058: Trick Him into a Kiss
No matter how you looked at it, Tang Yu’s human heart was much deeper and sturdier than a little cat’s.
There was no way he was going to do Xia Moye’s homework for him.
Of course he really liked Xia Moye. But it was exactly because he liked him that he wouldn’t help him with his homework.
Human “liking” was different from a little cat’s “liking.”
A cat’s “liking” was childish and pure, like sharing some tasty food and feeling that was the grandest, grandest love in the world.
Human “liking” came with responsibility, with wanting to think about your future for you, with the kind of mindset that would happily plan out your retirement too.
Like before, Tang Yu had wanted to train Sang Zhao to do meeting reception work, to have him do admin and climb the management track. In a couple of years, he could have become a department head, section manager, or director.
And Sang Zhao’s answers had fully exposed how quick-witted he was and how clever in his own way.
It was just that when it came to social dealings, he had this bizarre dullness to him, yet somehow everything he said still sounded logical. It really left people torn between laughing and crying.
Not enough fruit platters for everyone at the meeting? Then Sang Zhao would eat all of them.
If there was nothing to divide up, then they wouldn’t be “not enough.”
One bottle less of water for the leader than for everyone else? Then drink it all.
If the leader never got any water, he wouldn’t feel neglected and wouldn’t try to make their lives harder afterward.
Tang Yu had realized that Sang Zhao could not be put in charge of meeting reception and that he would never be his admin manager. But he still hadn’t given up on the idea of getting him to study more things.
Right now was the perfect opportunity.
He was going to give the little elementary schooler a proper “study lecture,” and he wanted Sang Zhao to watch.
In Tang Yu’s eyes, kids dragging their feet and clinging to the adults around them to make up their homework at the last second was absolutely unacceptable.
What else was an elementary school kid supposed to do aside from studying? Elementary schoolers should be learning at top speed.
Tang Yu had already mapped out a plan for Xia Moye.
“I’ve looked it over for you. We get up at eight, start studying at nine, keep going until eleven-thirty, then have lunch. You’re still young, so you nap at noon.”
“In the afternoon you study from two to five, have dinner, go out to walk and play a bit, then from seven to nine you work again, and then sleep.”
Such a packed schedule.
And in that packed schedule, Tang Yu even tried to encourage him.
“If you focus and write faster, you can finish. Come on, you can do it.”
Ye Ye swallowed hard.
But he really, really didn’t want to “do it.”
What did a little dog need so much hard work for? Little dogs didn’t have that many aspirational, positive goals.
Being third from the bottom in his class already seemed pretty good to Ye Ye.
What more “drive” was he supposed to have…?
Was he not planning to be a little student dog and instead aiming to be a little entrepreneur dog in future?
He wasn’t.
He just wanted to eat nice things and play nice things.
But Tang Yu had already made up his mind.
He watched not only Xia Moye but also kept an eye on Sang Zhao, making sure he didn’t help with the homework.
“But… he really does look so pitiful,” Sang Zhao argued.
He’d never gone to school before, so he didn’t know the true destructive power of homework.
Right now he only thought that any little yaoguai forced to do homework was really pitiful.
Even when he had to go to work, he’d never pulled such a “marching to his doom” face as the one on the little Samoyed right now.
Tang Yu stood beside Xia Moye, arms folded, looking down from above as he watched him frantically make up his work.
He actually had no experience at all with last-minute homework.
From elementary school to high school, for every single vacation, the second the break started, he’d begin on his homework at home under his parents’ supervision.
By the time school was about to start again, not only would he have finished all the assignments, he’d already pre-studied the next term’s content several times over.
His childhood had never been even remotely as carefree as Xia Moye’s.
He had literally never seen a family like this, one that only cared that their child was happy and free, and didn’t seem to expect anything else.
With nothing to do, and feeling guilty as a little cat, Sang Zhao no longer envied Ye Ye for getting to go to school.
After working pretty hard to bargain for it, he managed to snatch the job of making the sundial craft project.
According to Tang Yu, that kind of assignment was just a formality anyway.
Rather than saying it was homework for the students, it was more like homework for the parents plus any young people in the parents’ offices.
While he was sitting there with little scissors in hand, head bent as he snipped and snipped paper, he heard Tang Yu walk over to him.
