UCS Chapter 126

Gao Shi and Ying Bujie stared at the carefully closed door, then at each other.

Gao Shi pressed a hand to his forehead. “We’ll have to be more careful going forward. We cannot do this sort of thing in front of the child.”

Ying Bujie gave a flat “Mm,” and for the first time felt that perhaps having their son in human form was not entirely advantageous.

…Wait. In their past life, they had never been careful to keep their intimate moments away from Linghua. The little flower had covered its bud with two small leaves and turned away, twisting itself up like a pretzel. They had found it endearing at the time. After all, it took a spirit flower a hundred thousand years to develop awareness, so neither of them had considered the possibility. But Lele had absorbed their blood. Could it have awakened early?

Ying Bujie’s brow creased slightly. He pressed a finger to his temple.

Gao Shi rarely saw him look this distinctly human in his expression, and found it charming. “What are you thinking?”

“…Raising our son is going to be a long and arduous endeavour.”

After Ying Bujie finished drying Gao Shi’s hair, the two of them went down to the living room on the ground floor. Gao Gusheng was sitting cross-legged on the carpet playing a video game.

Ever since bringing the two large dogs home, Gao Gusheng had been beside himself with happiness, cuddling them on all sides. Gao Shi had caught him multiple times lounging with the golden retriever leaning against his left, the German shepherd tucked under his right arm, the little squirrel perched on top of his head, the black mist coiled around his neck, eating fried chicken and drinking cola, so thoroughly at ease it made one want to find him a job to go to.

This time, however, Gao Gusheng was visibly distracted. His game character was about to be flattened by the boss, yet he kept glancing toward the bathroom.

Then he saw Gao Shi and Ying Bujie come out, and jolted upright, hurriedly gulping a large mouthful of cola and nearly choking himself to death on it.

Gao Shi laughed despite his exasperation, and patted the boy on the back until his breathing settled. “What’s the rush?”

Gao Gusheng looked at Gao Shi, then at Ying Bujie, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

To be honest, Gao Gusheng’s understanding of same-sex relationships was considerable. Having the constitution he had, researching these things in advance was a matter of self-preservation.

Because of the care and companionship they had shared across two lifetimes, he had accepted Ying Bujie and Gao Shi becoming his two fathers without any difficulty at all, as though they had always been meant to be a family. But — but —

But for crying out loud, he had just walked in on his two dads being intimate, and it was exactly like a child accidentally catching their parents kissing. His head was full of bewildered questions.

Especially since he was not actually a small child, which made it all the harder not to think further than he should.

How to put it — he was simultaneously afraid his two dads would come out too soon, and afraid they would not come out all night. He was sitting there holding a tube of antiseptic ointment, unsure which of them to offer it to.

Catching his father’s puzzled look, Gao Gusheng’s throat moved. The words escaped before he could stop them. “You — you’ll tell me in advance if you’re planning a second child, right?”

The moment it was out of his mouth Gao Gusheng wanted to slap himself. The only reason he did not was that Gao Shi did it for him.

Gao Shi delivered a firm clap to the back of his son’s neck, laughing in disbelief. “What is going on in your head all day? It seems your grandfather hasn’t been setting you enough to do. Tomorrow I’m handing you ‘Qingzhi Investment.’ Get yourself ready to take over the files.”

“What? What?!”

Gao Gusheng let out a wail of despair. Gao Shi was unmoved, and drove his unfortunate son back to his room to sleep, indifferent to the howls of protest.

The golden retriever licked Gao Gusheng’s wrist in sympathy.

Gao Shi sat down in the spot Gao Gusheng had just vacated and cleared the level with ease, finally sparing the poor little game character from its fate of being repeatedly hammered into the ground.

Gao Shi leaned back against the sofa, resting a hand on the dog’s head in his lap. He recalled Lele saying the golden retriever and the German shepherd felt familiar, and how Lele had eagerly followed up to ask whether he had two dog brothers. He tilted his head back and asked, “We only have Lele as a child, right? But I do feel like I know them. Were they with me in my past life?”

