Goldie Barks Like A Dog

What on earth had she raised??

Goldie quickly noticed her presence and yelped. It extended a dark purple tendril, coiling it around Su Ye's wrist and pulling her over. At the same time, the blossomed black morning glory closed itself into a flower bud again. Through it all, it kept yipping, the flower bud firmly tapping on her lower body. When it got no reaction, it tapped her a few times, then whimpered before tapping her again.

Su Ye wrapped her arms around the flower bud then, touching it and its dark purple leaves.

Goldie appeared to enjoy Su Ye's touch, and became more docile after she petted it. It even withdrew its tendrils that were thrashing wildly in the air, and rubbed itself over her as much as it could.

Su Ye was quite amused—had she raised a dog instead of a plant? A little petting and it became obedient, although it had tiny thorns instead of fur. Su Ye was lucky that Goldie was still small; its thorns were still soft and did not hurt.

Xiao Xing explained loudly from where she was, "Miladay, the wolfdog you brought here found some friends, and they all banded together to bark at your plant… before this happened. As you can see, Goldie used its tendrils to give the dogs a whipping."

Su Ye's lips twitched at her story, and she looked down to study Goldie once again. Its stem was dark purple, its tendrils were powerful, and the morning glory flower was black. It mimicked sounds as well. Su Ye pursed her lips then, seemingly having an idea of what she had planted. She turned, calling out to Xiao Xing, "Bring some raw meat, and try to cut them into smaller pieces."

After Goldie had almost buried Xiao Xing alive last time, Xiao Xing had developed a healthy fear of the plant. Even so, she wrongly presumed that Su Ye was going to feed the poor dogs, and quickly nodded. As she left, she stared at the injured dogs sympathetically. Her mistress had been too busy to know what had happened in the back garden. There was no telling what species of plant her mistress was raising, but all Xiao Xing knew was that it was utterly fearsome.

As a matter of fact, the plant had pulled each of the five dogs beneath the ground multiple times. It was lucky that they proved resilient enough to dig their way out, huffing and puffing. After that, they all dashed beneath the shed. All they did after that was bark at the plant, since they no longer dared to tread on the dirt outside.

***

Soon, Xiao Xing returned with a large bucket of raw meat. "The meat is here, milady." However, she stayed on the pebbled path, not daring to walk on the ground.

Su Ye walked up to her to take the bucket of meat. 

Still under the impression that she would feed the dogs, Xiao Xing watched in confusion as her mistress placed the bucket of meat beside the plant.

The plant arched its stem, its flower bud circling the bucket of meat before blooming into a black morning glory again. Then, with two tendrils grabbing hold of the bucket, it promptly poured all the meat into the flower.

Xiao Xing backed away with a look of utter panic. A few seconds later, she grasped one of the pillars of the shed and dropped limply to the floor, the color drained from her face.

A meat-eating plant?! Heavens!

And yet, her mistress was still standing in front of the plant, looking both amused and annoyed. She even raised her foot to nudge its stem gently, saying, "Eat slowly."

Goldie stubbornly chomped down even harder on its food at her words. Despite that, perhaps because of their contract, Su Ye was not scared by the sight of Golden Crow's fearsome feasting.

Her face still pale, Xiao Xing's lips parted. "M-Milady… t-that's…"

Su Ye glanced at Xiao Xing, then at the plant she had contracted with. "It appears to be a chomper."

However, most chompers grew in dark, damp swamps that were covered in toxic miasma. They also hated sunny climates the most, but this chomper that contracted with her was growing right beneath the sun—and during days that were scorching hot too. Even the five dogs were all panting with their tongues out. Not only was this chomper not reacting to the weather at all, it was even energetic enough to fight the dogs. Could it be a mutated species? 

Su Ye was deep in thought, her gaze falling to the contract mark on her index finger. Two little dark purple leaves curled around her finger joint. Generally speaking, spirit animals or plants that contracted with humans would not share any markings.