His tone was light and casual, deliberately avoiding Ye Ye as he asked, in a soft voice,
“So he’s been living here with you these past few days?”
Spoken like that, Corn Bean’s words suddenly became quite interesting.
It sounded light, as if there were no deeper meaning at all, but Sang Zhao’s body went still.
He kept holding the scissors and glanced up.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
What was there not to admit? Of course he had to admit it.
What else was he supposed to say?
Say that a third-grade elementary schooler was already living alone, happily independent, in the apartment downstairs from his uncle? That would be outrageous. Completely unheard of.
Tang Yu nodded and said nothing more.
Right now, Sang Zhao was sitting on a stool and Tang Yu was standing very close by.
A thought flickered through his little orange head; he dragged his stool along the floor, screeching it slowly until he scooted right up next to Tang Yu, practically close enough to lean on him.
“Your little grade-schooler sleeps with me and you’re still not happy?”
He peeked at Tang Yu’s expression, extremely pleased with what he saw.
“I thought you really liked your little Ye.”
“Looks more like I’m still your favorite.”
He let his shoulders drop, chest slightly puffed out, looking very proud of himself.
Tang Yu muttered the exact opposite of what he felt.
“I’m not jealous. I’m really not,” he said.
“What would I even be jealous of with a little kid?”
He sounded convincing enough, but it didn’t matter what he said when his actions were already out there for all to see.
“Is that so,” Sang Zhao said, each word slow and firm.
It sounded like a question, but there wasn’t a shred of doubt in his tone.
Tang Yu was jealous, but only in a light, irrational way.
That actually wasn’t what he was most worried about.
“I’m just worried he’s so young, he won’t sleep still and might kick you,” he said, real concern tightening his brows and eyes.
The second Sang Zhao heard that, he understood.
Of course he did.
Was there anyone in the world who understood Corn Bean better than this little orange tabby? Probably not.
He immediately burst out laughing.
Casting Tang Yu a glance, he said,
“Right, he’s still young.”
“Not like you, gege. You’re a bit older than me and knows how to take care of me.”
“If you sleep with me, you won’t kick me.”
“So gege wants to sleep with me and make him sleep on the floor. That’s what you mean, right?”
Little dog ears were very sharp.
And besides, when Sang Zhao and Tang Yu talked, they didn’t hide anything from the kid.
Ye Ye heard every single word.
Staring at his English homework, gnawing on his pencil, he asked sincerely,
“Can’t I sleep in the middle?”
“How come only the floor’s left for me?”
Tang Yu realized he’d heard and panicked a little.
He always felt weirdly embarrassed about letting a kid know about their relationship.
By normal standards, they were supposed to hide it from him.
But even Tang Yu had no idea when exactly Xia Moye had found out.
By the time he realized, the kid was already clinging to him more than usual.
He wouldn’t make a kid sleep on the floor, but he wouldn’t let him sleep between them either.
So he told Ye Ye to keep working and moved to help Sang Zhao press down the paper edges, lowering his voice.
“Talking about us like that in front of a child… is that really okay?” he asked.
When he knew he was in the wrong, Sang Zhao always sounded perfectly righteous.
Right now, when he was sure he was in the right, he sounded even more so.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked. “I don’t get it.”
That straightforward honesty made Tang Yu look into his clear eyes, and the last of his objections faded away.
He chuckled and thought, sure, what’s wrong with being in love?
There’s nothing wrong with liking someone, and nothing wrong with not hiding it.
Summer was almost over.
Autumn was on its way in with the start of the new school term.
Time didn’t wait for anyone.
If you didn’t fall in love now, then when?
Better hurry up and make good use of the time you had.
That was what Tang Yu thought, and he even murmured it under his breath.
“Gotta hurry up and make good use of our time…”
Ye Ye’s mind was nowhere near his English homework.
He’d been listening to them the whole time, so the second Tang Yu spoke, this little grade-schooler, who should have been working hard on assignments, picked the sentence right up.
“Make good use of the time to do what?”
Tang Yu fished out his phone and checked the time.
“Make good use of the time to do homework,” he said.
Tang Yu wanted Ye Ye doing homework, but Ye Ye only wanted to get it over with as fast as possible and then go play.
