Chapter 3: Wen En Plays It Cool
Wen En opened his eyes.
It wasn’t a person who had woken him up, but his dog.
His dog was lying on top of him, its palm-sized tongue swiping wildly across his face. Of course, that wasn’t the most important part. The most important part was…
“It stinks! What did you eat?!” Wen En grabbed the black dog’s snout and pried it open. Stuck to its white, sharp teeth was some kind of unidentifiable debris. Yes, that was the source of the foul smell.
Wen En used his finger to pick out the piece of debris and crushed it between his fingertips. He knew what it was now.
It was cat litter…
Wen En squeezed his eyes shut. Damn it. He knew it. This stupid dog had been eating cat poop again…
Wen En leaped out of bed. He didn’t even have time to get dressed, wearing only a pair of pajama pants as he rushed out of the room. He didn’t even wash his face; he had to check the litter box. That was far more important than his own face, which had just been licked by a poop-eating dog.
“Woof~”
The dopey, stupid dog, seemingly unaware of its master’s fury, wagged its tail and chased after him.
Wen En ran into the living room, and as luck would have it, his eyes landed on the litter box, its contents half dug up.
Wen En covered his face. “I knew it.”
This stinking dog!! Eating poop was one thing, but it had also kicked litter everywhere. Wen En was about to lose his mind! He had just done a deep clean two days ago.
“Woof~”
The stinking dog panted, showing no signs of remorse. It even ran over and nudged Wen En’s leg with its nose, asking Wen En to play with it.
Wen En grabbed the dog’s collar. “Come on, time to brush your teeth!”
The moment the dog heard “brush your teeth,” it tucked its tail between its legs and started yelping, thrashing about like a shark caught in a fishing net. Its strength was also comparable to a great white’s. Luckily, Wen En had kept up with his muscle training. He dragged and pulled, finally managing to haul it into the bathroom, and quickly shut the door to prevent the dog from escaping.
Not far away, on a table, a tortoiseshell cat—one that looked as if it had been smoked over charcoal and was nearly half the size of a man—was licking its paws, coldly observing the entire scene.
“They’re so stupid, aren’t they?”
A slender hand, with nails painted a nude color, stroked the cat’s head.
“Meow~”
The little cat rubbed against the hand, responding with a delicate meow.
The hand then scratched the cat under its chin. “Shh, let’s give Wen En a surprise when he comes out.”
The cat’s name was Rose. Wen En had first met it in a scorching desert.
Back then, a group of vicious criminals had strapped explosives to it and sent it running towards Wen En’s mission team in fifty-degree Celsius heat.
Perhaps it was lucky, but by the time it reached Wen En’s hands, the bomb on its body hadn’t detonated.
In the end, Wen En successfully disarmed the bomb, and it survived.
As for the Malinois named Jack, its backstory was less complicated.
Jack’s parents were both rescue dogs. It was originally supposed to follow in its parents’ footsteps and embark on a journey of saving humans, but unfortunately, it failed the rescue dog assessment.
“Sorry, dear puppy, your intelligence doesn’t meet the standard for a rescue dog,” it had heard its trainer say.
“But don’t you worry, we’ll find a good owner for you. We hope you can be an ordinary and happy little dog.”
After being passed around a few times, it was finally adopted by Wen En.
Was Wen En a good owner?
The little dog thought Wen En was pretty great. Every time Wen En came back from a hunt, he would give it lots of food and often took it swimming in the creek.
The only thing was that Wen En would scold it whenever he saw it eating cat litter and would drag it into the bathroom to furiously brush its teeth and wash its face. It hated brushing its teeth and taking baths the most. But Wen En was incredibly strong and especially fierce, so every time, Jack could only whimper pitifully as Wen En forced it to brush its teeth.
Sob, sob, sob, Wen En can be so annoying sometimes. Oh, no, too much of a dog.
Finally, the stupid dog was clean.
Wen En was sweating from exhaustion. Honestly, going out on a mission wasn’t this tiring.
After washing the dog, Wen En took a quick shower himself to wash off the god-awful smelling dog slobber smeared on his face.
Once clean, he wrapped a bath towel around his waist and walked out of the shower. “Hey, let’s go,” he said, looking at the dog huddled in the corner of the bathroom.
The little dog wagged its tail and followed behind him.
“Surprise—”
The moment he pushed open the bathroom door, an unfamiliar voice exploded next to his ear, making him jump and nearly causing his towel to fall off.
“What are you doing here?!” Wen En yelled, clutching his towel. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, PJ, do you know what privacy is?!”
“That’s because I tried to contact you through every possible method, including but not limited to email, text messages, and the communicator, and you ignored me,” the Beta woman known as PJ said, disgruntled.
“Wen En, I’m your superior. To assign you a mission, I have to come all the way to your apartment and order you to your face. Please, has anyone considered my feelings?”
