042: Humans Are in Heat Everywhere
Was it really like that? Was that really how Tang Yu saw it?
Sang Zhao hesitated. He wanted to believe it, but he also kind of didn’t. In the end he still asked Xia Moye again, uncertain.
“So what you’re saying is, he came to my place, I threw him a birthday party, I gave him my fur felt toy, he ate cake and fried chicken, he gave me a little table lamp as a housewarming present, and then he kissed me, because he wants to be my mom?”
“Is that it?” He looked at Xia Moye with wavering eyes, his whole mental state starting to float away.
So that was what Tang Yu thought of him?
While he was taking Tang Yu as his very best human friend, Tang Yu was secretly trying to be his mom?!
“That can’t be right,” Sang Zhao said, staring at Ye Ye the dog with disgust.
The truth was, Xia Moye didn’t understand either, but he was very good at making things up. He was the type who could start talking about uncles and in-laws out of nowhere. His analysis skills were so-so, but once he started talking nonsense, he had a lot to say.
The dog said, “No, of course it’s right. He’s such a gentle human. He must be, what was that word I saw before, hang on… oh yeah. Overflowing with maternal love. He’s overflowing with maternal love for you.”
Sang Zhao’s expression twisted.
What kind of Chinese was that even supposed to be? It physically hurt his ears.
“Men aren’t moms,” he said dryly.
Faced with Ye Ye’s unconvinced doggy face, he shook his head, thoughtful. “You don’t get it.”
He said firmly, “It was really light. It wasn’t the kind of ‘little kitty, I’m going to kiss you to death’ kiss. It was, it was light and soft, like a butterfly’s wings trembling.”
Eyes lowered, he thought about it, sitting in Ye Ye’s dog bed, picking at a loose thread in the yarn.
Then Ye Ye had a brainwave. “But good friends also do that sometimes, right? Just smack a little kiss on like you said.”
“No, no.”
Sang Zhao started waving his hands to explain. “You don’t get it. It was the kind that makes your heart feel itchy. It was really weird.”
Ye Ye muttered under his breath that he did not understand.
“Cat is making this really hard for Ye Ye,” he pouted. “If it’s not family love, not friendship, and you said it wasn’t love, then what is it, human pity?”
That line, though, was what caught the important part for Sang Zhao.
It was like clouds parting to show the sky. Everything suddenly felt much clearer.
He scratched at the dog bed, blurted out, “Wait. What love?”
“Before, when we said he was going to be my uncle and marry your mom, cat said it was wrong and wouldn’t let Ye Ye be the ring-bearer dog at your wedding,” Xia Moye said, still bitter about that.
“Oh, right,” Sang Zhao said, like something had just clicked.
He slowly stood up and looked around at nothing in particular. Warm blood ran through his heart. His nerves were buzzing in time with every beat.
Then he started mumbling to himself. “Is he… does he like me?”
Ye Ye let out a little “ah” and agreed, “He totally likes you. He said so, he said he likes cats.”
“No, no, not that,” Sang Zhao said quickly, shaking his head over and over.
“Not liking cats. Liking me.”
He paced in place twice and the more he thought about it, the more possible it sounded.
“Do you think maybe he’s trying to court me?” he said. “He’s human. Humans don’t just have kids, they have love. Boys can pair up with boys too.”
Xia Moye looked out the window and copied his earlier tone. “But it’s not spring now. It’s summer.”
Well, there was that.
Sang Zhao sank into confusion and tried really hard to think.
He wasn’t good at thinking to begin with. Forcing himself to think now made his head feel tight.
This was when all that time spent doom-scrolling on his phone finally paid off.
His mind was flexible now. He even knew how to use analogies.
He smacked his hands together. “Humans don’t go into heat in spring. Humans don’t have an estrus season, do you know what that means?”
“What?” Ye Ye frowned. He could not follow.
“I saw a video before. It said if you don’t build bathrooms, then everywhere becomes a bathroom. It’s the same logic.”
His eyes lit up. “Humans don’t have an estrus season, so every single day of the year is their estrus season.”
He got it now. Humans in heat everywhere. Humans in heat all the time.
