077: The Kitty CEO and the Human Assistant! (Extra 4)
“I don’t want to be human.” Sang Zhao said, listless.
He sat in a daze on the chair in Director Li’s office for a while, then choked up and sniffled. “Can you turn me back into a little kitten? I just want to be a little kitten.”
He stared at Director Li in front of him, face full of longing.
Director Li briskly flicked a form out in front of him. “Alright. Since you’ve started pretending to be human, we’ve arranged a company for you. You’ll go be the president.”
Sang Zhao: “...Huh?? That’s how this goes?! That’s where the plot is headed?”
What was happening? Why did everything feel wrong somewhere?!
Director Li gave him a surprised look. “What plot? What other plot do you want? Being a president isn’t the plot you wanted?”
Sang Zhao hesitated.
“But forget being a president, even being an assistant is really hard for me. Why don’t you train me first?”
He really wanted to ask if the Yao Management Bureau was irresponsible or what. How could they just toss baby yaoguai anywhere they liked in human society? Would it kill them to train them first?
Director Li let out a soft sigh.
“Oh, we don’t have the patience to fully train you first and only then send you out to make a living. Training and being beaten up by society at the same time, that’s the Yao Management Bureau way of doing things.”
In the wide-eyed shock on his face, she smiled. “We used to raise yaoguai for at least two years before sending them out. It was slow and didn’t work that well. Then we discovered that if we just shoved you all out there, somehow every single one of you managed to get fed, and no one caused any huge disasters.”
“There’s a reason eagles push their kids off cliffs. That’s how the kids learn to fly faster.”
Sang Zhao took a deep breath, looking like he might faint right there.
“But I can’t fly!! I’m a cat!!” he yelled.
Director Li clearly did not care if he could fly.
She dragged him straight to an office building, took him up to the top floor, gave him a few words of explanation, and that was that. Sang Zhao went straight from the door to the throne.
President Sang sat in his own CEO office, lifted a hand toward the computer on his desk, and tapped gently at the edge of the screen with his fingertip.
He played with everything within reach. While he was messing around, someone came in, holding a stack of files.
“Hello, President Sang. I’m your assistant in the secretary’s office. My name is Tang Yu.”
After he spoke, Tang Yu placed the files in his hands onto the desk in front of Sang Zhao.
“This one is a new proposal from the publicity department. This one is a financial data analysis report. This one is HR’s employee information summary. This one is...”
“Mm.”
He understood. These were all pieces of paper.
As for the content, that he did not understand.
After a moment of silence, he lifted his head, pursing his lips. “...You might find this ridiculous, but I don’t know how to read.”
Tang Yu’s brain blue-screened for a second.
But a competent assistant could always find a reasonable explanation for leadership’s mysterious statements.
“...Ah. I see. Did you grow up overseas?”
He quickly came up with a story for him, even offering options. “English? Spanish? Or German?”
“Mm, can I pick ‘cat language’?”
Tang Yu: ...??
Why was the president making cute noises at his assistant? Was this world still normal?
He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t show that he was laughing at his boss, so he had to hold it in. When he couldn’t help it anymore, the corners of his lips lifted just slightly as his gaze softened on Sang Zhao.
Sang Zhao slumped over his desk, chin propped in front of the computer, sighed gloomily. “You must think I’m really weird. I don’t want this either.”
He didn’t want to be a president at all. Being a kitten assistant was already hard enough, how was a kitten supposed to be a CEO? That was just making things difficult for kittens.
From where he sat, Tang Yu could see the orange on top of his head very clearly.
He watched as Sang Zhao sprawled on the desk being lazy, his chin wobbling and dragging like a crooked plough, which made his fluffy hair stick up here and there.
It really was a bit cute, and something light and soft unfurled gently in Tang Yu’s chest.
“I’ll teach you,” he promised.
The second he heard that, Sang Zhao brightened.
He clung to him with sticky sweetness. “You’re so nice. You’re a very good human.”
“Thank you, you are too,” Tang Yu replied politely.
The kitten choked on that a little.
He thought, Hehe, no I’m not. I’m not human at all. I’m a cat.
Tang Yu wanted to teach him but teaching him wasn’t that easy.
Sang Zhao had a cat’s brain and a cat’s way of thinking. Being a bit dumb was one thing, but he was also lazy.
When he reviewed proposals, President Kitten got annoyed out of his mind, yowled internally the whole time. When he held cross-department meetings, President Kitten got sleepy in front of everyone, and when he jerked awake, he would bow his head in guilty self-reflection.
When he went to meet government officials and talk to committees, President Kitten’s head was covered in orange hair. It made the elderly, grey-haired committee leaders’ eyes hurt.
