064: Learning Makes Kitties Feel Wronged!
Of course, the wicked human did not actually eat the little cat.
But now that Tang Yu finally had a cat, all the things he’d never gotten to do to a cat before, he could do them all now.
It was like some seal inside him had been broken. He hugged Sang Zhao and kissed and nibbled, squeezed and snuggled and petted to his heart’s content.
For a moment, Sang Zhao felt like he had gone back to his days as a cat. But it still was not quite the same as before.
Now he was not just being a cat. Now he was being Tang Yu’s cat while also being a person and a boyfriend.
One little kitty, multiple identities and multiple jobs.
On Sunday night, he actually went back to his apartment. Tang Yu’s idea was that from now on, the little cat should just live at his place. He would have food and water there, and Tang Yu would get to pet his cat.
But Sang Zhao refused. There was no way for him to explain that he also had a dog downstairs, that he needed to go check on the Samoyed from time to time, make sure he was doing okay, and chat with him.
So all he could say to Tang Yu was that the cat grass at his place needed its water changed. And that a little cat needed his own independent space, that he could not live with his boyfriend full time.
At first, Tang Yu found that funny. “I’ve never seen a cat plant his own cat grass before. You are way too cute.”
“In the future we shouldn’t plant flowers in the yard,” he said, pointing at the front garden of his villa. “We should plant wheat sprouts in the whole thing and turn it all into cat grass for you.”
Once he finished laughing, he grew a little dejected again, looking at Sang Zhao with a mournful expression. “You really can’t live with me? I have lots of spare rooms here. You would still have your own separate space.”
Using the exact same line Tang Yu had once used to trick him into staying over, in almost the same tone, Sang Zhao said, “But those rooms have been empty too long and they’re dusty. Little cats do not want to live there.”
Hoisting a rock only to drop it on his own foot, Tang Yu finally understood this logic now.
He sighed, then pressed a loving kiss to the corner of Sang Zhao’s lips. Only after they had finished dinner on Sunday did he reluctantly drive him back to his apartment.
Back at his place, Sang Zhao wandered around twice, turned on the washing machine and told it to wash his clothes on its own.
Then he trotted downstairs to play with the Samoyed.
Although really, it was not mainly to play. He was not that kind of cat who only cared about having fun. The main thing was that he had things on his mind and needed to vent. The Samoyed knew every last detail of his and Tang Yu’s romance from beginning to end. If he did not talk to the Samoyed, who else could he tell?
Sitting in Ye Ye’s little house, curled up in Ye Ye’s dog bed, Sang Zhao took an elegant sip of the sour plum drink Ye Ye had poured for him.
Ye Ye was so excited. He even changed into dog form, pacing circles around the dog bed where Sang Zhao sat, tail whipping everywhere, his head constantly bumping against Sang Zhao.
“Say it, say it! Kitty, say it!” Ye Ye was totally ready for the story.
Back when Sang Zhao and Tang Yu had just met, he had already started following their “big sister and brother-in-law, uncle and aunt” love story. Was he some ordinary dog? No, he was a CP fan dog.
Now finally there had been a huge development, right?
Draining his sour plum drink in one go, Sang Zhao went through everything from start to finish for the Samoyed.
“In short…” he concluded, “he really is a very brave human, isn’t he?”
“Not every human can stay calm after seeing someone suddenly turn into a living, transforming cat.” Sang Zhao heaped praise on Tang Yu in every way he could think of.
Tang Yu had accepted all of him. In a cat’s eyes, that was something incredible.
For this cat, he had gone from being a gay man to being in a human–beast relationship. That was not a small step. Why would Yumi Dou do that? Obviously because of the cat, all because he liked the cat too much.
Ah. Sang Zhao let out a very theatrical sigh.
Honestly, what could they do? The charm of a cat was still just that great. It muddled humans’ heads so badly they could not tell up from down anymore.
He was genuinely moved.
