Su Heng obediently followed Jiang Ying’s instructions, took a fresh set of clothes, and went into the bathroom, using the shower time to consider his next move.
Warm water cascaded from the showerhead, falling impossibly soft against his skin.
He was accustomed to cold showers. She had told him repeatedly that since he’d had a fever just the night before, he had to keep warm.
But he’d already taken a cold shower during the day. As a canine beastman, a bit of cold water meant nothing to him.
She didn’t truly understand the real him.
It was only his irresistible rut cycle symptoms that had made him unilaterally treat her kindness toward a dog as genuine affection.
The suppressant was taking effect inside him now; he would return to normal soon enough.
Su Heng lowered his eyes to his immobile right hand.
The bandage remained completely unaffected under the running water. Only the little bow tied at the very top quivered as droplets struck it.
Steeling his heart, he yanked that end free and retied it into a plain knot.
This would be the first step in cutting her out.
Su Heng shut off the water, expressionlessly changed into the clean clothes, and sent a message to Qu Sheng, having him investigate the mental compatibility data that the Beastman Occupation Reception Center had submitted between him and Jiang Ying.
When he came out, the chef variety show that was currently all the rage was playing in the living room.
Jiang Ying was curled up in one corner of the sofa, hugging her knees as she “gazed” toward the television, listening with rapt attention, as if she could really see those gorgeous dishes.
He walked over to her.
Hearing footsteps, she lowered her bent legs. When she lifted her head to face him, a smile touched her lips as she patted her lap.
“Good dog, come here.”
“…”
Aside from his steps faltering for a split second, for the first time, he controlled his overreaction to that form of address.
The medicine must be working, Su Heng thought.
He sat down on the sofa, a meter away from her.
Jiang Ying paused, then patted her lap at him again.
“Come here.” She abandoned her usual casual tone and slipped into a deliberately coquettish, cutesy voice.
…See. She still treated it as training a dog. She thought his disobedience was simply because she hadn’t used the vocal frequencies dogs liked.
Su Heng did not move.
She must be unhappy about this, right? No one liked a disobedient dog.
Yet, Jiang Ying showed no sign of disappointment.
Perhaps she thought dogs had their own ideas too, or perhaps she’d just given the command on a whim, and his reaction—whatever it was—was irrelevant, insignificant.
Or, to put it bluntly, she just didn’t care what a dog did.
The calm, composed restraint he’d just regained as his rut symptoms were dramatically relieved began to crack and disintegrate under her unexpected indifference.
The corner of Su Heng’s mouth flattened, and his brows involuntarily drew together. His temples throbbed with the force of this uncomfortable emotion.
He didn’t understand.
Why was it that he had been so full of conviction, and yet in the end, he was still made the fool?
While she remained high above, her seemingly meticulous care ignoring the real him entirely.
Unable to see, unable to understand, unable to resonate.
He refused to follow her request and move closer, and she didn’t even sense his deliberate coldness.
So it turned out, the one with no heart between the two of them… had always been her.
“You’re so warm.”
Jiang Ying naturally shuffled over toward Su Heng, leaning her head sideways against his shoulder. She hugged his left arm, humming with contented satisfaction. “My dog is so good.”
“…”
Su Heng closed his eyes.
The arm she was hugging stiffened, but in the end, he did not pull it away.
The variety show on the television had ended. He felt as if he’d become her substitute for boredom.
After the ads finished, the broadcast switched to the Federal News.
Jin Congmin appeared on the screen, delivering a speech at the Federation’s third-anniversary celebration, expounding on his grand vision for its future.
Su Heng cast his eyes down at the girl beside him, catching her yawn. She didn’t seem very interested.
The speech on the television concluded, moving into the interview segment.
When the person on screen began speaking, Jiang Ying sat up a little straighter.
The one interviewing Jin Congmin was a famously outspoken reporter within the Federation. Many politicians had been caught off guard by her. Jiang Ying admired women like that—she thought they were incredibly cool, incredibly sharp.
“Mr. President, what is your view on the news of the Erga Empire Commander-in-Chief going missing?”
Jin Congmin maintained a practiced smile on his face.
“This is undoubtedly a smokescreen released by the Empire. I’ve heard of that Commander-in-Chief—he is not a character who can be defeated so easily. Nor is the Empire an entity that will fall apart into loose sand simply because it is missing one Commander. We must maintain a sense of awe toward the enemy. But please also rest assured, the Federation now has sufficient strength to confront the Empire and safeguard the safety of all Federation citizens.”
The reporter’s questions came one after another, each more pointed than the last.
“As everyone knows, the newly appointed Commander, A Lanyin Askarot, is the beastman your wife rescued back then, who later became your adopted son. Among beastman-friendly circles, this is a much-told tale of goodwill that has also secured you the vast majority of the beastman vote, becoming a tremendous aid in your presidential campaign. But recently, there have been rumors that A Lanyin doesn’t get along with your biological son. Are you aware of this?”
“Eh?”
Hearing a familiar name sobered Jiang Ying slightly. “A Lan is the president’s adopted son? But he’s a beastman, and the president is human…”
Ah, probably like a dog son kind of feeling?
An expression of sudden realization dawned on her face.
Seeing her expression, Su Heng felt a measure of balance return to his heart. So it wasn’t just him—A Lanyin was nothing more than a dog in her eyes, too.
The voice on the television continued.
“…It’s perfectly normal for young people to have some friction.”
Jin Congmin smiled at the camera, cracking an amiable joke that easily defused the reporter’s aggressive questioning. “Perhaps, compared to between the brothers themselves, the friction between them and me is even greater?”
