010: Dog Talk
Sang Zhao sucked in a sharp breath.
He wished he could inhale hard enough to drain every bit of cold air from the school’s AC system.
What was happening?! He’d come all the way here out of the goodness of his heart to help a dog, and this Samoyed just had to start speaking dog language in front of his boss!
Unbelievable! The world had truly gone mad! How hateful!
Panicking, Sang Zhao quickly tried to cover it up. “Haha, he must’ve eaten too much KFC at lunch. Maybe he’s got bird flu or something, see? He’s starting to talk nonsense!”
Tang Yu straightened up, looking at him with a complicated expression. “...You do realize you’re the one talking nonsense right now.”
“Am I?” Sang Zhao feigned innocence, instantly correcting himself. “Anyway. What I meant was, I’m his uncle.”
Yes, perfect. Back on track!
“I’m his uncle, and his dad’s my brother-in-law. Haha, I guess he’s just heard me call his dad brother-in-law too many times, so he’s started copying me.”
He grabbed Xia Moyè’s chubby cheek and gave it a little pinch, warning under his breath, “Don’t you start yelling random stuff again! Or I won’t go to your parent-teacher meeting, got it?”
Xia Moyè covered his face, eyes drooping, lips puffed in silence.
Tang Yu, on the other hand, quietly sighed in relief.
He reached out and gently patted the kid’s shoulder, his voice calm and kind. “Alright, just don’t go scaring people like that again, okay?”
The little boy nodded.
Tang Yu continued in that soft, coaxing tone adults used for children. “Good. You’ll be a good kid, right?”
Xia Moyè nodded again, cheerful now.
Seeing him so obedient, Tang Yu couldn’t help smiling as he ruffled the boy’s hair.
That was a big mistake.
Most human kids would’ve pulled away with a “Don’t touch my head!” but not this one.
This one was a dog.
And dogs loved head pats.
The moment Tang Yu’s hand brushed over his hair, Xia Moyè’s eyes practically rolled back in bliss.
Ahh, that familiar sensation, the sacred art of getting one’s head rubbed! And he’d just been called a “good kid” too. What was the difference between that and “good dog”?
None. None at all! Ye-ye was a good dog!
He was so overwhelmed with happiness that he almost leapt straight into Tang Yu’s arms.
Thankfully, Sang Zhao caught him in time.
Tang Yu glanced at the two of them, uncle and nephew, tangled together like a pair of wrestlers and couldn’t help laughing.
“Alright, alright. Now I really believe you two must be related.”
Honestly, both of them were so clingy. Maybe it ran in the family since their unique way of showing affection was apparently sticking to people.
Since he’d already run into them at the school, Tang Yu didn’t leave right away. They chatted for a bit.
He looked around and sighed softly. “Time really flies, doesn’t it? This is my old school, but it looks so different from what I remember. I think this used to be the playground, and now there’s a walkway built right over it.”
He smiled and turned back to Sang Zhao. “What about you? Which elementary school did you go to?”
Tang Yu was smiling when he asked it, but Sang Zhao felt his soul leave his body.
Help! He’d never gone to elementary school! He was a total illiterate cat! He had no nostalgic “alma mater” stories to share!
But if he told the truth, wouldn’t that sound suspicious?
In this day and age, you could admit to not finishing high school or not having gone to college. People might just think you lacked education. But not having gone to elementary school? People would stare at you like you’d just crawled out of a sewer!
No way. He absolutely couldn’t tell the truth.
Sang Zhao wanted to scream.
He wasn’t even at work anymore, yet somehow fate just wouldn’t let him off the hook. Why did this cruel world keep cornering one poor, helpless little cat?!
He stammered, thinking fast. “I... I’m not from around here.”
There. Perfect. You wouldn’t know the name of the school anyway, so please, just stop asking, human!
Tang Yu didn’t question it.
He thought the emphasis was on “not from here.” Sang Zhao meant he wasn’t local.
But really, the key word was “person.”
He wasn’t a local person, he was a local cat!
After letting so many cat-and-dog clues slip, Sang Zhao was terrified to keep talking.
Using the excuse that they needed to find the classroom, he quickly said goodbye to Tang Yu and practically dragged Xia Moyè down the hall.
Once they reached the classroom, he finally exhaled in relief.
Safe. Much better.
This parent-teacher conference had both kids and guardians sitting together to listen to the teacher’s talk.
