Lillipup Delivers to a House with No Number Plate

Hearing that Lillipup was going along on deliveries, several people outside immediately wanted to come too.

"I just want to see how it finds the way."

"It happens to be on my route."

"I live on East Street too."

Pancham sat down on the threshold and let no one pass.

For the first trial run, too many people would only make Lillipup nervous. In the end, only A-Li, Rotom, and a little dog carrying a water bottle went out.

There were three portions of bread in the trial basket.

The first was savory, with blue cloth tied to the paper string; the second had honey and was wrapped in yellow cloth; the third contained no sugar and was packed in an ordinary brown paper bag.

A-Li did not read the addresses aloud to Lillipup. She only let it smell each bag and its corresponding old cloth tag. The delivery shop had always collected the cloth tags afterward, and they retained traces of each customer's home scent.

Lillipup sniffed very slowly.

It had been excited when it first stepped out of the shop, but once it reached the street corner, scents rushed in from every direction, and it stopped.

Grilled meat, medicinal herbs, horses, wet wood, and water freshly splashed along the roadside all mingled in the wind. The long fur around Lillipup's face trembled gently in the breeze, and its nose worked nonstop.

Rotom asked, "Need a hint, Rotom?"

A-Li shook her head. "Let's wait first."

Lillipup stood there for more than ten breaths before lowering its head to sniff the blue cloth tag again. It picked out the most familiar thread from the mass of scents and turned toward the narrow street on the right.

A-Li followed.

The first house was a shoe repair shop.

Before they could knock, a deep bark sounded from inside. A very large guard dog rose from behind the counter, sniffing the unfamiliar scents through the door.

The fur on Lillipup's back rose slightly.

It neither rushed forward nor hid behind A-Li. It simply stopped by her feet and stared through the crack beneath the door.

"We're here to deliver bread," A-Li called out first.

The shoemaker opened the door and promptly held back his own guard dog. The two dogs sniffed each other from a few steps apart, and neither barked a second time.

The savory bread wrapped in blue cloth was delivered successfully.

Recognizing A-Li, the shoemaker smiled. "You brought a little helper today?"

"Just trying it once."

He bent down to get a better look at Lillipup, then remembered the notice posted by the entrance. He did not reach out, only handed it the blue cloth tag he had put aside the night before.

Lillipup took the cloth tag in its mouth and wagged its tail once.

After leaving the shoe shop, it seemed more confident than before. The scent of the second honey bread was stronger, and it found a small courtyard with yellow-lit windows with barely any detours.

A child in the courtyard had been waiting. The moment they saw Lillipup, they cheered.

"The puppy delivered it today!"

Lillipup stopped at the shout, turned to make sure A-Li was still there, and only then carried the little bag of honey bread through the doorway.

The child took out a piece of candy and wanted to feed it to Lillipup.

"You have to ask first," A-Li said.

Lillipup did not eat it directly either, only looking toward her.

"It already had bread crusts today. Save it for now."

Though a little disappointed, the child still put the candy into a small paper packet and tied it to the returned yellow cloth tag. "Then it can eat it next time."

Lillipup picked up the paper packet, its steps noticeably lighter.

The last household was the hardest to find.

Granny Liu's alley had just changed its number plates. The old "South Three" had been removed, while the new wooden plate was still at the workshop. A-Li had taken the wrong entrance here last time, so she had deliberately saved this delivery for last.

But just as they reached the alley entrance, a cart loaded with wooden buckets passed by. The gust from its wheels blew the cloth tag off the brown paper bag.

The cloth tag rolled into the drainage ditch and was coated in muddy water.

By the time A-Li picked it up, the scent on it had already faded.

"Can you still smell it?"

Lillipup sniffed at it for a long while, took two steps left, then backed up again. Several households in the alley were cooking lunch, and the smell of smoke and food covered the tag's original scent.

Rotom opened the route map. "Granny Liu should live at the third house, Rotom."

"The third house on the old map," A-Li said. "After the new plates were changed, someone combined two small courtyards into one."

Instead of forcing their way through using the map, she crouched down and asked Lillipup, "Want to go back? I can ask around myself for this one."

Lillipup looked at the paper bag.

It suddenly circled behind A-Li and pressed its nose close to her empty basket. Scents from the morning deliveries still lingered at the bottom, and one of them was very similar to the damp cloth tag.

Following that faint scent, Lillipup walked back into the alley.

There was a medicinal herb scent at the first door, so it did not stop.

Laundry was drying in the second courtyard, but that scent was wrong too.

As it passed a narrow path between the two courtyards, so tight that one could only walk through sideways, its ears suddenly perked up, and the long fur around its face stirred as well.

