Lan Yilian said that before her father died, she had to stay and fulfill her filial piety.

So they stayed.

In order not to delay their children's studies, they rented a house in the city and arranged for Lan Xiaomei to study in a local bilingual private school, and at the same time found a job themselves - Chris originally studied history, but he found that what he learned could not teach the children here, so he became a physical education teacher.

Lan Yilian chose not to work, in addition to picking up Lan Xiaomei every day, she went to the hospital to take care of her father.

She didn't want her husband and children to be involved in this kind of family conflict, so she asked them not to come. In this way, Lan Xiaomei has more personal time.

More than half a year has passed, and Chris's enthusiasm for China has been burned out.

He hates going to work from 9 to 5, he hates teaching children to do meaningless sports (he once tried to take the children to climb trees, but his parents reported them to the education department in the name of safety, and fined him half a month's salary), and he hated the wide roads, the lack of humane public facilities, and all kinds of inexplicable rules.

Of course, what he hates most is the community where he lives.

In his opinion, not only is there no roses in this community, called the Rose Garden, but it is also densely populated with people, and the public space is very small, even if they rent a stacked villa with a 50-square-meter yard in the front row of the community.

He missed his big Texas ranch and the old brown horse named Pete.

He mentioned several times that he wanted to go back, but his wife did not agree, saying that he must wait until after his father-in-law died.

But the problem is that this old man has a tenacious vitality and miraculously survives after the tumor removal operation.

There is no way, he can only endure all this, because he loves his wife and does not want her life to be regretted.

Daughter Lan Xiaomei thinks it's nothing.

Her mother was not at home, her father had to go to work, and she became a free and easy loner. She loves adventure, and she can find something adventurous even in such a seemingly boring modern community.

For example, climbing trees.

For example, drilling underpasses.

She seems to be a native elf in this community, going to heaven and earth, happy and free. The most important thing is that she can speak fluent Mandarin, coupled with her beautiful mixed-race appearance and outgoing personality, she has won a good popularity. Almost everyone loves her.

As for the reason why she joined this small group, the reason is different from the others.

She is a true love animal.

The reason why Li Weiwei came into contact with dogs was first because he wanted to make money walking dogs, and then he slowly developed some feelings with dogs; Justin also loves dogs, but more because of Li Weiwei, he has never had a dog before, and it is a kind of love for the house and Wu; As for Hu Fei, he doesn't like dogs. More on his story later.

And Lan Xiaomei is different. She has been a dog slave since she was a child. Or rather, she likes animals to the point of obsession.

On the Texas ranch, she owns a foal named Alice and often chats with a cow named Lisa. But her best friend is a golden retriever named Charlie.

Charlie was less than two months old when he was picked up, fluffy, round, very cute, and a little naughty. From the time she was three years old, Charlie had been by her side, she fed him food, walked with him, and later when he was a little older, she took him to hunting.

Once, she met a coyote on the prairie.

She was very frightened and called Charlie's name loudly. Charlie, who had already run away, quickly returned, fought with him, and defeated him. But he also paid a heavy price - one of his ears was bitten off, and his head and body were covered in dark blood.

Since then, the relationship between the two good friends has deepened.

Every time she saw Charlie's injured ear, she was inexplicably moved.

She knows that as long as he is alive, he will go out of his way to protect himself for the rest of his life, which is the power of friendship.

And even if he couldn't speak, when they looked at each other, she could feel that gentle love.

She didn't know how many times she had raised her hands and made a vow to God to be with Charlie forever.

Therefore, when her mother said that she would not go back for the time being, she felt a little sad.

She knew that her reunion with Charlie had been postponed again, and she only hoped that she could go home early and return to her good friends.

However, I didn't expect that more than half a year had passed in a blink of an eye, and not only had they not gone back, but they had also gone to school here. She doesn't like school too much, because there are so many rules here, and the learning content itself is relatively boring.

She would often be in a daze during class, or look at the football field downstairs, imagining that it was a prairie on which Charlie was running happily and freely.

In the community, when she sees those dogs, she often goes up to pet them and tease them to relieve her inner longing for Charlie.

It was in this process that she met Li Weiwei, who was walking the dog, and quickly became good friends with him.

She likes the natural civilian atmosphere of Li Weiwei, the tenacity and determination of the poor child to be in charge early.

Li Weiwei likes her wildness, her bravery and innocence, unpretentious innocence.

Later, the two boys joined in. She doesn't care. One of them was her classmate in the same grade, Justin. The other is called Hu Fei. The four formed the Justice League to protect the abused dog.

She once told her parents about the dog abuse, and her father Chris immediately called the police, but found that it was useless. She saw that her father was very angry and yelled to leave this terrible country that had no protection for the dogs.

Lan Xiaomei didn't think so.

She believes that escaping will not solve the problem, and the most important thing is to catch the pervert and give the stray dogs a new safe place.

She has never understood why Chinese call dogs pets.

They are all living beings and should be respected and treated.

It wasn't until Rhubarb was abused to death that the anger in her heart was completely vented.

Perhaps because of the color of her coat, she involuntarily substituted rhubarb for Charlie, and has always had a preference for it. Unexpectedly, it died.

He was abused to death.

Seeing its stinking and stiff corpse, Xiaomei cried a lot, crying so sadly, as if it was Charlie who died.

Then she vowed revenge.

She imagined the guy as the wolf in the wilderness, the villain who had bitten Charlie and had returned again across time and place, with a terrifying heart and teeth.

She was a little scared, but more about making him pay for it with blood.

The program went well at first.

Through that small ticket, they locked the guy's home in Building 38.

But the accident that followed made them fall into despair. Li Weiwei asked everyone to go back first, hide, and don't go out. But she couldn't help but sneak back to the scene.

When the police questioned her, she hid in the crowd and carefully observed everyone to guess who might be the murderer.

Later, she did find someone.

The man had been on the scene for less than ten minutes before he retreated and entered the underground garage from the bike shed. She quietly followed, and saw the man enter the elevator. The elevator eventually stopped on the 25th floor.

Just as Mei turned around to leave, she caught a glimpse of a car shaking slightly in the dark corner of the garage.

Out of curiosity, she stepped forward lightly, saw the door of the trunk of the red SUV open upwards, and was about to turn around to see what was going on, when there was a "bang" and the door was slammed shut.

A man's face was revealed.

"Xiaomei?"

"Teacher Jia?" Lan Xiaomei breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the other party's face. It was Teacher Jia who taught their class math at the school. He also has an identity - Justin's dad.

"Why are you here? Is something wrong? Teacher Jia asked.

"I ......" Lan Xiaomei didn't know how to explain for a while.

"Forget it. It just so happens that you can go back and tell your dad that we will be on time when we go to your house for dinner on the weekend night. ”

"Oh......"

"Goodbye then, Lan Xiaomei."

Teacher Jia smiled and picked up his backpack and walked towards the elevator room.

At the same time, the car was locked with the key fob.

Lan Xiaomei looked at his back and was about to leave, when suddenly, something on the ground caught her eye.

She bent down to pick it up and found it to be a white gold necklace.

It must have been dropped by Teacher Jia.

She was about to shout, but when she looked up, she was nowhere to be seen.

I'll give it back to him next time I see him.

She slipped the necklace into the pocket of her jeans, thought about the mysterious guy on the 25th floor, and went home preoccupied.