Chapter 5: Phoenix Emperor Qingshui 2
I patted my clothes and tried to stop the little girl who kept apologizing with a wry smile, but I was immediately surrounded by two big dogs who came back.
"Oh, please stop harassing me, okay?" The little girl quickly grabbed the dogs' chains, but she was too small to hold them back. They all jumped up and put their legs on my arms.
"Brother, help me - I can't hold Awang and Afeng anymore!" Seeing that there was no way out, the little girl just started shouting.
"You took the initiative to take them out. I told you before that you wouldn't be able to hold them back..." A clear voice came from the side, and a boy with slender eyebrows appeared in front of me. He was wearing a plaid shirt and a pink apron with a cat printed on it.
"Brother Yang, you said something, come and help me!" the girl screamed and handed the rope to the boy.
"No, it's okay!" I grabbed a dog's front legs to prevent it from jumping on me, but the other dog hugged my legs.
"Awang, Afeng," the boy stood behind the two dogs and said softly, "It's time to go back to the cages!"
The originally excited dogs immediately calmed down. They looked back at the boy, immediately let me go, and stood obediently on the side of the road.
"If you don't follow your sister obediently, you won't have any food!" After the boy said this, the two dogs surrounded the little girl and rubbed her legs with their heads, as if they were acting coquettishly.
I finally breathed a sigh of relief until the little girl left with the dog, looking sad.
"How are you?" The boy pointed at me.
"It's nothing serious, don't worry." I waved my hand nonchalantly and prepared to leave.
Suddenly, someone grabbed my arm, and a young man with slender eyebrows blocked my way: "What do you mean it's okay? Your palm and elbow are scraped, and if they are stained with dust, it will be easy to get infected. Come with me--"
I sat on the light yellow chair and watched the boy carefully wipe my scratched palms with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol.
"Ah... it hurts..." The pain caused by the alcohol made me scream and I wanted to pull my hand back.
"Just be patient, it will be fine soon." The boy squeezed my wrist and soothed me gently with his mouth, but his hands did not relax at all.
I gritted my teeth and carefully looked around to divert my attention. This was a pet shop, and except for this small lounge, all other rooms were filled with pets.
"Because they used to wander the streets, Awang and Afeng are not used to using collars, so they broke free." The boy continued to help me treat the wound on my arm and said casually.
“Huh? Are they… stray dogs?” But they looked very clean and strong, and didn’t look like stray dogs at all.
"They were in a car accident before, and were rescued and sent here. We have raised them for more than half a year, so it is difficult to see clearly." He smiled at me.
"Then the cats and dogs here..."
“Most of them are stray animals waiting to be adopted.” After a brief introduction, the boy took a Band-Aid and helped me put it on.
"Thank you." I moved my wrist, stood up and wanted to leave, but the boy held my shoulders again, "Wait a minute, I'll go find Bi to get you some clothes to change into."
I looked down at myself and saw stains on my wrists and knees, which was indeed a bit ugly. I didn't want to go to someone else's house like this, so I had to trouble him.
After changing my clothes, I thanked the boy again: "Thank you, I will return the clothes after I wash them at home."
"Don't worry, I'm more sorry. Be careful on the road." The boy said with a smile, and his eyes suddenly stopped behind me. "You can spend a whole afternoon buying dog food. You are just being lazy, Axi!"
I turned around curiously and found that it was the "patient" I was planning to visit, Senior Hasumi.
Lian Jianxi, who was wearing a sports sweatband on her forehead and holding a large bag of dog food, was about to explain something with an apologetic look on her face, but when she saw me, her eyes widened: "Xiao Liu? Why are you here?"
"Because senior didn't come today, so... I was thinking that you might be sick, so I wanted to go to your house to see you and ask about your trip last week."
As soon as I mentioned last week's trip, Hasumi-senpai instantly burst into tears and grabbed my hand, "Xiao Liu, you were not here, and I ended up being abandoned after only saying one sentence to Seta-san!"
"Huh?" Now it was my turn to open my eyes wide.
“Because you didn’t come, Oshima, even though I finally waited for Seta-san, she just asked me, ‘Is Xiaoliu not coming?’ and left after getting an affirmative answer. Ahhh…”
The tall and handsome senior student said this as he clung to the electric pole in front of the store like a limp noodle, hugged the pole and started crying.
"Oh! I'm sorry, senior..." I apologized helplessly. If I hadn't run away with Hideki, the senior wouldn't have just said one sentence to the young lady, but... at least he could have made friends through me!
"...Do you know each other?" The boy who had been silent since I greeted the senior suddenly spoke.
"Ah, Ayang, this is the duck schoolmate I told you about!" Senior Lian Jian suddenly stepped forward, stopped crying, hooked his arm around my neck and smiled at the boy next to him.
"Yashima Ryu?" The boy's eyes flickered.
"This is Qingshui Yang, a third-year student in the Art Department of Huanghua College. We went out together last week , and I wanted to introduce him to you!"
"Huh?" Is this boy the one I was supposed to date?
"...What a coincidence!" Qingshui Yang placed a cup of hot milk tea in front of me and then sat down opposite me.
"I'm sorry, senior. I made you run for nothing last week." My face turned red and I lowered my head, not daring to look him in the eye.
"It's okay, you didn't mean it!" Senior Lian Jian patted my back hard.
"I'm still very sorry!" After the senior said this, I felt even more guilty. At that time, the senior was clearly calling me, but I was dragged away by Hideki.
"Puchi!" The boy who had been watching us quietly suddenly laughed.
I realized that he was observing me, and my face turned red with embarrassment.
"Well, so you are also a senior from Huanghua College. I thought you were the boss here..." Maybe because of the help of senior Lian Jian who eased the atmosphere, I was not as nervous as I had imagined.
"No, this shop belongs to the Bi family. Because they love animals, we put the stray animals we pick up here. We will come and help when we have time." Qingshuiyang said this and waved his hand.
"Ah? Is that so?"
"Yes, there are more and more stray animals, but we can't keep them at home, so we used our pocket money to rent this shop. This was originally Bi's home, so we simply asked her parents to take care of it. We only come to help when they are busy."