Ying Bujie was still chewing a grape and simply nodded.

He picked a fresh Shine Muscat from the bunch and placed it in Gao Shi’s mouth. The fresh grape was plump and purely sweet, seedless, with a crisp and resilient skin and juicy flesh. Gao Shi had a sweet tooth. He licked his lips, and before he could say anything, Ying Bujie had already put another one in his mouth.

A dog on the left, a dog on the right, and a beautiful man hand-feeding him grapes — Gao Shi felt rather like a decadent emperor.

Fortunately Ying Bujie spoke. “They were your mounts in a previous life.”

The golden retriever and the German shepherd could understand human speech. Hearing this, they both sat up and lifted their chins slightly, looking immensely proud, clearly waiting for Gao Shi to pat their heads.

Gao Shi obliged and patted them both in turn. Their soft fluffy fur made his heart go equally soft.

“They are dragons?”

“Yes.”

Ying Bujie brought over a plate of jackfruit, offered a piece to Gao Shi, and said, “A dragon’s power is too great. They are not creatures that should exist in this world. After they were reincarnated, they were reborn as two dogs.”

Hearing this, Gao Shi inexplicably felt rather sorry for his former mounts. Dogs were fluffy and adorable, certainly, but golden dragons who had been capable of achieving immortality through physical cultivation alone had been reduced to two ordinary beasts. They could understand human speech, yet had been helpless to do anything but serve as tools for someone like Xiao Yusheng to vent his cruelty upon. It was genuinely suffocating.

Gao Shi gave the golden retriever’s ear a gentle pinch. The golden retriever, for its part, did not seem to feel any grievance at all. Having found its master again, it was deliriously happy, and couldn’t resist nuzzling its head into Gao Shi’s palm.

“Can they change back?”

“They can.” Ying Bujie said. “They are bound to you by a contract. When you recover the power of your past life, they will naturally regain their true forms.”

Gao Shi exhaled in relief, and then began to wonder who exactly he had been in his past life.

Using two dragons as mounts — by the conventions of celestial naming, could his title really have been the Great Immortal Who Rides Dragons?

Now that the dragons had become dogs, would that make him the Great Immortal Who Rides Dogs?

Gao Shi firmly put the brakes on that train of thought. “What were their names in their past lives?”

Ying Bujie held a segment of orange to his lips. “I cannot tell you. You will have to figure it out yourself.”

Gao Shi bit into the orange and recoiled at the sourness. He sighed. “If I can’t figure it out, I might as well just call them Dahuang and Dahei for now.”

He said it, and Ying Bujie said nothing. Gao Shi looked up to find Ying Bujie and the freshly renamed Dahuang and Dahei all watching him with deeply complicated expressions.

Gao Shi blinked. “Were their past-life names actually Dahuang and Dahei?”

Ying Bujie gave a slow nod.

Gao Shi wordlessly reached over and took another piece of face-puckeringly sour orange.

Strange. Why do I feel guilty.

***

Gao Gusheng returned to school. After his encounters with two genuinely unhinged individuals, the campus air smelled wonderfully fresh, his fellow students seemed wonderfully endearing, and even the bald head of the Advanced Chemistry teacher, one of the four dreaded examination invigilators, struck him as rather pleasing to the eye.

Unburdened by the threat of make-up exams, Gao Gusheng returned to campus in high spirits, lugging bags large and small, ready to embrace the new semester.

Unfortunately, human joys and sorrows are not shared. Passing a corner of the library, he caught the voice of some unknown heroic soul, reciting at full volume with palpable resentment: “Pulmonary oedema is, what the bloody hell, a condition caused by some reason resulting in the generation and reabsorption, for crying out loud, of interstitial fluid becoming imbalanced, causing large amounts of fluid to accumulate, god damn it, in the alveoli, pulmonary interstitium and small bronchioles… a pathological state, bloody hell!”

Gao Gusheng listened to that final ringing expletive and could not help but be filled with admiration.