“Is it possible that I’m on vacation?” Wen En said.
Wen En truly couldn’t wrap his head around it. Who on earth would answer a work call while on vacation?
“Glad to hear it. Your vacation is over,” PJ said, placing a chip the size of a fingernail on the coffee table diagonally across from Wen En.
“Alright, I’m leaving.” PJ glanced at her watch. “Also, this is a team mission. Come to headquarters tomorrow to meet your teammate.”
Before leaving, PJ added a special reminder: “Conference room at ten in the morning. Be on time.”
The next day. The Sorokas Mountain Range on the outskirts of Capital Star.
The solar star hung suspended above Pelotara Peak, the highest point of the Sorokas Mountains, like a luminous shield meeting the mountain range’s assault.
On a mountain road winding around the waist of Pelotara Peak, a black sports car sped along the dark asphalt, like a bolt of black lightning.
If an explorer were observing from a distant hill with a pair of binoculars right now, they would see that the car’s window was rolled down.
In the driver’s seat, a man wore sunglasses that covered half his face, yet they made the lines of his jaw and the bridge of his nose appear even more defined and sharp. The fierce wind messed up his hair; his not-too-long locks waltzed with the wind, looking rather defiant.
Unfortunately, this mountain range was territory requisitioned by the Interstellar Federation organization.
Countless patrol drones roamed the mountains to prevent unauthorized intrusions. No civilian hiker would be bold enough to risk being killed by a patrol drone to trespass here.
The black sports car drove off the road, straight into the primeval forest, and finally stopped at the edge of a cliff.
“Let’s see, maybe turn the wheel a little more to the right? Alright, that’s it.”
Wen En parked the car and tapped the in-car display a few times. The screen suddenly showed a few words: “Please enter your fingerprint again.”
Wen En tapped the screen again, and it displayed: Fingerprint data entry successful. Agent Wen En, welcome back to F.I.A.D. We wish you a pleasant work experience.
Well… how could work ever be pleasant? Especially a job that pops up in the middle of a vacation.
Just as Wen En was complaining wildly in his head, a vibration from outside the car traveled inward. Through the window, one could see the sports car descending, as if through some deep tunnel.
This continued for over ten seconds. The vibration finally stopped.
Looking out the window, one would find that Wen En seemed to have arrived in a garage built into the mountainside.
The screen displayed his parking spot for the day—a corner to the front and left. Wen En stepped on the gas and quickly found the spot.
After parking, Wen En finally got out of the car.
Even though there was no harsh sunlight in the parking garage, he still didn’t take off his sunglasses. There was no particular reason; he just wanted to play it cool.
Isn’t that how agents in action movies always acted?
He smoothed his hair, turning the messy bird’s nest blown by the wind into a slicked-back style. Then he pulled open the handle of the back door.
A shadow flew out from the back seat and jumped onto Wen En. Wen En staggered back several steps, barely managing to steady himself.
It was his dog, the Malinois, Jack. Jack had just utilized its most talented skill—its jumping ability—to the fullest. It was like a missile, launched at Wen En.
Wow, that was quite a thrill. If Wen En hadn’t steadied himself, both man and dog would have crashed into the wall.
“Great jump. Don’t do it again,” Wen En said, patting the little dog’s head.
“Woof~”
Unfortunately, little Jack misunderstood. It thought Wen En wanted to play and stuck out its tongue, preparing to fling slobber all over Wen En’s face.
Wen En quickly put the dopey dog down.
Heavens, this dog only knew how to eat and play, with absolutely no work ethic. It was a good thing it had been eliminated during the search and rescue dog selection trials.
If it had actually become a working dog, who knows how many lives would have been lost under its slobber.
Wen En placed the dog on the ground. “Sit,” Wen En commanded.
Fortunately, Jack’s intelligence wasn’t quite at the level of a canine simpleton; it could still understand some basic commands like “sit” and “lie down.” More advanced commands, like “spin” or “play dead,” were beyond it.
Well, it was just a pet dog. Wen En had resigned himself to that fact and wouldn’t hold it to the standards of a working dog.
Wen En took the leash from the back seat and clipped it to the collar on Jack’s neck. Next, he had to welcome the other passenger from the back seat.
The noble tortoiseshell cat, Rose.
The little cat was placed in a carrier to prevent Jack from constantly washing its face with slobber.
But Wen En had still left an opening in the carrier. At this moment, Rose sensed that Jack was out of the car. It poked its little head out, its emerald-green eyes looking at Wen En with curiosity.
“We’re here, baby,” Wen En said, stroking the cat’s head soothingly as he lifted the carrier out of the car.
“Meow~” the little cat responded.
Its tone was delicate and coy, quiet and not noisy. Wen En felt very reassured. He glanced at the dog next to him, which was currently chasing its own tail, and sighed.
Sigh… forget it.
