Chapter 55
The moment he stepped outside the next morning, Yomi was surprised to find that the farm now had a whole flock of baby chicks!
He was not the only one delighted. Lynn and the other boys were also excitedly crowding around the chicks, carefully poking their yellow fluff with their fingertips. The moment Lynn saw Yomi arrive, he immediately scooped one up and placed it in Yomi’s arms. “Teacher Yesi said Anxius bought these on the way back from the market last night. Did you ask him to?”
Holding the chick, Yomi shook his head. The lively little creature in his arms made him too nervous to move. “No.”
Then he remembered that he really had been talking lately about wanting to raise chickens, so he immediately added, “Maybe he bought them for me…”
Anxius was drying meat not far away. Yomi did not see the truck anywhere, and remembering that Anxius had said the truck broke down last night, he looked back at the chicks in confusion.
When Anxius came back last night, he had been carrying a heavy box, plus the cake, so both hands should already have been full. As for a whole flock of active baby chicks… did he carry them on his back? But how would he carry a basket of chicks? While he was still thinking about it, he noticed a large cloth bag on the ground nearby, still stuck with bits of fluff.
Yomi: So that’s what happened!
Following his gaze, Lynn and the others instantly imagined the scene:
A gigantic monster running along the road with a whole sack of chirping little chicks hanging from his neck.
“…”
Over there, Anxius had already finished laying out the meat and was walking back. His gaze stayed fixed on Yomi the whole way, as if watching to see whether he liked the chicks.
Yomi hurriedly set the chick down and walked over, lowering his voice. “Anxius, chicks can be bought anytime. But it isn’t safe to stay out too long at night. Don’t do that again in the future.”
“Mm. I won’t do it again.” Anxius promised without hesitation. The moment he had seen Yomi leaning drowsily against the bed last night, he had regretted it. In his memory, Yomi always went to sleep on time. Sometimes after Anxius finished his bath and came back, Yomi would already be sleeping so deeply he had no idea what was going on. If he had known Yomi would stay up waiting for him, then the moment he bought the chicks, he would have hurried back as fast as possible.
Luckily, Yomi had no mind-reading ability. Otherwise he would definitely have rushed to buy Anxius some quick-acting heart medicine, just in case the man’s heart gave out one day.
Now that they had chicks, they needed a proper place for them to live. The farm had several old chicken coops. Once cleaned up and lined with hay, they were more than suitable as a home for the chicks.
It was Yomi’s first time raising chickens. Afraid the chicks would be uncomfortable, he even ran back inside and dug out some of his own old clothes to pad the coop.
He was a rich boss now, so a few old clothes were nothing to him. He had no trouble parting with them.
But Anxius did!
Taking advantage of a moment when Yomi wasn’t paying attention, Anxius swiftly stole Yomi’s pajamas out of the chicken coop, then slipped in one of his own old garments made of similar fabric instead—a clean little switcheroo.
The chicks: ???
No one could dislike fluffy baby chicks, and Yomi was certainly no exception. Back when he was little, he used to look enviously at other people’s chicks around his grandmother’s house. Now he could finally raise some of his own.
That morning after breakfast, Yomi hurried outside impatiently to check on the chicks. They were hungry, so he mixed leftover rice with feed, putting some into their dish and using his hand to feed the rest to the chicks. Feeling their little beaks pecking at his palm, he even cheered them on, “Eat more. So good. Have a little more…”
Lynn, Arlo, and the others also came over to join in the fun of feeding them. But compared to watching the chicks eat feed, they found it more enjoyable to watch Yomi carefully feeding the chicks.
He looked just like some tiny animal raising babies of his own…
As they fed them, Meikai’s business brain kicked in. “Once they grow up, won’t we stop needing to buy eggs? By then won’t we have so many eggs we can’t finish them, and start selling tea eggs?”
Yomi nodded lightly, then shook his head. “No idea how many we’ll actually manage to raise…”
In his memory, there had been a chicken farm near his grandmother’s house. Chick mortality was still pretty high there. Every year, some chicks died because disease prevention wasn’t handled properly, and others got crushed.
