Han Xiaochuan had known since childhood that Dalong wasn't an ordinary Tibetan mastiff.
It could take human form to teach him to read, gather herbs in the snow, and gaze at him with its deep blue eyes as it said, "You were born under the star of solitude. There aren't many people who want you to survive."
When he was ten, his family was slaughtered. His adoptive father gave his life to withstand Heaven's punishment, and Dalong's golden core shattered along with its soul. All that remained was a hide that wrapped around him as it carried him out of the snowy mountains.
Before his eighteenth birthday, his master, Ye Hongling, expelled him from the sect and handed him nine yellowed marriage contracts. "Your adoptive father arranged nine marriages for you before he died. If you don't marry those women, Heaven's punishment will fall upon you."
Clutching the contracts, he left the Hongling. On his very first assignment, a red-robed vengeful ghost possessed someone.
The female ghost clutched her client's throat and roared, "You Daoists are all helping bad people! I was murdered, so who's going to clear my name?!"
Han Xiaochuan bit his fingertip, drew a talisman, and saved the man. Looking down at the female ghost sprawled on the ground, he said, "I do the job I'm paid for. That's only right."
It feels like everything was pasted and copied, and the routine is very old. Going down the mountain, all the nine marriage contracts came.