Mad Dog - Chapter 3

Xie Wuyan was once the Alliance’s most brilliant S-rank sentinel, codenamed the God of War.

Then, during a mission, he forced himself past his mental threshold to protect his teammates, causing his mindscape to collapse completely.

He went mad.

He became a beast that knew only how to attack.

Countless elite guides tried to perform mental guidance on him. All of them failed.

The violence of his mental energy battered them until they coughed up white blood. Some were even reduced to mindless shells on the spot.

In the end, the Alliance leadership decided to have him “disposed of.”

I was the one who brought him back from the execution platform.

At the time, I was only a B-rank guide fresh out of the Guide Academy.

No one thought I could do it.

They all said I had gone mad—that I was walking to my death.

They said his mental energy would tear me apart before I got within three meters of him.

And it nearly did.

We first met in a confinement cell.

He was chained to a chair with heavy alloy restraints, suppressants pumping into him through tubes all over his body.

Even so, he had already snapped two chains.

When I pushed open the door, he was looking at me as if I were already dead.

I knew that look all too well.

Because it was the same look I gave the world.

The first thing I said to him was,

“Do you want to get out?”

“Do you want to kill everyone who locked you in here?”

His eyes changed.

The dead, desolate indifference in them became a flame.

I smiled.

I walked up to him and released my mental tendrils.

They were fine and weak, like strands of a spiderweb.

But they carried a potent poison.

Not a poison that healed. A poison that tempted.

I did not soothe him. I did not try to mend his shattered mindscape.

I simply built him a new world atop the ruins.

A world that belonged to the two of us alone.

In that world, I was his god.

His law. His faith.

From that day on, Xie Wuyan became my dog.

He obeyed no one’s commands but mine.

He wagged his tail for no one but me.

The Alliance made me out to be a hero. A saint.

They showered me with the highest honors and the finest treatment.

They thought I had sacrificed myself, binding the beast with love and tenderness.

They were grateful to me. Sympathetic. Full of pity.

Looking at their sanctimonious faces, I found it all laughable.

They had no idea.

I was not restraining him.

I was indulging him.

I was using him to dispose of everyone who displeased me.

Like the councilman today.

More than once, he had publicly argued that a dangerous asset like Xie Wuyan should be destroyed altogether and that I, the “source of risk,” should be isolated and investigated as well.

I had wanted to silence him for a long time.

Now he was silent forever.

And all I had to do was shed a few tears and say, “I’m sorry.”

Then everything could be blamed on Xie Wuyan “losing control.”

What a bargain.

I relished the feeling.

The thrill of playing every last one of them in the palm of my hand.

Only after Xie Wuyan had licked my hand to his heart’s content did he finally stop.

Like a large hound, he rested his head on my lap and closed his eyes.

I could feel his disordered mental energy gradually settling under my soothing influence.

I looked down at him.

His eyelashes were long, casting small shadows beneath his eyes.

Asleep, he looked less savage and more peaceful.

He was, in fact, very handsome.

His features were sharply defined, his nose high and straight.

Without those vicious scars, he would have been a very appealing man.

What a pity.

He had become an idiot.

But perhaps this was better.

An idiot was easy to control.

If he were still the aloof and exalted God of War he had once been, Xie Wuyan probably would not have spared me a single glance.

As the thought crossed my mind, the head on my lap suddenly shifted.

Xie Wuyan opened his eyes.

They were dark and bright, like obsidian submerged in water.

He stared at me without moving.

The look made my skin prickle.

“What is it?” I asked.

He did not answer.

He merely lifted a hand and lightly touched my face.

His fingertips were rough, marked by the thin calluses left by years of holding guns.

“Shuyan.”

His voice was indistinct, like a child who had only just learned to speak.

“Don’t… be upset.”

I froze.

I was not upset.

My mask was flawless.

How had he seen through it?

“I’m not upset,” I denied.

But he shook his head stubbornly.

“You are.”

He leaned in and rubbed the tip of his nose against my neck, as if soothing a bristling cat.

“They’re… bad.”

“Kill them all.”

“Then you’ll… be happy.”

His words came haltingly, yet their meaning could not have been clearer.

My heart missed a beat.

For an instant, I almost thought his sanity had returned.

But when I studied his eyes, there was still nothing in them but confusion and pure dependence.

I was overthinking it.

A beast’s instincts were always sharp.

Perhaps he had simply sensed the fluctuation in my emotions.

I relaxed and put my gentle smile back in place.

“I’m not upset. I’m just a little tired.”

“Wuyan, shall we go home?”

“Home.”

He repeated the word, his eyes sparkling.

“Okay.”

The home the Alliance assigned to Xie Wuyan and me stood in the innermost reaches of Headquarters.

A small, detached house.

Officially, it was so I could “treat” Xie Wuyan at any time.

In reality, it was house arrest by another name.

They still did not trust Xie Wuyan.

Nor did they entirely trust me.

But I did not care.

I rather liked it here.

It was quiet, with no outsiders to disturb us.

It was a private paradise for my dog and me.