Lynn made a joke. “It’s fine. Later we’ll just buy more. Once the chickens grow up, they can lay eggs, hatch chicks, then the chicks grow up and lay more eggs and hatch more chicks… Then we’ll have endless chickens and endless eggs!”
The joke did not cheer Yomi up at all, because he very quickly picked out several weak-looking chicks from the flock and moved them to a separate area to raise them separately.
Yet that very same afternoon, one of the stronger chicks jumped into the sickly-chick area and brazenly started stealing their food, sticking its little rear end out and nearly finishing all their feed!
Luckily, Yomi spotted it early. He caught the healthy chick and put it back where it belonged, then set out fresh homemade feed and water in front of the sickly chicks again. Just as he was comforting his poor chick patients, Anxius arrived after hearing about the problem in the coop.
He used wooden boards on the spot to make a fence. Once the fence was finished, he removed the earlier plank Yomi had been using to separate the sickly chicks… The new fence was tall and sturdy. Forget the chicks—even if Yomi himself wanted to get over it, he would have to lift his legs high!
This new fence worked extremely well, and Yomi absolutely loved the little chick infirmary now! In order to warn the other chicks not to come barging in, he pasted a notice on it that read No Chick Visitors Allowed. And since it didn’t matter if the chicks couldn’t read, Yomi also drew a little eagle in simple lines on it!
Looking at the completely different chicks in the two areas, Yomi could not help sighing.
The most he could do was try his best to reduce the number of chicks that died.
After checking on all the patients in the chick infirmary, Yomi’s heart filled with melancholy. With his hands clasped behind his back, he walked away under Anxius’s gaze. Only now, in raising chickens, did he understand the bitterness of it. As he walked, Yomi silently composed a poem in his heart:
Raising chicks is hard, so hard indeed,
So many fall—who still remains?
Someday they’ll grow and lay their eggs,
Then end as soup to soothe the stomach…
—Sorry, Li Bai!
Anxius: …Cute.
Since the number of chicks still wasn’t enough, and considering the survival rate issue, if they wanted to build up a real chicken farm, they had to buy more chicks.
So early the next morning, Yomi, Anxius, and the members of the Little Lamb Chef Team who were heading out to run the stall all went to the market together.
Once there, Meikai and the others went to set up the stall, while Yomi and Anxius in human form went off to find the people selling baby chicks.
Passing the Little Lamb Clothing Shop, Yomi noticed that the spring cloaks were selling especially well, which made him feel very gratified.
The Little Lamb Chef Team had already built up a name for itself. Not only locals, but even Junk Star residents from a bit farther away would make the trip just to taste the famous food they had heard about. And as the number of customers increased, other stall owners also began clustering here to sell their own goods. Some vendors who had been bullied and suppressed in other markets also came over after hearing that selling here was free and that causing trouble or fighting was strictly forbidden.
Under this kind of healthy cycle, more and more hawkers gathered here, the variety of goods increased, and naturally the number of customers multiplied as well…
Now the market was far more lively than before. Things that had never been sold here in the past could now be found, and it had already become the most prosperous market in the surrounding area.
Yomi had not been here in quite a while, so everything looked fresh and fascinating to him. As he walked, he even saw someone selling wolves!
More precisely, it was a little wolf cub. At first glance he had thought it was a puppy, but only after hearing the stall owner shouting did he realize it was a wolf.
Yomi stared at it curiously for several extra moments, and because of that distraction, he was jostled aside by the crowd behind him.
When he looked up and realized Anxius, who had been ahead of him, was gone, Yomi became frantic. He wasn’t scared—he was worried for Anxius. Since Anxius was now only a bit over twenty centimeters taller than he was, Yomi was terrified he might get knocked down and trampled. Just as he was about to shout, he heard a familiar voice:
“I’m here!”
It was Anxius.
Separated by the crowd, Anxius was up ahead, trying his best to make his way back toward him.