“He probably saw that I’m strong and mighty, great at hunting, with bright fur and a sweet voice, so he wants me as his mate.”
Ye Ye still held onto his own theory.
Ever since the summer camp, he’d been convinced that Tang Yu was that kind of gentle man-mom who liked taking care of kids, the kind of man-mom who gave a white twist car to a little dog to play with.
So in his mind, the kiss had to be from overflowing maternal love.
“If he liked you like that, he would’ve kissed you on the mouth,” the little dog said, with the logic of someone who watched romance movies.
Ye Ye said, “Ye Ye’s seen romance movies. That kind of love is always kissing on the lips. He didn’t kiss you there, so how could he be courting you? It has to be maternal love.”
Every time he heard the words “maternal love,” Sang Zhao’s skin exploded in goosebumps.
He opened and closed his mouth, speechless.
Back when he was a pet, he’d had two owners. He had been a cat with a mom.
Plus, in his cat philosophy, there was no “only one mom” rule, so in theory he shouldn’t have been that bothered by someone giving him mom-type affection.
But he was. He really was.
He felt like he’d eaten spoiled canned food. His face looked pained and complicated.
Fine, he thought.
Maybe this really was how Tang Yu saw it.
After all, Corn Bean was that kind of softhearted staple food. Watching him take care of Ye Ye, you could tell he was really gentle.
They went back and forth without getting anywhere. Neither of them could convince the other.
In the end, feeling deflated, Sang Zhao went home.
He went upstairs, washed up, and went straight to bed.
Forget it. He’d stop thinking. He would just sleep.
He thought he’d at least get a good night’s rest.
Instead, halfway through the night, he suddenly shot up in bed.
His hair was a total bird’s nest.
Sitting there, hugging his head, he let out two muffled groans and gulped in a big breath of air. “No, but what does he even mean?”
“If he wants to court me and be mates he should just say so. What’s the point of having a mouth if he’s not going to use it. He could even meow twice, I’d understand that too.”
He really did not get humans at all.
Great, now the little cat couldn’t even sleep properly.
He’d planned to sleep through half of the weekend, but now that his head was full of this mess, he didn’t make it that far.
By ten-thirty, he got up.
He really couldn’t sleep.
He turned into a cat and into a person, rolled around on the bed, on the floor, on the table, and still couldn’t sleep. Every position in every spot failed.
Wasting a whole weekend without one glorious long nap was a tragedy.
He gave up and got up, pulled the curtains open, and looked outside.
Sunlight warmed his face.
He stretched, spine lengthening out, then checked his phone.
Nothing from Tang Yu.
Not a single message.
Rude.
Normally he’d at least send a good morning or a photo of breakfast, but now there was nothing at all.
Sang Zhao snorted.
He told himself he did not care.
Fine. Since he was not sleeping, he decided to go out and wander around.
Ever since he’d started pretending to be human, he had not really gone out to play by himself.
Going out alone now, being able to go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted, sounded pretty fun.
He grabbed his metro card, pocketed his phone, and headed out.
He didn’t even know where he was going.
But his metro card was issued by the Yao Bureau, so taking public transportation didn’t cost him any of the money he had earned.
So he just picked a random subway line.
Once he got off, he hopped on whatever bus happened to be stopped by the curb.
He wandered all over Jiangyuan City, just going wherever he felt like.
Eventually he went farther and farther out and ended up in an old part of town.
There were markets lining the roads.
He walked through the remains of the morning market, past a few scattered stalls, eyeing the tomatoes and cucumbers that hadn’t sold.
“Sticky cake, sticky cake, sweet and fragrant handmade sticky cake,” a recording blared.
He passed an old man’s griddle cart while the speaker looped the shouting over and over.
Curious, he moved closer. “Uncle, what kind of sticky cake?”
The old man tilted his head and gave him a look. “All kinds, all kinds. How many jin do you want?”
Scratching his head, Sang Zhao’s mouth watered.
He’d finished the corn sticky cake Tang Yu bought him that same day.
Even if Tang Yu hadn’t messaged him, he still wanted more corn sticky cake.
But he wasn’t stupid.
He double-checked, just in case. “I want corn sticky cake.”