Ye Ye, too, was moved in a very doggish way. A dog’s capacity for empathy was actually very strong.
The cat was moved because he had lived through it himself. The dog was moved because he was hearing it.
“He is a good person, but that is also because the cat is so pretty,” Ye Ye said firmly. “If the cat did not have fur and was some kind of beetle or molting insect…”
The Samoyed thought about it, then announced, “He would probably still like you, but he might be a little traumatized.”
So he spoke, then, guilty about his own image, high-pawed Sang Zhao. “Good thing we are cats and dogs.”
Exactly. There was not a soul on earth who did not like cats. And if they did not like cats, they were almost certainly all busy liking dogs.
Ye Ye got excited.
He stretched out his white paw, looked at it, and asked happily, “So, can Ye Ye ask him to brush a little dog’s fur too?”
Without thinking, Sang Zhao shot back, “Of course not!”
“Aren’t I the one brushing your fur?” he said, patting Ye Ye’s head. “You are my little dog. You said so before.”
The Samoyed wagged his tail. “But there are no bad people in the world. Ye Ye wants every human to brush Ye Ye’s fur and pat Ye Ye’s cotton-fluff coat.”
He spoke with real confusion. “And besides, doesn’t he already know?”
Since Yumi Dou already knew, Ye Ye felt there was no need to keep anything hidden. Then Ye Ye could just fling himself into the human’s arms and ask, Hello, human, do you need a sled pulled?
Oh, you do not? Then please touch Ye Ye’s fur and tell him if it feels like a sheep’s butt or a ball of cotton candy.
Still refusing, Sang Zhao scolded the dog.
“I only admitted that I am a demon. I am very loyal,” he said. “I never said you are one.”
And why did a dog need someone to brush his fur anyway? His white fur was already puffed up into a perfect cotton ball.
The Samoyed thought it over. “But he is already your boyfriend. Won’t he find out about everything sooner or later?”
Opening a bag of chips, Sang Zhao snacked slowly.
He mulled it over and still had no idea what to do, so he could only firm his stance. “Anyway, I am not saying anything.”
He would never tell his human boyfriend about his demon friends.
That was between him and Tang Yu. He could take the risk of dating a human, but the other demons did not need to take risks just because of him.
Ye Ye, simple and earnest, thought about it and decided that made sense.
Curious as ever, he opened another pack of cheese biscuits, clumsily tearing at the wrapper with his paws for ages before it finally ripped.
He pushed the biscuits in front of Sang Zhao, black eyes shining, and asked, “What does falling in love feel like?”
“One-and-a-half-year-old puppies are not allowed to date,” Sang Zhao said.
He was a twenty-year-old cat when he started dating. A one-and-a-half-year-old puppy had no business asking about this. If a puppy fell in love that early, in any country it would count as underage romance.
Ye Ye mumbled an agreement, shook his head, then asked, “Why is he in love with you?”
Now that rubbed Sang Zhao the wrong way. What kind of question was that? What were those words supposed to imply?
“Am I that bad?” He smiled, fixing his gaze on the little Samoyed.
Ye Ye shook his head desperately, flinging fur off his fluffy dog brain.
“How could you be?” he cried. “When you are hungry, you know to eat. When you are thirsty, you know to drink. When it rains, you know to run home under an umbrella. As a boyfriend, you do not have a single bad bone in your body. The road ahead is bright, the future is promising, never bully a poor youngster, the river on the east for thirty years and on the west for thirty more!”
…What exactly did this dog go to school to learn every day?
School, what are you teaching this puppy?
—
But the fact that Sang Zhao did not say much did not mean everything was safe.
And it did not mean his demon coworkers were all going to behave and stop doing suspicious things.
In reality, all it took was a demon doing something a little off, and it was very easy to make humans suspicious.
By Monday, as soon as work started, President Tang got a complaint forwarded over from Corporate Communications.
