Love Takes a Detour, What a Beautiful Sky

The moment he heard the question, Huang Tao's mind leaped to one answer—

His late wife. The wife who had died sixteen years ago.

Beside him, Huang Zixuan's heart tightened. Only one answer came to his mind, too—

His mother. The mother he had never met, who had died after giving birth to him sixteen years ago.

But this was a family matter, a subject father and son had rarely touched on in all those sixteen years. It had become something of a taboo.

Huang Zixuan knew it was one of the deepest wounds in his father's life.

Even now, he felt that his father had always blamed him—blamed his birth for killing his mother. That was why his father had always been so hard on him.

"You two talk. I'm going out for some fresh air." Huang Tao pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat and walked away without looking back.

Lin Yuan felt helpless again.

He had tried to phrase the question as gently as he could, yet today he had first upset a dog and now seemed to have struck Huang Tao's rawest nerve.

But that gave Lin Yuan an inkling of something. Fortune Dog's heartache might not be the stubborn fixation of a dog alone.

Once Huang Tao had gone out, Huang Zixuan spoke.

"Brother Yuan, put that way, the only person Fortune Dog could be waiting for is my mom."

"The truth is, I don't know much about my mom. She died after giving birth to me." Huang Zixuan's voice was calm. "Most of what I know about her came from our old housekeeper."

"We couldn't mention her in front of my dad. When I was little, I asked why I didn't have a mom when all my classmates did. All I got was a long silence."

"My dad never hit me, but sometimes he was scarier when he said nothing."

"As for Fortune Attraction, my parents raised it together twenty years ago. The old housekeeper said their shop had only recently opened, and they liked that 'Fortune Dog' had 'Fortune Attraction' in its name. They thought it would bring them luck."

"The old housekeeper said my mom had trouble having children, and she wasn't a beast tamer. Before she got pregnant with me, she treated Fortune Dog wonderfully, like her own child."

"Then Fortune Dog lost my mom and gained me."

"It's always been good to me, ever since I was little. The old housekeeper says I look a lot like my mom."

"Fortune Dog is clever. It knows my dad can't bear to hear anything about my mom, so it's always just sat there quietly."

"The old housekeeper told me that for the first seven days after Fortune Dog realized my mom wasn't coming home, it kept crying out in the courtyard. Then, for some reason, it stopped."

"It just kept watching the sky, staring into the distance—every morning, noon, evening, and night."

"Later, it only watched in the mornings and at night."

"Now it's old. It watches for a while at night, then comes to find me, like it always does."

"My father's right about one thing: Fortune Dog has a strong will to live. Every time an evolution failed, it took whatever medicine it was given. It let people draw its blood. No amount of pain frightened it."

"But it seems to have taken after my dad, too. Most of the time, it stays silent."

Huang Zixuan spoke quietly, telling Lin Yuan Fortune Dog's story as he had seen and heard it.

Lin Yuan did not know why, but his heart felt heavy.

Canine pet beasts were loyal to their masters. Loyalty was etched into their genes.

Speaking of Huang Zixuan's mother was a taboo in that family, and Fortune Dog knew it. Huang Tao was its other old master. It did not want its own longing to hurt him.

Perhaps that very wall had sealed Fortune Dog's heart away.

It hid its feelings from Huang Tao not out of selfishness, but because, in its own way, it was trying not to hurt him.

Lin Yuan had only one question now—

Did Fortune Dog know that Huang Zixuan's mother had died?

He doubted Huang Tao would answer.

After more than a decade of silence, the man would not bare his heart to a stranger he had only just met.

The only answer might have to come from Fortune Dog itself.

Several minutes passed before Huang Tao returned.

"Sorry. Fortune Dog and I both lost our composure today. Xiao Yuan, have you finished reading the contract? What do you think?" Huang Tao had regained his usual manner. His voice was steady, his face unreadable.

Just as Lin Yuan had expected, Huang Tao deftly avoided the question and changed the subject.

It was what he had done for over a decade. The moment a certain subject arose, he slipped into his familiar pattern of self-protection.

Fortune Dog had reacted much the same way when it cried out earlier. As soon as it sensed someone might uncover the feelings it wanted to hide, it had turned hostile.

"Uncle Huang, the contract is excellent. I can tell you've given me generous terms because I'm Zixuan's classmate."

"Spirit Dew really can soothe the injuries Fortune Dog has suffered from ten failed evolutions. And Zilan's level and special effects haven't improved yet. The quality of what she produces will only get better."

"Zixuan just told me that Fortune Dog wants to live longer."

"Spirit Dew won't help it do that, but evolution can."

"Uncle Huang, I know this is presumptuous, but could you summon Fortune Dog again? I won't say anything to upset it this time."

Or anything to upset you, he added silently.

Huang Tao knew Lin Yuan had not given up.

But Lin Yuan's tone was different now. Earlier, Huang Tao had heard him asking about Fortune Dog to gain more leverage.

