Outside her plane window, the Inner Mongolian grasslands stretched unending to the horizon. The stewardess rolled by with a drink, but Xiao Wei waved it off and continued to gaze at the northern Chinese landscape. Her company had sent her to investigate a drought-resistant agricultural experiment in one of the more parched areas of the country, mere miles from the Gobi desert. Now she was on her way back to Beijing.

The full trip had taken only a week, but Wei hadn't expected the travel to be so physically demanding. Nor had she imagined how she would miss Xiao Wang, her new puppy and destroyer of worlds. It had only been two months since she carried him out of the pound, but he had already become a big part of her life. And as much as she complained about his chaotic energy, she couldn't wait to get home and take him for a walk.