Farm Girl's Manor

After a full meal and as the sky grew dark, Little Flower, looking quite the part of a leader, split her pack of minions into four groups and assigned each a patrol area. Then, with a forlorn glance at the warm and cozy cabin and under the gloating gazes of Dabai and Mao Tuan, she droopily led two "little brothers" to patrol her own territory.

That evening, teams of villagers on patrol occasionally made their rounds near the back mountain. Seeing a dozen or so dogs under Little Flower’s command dutifully guarding the mountain’s edge, they were astonished and full of praise, declaring Little Flower a good dog.

Little Flower swelled with pride as she accepted these compliments, strutting about with her dog "little brothers" as they patrolled everywhere. She had all but forgotten that the so-called wild animals coming down the mountain were a figment of her doing, and there was no real need to be so earnest.

In the following days, the villagers continued their patrols, and not even a Yellow Weasel was seen, let alone other wild animals. However, the patch of disarray on the back mountain was real enough to keep them from growing complacent, so they persisted with their nightly rounds, albeit less frequently, reassured by the dedicated efforts of Little Flower and her crew.

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Meanwhile, those thirteen native dogs had fattened up considerably after seven or eight days of good food at the Mo Family’s place. Witnessing this, their owners jokingly warned Mo Yan not to spoil them too much, lest the dogs refuse to return home when called back.

While this was said in jest, it struck a chord with Mo Yan. She knew that with Little Flower and Dabai around, the native dogs would not dare refuse to return home. It was just that they had grown fat on their own turf, and once back, they might end up being sold as meat by the villagers—a grave sin indeed!

Yet she couldn’t just not feed them, and besides, she hadn’t been giving them anything special—mere vegetable soup mixed with rice, a far cry from the picky tastes of the three beasts.

Just as Mo Yan pondered how to slim down these dogs to avoid their fate of being sold, snowflakes began to flutter down from the sky. The snowfall was quite heavy; by the next morning, it had accumulated to a depth of half a foot and continued to fall.

The temperature dropped further, and Red Python couldn’t bask in the sun. The inside of the house was too chilly, and adding a charcoal brazier didn’t help, so Mo Yan had no choice but to move it into the Space, repeatedly cautioning it not to make trouble.

The severe weather was unsuitable for the villagers’ nighttime patrols. Seeing that Little Flower and her "little brothers" were performing well, they happily nestled in their warm beds instead.

Little Flower, however, had developed an addiction to patrolling. After dinner, she continued to lead the native dogs around the mountain’s edge. In the middle of the night, they managed to carry back more than a dozen rabbits. The large ones weighed three or four pounds, and the small ones were the size of a palm; it seemed they had raided a rabbit warren.