He had the most typical little dog mindset: Summer vacation was great, but way too short.
If there were only homework-free, endless summers, that would be perfect.
He sighed, then flopped onto the dining table and went back to scratching away at his English.
“My English’s no good,” he said, stopping again for one last attempt. “Can I not do my English homework?”
Tang Yu was stunned.
“What kind of logic is that?
“If you’re bad at it, that’s exactly why you have to do it,” he said.
He’d heard of kids with perfect English arguing for skipping their English homework, but this was the first time he’d seen a kid with bad English trying to skip it.
Ye Ye saw that Tang Yu wouldn’t budge and started thinking little Ye thoughts.
“Hmm… but, I love you!”
For a split second, Tang Yu’s heart softened.
But he didn’t show it on his face; he still acted like autumn wind sweeping leaves, cold and ruthless.
“Acting cute doesn’t work on me,” he said. “I’m very strict.”
The second Sang Zhao heard that, he didn’t buy it even a little.
He joined in, throwing his head back and lifting his chin, full of spirit.
Even his little orange hair looked puffed out with confidence.
“Gege, I love you!”
Tang Yu tried to look stern and covered his mouth with his hand, not letting even a hint of a smile slip out.
But covering his mouth didn’t help much.
The smile still flowed out from the corners of his eyes and swayed on his long, curled lashes.
In the bright daylight, with summer not quite over, love shimmered all around them.
Tang Yu scolded Ye Ye to hurry and write, but he didn’t scold Sang Zhao to hurry and finish the sundial.
He spent a whole day watching the Samoyed do homework, and by the end of that day, Ye Ye had knocked out a huge chunk of the backlog.
And that wasn’t all.
He made Ye Ye, from then on, send him photos of his finished pages every day on WeChat.
He was absolutely determined not to let this kid get away with roping in whatever adult was nearby to finish his homework.
Once everything was done, Tang Yu suddenly felt something was off.
“Will his parents think I’m meddling too much?” he said belatedly.
Adults cared a lot about boundaries.
Thinking back, he felt like he’d overstepped a little.
They wouldn’t.
Little dogs didn’t have a concept like “boundaries.”
His online parents’ chat group couldn’t even manage him, and he’d almost dragged them in to help fill in his workbooks instead.
That was what Sang Zhao thought.
Out loud, he said something else.
“No way.”
“You’re my boyfriend, so if you take care of him, they should be grateful,” he said.
“Come on, come say thank you properly.”
He waved at Xia Moye, who was slumped there in a daze like his soul had wandered off for a while.
Ye Ye jolted upright.
His heart hurt. It hurt so much he was starting to like Corn Bean a lot less and be a little afraid of him now.
But he was a good dog.
He understood the feeling behind what Tang Yu was doing.
“Thank you,” Ye Ye said, going over to give Tang Yu a hug.
–
After going to Xia Moye’s birthday party, Tang Yu hadn’t just gone home and done nothing.
He’d kept his suspicions to himself, but everything had been carefully filed away in his heart.
When he got back to the company, he headed straight for HR to look at the personnel records.
Mainly, he wanted to read the files for Sang Zhao, An Tihu, and Bei Jixiong.
He’d never checked them before because he hadn’t seen the need.
Running a startup kept him busy; as a CEO he didn’t have to manage everything down to the tiniest detail.
Why waste time reading files for people who weren’t even middle management?
But once he did look now, Tang Yu realized there was something he’d been overlooking all this time.
All three of them had been placed through an official “cooperation” channel.
In other words, they were all “connection hires.”
Staring at the scanned files on the monitor, Tang Yu slowly leaned back in his chair, inching his body away from the screen.
Something was wrong.
Things were starting to feel seriously off.
Yes, his company did have that channel.
Back when he’d joined that charity shelter employment program, he had genuinely wanted to do good, raise the company’s profile, and exchange it for some official resources.
He’d just figured they’d send over a few people with difficulty finding work.
How bad could it be?
But the ones who’d ended up joining his company were either eating raw meat in the elevator, walking on their hands with their feet holding umbrellas, or silly enough to get tricked by him into being his boyfriend.
If they were all sent over by “official channels,” then…
Tang Yu whispered,
“What kind of relationship am I even in?”
