"I'll teach you to disobey! I'll teach you to run... Do you submit? Do you submit! Speak! Do you know you were wrong?!"

"What right do you have to hit me!... I don't submit! I just don't submit!"

Zhuang Mingqi wandered along the tree-lined path of the residential community, leading his dog. The morning light was faint, and the autumn wind was growing cold, carrying a fine, bone-chilling coldness that felt like needle pricks on his exposed skin. A phone call late last night had made his already foul mood even worse. He had only managed to fall asleep as dawn approached, and when he did, he was plagued by nightmares. The high and low shouts from his dream seemed to still linger by his ears, a vicious cycle without end, like a form of torture with no escape in sight.

If he could be freed from this dual torment of mind and body, he would be willing to jump into a river right now.

Silver suddenly started barking. Zhuang Mingqi, in a daze, was pulled along by him. When he looked up, he saw several other residents also out walking their dogs. Silver and a Corgi bared their teeth at each other in a friendly manner, while ahead, the owner of a West Highland White Terrier seemed to be arguing with someone.

The entire street echoed with human voices and dog barks; it was sheer pandemonium. The noise made Zhuang Mingqi's head buzz, and he felt like he was about to pass out in the next second. He yanked hard on the leash. "Silver!"

However, how could a mere paper-thin man be a match for a 20-kilogram Samoyed? Silver happily lunged forward, and Zhuang Mingqi took off helplessly like a kite, nearly tumbling headfirst into a tree pit.

"What's all the noise about?"

At 7:35, an ordinary passing savior descended like a divine warrior. Zhuang Mingqi managed to steady himself by holding onto a tree trunk and handed the leash to Shen Zhengning, saying weakly, "I don't know. Why does he love getting involved in drama so much... He grew up in the United Kingdom, can he even understand what they're arguing about?"

Shen Zhengning studied his face. "Low blood sugar again?" He held the Samoyed with one hand and reached into his coat pocket with the other. "Hand."

Zhuang Mingqi opened his palm, and two red bean milk candies fell from mid-air into it.

The unreal feeling of viewing the world through frosted glass gradually faded as his blood sugar returned to normal. A clear boundary formed between the phantom noises in his head and the clamor of the real world. Sucking on the candy, Zhuang Mingqi watched Shen Zhengning crouch down to greet Silver. Taking advantage of his height, he easily looked over the crowd and saw the other main character in the argument up ahead—a gaunt man in his forties or fifties, wearing a cleaner's uniform.

"I just finished sweeping this street, and your dog comes along and digs up a pile of leaves. Was I wrong to scold it?" He sounded as if he had been holding a grudge for a long time, using this as an excuse to vent his anger. "You dog owners don't clean up after them and just let these things run wild everywhere. You have no public decency, and now you won't even let people talk about it? We all know who's being unreasonable here!"

The West Highland White Terrier's owner, a middle-aged woman, shot back fearlessly in a loud voice, "Let me tell you, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't just say whatever you want. What makes you say my dog did it? Do you have proof? Did you check the surveillance footage? You can't even do your own job right, what kind of man takes his anger out on a dog?!"

"Lying through your teeth, have you no shame! Open your eyes and look, your dog is still digging over there!"

The man's voice was high-pitched, the woman's sharp. The more they argued, the angrier they became. Zhuang Mingqi, annoyed, was about to suggest Shen Zhengning take another route when the man who had been crouching and playing with the dog slowly stood up, looked around, and suddenly spoke up. "Are you talking about these black plastic bags filled with leaves? I don't think a dog bit them."

His voice wasn't loud, but its texture and force were distinct, easily cutting through the crowd and interrupting the argument. He drew the gazes of both warring parties and the onlookers, instantly becoming the center of attention.

Behind him, Zhuang Mingqi clicked his tongue with an inscrutable meaning.

The Wutong trees along the road had shed most of their leaves. To keep the road tidy and prevent fires, the community's property management had arranged for cleaners to sweep up the fallen leaves, pack them in large black trash bags, and temporarily stack them in the tree pits to be collected by a cleaning truck.

Shen Zhengning had noticed this the previous night. As he walked this morning, he saw that the trash bags in every tree pit had large and small tears, with golden-red leaves spilling out from the openings, like brilliant, molten lava flowing from ashen rocks.

The cleaner shot him a sidelong glance and let out a loud sneer. "You dog owners all stick together..."

The rest of his sentence and his sneer got stuck in his throat, because the tall, handsome man leaning against a Wutong tree outside the crowd suddenly lifted his eyelids and cast a cold, warning-filled gaze at him.