A light tapping of a wooden cane against the ground came from inside.

Lillipup squeezed through the narrow path and stopped before an old wooden door with no number plate.

It raised a paw and scratched lightly twice.

"Who is it?"

Granny Liu's voice came from inside the courtyard.

A-Li immediately smiled. "Bread delivery."

After the door opened, the old woman first scolded A-Li for delivering the wrong flavor last time. Only when she looked down and saw Lillipup did her tone soften.

"At least you didn't take the wrong way this time."

She accepted the sugar-free bread, broke it open to inspect it, and found that there was indeed no honey inside.

Lillipup kept looking at her.

Granny Liu pulled out a Copper Soul Coin from her pocket. "For the little one."

"It doesn't take money," A-Li said.

"Then you take it. Don't deliver the wrong thing again next time."

"You already paid last time."

The two went back and forth for a while. After watching them, Lillipup suddenly picked up the Copper Soul Coin in its mouth and placed it back inside Granny Liu's doorway.

Then it turned around and left.

A-Li laughed as she hurried after it. "You're more decisive than I am."

With all three portions of bread delivered, the return journey was much easier.

Lillipup remembered several scents from the way there. When it reached the fork where the wooden bucket cart had passed, it even stopped in advance and waited for another cart to go by before moving on. A-Li no longer needed to keep reminding it, and simply followed it back to Old Street.

The people outside the shop had not dispersed yet.

They had expected to witness some astonishing move. Instead, Lillipup had merely walked a few streets, delivered three bags of bread, and returned a Copper Soul Coin.

But all three portions of bread had arrived while still warm, and even Granny Liu's difficult-to-find home had been reached without a mistake.

After hearing what had happened, the bakery owner immediately brought over a smaller delivery basket. "Should we give this to it?"

A-Li did not answer for Lillipup.

She set the basket on the ground and asked once more, "Would you like to deliver with me for three days first? If you get tired, you can sit in the basket. If you don't like today's route, we'll change it tomorrow."

Lillipup circled the little basket and sniffed it all over.

When it had first met A-Li that morning, it had not wanted to climb into her empty basket. Now, after walking through two streets, its four short legs were already a little sore. It placed its front paws on the edge of the new basket and climbed in by itself.

Soft cloth lined the basket, and it was just the right size.

Lillipup turned around once and lay down, then pushed the untouched packet of candy toward A-Li.

"The three-day trial begins, Rotom!"

Pancham ran over from the doorway and handed A-Li the Number One Tag.

"This should be returned, right?" A-Li asked.

Pancham shook its head. It took a small hole punch from Indeedee and tried to punch a round hole in the number tag. Its injured wrist had not fully recovered, and no matter how it adjusted its angle, it could not put enough force into it.

Pawniard walked over and held the tag steady with its flat armored forearm.

Pancham used its other paw to press down on the hole punch.

Click.

The round hole was punched.

Indeedee threaded a thin string through it and tied the number tag to the outside of the new delivery basket. Magby wanted to help too, but as soon as it leaned closer, the knot swayed back and forth from the heat of its breath.

Yan picked it up and carried it back. "You don't need fire to tie a string."

Lillipup lay in the basket, watching its companions bustle around its new possession. Once the Number One Tag stopped swinging, it stretched out a front paw and touched it lightly, then lowered its head to smell the scents Pancham and Pawniard had left behind.

The tag had changed from a number used for lining up into a memento of its first outing.

When A-Li lifted the little basket, Lillipup was not nervous. It rested its chin on the rim and barked once toward its companions inside the shop.

This time, the onlookers were not disappointed just because it looked ordinary. Applicant Number Two even lowered his head and revised his form, crossing out "the stronger, the better" and seriously writing what exactly he wanted to do with a companion each day.

Before A-Li took Lillipup back to the bakery, she left behind a basket of soft bread that had not sold that day.

Indeedee gave one to everyone.

Xia Che received the biggest one. Just as he was about to return to the window, the bell rang again.

The soft cushion by the window had long been claimed by Eevee, while Zorua had even used an illusion to conjure a wooden sign beside it reading "Manager's Reserved Seat." Xia Che glanced at it, then simply carried his bread behind the counter.

"No one's making me give up my seat today."

Hu Liena pulled Eevee closer into her arms and pretended not to hear him.

Yue Guan walked in holding a folded application form.

"His Excellency asked me to ask how much longer that yellow face needs to think."

Rotom took the form. The yellow expression on its screen happened to blink twice.

Light footsteps sounded from deep inside the Encounter Room.

A white figure stopped behind the door, and a curved dark horn at the side of its forehead emerged from the shadows.

Rotom's screen slowly turned green.

"It's done thinking now, Rotom."