039: Want to Come to My Place? The Cat Can Do Backflips
In the end, the thing Tang Yu focused on was that Sang Zhao wanted to eat corn sticky cake.
He said okay. He said he’d look for it and bring some corn sticky cake back as a gift for Sang Zhao.
Staring at the screen, Sang Zhao actually started to waver. He kind of did want to eat corn sticky cake now, and he was kind of mad too.
He stared at the voice messages Tang Yu had sent one after another, and still had no idea what exactly he was angry about.
If he was randomly getting mad for no reason, then maybe he was just hungry. That was what Sang Zhao decided.
He took a bag of probiotic biscuits a coworker had given him out of his drawer and started crunch-crunch-crunching away.
Jiangyuan’s summer was so long. A month had passed, and it was still deep summer.
With his fingertips propping his chin up, he rested his head on his hand and looked out by the window, watching the clouds piled up in the sky, fluffy like cotton.
Thinking about cotton, he suddenly didn’t feel like cloud-watching anymore. What was so special about clouds anyway? He had a real-life cotton puff he could pet whenever he wanted!
Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a ready-made excuse to call that dog out to play.
He hadn’t even celebrated getting his paycheck yet!
A paycheck, wow. For the first time, he hadn’t relied on being cute to make money. He’d actually earned money off his own labor, a whole three thousand yuan. For a cat, three thousand was basically impossible to finish spending. That really was worth celebrating!
Thinking of this, he happily sent Samoyed Ye Ye a WeChat message and asked him out to eat, so they could celebrate.
If Ye Ye was just going to stay home anyway, he definitely wouldn’t do his homework. He’d just be glued to his phone, playing some mobile game with his classmates. In that case, it was better to come out and eat with a cat. It wasn’t like he was short on time. It was summer vacation, after all.
Ye Ye was of course thrilled to get the invite. Hearing that Sang Zhao was treating him to dinner made him even happier.
In the height of summer, the air was hot and damp. Walking anywhere without air conditioning was basically like sitting in a steam room.
In this kind of weather, nowhere beat eating takeout in an air-conditioned room. But in Ye Ye Dog’s doggy brain, there was one place worth braving the heat for. A roadside stall with skewers and cold noodles.
Samoyed Ye worked hard to convince Sang Zhao to go to that place with him.
He went all in describing how delicious it was.
His voice messages were full of happily wagging energy.
“Let’s go, let’s go! It’s really super good!”
“When I was still a dog, I loved going there for skewers. I’d squeeze under the stall, and someone would grill some without seasoning just for me!”
“They’d hold my muzzle, and with one swipe of the skewer, the meat would slide right into my mouth!”
“Even without any seasoning it was that good. I don’t even dare imagine how tasty proper skewers must be now that we’re pretending to be human and can order them like normal people!”
“Come on, let’s go, let’s hurry up and go. Tonight, okay?”
Little dogs had no patience, and neither did little cats.
Once something fun was mentioned, they wanted to enjoy it right away and wished they could have it in their mouths this very second.
No wonder they were always broke. They had no rent and no utility bills, but any money they did have all went straight into their stomachs.
They didn’t buy clothes either. They wore whatever the Yao Bureau gave them. If they scrolled past a pair of pants online for twenty-nine, they’d swipe straight past and think it was expensive. But if they saw a bag of chicken jerky for a hundred and twenty-nine, they just had to buy it to see what it tasted like.
That was how the little cat and little dog pretended to be human in human society.
Sometimes they really were pretty poor, but they’d just started pretending to be human. They didn’t have big dreams, didn’t plan on buying a house, and didn’t have grown-up worries.
If they ate something tasty, they were happy.
So, if you mentioned good food, then they were eating it tonight.
After work, Sang Zhao waited for Xia Moye at the subway exit.
Ye Ye had taken the subway by himself. He was wearing a printed T-shirt with a yellow sleeping cat on it. His shorts went down to his knees, just a big pair of baggy shorts.
As soon as he saw Sang Zhao, he raised his arms and crossed them over his head, waving hard to grab his attention.
Sang Zhao saw him from far away, strolled over, and patted the kid on the head. “Let’s go. You lead the way.”
Since it was Ye Ye’s pick, of course he had to be the one leading.
They got out of the subway and walked another two kilometers. By the time they finally reached the place Ye Ye had mentioned, Sang Zhao was so hot he wanted to flop under a tree and melt.