The leaders stayed very polite, trying their best to be understanding. “Young people these days... really have their own personality. Not bad, not bad, keep it up.”
Sang Zhao nodded solemnly, picked up the enamel teacup on the table, raised it to his lips with elegance, and got a mouthful of tea leaves.
His face never changed. He chewed twice and swallowed.
When the meeting ended, whatever was left of his life force was down to half a breath.
Sitting in the passenger seat, he told Tang Yu, who was driving, “I’m starving.”
“I booked a Hunan restaurant,” Assistant Tang said reliably.
“Right, food first!”
He perked up, then remembered something, and covered his face in a muffled groan.
“Assistant Tang, help me buy a wig.”
Tang Yu had no idea why he insisted on bleaching his hair and still wanted a wig on top, but Assistant Tang always followed through quickly on any task he promised.
And that was how the kitten’s life as a CEO began.
He wasn’t good at being a president and didn’t have the chops for it, but he had his own strengths.
A kitten didn’t have a human’s arrogance. He could sincerely face his own weaknesses and do his very best with every single task.
Kittens didn’t dig in their heels. When they were wrong, they corrected themselves. In the complex world of humans, with his bright, eager heart, President Kitten flipped and flopped, turned upside-down and sideways, vivid and messy, and still managed to make a living.
...
“So, I fell in love with Assistant Tang.”
Nervous, Sang Zhao stared at Director Li and confessed.
She looked at him, sighed, pressed her fingers against her temples, kneading them for a few seconds before smiling helplessly.
“Looks like whether you like him or not has nothing to do with who’s the president.”
“In one version, you’re the assistant and he’s the president, and you still end up together. In another, you’re the president and he’s the assistant, and you still end up together. Even if you were human and he was a cat, you’d still end up together.”
“There can’t be that many versions,” Sang Zhao said blankly. “I don’t get it.”
No, there weren’t that many versions.
But out of thousands of possible futures, you would still meet, and still fall in love.
So love wasn’t a coincidence. It was something that would inevitably come to you.
He still didn’t understand. All he could think about was what was right in front of him.
He was scared Director Li would make things hard for Tang Yu, so he only asked, “Will the Yao Management Bureau blame me for dating a human?”
Director Li shook her head.
“You were destined to fall in love with a human, little cat.”
“And just like that, Tang Yu, that human, was destined to have a kitten for a boyfriend.”
“Ohhh...” Sang Zhao half-understood, half didn’t. “Then, Director Li, is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“There’s just one thing...”
She lifted a brow and reminded him.
“Please do your best to act human again today too.”
【Full Text Complete】
Author’s Note:
Okay, that’s it for this story!
Thank you for accompanying me for these three months. I hope you eat well, drink well, sleep a lot, stay healthy, and live happily.
The roads are long and the rivers wide, we’ll meet again if fate allows. See you in a new story if we’re meant to.
Let me give all my little bosses a tug of my curly little curls! Smooch~
—
Author’s recommended stories (click to expand)
Next I’m running off to write a romance novel. If you read het romance, you can go to my author page and bookmark it~
“Running for Godhood”
Zhi Wei works 996 at a big tech company and, on top of that, secretly “powers love with no pay” as an underground idol.
One day, she goes onstage with her singing, dancing, and rapping. The host hands her the mic.
“Hello, candidate. Please present your platform for running for godhood.”
Her perfect idol smile froze.
Running for what? Godhood for who? Isn’t this supposed to be a survival show stage? Who dragged me here and for what?!
–
Zhi Wei has transmigrated into a future parallel world filled with big and small gods.
In this world, after the one and only god fell three thousand years ago, there has been an election conference every ten years. Humans select new candidates to run for godhood.
As long as your platform wins enough votes from the audience, you can carve up the fallen god’s divinity and become a new god.
Right now, Zhi Wei only wants to get off the stage as fast as possible. But a sea of people is waiting down below for her to speak.
She takes a deep breath, has a flash of “inspiration,” puts on a serious expression, and starts talking nonsense with a straight face.
“I believe the current divine vertical fields are far too segmented and lack integration. I will empower the collective management of gods, build a new ecosystem, create a closed-loop matrix, break existing barriers, and deliver a combo strategy.”
“I will lead everyone to restore the glory of the one and only god from three thousand years ago.”
Zhi Wei looks at the crowd, full of hope. Come on, I’m talking this much corporate nonsense, just boo me off already.
The venue falls silent for a moment, then explodes with thunderous applause and cheers.
“Oh my god! She’s running to become the One, to reclaim the fallen god’s divinity and become the savior!”