He glanced down. Who was being complained about? Oh, it was that Bei Jixiong, the one who had once broken a bed.
He already had his suspicions, but his face stayed completely calm. Meanwhile, right beside him, Sang Zhao looked like he was about to faint and was doing his best to shield Bei Jixiong.
“Ahahaha, maybe it is just a misunderstanding…” Sang Zhao said.
Tang Yu pretended to know nothing. Watching the little cat work so hard to help, he just felt that the little cat was unbearably cute.
Of course, the cat was cute. But the person who had gotten the company a complaint, even if she was probably another furry demon, did not strike Tang Yu as cute at all.
She struck him as infuriating. How could she get complained about.
Tang Yu kept his tone steady, but the Corporate Communications manager who had forwarded the complaint looked about ready to explode.
Called in by Tang Yu and asked to speak in front of everyone, she took one look at Bei Jixiong, then glanced at her direct superior, Vice President Xiao Hengmiao.
Only after a deep breath did she start to vent. “Having dinner with a client is normal. Eating Western food is also normal.”
“But ordering a steak well done on the outside and practically raw on the inside, then sitting in front of the client with your mouth dripping blood, so badly you scare the client into coming back to complain that they have psychological trauma now, sending me messages at midnight saying they really did not want to complain but they have not slept in several days and asking if we can postpone the collaboration… Miss, is this something a normal person would do?”
By the time she was done, Sang Zhao’s eyes were squeezed shut.
Coworker, why are you this greedy. Going out to eat with a client, if you had just eaten KFC or McDonald’s, nothing would have happened.
He usually had zero sense for social cues and interpersonal nuance. But he was a cat. When he wanted to coax someone, no one could resist a little orange kitty.
He poured a cup of flower tea the manager had already brewed and set it by her hand. He also fetched a throw pillow and tucked it behind her back.
He was terrified this human would start breathing too hard and drag him into it.
“Thank you,” she said to him, visibly calmer.
Taking the excuse of getting water for Bei Jixiong, Sang Zhao snuck her a little signal with his eyes.
“Uh, thank you, water is fine,” Bei Jixiong said.
The manager was even polite to him. “I do not drink hot tea,” she told him.
…I was not trying to pour any for you.
How could she not read the kitten’s signals. The little cat was telling her with his eyes to hurry up and say something to smooth things over. Had she not noticed the suspicion in the human’s eyes already spiking.
Bei Jixiong could not read it at all. She gulped down the whole bottle of mineral water in one go.
After another moment to calm herself, the manager was still distraught.
Pressing her fingers to her temples, she said, “One-minute steak? Why not just go to the grasslands and chase the cow’s butt and bite it there. When the first ray of sunlight shines on its butt, you bite. Now that would be fresh.”
Wanting to defuse the situation, Tang Yu tried to soothe both sides.
“Well, taste is a personal choice,” he said. “But it is very dedicated of you to be handling client relations in the middle of the night. Remember to report your overtime.”
He tried to stir the pot in the middle and keep things balanced. But Xiao, as Bei Jixiong’s direct superior, was biased.
“As salespeople, we do not worry about the little things,” the vice president said. “Xiao Bei, tell us, did you or did you not get the contract signed?”
Nodding vigorously, Bei Jixiong responded in a loud, soldierly voice, “I did!”
“Then that settles it,” the vice president said, face full of pride.
The Corporate Communications manager clutched her forehead in despair. “The client said that was only because there was blood at the corners of your mouth and he was afraid. He did not dare say another word. He simply gave up haggling and signed directly.”
“Even better,” the vice president said. “Good grief, Xiao Bei, did you do that on purpose? Great tactic. Great tactic.”
Tang Yu thought, well, that was true, it was pretty effective. If a polar bear could threaten clients by eating raw meat and pretending to be a vampire, then every time they ran into a situation like this, they could do the same…
No, he could not think like that. He had to think of the client’s traumatized psyche instead.
