After hesitating for a long time, I still went back and revised the earlier chapters, removing the pet poodle character.
From now on, the story will proceed without the dog.
Originally, I designed the character Tai Ri Tian mainly to provide a bit of comic relief, and incidentally to use poison as an antidote, helping the wayward youth Momonosuke get back on the righteous path of abstaining from lust and lechery.
But perhaps the parody went too far; the reception wasn't very good.
In the end, I decided to revise the text while the boat was still small enough to turn around.
After all, if it's not well-received, I'll always feel uneasy writing about this character going forward.
I'll still have to spend quite a bit of effort revising the next two chapters of saved drafts before posting them tonight. I probably won't have much time left to keep writing.
Indeed, it turns out that "saved draft" is really just a "draft that can't be saved."