Before bed, Jiang Ying lay down, took out her phone to browse the forum, and activated the AI voice assistant.
“Help me make a post. The title will be…”
She thought for a bit. “【My Beastman Guide Dog just came home. Why does he keep making noises?】”
The AI Assistant opened a new post, automatically generating the title she gave, and prompted: “Please edit the content.”
Jiang Ying recalled her several interactions with Su Heng.
“He always buries his head in my chest and rumbles continuously, rubs his face against me, and bumps me with his head. Does he want me to pet him?”
“But then, while I’m petting him, he bites my fingers. When I kiss him, he makes impatient breathing sounds. If I praise him as a ‘good dog’, he even bites my ear hard enough to hurt.”
She paused, then added the last sentence, “Is it that he doesn’t like me?”
“May I ask, is the gender of this Beastman Guide Dog male or female?”
“Ah…” She could still tell the difference. “He’s male.”
“Understood. Content has been generated for you.”
The AI Assistant converted the paragraph Jiang Ying spoke into text, uniformly changing the pronouns referring to Su Heng into ‘he/him’. It then read the output content back in a cold, mechanical voice, “Please confirm the text content. Post it?”
“Post it.”
Her phone soon chimed with the notification of a successful post.
Jiang Ying had just posted it casually, hoping for some luck. She didn’t expect to receive comments right away. After the post went up, she put her phone down.
She pinched one of her earlobes.
That spot had just been bitten by Su Heng. Even now, she could still almost feel the sharpness of that canine tooth.
It hurt a little, but only for an instant, before a scorching hot tongue licked over it.
His tongue seemed closer to a kitten’s in structure, covered in fine, dense barbs. But they weren’t too prickly. When he licked her, it didn’t feel unpleasant, just ticklish and sticky.
Pressed beneath him, she was already struggling to breathe. The moment she squirmed from that strange sensation, the clingy licking stopped.
He seemed to realize something, or perhaps driven by instinct, paused for two seconds, and then changed to gently sucking on her earlobe.
It was even stranger.
Jiang Ying subconsciously felt that maybe he was soothing her, the her who had almost wanted to push him away because of the pain.
Or maybe he was offering a pitiful apology for failing to resist biting her ear.
In any case, she wasn’t angry at all.
She was just utterly puzzled. Did he bite her because he didn’t like those gestures of hers?
That sound he made from his throat, somewhere between a whimper and a soft hum—was it out of comfort or discomfort?
She couldn’t figure it out no matter how she thought.
She had put down her phone hoping to drift off to sleep, but now the lack of answers made it even harder to sleep.
Just as she was about to get up and find something to do, the phone by her pillow sounded with the AI assistant’s voice again.
“You have received a like.”
A pause.
“You have received a like.”
“You have received a like.”
“You have received a like.”
“You have received a like.”
…
Huh?
Jiang Ying rolled over to grab her phone.
And in the brief moment she spent reaching for it, the notifications kept pouring in.
“You have received a like.”
“You have received a comment.”
“You have received a comment.”
“Your post has been bookmarked.”
“You have a new follower.”
…
Confused, Jiang Ying picked up her phone, unlocked the screen, swiped, and refreshed a long string of likes and bookmarks.
So many.
She had to modify the AI assistant’s notification logic, lowering the frequency and changing from reporting individual actions to reporting the total numbers of likes, bookmarks, and comments.
After a moment, the AI Assistant spoke again: “Likes & bookmarks 99+, new followers 99+, comments 99+. View them?”
This many?
Jiang Ying froze, then said, “View comments.”
“Alright. Comments will be played for you in default order.”
“Id ‘momo’ commented: Beastman doggo—loves you so much loves you so much loves you so much. Unmoved OP—why is he making noise?”
“Id ‘A Fake Person’ commented: Am I the only one who finds the OP’s text really bizarre?”
“Id ‘momo’ replied to ‘A Fake Person’: The OP might have Beastman Cognitive Disorder. Normal people can’t quite understand their way of thinking.”
“Id ‘Donut Circle Round’ replied to ‘momo’: What’s Beastman Cognitive Disorder?”
“Id ‘momo’ replied to ‘Donut Circle Round’: It means being unable to correctly perceive the concept of beastmen, thinking there’s a huge difference between beastmen and ‘people’? For example, the OP seems to think beastmen are pretty much the same as pet cats and dogs.”
“Id ‘A Fake Person’ replied to ‘momo’: There’s actually a condition like that? First I’m hearing of it!”
“Id ‘Orange’ replied to ‘A Fake Person’: Yeah, a friend of mine suddenly became like that just last week. It was super sudden, no warning signs at all before.”
…
“Id ‘Delay’ commented: Not sure about beastmen, but if it were a real cat or dog acting like this, it would mean they really like you and trust you.”
“Id ‘Shipping Killed Me’ commented: OP is a girl, the beastman doggo is a boy?”
Jiang Ying told the voice assistant to stop reading comments.
“Reply to that last comment,” she said. “—Yes, my guide dog is male.”
Just after she replied, she got a response from the other party.
“Id ‘Shipping Killed Me’ replied to you: Then he definitely likes you! That’s why he can’t help showing his true instincts!”
Jiang Ying thought again: “Reply: But he doesn’t just have canine genes; he also has feline genes.”