“Yeah, sticky cake. Sticky cake,” the man said. “How many jin?”
How was he supposed to know how much a jin was or how to picture it.
He thought it over. It was just to satisfy a craving and pass the time.
It wasn’t like it was the corn sticky cake brought back all the way from Beijing.
He had no idea if this one would be any good.
He wouldn’t be able to eat that much, so he picked a small amount.
“One jin, Uncle. Thank you. Please put it in a bag,” he said.
The old man lifted a broad knife, flipped back the white cloth on top of the sticky cake, and got ready to cut.
Watching him, Sang Zhao hissed silently. Something was wrong with this corn sticky cake.
Why was it brown?
Corn sticky cake was corn sticky cake.
Shouldn’t it be that nice corn yellow like the ones Tang Yu brought back?
Then he reminded himself he had only been human for less than two months. He had not eaten many things and had seen very little of the world.
Maybe it was just a different recipe, like how KFC and McDonald’s were different but still sold similar stuff.
So he shoved his doubts aside and happily watched the cutting.
The old man swung the knife down, lifted up a big slab, and slapped it on the scale. He squinted at it and let out a cry.
“Ah, kid, I cut too much. Three and a half jin. Take it.”
Sang Zhao had only wanted one jin, but the cake was already cut and bagged up.
He thought, fine, he would just eat more.
He was actually cheerful about it. More food meant a happy cat.
“Do you have cash, kid?” the old man asked, clearly wanting cash.
As it happened, Sang Zhao had a hundred in cash.
He had gotten it reimbursed from the finance department and, copying humans, had tucked it between his phone and phone case as emergency money.
He normally paid with his phone, so he hadn’t touched it.
Now, since the old man was asking, he fish it out and handed it over.
The old man took it and stuffed it into the waist pouch at his belly. Only then did he name the price.
“Sixty-seven yuan four. Let’s not fuss over it, I’ll just charge you sixty-eight. Here, thirty-two back.”
He handed over a ripped twenty, a corner-missing ten, and two one-yuan notes that had been stained.
Holding the money and the huge bag of sticky cake, Sang Zhao peered at it through the clear plastic.
“Thanks, Uncle,” he said.
He watched the old man pedal off with the cart and even called after him, “Ride slowly, Uncle.”
Once the man disappeared from view, he stopped watching.
He found a bench by the roadside and sat down.
Looking at the street in the old neighborhood, at the green poplars and the grass, he hummed to himself as he opened the bag and took a bite of his corn sticky cake.
He chewed twice and froze.
His expression turned to pure disbelief. He hurriedly chewed twice more.
Staring down into the bag, he went blank, mouth and brain both.
…This was corn? This was corn sticky cake? Why did it taste like red dates?
If it had just been a red-date flavored cake, he could have eaten it.
He would have been confused, sure, but he’d still have chewed through it.
But this…
The moment he bit down, the flavor was awful.
It was a weird red-date taste, like rotten fruit licked by monkeys, stepped on twice, mixed with red dates and spit and a little hint of someone’s foot steamed together, all beating up his taste buds in his mouth.
Normally, he was not the kind of cat who wasted food.
If he ate, he liked to finish everything.
But this time, no matter how long he chewed, he didn’t have the courage to swallow.
Sticky cake in his mouth, he hurried to the trash can and spat it out.
He lifted his eyebrows, patted his face, squeezed the sticky cake in his hand, and had a moment of “Where am I, who am I.”
Was he imagining things?
How could anything taste this bad?
Human food was supposed to be delicious.
Since he started pretending to be human, he had never run into something this nasty.
Even that rice-and-lemon soup had its own strange kind of flavor.
Sure, it had been outrageous and totally bizarre, but it wasn’t this kind of horrible.
What was going on?
He rubbed his face and wondered if he had made a mistake.
He just could not accept it.
Solemnly, he looked at the chunk of “corn sticky cake” he had bought.
He opened his mouth again, took a serious bite, chewed once, and then stopped.
…There was no corn. Not even a hint of corn.
It didn’t even feel like sticky cake, no chewiness at all, just fluffy holes soaked with greasy weirdness.
