033: What If He’s Not Human?
Sang Zhao watched coldly and decided Tata was a kid who looked cute, but his behavior was weird, so he was a weird kid.
Fortunately, right when Sang Zhao’s patience was about to hit its limit and he was ready to charge over and deliver a full set of cat punches to that completely indifferent dad, Tata’s mom finally showed up.
She was a striking, flamboyant woman in a bright red dress, chatting nonstop as she came in, greeting every staff member she passed.
“I came up from the parking garage. Honestly, the path in the park here isn’t great, they should build a dam. I went to look at the terrain, it’s really suitable for a dam…”
She got close enough to see and hear her son waging war on the oysters.
“Tata, how are you messy from head to toe again!” She snatched his rock away and set it on the table, not letting him smash anymore.
Not bad, Sang Zhao thought. Compared to the kid and his dad, at least the mom seemed like a normal person.
He covered his mouth with one hand, leaned over, and whispered to Xia Moye sitting beside him.
“He’s not good.”
The puff of breath from his words tickled Xia Moye, who giggled and dodged away.
Sang Zhao patted his face, and Xia Moye looked up at him, silly and sweet.
“You’re better. Really, you’re not even a tiny bit of a bratty dog kid.”
He gave the dog’s cheek a squeeze.
Xia Moye touched the top of his own head in the air, delighted.
“But I have little bear ears.”
They slapped a high five.
“Exactly!”
Tang Yu sat across from them, holding back laughter.
He deliberately teased Xia Moye.
“Where? Where are your little bear ears?”
“Let Uncle see, alright? Uncle hasn’t seen them yet.”
The look on Xia Moye’s face was pure confusion, like his expression was saying, not only have you seen them, but you also even patted them.
Afraid that expression would give something away, Sang Zhao slapped a hand over his face and told Tang Yu, “No, no such thing! What little white dog, big white bear ears, we don’t have any of that!”
Tang Yu chuckled helplessly.
“Let him go. I believe you, alright? No little white dog, no big white bear ears.”
But talking about that made him think of a real little white dog, big white bear.
Yes, he remembered that Samoyed he’d picked up.
The moment that came up, Tang Yu sighed.
“At the time I thought I’d picked up a stray. I was even thinking, if it didn’t have an owner, I’d adopt it and raise it.”
His tone drooped with his mood.
“You probably don’t know, but ever since I was young, small animals have never liked me. Cats, dogs, none of them are clingy with me.”
The cat and dog sitting across from him: …ah.
“But that dog was different,” Tang Yu said dreamily. “It was so big and so white and so round, and it really liked me. There were so many people in front of the breakfast shop, but it only followed me.”
Maybe, Sang Zhao thought, because it actually knew you, trusted you, and that’s why it followed you.
It’s not “fate with dogs,” okay. It’s really not.
But Tang Yu sincerely believed that dog had a special bond with him. Unfortunately, a famous dog already had a home, so the dog he’d “picked up” had to be returned.
“I’ll probably never meet such a perfect dog again,” Tang Yu said, discouraged.
For some reason, seeing Tang Yu discouraged made Sang Zhao irrationally annoyed.
He tried to sound casual, not looking at Tang Yu, like he was just asking offhand, “What about cats?”
Tang Yu wilted even more.
“Cats like me even less. Besides the cats in cat cafés tolerating a few pats, there’s never been a stray that wanted to cling to me and refuse to leave.”
He sighed again, completely helpless.
“But I really like cats.”
When he said that, he smiled, satisfied in a quiet way.
Holding his chicken wing with great dignity, Sang Zhao took a bite and muttered, “There’s no such thing as cats not liking you.”
Tang Yu didn’t quite catch that, but he knew whatever Sang Zhao said would be something to comfort him, so he drew out a long, contented “mm.”
The oyster that kid demolition-crew Tata was smashing earlier was the restaurant’s signature steamed oyster.
So they’d ordered it too.