Yomi was anxious, but Anxius was even more anxious than he was. Right now the path was badly jammed, and his human form gave him no advantage among all these Junk Star people. Seeing Yomi trying to squeeze forward too, he immediately shouted for him not to move.
Even if his human form was smaller now, he was still incredibly strong, and no one could easily knock him down. But Yomi was different. A strong gust of wind could make him wobble. If Yomi got knocked over, his body simply would not be able to take it.
Yomi didn’t insist on forcing his way through. Instead, he began hopping in place and calling out, “Please let me through, please let me through… my friend is up ahead!”
One kind-hearted Junk Star resident noticed him and gazed at the little one with obvious fondness for a moment before reaching out to help carry him over the crowd… But at that instant, Anxius rushed over with all his might. Beating the other person by a split second, he scooped Yomi into his arms, quickly checked his body over, and only after confirming he was unharmed did he turn and glare at the Junk Star monster beside him, the one who had extended his “suspicious” hand.
“It’s okay. He was just trying to help me.” Yomi could sense the other man’s goodwill. Smiling, he climbed down from Anxius’s arms. But, afraid of being separated again, he stuck tightly to Anxius’s side and said to the man, “Thank you.”
The monster nodded to him with a smile and walked away carrying his basket.
Yomi wouldn’t allow himself to be carried, so Anxius simply held his hand tightly. Avoiding the densest part of the crowd, they soon found the place selling chicks.
Once they reached a more open patch of ground, Anxius instantly shifted back into his large original form and placed Yomi into a brand-new cloth pouch, hanging it against his own chest where he could see him at all times.
Yomi: “…Doesn’t that feel tight?”
Anxius shook his head, though the tips of his ears had reddened a little.
Every time the little person wriggled against his chest, his heart beat so hard it felt as if it would explode.
While Anxius was distracted, sneaking glances at Yomi, Yomi—whose head was the only part sticking out of the pouch—had already negotiated the price with the seller and bought every single basket of chicks they had.
The boss said the total, and Yomi lowered his head to take out his wallet. But by the time he looked up again, Anxius had already paid.
So Yomi had no choice but to hold his wallet and look up at him. “Put me down and let the chicks sit in the pouch. I’m still going to buy some daily necessities before we head back.”
As if Anxius would let anyone else sit in Yomi’s pouch. Chicks were absolutely no exception. The cloth sack from before had only been given by the chick seller, and back then he had used it merely for convenience while carrying the chicks back. But now this wasn’t about convenience. Yomi sitting in the pouch was safe and comfortable. Those chicks could forget it!
Without a word, he picked up all the baskets, bought the daily goods on Yomi’s list along the way, and carried everything back to the little car they had driven there in.
“Anything else you want to buy?” Anxius asked him.
For some reason, Yomi thought again of that wolf cub.
“Mm… let’s go back one more time. I’ll see whether there’s anything else I need.”
The sun was bright and warm as Anxius carried him back into the market. After wandering past several stalls, Yomi finally saw the wolf cub for sale again.
The little wolf was lying in its cage. One of its legs appeared to be lame, and when it dragged itself over to the bowl to drink, it had to drag that leg behind it. After a few licks, it collapsed again, looking weak and half-dead.
Some Junk Star people kept wolves to help with hunting or guard the house.
The market was crowded, but no one had bought this wolf cub.
Yomi silently stared at the little wolf. He had never seriously thought about keeping a pet before…
Anxius walked over, asked the stall owner two questions, and bought the little wolf on the spot.
Yomi froze. He had never expected Anxius to have exactly the same thought as he did!
Of course, Anxius was not thinking what Yomi was thinking. He had simply assumed Yomi wanted a pet.
The stall owner was overjoyed. He had originally thought the wolf cub would never sell, but now not only had someone bought it, they hadn’t even bargained. Naturally, he assumed the two of them had failed to notice the cub’s lame leg. He quickly picked it up, covered the back leg with a rag, and handed it over. “You two really have a good eye. This is a local mountain wolf. Once it grows up, it can get absolutely huge—almost comparable to the rain dragons on Snar Star. If you raise it from young, it’ll guard against thieves and intruders. You won’t lose out!”