The unknown fog in front of him made him a little afraid, even though he’d only lifted the corner of it so far.
Right then, an image rose in his mind of Sang Zhao’s brilliant smile and the mischievous look in his eyes when he’d said “Gege, I love you.”
What even were they…
Some animal-named, special-operations organization? Corporate spies? Secret agents?
No, that didn’t sound right either.
It didn’t seem like any of that was something Sang Zhao could pull off.
Wait. Could he really not?
Wasn’t he currently “in a relationship” with the boss?
Tang Yu held his forehead and laughed.
If this was some kind of long-term undercover assignment, then how was it not a success? He’d gone straight for the CEO.
Forget it. No point overthinking it.
He’d just keep dating him.
For the sake of this boy, the always-timid Tang Yu had found a lot of courage.
He thought that no matter how weird things got from here on out, he wouldn’t panic.
Because his boyfriend wasn’t that normal either.
He was weird too.
But the following Tuesday at lunchtime, while he was working overtime to review a tender announcement and felt the whole floor shake, he did panic.
He leaped to his feet.
What was that? An earthquake?
Stepping out of the CEO office, he saw Sang Zhao at his desk in the secretary area, hair sticking up as he stared blearily back at him.
Clearly he’d been napping and had just been jolted awake.
“Someone setting off firecrackers?” Sang Zhao asked.
Tang Yu looked around and judged that it wasn’t an earthquake.
Which made it even stranger. If it wasn’t an earthquake, then what was shaking the building?
Still yawning, Sang Zhao followed the sound.
After a few steps, he realized the noise was coming from the same storage room where he and An Tihu had previously had that “heart-to-heart.”
Aside from storing stuff, nobody usually went in there.
But some coworkers really couldn’t nap at their desks and liked to drag a folding cot into the empty storage room where no one would bother them.
He opened the door, and sure enough, it was the same case today.
But this time, the person inside surprised Sang Zhao a little.
He didn’t know her, but Tang Yu did.
It was the new sales hire, Bei Jixiong.
She’d set up a cot in the storage room and fallen asleep there, and now she was on the floor.
The cot had collapsed.
Canvas, steel bars, everything had gone flying all over the place.
Xiao Bei stood on the ground, hands on her hips, looking half disbelief and half guilty.
Looking around, Sang Zhao saw that the stacked cardboard boxes nearby were all dented at their edges and corners, clearly pushed out of shape.
And the deformation was centered on where Xiao Bei had been, with the bed as a pivot point, radiating outward in a rough arc.
Tang Yu said deliberately, “Bei Jixiong, you didn’t get hurt, did you?”
He didn’t read “Jiong” as qióng like the vice president did.
He pronounced it flat and even like xióng.
Northern Polar Bear.
Sang Zhao: ??
Wait, what was her name?
What was that supposed to be?
How could someone have an even more half-assed name than “Xia Moye”?
If you didn’t know how to name people, couldn’t you go ask Border Collie Teacher for advice and get him to give everyone names that sounded like actual humans?
Xiao Bei said, “I’m fine. I’m totally fine. It’s just that the new bed I bought broke.
“First time I slept on it and it collapsed.”
Sang Zhao knew a broken cot absolutely counted as an “abnormal situation.”
If something like that happened because someone was faking being human, how could they act so unconcerned?
He rushed to cover for her.
“Must be the bed’s quality,” he said.
Tang Yu heard that and wasn’t nearly as easy to fool as before.
He couldn’t be brushed off that easily now.
He bent down, picked up a piece of scrap frame, and read the big laser-etched letters on it.
“Supports up to one hundred kilos,” he said.
Then he looked at the slim girl and his expression was pure disbelief.
Covering his face, Sang Zhao frantically searched his mind for words.
Tang Yu, on the other hand, piled it on by saying to Xiao Bei, “Buy yourself another bed. Get the kind they use for bears.”
Sang Zhao’s eyes bulged.
What bear? Why were they talking about bears now?
Had his Corn Bean turned into a cornstalk, brushing every landmine he walked past, setting them all off in a chain?
Why were there explosive points everywhere, yaoguai identities bursting at the seams all around?
Bear, seriously, what did he mean by that? Explain yourself!
Except Xiao Bei didn’t react at all.