After watching a child open oysters like a woodpecker with a jackhammer, Tang Yu seemed a little traumatized.
He refused to let Xia Moye touch the oysters.
He picked one up himself, nudged the shell with a table knife, and used just the right amount of force to open it, then placed the oyster meat in front of Xia Moye.
“Go on, eat,” Tang Yu said, smiling.
Sitting there in his chair, Xia Moye wiggled his hips happily like he was wagging a tail that wasn’t there.
He thanked him in the sweetest voice, but instead of eating right away, he tugged on Sang Zhao’s sleeve, pulling him closer.
When Sang Zhao bent down, the little dog leaned right up to his ear and whispered.
The dog didn’t have much knowledge and wasn’t good at school. The dog’s academic level was low, ranking dead last in his third-grade class.
But the dog could read people’s hearts.
He leaned in and told his cat, “He’s so gentle.”
The world was round and adorable; the little dog was busy reviewing humans.
His breath brushed warmly against Sang Zhao’s ear, tickling inside as he spoke.
Sang Zhao couldn’t help laughing softly, chest vibrating as he listened to the dog’s clumsy words. He lifted his gaze toward Tang Yu.
Right then, he noticed Tang Yu had just placed another freshly opened oyster in his bowl too.
When he saw Sang Zhao look over, Tang Yu looked back. His brows and eyes curved gently, calm and clear, his expression soft and beautiful, like afternoon sunlight spread over a woven rattan cat tree.
He was shucking oysters and watching the two of them whisper.
To him, the fussy little kid and the whispering Sang Zhao were both incredibly cute, and he wasn’t even curious, just shook his head with a quiet smile.
When he moved his head, the little ponytail at the nape of his neck swayed.
Strands of hair by his ear and the fringe brushing his forehead framed him in a way that made him look very soft, like he carried a warm little halo everywhere he went.
He knew perfectly well that Sang Zhao hadn’t really listened to the staff’s explanation about the day’s schedule, so as he pried shells open, he patiently repeated everything.
“Once we’re done eating, we can go back and have a nap, then meet up with everyone again. This afternoon is water park time. Tonight there’s an activity with the foreign teachers, it’ll be better if Xiao Ye prepares a short English self-introduction…”
His voice was gentle, his manner unhurried. Every word sounded pleasant, like his ponytail itself had turned into speech: soft, fluffy syllables, rolling into a little ball and rolling straight into a cat’s heart.
Sang Zhao felt a little floaty.
His drifting thoughts seemed to follow that light voice and fly into the sun. He straightened his back, sat properly, held his chopsticks, and listened to Tang Yu talk.
It felt very familiar.
Like those Saturdays when his mom let him sleep in until ten, then fed him a can of tuna-flavored cat food, and after that took him to the balcony chair where the sunlight pooled. She’d rock the hanging chair gently and carefully comb his fur bit by bit.
The background was a drama they’d watched more than ten times together, plus his mom’s soft voice calling him cute every time he purred.
While Sang Zhao was spacing out, Xia Moye picked up an oyster and sniffed it.
The dog had no taste, only a strong reaction to fishy smells, and he let out a super loud retching noise.
“Yueeeeh!”
That cry snapped Sang Zhao fully back to himself. He cleared his throat and pinched the dog’s cheeks from behind.
Xiao Ye refused to eat any oysters, choosing to focus on devouring fried milk cubes instead.
Tang Yu just said if it doesn’t suit him, they didn’t have to eat it, they could eat something else. Then he started peeling shrimp, feeding one to the dog, eating one himself, and dropping two into Sang Zhao’s plate.
Sang Zhao ate the oyster Tang Yu had opened, then the shrimp he’d peeled. With good food in his mouth, he scratched his own cheek with his free hand, rubbed his chin, then looked down and absentmindedly twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers.
Pretending to be human actually felt… pretty good.
Before they left, he dug through the big pile of oyster shells and carefully picked out a neatly shaped, clean shell.