“Why has A Lanyin become the Commander of the White Knights and stepped into the public eye, while you have never publicly revealed your biological son’s identity? Is this unfair treatment toward your two sons—pushing your adopted son to the public forefront while letting your biological son avoid the dangers of political faction struggles? Or does the so-called ‘friction’ you speak of actually target your biological son? Is it because his political views differ from yours that he chose a path opposite to your own?”
Jin Congmin revealed an expression of surprise. “Of course not. He simply has no ambitions in that direction. As his father, I respect his personal plans for the future and have no intention of forcing the choices inherent to my position upon him. This is true for both him and A Lanyin.”
“Ah, this guy feels kind of fake,” Jiang Ying suddenly remarked.
Surprised by her sharpness, Su Heng looked at her, only to see her yawn again, as if she were growing bored once more.
He made his question sound casual. “Why do you say that?”
“He could just trash-talk that Commander-in-Chief to stir public resonance. Making everyone share a common hatred would rile up their emotions even better, wouldn’t it? But he chose to play the ‘good guy’ and make people think he’s a humble, reliable person. While defusing the crowd’s heated emotions, he subtly boosted his own approval rating.”
She cupped her chin, pondering. “Also, the way he handles the talk about the conflict with his two sons—I’ve heard that kind of rhetoric plenty in my old job. Those slimy veteran managers loved doing exactly that. All friendly and amicable on the surface, while secretly stirring up mud and passing the buck everywhere. As long as their own position wasn’t threatened, whatever conflicts brewed between others was none of their business.”
Su Heng started slightly, then couldn’t help a soft laugh.
“And besides,” Jiang Ying mused for a moment, then murmured hesitantly, “I feel like I might… have some impression of that enemy nation’s Commander-in-Chief they mentioned…”
At that utterly unexpected sentence, Su Heng’s spine instantly went rigid.
The nerves that had just relaxed because she had analyzed Jin Congmin so incisively snapped taut once more.
Fortunately, his mechanical prosthetic was incapable of moving.
Otherwise, the instant he heard those words, he would have wrapped his mechanical arm around her throat, ready to take her life at any moment.
“You know him?”
He stared intently into her eyes, trying to judge the truth of her words from her expression.
Lost in her thoughts, Jiang Ying didn’t notice Su Heng’s halted breathing.
“Hm? I don’t know him. It’s just… just something I’ve heard about.”
She muddied her explanation.
This was a secret that could not be exposed, even to a dog.
In the original comic, the final boss the main character group encountered was that very beastman Commander-in-Chief of the enemy nation.
She hadn’t watched the entire series and still didn’t know that beastman’s name.
All she’d learned from spoiler summaries was that he was brutal, bloodthirsty, and killed without mercy. He waged war against humanity for the sake of the beastman race, pushing humans out of the Safe Zones as the Federation steadily lost ground.
But to call him a purely evil villain wasn’t quite accurate either.
He was the type of person who clung to a radical kind of justice, taken to a dangerous extreme.
Even the original comic’s male lead, a beastman himself, had nearly lost his life for obstructing his plans—let alone humans, who were his original enemies.
Recalling these details, Jiang Ying suddenly felt a chill crawl over her.
After three plain, quiet years in this comic world, she had nearly forgotten that this was a hot-blooded battle series full of war and sacrifice.
The main timeline of the comic hadn’t arrived yet, but it might be just around the corner.
This facade of peace would eventually collapse.
When that moment truly came… what would happen to her friends? What would happen to her dog?
Jiang Ying bit her lip, suddenly seized by anxiety.
Seeing her distant, faintly frightened expression, Su Heng’s heart sank.
“What kind of person is he?” He forced calm into his voice as he asked.
Jiang Ying answered without hesitation, gravely serious. “He’s a very, very bad beastman.”
“…” Su Heng pressed his lips tightly together, his eyes darkening.
In that instant, a torrent of complex emotions surged through his chest.
Disappointment. Loss. Resentment. Dejection. Gloom. Indignation. Irony. Self-mockery.
Jiang Ying was completely oblivious to any of this.
She turned around, grabbed his arm, and shook it, admonishing him. “Su Heng, if you ever run into him, you absolutely must get away immediately, okay?”
“Is that so?”
Su Heng suppressed the negative emotions and pulled his good arm free. He pressed it down over her hand, which was resting defenselessly on the sofa.
Controlling. Restraining. Yet carefully holding back his strength so he wouldn’t hurt her.
As she turned her face toward him in confusion, he buried his face into the crook of her neck.
The scent of catnip.
Now, it no longer had any effect on him.
His bared canine teeth gleamed coldly. If he bit down, it wouldn’t just pierce her gland—it would snap her neck.
Su Heng narrowed his eyes.
The tips of his fangs lightly grazed the skin of her neck. As she shivered instinctively in startlement, Su Heng used the weight of his body to pin her against the back of the sofa. After a pause, as if to soothe her, he extended his tongue and licked the spot he had just nicked.
That fleeting sense of invasion vanished almost instantly. Unable to see his expression in that moment, Jiang Ying didn’t notice a thing.
She simply assumed he was scared, begging for her comfort in a spoiled tantrum, and just hadn’t controlled his strength properly.
She reached out and stroked the back of his head to soothe him. “Good dog, what’s wrong? Don’t be scared, don’t be scared.”
Su Heng suddenly flipped over, pinning her entire body beneath him.
He’d been pretending for so long, it seemed even he had started believing in this game of playing the obedient dog, almost forgetting who he truly was.
“What about you?”
His voice trembled as he fought with everything he had to suppress the predator’s instinctive urge to attack, forcing his tone to remain steady and gentle.
“If you’re the one who meets him… what then?”