The Sichuan style mutton-...I mean, goat

Summary: The goat had kissed and licked the man he thought could save him from his misery and tried to sell meng in the last chapter. But could he be saved? Why was the goat so humane? How come he took his shit in the washroom like a proper gentleman? Stay tuned to get to the bottom of the goat mystery.

Warning: Mention of sensitive topics. Advised caution.
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Infront of Mingjue, was another serving of mutton, accompanying the three empty bowls next to it. The helping lady, whose name Nie Mingjue recalled was Meng Meimei, was called in on the weekend without prior notice. She cooked up a decent enough diner even in such a haste.

Since the project site was a hot mess, he decided to stay a little longer here and settled in the Nie manor in the suburban area of this province.

Seeing the boss was almost done with his meal, Mr Lee walked forward with the file in his hand, putting it upon the dining table with Mingjue's permission. In tacky Italian font, 'Biodata: Jiang Cheng' was written on the cover. Nie Mingjue's eyes lingered a little on that name but he did not say anything.

"Sir, one omega construction worker went into pseudo heat afterwards, she was sent to the hospital immediately." Mr Lee's balding head and high nose was shining with sweat even in the air conditioned room. He tried to portray the message as modestly as possible so he doesn't sound like he's complaining. Even after years of experience, he still didn't seem to get used to this feeling. His boss was a special Alpha, having many inherited secrets.

Though many in his lineage thought of it as a blessing, to Nie Mingjue, it was a curse. He loathed the sides of himself that made him different and rare, parts of himself he could not control. And speaking of it automatically became a taboo among the close subordinates in the know. Yet, they still had to let the man know of the victims of his rarity. Someone had to tie the bell on the cat and they had a group chat solely dedicated to hold polls deciding who is going to be the brave rat this time around.

"I see."

Mr Lee did not leave instantly, so the man stopped eating and stared at the employee with a confused face, "Mr Lee?"

"Sir."

Nie Mingjue thought a little more and asked in an unsure voice, "Have dinner with me."

"No, sir. I'm good."

Nie Mingjue; Then why are you staring at my food?

"Perhaps you have something else to tell me?"

As if given the oasis, he gasped and bowed down, "Sir! We found that the little girl in the picture you provided might not be Jiang family's youngest child. But we did link it to the adopted son, Wei Wuxian. I think you might have had mistakenly-..."

Nie Mingjue stopped eating and turned around when Mr Lee brought up such an important topic. But it seemed to frightened the poor man even more.

"Or maybe we had mistaken. How can you make mistakes....!"

"I can, Mr Lee. I'm human. You were saying-..."

He walked off to the sink and washed his hands as Mr Lee followed him under Meng Meimei's accusing eyes, "No no! You are beyond mistakes.."

"Mr Lee, you were saying-..."

"There is no link leading to the youngest son of the Jiang's. Not even his school mates know he's the Jiang family's son. The cousins could be of help, but we did not investigate them as per your order."

Nie Mingjue didn't say anything for a while. The boy he met today has to be Jiang Cheng, the youngest son of the Jiang's. When the girl, supposedly their cousin, mentioned only Jiang Yanli staying in the village, Nie Mingjue instantly put two and two together. If Wei Wuxian was not lying, and all the siblings had come to this trip together, the boy hiding his face must be the infamous ugly duckling, Jiang Cheng.

But his own observation contradicted his core beliefs. This phenomenon has never occurred before, at least not to Nie Mingjue. Mingjue's hereditary illness makes him too sensitive to pheromones. It occurs among his family's Alphas in every other generation. Not only is too much exposure to his pheromones detrimental to any Omega, he's all-time responsive to any Omegan pheromone like it's his fated pair's. So, there was close to no chance that he had mistaken his pheromones, their familiarity.

Once Mr Lee left, Mingjue took the file and went upstairs to his bedroom. His reading glasses were on the bedside table. Putting them on, he was even more sure of the font being tacky.

The file held not much new information about the youngest son, except that he was recently transferred to the LN Boarding School, one month before the winter vacation had begun.