In his mind, being "scared by a look" should have been a very rare occurrence, but the fact was that instinct was faster than consciousness. By the time he realized it, his heart was already pounding in his throat—it wasn't a judgment based on reason, like yielding due to the other person's status or power, but rather the natural survival instinct of a normal person encountering the gaze of a murderer.

Shen Zhengning paid no mind to his abrupt silence. When he was focused, he had a certain indifference, as if "viewing all things as the barking of dogs." He pointed to another bag of leaves in a nearby tree pit. "If you observe carefully, you'll find that it's not just this road; most of the leaf-filled trash bags in the community have tears. And they're all vertical, with neat edges, as if they were cut with a small knife. If a small dog had bitten or scratched them, there should at least be signs of tearing on the plastic bag. It wouldn't be this neat."

A woman holding two Corgis chimed in, "Exactly, and what dog would be bored enough to bite every single bag."

The cleaner forced himself to forget the scare he had just received and, craning his neck, continued to question, "If a dog didn't bite it, then who could have? You say it was cut with a knife, who would pull such a prank?"

"I said it 'looks like it was cut with a knife,' not 'it was cut with a knife'." Shen Zhengning politely corrected his wording. He bent down, picked up a leaf from the ground, and, like a magician at the center of a stage, showed its hardness to the crowd. "A dry leaf may seem to crumble at a touch, but it's quite sharp when it comes to soft packaging. When you stuff a large number of leaves into a trash bag and then tie it tightly, the corners of the dry leaves press against the taut plastic bag like an awl, making it very easy to puncture the bag."

He rustled the torn pieces of the plastic bag, making a "shh-shh" sound. "Also, as we enter autumn, the temperature difference between day and night increases. During the day, the black trash bags absorb heat, accelerating water evaporation and making the leaves even drier and harder. At night, the temperature drops, making the plastic material harder and more brittle, reducing the bag's elasticity. When these two factors combine, the bag is ultimately punctured from the inside by the leaves, resulting in tears that look like knife cuts."

All the humans and dogs stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Shen Zhengning reached out to take the wet wipe that Zhuang Mingqi promptly handed him, methodically dried his long fingers, and delivered the final verdict: "In short, this is a natural phenomenon, not some 'prank,' and there are no 'culprits' intentionally causing trouble."

The accused dog owner let out a long "Ohhh," being the first to react. "I get it now. You mean these plastic bags were punctured by the leaves, and it wasn't our dog digging at them at all?"

Shen Zhengning nodded with a smile. "Correct, it was just a misunderstanding. Your dog is innocent, and our sanitation worker works hard cleaning every day. It's good that everyone understands the reason and talks it out. We're all neighbors, let's not hurt our harmony."

"Did you hear that! Everyone heard that, right! Huh? I'd like to see who dares to wrongly accuse our dog now!"

The cleaner awkwardly pulled his cap down, muttered, "Whatever, there are more of you, so you're always right. I'm not going to stoop to your level," then turned, picked up his cleaning tools, and walked away quickly with his head down.

"Honestly, what kind of person is that!" The woman who had been arguing with him rolled her eyes dramatically. She looked Shen Zhengning up and down, her face instantly breaking into a smile. "Oh my, this young man is so smart! So capable! Look at him, clearing things up in just a few words. He's practically a master detective! Where do you work, young man? Is this big white dog yours? So handsome! So charming!"

It was hard to tell if she was praising the dog or the man. The barrage of effusive praise sent the great detective fleeing in disarray. "You're too kind, you're too kind, it's not as amazing as you say. I have to get to work, so I'll be going now."

He dragged the Samoyed, which was still enthusiastically socializing with its dog friends, and fled the scene at top speed. Zhuang Mingqi followed behind him, enjoying the show immensely, his shoulders trembling like a tree in the wind. Shen Zhengning glanced around and asked with genuine puzzlement, "Whose pressure cooker is leaking?"

"You heard wrong, it was the wind." Zhuang Mingqi's expression was as serious as a cat that had just pushed a cup off a table, one of his cheeks slightly puffed out. Because of the candy in his mouth, his words were a little muffled, but there was not a hint of sweetness in his tone. "Why waste your breath on him? You could have just called property management to check the surveillance footage."

Shen Zhengning replied casually, "If we involved property management, even if it turned out the dog did tear the bag, the cleaner would have offended a resident, and things probably wouldn't have ended well for him."

