Chapter 18: You Two Little Brats Are Looking for Trouble

“Woof woof woof…”

“Ooh…”

Two howls with different pitches came, and Cao Shujie couldn’t sleep again.

Turning his head to look at the still dark sky outside, he felt particularly annoyed, muttering to himself, “Those two damned dogs, they won’t stop barking in the middle of the night. What are they howling about? I really want to slaughter them.”

But turning his head, he saw by the moonlight that his wife and daughter were completely unaffected, sleeping very quietly, and he envied them from the bottom of his heart.

Before he could finish sighing, the barks of two small huskies rang out again from outside.

He had just brought these two small huskies back from his uncle’s house. They might have left their dog mother and were a bit unable to adapt to the new environment, so they kept barking intermittently.

Cao Shujie suffered from neurasthenia due to frequently staying up late before, and he was a light sleeper. Although he had adjusted much better since returning to his hometown from Beijing recently, the two small huskies were still barking too vigorously, dealing another heavy blow to his not-yet-fully-recovered mental state.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t lie still in bed, fearing that any big movement would wake his wife and daughter. So, Cao Shujie got dressed, left the bedroom, and went into the yard.

The weather at the end of March was still a bit chilly.

As soon as Cao Shujie came out, he felt a cold wind blow past and subconsciously tightened his clothes.

He looked at the two energetic puppies in the cardboard box, utterly at a loss as to what to do with them.

When the two small huskies saw the suddenly appearing Cao Shujie, they were startled.

In the dark night, Cao Shujie’s figure blocked the moonlight, looking pitch black. In the huskies’ eyes, he was like a giant monster!

“I say, Daha, Erha, can you two quiet down for a bit? I haven’t had enough sleep yet!” Cao Shujie looked at the two puppies with an immense headache. He couldn’t actually slaughter them, so he could only try to reason with them.

But the blue-eyed husky’s howl was the response Cao Shujie received: “Owooo…”

Immediately after, the other brown-eyed husky also raised its little neck: “Ooh… Woof, woof.”

“Damn it, you two are doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Cao Shujie squatted down. He could more clearly see the innocent expressions on the faces of the two huskies.

They looked very cute and adorable, but this expression, in Cao Shujie’s eyes at that moment, made him unable to smile at all.

“Pat pat!” Cao Shujie patted the cardboard box twice, and the two small huskies immediately quieted down.

Cao Shujie then said, “You two hurry up and sleep. I’ll get up early tomorrow morning and make you something delicious. Otherwise, I’ll throw you out right now.”

“Owooo, ooh ooh ooh…”

The response to Cao Shujie was still two howls of different lengths. Seeing them raise their necks, look at the sky, and howl at the moon, it was exactly like the legendary scene of wolves howling at the moon.

“You two little brats, you’re deliberately not letting me sleep, aren’t you? Come on, come on, I’ll take you to the rooftop to have a ‘discussion’. Don’t disturb other people’s sleep.”

The next moment, Cao Shujie, fearing the dog barks would disturb his parents, wife, and child’s sleep, actually carried the cardboard box containing the two small huskies onto the rooftop. He even went to the south side of the rooftop.

In the latter half of the night, Cao Shujie didn’t sleep at all. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he got into a stubborn standoff with the two small huskies.

Later on, the two puppies became sleepy and wanted to sleep, but Cao Shujie became more and more energetic. He seemed to have returned to his state of working late nights in Beijing, and he wouldn’t let the two small huskies rest either.

So much so that when the first streak of orange-red light began to radiate from the eastern horizon, the two extremely sleepy puppies saw Cao Shujie, and there was actually a hint of fear in their blue and brown dog eyes.

They were truly afraid of him.

He was even more ‘dogged’ than them!

“You two little brats, I’m telling you, this is the only time. If you bark again tonight and keep me from sleeping well, I’ll stay up all night with you. Let’s see who can outlast whom!” Cao Shujie said this.