The picture Nie Mingjue had given his subordinates to investigate was pinned on the third page of the thick documents: a polaroid piece of a very young Nie Mingjue holding the shoulders of a small girl, four or five at most. The girl was wearing a sleeping beauty costume, with tiaras and all. Her two ponytails were a little out of place, but over-all it looked decent enough because the girl herself was that pretty. Nie Mingjue's face held a rare smile, looking as happy as the girl, whose eyes were red and puffy as if she had just stopped crying and smiled at the camera right away. Nie Mingjue knew it was the truth because he himself had coddled her into calmness seconds before the picture was snapped. It was the day they had met for the first time. And the last time too.

Then the second time they met, was today. But the girl happened to be a boy and he did not remember him at all.

That's why, the investigation could say the girl was Wei Wuxian, the subordinates could say it was most likely Wei Wuxian, but Nie Mingjue knew better.

"Brother!" An excited voice came from across the door, Nie Huaisang had returned. Nie Mingjue calmly put the file in the drawer as he called him in.

"Brother, my friends planned a surprise tour for me, I'll leave tonight, ten pm sharp. So I came to inform you." Nie Huaisang said as a matter of fact, laying haphazardly on the loveseat, facing his elder brother on the bed.

"Hmm." Was all Nie Mingjue said, putting his glasses away. Then God knew what he thought of, Nie Mingjue stared Nie Huaisang down, "Huaisang. I know you like pretty things. But don't mess with Jiang Cheng."

"?..." He didn't understand how his brother could come to such a conclusion that he would mess with a famous ugly dude because he likes pretty things. Nie Huaisang, however did not question his brother's logical thinking and readily agreed. "Of course."

"Really? You're giving up so readily?" Nie Mingjue also knew his brother very well. This was not Nie Huaisang's usual routine. He was stubborn, coy and sly.

"Why not? I don't even like him."

"Huaisang, I am sure you're mistaken, somewhere. But I'll not correct you. I'll take your words as they are, like two responsible adults. Alright with you?"

Nie Huaisang got up, wearing a weirded out expression as he beelined for the exit, "Of course brother. I'll leave you to rest, don't overwork yourself anymore."

Nie Mingjue happily accepted being called crazy by his brother if in return he has won such a great deal. It was but a small price. He clicked his tongue, after all his brother was too hasty in his response. He did not even realise what he was selling off to his elder brother in the fleeting moment of confusion.

While the Nie patriarch was conning his oblivious younger sibling, the object of their void contract lied on the living room's couch like a dead body. Since the five of them had returned home very late last night, no one had the energy to interrogate Jiang Cheng. But today?

Because of his habits, Jiang Cheng woke up together with the maids, which was just the old lady that took care of them since childhood. Because the house was supposed to be left empty, the servants were all given holidays except the cleaning team. They too, only came for a while, every other days. And Jiang Cheng will never forget the look in his aunt Yao's face once she saw him getting out of the bedroom at dawn.

Maybe because she brought him up ever since his birth, she knew right away that it was him under all that beauty. Even now, as Jiang Cheng lied on the couch, she stared at him from across the room, or across the table top in the open kitchen, or while wiping the television counter infront of him.

Her unnerving gaze barely left Jiang Cheng and he finally got used to it. Now he had to face Wei Wuxian and the others next.

"Meh~" The goat Jiang Cheng now calls Sichuan, or Yuan Yuan for short, called out to him once in a while, lying casually on top of him. Somehow it was trained very well. Yuan Yuan left and went to the washroom downstairs whenever it needed to pee. This morning, it bit onto aunt Yao's apron and dragged her to the washroom, most likely to attend the nature's other call. This was very unlike a goat, Jiang Cheng questioned his own cognition. Maybe he had traumatised the goat too much and now it behaved like a dog to survive.

Jiang Cheng didn't want to delve too much into his upcoming fate and put all his thoughts on the goat; naturally at a certain point, intense conspiracy theories started crowding his idle head. He sat up with a jerk and hugged the goat up with him, "Bro, you're really a goat right?"

