Chapter 18: The Highest Etiquette in the Dog World: The Hand-Biting Ceremony⌠part 1
Yu Shi moved immediately, saying, “Xu Ze, you’re in charge of breaking out. Go to Area C and find the others. Xie and I will handle the rest…”
Before he could finish, a hand held him down.
Xie Ren said with a tone that brooked no argument, “I’ll handle the rest. Instructor Yu, continue contacting the emergency team.”
Yu Shi frowned and struggled, but Xie Ren’s grip was incredibly strong.
Xie Ren said calmly, “The Falcon Regiment has countless enemies. There are plenty of people who want my life; assassination attempts aren’t a once-or-twice occurrence. The things outside have no eyes for who they kill. It’s better left to people like us. Your hands are for research; they shouldn’t be stained with blood.”
“Nonsense.” Yu Shi rarely showed emotion, but now he was a bit angry.
“Do you know how dangerous pheromone weapons are? Skin burns are hard to heal. If you don’t receive professional treatment within twenty-four hours, it will ulcerate locally and finally spread to the whole body. Why do you think T5RI was shut down? These are fundamentally anti-human weapons!”
Xu Ze opened his mouth wide, trying to digest the massive amount of information.
Xie Ren, however, was composed, as if he wasn’t the one about to face a company of enemies. “Instructor Yu, calm down. I’ve been burned by radiation, so I know that feeling. S+ Alphas aren’t as fragile as you think. Howeverâ”
He changed the subject: “I’m still very happy to see you worried about me.”
“…” Yu Shi choked.
Xie Ren blinked. “Since you care about me so much, how about waiting for me to come back and letting me smell your pheromones? I’m really quite curious.”
Yu Shi’s face was clouded over; he kept a straight face and didn’t make a sound.
Xu Ze turned around silently, pretending not to hear anything.
Xie Ren tossed him a triangular bayonet and said, “You break out. I’ll lure them to the east.”
“Yes.” Xu Ze tensed up.
The androids surrounded them but didn’t attack rashly. As if under unified command, they encircled in groups of fifteen, each layer twenty meters apart, advancing in an inescapable net formation.
Dark hat brims covered their blank features, like mechanical Asuras crawling out of hell. The scene was hair-raising.
The first shot rang out.
Xie Ren’s vigorous figure shuttled through the forest like a leopard, speed too fast for the eye to catch. In the time it took to fire two shots, he had already severed the windpipes of five of them.
Hand raised, knife fell, without hesitation.
All firepower concentrated on him. Xu Ze found a gap and broke into the encirclement. These androids were made quite realistically; even the blood vessels were distinct. Warm blood sprayed from throats, covering his hands.
He shook his hands in disgust, secretly cursing the designer as a pervert.
Dodging bullets, Xie Ren quickly dealt with the inner circle of fifteen. After snapping the last one’s neck, he suddenly gave a muffled grunt.
Xu Ze said alertly, “Brother Ren?”
Xie Ren’s speed was second to none at NDU; no one dared claim first. He had once dodged three hundred consecutive bullets in an experiment, possessing superhuman physical abilities. He had clearly dodged that shot just now.
However, when he removed the hand covering his arm, fresh blood stained the gauze.
“Holy shit,” Xu Ze’s eyes widened. “Does this trajectory curve? That’s too evil!”
The second layer attacked. Xie Ren said sternly, “What are you staring at? Pull the trap!”
Xu Ze immediately pulled the rope on the ground. Androids stepped into empty air, falling into a five-meter-deep pit. Concentrated nitric acid prepared beforehand poured down from above.
The monsters didn’t know pain, frantically emitting beep beep beep danger alarms. For a moment, the noise was cacophonous, making their ears ring.
The third layer followed closely. A bullet in the air curved, flying toward Xie Ren as if it had caught a scent.
Xu Ze shouted, “Brother Ren, watch out!”
Xie Ren rolled several times, avoiding three redirected bullets, and immediately found the patternâ
These bullets could only redirect once, and not every gun could do it. The research cost was likely huge, preventing mass use.
Pheromone tracking used on bullet redirectionâit was unheard of.
He cursed angrily and agilely dodged three times in a row.
The third circle seemed to receive new orders and began close-combat attacks on Xu Ze.
Xie Ren threw off the android on his back, kicked to break its leg bone, and stabbed his dagger fiercely into another’s body, the webbing of his thumb going slightly numb from the shock.
A pile of corpses built up under his feet. The stench of blood was nauseating. Even with his god-like stamina, he was panting slightly in the sustained war of attrition.
Can’t kill them all.
Xu Ze’s stamina failed him. He revealed an opening and was pierced through his protective suit by a military knife, crying out in pain.
Xie Ren reversed his gun stock, smashing that one’s head. The central control unit rolled onto the ground mixed with blood.
“Fuck their ancestors, disgusting like locusts.” Xu Ze panted heavily. “We can’t go on like this. A few more waves and we won’t be able to hold them.”
Xie Ren said decisively, “You go first. Go to Area C to get support.”
“No way. So many ghost things, how can you alone…”
“This is an order.”
Suddenly, all the androids stopped, as if a pause button had been pressed, and looked in the opposite direction in unison.
The two froze, stopping their fight.
The scene was extremely creepy. The surroundings were like puppets being manipulated, or zombies smelling human flesh.
“What’s going on?” Xu Ze’s scalp went numb.
Following their gaze, Xie Ren saw Yu Shi standing on the steps. He held a makeshift crossbow in his hand, the arrowhead bound with a ball of bloody gauze.
That was Xie Ren’s blood.
Interfered with by the pheromones, the androids were temporarily disoriented.
Yu Shi drew the bowstring, aimed deep into the jungle, fired an arrow, and shouted, “What are you standing there for!”