She was a polar bear, not a “dog bear,” so “dog bear” didn’t even register to her as a bear, only as a dog.
After all, polar bears were the largest land predators in the world.
Ordinary “dog bears” didn’t even enter her field of vision.
She even laughed.
“Huh? Who, me?”
Sang Zhao: …If not you, then who?!
Once they’d confirmed who had just set off their “lunch-time explosion,” there was no reason for Tang Yu and Sang Zhao to stick around in the storage room.
Back at his desk, Sang Zhao should have gone back to sleep, but now, of course, he couldn’t.
All he could think about was that polar bear.
He was still wondering where that polar bear had come from when, that afternoon, something happened over at the big-mouthed pelican’s department too.
An Tihu had been back from vacation for a while.
After she’d returned to work, she’d wanted to prove herself and get rid of the psychological shadow she’d left on Tang Yu.
To lower her “human disguise” error rate, she went over to report her work to him.
Once she’d finished with business, she finally broached the topic she’d been worrying over.
“President Tang, about that last psychological assessment… my mental state really wasn’t great at the time.”
“Do you think I should redo the test now?”
Tang Yu refused outright.
“There’s no need,” he said.
He already knew things were strange.
He just didn’t know exactly how strange yet.
He wasn’t worried anymore that An Tihu might hurt someone.
Compared to the whole “pelican” name thing, mental health was the least of his concerns.
An Tihu: No need?
If there was no need, then why had he looked so concerned about it before?
She walked off feeling very confused.
After she left, Tang Yu sat alone in his office and suddenly thought of an idea.
He called in Sang Zhao and half-truth, half-lie said, “An Tihu just came by to talk about her psych eval.”
Right away, Sang Zhao’s expression went taut, his gaze fixed on Tang Yu.
Watching him closely, Tang Yu quietly tried to spook him.
“She seems like her aggression is ramping up again.”
Sang Zhao’s heart was exhausted.
He’d only just finished covering for the polar bear, and now there was trouble on An Tihu’s side too.
He was just a little cat, with four paws and one soft belly.
How many leaks was he supposed to patch? Were they trying to work him to death?
Even so, he still scrambled to redirect Tang Yu’s attention.
“Ah, let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about something else.”
Tang Yu looked at him with a smile that was not quite a smile.
“Like what?” he asked.
Yeah. Like what?
Thinking desperately, Sang Zhao started babbling.
“Let’s talk about math? English? Spain?”
“When you were reading Spanish before, you were really handsome,” he said, and that part was absolutely sincere.
But then the nonsense came flooding back.
“I really love top students,” he declared.
“My, what do you call it, my ideal type is top students.”
Even someone who liked him as much as Tang Yu couldn’t believe that line, never mind anyone else.
He nodded anyway, putting on a thoughtful look as he rubbed his temples and performed the act of “pondering.”
It was like he’d just caught a clue.
And right in front of Sang Zhao’s horrified eyes, he murmured,
“Do you think there might be something off with the way they named An Tihu…”
Unfortunately, he didn’t get to finish the sentence.
There was no way Sang Zhao was going to let him finish.
No way he was letting those words come out.
No way was he going to let his brain keep going down that path.
For the sake of the yaoguai “blending into human society” project, he had to give everything he had as a little orange cat.
Bracing both hands on the desk, he leaned down and bit Tang Yu on the lips.
He caught him and started kissing, mumbling between kisses,
“Don’t say it.”
And Tang Yu really didn’t say it.
Breathless, he tilted his head back and yielded to Sang Zhao’s messy, greedy kisses, giving up control of his next breath and letting him take the lead.
He sighed inwardly.
Ah, this boy really wasn’t that bright sometimes, always handing him new ways to bully him.
If he kept doing this, how was Tang Yu ever supposed to hold back?
Now that he had this new weakness, it was even easier to trick him. A tiny tease and he’d pounce for a kiss.
Really not that clever.
That was what Tang Yu thought.
But he smelled so good and tasted so sweet, this pretty boy with the orange hair launching himself at him like the sun falling into his arms.
No overworked office worker could resist such bright, warm love.
Even if there was some coaxing and trickery involved, it was still addictive.
And all he wanted to do was revel in it.
0 Comments