Now, he seemed to want only one thing... to learn the truth.

Huang Tao thought for a moment.

Then he nodded and summoned Fortune Dog.

After some time to calm down in the Beast-Taming Space, Fortune Dog no longer cried out.

It looked at itself, then at the sky outside the window. Once it saw that nothing had changed, it slowly walked to Huang Zixuan's feet and curled up as naturally as ever, wrapping itself around the Radiant Wonder Grass.

As for Lin Yuan, Fortune Dog could no longer sense that spirit-attribute energy coming from him. They could leave each other alone.

"Zixuan, you just told me a story. Let me tell you one about my family." Lin Yuan had lived two lives. He knew he could not force his way into a heart burdened with complicated feelings. He had to put himself in another's place and find a point of empathy before the truth of those feelings could emerge.

"You know my parents died two years ago."

"My family has a Purple Ghost Orchid. She used to be my mother's contracted beast, and she's the main source of income for our pet-food shop."

"My mother tried to help her evolve twice, but both attempts failed. Neither was the form she wanted. After my mother died, she felt guilty for not treasuring those chances, for letting her down."

"Zilan is sensitive. The slightest stir can bring back memories of my mother."

"A few days ago, she underwent a mutation and evolved because she found a form that suited her. She was so happy afterward. She wished my mother had been there to see it."

"But as a pet beast, she felt something very different toward my father."

"My father's love was quiet and restrained."

"He hated the heat, so while he was alive, he spent almost all his time in air-conditioned rooms kept very cold."

"Maybe he knew he would leave us one day. Most of the time, he never expressed his love outright."

"Only now and then would my mother mention the plans he had made in private for me, for Zilan, and for everything in our little family."

"Zilan saw my father as family, too. The Purple Dew she used to produce had a cooling effect, which was good for him. When she was little, she always wanted to give him some as soon as she produced it."

"But he scolded her for it. Eventually, she grew used to that."

"It's only over these past two years that I've slowly come to understand his restrained love for us. But Zilan is different. She's a pet beast, after all. To her, my father, my mother, and I—this little pet-food shop—were everything. Her family. Her home. Her world."

"How love is given and expressed can change how pet beasts respond to it."

"With my father, all she knew was that not giving him Purple Dew, not clinging to him, and doing as he wished was how she loved him."

"The love pet beasts need is more direct. It can't take a detour."

"Zilan has been in a good mood these past few days. She knows that now she's evolved, she can stay longer with me, the only family she has left. My parents are gone, but she still has me."

"Sometimes, though, she still looks toward the sun, as if she could see my mother singing to her there, and my father's unsmiling face, with that faint warmth in his eyes."

"I've told you all this because I want to ask: don't you think Fortune Dog and Zilan are alike?"

Lin Yuan spoke from the heart.

Without the experience of two lifetimes, at sixteen he might still have thought his father had given him far less attention over the years than his mother had.

"They are," Huang Zixuan said. It was the first time he had heard Lin Yuan tell his own story or felt the emotion behind his words. Until now, Lin Yuan had seemed to him like an unfeeling problem-solving machine, the conqueror of every difficult question.

But with so little life experience of his own, Huang Zixuan could not fully grasp what Lin Yuan was trying to say.

Huang Tao and Fortune Dog felt it more deeply. Without meaning to, each had found themselves in the story.

When Lin Yuan spoke of Zilan looking toward the sun, Fortune Dog rose without thinking. It turned its back on everyone and gazed at the sky outside the window.

Its eyes were full of tears. It did not want Huang Tao or Huang Zixuan to see.

It was lost in its own world. Even when Lin Yuan looked at it again, it did not notice.

New information appeared on Fortune Dog's status panel.

[Status]: Fortune Dog knew its mistress had died. It knew she had not truly abandoned it.

But on the seventh day after she was gone, Huang Tao had told it that Mom had merely gone somewhere very, very far away. She was in the sky, in the clouds, in the moon and the sun. She had always been watching over them.

So it did not want to change. It could not change. It knew what a Fortune Dog looked like after evolving.

Once it evolved, it would no longer look like itself. If Mom did not recognize it, would she still watch it from the sky?

What if... she really came back one day? Would she recognize it then?

The sky was so beautiful. If Mom lived there, she must be happy, mustn't she?

Sunlight fell across Fortune Dog, lending it a touch of holiness and a touch of sorrow.

That latest status confirmed Lin Yuan's suspicion.

Pet beasts could be so simple. They practiced what they believed was love in all kinds of ways, yet sometimes they hurt themselves doing it.

"Uncle Huang, Zixuan, I read in a paper that among Fortune Dogs, there are some very unusual ones. They can live for a very, very long time without ever changing their appearance."

"As if they're guarding something in the same form they've always had, living with the same heart and the same face from beginning to end—loyal, yet free."