The two snapped out of it, pouncing on the distracted androids. With maximum speed, they slit throats like chopping vegetables. Within a minute, they resolved a whole circle of them.
Yu Shi narrowed his eyes and fired a second arrow. Some androids smelled the scent, turned, and drilled deeper into the jungle.
Xu Ze was shocked. “That move is too smart. Damn, these bastards are being played like fiddles.”
“It can only confuse them for a moment. Apply this first.” Yu Shi threw a tube of blocking agent to Xie Ren.
Then he took a clean piece of gauze, pressed it against Xie Ren’s wound to soak up blood, and tied it to an arrowhead.
Xie Ren sucked in a breath, grumbling, “Can’t you be gentler?”
“You still know pain? I thought you didn’t even want your life anymore,” Yu Shi said coldly, raising his hand to shoot an arrow through an ancient towering tree.
His posture drawing the bow was very standard, clean and efficient like a professional, looking valiant and heroic.
Xie Ren hooked the corner of his mouth. “I still want it. I haven’t smelled your pheromones yet; I can’t die so easily.”
Yu Shi ignored his crazy talk and said, “Those things have scattered. We split up. We must find rescue before dark. Xu Ze, be careful; they change orders at any time and might attack others.”
The three took the gauze and went their separate ways.
At the same time, in another patch of grass, all members of Group D8 were lying in ambush.
Xu Bohan fiddled with the sniper rifle he just got, asking, “Will they really pass through here? What if I accidentally snipe my master?”
“Can’t you look clearly before sniping? Prioritize taking out Xie Ren; he’s the biggest threat,” Ye Bingyang said. “Zhang Meng, come with me to the point behind.”
Zhang Meng shouldered his gun. “7072, stop playing with your skirt. Remember, shoot when you see people from D1 later.”
7072 pursed its lips, lifted its soiled princess dress, and tiptoed behind them.
Here, Xie Ren infiltrated the jungle, quickly dealing with androids along the way.
He roughly estimated that, including those at the wooden house, there should be over two hundred. This force was larger than he imagined.
He found a banana leaf to cover a corpse. Just as he was about to take the M17, a pair of feet suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Zhang Meng turned pale with fright. “You, you are… Xie…”
Before he could shout, Xie Ren leaped up. With quick eyes and hands, he delivered a hand chop, knocking the man unconscious on the ground.
Two hundred meters away from them, 7072 and Ye Bingyang had put some distance between them.
It hopped to a patch of grass and suddenly stopped, its pink body flashing a red alert.
“Thing inside, raise your hands,” it warned in a milky voice.
After a while, the grass moved, and a silver-white robot dog walked out.
The two dogs sniffed each other across the air, confirming each other’s scent.
9527 said friendly, “Hello, dog.”
7072 didn’t speak. It identified the other as its own kind, not belonging to “people from Group D1,” and thus not within the attack range, so it closed its firing port.
“Your dress is dirty.” 9527 pointed at its princess dress.
7072 immediately pouted, pulling up the skirt hem. “My mom… my daddy made this himself. It got dirty in the fight just now. Mud splashed on the polka dots; it’s hard to clean off.”
9527 gave it an idea. “Maybe you can borrow a human washing machine. Fill it with Blue Moon stain remover, and it will wash off. You actually have a daddy; that’s too blissful.”
7072 was shy. “He is my creator, named Yu Shi. But he doesn’t like this title much. I call him that secretly; don’t tell anyone.”
“I know! He is the Director of the Third Research Institute, Sundial’s youngest Weapons Grandmaster. Heavens, I really envy you having such an amazing creator.”
9527 was sad. “Unlike me, I don’t even have a friend. My master dislikes me and isn’t willing to take me to play.”
7072 thought for a moment. “Then you must be very lonely. If you are willing, I can be your friend.”
9527 said excitedly, “Really? Then we are good friends!”
It excitedly held up its good friend’s paw and performed the highest etiquette in the dog world: the hand-biting ceremony.
Gently holding 7072’s front paw in its mouth, 7072’s pink color instantly deepened a few shades.
Not far away, Xie Ren cut a banana leaf and was burying Zhang Meng. When he looked up, another pair of feet appeared.
Ye Bingyang pointed a gun at him, saying angrily, “You ambush monster! Killed two in just a moment!”
Xie Ren glimpsed the men in black in the distance, frowned, glared at him, and made a “shh” gesture.
Ye Bingyang looked around and saw 7072 extending its foot for another dog to bite. He instantly went crazy with anger, shouting loudly, “7072! Stop biting back and forth over there! Is that perverted or what? Get back here immediately!”
His shout startled the birds in the forest and made the men in black who had walked away turn their heads.
Without a word, Xie Ren backhanded a chop to his neck. Ye Bingyang fell to the ground with a thud. The three lay in a neat row.
7072 detected the command target and opened fire brazenly in Xie Ren’s direction!
The pink dog transformed into a fiery red dog, and the jungle was instantly lit with muzzle flashes.
The men in black turned around and charged over together.
Xie Ren cursed and leaped up a tree, fleeing for his life.
Hearing the gunshot, Yu Shi immediately ran from the borderline into the forest. Before he could raise his gun, a Xu Bohan popped out of the grass, shouting “Master” and running over, so excited he even flung his sniper rifle away.
The scene was chaotic, chickens flying and dogs jumping, with Xu Bohan screaming.
Yu Shi held his fire just in time to avoid hitting him.
“Master, where did you go? Where is Xie Ren? Did he threaten you!” Xu Bohan was almost crying.
Yu Shi didn’t have time to explain. He directly removed Xu Bohan’s headset and called the emergency team into the microphone.
Recommended Reads
![The League’s Hei Yueguang Has Fought His Way Back [E-sports]](https://beereads.space/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/hei-214x300.jpg)