Honestly, even before they arrived, he didn’t really need Ye Ye to say anything. He could already tell they were close.
Because the air was full of a particular smell.
It was a bit strong, but exciting, and the scent made the little cat sneeze a few times.
But after rubbing his nose, his stomach growled again, and honestly, it was on the side of the smell. So he followed Ye Ye’s cheerful steps, charging in that direction.
They were early. These stalls stayed open until two in the morning. The two of them showed up at six, just as the stall owner was setting up.
The chairs weren’t all out yet, so there was no way they could get their meat grilled right away.
Ye Ye, this big fluffy dog, had nowhere to put his energy. Seeing the owner’s family setting up chairs, he rushed over to help.
He startled the owner. “No, no, no, you don’t need to! Just sit down, you sit over there!”
Ye Ye Dog was way too eager, like he hadn’t eaten in three days. “It’s okay! If we get everything set up faster, then we can eat faster!”
The stall owner was exasperated and amused, and dragged the kid back to where his “parent” was sitting, plopping a battered laminated menu in front of them.
“Here, see what you want. You can order anything. You’re a good kid for helping, so I’ll give you two five free skewers of grilled intestine.”
Ye Ye cheered.
From start to finish, Sang Zhao just watched and let out a deep sigh.
See? Ye Ye was full of initiative and got along so well with humans. So really, it should be Ye Ye going to work, and him going to school!
…Hold up.
Staring at the menu, it suddenly hit him. If he went to school, wouldn’t that mean he wouldn’t run into Corn Bean anymore?
Just thinking of Corn Bean, currently in Beijing trying to find corn sticky cake for him, made him stop and reconsider. At least at work he didn’t have to take tests, right? So working wasn’t that bad, actually.
Before they even ordered skewers, Sang Zhao ordered a drink. “I want cola.”
He was a problem drinker when it came to water. Back when he’d been a cat, just getting him to drink a little water was like trying to get him to drink poison. He never wanted to.
His last two owners had basically been forced to soak canned food in water and rehydrate freeze-dried treats just to trick him into drinking.
After he became human, life got a lot easier. He could skip water and only drink drinks. Nobody stopped him.
Especially since he could drink all kinds of milk tea, fruit tea, and dairy tea. Right now, Sang Zhao loved drinking stuff.
Ye Ye, on the other hand, pointed at the menu. “Since we’re eating outside anyway, what if you don’t get cola? How about soup?”
Sang Zhao thought it over. That was fair. He could try more things. Maybe if he ordered soup, it’d taste even better than cola.
So Ye Ye freestyled and ordered a rice lemon soup.
Then he ordered two bowls of cold noodles and a bunch of skewers. Only then did he feel satisfied.
The rice lemon soup came first.
Under Ye Ye’s hopeful gaze, Sang Zhao took a sip.
He smacked his lips a few times. His upper and lower lips moved like they were wrestling with each other. For a second there, it wasn’t clear if he was just chewing air or what.
Finally, he gave his verdict. “What a weird, abstract taste.”
How was he supposed to describe it? This was really a huge test of his ability, as a little cat, to organize human language.
He thought about it and did his best.
“It’s like a tank buying a size-36 pair of shoes. Or like giving a lobster a set of college entrance exam prediction booklets. It’s just really abstract.”
Ye Ye yelped. “Ahh, what a creepy way to put it!”
He tried a sip too and pulled a long face, suddenly at a loss for words.
“At least it cools you down.” Ye Ye spoke up in the soup’s defense.
The stall specialized in Inner Mongolia-style barbecue and had been operating for years. Among local foodies in the area, it was pretty famous.
Inner Mongolia barbecue was all about big skewers and lots of meat, especially lamb. All the lamb here was fresh meat from out of town, and when it hit the grill it sizzled with fat.
There was none of that gamey lamb flavor at all. It tasted like the whole lamb village was having a party on your tongue.
When the fresh skewers came out, Sang Zhao grabbed one and cautiously took a bite. He’d only eaten half a skewer when he fell silent.
The way he looked at the skewers had totally changed.
Wow… wow. Was it really this good? It was actually this good!
The charcoal locked the fat into the meat, so every bite made juice burst in your mouth. For that moment, the flavor was so strong it fuzzed up your brain.
When he chewed it carefully, there was a sweetness mixed with the savory meat. The outside had a slightly charred edge, and the inside was tender. The more he chewed, the better it tasted.
Taking a deep breath, Sang Zhao decided he liked being human even more now.
