a perplexed look as if he had heard a familiar word.

“I think he likes Gouzaizi better. When I called him Gouzaizi today he responded.”

“Hmmm, ok, then how about this. You call him Gouzaizi, then I’ll call him Dougou. Let’s see which one he likes better.”

“Ok!” Yuande excitedly replied. He put on his sweetest smile and said, “Gouzaizi!”

The pup didn’t know what was going on, but then the older brother spoke.

“Dougou!” Somewhat familiar with the psychology of dogs, he said this with a high voice, opened his mouth wide in a smile, and flailed his arms to make the pup excited.

The pup looked at the two brothers, who in turn stared at him expectantly. In a moment of understanding, he put his head on the ground and started whimpering and crying. The two brothers looked at each other worriedly. Had they adopted a retarded dog? They didn’t know the reason the pup was crying was because he knew Gouzaizi wasn’t a good name after hearing the older brother crack up when Yuande called him that. Dougou also wasn’t an ideal option; it somehow sounded eerily familiar to the pup and he didn’t like it. But no one was laughing. Maybe it sounded good in Chinese?

The pup looked up, but it was Dougou who walked, albeit hesitantly, toward the older brother.

“Whoof!”