"He should have thought of the consequences when he chose to argue with a resident," Zhuang Mingqi commented coldly. "That person doesn't think he did anything wrong at all. Even if he got away with it today, he'll trip up over the same thing sooner or later."

"I wasn't trying to get him out of a jam." Shen Zhengning walked to the community gate and handed Silver's leash back to Zhuang Mingqi, saying in a half-joking tone, "The puppy's innocence is important too."

"..."

The straightforward statement, more powerful than any effusive praise, left Zhuang Mingqi speechless for a long moment. His dark, long eyebrows knitted slightly, his gaze a mix of scrutiny and doubt, of puzzlement and a bit of novelty. The complex emotion of that instant was hard to summarize in a few words, but it certainly wasn't dislike.

Shen Zhengning was clearly a quick-witted, considerate, and shrewd member of society. Having grown up in a single-parent family, he had matured and become sensible at an early age; his hopes had even once been personally shattered by an adult. He was far from "naive and worldly." And yet, in his actions and demeanor, he would occasionally reveal a hint of... an indescribable "fairy-tale-like quality" that was extremely rare in an adult man.

It wasn't because he still believed in those whimsical stories at his age, but because he possessed a certain powerful trait and was willing to extend his own branches to provide shade for smaller creatures—somewhat like a fairy godmother or an ancient elf tree, a character who personally created "fantastical miracles."

Since meeting him, Zhuang Mingqi would sometimes be brushed by that fairy-tale-like gentleness and wonder if it was a small sweet treat from fate amidst its curse.

As his thoughts raced, the red bean milk candy melted, leaving only a faint aftertaste on the tip of his tongue. Zhuang Mingqi hesitated for a moment, then led Silver and followed him. Shen Zhengning raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Changing your route today?"

He only asked that one question, but Zhuang Mingqi immediately realized that he had a "file" on him in his mind. From his life experiences to his daily routines, that file might not be thick, but if he did anything out of the ordinary, a person as perceptive as this would surely notice it at once.

"I'll lend you Silver for a couple of days." He tilted his head and looked at Shen Zhengning. "Want him?"

Shen Zhengning sucked in a light breath. "It's only the end of October, and you're already busy with New Year's greetings?"

"?" Zhuang Mingqi sensed it wasn't anything good and unhappily turned his face away. "How absurd."

"Why are you suddenly willing to part with him?" Shen Zhengning walked shoulder to shoulder with him on the slightly narrow sidewalk, carefully maintaining a distance of half a palm's width. "Are you tired of him eating you out of house and home, so you're finding him a new meal ticket?"

This was obviously a joke. Leaving aside how important Silver was to Zhuang Mingqi, Shen Zhengning lived in a normal two-bedroom apartment while Zhuang Mingqi lived in a townhouse complex. Their living standards were, if not worlds apart, at least the difference between wealthy and well-off. Forget a single 20-kilogram furball, he could easily afford to raise two more litters.

"I have to go to Xingcheng for something," Zhuang Mingqi said. "I'll probably be gone for three or four days. I was considering sending him to a pet kennel, but he's very timid with strangers and easily scared. I wouldn't be at ease leaving him there."

"Oh... and here I thought you were genuinely trying to create an opportunity for us. Turns out you were just looking for a drop-in pet sitter." Shen Zhengning gave him a teasing glance and said with a long, drawn-out sigh, "My bad, I actually didn't realize just now that Mr. Zhuang wanted to say, 'Kneel, I have a favor to ask of you.'"

"..." Zhuang Mingqi played his trump card. "You couldn't bear to see Silver get bullied by other dogs at a pet kennel, could you?"

Seeing Shen Zhengning slightly moved, he immediately added his conditions. "It won't be too much trouble for you. I'll send you my door code. I'll prepare his food in advance. You can just drop by on your way to and from work to give him something to eat and walk him around the community a few times a day."

This level of trust was a bit too generous. Shen Zhengning raised an eyebrow and asked in return, "Aren't you afraid I'll clean out your house?"

"The most valuable thing is Silver, the rest doesn't matter." Zhuang Mingqi lowered his gaze and looked at him with pitiful eyes. "Besides, aren't you the guardian angel of puppies? You'll definitely protect him while his owner is away, right?"

Shen Zhengning's heart skipped a beat, struck by his suddenly innocent expression. He hadn't yet figured out what kind of emotion had caused this strange reaction, but alarms blared, and he reflexively organized his words for a counterattack: "This little sis, how old are you now? Have you ever studied, what medicine are you taking?"

Zhuang Mingqi: ?