Being human was amazing. You could eat food this good. The little cat couldn’t take the college entrance exam, but he could think, and he could eat barbecue.
He polished off one skewer in a flash and was reaching for the next when he noticed Ye Ye was still sitting on his little stool, totally not starting.
Puzzled, he asked, “What’s wrong? What are you thinking about?”
As soon as he asked, Ye Ye looked over in a daze and glanced around, gulping.
The little guy was all curled up on the tiny stool, staring at the skewers and asking, all worked up, “But… but no one’s holding my muzzle anymore. How am I supposed to eat?”
“…”
It looked like Sang Zhao wanted to say something, but in the end he shut his mouth.
The big brother who’d just finished grilling their skewers and brought them over happened to hear this and burst into a sharp laugh. “Hahahahaha, kid, you’re hilarious. You should be a comedian when you grow up, ha!”
The big guy thought he was joking. He wasn’t.
Sang Zhao knew that dog brain was missing the days when he’d show up here all fur and paws and they’d hold his muzzle and slide skewers into his mouth.
Well, since the dog clearly had this need, of course Sang Zhao was going to meet it.
He elegantly picked up a lamb skewer and grabbed Ye Ye’s cheeks, squishing his mouth into a fishy little pout.
Ye Ye stared at him in horror. With his mouth all pinched, his words came out mushy. “Wuu wuu, what are you doing?”
Holding the skewer sideways, Sang Zhao pushed it up against Ye Ye’s mouth. With his other hand he cupped the kid’s face and shoved his whole head upward along his cheeks.
He wasn’t faking the force either. He actually pushed hard enough that Ye Ye’s head went swoosh, his butt lifting right off the little stool.
With that shove, the skewer slid right into Ye Ye’s mouth. Even though his butt left the stool, his mouth was plenty busy chewing.
That was how Ye Ye started eating skewers.
He was being pushed and chomped at the same time, getting grease streaked from his mouth all over his cheeks where the skewer brushed past.
His face was a mess, and he still remembered to give a little dog review. “Mmm~~ so good!!”
After two skewers, Ye Ye refused to let Sang Zhao “help” him anymore.
Because his muzzle hurt from being scraped by the sticks. Ugh, what kind of skewers were these, they made your mouth hurt.
He started eating on his own, slower, his face even messier, but still very satisfied and happy.
They’d ordered a lot. Just for barbecue, there were lamb skewers, lamb cartilage, beef tendon, brisket, chicken wings, shrimp, fish balls, squid tentacles…
The two big bowls of cold noodles they’d ordered last came out, and they sat on the roadside slurping noodles kuku-kuku.
The weather was very muggy, but the cold noodles were icy and fresh. Even the half egg soaking in the broth was nicely chilled.
Both of them only ate the yolks and left the whites alone.
There was just one problem: the noodles were hard to bite through.
They threw their heads back, jabbed their chopsticks into the bowl, pulled the noodles up and back, and got in a tug-of-war with their food.
Even at the best of times, Sang Zhao wasn’t much good with chopsticks. Now he was failing even harder and got so mad he started taking it personally with the noodles.
If he couldn’t bite through them, he’d just bite harder. A cat and a dog’s bite strength was no joke.
It was only because they were pretending to be human that they weren’t biting through the bowls too.
As they ate, the sky darkened and more people came to sit nearby. The grill skewers on the owner’s side were spitting sparks.
Watching Ye Ye pinch his own cheeks and hold his own “muzzle” so he could slide the skewers in himself, Sang Zhao had the sudden urge to go over and push his head again, to “help.”
But Ye Ye turned him down.
In the middle of all that noise and chatter, the two little yaoguai chatted in low voices.
“Thanks, Cat, but I’m not some cotton-candy puppy that needs looking after,” Ye Ye said grandly, lifting his little hand and downing some rice lemon soup. He looked a bit like he was drunk.
He gave a low shout. “Hey! When I was pulling sleds on the Siberian plains, it was all vodka flowing in my veins. Even when I ended up as a stray dog in Jiangyuan, I never lost heart!”
Nibbling on a chicken wing and sucking the bone clean, Sang Zhao fell deep into thought.
No way, right? He’d originally assumed that whole “growing potatoes in Siberia” thing Ye Ye had mentioned before was just talk. Could he really have come from Siberia?
Suddenly very curious about his past, he said, “But humans all say Ye Ye is big and dumb. They say a stray like you couldn’t possibly survive.”