He was in the middle of scolding himself for his lack of empathy when he looked up and, lo and behold, saw Sang Zhao bustling around near his desk.
Earlier, Tang Yu had received a package, computer parts he had ordered, delivered straight to his office by the secretarial pool.
He had taken out what he needed and used it, leaving behind a square cardboard shipping box. It was about a size bigger than a shoebox, but not much more, and he had left it by the desk, not having taken it out yet.
That was when Sang Zhao spotted it.
Gracefully, he tore at the box, and Tang Yu realized that he was tearing a half-circle in the short side of the box, basically making a little notch in the edge.
Then, without so much as a word to Tang Yu, he righteously turned back into a little orange cat, stretched out his spine, twisted his paws, and wriggled into the box.
He lay down inside, putting his head and cheek right into the little notch he had just ripped.
The moment he flopped there with his head tipped sideways and the flesh of his cheek mushed out, you just wanted to pick up both box and cat and take them all home.
Which was exactly what Tang Yu did.
What box? This was the shipping box for the computer parts he had bought, his box. And the little cat in the shipping box was also his cat.
So the box plus little cat combo, this “box kitty,” was his as well. His, all his.
Swiftly, he bent down, scooped up the entire box with the cat inside, and swung the cat gently twice in midair, like he was rocking a cradle. Only then did he sit back down on his chair with the box in his arms.
“What is this?” Tang Yu asked, though he already knew the answer. He answered himself. “This is one box full of little orange cat.”
Playing along perfectly, Sang Zhao gave a lazy meow.
He was not just being cute, though. In his mind, he was helping his coworker.
Think about it. Corn Bean was smart. If he had time to cool down, what if he suddenly pieced together all the oddities and started to suspect Bei Jixiong more deeply.
In Sang Zhao’s opinion, since Bei Jixiong had joined the company after him, that made her his junior. As a senior little orange cat, it was his duty and obligation to help her cover.
So here he was. The kitty had come to cloud the human’s mind with lust, so he would not have time to think about his coworker’s weirdness.
Yes, yes, that was right. Pet the cat. Fill your whole heart and mind with nothing but petting the cat. Forget about polar bears and raw steaks. Petting. Right now. Pet the cat.
Tang Yu was indeed petting the cat.
As he stroked him, he even started talking to him. “Hey, little cat, you know, you should do something about this.”
Sang Zhao froze, then played dumb. “Huh, about what?”
About the yaoguai in his company, obviously. Tang Yu did not ask for much. As long as they behaved like Sang Zhao, keeping a low profile day to day, he would be satisfied.
No upside-down umbrella stunts, no haunted elevator rides. Was that such a big ask? It was very simple.
But when Sang Zhao pretended not to know, fine, Tang Yu pretended not to know too. He even started wondering if maybe Sang Zhao really was not very bright, only looked clever because his face was so pretty.
That would not do.
Fiddling with his kitty ears, Tang Yu said, “I am thinking, you really should go back to school and learn more.”
Tilting his head up, Sang Zhao looked at him. “How can I go back if I have never gone?”
If he had never gone to school, how could you call it “going back”? That was like not having done any preview and calling it review.
“…When you say never gone, do you mean never gone to college, or never gone to high school?” A bad feeling crept up on Tang Yu.
Looking at innocent Yumi Dou, Sang Zhao thought, ha, now is the time to let you witness the power of an illiterate cat.
Cleanly and crisply, he said, “I never even went to elementary school. Not one day. I cannot do sums under a hundred, and I cannot even claim to know all the pinyin.”
Cradling the cat, Tang Yu started shivering, even though the weather was not cold at all.
In Sang Zhao’s judgment, that was probably rage.
And who was to blame for the little cat’s illiteracy? It certainly was not the cat’s fault. And you could not blame society either.
So Tang Yu bought him online courses, the kind that bundled preschool, prep class, and first, second, third grade together. He bought a whole set for him.
