Chapter 2

Ten years and one month as the Celestial Hound: one month in heat, ten years in secluded cultivation.

Hilarious.

The goddamn life of a god.

The good news was that when I emerged, I had taken human form.

The bad news was that I’d become a woman.

Wait. Wasn’t that good news?

Yang Jian had guarded me for ten years. At first, he was delighted to see I’d transformed.

Then he saw my face.

He fell silent.

All three eyes looked me up and down several times. He couldn’t make sense of it.

His best buddy was male.

How had he turned into a woman?

His three little eyes held an enormous amount of confusion.

At last, he walked over with a grave expression and patted my shoulder. “My condolences.”

Me: What?

Right. Bad news it was.

Yang Jian blamed the Supreme Lord Lao.

“Another counterfeit pill! I should have known!”

…It might have been genuine, but I kept that to myself.

I watched Yang Jian storm off to confront Lord Lao and wanted to tag along for the show.

But he held me back. “You’re a girl. Leave the fighting to me.”

I suspected he’d forgotten I was the Celestial Hound.

Admittedly, I now looked as delicate and innocent as a little white flower. It was rather misleading.

I immediately changed back into a dog. Anything for some drama.

Never underestimate a human’s need for gossip.

Yang Jian looked at me, his brows twisting into a knot. His lips opened and closed, but for a long time, nothing came out.

“Come along, then.”

The Supreme Lord Lao denied supplying a counterfeit elixir.

Yang Jian gripped his three-pointed, double-edged blade, fury blazing in his vertical eye. “If there was nothing wrong with your pill, why did Xiaotian turn into a woman?”

Lord Lao stood firm, sticking out his neck. “How should I know? You can’t blame my elixirs for everything!”

“You old fraud!”

They launched into a game of chase.

I sprawled nearby, leaning against a pillar, smacking my lips and enjoying every second.

Where were the sunflower seeds and soda when you needed them?

Lord Lao’s young attendant edged over and studied me from every angle. “Isn’t that a rather peculiar way for a dog to sit?”

I patted him with a paw. “Blame your master’s elixir.”

He patted me sympathetically. “Really? Then my master certainly owes you an apology.”

After Yang Jian chased him around three times with his blade, Lord Lao finally lost his nerve. “Fine, let’s say there was something wrong with it…”

Tsk, tsk. Coercing the innocent in broad daylight. Extracting a confession by force. Was this the collapse of morality or the corruption of human nature?

Lord Lao wiped the sweat from his forehead, came over, and closely examined my…balls.

He even tried to touch them. One glare from Yang Jian made him withdraw his hand.

I repeated to myself: Those are Xiaotian’s balls, not mine. Not mine…

Then Lord Lao told me to take human form.

An uneasy suspicion crept over me.

Sure enough, once I’d transformed, he told me to take off my clothes.

Me: What?

Yang Jian: What?

Lord Lao sounded eminently reasonable. “How can I establish whether Xiaotian is female without looking?”

“But I look like such a delicate little—”

“You could have a man’s body and a woman’s face!”

“…”

Shit. That made so much sense I had no idea how to argue.

Yang Jian proved himself Xiaotian’s true friend. He understood that dogs had dignity too. “Absolutely not!”

Lord Lao smiled. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help.”

…Crafty old bastard.

I tentatively tugged Yang Jian’s sleeve. “Why don’t we just leave it?”

But Yang Jian was staring thoughtfully at my chest.

You had better not actually be considering this.

Just then, the young attendant caught Yang Jian’s hand.

And put it on my chest.

Me: What?

Yang Jian: What?

The attendant looked up eagerly. “Well?”

Without changing expression, Yang Jian withdrew his hand.

“She’s a woman.”

He turned his face slightly away. The face itself was still white as jade, but from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears, he was scarlet.

Which made the blush even more obvious.

I smiled at the attendant. “Curious? Want to try?”

His eyes lit up. “May I really?”

“Of course. Be my guest.”

He reached out.

Ha. I instantly turned back into a dog and clamped my teeth around his hand.

“Aaaaaah! Master! Help!”

He screamed as though the heavens were falling, running wildly and shaking his hand.

If he managed to fling me off, my name wasn’t Xiao.

Wait. It wasn’t Xiao anyway.

The Supreme Lord Lao looked at Yang Jian.

Yang Jian looked away.

Lord Lao moved around to look at Yang Jian again.

Yang Jian: …

Yang Jian came over to stop me.

He tapped my mouth, telling me to let go.

In the heat of battle, I bit his hand instead.

A vein stood out on his forehead. He pressed his lips together, but in the end, he only stroked my head. “Be good.”

I quietly released him.

Mostly because my teeth hurt.