Ye Ye puffed his cheeks out proudly.
“I’m not some cotton candy for the cold wind to push around. I’m a cold-blooded wild dog from Siberia!”
“What Siberia?” Sang Zhao couldn’t help it and pressed him. “Like real Siberia?”
Ye Ye nodded hard, absolutely full of inexplicable confidence about where he came from. He pointed off into the distance. “Over there. Siberia to the west. Ye Ye came from that direction.”
Honestly, even Sang Zhao couldn’t tell east from west, so he wasn’t sure if that direction really was Siberia. But his phone had a compass app, so he took it out and checked. “That’s north.”
Also, to get from Russia across the border and all the way down to Jiangyuan near Shanghai… What kind of Samoyed was this? Even a Siberian tiger didn’t migrate like that.
Ye Ye told him about what had happened to him before.
After filtering the story a bit, taking some of the water out, Sang Zhao felt like he’d pieced together the core version.
From the way he told it, Ye Ye had probably really pulled sleds on a frozen lake somewhere north of Jiangyuan, where it was colder.
Then the shady workshop shut down, and he moved south bit by bit until he arrived in Jiangyuan.
He’d wandered around for quite some time. In the end, just like Sang Zhao, he’d suddenly built up enough cultivation to take human form and started pretending to be a child.
Listening to all this, Sang Zhao felt like Ye Ye’s past really was a lot rougher than his own two lifetimes as a pet cat.
When he’d been a dog, he’d worked pulling sleds. Later when he became a stray, he survived thanks to his dog buddies on the road looking out for him. Otherwise, how was a fluffy, white, can’t-fight Samoyed supposed to cope?
After he finished listening, remembering how Ye Ye was always acting like “there are no bad people in the world,” he asked, “You went through all that and met so many bad humans. How can you still like humans this much?”
Ye Ye didn’t get it.
He slurped some cold noodles, thought back carefully, and said, “But when I was pulling sleds they always praised me for being strong, and they spent extra money to feed me… How would that be bad?”
Lowering his eyes a little, Sang Zhao wanted to laugh at how dumb the little dog was.
And at the same time, he dumbly thought that there really were quite a lot of kind humans.
So that was the little dog’s thought process. That was the kind of thing he had on his mind every day.
The little dog wasn’t going to waste time being sad or overthinking. He was too busy liking every human friend he met. He barely had enough time for that as it was.
Sad feelings just slipped and skated right off the smooth, wrinkle-free surface of his dog-brain. He really didn’t care. All he wanted to do was happily eat, drink, and bum affection off humans everywhere.
Curious, Sang Zhao asked, “Then how many years did you pull sleds?”
“A year and a half. Then the company went out of business,” Ye Ye answered honestly.
Sang Zhao nearly burst out laughing. This kid actually called that shady workshop a company. Wait, hold on…
“You’re saying you’d been pulling sleds the whole time, from when you first became aware of things, you were already pulling?”
Ye Ye slurped a mouthful of cold noodles and nodded.
“…??”
Then that meant he was only a year and a half old total.
What the cat and dog. Help. All this time, Sang Zhao had only thought Ye Ye was underage. He hadn’t realized the dog was literally a year and a half.
He immediately sounded the alarm at full volume. “Boss, cancel that case of beer!”
Ye Ye yelped, “Huh? Why, I want to drink!!”
“You’re not drinking! You can’t drink!!”
Fine, no drinking then… Ye Ye puffed up his cheeks and buried himself in his meat.
He munched on grilled bread, carefully licking the honey and sugar off the top.
“We’re so lucky. We’re the happiest kids in the whole world,” he said.
With a little snort, feeling pretty good, Sang Zhao corrected him. “I’m not a kid. I’m an adult.”
Honestly though, kids who weren’t really kids and adults who weren’t really adults. He was a cat with a good dog friend, and Ye Ye was a dog with a good cat friend.
After dinner, the two of them wandered back home.
Within a couple of days, Tang Yu, thankfully, still made it back from Beijing before his birthday.
He really had gone and found corn sticky cake in Beijing.
It was in the souvenir pastry box, mixed in with plum blossom cakes and water-chestnut cakes and everything else, stuffed in a big bag and all given to Sang Zhao.
Tang Yu called Sang Zhao into the president’s office and looked at him carefully and seriously, like he hadn’t seen him in ages and wanted to make this look count.
Softly, he said, “Open it up?”