Before this, during normal days, Sang Zhao could sneak in some work and then slack off a bit. That was no longer an option.
Now, the moment he had a bit of free time, Tang Yu would call him into the president’s office, set up a little studying desk and chair for him, and make him sit through online classes to improve his general education.
He had already been going to classes at the Yao Bureau. In over three months, he had progressed rapidly and was no longer a complete illiterate.
Now things got even better. Over here he went to the Yao Bureau’s classes, over there he took the online courses Tang Yu had bought. On one side he was hiding his relationship with Tang Yu from the Bureau, and on the other side he was hiding his regular Bureau attendance from Tang Yu.
The little cat was so busy his head was spinning.
Even so, he still managed to find time to brag to the black panther about being in a relationship.
The panther was very curious and kept asking. Since they were whispering in class, Sang Zhao kept his voice low and did not mention anyone’s identity, but he did tell the panther all about their interactions.
After listening, the black panther smacked his lips. “So why do you like him?”
Thinking it over, Sang Zhao still could not quite pin it down. He just felt that Yumi Dou was very attractive. If he had to trace back to when he first felt something like liking him…
Oh, that would probably be that time they went to have afternoon tea together.
Not only was there good food that day, but Yumi Dou had been acting a little troubled, and he had spoken Spanish to the kitty.
Thinking of that, he said seriously, “Why I like him… I know. It is because I really like the kind of person who is knowledgeable, educated, clever and rational. I am a sapiosexual.”
The black panther scratched at his cat chin, clearly dubious, but as a good friend, he said nothing.
After he finished his classes at the Yao Bureau, the next day he still had to go to Tang Yu’s place and do the online lessons he had arranged.
Math at the Bureau, idioms at Tang Yu’s. Except the idioms did not really look like idioms. They all had numbers in them.
Chin in hand, he stared at the list. One mind and one heart, one day like three autumns, five-colored splendor, nine cows’ worth in one hair, seven up and eight down…
His little cat brain was spinning. Were these idioms or what. Was this Chinese or math. Everything was all mixed up.
He wanted to quit class and go play. But Tang Yu was right there beside him, working on his own computer. Whenever he saw Sang Zhao slack off, he would scold the cat.
“No playing,” he said. “Hurry up and finish the first grade material, then move on.”
Otherwise, Tang Yu’s guilt would be overwhelming. He really did feel like sleeping with a little cat who was this uneducated made him a bully picking on a dummy.
“You like studying quite a bit, don’t you?” Tang Yu added.
…Where did you see that. Had you met a ghost of a studious cat?
Tang Yu had scolded him and was forcing him to study, not letting him play at all. So of course, the little cat got grumpy.
Just then, the black panther called, asking if he wanted to go out on the weekend.
Complaining into the phone, Sang Zhao said, “He is really awful. All he does is make me learn things. What is he, some tyrant. Hmph. Today I am going to like him a little less than yesterday.”
The black panther was baffled.
He heard that Sang Zhao wanted to like the guy less and, confused, said, “Less? What happened? Yesterday you told me you are a sapiosexual, and today you are not?”
Lowering his head, Sang Zhao rubbed his fingertip back and forth on the desk.
Mumbling, he said, “I am not really a sapiosexual. I just like the look in his eyes when he is gentle and deep in thought.”
“I think it is really attractive, that serious look. Very handsome. Who cares what he is teaching me. It is not the knowledge I like, I just like the way he patiently talks to me.”
Rocking in his chair, he scoffed, “He actually thinks I really like learning. So naive.”
“I do not like studying at all. I only like him. Just because I like the way he speaks Spanish, and the way his Spanish sounds like singing, that does not mean I like Spain or Spanish. Why would I like Span-Span-Spain.”
The little cat did not like Spain. At most he liked Spanish seafood rice.
Author’s Note:
Yumi Dou: not only gay, but also human–beast love (x)
Kitty: not only gay, but also sapiosexual (x)
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