Page 11

Gong Jiang said, "All right. By the way, purebred sheepdogs are pretty expensive around here. Have you looked into that?"

Sheepdogs were working dogs, and they weren't cheap.

A good sheepdog could cost as much as a calf.

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

Seeing that Shi Wen knew what to expect, Gong Jiang happily led him to a herder's home.

This was an area where many ethnic groups lived, including quite a few minorities as well as Han people.

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

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

Shi Wen followed him on his bike into an ethnic-minority village and then to a ranch.

The ranch owner greeted Gong Jiang in his native language, then turned to Shi Wen. "Hello, here to look at dogs?"

Shi Wen quickly greeted him. "Yes."

The ranch owner's Mandarin had a very strong accent, making him hard to understand.

As Shi Wen listened to his introduction, all he understood was that there were five puppies, they'd only recently been weaned, and none had been reserved, so he could choose any one of them.

The dogs were kept outside the livestock shed. Their nest was filled with hay, and the mother lay outside it, alert and fierce. With her tail docked, she looked a little more like a wild beast than a dog.

She barked at Shi Wen and Gong Jiang, but the ranch owner called her off.

The ranch owner took Shi Wen and Gong Jiang to see the puppies.

All five puppies were black and white, plump with baby fat, as round as freshly made cakes. They were soft and fluffy, with bits of hay clinging to their fur.

The ranch owner bent down, picked one up at random, and placed it in Shi Wen's hands, gesturing for him to take a good look.

Shi Wen took the puppy. It was soft and warm, and whined in the stranger's arms, pawing at his hand with its little fleshy paws. It seemed quite uneasy.

"Good puppy." Shi Wen stroked it soothingly, and it soon calmed down.

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

The ranch owner rattled off a few words in his native language beside them. When he realized Shi Wen couldn't understand, he switched to heavily accented Mandarin. "Very good, puppies, over a hundred years."

Gong Jiang said, "He means his family's dogs are a very good breed. His family has raised this breed of sheepdog for more than a hundred years."

Shi Wen gently put the puppy down and went to look at another. "That really is a long tradition."

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 weren't the sheepdog he had in mind.

The ranch owner could tell from looking at Shi Wen that he hadn't found one he liked, but didn't mind. He invited them inside for tea.

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

The puppies at the second place were also very good: lively, intelligent, and fine-looking.

Gong Jiang must have taken special care in choosing these places. The puppies were all better than average and came from very pure bloodlines. They would surely make excellent herding dogs.

Shi Wen looked them over and agreed that they were excellent puppies, but he still didn't take a liking to any of them.

He always felt that something was missing, that there was no affinity.

That changed at the third place.

There were three puppies at the third place. Two were plump and sturdier than most puppies their age, but the third was a little scrawny.

When Shi Wen held the scrawny puppy in his palm, it lowered its head and touched his finger with its wet nose. Its black eyes, veiled in a layer of gray-blue, stared at him as it whined softly through its nose.

He had seen so many puppies today-friendly ones, fierce ones, and clever ones—but none had caught his eye.

Now, seeing this puppy, he was struck at once, even though some of its traits didn't quite meet his selection criteria. He had the feeling that he didn't need to look any further: this was the one.

It was a sort of mystical intuition.

Shi Wen trusted his intuition.

Holding the puppy, he said to Nurguli, the woman of the house, who stood beside him, "I'd like to choose this puppy."

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

Shi Wen didn't understand, so Gong Jiang translated for him. "This puppy was born rather frail. Don't choose it just because it's good-looking. For a sheepdog, it's better to pick a strong one."

If Gong Jiang hadn't said anything, Shi Wen wouldn't even have noticed what the puppy looked like.

He lifted the puppy to eye level and examined it.

It looked like a black-and-white border collie with well-balanced facial markings, though it was more imposing than a border collie, and its fur was curly.

Meeting Shi Wen's gaze, the puppy stuck out its little pink tongue and licked him, then gave a whine. It was very cute.

Shi Wen smiled. "I'm not choosing it for its looks. I just feel it's the right one."

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

That was already relatively cheap for a sheepdog, perhaps because this puppy was rather frail.

Shi Wen didn't bargain and readily paid.

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

Inside the bag, the puppy rested obediently against Shi Wen's leg, neither making a sound nor moving.

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

Gong Jiang asked, "Are you still going to look at the others?"

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

Gong Jiang said, "Then let's go take a look. There are two more places, and they're not very far away."

They changed course and went to the other two places.

The puppies at both places were also very good, but they weren't what Shi Wen wanted either. He had no affinity with them.

Shi Wen was very pleased to have found a puppy he liked after looking for just one day.

After saying goodbye to Gong Jiang, he took the puppy home and made it a nest out of a cardboard box and a blanket beside the livestock shed's fence.