Chapter 25

In the countryside, the last type of animal that many households still keep is the dog, which is also a good playmate for rural children.

When he talked about it before, he would say it was the family dog. As the pet market gradually grew, more and more breeds appeared, and more and more people discussed their Pekingese, Samoyeds, Labradors, Chihuahuas, Dobermans, Beagles, and so on. He suddenly didn't know how to refer to the dogs he had raised as a child, the ones he played with. What breeds were they, and what were their names?

Many people called them "native dogs," but Feng Yiping certainly wouldn't accept it! "Native" corresponds to "foreign," and "native dogs" sounded full of contempt and disdain. What kind of mentality did these people have? In this day and age, they still thought that even foreign dogs were better than the native ones from their own country?

Later, it seemed that many people also realized this, so these dogs were given a grand name: "Chinese Rural Dogs"! The name was grand, but Feng Yiping felt very unfamiliar with it, not at all intimate. The dogs he raised as a child just didn't match this name.

Now, in his political class, Feng Yiping, twelve years old in body but over thirty in mind, pretended to be focused on the lesson. In reality, he was preparing to write a story for money and was thinking about why almost every household in the countryside now kept a dog. For guarding the house? No, at this time, there wasn't much worth guarding in any household. The countryside had few people moving around, and almost no outsiders, so there was nothing to protect.

Moreover, twenty years later, when almost every household had two-story houses and was fully electrified, with roads directly leading to the door and many people coming and going, the need for guarding the house was greater, but there were fewer households in the village that kept dogs. Why was this? He couldn't figure it out, but at this time, there were many households that kept dogs.

Feng Yiping's family was the same. From the time he could remember, the first dog they raised was a female, which gave birth twice a year, but only four or five puppies at a time. Feng Yiping was still very young at the time, not even in school, and he particularly liked these fluffy little things.

He was often sick and weak, and the children of his age in the village, like Feng Wen, would bully him. So he would play with a group of dogs around the house. He even gave the dogs names, like Xiaohei, Xiaoguai, Xiaokuai, and Xiaoman, and thus earned the nickname "Dog Commander"! He was very close to the dogs, and even after the puppies were given away to other families and grew up, they would still wag their tails and come to play with him when they saw him.

That year, the mother dog gave birth to six puppies. Before the puppies could be given away, the mother dog fell ill and couldn't survive. So the family chose one from the six, which Feng Yiping named Xiaoguai, to keep. From then on, this dog became Feng Yiping's friend and brother, and the two were inseparable.

When his sister went to school and his parents went to work in the mountains, he was left with his grandmother. His grandmother was old and had many grandchildren to take care of, so she couldn't look after him well. Besides, she had never liked Mei Qiuping, so Feng Yiping wasn't very close to his grandmother.

So, when he got tired from playing outside, he would sit on the stone steps in front of the house every noon, waiting for his parents to come home. Often, while waiting, he would fall asleep, hugging the puppy on the steps. People passing by would say that Feng Yiping and his dog brother had a very close relationship.

When Feng Yiping started primary school at the age of six, Xiaoguai would take him to the hill where he could see the village primary school every morning before returning home. At noon and in the evening, when Feng Yiping crossed the stone bridge in front of the village after school, Xiaoguai would always rush out from behind the house, put its front paws on his shoulders, and lick his face with its big tongue, showing great affection.

But good times didn't last long. In the third grade, during the dog's mating season, it would run around the village, looking for females with similar scents. Some idle men couldn't stand this and would beat the dogs with big sticks for fun. Xiaoguai, being older and probably having a temper, started chasing and biting those who scattered the dogs. It bit two people. The people who were bitten came to the house that day, and Feng Zhenchang and Mei Qiuping had to say many good words before they would leave.

The village said that once a dog started biting people, it would bite anyone it didn't know, and according to the village, the dog was "mad" and couldn't be kept.