The goat didn't reply, putting a sudden display of incomprehensibility natural to non-human. Jiang Cheng's eyes narrowed down, "If you're a..." He looked around to see if aunt Yao was somewhere, lurking around, "-reincarnated old creep, you can tell me anytime. I'll totally understand."

The way his face morphed into pure disgust when he said the words 'reincarnated old creep' made his words of reassurance much less assuring.

"You-...can you not challenge our visual aesthetic so much? Please put that down, I beg you."

Jiang Cheng looked back to see the female cousin walking down the stairs with her brother trailing right behind, peeking at him time to time.

"Elder sister..." Jiang Cheng greeted her, but her lips just twitched a little, unable to greet the boy back. She tried very hard to acknowledge that this boy was indeed Jiang Cheng, but the ways this could as very well be a forest spirit impersonating him gave her goosebumps. Actually, that made much more sense than the ugly ghost suddenly shedding its skin to turn into a swan. What an abomination of a folklore it would be if it wasn't the reality Infront of her.

As if on qué, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli respectively walked down the stairs opposite to eachother. This pair of siblings, however, had grim faces. Especially Wei Wuxian, looking rather put off, considering he's cheerful twenty four seven otherwise.

"Jiang Cheng, we need to talk."

Jiang Cheng hugged the goat, stood up and was very ready with his hours long mental preparation prior to this backing him up.

He followed his sister as Wei Wuxian walked behind him, the three of them going to the terrace on the second floor. Yanli closed the doors and readily asked, "Jiang Cheng, are-... what-...are you alright? Is there any ways we could help you?"

Now, this wasn't what Jiang Cheng was ready for. He stood there with his practiced lines of apologies, with an idiotic blank face.

"Yes, Cheng Cheng." Wei Wuxian strode closer, and tried to hug the boy. Trying a few times to hug him over the large animal between them with no result, he was forced to compromise as he held his arms instead, "Please, just take our help. Quitting something just because it's hard is too selfish towards us..."

"?...."

Jiang Yanli bit onto her bottom lips and followed Wei Wuxian in, "Jiang Cheng. I'm your eldest sister. You can-... you need to tell me if anything is too tough... We love you. We care for you. Watching you suffer also puts us in pain. Anything, anything is better than not having you around..."

Oh!...

"I'm not thinking of suicide." Never. This was his second and final chance at life, he wants to live it to the fullest. Even the thought that he wants to artificially put an end to such a good thing was funny. But Jiang Cheng's opinions on humour was not shared by his company and the other two had extreme reactions.
"Oh god!" Wei Wuxian muffled his gasp, "Sister, you were right!"

"You fool!" Jiang Yanli started shedding tears and Wei's face became darker. Jiang Cheng internally thought, his fast wit has cost him his innocence. Now he has made them believe he actually wanted to attempt suicide.

But why and how do they get to such an unfound conclusion?

After a little more discussion, with logics and counter logics thrown back-and-forth, Wei Wuxian even asked him if he was terminally ill.

Throughout the hour it took to prove his innocence, Jiang Cheng realised that although unfound, the accusations were strongly believed by the other party. They seriously thought he was thinking of killing himself. Upon questions regarding why they had thought so, Wei Wuxian answered as if it was obvious; Jiang Cheng's sudden lack of interest in materialistic life and the fact that he stopped hiding his face after years of hiding it for whatever reasons he had behind it and many more.

"I am not thinking about such things, sister, you've got to believe me. I want to start anew, that's what it is, my enlightenment. I've finally come back to the right path after straying for too long." Jiang Cheng spoke with a sincere tone he had never used before, only to watch as the others' faces turned a little funny. Yanli couldn't stop her eyes as they took a glance at the goat in his arms, her eyes rather sceptical.

Jiang Cheng: I knew it! I knew it. They said they didn't have a problem me bringing the pet back home, but they hate Yuan Yuan.

"Sister, Wuxian, how about we go back? It's rather hot out here."

Wei Wuxian frowned in confusion, even more extreme than the one of scepticism moments earlier, "Hot? It's still winter."

And as if to prove him true, a thin smoke of white breath escaped his mouth as he spat the words out, disappearing among the fog that, Cheng only noticed now, was surrounding them.

