The Lost Tomb : Extras & Special Stories

Extra Story: What Are They Doing? (Part 4) -Brother Xiao Man

This Extra Story are recommended to read after Sea of Sands.  

The treatment of a single dog.

Last year was the most difficult year for the dog farm. During the typhoon, one of the big fir trees on the side of the dog farm fell onto the kennel. Kan Jian took seven boxes of beer and stacked them up to support the kennel. Since then, we couldn't find the time to do an overall renovation.

We still didn't get to fix it this year, so the kennel wasn't protected against the wind and the rain. When I went to see Brother Xiao Man, he was solemnly squatting beside the pillar of beer boxes and looking at me indifferently.

It was as if he was telling me: Your grandpa never treated me like this when he was alive.

***

Brother Xiao Man still liked to get close to me because I smelled like my grandpa, but I could tell he liked Poker-face best. When Poker-face gave him a bath, he was as obedient as a cat.

Fatty also picked a dog from the kennel, but it became as fat as a hippo in less than twenty days.

According to my family's tradition, I should get a Tibetan spaniel to protect me before I turned forty. Uncle Two prepared one for me, but it couldn't protect me at all.

It had the personality of a hamster and went straight to the warmest places on my body. It usually ran around wildly or barked at the TV. One time, Brother Xiao Man slapped it with his paw and it never dared approach the TV again.

***

Brother Xiao Man had a big forehead with a well-developed frontal lobe. He was one of the few dogs I had seen with excellent self-control.

There was a TV in the kennel and Brother Xiao Man was the only one that could use the remote control.

He was an old dog now, and I had never seen him interested in the opposite sex. Fatty wanted Brother Xiao Man to have more than a dozen descendants, so he introduced several girlfriends to him, but the big dog wasn't even willing to take a look at them.

Fatty pulled Brother Xiao Man's hind leg and asked, "Is it possible that Brother Xiao Man is a female?"

Brother Xiao Man grimly turned his head, raised his front paw, and put it on Fatty's hand. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head before shaking his head at Fatty in a gesture that seemed to say Fatty should never do it again. 

****************************************