Sang Zhao wasn’t hungry, but Corn Bean was back. That put him in a very good mood. Even if he wasn’t hungry right now, he felt like eating more was fine.
He hugged the pastry box, but didn’t open it right away. He hesitated and asked Tang Yu, “I want to take pictures.”
He wanted to take a photo of the box first and then eat.
Tang Yu smiled and stepped back, clearing space in the frame so he wouldn’t block the shot.
After snapping his own photo, Sang Zhao still didn’t let go of the box. Tang Yu had a flash of insight and understood the hint instantly. He picked up his phone and offered to take pictures of Sang Zhao.
“Look here,” Tang Yu called softly. “Little Sang Zhao.”
Once the pictures were taken, Sang Zhao happily opened the box. The pastries inside were piled up in two layers, and he spotted a yellow piece.
He picked it up and held it by his nose, sniffing.
Yep, it definitely smelled like corn. He had no idea what it would taste like though.
He took a slow bite and started chewing. Tang Yu watched him patiently.
Thirty seconds later, he was still chewing. Two minutes later, he was still chewing.
The corn sticky cake was made from corn flour and glutinous rice flour. It was really chewy. The sweetness and freshness of the corn was drawn out to the fullest. It was sticky and actually quite tasty.
But once it went in his mouth, it was like he’d launched into some endless battle. Dry chewing didn’t get him anywhere.
For a cat with such a powerful bite, to be forced to surrender by corn sticky cake was really something.
What was this! Growing anxious, Sang Zhao wondered why he still hadn’t finished chewing. He needed to talk to Tang Yu.
When you were eating Corn Bean’s gift, you couldn’t just chew and chew. He had to say something. He had to say thank you to Corn Bean.
He chewed with great difficulty, swallowed with great difficulty. Once he finally had a little space in his mouth, he hurried to speak.
“Stupid mouth, chew faster!” he scolded himself fiercely.
Bowing his head slightly, fingers resting on the bridge of his nose to cover his expression, Tang Yu laughed in secret, relaxed and pleased, shaking off all the fatigue from his business trip.
When Sang Zhao finally managed to swallow, he immediately complained to Tang Yu. “It beat me up inside my mouth!”
It had almost choked the little cat.
“Take it home and eat it slowly,” Tang Yu soothed. “You’re the one who wanted corn sticky cake. What, do you not like corn anymore?”
That wasn’t it.
Corn was sweet and fragrant and crisp and fresh, with a good temper. Corn was a kind, gentle corn.
But now that he finally saw Tang Yu again, there was something else he wanted to say.
Sang Zhao organized his human language and started on the thing he’d been wanting to bring up.
“Gege, I wanted to ask… I mean, I’ve been taking advantage of you, so…”
Tang Yu froze.
He slowly turned his head and gave him a searching look. “When did you ever take advantage of me?”
Had he? When?
Tang Yu tried hard to think back and realized he didn’t remember anything at all.
Had there been some moment he didn’t pay attention and pure hearted Sang Zhao misunderstood? When? If it was a misunderstanding, he’d rather keep misunderstanding forever. No one was allowed to clear it up.
Sang Zhao had no idea why Tang Yu’s gaze had suddenly gone so dark.
Letting out a little “ah,” he started explaining. “I mean asking you to be our driver and using your car to go to the water summer camp. And using your foreign-language skills to sign the kid up. Otherwise he wouldn’t have qualified, and he couldn’t have had that much fun…”
He listed things out one by one. The more he listed, the longer the list got. Thinking it through like this, he realized he really had taken a lot of advantage of Tang Yu.
“See? All of that’s taking advantage of you,” he concluded.
He noticed that Tang Yu seemed like he wanted to say something, but his expression was complicated. His Adam’s apple moved a couple of times, his lips pressed together, and in the end he didn’t say a word.
“So,” Sang Zhao said decisively.
“Gege helped me, so I need to thank you.” His eyes shone as he fixed his gaze on Tang Yu. His voice bubbled up like a rainbow-colored soap bubble, full of sincerity as he tried his best to invite him. “Do you want to come over and hang out at my place?”
Seeing Tang Yu stuck there for a moment, Sang Zhao scooted over and sat closer on the couch. Then closer again.
He lifted his hand and touched Tang Yu’s arm, poking it.
Afraid Tang Yu would say no, he added very properly, “Do you want to come over and take a look? My family’s cat can do backflips.”
“Cartwheel backflips in a chain,” he said proudly.
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What cat? You?
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