“Id ‘Shipping Killed Me’ replied to you: He’s super in love”
“Id ‘Shipping Killed Me’ replied to you: This time I’m really shipping it”
“Id ‘momo’ replied to ‘Shipping Killed Me’: Ship is killing me”
“Id ‘Little Fish’ replied to ‘Shipping Killed Me’: Ship is killing me”
“Id ‘Donut Circle Round’ replied to ‘Shipping Killed Me’: Ship is killing me”
…
Jiang Ying felt a bit dizzy listening to this.
The information she provided was too one-sided, and the netizens’ opinions were too subjective, mostly just emotional output. It was hard for her to glean any useful information from these comments.
But her post had seemingly blown up for no reason. With all these comments, surely there must be something that could help her, right?
She listened for a while longer. Most of the comments arranged by default were similar in content.
Although the status of beastmen in the Federation was rising daily, humans who accepted and understood beastmen were still in the minority.
Therefore, the concept of “Beastman Cognitive Disorder” wasn’t widely known in the Federation.
The high-heat comments were basically monopolized by related questions and explanations. Beyond that, there were emotional topics, akin to shipping couples.
These topics were indeed easy to spark discussion and resonance. After some thought, Jiang Ying changed her approach.
“View comments sorted by newest.”
Among the newly received comments, there was finally some content different from the hot comments.
Most of it was also unhelpful, with many comments @ mentioning friends and family to come take a look.
Skipping through them one by one, she finally heard an answer that best matched the troubles she had posted.
“Id ‘Eve’s Apple’ commented: Hello, I have an experience similar to yours. Perhaps sharing it can help you.”
“I am also a Beastman Cognitive Disorder patient, and like the OP, I also bought a beastman.”
“At first, we weren’t familiar. Basically, apart from necessary communication, we had no other contact.”
“But after a chance incident, the distance between us suddenly closed.”
“I started to develop a sense of dependence on him—at that time, I also wasn’t clear whether relying too much on my beastman was a good thing.”
“But I did it anyway. I began to get close to him, wanting to be affectionate with him.”
“Initially, he wasn’t very willing to respond, and I respected that greatly. Over time, he slowly started to change.”
“Although he doesn’t share the same animal genes as the OP’s beastman, and the ways he expresses affection are different, I gradually figured out a method to judge whether a beastman likes me.”
“Using a kitten as an example, figuring out if they like you is actually quite simple.”
“When a kitten isn’t very familiar with you, it will avoid sleeping near you. For instance, not entering your room all night, or sleeping under the bed, on the windowsill, somewhere at a distance from you.”
“If it’s willing to sleep on your bed, it means its trust in you has grown. When a part of its body touches you as it sleeps, it means it’s already quite relaxed. When a little kitten is willing to sleep plastered entirely against you, it means it likes you very, very much.”
“Beastmen are the same. That’s exactly how I confirmed that my beastman likes me and enjoys interacting with me.”
“—In short, if you want to know if he likes you, just sleep together once and you’ll find out.”
Jiang Ying listened and thought it actually made some sense.
She liked each of the replies in this comment thread, then started recalling her earlier interactions with Su Heng.
On the first day she brought Su Heng home, he had also consistently refused her suggestion to “sleep together with her.”
At that time, she also felt that was a sign he wasn’t familiar with her.
If he wasn’t familiar, there was even less to say about liking or disliking.
But now that a week had passed, could she perhaps use this method again to judge whether his fondness for her had increased?
From that, she could also discern whether her previous actions had made him like her more, or made him dislike her.
Having found a feasible method, Jiang Ying put down her phone.
However, after she left the room, the popularity of that comment thread suddenly surged, sparking intense discussion—
Id ‘momo’ replied to ‘Eve’s Apple’: Wait a minute, the commenter’s cognitive disorder seems different from the OP’s, isn’t it?
Id ‘Cannot Understand’ replied to ‘Eve’s Apple’: Did the commenter also hire a Beastman Guide Dog?
Id ‘Eve’s Apple’ replied to ‘Cannot Understand’: No, I’m not blind. The beastman I bought is a Companion-Type Beastman.
Id ‘Cannot Understand’ replied to ‘Eve’s Apple’: Ah, this…
Id ‘momo’ replied to ‘Eve’s Apple’: Translation—the commenter’s cognitive disorder is “thinking beastmen exist to be human companions,” that’s why they said all that. The “interaction” she mentioned is also that kind of interaction… if you know, you know. The commenter and their own beastman are both willing, but the OP’s cognitive disorder is obviously different. She thinks beastmen and pet cats/dogs are the same concept. The commenter’s method definitely isn’t suitable for her.
Id ‘Orange’ replied to ‘momo’: Huh?
Id ‘Orange’ replied to ‘momo’: The OP liked the comment and then disappeared. She wouldn’t have actually gone off to try it, right?
…
Jiang Ying didn’t see those follow-up replies.
She walked in her loose, baggy pajamas to Su Heng’s door.
This time, she adopted that netizen’s suggestion.
Despite him being her dog, she still respected him and knocked gently on the door.
But right as she knocked.
The muffled, rumbling hums, like a little dog or a little cat, coming from beneath the blankets, came to an abrupt halt the instant she felt puzzled.
“Su Heng.”
She asked him, full of anticipation, “Can I come in?”