Recently the staff of the OSY Company were all working hard for the year-end goal. For many a time they had to work overtime to very late hours. When Xu Nuo was going off work, she said to Jiang Youyou, “You didn’t even attend my engaging ceremony, aren’t you still my friend? Or whether it is possible that you envy me? How about come and have a look at my new home at Christmas?”
Jiang Youyou didn’t raise her head, “I also have a boyfriend and I’m going to spend Christmas with him.”
“Boyfriend? Oh, Dai Jingcheng, Assistant Manager of Engineering Department. He’s all right. A young aggressive fellow, indeed. When I become GM’s wife, I’ll try to promote him. Hey, just kidding! I’ll go first, and you busy yourself.”
At the Christmas day, Dai Jingcheng asked Jiang Youyou out on a date, with the gifts of one watch and one necklace, both were expensive.
And Jiang Youyou gave him a jigsaw puzzle, a very simple present.
She didn’t ask him to accompany her at night. He should be with his parents on a festival, shouldn’t he? If her boyfriend’ parents didn’t like her, and she was only a tool for Dai Jingcheng to revenge on his parents so as to satisfy his abnormal rebellious desire, she couldn’t see why she would feel happy.
She ate slowly, and sail little, because she was thinking about something else.
The Yellow Tiger was gnawing on a lamb chop at home, which was given by Jiang Youyou as a Christmas gift when she left home. It was nibbling it happily in its kennel.
There were footsteps outside the door, strange footsteps.
A man in a black wool hat climbed over the wall and came in. It was utterly dark in the room. Perhaps no one was at home.
The Yellow Tiger whined out a warning, but it wouldn’t attack the human. The man cursed, “Everyone’s gone for the fu*king holiday, and let me come to do the boring business.”
He saw the Yellow Tiger and squatted down to call it.
The Yellow Tiger was quite familiar with such action. It hurried up, not noticing the rope and the knife in the man’s hand.
His original purpose was to give a lesson to the owner of this dog, but it turned out that its owner was not at home. So he had to take the dog to give vent to his bad mood.
He tied up the dog without too much effort. He cut off the four legs of the Yellow Tiger with his knife, and wrote a line of words with a bloody leg of the dog, “It serves you right to disturb the community by keeping this dog.”
“It’s time for me to go back. I still have a dog to feed.”
“Merry Christmas! I’ll come to be with you tomorrow.” Dai Jingcheng hugged Jiang Youyou. He was indeed a sensible boy and knew he should accompany his parents on holidays.
Jiang Youyou went home alone by taxi. It was already dark, bur the streets were still bustling.
There were malls on sale. A twenty percent discount and an additional coupon of three hundred yuan for each five-hundred-yuan bill. She couldn’t miss such good opportunity. She made a temporary decision to get off the taxi.
If she could have known the Yellow Tiger’s tragedy at home, Jiang Youyou would never get off the taxi for shopping in the mall.
When she was back home, the dog didn’t jump at her as cheerfully as usual. She came nearer and saw the Yellow Tiger lying on the footstep dying.
O my God! What happened to the Yellow Tiger’s legs?! Jiang Youyou ran out of the house with the dog and its cut legs. Who was so cruel to maltreat the dog? Who on earth was it?
In the taxi, the Yellow Tiger tried very hard to open its eyes to look at its mistress with a whine coming out of its mouth. It might not feel too painful, but it might have realized what was going to happen, and it seemed to have the sadness of separation, while it was still wagging its tail to please its mistress.
Jiang Youyou turned her head away to avoid her tears dropping on the dog, being afraid that it couldn’t die peacefully.
Pu Yuanhui gor off his car as soon as he received Jiang Youyou’s call. He had been drinking to the late at night and wandering around alone. He also bought a scarf as a Christmas gift for Xiang Lizhi. But he only found a premium car much more expensive than his parking in his garage when he drove his car to the gate of his home. The noise of loud music came out of the window, seeming to conceal moans of man and woman when making love.
“Don’t go upstairs.” It was not his home now. It was the home of her and another man. It would be badly inconvenient for him to go back home now. Would he kill the man or would he pretend that nothing had happened?
He had forgotten that they had already separated and should not interfere with each other any longer.
Receiving the phone call, Pu Yuanhui drove off at a high speed. He knew on this occasion he was the person whom Jiang Youyou was most in need.
When he arrived at the pet clinic, Jiang Youyou huddled (up) in a corner of the clinic. The Yellow Tiger had already closed its eyes quietly.
He held her in his arms and asked her what had happened.
Jiang Youyou said in a dull tone, “At the beginning I adopted the Yellow Tiger because I had pity on it. Then I became familiar with it. But why should it die and leave me. They killed it. It would be much better if they had it died all at once. But how could they cut off its four legs? It was my puppy. It was unlucky to have me as its mistress. It was a mischievous dog. It often bit into my sofa, and it disliked to take bath. It also bit chickens, ducks, geese and other dogs to death in the village. It would only eat meat but not the pet food. Anyway I liked it very much, for it was the cutest puppy in the world. It wouldn’t sense pain, just like me. So why can’t I feel the pain? Why…?”
Jiang Youyou bit back of her hand desperately until blood oozed out of the bite marks, but she couldn’t sense it at all.
Pu Yuanhui took her hand away and led her into his car. He asked the vet for a plastic bag and put the freezing dog into it.
Jiang Youyou just sat in the car in tears. She made no remarks, hanging her head limply.
Going back to the courtyard, she only sat on the meadow.
Pu Yuanhui stuck a spade and dug a hole of one meter deep in the ground. He looked at Jiang Youyou seriously, “the dog has died, and now I’m going to bury it, are you ready for it?”
At last she cried out, “Let me have another look at it, please. Only one look.”
Opening the plastic bag, they saw the Yellow Tiger’s head already drooping and its blood drained away. Jiang Youyou touched its head lovingly, “Don’t be my puppy in your next life. But I still want to be your mistress. I’m sorry, Yellow Tiger. It’s me, your mommy, who was unable to protect you. Excuse me.”
A light wind was blowing. Some withered leaves on the grass were flying in the air and then fell down.
Pu Yuanhui sprinkled the soil on the dog’s body and slowly buried it.
“Go into the room. Anyway, the puppy has already died.” Pu Yuanhui felt sorrowful, although it was only a dog.
It was much more troublesome to kill a human than to kill a dog. Jisan suddenly felt coldness in his neck when he was enjoying a massage from a female. He looked back to see a long knife was putting on his neck.
“Are you…?”
He said “you” ’cause there were three to four men waving the knives. The massage girl had long escaped out of fear. They pressed their caps very low and wore sunglasses so that he couldn’t see clearly what they looked like.
Jisan never took his men with him when he had a massage here, ’cause the massage shop was owned by his uncle. It must be absolutely safe.
The safest place could also be most dangerous. Jisan had several cuts in his leg which made his flesh torn to shreds. When he saw the blood gushing from the base of his thigh, he felt the whole body turning extremely cold.
“Where is Pu Yuanhui? You’re his sidekick. Tell me and I’ll let you go.”
Jisan felt the Grim Reaper was cutting his head. “His home is in Berlin Garden, No. 9 of Building 13. He’s having sex with the girl there tonight.”
One of the man in black was checking the address and he replied to his boss, “It’s true of the address. The owner’s name is Pu Yuanhui.”
They stopped hacking Jisan. They rested for a while and went out after they tied Jisan on the bench. Jisan died when his blood drained out. Not everyone would keep his promise.