"Huh?! Yeah. It's winter, of course." But why am I not cold in this thin, home clothes? Jiang Cheng did not speake of his wonderings out loud.

"It's alright!" Wei Wuxian suddenly said, with spontaneous, excessive happy eyes, "Let's get inside first." Then he shared a supposedly 'subtle' glance with Yanli, both their faces uncertain and sad. Yanli nodded along, "Yes, Cheng Cheng. We believe you. Let's get inside, it's cold out here." Yanli tried to smile but her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

What is it now! Jiang Cheng sighed, unable to prove himself innocent even after spending a whole hour explaining his reasonings.

"Believe me, I really just don't like gothic look anymore."

"Of course. We understand. I also like your new style.." Jiang Cheng wanted to say, 'Sister, please say that without the tear sliding down your right cheek so I can try to believe you."

They came back to the living room, only to find the male and female cousins bundled up together on the couch, very slightly shaking and sitting tightly together as if trying to find the little warmth they could in eachother. They were attentively watching the function they were supposed to attend, live on the television, a very famous guqin player was performing right now.

Seeing them finally back to the room, the female cousin mentioned casually, "Where did you put the AC remote? We are about to freeze."

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli also realised the room was really rather low in temperature. Yanli's attention finally diverted and she tried to find the remote, "It's probably reset itself to default. Let me find the remote."

What she said seemed to make sense to the rest, considering the house was empty for days, and no one questioned it. Only Jiang Cheng looked a little off. He could have told them that the remote was under the second cushion on the couch, but then he'd have to confess that he was the one setting the temperature low this morning. But he feared his sister would somehow associate that with his nonexistent suicidal tendency too.

When they reconditioned the room, Jiang Cheng finally started feeling the stiffness in the air, little beads of sweat formed behind his neck. Jiang Cheng furrowed his brows silently, not sure how to address his concerns without making Wuxian and Yanli even more inclined that he was suffering from some kind of hidden sickness.

The television started showing a beautiful woman in blue, floaty robes, appearing on the stage from nowhere, white fog encircling her to give the stage a mystic presence. Their attention shifted. The male cousin finally spoke, "It's auntie."

Jiang Cheng's breath hitched a little, his eyes glued to his own lap. He had thought he was already over and beyond his rebirth. But seeing his mother who had abandoned him, after years, in a dynamic where he wasn't yet abandoned? This was something he could never get beyond or over with.

When everyone had their attention snatched, Jiang Cheng slipped away silently to his room, locking the door without making much noise. His mother was an excellent performer, no one even realised Jiang Cheng had walked off by the time Jiang Cheng settled in his bed.

Only Yuan Yuan followed after him, steps as silent as his master.

"Yuan Yuan, you're really a goat, right?"

Jiang Cheng tried to sound apprehensive, but his voice was rather pleased and tired. He smiled a little, picking Yuan Yuan up to pet him generously. 'Yuan Yuan is really a gifted goat!' Jiang Cheng thought.

The goat seemingly took in the pride he radiated off as an owner, and kissed his jaw a few times in appreciation.

This kiss, however, reminded Jiang Cheng of his forgotten doom. The kiss, How come he was not ejected into Hitler's wet dream? Has his father God pitied him in the end, is that it?

Jiang Cheng felt rather moved when he thought this way. His new father was a Godling, who could easily ignore and exploit him with no consequences. Yet, see how benevolent the God was.

Could this perspective be considered an example of Stockholm syndrome? Who knows. But it was a good feeling.

Jiang Cheng put the goat back on the floor and started praying for the first time in his life, sharing his gratefulness with the God.

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Small Theatre:

The male goat who actually saved him by kissing him in the last minutes: I'm used to the lack of appreciation.

The yaoi lover God who couldn't enjoy a proper a gay kiss because of the goat's interference: I'll see you reincarnate as a cockroach in the next life.
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Author's Note: I had six competitions and two presentations to attend and prepare for in this one month. Not to mention frequent writing, I'm short of breathing like I used to.... I'm so very sorry for the sudden disappearance, but pray for me so I don't fail all of them...
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