Footsteps sounded nearby. What appeared to be a senior student looking for somewhere to study was heading in precisely the direction of the corner where this warrior of vocabulary and profanity was stationed. The corner could only fit one person, so Gao Gusheng put out a hand. “Senior, that corner is taken.”

If he remembered correctly, there was less than an hour before the clinical medicine exam. Disturb that person now and there was no telling what they might do.

The senior student he had stopped said nothing, and turned to walk in a different direction.

Gao Gusheng scratched his head, with the nagging feeling that the retreating figure looked familiar.

Who was that…

Wasn’t it, perhaps, the senior student who had been standing on the rooftop before the final exams, causing everyone to assume he was about to jump, only for it to turn out he was up there slurping noodles and delivering a passionate speech in what could only be described as a performance art piece?

Was that performance art senior really this introverted in private?

You truly cannot judge a person by appearances.

Gao Gusheng shook his head and put it out of his mind entirely. He could not have anticipated that fewer than ten minutes later, he would be dragged away from his flatbread with a face full of bewilderment to watch the commotion.

“Look, the senior is doing performance art again.”

Gao Gusheng looked up from his flatbread to see the very senior student he had just parted from, once again standing on the rooftop of the library. The scene was so recognisable that students were already spreading the word and gathering to watch his performance art. The air instantly filled with gleeful energy.

Yun Zhiyi was so exasperated she nearly laughed, megaphone in hand, directing the student council members to disperse the crowd.

This time nobody called emergency services. Everyone was simply waiting to see what unexpected action the senior would take next.

Gao Gusheng frowned and looked around, recalling how the senior had just been standing there in total silence, the very picture of social anxiety. Something in his chest gave an uneasy lurch.

He grabbed a nearby student and asked, “What is that senior usually like? Quiet? Shy? Doesn’t talk much?”

“How could he possibly be — ” the student started to object, then looked up at Gao Gusheng’s face and almost bit through their own tongue.

Their face turned scarlet in an instant, like a tomato growing out of their neck.

They stammered, “I — I mean, the senior is usually pretty lively and outgoing.”

The student was screaming internally: You lucky dog, you actually got remembered by Gao Gusheng! Maybe I should go do some performance art too.

The student was still hoping to get a few more words in with Gao Gusheng, but Gao Gusheng’s expression had already changed. He dialled emergency services and broke into a run.

Gao Gusheng prayed inwardly that he was overthinking things, but by the time the students had gathered at the base of the building, the senior on the rooftop had still not made a single sound.

The light was behind him and the building was tall. His expression was impossible to make out. There was only that strange silence, and the cold it sent crawling up everyone’s spine.

What was this?

An accident? A sudden change in personality? Or something from the world of the dead crossing into the world of the living?

Gao Gusheng ran into the library. The warrior who had been grinding away at memorisation also lifted his head from his book and looked out the window.

The elevator was out of order. The only option was the stairs. The disciplinary committee members had already charged upward, ready to restrain the senior.

But ever since the last performance art incident, the rooftop had been kept locked.

No one knew how he had managed it, but he had made it onto the rooftop again. And the door that locked the rooftop was now also keeping the student council locked out.

“The key is with the head of department. I’ll go get it!”

“That will take too long. We won’t make it in time. Move!”

Gao Gusheng took a running start, using the momentum to hurl a brutal kick straight at the rooftop door. With a tremendous crash, the lock shattered clean off.

The force of his foot against the door sent Gao Gusheng launching forward.

The door had been blocking his view. He hadn’t known that at some point the senior had turned from facing outward to facing the rooftop door.

He opened his arms wide toward Gao Gusheng. The way Gao Gusheng came flying through the broken door, it looked for all the world as though he was throwing himself into the senior’s embrace.

But then the senior took one step back, onto the edge of the rooftop, and holding that same open-armed posture, back facing down, he fell.

In that instant, Gao Gusheng looked directly into his eyes.

His eyes held no emotion. He looked like a god gazing down upon humanity from on high, cold and utterly detached.

***

 (advanced chapters available on kofi)