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Gong Jiang waved and flashed a brilliant smile. "Shall we go now?"

Shi Wen asked, "Have you had breakfast?"

Gong Jiang said, "I have, I have. If you haven't eaten, I can wait for you."

"I ate too. I was worried you hadn't, so I wanted to ask whether you wanted something here." Shi Wen smiled, put on his helmet, and pushed his motorcycle. "Then let's get ready to go."

Gong Jiang said, "All right. By the way, purebred local sheepdogs are fairly expensive. Have you looked into it?"

Sheepdogs were working dogs, and they really were not cheap.

Good sheepdogs could even cost as much as a calf.

Shi Wen had asked around before when he wanted to buy one, so he had no objections.

Seeing that Shi Wen knew what he was doing, Gong Jiang happily led him toward a herder's home.

This was an area where many ethnic groups lived together. Besides the Han people, there were quite a few ethnic minorities.

Today, they were going to visit an ethnic minority herder's home.

Gong Jiang had worked here with his team for more than two years and could speak a little of every ethnic group's language.

Shi Wen followed behind him, riding into an ethnic minority village before arriving at a ranch.

The ranch owner greeted Gong Jiang in his own ethnic language, then turned to Shi Wen. "Hello. Looking at dogs?"

Shi Wen hurriedly greeted him. "Yes."

The ranch owner's Mandarin carried a heavy accent and was not easy to understand.

As Shi Wen listened to his introduction, he only caught that there were five puppies in total. They had just been weaned, none had been reserved yet, and he could choose whichever one he liked.

The dogs were kept outside the livestock shed. Their nest was padded with dry grass, while the mother dog lay outside the straw, alert and fierce. Because her tail had been docked, she looked a little like a wild beast rather than a dog.

She barked at Shi Wen and Gong Jiang, only to be stopped by the ranch owner's shout.

The ranch owner led Shi Wen and Gong Jiang over to look at the puppies.

All five puppies were black and white, plump with baby fat and as round as freshly baked cakes. They were soft and fluffy, with dry grass still clinging to their fur.

The ranch owner bent down, casually grabbed one, and stuffed it into Shi Wen's hands, gesturing for him to inspect it as he pleased.

Shi Wen took it. The puppy was soft and warm. Held by a stranger, it whimpered and pawed at Shi Wen's hand with its little fleshy paws, clearly uneasy.

"Good boy." Shi Wen soothingly stroked the puppy, quickly calming it down.

The puppy's chubby belly rested in Shi Wen's palm. He checked its ears and tail, felt its back through the fur, examined the width of its nose and its bone structure, then held the puppy by the scruff to observe its posture.

The ranch owner chattered away in his ethnic language for a few moments. Realizing Shi Wen could not understand, he switched to heavily accented Mandarin. "Very good puppy. Hundred years."

Gong Jiang said, "The old man means that this breed is excellent. His family has raised this kind of sheepdog for more than a hundred years."

Shi Wen gently set the puppy down and went to inspect another one. "That really is a long heritage."

The ranch owner said proudly, "My grandfather's grandfather was here!"

Shi Wen looked over the puppies one by one. They were all good, but something was missing. They were not the sheepdogs he had envisioned.

The ranch owner could tell Shi Wen had not taken a liking to any of them. He did not mind and invited them inside for tea.

Shi Wen and Gong Jiang politely declined. They still needed to hurry to the next place.

The puppies at the second home were also good: lively, clever, and quite fine-looking.

Gong Jiang had probably picked these places especially for him. The puppies were all better than average, with very pure bloodlines. They would definitely be excellent herding dogs.

Shi Wen looked them over and acknowledged their fine qualities, but he still did not choose one.

He always felt that something was missing. There was no connection.

Until the third home.

There were three puppies at the third home. Two were plump and sturdier than ordinary puppies their age, while the third was somewhat frail.

When Shi Wen held the frail puppy in his palm, it lowered its head and touched his finger with its wet nose. Its black eyes, veiled in grayish blue, stared at him as it made soft whimpering noises through its nose.

He had seen so many puppies that day—friendly ones, fierce ones, clever ones—but none had caught his eye.

Now that he saw this puppy, although some of its traits did not quite meet his selection criteria, Shi Wen was struck at once. He had the feeling that there was no need to look any further. This was the one.

It was a kind of mystical intuition.

Shi Wen trusted his intuition.

Holding the puppy, he said to the woman beside him, Nurguli, "I want to choose this one."

Nurguli glanced at him and said something to Gong Jiang in her ethnic language.

Shi Wen did not understand, so Gong Jiang translated. "This puppy was born rather weak. Don't choose it just because it looks good. For a sheepdog, it's better to choose a stronger one."

If Gong Jiang had not mentioned it, Shi Wen would not even have noticed the sheepdog's appearance.

He lifted the puppy before his eyes and examined it closely.

It looked like a black-and-white Border Collie with a very well-balanced facial marking, though it was more imposing than a Border Collie, and its fur was slightly curly.

Meeting Shi Wen's gaze, the puppy stretched out its pink little tongue and licked him again, then gave a soft whimper. It was utterly adorable.

Shi Wen smiled. "I'm not choosing it because it's pretty. I just feel it suits me."

After hearing the translation and seeing Shi Wen's expression, Nurguli confirmed that he was serious and named a price of eight hundred yuan.

Compared with other sheepdogs, this price was already rather low, perhaps because the puppy was relatively frail.

Shi Wen did not haggle and paid readily.

The puppy was warm. Shi Wen placed it in a bag and tied the bag in front of himself.

Through the bag, the puppy obediently leaned against Shi Wen's leg without making a sound or moving.

Feeling the puppy's warm little body, Shi Wen's heart nearly melted.

Gong Jiang asked, "Are we still going to look at more?"

Shi Wen said, "Since we're already out, let's finish looking."