He wanted corn sticky cake.
What on earth had he actually bought?
He had spent over sixty yuan on this.
Sixty-something, sixty-eight.
This wasn’t corn sticky cake. It absolutely wasn’t.
Did he just not know how to find real corn sticky cake?
Horrible thought.
What if corn sticky cake was never meant to be cake at all?
What if the only real corn sticky cake was a cat stuck to Corn Bean?
So there was no such thing as corn sticky cake in this world to begin with.
He sank into a philosophical crisis.
Now he had nothing to eat, and he didn’t want to eat anyway.
With his head cleared by the sheer awfulness, he realized something else was wrong.
He had paid sixty-seven yuan and four mao, but the uncle had only given him thirty-two back, while saying he’d charge him sixty-eight.
Staring at the calculator app on his phone, he tapped away for a while and finally figured it out.
The uncle had shorted him six mao.
He wasn’t desperate for that six mao so he could go buy a house or something, but still, why short him six mao?
The cake was expensive, it wasn’t corn flavored, it tasted like red dates, it was awful.
He had asked for one jin and got three and a half.
He had taken two bites and hadn’t swallowed either.
Every chew was a mental beatdown.
Six mao. Six mao.
He could chalk everything else up to a misunderstanding.
Maybe the uncle was old. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose.
But the missing six mao felt deliberate.
It felt like the uncle had chosen to treat him badly.
Hugging the red-date-spit-and-foot-flavor cake, he tucked himself into the bench and sat there in a slump, head drooping, mood rock bottom.
He’d eaten something disgusting, but what bothered him wasn’t the sixty-eight yuan.
He could accept that as just money gone on cake.
The six mao was different.
Six mao was the line between an honest mistake and something done on purpose.
Six mao was hard proof that he’d been cheated.
He didn’t want to be cheated, and he didn’t want to be treated badly on purpose.
Miserable and hurt, he instinctively wanted to run to a grown-up at home.
When something bad happened, he wanted a reliable human to back him up, someone mature who could listen when something awful went down.
Hugging the gross cake, he pulled out his phone and called Tang Yu.
The call was picked up instantly, but after it connected, Tang Yu didn’t say anything.
With his sharp ears, all Sang Zhao heard was the quick, shallow sound of Tang Yu’s breathing through the speaker.
He had not been this badly wronged since he started pretending to be human.
The hurt was so big he didn’t even know where to start.
He wanted to say he couldn’t do math.
He wanted to say the cake tasted terrible.
He wanted to say the old man had bullied him.
All of that got tangled up, but what mattered most to him was still that hideous six mao.
Sniffling, he finally said, “Can you give me six mao…”
“Yes,” Tang Yu answered at once.
“I can transfer it now. Six mao’s not enough, I’ll send more, send a lot,” he added.
Hearing that only made the hurt worse.
He sucked in a breath, then couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“I went to buy corn sticky cake and ended up paying six mao more than I should have. It’s not just six mao. That was my faith in and love for humanity,” he choked out. “And now it’s gone, wuwuwu…”
On the other end, Tang Yu was stunned.
He had never met anyone who could be this crushed over an amount that was measured in mao, especially not someone as cheerful and bubbly as Sang Zhao.
“Send me your location on WeChat,” Tang Yu said, not wasting a single word. “I’m driving over now. Don’t move from where you are.”
Sang Zhao didn’t have the energy to go anywhere anyway, so he obediently stayed on the bench.
Fifteen minutes later, Tang Yu arrived.
He parked by the curb and walked over.
He wasn’t empty-handed. He had a box in his hand.
He sat down beside Sang Zhao and didn’t ask what had happened or what the six mao thing was about.
He simply set the box gently on Sang Zhao’s knees and pulled the red-date-spit-foot cake out of his hands.
Then he opened the box in Sang Zhao’s lap and showed him what was inside.
“Look. Your corn sticky cake is right here,” Tang Yu said, his voice soft as feathers brushing over a heart.
Right now, he really did feel a bit like a mom.
“I bought two portions last time because I was afraid one wouldn’t be enough for you.
“This one has been kept in the fridge. It’s not as fresh as the one you already ate, but it definitely hasn’t gone bad. Try it first.”
