Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Whenever Su Qi ran into something he didn’t understand in his studies, he would ask me directly.

Although he was in the first grade, the semester was already halfway through. Trying to catch up with the teacher’s pace proved to be quite a struggle for him.

Sitting under the warm yellow light, I looked at the crooked symbols he had written-marks that could hardly even be called characters.

Yet, he wrote them with great focus and effort.

“Can I get a dog?” he asked, looking up at me after he finished writing.

“Sure.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“Why?” I asked.

With an air of unusual maturity, he explained his plan. “If we have a dog, it can guard the house.”

“Then we’ll buy one,” I agreed immediately, even though buying a dog would be a significant expense.

Just as he had once agreed to my requests.

When I was little, I was terrified of him. I didn’t dare mention anything, let alone ask for anything.

It wasn’t until junior high that I finally spoke up for the first time out of necessity. Only then did I realize it wasn’t that difficult. I realized that as long as I asked, he would give me anything. Even if he didn’t have it at the moment, he would find a way to get it for me.

The day after I agreed, he came home carrying a dog. It was black and skinny.

“Is this one okay?” he asked me.

After I gave my approval, he took the dog to get washed.

From that day on, he would set aside time in the evenings to train the dog. When it was time to sleep, he would lock the door and keep the dog inside, tethered by a rope.

“If there’s any movement outside, it’ll bark right away,” he said, looking up at me while petting the little black dog.

The little black dog was named Little Black.

I nodded.

That very night, Little Black barked.

When I woke up, my eyes were bleary with sleep. In the dim darkness, I saw Su Qi crouching by the door with a knife in his hand. Little Black was circling around him, having fallen silent.

In that absolute silence, I could hear the faintest sounds coming from the doorway.

Suddenly, Su Qi thrust the knife through the gap in the door with lethal speed and ferocity. A scream erupted from outside, followed by the sound of frantic, stumbling footsteps running away.

Su Qi stood up and turned around, seeing that I was awake.

“Go back to sleep. I’m here.”

Those words gave me an indescribable sense of security.

I remembered the person who had compromised for me when high school started, allowing me to live in the dorms. He had patted my shoulder and said, “If anyone bullies you out there, tell me immediately. I’ll go hack them to pieces!”

And later on, he truly lived up to those words.