Zhi Wei: ???
Help, shut up! When did I say that? Is that what I meant?!
–
Like a duck forced onto a perch, Zhi Wei ends up, in a daze, becoming the hottest candidate in this election.
The whole world now knows she’s running to be the One.
...But every day, she just wants to quit.
Only problem is, for three thousand years, no one’s ever been allowed to quit. So she can only hope her rivals beat her.
She never writes policy speeches. She has no poetic “platform manifesto.” Every time she appears at a rally, she just goes onstage and talks in endless internet buzzwords. Every time she does a meet-and-greet, she subconsciously slips into idol fanservice mode.
...And more and more people believe in her.
When countless people put their hopes on her to change the corrupt, chaotic order, take the complete godhood, and rebuild the glory of the One...
The one with the most votes, the conqueror who rose from commoner to nobility, the one who never betrays her believers, humanity’s last hope, the savior, Zhi Wei, has a little to drink one night and confides her deepest secret to her most trusted adjutant.
Zhi Wei: “Honestly, I don’t want to run for god at all.”
The adjutant is baffled. “But you’ve saved my life and countless others.”
Zhi Wei: “What are you talking about? I couldn’t just watch people die!”
The adjutant: “You’re not corrupted by privilege or tempted by wealth.”
Zhi Wei: “That’s because I’m just waiting for my opponents to beat me so I can bolt. If I took their money, wouldn’t I be waiting to get audited later?!”
After thinking it over carefully, the adjutant asks carefully, “But your reputation has surpassed that of every candidate in human history. Who exactly are you waiting for to defeat you?”
Hugging her bottle, Zhi Wei stares into space. ...Am I really that terrifying?
–
Please step into the temple. Shelter humanity. Bring your golden courage and sun-bright heart.
Please run for godhood.
If you’re not into het romance, then something similar in vibe to this cat story among my current and future works would be the “Potato God” one!
You can bookmark that too, then come eat potatoes with me later~
“Eat One Bite of the Potato God”
Zhu Xian loves potatoes way too much. Steamed potatoes? Delicious. Fried potatoes? Delicious. Shredded potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato pancakes? Delicious. French fries, chips, potato wedges? All delicious.
He could eat potatoes every meal, every day. Everyone says that with how much he loves potatoes, he could practically date a potato.
And one day, he really does meet the Potato God.
The god blocks Zhu Xian’s path, holding a basket of potatoes, and in Zhu Xian’s confused gaze, turns into a huge potato as tall as a person.
The potato skin has a faint blush, and it sways gently.
“I’m the Potato God. I want to be with the person who loves potatoes the most. You... huh? Why did you faint?”
–
Zhu Xian’s life had been calm and uneventful. He never imagined that his love for potatoes would get him into trouble.
The Potato God waves a sheepskin contract and says their marriage was destined by fate and has already been approved by the gods above.
Never mind that they’ve just met. From the moment potatoes were born, the two of them were fated lovers!
Zhu Xian presses hard on the spot between his nose and upper lip, nearly passing out.
“I was just a little greedy, how did that end up as marriage?”
“It’s alright,” the Potato God comforts him. “We can start with marriage and let love catch up later. We gods are all about mandatory love.”
–
Later, Zhu Xian shows up at a party with his handsome South American boyfriend.
His boyfriend has honey-colored skin and curly brown hair, both wild and obedient at once. His pale grey eyes are always fixed on Zhu Xian and never stray to anyone else.
His friends tease him. “Where did you find such a handsome foreign boyfriend?”
Zhu Xian tells the truth. “We’re arranged from childhood.”
Friends: ?
The boyfriend leans over, sticky-sweet, and adds in perfect Mandarin, “We’re married.”
① Gong main character. Human x Potato God.
② Thank you for reading. I love you~ mua!
IsitRo:
Thank you so so so much for reading! I honestly appreciate it more than I can say. I had way too much fun proofreading and editing this story. Almost every chapter had me blurting out: HAA! or AHAHA out loud, coz wow! Some of the situations were just eye-popping, jaw-dropping, and completely unhinged in the best way. lmaoooo
I might be ready to tackle a more serious story next… emphasis on might. Eherm. This one definitely had a very different vibe compared to EHEWASS and HOYSE. It’s not one you read while overthinking, it’s one you curl up with, turn your brain off a little, and just let yourself enjoy. I hope it gave you a few good laughs or at least made your day feel a bit lighter while reading.
See you next time. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever feels right for you. 💛
2 Comments
Thank you for translating!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for reading! 🥹 Hope this story made your day~~
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