Chapter 55
Chapter 55: Here, Have a Slap
Liu Wang Da gave a cold little laugh. “Because if even one blazing hound refuses to behave, the rest get punished too.”
That way, training stayed efficient.
Cruel? Yeah. Effective? Also yeah.
“Do we really have to do that?”
Qian Qi rolled the controller in her palm as she asked. She came here to build a bond with blazing hounds—not to deepen the fear between them.
Liu Wang Da glanced at her, then sighed and shook his head like he’d called this from a mile away. A faint, disappointed look crept onto his face. “You students are all the same—sympathy overflowing. You’re actually pitying a magic beast.”
Especially the female classmates… This girl looked like a tomboy, but she was still this soft.
“Do you have any idea how many people magic beasts kill every year?”
His patience frayed. He raised the controller and aimed it at the blazing hounds in the room. “You’d better get used to it. These animals only listen when it hurts!”
He pressed the button.
A brutal current slammed into the blazing hounds. They shook in place, bodies twitching violently. Dozens of screams tore through the floor, echoing down the corridor in overlapping waves. It was the kind of sound that made your teeth ache.
Qian Qi watched the blazing hound in the first room—her first interview target—shrieking and trembling. Her brow knotted.
She grabbed Liu Wang Da’s wrist and forced his hand down. “No.”
She met his gaze, steady. “Turn it off.”
Liu Wang Da stared at her like she’d just volunteered to jump into a meat grinder. “Little classmate, you’d better follow procedure. If you get hurt—or killed—I’m the one responsible.”
Uncle Li had made it clear: if there was a casualty incident, someone was paying.
“So you’d better—”
He didn’t get to finish.
Qian Qi set the controller aside and marched in with her cleaning tools.
Inside, the blazing hound dropped into a guarded crouch the moment it saw her. Pale yellow fangs bared, saliva still stringing from the aftershock of the electricity. It looked vicious—dangerous.
But its butt was plastered to the wall like it was guarding state secrets back there.
Qian Qi snorted. She put down the mop and bucket, then beckoned. “Come here.”
The blazing hound growled once. Claws flashed between its toes as it scraped the slick floor—screech, screech—making it painfully clear it wasn’t coming.
“Fine. You won’t come? I’ll come to you.”
She flexed her fingers, then dropped into a squat and copied it—dragging her right foot across the floor, throat rumbling out a low, rough growl.
Like she couldn’t bark back?
In her previous life, the orphanage had raised plenty of guard dogs. They used to bare teeth at her and bark like they owned the place. A few rounds of her matching bark and they’d tuck tail and sprint back to their kennels.
Unfortunately, blazing hounds had a worse temper than regular dogs.
The moment Qian Qi pulled that stunt, it kicked off with its hind legs and charged straight at her.
Outside, Liu Wang Da jolted. He hadn’t expected her to be this insane. His thumb hovered over the controller—
“Brother Liu!” Qian Qi shouted. “Don’t press the button!”
At the same time, she kicked the toilet beside her—full of water—sending it sloshing across the floor toward the drain. The tiles turned into a skating rink.
Qian Qi shot forward, then slipped backward in one smooth slide, skimming under the blazing hound’s belly and ending up right by its hind legs.
Then she grabbed both legs and yanked.
The blazing hound lost its balance instantly, skidding out. Its jaw slammed into the floor with a vicious crack, water spraying everywhere.
Qian Qi sprang up like a monkey, ran two steps onto its back, raised her hand, and brought down a brutal open-palmed smack on the back of its head.
The blazing hound yelped so hard tears nearly burst out.
Big mistake.
This “food” that wiped its ass was D-rank.
“Will you behave?” Qian Qi asked.
She locked both hands around its throat and spoke in a tone that might’ve been sweet if she weren’t actively cutting off its oxygen.
The blazing hound’s eyes rolled back—not from sarcasm, but from the very real fact that it couldn’t breathe.
Its whole body convulsed, legs flailing as it tried to throw her off. Qian Qi didn’t let go. She even slammed her forehead into the back of its skull like she was hammering a nail.
“Will you behave? Will you behave? Will you behave!”
At the doorway, Liu Wang Da watched the whole thing and swallowed so hard it hurt.
For one horrifying second, he felt sympathy.
Holy shit. That was brutal.
He’d assumed this girl was all bleeding-heart compassion. Turns out he’d misunderstood—she didn’t hate punishment. She just preferred it hands-on.
“Little classmate, stop choking it!” Liu Wang Da gripped the door bars, staring. “If you keep going, it’ll die…”
And then it hit him what Uncle Li meant by “casualty incident.”
Not Qian Qi.
The blazing hound.
And blazing hounds were fucking expensive.
He’d go bankrupt.
The blazing hound finally lay there wheezing, hacking like it was trying to cough its lungs out. Its whole body trembled, pitiful and soaked.
Qian Qi bent over it, sighing like she was the wronged party. “Seriously. Why make it so hard on yourself? Couldn’t you just sit nicely and let me clean the room?”
“I’m not even tasty.”
She glanced at her skinny arm, then eyed the blazing hound with disgust. “Don’t tell me you’re like a real dog and love chewing bones or something.”
The blazing hound: …
It could breathe again physically. Mentally, it was suffocating.
It lunged again, stubborn as hell.
Qian Qi didn’t hesitate. She slapped it right across the face.
Smack.
The blazing hound’s vision swam. She’d nearly rattled its brain.
And she was holding back, too. This thing was basically E-rank. If she went all out, she could’ve turned its skull into soup.
The blazing hound had never been humiliated like this.
Electric shocks were one thing—some scary object did the hurting. But this tiny “food” in front of it was beating it with bare hands.
Even with its low intelligence, it knew what being wronged felt like.
It curled into a corner and started whimpering, tears dripping—half pain, half humiliation.
Only then did Qian Qi pick up her bucket and mop and start cleaning.
When she finished, she nudged the blazing hound’s butt with her foot and said softly, “Up. Wipe your butt.”
The blazing hound didn’t move. It just whined.
Qian Qi rolled up her sleeves, lifted her hand, and smacked its giant ass.
Smack.
The blazing hound yelped and immediately hoisted its butt up, obedient as a saint.
The System couldn’t help commenting, deadpan. “Your kink is weird.”
Qian Qi said calmly, “No. I’ve got even weirder kinks.”
The System went quiet.
After she finished wiping the blazing hound clean, Qian Qi patted the battered back of its head with gentle affection. “Wait here. I brought you a gift.”
She slipped out through the barred door and rummaged through her bag. When she came back, she was holding a huge, bristleless toothbrush—freshly carved.
Qian Qi stroked the blazing hound’s fiery red fur and smiled with saintly thrift.
The blazing hound’s instincts screamed danger.