“How did its leg get hurt?” Yomi lifted away the rag and placed the little wolf into the pouch beside himself.
The stall owner immediately looked awkward. But seeing that the two of them still had no intention of backing out, and clearly knew the cub was lame and had bought it anyway, he decided not to hide the truth. “Probably bitten by some wild beast. My wife and I found it yesterday while hunting mountain boars. It was hiding in a small ditch and whimpering. One glance and you could tell another beast had stolen it, planning to eat it. There was blood around, too, so it definitely wasn’t the only cub taken. But this one got lucky—it fell down and escaped, and happened to get wedged in the ditch. The back leg got bitten, though… Wolf cubs don’t have much meat on them, so I figured I’d bring it here to the market and see if anyone would be willing to buy it and keep it.”
Yomi knew he was not lying. Even Junk Star people generally wouldn’t hunt beast cubs, and if most of them caught an obviously pregnant wild beast after a lot of effort, they would release it in the end. They lived off the beasts, after all, and wouldn’t think only of short-term gain.
Besides, domesticated mountain wolves already bred in decent numbers and were easier to tame, so wild mountain wolves were basically no longer on most people’s hunting lists.
Yomi asked a few more questions about the forest where the cub had been found, and very quickly formed a plan.
Once the little wolf’s leg got better, he could try to find that forest and release it back there. If it never got better, then he would keep raising it.
Before heading home, Yomi couldn’t resist carrying the little wolf cub over to the chef team’s stall and showing it off to his friends.
Meikai took one glance and immediately assumed he had been scammed. “That thing doesn’t look like it’ll live much longer. Which stall owner sold it to you? He actually dared cheat you!”
Yomi shook his head. “Its front legs are very strong. It’ll live.”
Seeing that Yomi liked it, Meikai said nothing more. But the moment Yomi left, he, Harvey, and Arlo unanimously decided that this little wolf wouldn’t survive more than a week.
A wolf cub this young, already wounded—even if you put it back in its mother’s den right now, it still might not survive.
Yomi, however, firmly believed it could. Once they got into the car, he held the wolf cub—which really did look like a puppy—and happily asked Anxius, “Should we give it a name?”
Pets all had names, and Anxius nodded.
Yomi thought for a while. A lowly name was supposed to make something easier to raise, and right now, what the wolf cub needed most was exactly to be “easy to keep alive.”
“Gousheng… let’s call it Gousheng!” Looking at the little wolf in his arms, Yomi immediately decided on its name.
Anxius: “That sounds nice.”
Yomi: “…”
Smiling, he lowered his head to keep looking at Gousheng. Right now the wolf cub really did resemble a little dog. Yomi himself, as its temporary owner, was tiny too, and he didn’t expect Gousheng to grow up huge like the others of its kind. As long as it was healthy, it didn’t matter if it stayed small like a puppy.
Gousheng, do your best.
As soon as they got home, Yomi immediately asked Yesi to look at how badly Gousheng’s injured hind leg was.
Yesi wasn’t a veterinarian, but he had dealt with many mountain wolves before and had some experience. After examining the little wolf carefully, he felt the situation was not good.
The limp was recent, and there were clearly bite marks on the leg. Fortunately, they weren’t too deep, and if things went well, recovery might still be possible… But the leg injury wasn’t even the main problem. Aside from the leg, the little mountain wolf had been bitten elsewhere too! Its belly still had scars and blood crust on it, which probably meant there were internal injuries as well. Under those circumstances, survival was nearly impossible—especially because the cub itself looked to be in terrible shape, not like an animal poised to create a miracle.
But Yesi didn’t say any of that. If death couldn’t be changed, he didn’t want Yomi to suffer the pain ahead of time. From the eager concern in Yomi’s face as he held the wolf cub and asked questions, it was obvious that he had already treated this little wolf as his pet.
So Yesi only said, “This wolf cub isn’t in very good condition right now. Let’s wait a few days and see.”