He held onto it like a little treasure.
–
After lunch, it was time to go back to the suite for a nap.
Their suite was a two-bedroom family room.
Sang Zhao and Xia Moye shared the master bedroom, which had a big bed plus a kid’s bed, one large and one small. Tang Yu had the other room to himself.
Back in the room, Sang Zhao and Xia Moye went straight to the master bedroom. In theory they were supposed to nap, but once the door shut, neither of them slept.
They lay on their own beds, chatting away.
Xia Moye’s little mouth never stopped. He started with classmates and moved to teachers, and once he started talking, he just couldn’t stop.
Sang Zhao half listened, half didn’t, mostly just sprawled there playing with the oyster shell he’d just scrubbed clean and shiny.
When Xia Moye finally ran out of things to say, Sang Zhao, still turning the shell over in his hand, finally spoke.
He hesitated, but still ended up asking, “Do you think Corn Bean might not be human?”
His tone was a little lost.
But it was obvious he genuinely wanted to know or he wouldn’t have said it out loud.
“I mean, is it possible he’s a catnip spirit?” His voice was dazed. “Why else would I feel like he’s so gentle every time I look at him?”
Could that be it?
The cat began to use his brain. A cat could take the college entrance exam, could grill skewers, so of course a cat could think.
Maybe Tang Yu really was some kind of catnip spirit, which was why he felt so different from everyone else.
Hearing this, Xia Moye used his dog brain and thought very hard, then firmly shook his head.
“No way!”
His reasoning was strange, but not entirely wrong.
“If you think about it, cats getting hooked on catnip, that’s normal,” he explained. “Then what thing, to dogs, is like catnip is to cats, makes dogs addicted and obsessed too?”
Sang Zhao went quiet for a second, then said slowly, “Mm… poop?”
Xia Moye: …
The second the words left his mouth, they both tilted their heads and stared at each other.
Sang Zhao: …Huh. Did I just say that out loud?
One second later, very fast, Xia Moye burst into tears.
“Awooo woo wu!”
Tang Yu was in his own room, working through emails on his phone. He’d only gotten through two documents when he suddenly heard crying outside.
Then came thunderous little footsteps and the sound of something slamming into the door, like a small shell hitting a wall. A beat later, there was frantic knocking.
He went to open the door and saw Xia Moye.
He’d always had a great impression of this kid, thought he was the type who didn’t cry or throw tantrums, good-tempered, cheerful, sweet-tongued.
Now though, the kid’s face was scrunched with tears, hair like a bird’s nest, cheeks puffed up with rage.
The moment Tang Yu opened the door, he launched himself forward and clung to Tang Yu’s leg, refusing to let go.
This tiny person clamped on and yelled, “I want to sleep with you! I want to sleep with you!”
Then he turned his head to glare at Sang Zhao.
“You’re so rude! Do you have any manners at all! You insulted my dignity!”
“You don’t even really have something like dignity, do you…”
“Hm?” Tang Yu’s clear gaze met a very awkward Sang Zhao. “Why’re you talking to a kid like that?”
Because the “kid” is a dog, that’s why. What dignity, you mean Identity V?
Knowing this was just an uncle and nephew having a spat, Tang Yu hugged Xia Moye and soothed him.
“Do you know what ‘insult’ means? That’s a very serious word, you know.”
Sang Zhao had felt a little guilty at first, but it was hard to hold onto that when the kid’s crying face was honestly hilarious.
His cheeks were stuffed full, tears flying everywhere, hair completely exploded, clinging to Tang Yu’s leg while sniffling like a scared little duck.
“It is very serious!” Xia Moye insisted. “He cursed the both of us!”
Trying not to laugh, Tang Yu looked at Sang Zhao.
“Is that true?”
“…Not really,” Sang Zhao tried to bluff.
“Not really?”
He lifted his hand, pinched his fingers together until the gap was about the size of a fingernail edge.
“Just a tiny little bit.”
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