“Shujie, I couldn’t find you when I woke up this morning. What are you doing on the rooftop?” Cheng Xiaolin came out of the bedroom into the yard. Seeing her husband on the south rooftop, she asked curiously.

Cao Shujie recounted the whole story to his wife. Cheng Xiaolin immediately felt helpless after listening. “Honey, they’re just two dogs, they can’t understand what you’re saying. Why are you getting angry with them?”

“You don’t know, they barked so much in the middle of the night that I couldn’t sleep. It really annoyed me to death,” Cao Shujie couldn’t help but complain.

He was full of grievances and didn’t even know who to complain to!

Cheng Xiaolin really couldn’t hold back. She burst into laughter, holding her stomach. She found the whole thing too amusing.

“Where are the dogs?” Cheng Xiaolin asked.

Cao Shujie, holding the cardboard box, prepared to go down. “They’re here, I’m coming down now.”

A short while later, he came down using the steps by the wall.

Cheng Xiaolin was very curious. She quickly went over and took a look at the small huskies in the cardboard box. Only then did she realize they were so sleepy they were swaying their heads back and forth. Their eyes seemed to be spinning, and they had no energy at all.

“Look how sleepy they are. Hurry up and let them sleep,” Cheng Xiaolin said.

Cao Shujie nodded. He said to the two small huskies in the cardboard box, “This time my wife has spoken, so I’ll spare your two dog lives.”

“Next time, you’d better be careful.”

Cheng Xiaolin wanted to laugh. The more she looked at her husband, the more he seemed like a big child. “Honey, you’re really funny. Can they even understand you?”

“Who knows? I’ll teach them slowly,” Cao Shujie said.

He placed the cardboard box containing the two small huskies under the balcony, letting them sleep in the sun.

Cao Shujie was also unbearably sleepy. Thinking his daughter hadn’t woken up yet, he told his wife, “I’m going to the west room to sleep for a bit.”

“Go quickly. I’m truly exasperated with you,” Cheng Xiaolin was also helpless.

When Mengmeng woke up in the morning, her first thought was the two little puppies. She even ignored the little gray rabbit and the little wild cat. She lay next to the cardboard box, looking at the sleeping huskies inside, and curiously asked Cheng Xiaolin, “Mama, puppies, sleeping?”

“Yes, they’re still asleep. They’ll play with you after they wake up,” Cheng Xiaolin didn’t dare tell her daughter about the mischief her dad caused last night, so as not to affect her husband’s perfect image in her daughter’s eyes.

Mengmeng, however, didn’t know the twists and turns of the story. Hearing her mother say that the two puppies were still asleep, she nodded very innocently. “Puppies, good babies, sleep.”

“Yes, Mengmeng, Mama will take you to eat first,” Cheng Xiaolin said.

“Puppies, eat food,” Mengmeng mentioned.

Cheng Xiaolin pointed at the huskies in the cardboard box and said, “Mengmeng, they’ll eat after they wake up. You eat first, and then you can feed them after you’re full, okay?”

“Okay!” Mengmeng ate with extra enthusiasm. She kept thinking about her mother saying she could feed the puppies.

While eating, she turned her head and looked around. Suddenly, she remembered something: “Mama, where’s Papa?”

“Your papa went to sleep too,” Cheng Xiaolin said.

Mengmeng heard her mother say this, and said “Oh.” “Papa, sleeping.”

“Yes!” Cheng Xiaolin nodded.

“Puppies, sleeping.”

Cheng Xiaolin: “…”

She didn’t know why, but she always felt something was off.

But Mengmeng didn’t care. She ate faster and more than usual today.

After eating, she ran to the cardboard box containing the huskies and waited patiently. Her legs became numb from squatting. She even asked Grandmother to bring her a small stool. She sat next to the cardboard box, basking in the sun and watching the puppies, thinking that as soon as they woke up, she would feed them right away.
(End of this chapter)