Yomi nodded. It was perfectly normal that Gousheng’s condition would be bad after being trapped in a cage at the market for so long! The only thing Yomi paid attention to was that Yesi’s expression had looked fairly relaxed while checking the limp leg, which meant the leg couldn’t be too serious. So his confidence in Gousheng’s future increased greatly.
In Yomi’s eyes, Gousheng was now just a little milk-pup, only injured. So putting the dog bed inside the bedroom would make it easiest to keep watch over him at all times.
He asked his roommate Anxius for his opinion, and Anxius had no objection.
But after hearing from Yesi about the little wolf’s condition, Anxius regretted buying it a little. He shouldn’t have brought home a pet that might one day make Yomi cry.
There was no turning back now. All he could do was help Yomi keep alive this little wolf who was not likely to survive.
Together, the two of them made a little nest for the mountain wolf. Once it was done, Yomi pasted a note on it: Gousheng Inpatient Ward.
The chick patients had improved quite a lot, so surely Gousheng could too.
The little wolf lay inside the nest, its cloudy eyes fixed on the two figures—one large, one small. It really didn’t look very full of life. But whenever Yomi touched it, it would struggle to lift its head and weakly rub against Yomi’s hand.
On the first day that the critically ill little wolf moved into the bedroom, Anxius had fully prepared himself for the task of cleaning up his waste.
Strangely enough, Gousheng never once peed or pooped in the bedroom!
On the first day, no one found that especially odd. Yomi thought maybe Gousheng simply had nothing in his stomach. But by the second day, even after eating several strips of dried meat, Gousheng still hadn’t left a single drop or pellet anywhere in the room.
Yomi became frantic with worry. He thought there was something wrong with Gousheng’s digestive system, pacing around in panic. Even when Gousheng lifted his head and whimpered for more jerky, Yomi refused to give it to him. Could he? If food only went in and never came out, that was terrifying!
Thankfully, Anxius had gone into town today to buy medicine for animals. Hopefully Gousheng would hold on until then!
First Yomi carried the little wolf outside to sunbathe. Then he carried him back inside again, his face full of gloom.
Perhaps sensing Yomi’s worry, Gousheng slowly got to his feet inside the little nest and began limping toward the bathroom.
Yomi stared in shock. “Gousheng? There’s nothing to eat in there!”
Gousheng glanced back at him, then stubbornly kept going, bumping the door open with his head and continuing inside.
Yomi quickly followed after him. There, he saw the wolf cub make his way to the squat toilet, line himself up over the hole, and start peeing.
Yomi: “…”
And once he was finished, he even knew to step on the flush button… There was not the faintest sign that a little wolf had used the place.
…So strong. So smart!
Watching the brave Gousheng limp back out, Yomi stood there open-mouthed in amazement.
That evening, when Anxius finally returned home carrying all kinds of veterinary medicine, he hadn’t even opened the door yet when he heard Yomi inside playing house with the little wolf cub.
“Daddy hasn’t come home yet. We have to wait for Daddy to eat together.”
“Awoo woo!”
“Okay, I’ll give you one piece. You eat first. Mommy will go see whether Daddy’s back.”
Anxius froze. In an instant, he realized something, and a violent shiver ran uncontrollably down his spine.
He was Daddy. Yomi was Mommy…
After some pacing inside, a bizarre ringing noise suddenly went off—it was Yomi imitating a phone call himself.
“Hello? …Why is it you? Y-you need to stop looking for me! I’m already married.”
“I don’t believe it! He can’t be dead!”
“I’ve already settled down, so just let me go!”
…It was actually a melodrama plot!
If he hadn’t been able to smell clearly that there really was no one else inside, he would have burst in already.
His heart felt like it was on a roller coaster. Breathing unevenly, lips pressed tightly together, Anxius stood there for a while not knowing whether he should enter or not.
Luckily, the melodrama came to an end a few seconds later. But then actor Yomi’s voice rang out again, now old and weary: “Gousheng, stop waiting. Daddy’s busy. He’s not coming back. Let’s eat.”
“Awoo awoo?”
“Busy. Everyone’s busy…”
Anxius: “…”