Sang Zhao took the kid’s desk while Xia Moyè dragged over a small stool to sit beside him.
Their desk had the exam papers laid out, bright red marks everywhere.
Sang Zhao glanced at them and immediately felt a headache coming on. Half the problems made no sense to him.
How many trees in the orchard? How many meters of road repaired per hour? How many people bought books? When does the pool finish draining? When does the water fill? At what time does Dad catch up to Xiao Ming, who forgot his homework?
Sang Zhao blinked blankly.
What’s the point of all this? He didn’t know any of it and it didn’t seem to be hurting his life. He thought miserably, I may not understand, but I still get to eat KFC.
Forget solving equations; he couldn’t even recognize every character on the page.
Math was a disaster, and those ancient poem fill-in-the-blanks? Completely hopeless.
Turns out, elementary school wasn’t easy either. No wonder the kid ranked third from the bottom.
Actually, now that he thought about it, third from the bottom wasn’t bad at all. At least the test was finished. Whether the answers were right or wrong, that was another matter.
When the meeting began, Sang Zhao was surprisingly alert.
He’d never been in something like this before, so everything felt new and interesting.
First, the homeroom teacher gave a speech. Then each subject teacher took a turn, and afterward came the “Outstanding Student Awards.”
Finally, the teacher switched slides with a mysterious smile.
On the screen, large golden letters read:
“A Letter to Parents.”
The teacher explained that this was a “heart-to-heart” activity: each child wrote a letter to their parents, and only the parent and the child were allowed to read it.
Now, it was time for parents to bow their heads and read their children’s words from the heart.
Sang Zhao hesitated for a moment. Before he could open it, a parent across the aisle started crying over their child’s letter.
That made him nervous.
He slowly unfolded the torn page from a notebook and read...
Wow. Lucky day. He could actually recognize every single word!
“You’re the kindest, warm-hearted little cat I’ve ever met.”
Sang Zhao kept a serious face, reading for a long time. The longer he stared, the more excitedly Xia Moyè watched him, waiting for praise.
But instead of a compliment, he got Sang Zhao leaning in to whisper, “What’s ‘warm-hearted’? Is it like... sweet-and-sour pork intestines?”
The happy little dog instantly deflated.
He thumped his desk in despair. “Who’s the elementary student here, you or me?!”
When the conference ended, most parents left, but the homeroom teacher waved at them.
“Xia Moyè? Xia Moyè’s guardian, please stay a moment.”
Since the kid had only recently transferred schools, the teacher didn’t know much about him. This was a good chance to talk privately.
She looked at Sang Zhao’s fresh, youthful face and his bright orange hair, hesitated, and then asked carefully, “You’re... his older brother? Why didn’t his parents come?”
Holding the child’s paw... er, hand... Sang Zhao replied, “I’m his uncle.”
“His mom and dad... are just busy.”
The dog had no usable parents left, whether counted by dog lineage or human adoption. So all he had was one fake uncle.
The teacher looked far more anxious about the situation than he did.
“Busy or not, they still need to pay attention to their child’s studies. Moyè’s grades...”
She sighed, forcing a small smile. “Moyè, wait outside for a bit, okay? I need to talk to your uncle.”
The kid obediently nodded. “Okay, teacher.”
He stepped into the hallway and leaned on the railing, watching birds fly by, looking perfectly content.
Then someone called from behind.
“Hey there, little one.”
He turned around and saw Tang Yu.
Tang Yu had already finished his talk and come looking for them. He knew they were in the third-grade building, so he’d followed the floor signs until he found them.
He figured they might need a ride home afterward, catching a taxi near a busy school was tough, and walking to the subway with a kid wasn’t convenient either.
Seeing Xia Moyè confirmed he was in the right place.
“Where’s your uncle?” Tang Yu asked.
“He got held back by the teacher,” the boy said.
Tang Yu chuckled. “Usually the student gets held back, not the uncle. You’d better watch out, he might complain to your mom.”
“He won’t,” the kid replied confidently. “He never would.”
Tang Yu smiled, amused. “And why didn’t you say hi to me earlier, huh, Xia Moyè?” he teased, repeating the name. “You know, I’m your uncle’s boss. He even calls me gege.”
He raised an eyebrow playfully. “So, do you know what you should call me then?”
The dog boy froze.
Call him... what? Wait... they hadn’t practiced that part!
He thought hard, then stammered uncertainly, “Then I should... call you... Auntie-Uncle?”
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