Feng Zhenchang didn't consult Feng Yiping and found two people from the village, one who often beat dogs and another who had a gun. The one who often beat dogs had a rope, and the other had his gun. From the moment they entered the house, Xiaoguai must have sensed something was wrong. It felt uneasy, its ears perked up, and it growled low in its throat, showing a defensive posture. Suddenly, it saw an opportunity and ran toward the door, but unfortunately, it was blocked by the prepared people.

When the door was closed, Feng Yiping saw what it meant for a dog to be driven to desperation—Xiaoguai, seeing no way out through the door, tried to jump onto the roof beam. It ran backward and jumped at the wall repeatedly, leaving marks on the mud bricks. The highest jump almost reached the beam...

Feng Yiping didn't cry at the time because he knew crying wouldn't help. His father's decision was unchangeable. While the struggle was still going on inside, he could only run away again.

Later, his sister told him that Xiaoguai, seeing no way out, bit the gun barrel...! If compared, this was a brave warrior facing the enemy's gun with his chest!

Xiaoguai was probably eaten by everyone. Whether Feng Yiping ate it or not, he seemed to have selectively forgotten. However, it can be inferred that by the third grade, Feng Yiping was already mature enough to understand emotions and guilt. He would choose to respect it, even though he couldn't change its fate or stop his parents from putting it on the table, at least he would respect it!

After that, the family never kept a dog again.

Of course, Feng Yiping had eaten dog meat before. A few years ago, just before the lunar New Year, his second uncle sent a dog leg, which the family stewed and ate. Feng Yiping remembered that the soup was very good.

Oh, forgive me, Xiaoguai!

People are often forgetful. These things, Feng Yiping, who was just entering junior high school, remembered. Later, all these memories would be forgotten until one day in 2010.

By then, Feng Yiping's business was on track, and he often watched movies online in his free time. After a while, he had seen most of the good ones. One day, he was browsing on Storm Media and saw "Hachiko: A Dog's Tale," which he had ignored many times. Zhang Yan, who was beside him, said, "This one has a high rating, let's watch it."

Feng Yiping knew from the rating that the movie might be good, but from the title, he knew it was about a Japanese dog. The lead actor was Richard Gere, a supporter of the exiled ** Lama, who had boycotted the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He didn't like it and hadn't watched it. But since Zhang Yan suggested it and there weren't many other options, he decided to watch it.

At first, it seemed a bit dull, but later, some scenes, like Hachiko quickly digging a hole under the fence and crawling out, and the cautious way he and the professor dealt with the skunk, which still ended in a trap, made him laugh.

But as the movie progressed, when the professor's wife returned to the town years later and saw the no longer shiny, no longer agile Hachiko still waiting at the train station entrance; and on a snowy night, when Hachiko knew his time was near, he came to the flower bed at the station entrance for the last time, struggling to open his eyes, looking at the door where the professor had repeatedly opened it, smiled, and called him, recalling every moment they had spent together, and finally, unable to hold on, closed his eyes, Zhang Yan was already crying uncontrollably.

Feng Yiping didn't cry, but he kept blowing his nose, and the table was piled with tissues.

Yes, some stories, without dramatic twists and turns, are simple and plain, but they make you cry uncontrollably.

Later, Feng Yiping told Zhang Yan the story of Xiaoguai. Zhang Yan's eyes were red, and she said that something similar had happened in her family. A dog, after its owner died, accompanied the villagers to the mountain to bury the owner and then stayed by the grave. On the seventh day, the dog also passed away.

Later, Feng Yiping even asked his father-in-law to confirm, and it turned out that it was true. So, although art is derived from life and is higher than life, in reality, life is often more surprising and bizarre than art.

So, this time, what Feng Yiping wanted to write was to combine all these elements into a story, a story about an old, lonely man and his faithful dog.

If this story is published, it could be considered Feng Yiping's original work. He couldn't guarantee how good it would be, but many of the scenes he had experienced personally, so he could ensure that it would be genuine and heartfelt, without exaggeration or pretense.

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