Looking at the corn sticky cake on his knees, then up into Tang Yu’s bright eyes, Sang Zhao saw something like a still lake sleeping in his gaze.
He picked up a piece and stuffed it straight into his mouth.
With the clean fragrance of corn and the soft chewy texture in his mouth, he said nothing, just bent his head and ate.
Tang Yu smiled. “Is it good?”
“…Yeah,” Sang Zhao mumbled, choked up.
“Just eating this won’t fill you up. I’ll take you to lunch,” Tang Yu said.
“Okay,” Sang Zhao hummed.
He swallowed the sticky cake with effort, then told Tang Yu the whole story from start to finish.
He handed over the money the old man had given him as change so Tang Yu could see it.
Hearing it all, Tang Yu was, of course, mad at the old man for cheating him.
Angry as he was, though, what he felt even more strongly was heartache for Sang Zhao.
Why bully a kid who is just a little slow, he thought.
A kid who is a little slow and this kind to the world, is he just here to be pushed around by awful people like that?
What if this made him afraid of people from now on?
“You looked young and shy, so he took the chance to swap out your cash,” Tang Yu said gently.
“Swap cash,” he repeated.
Now that he looked closely, none of the notes in his hand were in good condition.
“I should’ve just said I didn’t have cash,” he muttered, regretful.
“If you hadn’t, he probably would’ve started playing the sympathy card, saying his QR code is under his son and daughter-in-law’s names and asking you to go change cash for him instead.”
How was he supposed to withstand an old man’s sob story.
He’d just end up going along with whatever he was told again.
“So how is this your fault,” Tang Yu said. “You got taken advantage of because you’re kind.
“And that kindness isn’t a flaw. It’s the most precious thing about you.”
He was still choosing his words carefully, trying to say as much as he could to smooth away any shadows this might leave.
But after listening for a bit, looking from the sticky cake to Tang Yu, lips pushed out, Sang Zhao stopped paying attention to the rest.
He could feel how good Tang Yu was to him.
So he looked up with a very firm gaze, as if he’d just made some huge decision.
“Okay,” he said.
Tang Yu’s heart clenched. “Okay what?”
Under his startled stare, Sang Zhao said, very slowly, “That.
“You kissed me yesterday, so I asked my friend what you meant, and he told me. I… anyway, if you really have to, then… okay.”
Tang Yu forgot how to breathe for a few seconds.
Alongside the surge of joy came endless bitterness.
Because how could he not hear the reluctance in that “okay.”
He knew how hard this was on Sang Zhao.
All the confusion, the tangled feelings, the anxiety, the pain.
All of that was his fault.
Same-sex love was, relatively speaking, a minority.
For a twenty-year-old, it was naturally hard to accept being liked that way by someone of the same gender.
Especially when he was five years older.
Strictly speaking, they weren’t even in the same age group.
He could not deny his own selfishness either.
Even if he heard the reluctance in that “okay,” his heart still pounded and clung to it.
No, he thought. He couldn’t let it go like this.
Just as he was about to try and comfort Sang Zhao and quietly take a step back, Sang Zhao spoke again.
Looking a little embarrassed, he said awkwardly, “If you really insist, then… fine.
“Mom.”
…
Tang Yu: “???”
“I don’t know what your tastes are,” Sang Zhao added earnestly, “but if you want to be my mom, I’ll agree.”
After all, Tang Yu really was a good person.
He was so good to him that he didn’t want to let him down.
A second ago he had been sitting nicely.
Now he jerked back so fast his hips bumped into the armrest and stopped there.
His mouth started firing like a machine gun. “No no no no no no no no no!”
Oh God.
How had this gotten so twisted.
He had only been bewitched by good looks and lost control for a second to kiss his forehead.
How had that turned into this.
Why would he want to be called mom. He was not some kind of pervert.
He did not have that kind of kink.
What kind of chaos had that friend pumped into his pure little brain.
What age-inappropriate content had he been filled with.
Tang Yu’s head shook like a rattle drum.
Eyes squeezed shut, his whole face said rejection. “Don’t call me that ever again. No way.”
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